Letters 1 part 8/32

However, whoever those may be who sent the letter, we have given them a fitting answer.

So whether you are once again putting me to the test, or whether you truly received the letter from the bishops and sent it on, you have the answers.

But it would have been fitting for you to be concerned with other things at present, since you are a brother and have not yet forgotten nature, nor regard us in the place of an enemy;

since we have come into a life that crushes our body, and also afflicts our soul by exceeding our strength.

But nevertheless, since you have become so estranged, for this very reason you ought now to be present and to share in these affairs.

For, as the saying goes, let brothers be useful in times of need.

But if the most reverend bishops truly consent to a meeting with us, let them also make known to us a fixed place and time, and summon us through their own men.

For just as I myself do not disdain to go and meet my own uncle, so too, if the summons is not made with the proper form, I will not put up with it.

Shall I remain silent forever, and endure yet longer to ratify against myself the most grievous loss of silence, neither writing myself nor hearing anyone address me? For I, having until now endured this grim resolve, think it fitting for me too to say the words of the prophet, that 'I have endured like a woman in labor,' ever desiring either a meeting or a word, yet ever failing because of my own sins.

For indeed I can conceive of no other cause for what has happened, except that I am persuaded I am paying the penalty of old sins through separation from your love — if indeed it is right to call it 'separation' in your case, or in the case of any random person, let alone in ours, to whom from the beginning you have stood in the place of a father.

But my sin now, like some deep cloud overshadowing, has produced ignorance of all those things.

For when I consider that what is happening brings nothing but grief to me, and nothing else is accomplished by it, how is it not reasonable that I attribute the present circumstances to my own wickedness? But whether sins are the cause of what has occurred, let this be for me the end of the difficulties;

or if it was something being providentially arranged, then certainly what was intended has been fully accomplished.

For the time of the loss is not short.

...according to what is fitting for kinship, you showed care for us throughout your whole life, and now love the city for our sake, but do not estrange yourself from the city on our account.

If then there is any comfort in Christ, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, fulfill our prayer;

here put an end to the gloomy things; give some beginning to brighter things for the future, yourself leading others toward what is best, and not following another toward what one ought not.

For indeed no bodily feature has ever been thought so distinctively one's own as the peaceableness and gentleness of your soul.

It would befit such a one, then, to draw others to himself, and to grant to all who draw near you, as it were from some fragrant myrrh, to be filled with the goodness of your character.

For even if there is something now resisting, yet a little later it too will come to recognize the good of peace.

But as long as slanders find room because of the estrangement, it is necessary that suspicions always grow worse together.

It is not fitting, then, even for those others to neglect us, but most of all it is unfitting for your honored self.

For if indeed we are sinning in anything, we shall become better by being admonished.

But this is impossible without a meeting.

But if we are doing no wrong, why then are we hated? These, then, are the points of my own personal defense that I put forward.

As for what the Churches might say on their own behalf, not benefiting for good from our estrangement, it would be better to be silent;

for I have used these words not in order to cause grief, but in order to put an end to the grievous things.

But nothing at all has escaped your understanding; rather, you yourself, in your own mind, could discover things far greater and more perfect than what we conceive, and could tell them to others — you who indeed perceived the harm to the Churches before we did, and grieve over it more than we do, having long ago been taught by the Lord to despise none of the least.

But now the harm is not limited to one or a second person, but whole cities and populations partake of our misfortunes.

As for the report abroad in foreign lands, what need is there even to say what kind it will be concerning us? It would befit your magnanimity, then, to leave contentiousness to others — or rather, if possible, to remove it even from their souls — and yourself, through forbearance, to overcome the grievous things.

For to retaliate belongs to anyone who is angry.

But to be even loftier than anger itself — this belongs to you alone, and to anyone else whose virtue is comparable to yours.

Yet I will not say this — that he who is harsh with us vents his anger upon those who have done no wrong.

So then, whether by your presence, or by letter, or by a summons to yourself, or in whatever manner you wish, console our soul.

For it is our prayer that your piety should appear before the Church, and that you should tend both us together and the people, by your very presence and by the words of your grace.

If then this is possible, this is best;

but if something else seems better, we shall accept that too.

Only be entreated to make known to us what presents itself to your judgment.

TO GREGORY, UNCLE. Even before, I saw my brother with gladness (for how could I not, since he is my own brother, and such a one?), and now too I have received him, upon his arrival, with the same disposition, not having in any way altered my affection.

For may nothing at all of such a kind ever happen that would make me forget nature and become estranged in hostility toward my own kin.

Indeed, I considered the presence of the man to be a consolation both for the ailments of my body and for the other pains of my soul, and I rejoiced exceedingly at the letters brought by him from your honored self;

therefore I have long desired to come, for no other reason than that we too might not add some gloomy tale to the world, namely that there is some estrangement between the closest of kin toward one another, which brings pleasure to enemies but calamity to friends.

...who set perfect love as the mark of his own disciples.

But since, through our own lack of understanding, we ourselves are unable to comprehend the meaning of what is happening, we have judged that we should consider true whatever meaning you yourself may deign to explain to us.

It is necessary also that the remaining matters be determined by your great wisdom — our meeting with one another, and the fitting time, and the suitable place.

If then your reverence at all deigns to condescend to our lowliness and to impart to us some word, whether you wish the meeting to take place with others present or by yourself alone, we shall obey — having once for all resolved for ourselves to serve you in love, and to do in every way whatever is written to us for the glory of God by your piety.

But we did not compel the most reverend brother to tell us anything from his own mouth, since his account had not previously been confirmed by the facts either.

And we lamented our own fatherland, because it is the mother and nurse of such evils.

We lamented also your neighbor Libya, which partakes of our evils, and has been handed over to the beastly character of a man who lives combining both cruelty and licentiousness.

This, then, was the wise saying of Ecclesiastes:

'Woe to you, O city, whose king is young' (though here there is something even more grievous), 'and whose rulers do not eat from nightfall' — but indulge in licentiousness at midday, raging after other men's marriages more irrationally than cattle.

That man, then, has scourges awaiting him from the righteous Judge, which will be measured back to him in equal measure to those which he himself first inflicted upon His saints.

He has been made known also to our Church through the letters of your piety, and all will regard him as an abomination, sharing with him neither fire, nor water, nor shelter, if indeed there is any benefit at all, for those so mastered by evil, in a common and unanimous condemnation.

And a sufficient monument for him will be these very letters, being read everywhere.

For we shall not cease displaying them to all — both his relatives, and friends, and strangers.

But assuredly, even if the penalties do not touch him at once, as in the case of Pharaoh, yet at some later time it will bring upon him a heavy and painful reckoning.

TO THE CHURCH OF PARNASSUS, A LETTER OF CONSOLATION. Following an ancient custom, established by long continuance, and showing to you the fruit of the Spirit, love according to God, we visit your piety by letter, sharing with you both the grief at what has happened and the concern over the matters at hand.

Concerning the grievous matters, then, we say only this much: that it is time for us to look to the precepts of the Apostle, and not to grieve 'as do the rest, who have no hope'; yet not to be unmoved by what has happened, but rather to feel the loss, while not collapsing under the grief, counting the shepherd blessed in his end, as one who has closed his life in a rich old age and has come to rest in the greatest honors from the Lord.

...of the flock, and may He grant you a shepherd according to His own will, who will shepherd you with knowledge.

TO THE GOVERNOR OF NEOCAESAREA. 'The wise man, even though he dwell far off in another land, even though I should never behold him with my eyes, I count as a friend' — this is a saying of Euripides the tragedian.

So that, if, though a face-to-face meeting has not yet granted us knowledge of your greatness of nature, we say that we are your friends and intimates,

do not judge this statement to be flattery.

For we had rumor as the sponsor of our friendship, loudly proclaiming your qualities to all men;

but ever since we met the most reverend Elpidius, we have come to know you so thoroughly, and have been so utterly captivated by you, as if we had spent a long time together and had gained knowledge of the good qualities in you through long experience.

For that man did not cease relating to us each of the things concerning you;

the magnificence of your soul, the loftiness of your mind, the gentleness of your manners, your experience in affairs, the wisdom of your judgment, the dignity of your life, a cheerfulness tempered with gravity, the power of your speech, and all the other things which he himself enumerated to us through much conversation, but which it was not possible for us to write down, lest we extend the letter beyond due measure.

for our ways are far removed from servile flattery;

and consider us numbered among the roll of your own friends, showing yourself through frequent letters, and consoling us for your absence.

To Hesychius. From the beginning there were many things that bound me to your honored self:

both our shared love of letters, celebrated far and wide by those who have experienced it, and our long-standing friendship of old with the admirable Terentinus.

But since the most excellent brother in every respect, one who fulfills for us the very name of kinship, the most reverend brother Elpidius, came and conversed with us, and related each of the good things in you—being most capable, if any man is, both of discerning a man's virtue and of setting it forth in words—he kindled in us so great a longing for you that we pray you may one day come to our ancient hearth, that we might enjoy the good things in you not merely by hearsay, but by experience.

To Atarbius. And what end will there be to this silence, if I, insisting on the privilege due to seniority, should wait for the beginning of correspondence to come from you, while your charity should choose rather to persist further in the harmful judgment born of slander? Yet nevertheless I, holding that defeat in matters of friendship carries the force of victory, confess that I yield to you the honor of seeming to have prevailed in one's own opinion.

I myself, then, have been the first to write, knowing that love bears all things, endures all things, and never seeks its own.

For he who, out of love, submits himself to his neighbor suffers no humiliation.

...cast off the sullenness of the angry, which you betray to us through your silence, and take up joy in your heart, peace toward the brothers who are of one soul, and zeal and concern for the continuance of the Lord's Churches.

For know this: unless we undertake as great a struggle on behalf of the Churches as those opposed to sound doctrine display for their overthrow and utter destruction, nothing will prevent the truth from being swept away by our enemies, and us too from sharing in the condemnation, for not having shown, with all zeal and eagerness, in mutual concord and in harmony according to God, whatever care was possible for the union of the Churches.

I beg you, therefore, to cast out from your soul the notion that you need no one else for fellowship.

For it belongs neither to one who walks according to love, nor to one who fulfills the law of Christ, to cut himself off from union with the brethren.

At the same time I wish your good disposition also to consider this: that the calamity of war, moving in a circuit, might one day come even to us, and even if we, along with others, should have our share of the outrage, we shall find none to grieve with us, because in the time of our prosperity we did not first lay up, for those who were wronged, the contribution of compassion.

Reflecting often on these things within myself, I have concluded that, if the perversion of the Churches appears so pitiable to us, what kind of soul is it likely for one to have—one who has experienced the ancient stability and concord of the faith among the Churches of God—when confronted with these things? But just as the greater share of grief besets your perfection, so we deem it fitting that the greater share of care for the Churches should also belong to your wisdom.

I myself have long known—according to the moderate understanding of affairs granted to me—having recognized one way of help for our Churches: the concord of the Western bishops.

Crown those countless contests you have endured for the sake of piety with this one work.

I know that letters are but a feeble means of counsel for so great a matter.

...you need it no more than the noblest of contestants need the encouraging cry of their attendants; nor do we instruct one who is ignorant, but rather we intensify the ardor of one who is already zealous.

The good order of the Church at Antioch, indeed, manifestly depends upon your piety, so that you might set some matters in order, quiet others, and restore strength to the Church through harmony.

For that you ought, in the manner of the wisest physicians, to begin your treatment from the most critical points, you yourself understand more precisely than anyone.

And what could be more critical for the Churches throughout the whole world than Antioch? If it should happen to return to concord, nothing would prevent it, like a healthy head, from supplying health to the whole body.

In truth, the maladies of that city require your wisdom and evangelical compassion;

for it has been divided not only by the heretics, but is also being torn apart by those who claim to hold the very same views as one another.

To unite these things and gather them into a single harmony of one body belongs to Him alone who, by His ineffable power, grants even to dry bones their return again into sinews and flesh.

But surely the Lord accomplishes great things through those who are worthy of Him.

Again, therefore, here too we hope that the ministry of such great matters befits your greatness of soul, so that you might quell the tumult of the people, put an end to partisan factions, subject all to one another in love, and restore to the Church its ancient strength.

So that, on every account, it is at once necessary and advantageous that the others be joined to this man, as the lesser rivers to the great; and that, concerning the rest, some arrangement be made that is fitting for them too, brings peace to the people, and befits your good judgment, your celebrated skill, and your diligence.

...that the aforementioned man should come to your holiness and report each matter in person, and present our memorandum, so that, should what we have proposed appear useful, it might be earnestly carried into effect by your perfection.

For I saw that those who hold power alongside the rulers were neither willing nor able to remind him concerning those who had been expelled, but counted it a gain merely that nothing worse should be seen happening in the Churches.

If, then, this plan should also seem useful to your prudence, you will be pleased both to draft letters and to dictate memoranda concerning what he should discuss, and with whom.

And so that the letters may carry some credibility, you will certainly include also those who share your views, even if they are not present.

Matters here still remain uncertain, for although Euippius has arrived, he has thus far disclosed nothing.

They threaten, however, a certain gathering of their like-minded allies, both from Armenia's Tetrapolis and from Cilicia.

And now we have received, with great joy, the most reverend brother Peter, sent forth from the sacred body of clergy under you, and we have welcomed the good purpose of his journey, which he demonstrates by carrying out, in accordance with the instructions of your honor, the bringing together of those who resist and the joining of what has been torn apart.

Wherefore, wishing that we too might contribute something to the zeal shown in this matter, we deemed it the most fitting beginning for the undertaking, if, as to the very summit of the whole enterprise, we should have recourse to your perfection and make use of you as counselor and leader of these actions.

Wherefore we have also sent up to your piety the brother Theodore, deacon of the Church under the most honored bishop Meletius, a man who possesses a good zeal for the orthodoxy of the faith and who himself desires to see the peace of the Churches, so that, following your counsels—which you are able to render more assured, both by time and by experience of affairs, and by possessing, beyond others, counsel that comes from the Spirit—he might in this manner undertake the matters now being pursued.

Him you will, of course, receive and look upon with peaceful eyes, strengthening him with the aid of your prayers and furnishing him with letters—or rather, you will also yoke to him some of the zealous men from among your own people, and guide him toward the matters at hand.

...here, so as to forestall the perception of the enemies of peace.

This too is being sought, of necessity, by some here—as it likewise appears to us—namely, that they should banish the heresy of Marcellus as harsh and harmful and estranged from the sound faith.

For until now, in all the letters they send, they never cease anathematizing the ill-named Arius on every side and banishing him from the Churches; yet against Marcellus—who displayed an impiety diametrically opposite to his, who was impious even against the very existence of the divinity of the Only-begotten, and who wrongly construed the title of the Word—they are seen to bring no reproach whatsoever.

He grants that the Only-begotten was called 'Word,' as having come forth according to need and at a fitting time, and then having returned again to that from which he came forth, neither existing before his coming forth nor subsisting after his return.

And the proofs of this are the books of that unjust treatise which are kept in our possession.

But nevertheless they have shown themselves nowhere to censure him, and this though they bear the blame of having, from the beginning, through ignorance of the truth, admitted him into ecclesiastical communion.

The present circumstances, then, require that he too be duly remembered, so that those who wish for a pretext may have none, by joining to your holiness those who are sound in the faith, and by making manifest to all those who waver with respect to the true faith;

so that henceforth we may know who are of one mind with us and who are not, and not, as in a battle fought by night, have no way of distinguishing friends from foes.

We ask only that the aforementioned deacon be sent off at once, with the very first sailing, so that in the following year at least something of what we pray for may come to pass.

This too, even before we voice it, you yourself will surely understand and will evidently take care that those who arrive—God willing—do not leave the schisms lingering in the Churches, but by every means drive together into union those who hold the same views, even should they discover that some among them have their own private grounds for mutual disagreement—so that the orthodox people may not be cut up into many parts by taking sides with their respective leaders.

For it is necessary to be zealous to count all things secondary to peace, and above all to attend to the Church at Antioch, so that the orthodox portion within it may not be weakened through being split over particular persons.

Or rather, you yourself will attend to all these matters later, when—as we pray, with God's cooperation—you shall have won over all who would entrust to you the affairs of the settlement of the Churches.

For what could be more delightful than to behold those separated by so vast a multitude of places bound together, through the union wrought by love, into a single harmony of members within the body of Christ? Almost the whole East, most honored Father—by East I mean the regions from Illyricum as far as Egypt—is being shaken by a great storm and surge, the heresy long ago sown by Arius, the enemy of truth, having now come forth to the point of shamelessness, and, like the fruit of a bitter root, bearing forth its deadly produce, and now holding sway, because in each diocese those who stood forth for right doctrine have fallen from the Churches through slander and abuse, and the strength of affairs has been handed over to those who take captive the souls of the more simple-minded.

...an extraordinary [report] of your love in past time, and by a more cheerful rumor our souls were, for a short while, revived, as though some visitation from you were about to come to us.

But since we were disappointed in this hope, no longer able to bear it, we have come to entreat you, by this our letter, to rise up to our assistance and to send some of those who are of one mind with us—either men who will reconcile those who are at variance, or who will bring the Churches of God back into friendship, or at the very least, men who will make plain to you those responsible for the disorder, so that it may become clear to you henceforth as well with whom it is fitting to hold communion.

Assuredly, we seek nothing novel, but a thing customary both to the rest of the blessed and God-beloved men of old, and especially to you.

But our present situation is now in a harsher and more dismal state, and stands in need of even greater care.

For it is not the destruction of earthly buildings that we lament, but the capture of Churches;

nor do we behold bodily servitude, but rather the captivity of souls, being carried out day after day by those who champion the heresy.

So that, if you do not now rise up to our aid, a little while later you will not even find those to whom you might extend your hand, since all will have fallen under the dominion of the heresy.

To Gregory of Nazianzus. I received the letter of your reverence through the most reverend brother Hellenius, and having heard, as he plainly related to us, all that you yourself disclosed, you surely have no doubt as to how we were affected.

Nevertheless, since we have determined to hold our love for you above every grief, we received this too as was fitting, and we pray to the holy God that our remaining days or hours may be preserved in the same disposition toward you as in time past—a time in which we are conscious of having failed in nothing toward you, whether small or great.

But if a certain man, who has just now taken it upon himself to peer into the life of Christians, and who then imagines that associating with us lends him a measure of dignity, fabricates things he never heard and expounds things he never understood, there is nothing to marvel at in that.

But this is the truly marvelous and strange thing: that he has, as listeners to these things, the very brothers among you who are most genuinely mine—and not merely listeners, but, it seems, disciples as well.

For even though it would otherwise be strange that such a man should be the teacher, that such men should be the ones who tolerate him, and that I should be the one held up to derision, yet the utter overturning of the times has taught us to be vexed at nothing.

For long ago, on account of our sins, things more shameful than these have already become familiar to us.

As for me, then, if I have not yet given his brothers proof of my own resolve concerning God, I have nothing to answer even now.

For those whom a long time has failed to persuade, how will a brief letter succeed in persuading? But if that earlier proof is sufficient, let the words of the slanderers be reckoned as mere nonsense.

Yet this much is true: if we allow unbridled mouths and untrained hearts to speak of whatever they please, and keep our ears ever ready to receive it, not only shall we accept what belongs to others, but others too will accept what is ours.

The cause of these things is that which I once urged should not happen, and which now, having forbidden it, I pass over in silence: our failure to meet with one another.

For if, in accordance with our ancient agreements and the care now owed by us to the Churches, we had spent the greater part of the year together with one another, we would not have given any opening to the slanderers.

But you, if you think it good, bid these men farewell, and be persuaded yourself to labor together with us in the contest set before us, and to meet together with us the one who wages war against us.

For either, by merely being seen, you will check his onset, or you will scatter those who have banded together to overthrow the affairs of our homeland, by making it known to them that you yourself, by the grace of God, will take the lead of our assembly, and will shut every unjust mouth of those who speak lawlessness against God.

And should this come to pass, the very facts themselves will show who it is that follows you toward what is good, and who it is that wavers and, out of cowardice, betrays the word of truth.

But if the interests of the Church are being betrayed, I have little concern to persuade, by mere words, those who esteem me only at such a value as men who have not yet learned to measure themselves might set upon me.

For before long, by the grace of God, the proof that comes through deeds will refute the slanders, since we expect that for the sake of the word of truth we shall perhaps suffer something even greater;

but if not, that we shall at any rate be driven out from the churches and from our native lands.

And even if none of the things hoped for should come to pass, the tribunal of Christ is not far off.

Therefore, if you are seeking a meeting for the sake of the churches, I am ready to hasten to you wherever you may summon me;

but if it is in order that I may dissolve the slanders, I have no leisure at present to give an answer concerning these matters.

TO HESYCHIUS. I know both your love for us and your zeal for what is good;

Therefore, since I wish to prevail upon my most beloved son Callisthenes, I have judged that, if I should take you as a partner in this concern, I would more easily accomplish what I am eager to bring about.

The man has been aggrieved against the most learned Eustochius, and he has been aggrieved with just cause for grief.

He accuses his household servants of insolence and recklessness against him.

We ask that he be prevailed upon, content with the fright he has already given both to those who behaved so insolently and to their masters, to put an end to the contention by granting the favor.

For in this way both things will be secured:

both dignity in the eyes of men and good repute in the eyes of God, if he is willing to mingle patience with the fear he has instilled.