Letters 1 part 4/32

For how much trouble would it have been, admirable sir, in a brief letter, to have spoken about the matters you wished — as it were, alone to one alone — or, if you did not trust such things to writing, to summon me to yourself? But if it was altogether necessary to speak out, and the ungovernable nature of your anger allowed no time for delay, still it was surely possible to make use, as messenger of your words to us, of some one of your intimates, one by nature disposed to keep secrets.

But as it is, whose ears has it not filled — among those who visit you on whatever business — with the talk that we write and compose certain acts of mischief? For they say you used this very word, those who report your sayings verbatim.

But as for me, though I have turned my own mind toward many possibilities, nothing releases me any the more from my perplexity.

So that even this thought occurred to me:

whether some one of the heretics, maliciously appending my name to his own writings, has grieved your rectitude and led you to utter that speech.

For surely, in response to what has been written by us against those who have dared to say that the Son is unlike in essence to God the Father, or against those who have blasphemed by saying that the Holy Spirit is a creature and a work, you — who endured those great and celebrated contests on behalf of orthodoxy — would not have borne to bring against them this reproach.

You yourself could resolve our perplexity, if you would be willing to declare openly the things that moved you to grief against us.

It remains, then, that we should not be seen as ungrateful nor unworthy of so great a benefaction, but should, according to our power, proclaim the wonders of God, and hymn that loving-kindness which we have experienced in deed;

and not to repay this grace in word alone, but to become in deed what we are now convinced we are, judging by the wonders concerning you.

And we exhort ourselves to serve God yet more greatly, ever increasing our fear of Him by fresh additions and advancing toward perfection, that we may be shown to be prudent stewards of the life for which the goodness of God has reserved us.

For if it is a command for all of us to present ourselves to God as alive from the dead, how much more for those who have been lifted up from the very gates of death? And this, as I persuade myself, would best be accomplished if we should be willing always to keep the same disposition of mind which we had at the time of our dangers.

For surely there came upon us then some sense of the vanity of life, and of the truth that nothing human is trustworthy or stable, since human affairs suffer such easy reversals.

And no doubt some repentance, as was natural, arose in us over what was past, along with promises concerning what was to come — that if we should be preserved, we would serve God and take care of ourselves with all exactness.

For if the imminent danger of death gave us any such thought, I imagine that you too were reflecting then either on these very things, or on something very close to them.

So that we now stand liable for the payment of a necessary debt.

These things, being at once greatly rejoiced at the gift of God and at the same time concerned for the future, I have taken courage to remind your perfection of.

It is for you to receive our words with kindness and gentleness, as is also your custom in our conversations face to face.

TO EUSEBIUS, BISHOP OF SAMOSATA. When, by the grace of God and the help of your prayers, I seemed to recover a little from my illness and had gathered up my strength, then winter set in, confining me at home and compelling me to remain in the country.

For even though it proved much milder than usual, still it was for me sufficient hindrance — not merely to prevent me from journeying by myself, but even to keep me from being able to step out of my room even a little.

Yet this too is no small thing for me: to be counted worthy to converse, through letters, with your piety, and already to find rest beforehand in the hope of the replies I shall receive.

But if the season should allow, and some time of life should still remain to us, and famine should not render the way impassable for us, we might soon, through your prayers, obtain our desire, and, having found you at your own hearth, might at full leisure be filled with the great treasures of the wisdom that is in you.

A LETTER OF CONSOLATION TO THE CHURCH OF NEOCAESAREA. The events that have occurred demanded our own presence — both that we might join with those most closely bound to you in paying honor to the blessed one, and that, from the very sight of the more mournful scene, we might share your dejection over this affliction, and that we might take part with you in your necessary deliberations.

Now the wonders of the man — on account of which we reckon the loss to be especially unbearable for us — could not be contained within the compass of a letter; and besides, it would be untimely to bring forward a discourse crowded with a multitude of his manly deeds, our soul being so utterly collapsed under grief.

For what of his deeds is such as to fall from our memory, or be thought worthy of silence? To tell all things at once, altogether, is impossible; and to tell them only in part, I fear, may involve a betrayal of the truth.

He is gone, a man who, most conspicuously among his contemporaries, surpassed all human goods together — the bulwark of his homeland, the ornament of the Churches, a pillar and foundation of the truth, a firmament of faith in Christ, a safeguard to his own people, most formidable to his adversaries, a guardian of ancestral institutions, an enemy of innovation;

showing in himself the ancient form of the Church, as from some sacred image, shaping the character of the Church under him after the pattern of the ancient constitution, so that those who associated with him seemed to have associated with those luminaries who shone forth two hundred years before and beyond.

Thus the man brought forward nothing of his own invention, nor any novelty of a modern mind; but, according to the blessing of Moses, he knew how to bring forth from the inmost sanctuary of his heart, out of good treasures, things old among the old, and things old even in the presence of the new.

For this reason, too, in the assemblies of his peers he was deemed worthy of precedence not according to age, but was above all in the antiquity of his wisdom, reaping the first place by common consent.

And how great was the profit of such guidance, no one would need to inquire further, looking to you.

For alone among those we know, or at any rate among very few, you, under his piloting, passed your life without shipwreck amid so great a storm and tempest of affairs.

For no storm of heretical spirits ever touched you, bringing shipwreck and drowning upon souls easily overturned.

Do not betray this calm now, at the present time, nor, by excess of lamentation and by giving yourselves up to grief, surrender the critical hours to those who lie in wait for you.

But if you must altogether lament (though I say you should not, lest in this we become like those who have no hope), then you, if it seems good, like some mournful chorus, having set your leader before you, weep more tunefully together with him over what has occurred.

And yet, even though the man had not reached the very extreme of old age, still, as regards the length of his oversight of you, he was not lacking in years of life; and of his body he retained only so much as sufficed to show the fortitude of his soul amid its pains.

Perhaps one of you might suppose that time too becomes an increase of affection and an addition of love, not an occasion of satiety, for those who have had the experience, so that the longer you have experienced his benefaction, the more you feel his loss;

but even the shadow of a righteous body is, to the devout, worth everything.

And may it be that many of you are of this mind (for I myself do not say that one ought to be indifferent concerning the man), but I counsel you, in a human way, to bear what is grievous.

For as for whatever might be said in bewailing the loss, it does not escape me either.

The tongue is silent, though it could flood the ears like rivers; but the depth of the heart, as yet comprehensible to no one, flies away and is gone — weaker even than dreams, as far as men can perceive.

Who was more keen-sighted than he in foreseeing the future? Who, possessing so stable and firm a character of soul, was able to move upon affairs more swiftly than lightning? O city, already overtaken by many sufferings, yet by none of them wounded so grievously in the very vital parts of its life!

Now your most beautiful ornament has withered for you.

the elders have lost their contemporary, those in office their leader, the people their patron, those in need of livelihood their provider;

all, calling upon him by the names most fitting to each, raise for him, each according to his own particular loss, a lament that is fitting and proper.

"Watch out for the dogs," he used to say, "watch out for the evil workers. Many are the dogs."

Why do I say dogs? Rather, grievous wolves, hiding their deceit under the appearance of sheep, are scattering the flock of Christ throughout the whole world.

Against these you must guard yourselves under the watchful oversight of some vigilant shepherd.

It is yours to ask for such a shepherd, keeping your souls pure from all contentiousness and love of primacy, but it is the Lord's to reveal him — He who, from the great patron of your Church, Gregory, down to this blessed man, ever adding one to another and joining them together, as from some fitting together of precious stones, has bestowed upon your Church a wondrous beauty.

So that we must not despair even of what comes next.

For the Lord knows those who are His, and He may well bring into our midst those whom, perhaps, we do not expect from among us.

For a long time now, though I wished to cease speaking, the anguish of my heart does not permit it; but I charge you, by the Fathers, by the true faith, by this blessed man, to rouse your souls, each one judging the matter at hand as his own personal concern and considering that he himself will be the first to reap the outcome of affairs either way, and not — as happens with many — to thrust off the care of common matters onto one's neighbor, and then, with everyone equally negligent of affairs through this same reasoning, have all unknowingly brought upon themselves, through carelessness, an evil of their own making. Receive these words with all goodwill, whether as the sympathy of neighbors, or as the fellowship of those of like belief, or — what is more true — as coming from those who obey the law of love and who shun the danger that arises from silence, persuaded that you are our boast, just as we too are yours unto the day of the Lord, and that, from the shepherd who shall be given you, we shall either be united still more closely by the bond of love, or come to complete separation —

which may it not be, nor shall it be, by the grace of God; nor would I myself now utter any such ill-omened word.

But we wish you to know this: that even though we did not have the blessed man running together with us toward the peace of the Churches, on account of certain preconceptions, as he himself assured us, yet, with God and the men who have experience of us as witness, we were never at any time found wanting in agreement of doctrine with him, and in always calling upon him as a partner in the struggles against the heretics.

A LETTER OF CONSOLATION TO THE CHURCH OF ANCYRA. For a long time the shock of the most grievous news of the calamity that has occurred wrought silence in us.

But when we had somewhat recovered from the speechlessness which we suffered — like those whose ears are stunned by a great thunderclap — we necessarily groaned over what had happened, and, lamenting all the while, we sent you this letter, not for the sake of consolation (for what word could ever be found to be a physician for so great a calamity?), but signifying to you through this utterance, as far as possible, the anguish of our heart.

Now I have need of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and of whatever other blessed man has passionately bewailed the greatest calamities.

A man has fallen, one who was truly a pillar and foundation of the truth;

he is gone, taken up out of our life; and there is no small danger that, this support having been withdrawn, many may fall together with it, and the unsoundness of some may become manifest.

A mouth is closed that overflowed with righteous frankness and with words of grace for the building up of the brotherhood.

Gone too are the counsels of a mind that truly moved in God. Oh, how often (for I shall accuse myself) has it come upon me to be indignant with the man, because, having become wholly given over to the desire to depart and be with Christ, he did not, for our sake, prefer to remain in the flesh.

To whom, then, shall we henceforth refer our concerns for the affairs of the Church? Whom shall we take as partner in our griefs? Whom as sharer of our joys? O the truly dreadful and gloomy desolation!

How exactly have we become like a pelican of the wilderness! And yet indeed the members of the Church that were joined together, as though by some one soul, through his presidency, fitted into one fellow-feeling and exact communion, are and shall forever be preserved, through the bond of peace, firmly fitted to the spiritual harmony — God granting this — so that the works of that blessed soul, all that he labored for the Churches of God, remain steadfast and unmoved.

Nevertheless, the struggle is no small one, lest some strife and dissension, arising again over the election of a successor to him who has passed away, should overturn all his labor together through some chance contention.

TO EUSEBIUS, BISHOP OF SAMOSATA. If I were to write out in order all the causes by which, up to the present, I have been held back, though very eager to come to your piety, I should fill up the endless length of a history.

I pass over speaking of successive illnesses, the oppressiveness of winter, and the pressure of affairs, since these are known and have already been made clear to your perfection.

But now, the only consolation of my life that I had, my mother — her too I have been deprived of, on account of my sins.

And do not mock me for lamenting orphanhood at this age, but forgive me, who cannot bear tolerably the separation of a soul than whom I see nothing of equal worth among those who remain.

So my illnesses have returned to me again, and again I lie upon my bed, tottering on what little strength remains to me at all, and all but expecting, every single hour, the inevitable end of life.

The Churches are disposed almost exactly like my own body: no good hope shows itself, but things are ever slipping toward the worse.

For the present, Neocaesarea and Ancyra seem to have successors to those who have departed, and up to now they are quiet.

But neither have those who plot against us up to the present been permitted to do anything worthy of their anger and bitterness.

And the cause of this we plainly attribute to your intercessions on behalf of the Churches.

Therefore do not grow weary in praying for the Churches and entreating God.

Give abundant greeting to those who have been deemed worthy to serve your holiness.

TO BISHOP EUSEBIUS. The famine has not yet released us, and therefore our sojourn in the city is necessary, whether for the sake of administration, or out of sympathy for those in distress.

Hence I have not been able even now to join in the journey with the most reverend brother Hypatius, whom I call brother not merely as a term of courtesy, but because of the kinship that is ours by nature.

For we are of the same blood.

What sufferings he endures has not escaped your honor's notice either.

But be persuaded to render him the customary care, both because of your own compassion toward the sick and for our sake, who plead on his behalf; and if it is possible, summon to yourself the most devout of the brothers, so that care may be given him under your own eyes; but if this is not possible, deign to send him forward with letters and commend him to those further on.

TO SOPHRONIUS THE MASTER. Our most God-beloved brother Gregory the bishop is also having his share of the present season.

For he too is grieved along with everyone, being struck as it were by certain unexpected blows through repeated acts of malice.

For men who do not fear God, perhaps also driven by the magnitude of their troubles, are maligning him, alleging that he has received money of Caesarius from them.

And it is not the weight of the loss that troubles him—

for he learned long ago to disdain money; but rather because, having received altogether only a small portion of that man's estate—since the property had passed into the hands of his own household servants, and of men whose character was no better than servants', who, with great impunity, divided among themselves the possessions of greatest value, and preserved for these purposes only the merest fraction—

which fraction, supposing it belonged to no one's claim, they at once spent on those in need, moved both by their own choice and by the voice of the deceased.

For it is said that as he lay dying he spoke these words: 「I wish that all that is mine become the poor's.」

As ministers, then, of their master's command, they immediately administered these things to good advantage; and now the case stands thus: poverty for a Christian, but meddlesome officiousness on the part of one of the market agents.

and that you should speak with the Count of the Sacred Largesses concerning him as is fitting, and that by your great sagacity you should devise some means of deliverance from these insulting and unbearable annoyances.

Assuredly no one is so ignorant of the man as to suppose anything unseemly about him, as though he were clinging to money and merely feigning such conduct.

For the proof of his generosity is close at hand.

He gladly relinquishes what remains of his estate to the treasury, so that his property may be received by it, and it is the treasury's own advocate who speaks to his assailants and demands the proofs, since we are ourselves unversed in such matters.

For your excellency may learn that, as long as it was possible, no one went away disappointed of what he wished, but each obtained without effort what he sought, so that many even regretted that they had not asked for more from the start.

And this above all is what has produced so many slanderers.

For looking to the example of those who went before, one after another succeeds him in bringing false accusations.

Against all these things, therefore, we entreat your gravity to stand firm and, as it were, to check a flood, and to cut off the continuity of these evils. You know how to help the matter, so that there is no need to wait to be taught the way by us, who, through inexperience in the affairs of life, are ignorant of this very thing—how we might obtain relief.

Do you yourself, then, become both counselor and patron, discovering the form of assistance through your own great wisdom.

Troubles have overtaken Gregory the bishop, troubles not otherwise bearable, and especially contrary to his character; it seemed best to us to take refuge in your patronage and to find from you some resolution of these misfortunes.

For it is an unbearable misfortune that one who is neither so disposed by nature nor willing should be compelled to plead matters in public, that a poor man should be dunned for money, and that one who long ago resolved to pass his life in quietness should be dragged into the public arena and made a spectacle before the mob.

Whether, then, you judge it useful to speak with the Count of the Sacred Largesses, or with certain others, that would be a matter for your own good judgment.

TO EUSEBIUS, BISHOP OF SAMOSATA. How could we keep silent over present events, or, being unable to endure this, how might we find some fitting word for what is happening, so that our voice may not resemble a mere groan, but a lament that adequately signifies the weight of the calamity? Tarsus too is lost to us.

And this alone is not the terrible thing, though it is unbearable—

for there is something more grievous than this: that so great a city, possessed of such good fortune as to join together through itself the Isaurians, Cilicians, Cappadocians, and Syrians, should become an incidental casualty of the madness of one or two men, while you all delay, and deliberate, and merely look to one another.

Best of all, then, following the design of physicians (and indeed I have great abundance of such examples, owing to the illness that dwells with me), who, whenever the magnitude of pain becomes excessive, contrive by their art a kind of numbness for the sufferer—so too let us pray for our own souls a like insensibility to these evils, that we may not be overwhelmed by unbearable pains.

Nevertheless, though we are in so wretched a state, we make use of one consolation: to look toward your gentleness, and from the thought and memory of you to soothe the grieving part of our soul.

For just as, when the eyes have gazed intently upon bright objects, it brings a certain relief to return to the dark blue and green of colors, so too for our souls the memory of your gentleness and harmoniousness is like a gentle touch that removes the pain—especially when we consider that you have fulfilled everything that was within your own power.

By these things you have shown clearly enough to us men, if we judge matters fairly, that nothing has been lost through any fault of yours, and before God you have laid up for yourself a great reward for your readiness in good things.

May the Lord grant you to us and to his own Churches, for the benefit of our life and the correction of our souls, and may he again deem us worthy of your beneficial company.

WITHOUT ADDRESS, ON BEHALF OF LEONTIUS. Concerning many matters, as being of concern to me, I have written to you, and concerning yet more I shall write.

For it is not possible that those in need should ever fail to come, nor is it possible for us to refuse the favor.

Yet there is no one closer to me, nor anyone more able to give me rest by receiving some good treatment, than the most reverend brother Leontius.

Deal with his household in such a way as you would if you were receiving me myself—not in this poverty in which, by God's will, I now am, but as one who had laid hold of some prosperity and possessed lands.

This, then, we entreat you to do also regarding the aforementioned household of this man.

Your reward from me for all this is, as always, prayer to the holy God on behalf of your labors, since you are noble and good, and anticipate the requests of those in need.

WITHOUT ADDRESS, FOR ASSISTANCE. The presbyter of this village, I think, has long been known to your nobility to be my foster-brother.

What else, then, need I say to move your kindness to regard him with affection and help him in his affairs? For if you love me—as indeed you do—then clearly you will also choose, with all your power, to give rest to those whom I hold in the place of myself.

What, then, is it that I ask? That the old registration be preserved for him.

For indeed he labors no little in serving us for our livelihood, since we, as you yourself know, possess nothing of our own, but are content with what belongs to friends and kinsmen.

Regard, then, the household of this brother as my own, or rather as your own, and in return for the kindness shown to him, God will grant to you and to your household and to your whole family his customary favor.

And know that it is a matter of great concern to me that the man should not be wronged even by the process of equalization.

WITHOUT ADDRESS, ON BEHALF OF A FOSTER-BROTHER. I am, by now, wary of the multitude of my letters.

Under compulsion, and unable to bear the burdensome insistence of those who demand them of us, I am forced to speak out.

Nevertheless, I write, having no other means of relief that I can devise except to give them the letters which they ask of us on each occasion.

I fear, therefore, lest, since many bring letters, brother So-and-so also be reckoned as merely one among the many.

For I confess that I have many friends and kinsmen in my homeland, and that I myself have been ranked in a paternal station on account of this office to which the Lord has appointed us.

I have this man as my one foster-brother, a son of the household that nursed me, and I pray that the house in which I was reared may remain in the same condition, lest the visitation of your excellency, which benefits all, become for this man an occasion of sorrow.

But since even now I am still nourished from that same household, possessing nothing of my own, but being content with what belongs to those dear to me, I entreat you to spare the house in which I was raised, as one preserving for me the provision of my sustenance.

And may God, in return for these things, deem you worthy of eternal rest.

This, however, the truest thing of all, I wish your excellency to know: that most of his slaves came to him from us as the wages for our nourishment, given by our parents.

But the wage is not an outright gift, but a use for life.

So that, if anything burdensome should arise concerning them, it is in his power to send them back to us, and we shall then, by another path, again become liable to taxes and tax-collectors.

The sense, then, of what is said may be set forth briefly as follows.

...has a certain signification, such as 「man」.

For he who says this, having shown the common nature by means of the name, has not thereby circumscribed by the word any particular man, one known individually by the name.

For Peter is no more 「man」 than Andrew, John, and James are. The commonality, then, of what is signified, extending alike to all who are ranged under the same name, has need of a further distinction, by which we shall recognize not man in general, but Peter or John.

But other names have a more particular denotation, by which what is signified is not the commonality of nature contemplated, but the circumscription of some particular thing, having, in its distinctive character, no communion with what is of the same kind—such as 「Paul」 or 「Timothy」.

For such a word is no longer directed to what is common in nature, but, having separated itself from the comprehensive signification, presents through the names an emphasis upon certain circumscribed things.

When, then, there are two or more beings of the same kind—as, for instance, Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy—and the account of the essence of these men is sought, one will not render one account of essence for Paul, another for Silvanus, and yet another for Timothy; but the very terms by which the essence of Paul is shown will apply equally to the others as well, and those who are described by the same account of essence are of one essence with one another.

But whenever someone, having learned the common element, turns his contemplation to the particular features by which one is distinguished from another, the distinguishing account of each will no longer agree in every respect with that of the other, even though it may be found to have something in common in certain points.

What is spoken of individually is what is signified by the term 'hypostasis'.

For he who says 'man' has produced in the hearing a certain diffuse notion, owing to the indefiniteness of the meaning, so that the nature is indicated by the name, but the particular subsisting thing signified individually by the name is not indicated.

But he who says 'Paul' has shown the nature as subsisting in the particular thing signified by the name.

This, then, is 'hypostasis': not the indefinite notion of the essence, which finds no fixity because of the commonality of what is signified, but that which presents and circumscribes, by means of the properties that appear upon it, the common and uncircumscribed in a particular thing — just as Scripture is accustomed to do this in many other places, and in the narrative concerning Job.

For since it was about to narrate the things concerning him, having first mentioned the common term and said 'a man,' it immediately marks him off by the particular, in the addition of 'a certain.'

But it passed over in silence the description of the essence, as bringing no benefit to the purpose set before the discourse; yet it characterizes the 'certain one' by his own distinguishing marks, mentioning both the place and the marks of his character, and whatever external circumstances, taken together, would serve to distinguish him and set him apart from the common signification — so that through all these the description of the one being narrated might become clear: from the name, from the place, from the properties of the soul, from the external things observed concerning him.