Letters 1

FIRST LETTER. TO THE EMPEROR CONSTANTIUS. Having received the letters summoning him to the synod, the holy bishop informs the emperor that he is hastening to Milan. Eusebius, to Constantius, Augustus Emperor, greeting. I, most clement emperor, seeing your mind devoted to desire this — namely, that throughout the whole world ecclesiastical peace might endure — received your letters with great enough joy. I also received the letters of my brothers and fellow bishops, by which they were pleased to intimate this, that, since a full report was made to me through those very men whom I deemed necessary to obey your command in this matter, I should hasten to come to Milan. Whatever, lord emperor, when I have come into your presence, shall seem just and pleasing to the Lord, I promise that I will do it.

May God keep you, most glorious Emperor. (See the convocatory letter of Constantius in volume XIII of our Patrology, column 564.) LETTER II. TO THE PRESBYTERS AND PEOPLE OF ITALY. The holy Pastor, congratulating his flock on its faith, exhorts them to keep to the way of salvation. To his most beloved brethren, and most longed-for presbyters, and likewise to the holy peoples standing fast in the faith of Vercelli, Novara, Ivrea, and also of Tortona: Eusebius, bishop, in the Lord eternal salvation. I. Although our Lord cherished us with many good things while we were separated from you in body, and granted to us your presence at the coming and visitation of very many brethren;

nevertheless we were sorrowful and sad, and not without tears: because for a long interval of time we did not receive the writings of your holiness. For we feared lest some diabolical subtlety had seized you, or some human power had subjugated you to the unbelievers. While, therefore, we were afflicted by these thoughts, and turned all the consolation of the brethren who came to us from various provinces rather to the grief of your absence than to gladness, the Lord deigned to grant this: that what I was anxious about I was able to learn not only from the letters of your sincerity, but also through the presence of our dear ones, Syrus the deacon and Victorinus the exorcist. And so I recognized, dearest brethren, that you were, as

I was longing, to be safe and sound. And as though suddenly snatched up out of all the remoteness of the lands (as happened to Habakkuk, who was carried by an angel all the way to Daniel), so I judged that I had reached you, while I receive the letters of each one, and while I run through your holy friends and your love in your writings. II. Tears were mingled with my joy: and my mind, eager to read, was held back by the occupation of weeping. And both were necessary, so that each single sense in this fulfillment of longing might desire to anticipate the offices of its love. Thus, judging through these days that in this occupation I was serving together with you, I forgot my past labors:

for joys surrounded me on every side, offering on this side steadfast faith, on that side love, and on this side fruit; so that, set amid so many and so great good things, I suddenly judged myself, as I said above, to be not in exile, but with you. And so I rejoice, dearest brethren, over your faith: I rejoice over the salvation that follows the faithful: I rejoice over the fruits, because not only being established there, but you reach far. For just as the husbandman has grafted onto the good tree, which for the sake of its fruits does not suffer the axe, nor is handed over to the fires; so we too wish and desire to render to your holiness not only service according to the flesh, but to spend our very souls for your salvation.

You have stretched out, as I said, strong branches with fruit, and have labored to reach me across such long expanses of land. I, the husbandman, rejoice, and gladly pluck the apples of your labor, because you wished to do so much: nor I alone, or those most holy presbyters and deacons who are with me, or the other brethren, but also all of us who are filled with longing. For you have refreshed, as the most blessed Apostle says (Philem. 7, 20), my bowels, when you fulfilled the divine commandments which it behooved Christians to fulfill toward a bishop or ecclesiastical men, whom you know to labor in exile for the cause of the faith. You have fulfilled what it behooved brethren to do for brethren, and children to show toward a father.

But when we, according to the divine commandments, wishing to make for you heavenly things out of earthly, stable out of perishable, everlasting out of fragile fruits, began, suffering through necessity, to sow daily: the poor rejoiced over your fruits; not only the men of the city itself glorified God, but also all: and those who were able to see what love you had toward me, seeing it from the very fruits, glorified God, and named us with all honor together with your blessing. III.

Seeing this, the devil—enemy of the innocent, foe of justice, opponent of the faith—because in this work God was being blessed, inflamed against us his Ariomanites, who already for a long time had been sighing, not only over this work, but also over their own unbelief, to which they were unable to persuade us, that they might become violent; in this manner which he always employed, that those whom he could not persuade he might terrify by force and power. He therefore gathered together a multitude of his own, who snatch us off to the workshop of their unbelief and mock us: and they say that all this power has been handed over to them by the emperor.

While they therefore said many things and boasted of their power, I wished to show them in this that what they could do was nothing, when, keeping silent, I handed over my body to them as to executioners—which the Lord said could be handed over in persecutions. But how free I was in mind, while I suffered at their hands, and was shut up, and was kept for four days, and heard the rebukes and persuasions of various men: in this I showed, that I did not utter a single word. They wished to add to their malice, that the brethren should withdraw from me, that is, the presbyters and deacons; and they said they would forbid the rest also, that they should not come to me.

I, lest I should eat food from the hands of unbelievers, or rather of transgressors (which is worse) unbelievers, as the Apostle says, made a written declaration to them in this manner: COPY OF THE DECLARATION MADE TO PATROPHILUS WITH HIS COMPANIONS. The servant of God Eusebius, with his fellow-servants who labor with me for the cause of the faith, to Patrophilus the keeper with his companions. IV. By what force and fury of the multitude you not only dragged me along the ground, but at times, with my body stripped bare, carried me on my back out of this lodging which you gave me through your men and the agents in affairs, from which I never went out except by your violence; and God knows, and the city knows, nor can you deny it here and in the future. Therefore I reserve the case to God, that in whatever way He Himself shall ordain, it may be able to receive its end.

Meanwhile, know that I have decreed this (so that the account may now and in the future, here too, be able to stand), in the lodging in which you hold me shut up, into which, after the first carrying-off, thrusting me back more cruelly, you dared to carry me away in the same manner, and to throw me into a single cell, that I shall eat no bread nor drink water, unless first each one of you has professed, not only by word, but by hand, that you will not forbid my brethren who willingly suffer these things with me for the cause of the faith, to offer the necessary food from the lodging where they remain, nor forbid those who have deemed me worthy to seek me out. Indeed it would have been fitting to depart from the body, lest I should be compelled often to tell, to those wishing to know, so great a crime as you have committed against divine and public law.

But lest any of the unbelievers should call you cruel toward us, and, being ignorant of the divine precepts, should think that we were rather unwilling to avoid disgrace than to obey the Lord, and therefore presumed to wish this: I say again that, unless you have professed both by word and in writing, you will be murderers by forbidding. V. The almighty God knows this: His Only-begotten Son also knows it, ineffably born of Him, who for the cause of our salvation, being God of everlasting power, put on perfect man, willed to suffer, having triumphed over death rose again on the third day, sits at the right hand of the Father, about to come to judge the living and the dead: the Holy Spirit also knows it: the Catholic Church is witness, which thus confesses:

that I shall not be guilty in this, but you, who wished to forbid my fellow-servants who would minister the necessities. And if you prepare this, you ought to despise it: not as though I feared death, but lest after my departure you should say that I wished to depart by a voluntary death, and you should invent some cloud of accusation against us: know that I shall convoke the Churches, which I can reach meanwhile by enclosed letters; and that I shall convoke the servants of God, so that with these flocking together, the whole world may be able to recognize what the entire faith—which has been approved by all the Catholic bishops—suffers from the Ariomanites, whom it formerly condemned. Likewise I, Eusebius the bishop, have subscribed.

I adjure you who shall read these letters, by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that you do not suppress them, but hand them over to be read by others. VI. They, therefore, scarcely on the fourth day, mollified toward this declaration, compelled us, fasting, to return to the lodging in which we had stayed. Meanwhile they saw how the people received us with joy as we returned. They surrounded our lodging with lamps. We began, with the Lord granting it, again to minister to the needy. Their inhumanity did not endure this, and they turned our love into their hatred. They could scarcely tolerate about twenty-five days.

They burst forth again, and with a lost band of many men come armed with cudgels to our lodging; through others' enclosures they break the wall, and reach us by violence. Again they snatch us away, and shut us up in stricter custody with only our dearest presbyter Tegrinus. Our brethren also, that is, all the presbyters and deacons, they snatch away and confine. After three days, by their own power they send them into exile through various places. Other brethren who had come to visit us they cast into the public prison, and keep them shut up for very many days. Flying again to the lodging, they destroy everything that had been provided either for expenses or for the poor.

But because this public crime of theirs was noted by all the citizens, they used this device, that they restored some lighter things, and boasted that they had given us back our own. But the supplies they kept for themselves: and after so great a crime they sought, if it could be done, so to deny it, that they would permit none of mine to come to me who might bring the food necessary for the body. Scarcely on the sixth day, with various persons crying out to them, did they permit one to come. As far as in them lay, they showed the dispositions of murderers; the one whom, lest they should cease from their malice, they first dismissed on the fourth day. Afterward, scarcely on the sixth, when we were failing, they at length permitted one to come with provisions. These, then, are the works of the Ariomanites. VII.

See, most holy brethren, whether it is not persecution, while we who keep the Catholic faith suffer these things: and consider more deeply, whether it be not even far worse than that which was done by those who served idols. They cast men into prison, yet did not forbid their own to come to them. How greatly, then, has Satan wounded the Churches through the cruelty of the Ariomanites! Those who ought to set free cast men into public custody. They do violence, who learn for the cause of justice to suffer it. They plunder others' goods, who are taught by the divine law not to demand back their own when plundered. I pass over how great a cruelty has invaded them, while they delight in temporal possessions.

To robbers shut up in prison, the right of seeing their own is not denied by the jailers or by the judges: but from us our own are forbidden: and the devoted brethren, that they may not come, are not only kept away from the lodging in which we are held, but are terrified by threats lest they should approach the prison. Thus they have subjugated all, so that I have most manifestly recognized it. I will begin with the bishops: while certain ones fear to lose their honor, they themselves have lost the faith; and while they are unwilling to lose earthly possessions and immunities, they have judged the heavenly treasures and true security to be nothing. Thus also the rest, being led astray, when they see the bishops fearing to lose these things, have begun to love what they cannot always have. VIII.

Thus the Ariomanites terrify the rich, while they threaten them with proscription: thus the poor, while they have the power of shutting them up in prison. And how great is their madness! In the place where we are held, they not only cast into prison the men who serve us, but also without any fear of God shut up holy consecrated maidens in public custody. But as the wicked elders did not rejoice, who sought to violate the chastity of Susanna; so neither shall these rejoice always, who attempt to subject the Church to their unbelief by varied persecution and excessive oppression. For holy Daniel said to them: Thus, fearing you, the daughters of Israel consorted with you (Dan. 13:57).

But let human fear withdraw, most holy ones, from your minds, since you have the consolation of the Lord, who says: Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul (Matt. 10:28). It is a time of testing: it is a time that those who are tested may become known as manifest. For this reason they have taken human help, because they do not have the divine: for if they had it, they would never subjugate to themselves by earthly power the souls of the innocent. IX. We ought to have written much about the wicked, by whom not I alone, but very many are oppressed; but lest we should be able to do this, and to make known their cruelty by letters, we are kept by them under the closest custody. Therefore both our other people and our friends are forbidden to come to us.

But the Lord has granted me to send this letter to you through our dearest Syrus the deacon, whom I had the power of sending; because by the providence of our Lord he had at that time gone to see the holy places, and was not found together with the other brethren. X. For the rest, we have scarcely composed this letter however we could, always entreating God that He would restrain the guards by the hours, and grant that the deacon might bear to you a message rather of any kind of greeting than of our toil. Wherefore I ask you sufficiently, that with all vigilance you keep the faith, preserve concord, devote yourselves to prayers, and be mindful of us without intermission:

that the Lord may deign to deliver His Church, which labors over the whole world, and that we who are oppressed may, being delivered, be able to rejoice together with you: which the Lord will deign to grant, as you ask, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is with Him blessed from the ages and unto all ages of ages, Amen. XI. Again I ask, and I beg you through the mercy of God, that each one should pronounce his own greeting in this letter; because to each one, as I was wont, I could not write, since necessity prevented it. So in this letter I appeal to you all, brethren, and also the holy sisters, sons and daughters, I call upon every sex, I entreat every age, that, being content with this greeting,

and by our service, you may deign to greet even those who are outside, and who deem us worthy to be loved. Our brethren who are with me greet you, the presbyters and deacons, and also all our people: who together with me sufficiently ask that, being mindful of us, you would deign to greet all your people by our service. Moreover I have transmitted the letter which I made to Patrophilus my keeper, that from these you may recognize that we can neither be terrified by the threats of the Ariomanites, nor be led into their fellowship by their serpentine, flattering subtlety. May the Divinity protect you, and make you live flourishing both here and in the future with all your people, dearest and most longed-for brethren. LETTER III. TO GREGORY, BISHOP OF SPAIN.

Eusebius congratulates Gregory that he had resisted Hosius and very many who were falling, at Ariminum, in communion with Valens and Ursacius. (See this letter in volume X of our Patrology, among the historical works of St. Hilary, Fragment XI, column 713. See also the letters of Pope Liberius to Eusebius, Patrology vol. VIII, columns 1350, 1353, 1356.)