Letters 1 part 9/32

You yourself, then, if you have any pre-existing friendship and acquaintance with the man, ask this favor of him; and whomever you know in the city who is able to persuade him, take them as partners in this concern, telling them that what is done will be most gratifying to me.

And send back the fellow-deacon once he has accomplished the purpose for which he was sent.

For I am ashamed that, when these people took refuge with me, I should prove unable to be of any use to them.

TO CALLISTHENES. I gave thanks to God upon reading the letter of your nobility, first, because a greeting reached me from a man who chooses to honor us (for we count the meeting of the best of men as worth a great deal), and second, for the joy of obtaining a good remembrance.

A letter is a token of remembrance, and when I received it and learned its meaning, I marveled how, in truth, according to everyone's estimation, you have shown us a father's reverence.

For that you, though inflamed and angered and set upon avenging yourself against those who had grieved you, relaxed the greater part of your vehemence, and made us master of the matter, has given us cause to rejoice as over a spiritual child.

or to pray for good things for you? That you may be most delightful to your friends, formidable to your enemies, and equally revered by all alike, so that even those among your kin who have been in some way remiss may, on perceiving the gentleness in you, reproach themselves for having sinned against one who is such as you are.

But since you have ordered that the servants be brought to the place where they displayed their disorderly conduct, I ask to learn the purpose for which your goodness seeks this.

For if you yourself will be present and will yourself exact the penalty for what has been dared, then let the servants be present.

For what else ought to happen, if this is your judgment? Yet we do not know what further favor we shall be regarded as having received, if we do not succeed in rescuing the servants from punishment.

But if business on the highway will keep you occupied yourself, who is there to receive the men in that place? And who is going to take vengeance on them in your stead? But if it seems best to you that they come into your sight, and this is your firm decision, then order that their presentation take place as far as Sasima, and there show forth your own gentleness of character and magnanimity.

For once you have those who provoked you in your power, and have thereby demonstrated that your dignity is not to be despised, release them unharmed, as we entreated in our former letter, granting this favor to us, and awaiting from God the recompense for what you do.

And I say this not because the matter ought to be brought to conclusion in this way, but yielding somewhat to your impulse, and fearing lest some undigested remnant of anger be left behind — and just as, in the case of inflamed eyes, even the gentlest remedies seem painful, so too our present word might provoke you further rather than calm you.

For the most fitting course — one that could bring you the greatest honor, and would be sufficient for me as a matter of boasting before my own friends and contemporaries — would be that the vengeance be entrusted to us.

But surely, even if you have sworn an oath to hand them over for punishment according to the laws, the rebuke that comes from us is no less effective as vengeance, nor is the divine law any less honorable than the laws that govern civic life.

But it would be possible, by having them turn here to our own laws, in which you yourself also have your hope of salvation, both to free you from the constraint of the oath, and to have them fulfill a penalty proportionate to their offenses;

But again I am making the letter too long.

For out of my great eagerness to persuade you, I cannot bear to leave unsaid anything that comes to mind;

fearing that my request might, on this account, prove ineffectual, should I present my instruction insufficiently.

But, O most honored one and true nursling of the Church, confirm for me too the hopes I now hold concerning you, and the testimony that all give in unison concerning your considerateness and gentleness; and write instructing the soldier to be released from us speedily — one who up to now has left out nothing of oppressiveness or insolence, preferring rather not to grieve you than to have all of us as his own household and friends.

TO MARTINIANUS. What do you suppose I would reckon it worth, that we should someday come together with one another and I should spend more time in your company, so as to enjoy all the good qualities in you? For indeed, if to have seen the cities of many men and come to know their minds is a great testimony to learning, I think that your conversation grants this in a short space of time.

For what difference is there between seeing many people one by one, and one man who has taken upon himself the experience of them all together? Rather, I think I would gain the greater advantage, insofar as it procures the knowledge of what is good without hardship, and gathers the record of virtue free from any admixture with what is worse.

So that not merely for a year, as Alcinous listened to Odysseus, but for my whole life would I pray to listen to you, and even this present life would seem too short to me on that account, despite my being ill-disposed toward it in other respects. Why then, do I write now, when I ought rather to be present? Because my ailing homeland urges me toward herself.

For you are not unaware, O most excellent one, of what she has suffered;

that, in the manner of Pentheus, certain veritable Maenads — demons — have torn her limb from limb.

Since, then, she has grown weary from being cut to pieces, what remains is to tend her as one who is sick.

The citizens, then, have written urging us, and it is necessary to go and meet them — not as though we shall be of any real help to the situation, but so as to avoid the blame that comes from abandoning them.

For you know how those who are at a loss are quick to hope, and likewise quick to place blame, always turning their accusations upon whoever has been absent.

And indeed it was for this very reason that I was longing to come together with you and to offer counsel — or rather, to entreat you to conceive some vigorous plan befitting your own high-mindedness, and not to look on while our homeland has sunk to her knees, but to go to the imperial camp and say, with your customary boldness, that they should by no means suppose that they now possess two provinces instead of one;

for they have not brought in the second one from some other part of the inhabited world, but have done something quite similar to what it would be if a man who owned a horse or an ox were to cut it in two and then suppose that he now had two instead of one;

for he has neither made two, and he has destroyed the one;

and to tell those who share in the power alongside him that they should not increase the Empire in this manner;

for its strength lies not in numbers, but in the substance of affairs;

since at present we suppose that some, perhaps out of ignorance of the truth, others because they do not wish to give pain by their words, and others still because it is simply no concern of theirs, are overlooking what is happening.

Now if it were possible for you yourself to go to the Emperor, this would be best for the situation, and fitting for the whole tenor of your chosen way of life.

But if this is otherwise burdensome, both because of the season of the year and because of your age — which, as you yourself said, carries with it an inborn reluctance to move — still, to write a letter is no trouble at all.

Therefore, by granting our homeland the help that comes from a letter, you will first of all have the testimony of your own conscience that you have left undone nothing within your power, and then, moreover, you will give sufficient comfort to those who are suffering, simply by appearing to share in their pain.

But would that it were possible for you yourself to stand over the situation and take in with your own eyes the grievous sights!

For thus, perhaps, moved by the very vividness of what you saw, you would have uttered some word befitting both your own greatness of mind and the dejection of the city.

But do not disbelieve us when we tell you that we were truly in need of a Simonides, or some such lyric poet, one who knows how to lament vividly over sufferings.

And yet why do I say Simonides, when I ought rather to name Aeschylus, or indeed anyone else who, in a manner like his, having vividly set forth the magnitude of the calamity, has cried aloud in lament? For those gatherings and discourses, those meetings of learned men in the marketplace, and all that once made our renowned city famous, have utterly forsaken us.

So that anyone occupied with learning and letters would now seem less likely to venture into the marketplace than, in former times at Athens, those who had been condemned to loss of civic rights, or whose hands were not clean.

In place of these there has been introduced a certain uncultured barbarity worthy of the Scythians or the Massagetae.

One and the same is the sound made by those demanding payment, those from whom it is demanded, and those being lashed with whips.

And the colonnades on either side, echoing back that dismal sound, seem to send forth a voice all their own, groaning in sympathy with what is taking place.

The gymnasia stand closed, and the nights are without light, yet the agony over mere survival does not allow us even to take account of these things.

For it is no common danger that, once those who held things together have been withdrawn, everything should be brought down together, as when supporting props have fallen.

And what account could ever do justice to our misfortunes? Some are gone, having fled — a portion of our city council, and not the least distinguished part, having preferred perpetual exile to Podandus.

You have seen a natural chasm — the kind that some, quite spontaneously, have come to call 'Charonian pits' — breathing forth a deadly, destructive air.

Consider that the calamity of Podandus is like something of this very sort.

Of three groups, then: some flee, having risen up and departed together with their wives and households;

others are led away like captives — the majority of them the finest men in the city — a pitiable sight to their friends, while fulfilling for their enemies a prayer, if indeed anyone ever cursed us with a wish so great as this.

And a third group remains, somewhere.

These, unable to bear the loss of their accustomed way of life, and at the same time proving too feeble for the demands upon them, have given up on life itself.

We entreat you to make these things known to all, with your own voice and with that just boldness of speech which you possess by reason of your manner of life, plainly declaring beforehand that, unless they change their counsel swiftly, they will not even have anyone left upon whom to show their kindness.

For either you will have proved of some benefit to the common good, or you will at least have done what Solon did, who, unable to defend their liberty since the acropolis was already under enemy occupation, put on his armor and sat before the doors, making it clear by this very posture that he did not consent to what was taking place.

But this I know for certain: that even if someone should now fail to accept your judgment, a little later he will accord it the highest reputation both for goodwill and for good sense, once he sees that events have turned out just as you foretold.

TO ABURGIUS. Though there are many qualities that have made your character surpass that of others, none is so distinctly your own as your devotion to your homeland, to which you render a just recompense — the very homeland from which you set out and became so great a man that your renown is known throughout the whole inhabited world.

This, then, is the fatherland which bore and nurtured you: it has come to such a state that the old accounts of it seem unbelievable, and no one arriving in our city — not even among those very familiar with it — would recognize it.

So suddenly has it been transformed into utter desolation: many of its citizens had already been taken from it before, and now nearly all of them have been resettled to Podandus.

Maimed by the loss of these, those who remain have themselves fallen into utter despair, and have produced in everyone such despondency that the city now lacks even inhabitants, and this place has become a dreadful desolation — a pitiable sight to friends, but bringing much joy and delight to those who have long lain in wait for our downfall.

Whose part, then, is it to stretch out a hand to us, or to let fall a sympathetic tear over us? Is it not yours, in your gentleness, who would feel sympathy even for a foreign city suffering such things — let alone for the one that brought you into life? If, then, you have any power, show it to us now in this present need.

Surely you have great favor from God, who at no time has forsaken you and has given you many proofs of His good will toward you;

only if you are willing to rouse yourself wholly to care for us, and to use the power now at your disposal for the help of our citizens.

To Sophronius the Magister. The magnitude of the calamities that have overtaken our fatherland compelled me myself, upon reaching the Camp (Stratopedon), to relate to your greatness of mind the gloom that grips our city, and likewise to the rest of you who hold the greatest power over affairs.

...I was eager to inform your greatness of mind, knowing that never has a ship, overwhelmed at sea by violent winds, vanished so suddenly, nor has a city worn away by earthquakes, nor one flooded by waters, come to such utter ruin as ours has — which, swallowed up by this strange new arrangement of affairs, has come to sudden extinction.

And our affairs have become a legend.

For the civic body is gone, and the whole political order, in despondency over the rulers, has abandoned its dwelling in the city and now wanders through the countryside.

And now even the supply of necessities has failed, and that city which formerly gloried in learned men and, lacking nothing, abounded in all the other things by which cities flourish, has become altogether the most untimely spectacle.

We have thought it, as in such dire straits, our one consolation, to groan over our sufferings to your gentleness, and to entreat you, if you have any power, to stretch out a hand to our city, which has sunk to its knees.

As for the manner in which you might come to the aid of affairs in time, I myself am not able to suggest it.

But for you, surely, it is easy to discover it by your understanding, and, by the power given you from God, not difficult to make use of what has been discovered.

Without address, concerning Therasius. This too we enjoyed as one benefit of the good governance of the great Therasius: that a visit from your eloquence came to us continually.

But this same benefit we have lost, being deprived of the governor.

But since the things once granted to us by God remain firm, and, dwelling in one another's souls through memory, we remain united though we are separated in body, let us then write continually and speak to one another of necessary matters — especially now, when winter has granted this brief truce.

We hope that you will not fail the most admirable Therasius, judging it fitting to share such cares with the man — and indeed not in vain, since it affords you a welcome occasion both to see your friends and to be seen by them.

Though I have much to say, and about many things, I have deferred it to our meeting, considering it unsafe to entrust such matters to letters.

We beg you, then, to complete this favor now by letter, and to remind the governor, by his own directive, to appoint over our fatherland this man, on whom nearly the whole care of public affairs depends.

So that you will have many plausible pretexts to put to the governor, on account of which he will necessarily order him to remain in our fatherland.

As for what conditions are here, and how valuable the man is for these affairs, you will surely need no instruction from us, since you yourself know it precisely by your own understanding.

Let your unsurpassed piety know that until now certain attacks have been made against us by the great magistrates, and violent ones at that, both the prefect and the officials of the bedchamber having spoken out of personal animosity and on behalf of our adversaries;

yet thus far we have endured every attack unshaken, by the mercy of God, who grants us the cooperation of the Spirit and has through Him strengthened our weakness.

If you knew how great the benefit of these is, you would never let pass an opportunity for writing to us, whenever it fell in your way.

But if, by the cooperation of your prayers, we should be deemed worthy to see you and to enjoy the good things in you, and to add to the record of our life a meeting with your truly great and apostolic soul, we would surely count ourselves to have received from the loving-kindness of God a consolation counterbalancing all that we have suffered throughout our whole life.

To Innocentius the Bishop. As much as I rejoiced upon receiving the letter of your love, so much was I grieved that you have laid upon us a burden of care that exceeds our capacity.

For how could we, from so great a distance, manage so great an administration? For as long as the Church has you, she rests as upon her own supports.

But if the Lord should ordain something concerning your life, whom could I send from here, of equal rank to you, for the care of His brothers? This is what you sought through your letter, doing well and wisely wishing to see, while still living, the one who will govern the elect flock of the Lord after you —

a thing which the blessed Moses also both desired and saw.

Since, then, the place is great and renowned, and your work is famous among many, and the times are difficult, requiring a great helmsman because of the continual storms and rising waves besetting the Church, I did not think it safe for my own soul to deal with the matter halfheartedly — especially remembering what you wrote, that you intend to stand against me before the Lord, bringing suit against me for negligence toward the Churches.

So that I might not come into judgment with you, but rather have you as a partner in my defense before Christ, I looked about in the council of presbyters in this city and chose the most honorable vessel: the grandson of the blessed Hermogenes — that man who wrote the great and unbreakable Creed at the great Synod — a presbyter of the Church now for many years already, steady in character, experienced in the canons, exact in the faith, continuing even now in self-control and asceticism, although the rigor of his austere discipline has by now worn away his flesh; a poor man with no resource in this world, so that he does not even have enough bread, but works out his livelihood with his own hands together with the brothers who live with him;

it is my wish to send him.

If, then, you yourself have need of such a man — and not rather of some younger man fit to be sent about and to accomplish practical necessities — deign to write to me quickly, at the first opportunity, so that I may send you this man, who is chosen of God and fit for the task, respected by all who meet him, and who instructs with gentleness those who oppose him.

I could indeed have sent him at once; but since you yourself had already asked for a man who, in other respects, is good and dear to us, but falls far short of the man aforementioned, I wished to make my own opinion clear to you, so that, if you need such a man, you might either send one of the brothers to accompany him during the fasting season, or write to us, if you have no one able to bear the labor of the journey as far as us.

But when we again look to your dignified reverence and consider that our Lord has appointed you a physician for the ailments in the Churches, we recover our thoughts, and from our fall into despair we rise again through the hope of better things.

Every Church has been dissolved, as even your prudence is well aware.

And you surely see all things everywhere, as if from some lofty watchtower of the mind's contemplation: how, just as at sea when many are sailing together, all are dashed against one another by the violence of the surge and shipwreck occurs — partly from the external cause violently stirring the sea, and partly from the confusion of those sailing, who resist and thrust against one another.

It is enough to leave the matter at the level of the image, since neither does your wisdom require anything further, nor does the present state of things allow us freedom of speech.

And in the face of these things, who is a sufficient helmsman? Who is worthy to rouse the Lord to rebuke the wind and the sea? Who else but the one who from childhood has contended in the contests on behalf of piety? Since, then, all that is sound among us in the faith has now genuinely set out toward communion and union with those of like belief, we have come with confidence to entreat your forbearance to write to all of us a single letter containing exhortation as to what must be done —

for they wish the beginning of their communal discussions to originate from you.

But since perhaps, in the memory of past events, they appear suspicious to you, do this, most God-beloved Father:

but if not, "I shall have sinned against you all the days of my life." And surely this word is no less to be feared by me, saying it now to you, my spiritual father, than it was for the one who first said it long ago to his own father.

But if this is in every way forbidden by you, then at least release us from blame for undertaking this service, since we have come to this embassy and mediation without guile and without contrivance, out of desire for peace and for the mutual union of us who are of one mind in the things pertaining to the Lord.

My acquaintance with your nobility, and our meeting face to face, have been very brief; but the knowledge that comes by report — through which we are joined to many distinguished persons — is neither slight nor to be despised.

And if you too have some report concerning us from rumor, you yourself would know it better than I could say.

As for your reputation with us, then, it is such as we have described.

Since God has called you to a task that affords a display of loving-kindness, by which it is possible to set right our fatherland, utterly razed to the ground, I think it fitting for me to remind your goodness, that in hope of the recompense from God you may deign to show yourself such as to be deemed worthy of undying remembrance, and to become an heir of eternal rest, by making the afflictions lighter for those who are worn down by them.

And since I too have some property near Chamanene, I ask you to look after it as your own.

Do not be surprised if I speak of my friends' affairs as my own, having been trained, along with the rest of virtue, in friendship as well, and remembering the one who wisely said:

"A friend is another self." This property, then, belonging to this man, I entrust to your honor as if it were my own, and I entreat you, having looked into the difficulties of the household, to grant them consolation for the past, and for the future to make their dwelling desirable — a place now to be shunned and disowned because of the great burden of taxation weighing upon it.

And I myself shall endeavor, when I meet with your propriety, to discuss each matter more fully.

To the Governor. What I am about to write is almost incredible, yet it shall be written for truth's sake: that, though having every desire, as far as possible, to converse most frequently with your excellence, when I found this occasion for a letter, I did not seize eagerly upon the windfall, but hesitated and drew back.

The paradox in this is that the very things I prayed might come to pass, when they did come to pass, I did not embrace.

The reason is that I am ashamed to seem to be writing each time not purely for friendship's sake, but in order to serve some need.

But this thought occurred to me (which I also wish you to consider, so that you do not think we conduct our conversations in a mercantile rather than a friendly spirit): that addresses to those in authority must have something different about them, as compared with those to private persons.

For we ought not to approach a physician and an ordinary person in the same manner, nor, evidently, a ruler and a private person in the same way; but we must try to derive benefit for our own affairs from the one by his skill, and from the other by his authority.

Just as the shadow surely follows those who walk in the sun, even if they do not choose it themselves, so also there follows upon our converse with rulers a certain side benefit — namely, help for those who are afflicted.

Let, then, the primary purpose of this letter be fulfilled by the mere greeting of your greatness of mind;

which, even if no other occasion for writing were present, ought itself to be reckoned a good thing in its own right.

Be greeted, then, by us, O most excellent one, and may you be preserved throughout your whole life, passing from office to office and, at different times, benefiting different people through your governance.

For this is customary for me to do, and it is owed to you by those who have had even a little experience of your virtue in governing.

After this prayer, receive also my supplication on behalf of the wretched old man, whom an imperial letter released from public duties — or rather, even before the Emperor, his old age itself gave him the necessary exemption.

And you yourself confirmed this favor from above, out of respect for nature and forethought for the public interest, it seems to me, so that public affairs might not be endangered by entrusting them to a man whose mind fails through age;

are you now leading this old man, once more from the beginning, back into public duties through his grandson? But now we beseech you to take pity on both ages, and to release both, on account of the pitiable circumstances attending each.

For the one never saw his parents nor knew them, but entered this life through the hands of strangers, having been orphaned of both parents from his very swaddling-clothes;

while the other has been so preserved through life that no form of misfortune has passed him by.

For he has witnessed the untimely death of his son, he has seen his house left desolate of heirs, and now — unless you yourself devise something worthy of your own loving-kindness — he will see this very consolation for his childlessness become for him the source of countless evils.

For surely the child will not contribute to the town council, nor collect the taxes, nor furnish rations to the soldiers; rather, it is necessary once more that the gray hairs of the wretched old man be put to shame.

But let others put forward the continuity of business and the inexorable necessity of the case.

For truly it is not in keeping with your character either to overlook those who act wickedly, or to disregard the laws, or to fail to yield to friends; this is what they earnestly entreat, even though circumstances arising from human affairs have beset you round about.

It remained, therefore, also by letter to bear witness concerning these same matters before God and men, that we ought to cease bringing death upon the souls of men, and to devise certain other methods of exaction, while allowing men to keep their souls unwounded.

We write these things to you, not as though you needed the exhortation of words (for you have from your own household the grounds for fearing the Lord), but that through you all who defer to you may be taught not to provoke the Holy One, nor by evil custom to reduce a forbidden practice to a matter of indifference.

For indeed the oaths bring them no benefit at all toward their exactions, and they take upon their soul an acknowledged evil.

For when men have become practiced in perjury, they no longer press themselves toward payment, but suppose that the oath has been devised for them as a weapon of deceit and an occasion for delay.

If, then, the Lord brings swift retribution upon those who have sworn falsely, they will have none left to obey them, since the debtors will have been consumed by the punishment;

We have said what falls to us to say; let those who disobey see to it themselves.

To the Governor. I know that it is your honor's greatest and first concern in every way to show favor to justice, and second, to do good to friends and to concern yourself with those who take refuge under the protection of your magnanimity.

All these things, then, have converged together in the present case.

For the matter on whose behalf we make this intercession is both just, and pleasing to us, whom you have deigned to number among your own friends, and it is owed to those who invoke your firmness for help concerning what they have suffered.