Letters 1 part 20/32

For this is something even a slave girl from the mill could do, or some marketplace loafer might display to excess—people whose tongues have been whetted for every kind of abuse.

There is a body of clergy in every parish of God:

let the most esteemed among them be assembled.

Let whoever wishes speak with frankness, so that what takes place may be a reproof and not slander.

Let him bring into full view whatever hidden wickedness of mine there may be;

but even then let him not hate, but admonish as a brother.

We sinners, surely, more rightly deserve to be pitied by blessed and sinless men than to be treated with harshness.

But if the fault concerns the faith, let the writing be shown to us; again, let a fair and common tribunal be established.

For many good things do not appear as such to those whose faculty of judgment is not exact, just as objects of equal weight do not appear equal when the scale-pans are not balanced evenly with one another.

And honey has already appeared bitter to some whose sense of taste was corrupted by illness.

Moreover, an eye that is not healthy has failed to see many things that exist, and has imagined many things that do not exist.

And so, likewise in the matter of the power of words, I often see the same thing happening, when the judge falls short of the ability of those who have written.

Is it not so, that one who is not a farmer is unable to judge the works of farming, and one who does not possess the science of music will not discern what is out of tune and what is in tune among musical rhythms—yet whoever wishes will straightway become a judge of words, though he can point to no teacher of his own, nor to any period during which he learned, nor has any understanding whatsoever, small or great, of matters concerning discourse?

But I observe that even in the oracles of the Spirit, it was not permitted to everyone to undertake the examination of what was spoken, but only to the one who possesses the Spirit of discernment, just as the Apostle taught us when, in speaking of the diversities of gifts, he said:

To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another workings of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discernment of spirits.

So then, if what belongs to us is spiritual, let whoever wishes to judge our affairs show himself to possess the gift of discernment of spiritual things.

But if, as he himself slanders us, it is from the wisdom of this world, let him show himself experienced in the wisdom of this world, and then we shall entrust to him the votes of judgment.

And let no one suppose that these things are being contrived by us as a means of escaping reproof.

For I entrust to you, most beloved brothers, the task of making, on your own, an examination of the charges brought against us.

Are you so slow of understanding that you need advocates of every kind in order to discover the truth? But if these things appear to you, upon your own examination, to be beyond dispute, then persuade those who are quarreling to abandon all contentiousness.

But if something seems to you to remain ambiguous, ask us through some intermediaries able to convey our position faithfully, or, if you think it best, demand from us written proofs.

But by all means, in every way, take care not to leave these matters unexamined.

And what could be a clearer proof of our faith than this: that we were brought up by a blessed grandmother who came from among you—I mean the celebrated Macrina—by whom we were taught the sayings of the most blessed Gregory, as many as, preserved to her by an unbroken chain of memory, she herself kept safe, and used to mold and shape us, while we were still infants, in the doctrines of piety?

And when we ourselves had received the faculty of understanding, our reason having been brought to completion through age, we traveled over much land and sea, and wherever we found any who conformed to the rule of piety that had been handed down, these we enrolled as fathers and made guides of our souls on our journey toward God.

And up to this very hour, by the grace of him who called us with a holy calling to the knowledge of himself, we know that we have never received into our hearts any word hostile to sound teaching, nor have our souls ever been polluted by the ill-named blasphemy of the Arians,

—but those who speak piously, or at least do not oppose what is said by us, we have received in this manner, not entrusting the whole judgment concerning them to ourselves, but following the verdicts already rendered concerning them by our Fathers.

For I, having received a letter from the most blessed Father Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria—which I still hold in my hands and show to those who inquire—in which he plainly declared that if anyone wished to turn away from the heresy of the Arians, confessing the faith of Nicaea, such a one should be received without our making any further distinction against him; and since, in furnishing me with this teaching, he provided as my partners in this doctrine all the bishops of Macedonia and Achaia, thinking it necessary to follow so great a man because of the trustworthiness of those who had laid down this rule, and at the same time desiring to receive the reward of peacemaking, I began to enroll among those in communion all who confessed this faith.

Let inquiry be made of the Pisidians, the Lycaonians, the Isaurians, both parts of Phrygia, the Armenians bordering upon you, the Macedonians, the Achaeans, the Illyrians, the Gauls, the Spaniards, the whole of Italy, the Sicilians, the Africans, the sound part of Egypt, and whatever remnant there is of Syria—

who send letters to us, and in turn receive them from us.

From these you can learn, both from the letters brought from there and from those in turn sent back to them from here, that we are all of one soul, thinking the same thing.

So then, let it not escape your careful attention that whoever flees from communion with us is cutting himself off from the whole Church.

Look around you, brothers, and consider with whom your communion lies:

for once you are not received by us, who will any longer acknowledge you? Do not force us into the necessity of deliberating something grievous concerning the Church so dear to us.

Do not make me speak aloud what I now hide in my own heart, groaning within myself and lamenting the wickedness of the times—that, without any real cause, the greatest of the Churches, which from of old have held toward one another the rank of brothers, are now at variance with one another;

do not make me bewail these things to all who are in communion with us together.

Do not force me to let loose words which, up to now, I have kept hidden within myself, restrained by the bridle of reason.

It is better for us to get out of the way, and for the Churches to be of one mind with one another, than for so great an evil to be brought upon the peoples of God because of our childish pettiness of soul.

Ask your fathers, and they will tell you that, even though the parishes seemed to be divided by geographical position, yet in mind they were one, and were governed by a single purpose.

The people constantly mingled with one another, the clergy constantly journeyed to visit one another, and among the shepherds themselves there was such an abundance of mutual love that each one made use of the other as teacher and guide in matters pertaining to the Lord.

We entreat you to pray for us and for the Church of God, that the Lord may grant us to lead a calm and quiet life, delivered from the malicious harassment of the enemies of the Gospel.

But if it also appears to your understanding to be fitting and necessary that we should come together to meet one another, along with the rest of our most honored brother bishops who dwell along the coast, then do you yourself indicate to us a place and a time at which this shall take place, and send word to the brothers, so that, each having set aside for a fixed period the business now at hand, we may be able to accomplish something for the building up of the Church of God—both to remove the sorrows now arising among us from mutual suspicions, and to confirm that love without which the Lord himself has determined that the fulfillment of every commandment is incomplete.

For if matters were proceeding according to my mind, I would not be addressing you by letters, nor through intermediaries, but I myself, in person, would both fulfill the debt of love and enjoy from close at hand the spiritual profit.

But as it is, I am so disposed that I gladly endure even the journeys within my own homeland, which I make of necessity when visiting the parishes throughout our region.

But may the Lord grant both to you strength and eagerness, and to me, in addition to the zeal I now have, also the power, so that, as I have urged you, we may bring about for ourselves the enjoyment of meeting, once we have arrived in the district of Comana.

But I am afraid on your behalf, for your dignity, lest grief over your family somehow become an obstacle to you.

For indeed I have learned that the death of a child has grieved you;

the loss of whom is likely, indeed, to be painful to you as a grandfather; yet, as to a man who has already advanced so far in virtue and who understands the nature of human affairs both from long experience over time and from spiritual teaching, it follows that separation from those closest to us should not be altogether unbearable.

For indeed the Lord does not require the same things of us as of ordinary men.

For they live by custom, but we have taken as the rule of our conduct the commandment of the Lord and the examples of those blessed men who went before us, whose greatness of mind was displayed most of all in times of trial.

So then, in order that you too may leave behind for life an example of courage and of a true disposition toward the things we hope for, show yourself not bent by suffering, but rising above what is grievous—enduring in affliction, yet rejoicing in hope.

Let none of these things, then, become a hindrance to the meeting we hope for.

TO THE CLERGY OF NEOCAESAREA. The unanimity of the hatred against us, and the fact that all, down to the very last one, have followed the leader of the war against us, was persuading me likewise to keep silence toward all of you alike, and to initiate neither a friendly letter nor any conversation, but to digest my own grief in quiet,

...your good sense—even though previously, having written jointly to the whole body of the presbytery, we were not deemed worthy of any reply from you.

Do not flatter, brothers, those who bring wicked doctrines upon your souls, nor consent to look on, with your own knowledge, while the people of God are being destroyed through impious teachings.

Sabellius the Libyan and Marcellus the Galatian were, of all men, the only ones who dared both to teach and to write these things which now, among you, the leaders of the people—stammering with their tongues, and not even able to bring these sophistries and fallacious reasonings to any plausible form—attempt to put forward as their own discoveries.

These men make public speeches against us, both fit and unfit to be spoken, and in every way avoid meeting with us.

For what reason? Is it not because they suspect the refutation of their own wicked teachings? They have indeed grown so shameless toward us that they have even fabricated certain dreams about us, slandering our teachings as harmful;

who, even if they should receive into their own heads all the phantasms of the leaf-shedding months, will not be able to fasten upon us any charge of blasphemy, since there are many in every Church who bear witness to the truth.

And if they are asked the reason for this undeclared and truceless war, they speak of psalms and of a manner of chanting differing from the custom that has prevailed among you, and certain other such things, for which they ought rather to hide their faces in shame.

We are also accused because we have men who are ascetics of piety, who have renounced the world and all the worldly cares which the Lord likens to thorns—cares that do not allow the word to come to fruit-bearing.

Such men carry about in their body the dying of Jesus, and having taken up their own cross, they follow God.

But I myself would value, above my whole life, that these very 'wrongdoings' should be mine, and that I should have men beside me who, under my instruction, have chosen this ascetic discipline. As it is, I hear that such is the virtue of men in Egypt, and perhaps some in Palestine too are rightly carrying out the manner of life according to the Gospel.

And I hear that there are also, in Mesopotamia, certain men who are perfect and blessed.

But we are mere children in comparison with the perfect.

But if there are also women who have chosen to live according to the Gospel, preferring virginity to marriage, bringing the mind of the flesh into subjection, and living in that mourning which is called blessed—blessed are they for their choice, wherever on earth they may be.

But these are small matters on our part, since we ourselves are still being instructed in the rudiments and are but novices being introduced to piety.

But if they charge some disorder upon the life of the women, I do not deign to make a defense on their behalf.

But this I solemnly declare to you: the things which, even until now, Satan the father of lies has not deigned to say, these fearless hearts and unbridled mouths utter without dread.

I want you to know that we pray to have companies both of men and of women whose citizenship is in heaven, who have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, who are not anxious about food and clothing, but, being free from distraction and devoted to the Lord, continue night and day in supplications.

Their mouth speaks not of the works of men, but they continually sing hymns to our God, working with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.

But as to the accusation concerning the psalmody, by which especially those who slander us frighten the simpler folk, I have this to say: that the customs now prevailing are in harmony and accord with all the Churches of God.

For among us the people rise while it is still night to go to the house of prayer, and in toil and affliction and a torrent of tears making confession to God, at length rising up from their prayers they betake themselves to psalmody.

ordering for themselves attentiveness and the undistracted steadfastness of their hearts.

Then again, having allowed one to lead the melody, the rest take up the refrain;

and thus, having passed the night in the variety of psalmody, praying in between, when day is already dawning, all together, as with one mouth and one heart, offer up to the Lord the psalm of confession, each one making the words of repentance his own.

If for these things you shun us, you will have to shun the Egyptians as well, and both Libyas, the Thebans, the Palestinians, the Arabians, the Phoenicians, the Syrians, and those settled by the Euphrates, and, in short, all among whom vigils and prayers and common psalmodies are held in honor.

But, he says, these things did not exist in the time of the great Gregory.

But neither did the litanies which you yourselves now practice exist then.

And I do not say this to accuse you;

for I would pray that all of you might live in tears and unceasing repentance, since we ourselves do nothing other than make supplication for our sins, except that we propitiate our God not with human words, as you do, but with the oracles of the Spirit.

But what proofs do you have that these things did not exist in the time of the wonderful Gregory? You, who to this day have preserved nothing of his.

Gregory did not cover his head at prayers.

For how could he? He who was the genuine disciple of the Apostle who said:

Every man praying or prophesying with his head covered dishonors his head; and, A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God.

That pure soul, worthy of the communion of the Holy Spirit, avoided oaths, content with yes and no because of the command of the Lord, who said:

But I say to you, swear not at all.

He could not bring himself to call his own brother a fool;

for he feared the threat of the Lord.

Wrath and anger and bitterness never proceeded out of his mouth.

He hated reviling, as something that does not lead into the kingdom of heaven.

Envy and pride had been driven far from that guileless soul.

He would not have stood before the altar before being reconciled to his brother.

A false and cunningly contrived word devised for the slander of certain persons he so abhorred, knowing that falsehood is begotten of the devil, and that the Lord will destroy all who speak falsehood.

If none of these things is in you, but you are pure of them all;

then indeed you are disciples of the disciple of the commandments of the Lord.

But if not, take care lest you strain out the gnat, being scrupulously precise about the tone of voice in psalmody, while dissolving the greatest of the commandments.

The necessity of this defense has led me to these words, that you may learn to cast out the beam from your own eyes, and only then remove the splinters belonging to others.

Nevertheless, we forgive everything, even though nothing is unexamined before God.

Only let the principal matters stand firm, and silence the innovations concerning the faith.

Do not reject the hypostases.

Do not deny the name of Christ.

Do not misinterpret the words of Gregory.

But if not, then as long as we have breath and are able to speak, it is impossible for us to keep silence at so great a ruin of souls.

TO EULANCIUS. You have kept silence a long time—and this though you are most talkative, and have made it your practice and art always to be saying something and displaying yourself through words.

But it seems that Neocaesarea is the cause of your silence toward us.

And it seems that, instead of a favor, we receive being remembered by the people there, since the remembrance is not a good one, as report has it from those who hear it.

But you were, long ago, among those who were hated on our account, not among those who tolerate hating us on account of others.

Be, then, the same in writing letters wherever you may be, and remember us as is fitting, if you have any care at all for what is just.

UNTITLED, IN DEFENSE. You have been allotted a share both in the griefs and in the struggles undertaken on our behalf.

And this is proof of a vigorous, youthful soul.

For God, who administers our affairs, provides greater occasions of distinction to those capable of sustaining great contests.

You too, then, have set forth your own life as a testing of virtue toward friends, just as the furnace tests gold.

We pray, then, to God that the rest may become better, and that you may remain like yourself;

and that you may not cease making such complaints as you have now made, charging us with the lack of letters as though it were the greatest injustice.

For such a complaint belongs to a friend, and you may expect to go on demanding such debts.

For I am not so unreasonable a debtor of friendship.

TO THE MOST LEARNED MEN OF NEOCAESAREA. I had, in general, no need at all to make public to you my own purpose, nor to state the reasons for which I am now in these parts.

For indeed I am not otherwise one who craves display, nor is the matter worthy of so many witnesses.

But, I think, we do not do what we ourselves wish, but what those who lead us call us to; since, for my part, to be utterly unknown has been pursued with more zeal than being conspicuous is pursued by lovers of glory.

But since, as I hear, the ears of everyone in your city have been filled with such talk, and there are certain rumor-mongers, fabricators of falsehood hired for this very purpose, who explain my affairs to you, I did not think it right to overlook your being instructed by an evil mind and a foul tongue, but resolved to state myself how matters truly stand.

I, both because of my familiarity with this place from childhood (for here I was reared beside my own grandmother), and because of my subsequent long sojourn there, when, fleeing the tumults of civic life, I found this place suited to the pursuit of philosophy on account of the quiet afforded by its solitude, and spent there a continuous span of many years, and now, because of the residence of the brothers there, having obtained a brief respite from the occupations that beset us, gladly came to this remote spot—not in order to cause trouble to others thereby, but in order to satisfy my own desire.

Why then must one have recourse to dreams and hire dream-interpreters, and be made the subject of drunken tales at public banquets? For I, even if the slanders had been current among certain others, would have set you forth as witnesses of my own purpose.

And now I ask each of them to recall those old events, when the city called us to the charge of the young, and an embassy of the men among you, those in office, was present;

and how afterward, the whole populace gathering around us together;

what did they not offer? What did they not promise? Yet they were not able to detain us.

How then, I who did not obey when called at that time, should now attempt to force my way in uninvited? And how, I who fled from those who praised and admired me, should now be about to pursue those who slander me? Do not suppose it, most excellent men;

our affairs are not so cheaply bought.

For no sensible person would embark on a ship without a pilot, nor would he entrust himself to a Church in which the very men seated at the helm themselves stir up the surge and the storm.

...to speak of, yet for you it is altogether easy to discern.

For when the bitterness and the estrangement admit of no greater degree of harshness, while the account given of its cause is utterly baseless and ridiculous, it is clear that the sickness is one of the soul, occurring in connection with goods that belong to others, but being itself the proper and primary evil of the one who possesses it.

To these there also attaches, moreover, something else rather amusing.

For, being wounded within and suffering, they are not permitted by shame to cry aloud their misfortune.

This affliction of their soul, then, is evident not only from their conduct toward us, but also from the rest of their life.

But even if it should remain unknown, there is no great harm to the matter.

But the truest reason for which they hold meeting with us to be a thing to be avoided—a reason perhaps hidden from most of you—I will now teach you.

A perversion of the faith is being contrived among you, hostile to the apostolic and evangelical teachings, and hostile to the tradition of the truly great Gregory and of those who succeeded him down to the blessed Musonius, whose teachings, it is clear, still echo among you even now.

For the evil of Sabellius, stirred up long ago but extinguished by the Fathers, these men — who out of fear of refutation fabricate dreams against us — are now attempting to revive.

But do you bid farewell to these wine-heavy heads, whom the vapor rising from their debauch, then swelling within them, fills with phantasms, and hear of the harm done to you from us, who are wide awake and, because of the fear of God, cannot keep silent.

Sabellianism is Judaism, introduced into the evangelical proclamation under the pretext of Christianity.

For one who says that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are a single reality with many faces, and who posits one hypostasis for the three, what else does he do but deny the pre-eternal existence of the Only-begotten? And he denies also His economic sojourn among men, His descent into Hades, the resurrection, the judgment;

and he denies also the distinctive operations of the Spirit.

But among you, I now hear, still bolder things than those of the vain-minded Sabellius are being ventured.

For they say — as those who have heard report — that the wise men among you insist and assert that the name of the Only-begotten has not been handed down, but is rather the name of the adversary, and that over this they exult and are greatly puffed up, as over a discovery of their own.

I have come in my Father's name, and you did not receive me;

if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.

'Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' — it is clear, they say, that there is one name.

For it does not say 'in the names,' but 'in the name.'

I write these things to you blushing, because those guilty of them are of our own blood, and groaning in my own soul, because I am compelled, like those who box against two opponents, to strike down and beat back the deviations of the argument on either side with refutations, in order to render to the truth its due strength.

For on this side the Anomoean tears at us, and on the other, it seems, Sabellius.

But I entreat you not to give heed to these loathsome sophistries, which are capable of leading no one astray;

but rather to know that the name of Christ, the name above every name, is precisely this: that He is called Son of God, and, according to the word of Peter, 'there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.'

As for the statement 'I have come in my Father's name,' one must understand that He says this while ascribing the Father to Himself as His origin and cause.

'Go and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' — one must not, on this account, suppose that a single name has been handed down to us.

For just as the one who said 'Paul and Silvanus and Timothy' spoke three names, but bound them together to one another by the conjunction;

...Spirit — having named three, He joined them together by the conjunction, thereby teaching that a distinct meaning underlies each name, since names are signifying realities.

And that these realities possess a distinct and complete existence, no one who has even a small share of understanding doubts.

Of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit the nature is the same and the Godhead one, but the names are different, presenting to us determinate and complete concepts.

For it is impossible, unless the mind be fixed unconfusedly upon the distinguishing properties of each, to be able to render the doxology in full to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

If, then, they deny saying these things or teaching in this way, what we are eager for has been accomplished.

And yet I see that such denial would be difficult for them, since these statements have many witnesses.

Nevertheless, we do not scrutinize the past; let only the present be sound.

But if they persist in the same errors, it will be necessary for us to cry out to the other Churches concerning the calamity that has befallen you, and to arrange for letters from a great number of bishops to reach you, breaking apart this vast impiety that is being secretly contrived.

For either it will accomplish something toward our purpose, or in any case this present testimony will absolve us of blame at the Judgment.

And already they have set down these statements in treatises of their own;

which they first sent also to the man of God, Meletius the bishop, and, having received from him the fitting responses, just as mothers of monsters, ashamed of nature's deformities, so also they, having hidden their own shameful offspring in fitting darkness, nurse them in secret.

They also let down a certain trial-attempt by letter to our like-minded Anthimus, bishop of Tyana, alleging that Gregory said, in his exposition of faith, that Father and Son are two in conception but one in hypostasis.

In which there are many errors made by the copyists, as we ourselves will demonstrate from the very wording, God willing.

Moreover, in seeking to persuade the pagan, he did not think it necessary to be over-precise about wording, but in some places even to yield to the custom of the one being brought to faith, so that he would not resist on the essential points.