Letter LIV. To the Chorepiscopi . I am much distressed that the canons of the Fathers have fallen through, and that the exact discipline of the Church has been banished from among you. I am apprehensive lest, as this indifference grows, the affairs of the Church should, little by little, fall into confusion. According to the ancient custom observed in the Churches of God, ministers in the Church were received after careful examination; the whole of their life was investigated; an enquiry was made as to their being neither railers nor drunkards, not quick to quarrel, keeping their youth in subjection, so as to be able to maintain “the holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.” This examination was made by presbyters and deacons living with them. Then they brought them to the Chorepiscopi; and the Chorepiscopi, after receiving the suffrages of the witnesses as to the truth and giving information to the Bishop, so admitted the minister to the sacerdotal order. Now, however, you have quite passed me over; you have not even had the grace to refer to me, and have transferred the whole authority to yourselves. Furthermore, with complete indifference, you have allowed presbyters and deacons to introduce unworthy persons into the Church, just any one they choose, without any previous examination of life and character, by mere favoritism, on the score of relationship or some other tie. The consequence is, that in every village, there are reckoned many ministers, but not one single man worthy of the service of the altars. Of this you yourselves supply proof from your difficulty in finding suitable candidates for election. As, then, I perceive that the evil is gradually reaching a point at which it would be incurable, and especially at this moment when a large number of persons are presenting themselves for the ministry through fear of the conscription, I am constrained to have recourse to the restitution of the canons of the Fathers. I thus order you in writing to send me the roll of the ministers in every village, stating by whom each has been introduced, and what is his mode of life. You have the roll in your own keeping, so that your version can be compared with the documents which are in mine, and no one can insert his own name when he likes. So if any have been introduced by presbyters after the first appointment, let them be rejected, and take their place among the laity. Their examination must then be begun by you over again, and, if they prove worthy, let them be received by your decision. Drive out unworthy men from the Church, and so purge it. For the future, test by examination those who are worthy, and then receive them; but do not reckon them of the number before you have reported to me. Otherwise, distinctly understand that he who is admitted to the ministry without my authority will remain a layman.
Letter LV. To Paregorius, the presbyter . I have given patient attention to your letter, and I am astonished that when you are perfectly well able to furnish me with a short and easy defence by taking action at once, you should choose to persist in what is my ground of complaint, and endeavour to cure the incurable by writing a long story about it. I am not the first, Paregorius, nor the only man, to lay down the law that women are not to live with men. Read the canon put forth by our holy Fathers at the Council of Nicæa, which distinctly forbids subintroducts. Unmarried life is honourably distinguished by its being cut off from all female society. If, then, any one, who is known by the outward profession, in reality follows the example of those who live with wives, it is obvious that he only affects the distinction of virginity in name, and does not hold aloof from unbecoming indulgence. You ought to have been all the more ready to submit yourself without difficulty to my demands, in that you allege that you are free from all bodily appetite. I do not suppose that a man of three score years and ten lives with a woman from any such feelings, and I have not decided, as I have decided, on the ground of any crime having been committed. But we have learnt from the Apostle, not to put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in a brother’s way;” and I know that what is done very properly by some, naturally becomes to others an occasion for sin. I have therefore given my order, in obedience to the injunction of the holy Fathers, that you are to separate from the woman. Why then, do you find fault with the Chorepiscopus? What is the good of mentioning ancient ill-will? Why do you blame me for lending an easy ear to slander? Why do you not rather lay the blame on yourself, for not consenting to break off your connexion with the woman? Expel her from your house, and establish her in a monastery. Let her live with virgins, and do you be served by men, that the name of God be not blasphemed in you. Till you have so done, the innumerable arguments, which you use in your letters, will not do you the slightest service. You will die useless, and you will have to give an account to God for your uselessness. If you persist in clinging to your clerical position without correcting your ways, you will be accursed before all the people, and all, who receive you, will be excommunicate throughout the Church.
Letter LVI. To Pergamius . I naturally forget very easily, and I have had lately many things to do, and so my natural infirmity is increased. I have no doubt, therefore, that you have written to me, although I have no recollection of having received any letter from your excellency; for I am sure you would not state what is not the case. But for there having been no reply, it is not I that am in fault; the guilt lies with him who did not ask for one. Now, however, you have this letter, containing my defence for the past and affording ground for a second greeting. So, when you write to me, do not suppose that you are taking the initiative in another correspondence. You are only discharging your proper obligation in this. For really, although this letter of mine is a return for a previous one of yours, as it is more than twice as bulky, it will fulfil a double purpose. You see to what sophisms my idleness drives me. But, my dear Sir, do not in a few words bring serious charges, indeed the most serious of all. Forgetfulness of one’s friends, and neglect of them arising from high place, are faults which involve every kind of wrong. Do we fail to love according to the commandment of the Lord? Then we lose the distinctive mark imprinted on us. Are we puffed to repletion with empty pride and arrogance? Then we fall into the inevitable condemnation of the devil. If, then, you use these words because you held such sentiments about me, pray that I may flee from the wickedness which you have found in my ways; if, however, your tongue shaped itself to these words, in a kind of inconsiderate conventionality, I shall console myself, and ask you to be good enough to adduce some tangible proof of your allegations. Be well assured of this, that my present anxiety is an occasion to me of humility. I shall begin to forget you, when I cease to know myself. Never, then, think that because a man is a very busy man he is a man of faulty character.
Letter LVII. To Meletius, Bishop of Antioch . If your holiness only knew the greatness of the happiness you cause me whenever you write to me, I know that you would never have let slip any opportunity of sending me a letter; nay, you would have written me many letters on each occasion, knowing the reward that is kept in store by our loving Lord for the consolation of the afflicted. Everything here is still in a very painful condition, and the thought of your holiness is the only thing that recalls me from my own troubles; a thought made more distinct to me by my communication with you through that letter of yours which is so full of wisdom and grace. When, therefore, I take your letter into my hand, first of all, I look at its size, and I love it all the more for being so big; then, as I read it, I rejoice over every word I find in it; as I draw near the end I begin to feel sad; so good is every word that I read, in what you write. The overflowing of a good heart is good. Should I, however, be permitted, in answer to your prayers, while I live on this earth, to meet you face to face, and to enjoy the profitable instruction of your living voice, or any aids to help me in the life that now is, or that which is to come, I should count this indeed the best of blessings, a prelude to the mercy of God. I should, ere now, have adhered to this intention, had I not been prevented by true and loving brothers. I have told my brother Theophrastus to make a detailed report to you of matters, as to which I do not commit my intentions to writing.
Letter LVIII. To Gregory my brother . How am I to dispute with you in writing? How can I lay hold of you satisfactorily, with all your simplicity? Tell me; who ever falls a third time into the same nets? Who ever gets a third time into the same snare? Even a brute beast would find it difficult to do so. You forged one letter, and brought it me as though it came from our right reverend uncle the bishop, trying to deceive me, I have no idea why. I received it as a letter written by the bishop and delivered by you. Why should I not? I was delighted; I shewed it to many of my friends; I thanked God. The forgery was found out, on the bishop’s repudiating it in person. I was thoroughly ashamed; covered as I was with the disgrace of cunning trickery and lies, I prayed that the earth might open for me. Then they gave me a second letter, as sent by the bishop himself by the hands of your servant Asterius. Even this second had not really been sent by the bishop, as my very reverend brother Anthimus has told me. Now Adamantius has come bringing me a third. How ought I to receive a letter carried by you or yours? I might have prayed to have a heart of stone, so as neither to remember the past, nor to feel the present; so as to bear every blow, like cattle, with bowed head. But what am I to think, now that, after my first and second experience, I can admit nothing without positive proof? Thus I write attacking your simplicity, which I see plainly to be neither what generally becomes a Christian man, nor is appropriate to the present emergency; I write that, at least for the future, you may take care of yourself and spare me. I must speak to you with all freedom, and I tell you that you are an unworthy minister of things so great. However, whoever be the writer of the letter, I have answered as is fit . Whether, then, you yourself are experimenting on me, or whether really the letter which you have sent is one which you have received from the bishops, you have my answer. At such a time as this you ought to have borne in mind that you are my brother, and have not yet forgotten the ties of nature, and do not regard me in the light of an enemy, for I have entered on a life which is wearing out my strength, and is so far beyond my powers that it is injuring even my soul. Yet for all this, as you have determined to declare war against me, you ought to have come to me and shared my troubles. For it is said, “Brethren and help are against time of trouble.” If the right reverend bishops are really willing to meet me, let them make known to me a place and time, and let them invite me by their own men. I do not refuse to meet my own uncle, but I shall not do so unless the invitation reaches me in due and proper form.
Letter LIX. To Gregory, his uncle . 1. “ I have long time holden my peace. Am I to hold my peace for ever? Shall I still further endure to enforce against myself the hardest punishment of silence, by neither writing myself, nor receiving any statement from another? By holding fast to this stern determination up to the present time I am able to apply to myself the prophet’s words, “I endure patiently like travailing woman. ” Yet I am ever longing for communication either in person or by letter, and ever, for my own sins’ sake, missing it. For I cannot imagine any reason for what is happening, other than what I am convinced is the true one, that by being cut off from your love I am expiating old sins; if indeed I am not wrong in using such a phrase as “cut off” in your case, from any one, much less from me, to whom you have always been as a father. Now my sin, like some dense cloud overshadowing me, has made me forget all this. When I reflect that the only result to me of what is going on is sorrow, how can I attribute it to anything but to my own wickedness? But if events are to be traced to sins, be this the end of my troubles; if there was any intended discipline in it, then your object has been very completely attained, for the punishment has been going on for a long time; so I groan no longer, but am the first to break silence, and beseech you to remember both me and yourself who, to a greater degree than our relationship might have demanded, have shewn me strong affection all my life. Now, I implore you, show kindness to the city for my sake. Do not on my account alienate yourself from it. 2. If, then, there is any consolation in Christ, any fellowship of the Spirit, any mercy and pity, fulfil my prayer. Put a stop to my depression. Let there be a beginning of brighter things for the future. Be yourself a leader to others in the road to all that is best, and follow no one else in the way to what is wrong. Never was any feature so characteristic of any one’s body as gentleness and peace are of your soul. It were well becoming such a one as you are to draw all others to yourself, and to cause all who come near you to be permeated with the goodness of your nature, as with the fragrance of myrrh. For though there be a certain amount of opposition now, nevertheless ere long there will be a recognition of the blessings of peace. So long, however, as room is found for the calumnies that are bred of dissension, suspicion is sure to grow from worse to worse. It is most certainly unbecoming for the rest to take no notice of me, but it is especially unbecoming in your excellency. If I am wrong I shall be all the better for being rebuked. This is impossible if we never meet. But, if I am doing no wrong, for what am I disliked? So much I offer in my own defence. 3. As to what the Churches might say in their own behalf, perhaps it is better for me to be silent: they reap the result of our disagreement, and it is not to their gain. I am not speaking to indulge my grief but to put a stop to it.
And your intelligence, I am sure, has suffered nothing to escape you. You will yourself be better able to discern and to tell to others points of far greater importance than I can conceive. You saw the mischief done to the Churches before I did; and you are grieving more than I am, for you have long learnt from the Lord not to despise even the least. And now the mischief is not confined to one or two, but whole cities and peoples are sharers in my calamities. What need to tell what kind of report will spread about me even beyond our borders? It were well for you, large hearted as you are, to leave the love of strife to others; nay rather, if it be possible, to root it from their hearts, while you yourself vanquish what is grievous by endurance. Any angry man can defend himself, but to rise above the actual anger belongs only to you, and any one as good as you, if such there be. One thing I will not say, that he who has a grudge against me is letting his anger fall on the innocent. Do then comfort my soul by coming to me, or by a letter, or by inviting me to come to you, or by some means or other. My prayer is that your piety may be seen in the Church and that you may heal at once me and the people, both by the sight of you and by the words of your good grace. If this be possible it is best; if you determine on any other course I shall willingly accept it. Only accede to my entreaty that you will give me distinct information as to what your wisdom decides.
Letter LX. To Gregory his uncle . Formerly I was glad to see my brother. Why not, since he is my brother and such a brother? Now I have received him on his coming to visit me with the same feelings, and have lost none of my affection. God forbid that I should ever so feel as to forget the ties of nature and be at war with those who are near and dear to me. I have found his presence a comfort in my bodily sickness and the other troubles of my soul, and I have been especially delighted at the letter which he has brought me from your excellency. For a long time I have been hoping that it would come, for this only reason, that I need not add to my life any doleful episode of quarrel between kith and kin, sure to give pleasure to foes and sorrow to friends, and to be displeasing to God, Who has laid down perfect love as the distinctive characteristic of His disciples. So I reply, as I am indeed bound, with an earnest request for your prayers for me, and your care for me in all things, as your relative. Since I, from want of information, cannot clearly understand the meaning of what is going on, I have judged it right to accept the truth of the account which you are so good as to give me. It is for you of your wisdom to settle the rest, our meeting with one another, the fitting time and a convenient place. If your reverence really does not disdain to come down to my lowliness and to have speech with me, whether you wish the interview to take place in the presence of others or in private, I shall make no objection, for I have once for all made up my mind to submit to you in love, and to carry out, without exception, what your reverence enjoins on me for the glory of God. I have not laid my reverend brother under the necessity of reporting anything to you by word of mouth, because on the former occasion what he said was not borne out by facts.
Letter LXI. To Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria . I have read the letter of your holiness, in which you have expressed your distress at the unhappy governor of Libya. I am grieved that my own country should have given birth to and nurtured such vices. I am grieved too that Libya, a neighbouring country, should suffer from our evils, and should have been delivered to the inhumanity of a man whose life is marked at once by cruelty and crime. This however is only in accordance with the wisdom of the Preacher, “Woe to thee O land when thy King is a child;” (a still further touch of trouble) and whose “Princes” do not “eat” after night but revel at mid-day, raging after other men’s wives with less understanding than brute beasts. This man must surely look for the scourges of the righteous Judge, repaid him in exact requital for those which he himself has previously inflicted on the saints. Notice has been given to my Church in accordance with the letter of your reverence, and he shall be held by all as abominable, cut off from fire, water and shelter, if indeed in the case of men so possessed there is any use in general and unanimous condemnation. Notoriety is enough for him, and your own letter, which has been read in all directions, for I shall not fail to show it to all his friends and relatives. Assuredly, even if retribution does not reach him at once, as it did Pharaoh, certainly it will bring on him hereafter a heavy and hard requital.
Letter LXII. To the Church of Parnassus . Following an ancient custom, which has obtained for many years, and at the same time shewing you love in God, which is the fruit of the Spirit, I now, my pious friends, address this letter to you. I feel with you at once in your grief at the event which has befallen you, and in your anxiety at the matter which you have in hand. Concerning all these troubles I can only say, that an occasion is given us to look to the injunctions of the Apostle, and not to sorrow “even as others which have no hope.” I do not mean that we should be insensible to the loss we have suffered, but that we should not succumb to our sorrow, while we count the Pastor happy in his end. He has died in a ripe old age, and has found his rest in the great honour given him by his Lord. As to the future I have this recommendation to give you. You must now lay aside all mourning; you must come to yourselves; you must rise to the necessary management of the Church; to the end that the holy God may give heed to His own little flock, and may grant you a shepherd in accordance with His own will, who may wisely feed you.
Letter LXIII. To the Governor of Neocæsarea . The wise man, even if he dwells far away, even if I never set eyes on him, I count a friend. So says the tragedian Euripides. And so, if, though I have never had the pleasure of meeting your excellency in person, I speak of myself as a familiar friend, pray do not set this down to mere empty compliment. Common report, which loudly proclaims your universal benevolence, is, in this instance, the promoter of friendship. Indeed since I met the highly respectable Elpidius, I have known you as well, and I have been as completely captured by you, as though I had long lived with you and had practical experience of your excellent qualities. For he did not cease telling me about you, mentioning one by one your magnanimity, your exalted sentiments, your mild manners, your skill in business, intelligence, dignity tempered by cheerfulness, and eloquence. All the other points that he enumerated in his long conversation with me it is impossible for me to write to you, without extending my letter beyond all reasonable bounds. How can I fail to love such a man? How could I put such restraint upon myself as not loudly to proclaim what I feel? Accept then, most excellent Sir, the greeting which I send you, for it is inspired by true and unfeigned friendship. I abhor all servile compliment. Pray keep me enrolled in the list of your friends, and, by frequently writing to me, bring yourself before me and comfort me in your absence.
Letter LXIV. To Hesychius . From the beginning I have had many points in common with your excellency, your love of letters, everywhere reported by all who have experienced it, and our old friendship with the admirable Terentius. But since that most excellent man, who is to me all that friendship could require, my worthy brother Elpidius, has met me, and told me all your good qualities, (and who more capable than he at once to perceive a man’s virtue and to describe it?) he has kindled in me such a desire to see you, that I pray that you may one day visit me in my old home, that I may enjoy your good qualities, not merely by hearing of them, but by actual experience.
Letter LXV. To Atarbius . If I continue to insist on the privileges to which my superior age entitles me, and wait for you to take the initiative in communica tion , and if you, my friend, wish to adhere more persistently to your evil counsel of inaction, what end will there be to our silence? However, where friendship is involved, to be defeated is in my opinion to win, and so I am quite ready to gave you precedence, and retire from the contest as to which should maintain his own opinion. I have been the first to betake myself to writing, because I know that “charity beareth all things…endureth all things…seeketh not her own” and so “never faileth.” He who subjects himself to his neighbour in love can never be humiliated. I do beg you, then, at all events for the future, show the first and greatest fruit of the Spirit, Love; away with the angry man’s sullenness which you are showing me by your silence, and recover joy in your heart, peace with the brothers who are of one mind with you, and zeal and anxiety for the continued safety of the Churches of the Lord. If I were not to make as strenuous efforts on behalf of the Churches as the opponents of sound doctrine make to subvert and utterly destroy them, you may be quite sure that there is nothing to prevent the truth from being swept away and destroyed by its enemies, and my being involved in the condemnation, for not shewing all possible anxiety for the unity of the Churches, with all zeal and eagerness in mutual unanimity and godly agreement. I exhort you then, drive out of your mind the idea that you need communion with no one else. To cut one’s self off from connexion with the brethren is not the mark of one who is walking by love, nor yet the fulfilling of the commandment of Christ. At the same time I do wish you, with all your good intentions, to take into account that the calamities of the war which are now all round about us may one day be at our own doors, and if we too, like all the rest, have our share of outrage, we shall not find any even to sympathise with us, because in the hour of our prosperity we refused to give our share of sympathy to the wronged.
Letter LXVI. To Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria . No one, I feel sure, is more distressed at the present condition, or, rather to speak more truly, ill condition of the Churches than your excellency; for you compare the present with the past, and take into account how great a change has come about. You are well aware that if no check is put to the swift deterioration which we are witnessing, there will soon be nothing to prevent the complete transformation of the Churches. And if the decay of the Churches seems so pitiful to me, what must—so I have often in my lonely musings reflected—be the feelings of one who has known, by experience, the old tranquillity of the Churches of the Lord, and their one mind about the faith? But as your excellency feels most deeply this distress, it seems to me only becoming that your wisdom should be more strongly moved to interest itself in the Church’s behalf. I for my part have long been aware, so far as my moderate intelligence has been able to judge of current events, that the one way of safety for the Churches of the East lies in their having the sympathy of the bishops of the West. For if only those bishops liked to show the same energy on behalf of the Christians sojourning in our part of the world which they have shewn in the case of one or two of the men convicted of breaches of orthodoxy in the West, our common interests would probably reap no small benefit, our sovereigns treating the authority of the people with respect, and the laity in all quarters unhesitatingly following them. But, to carry out these objects, who has more capacity than yourself, with your intelligence and prudence? Who is keener to see the needful course to be taken? Who has more practical experience in working a profitable policy? Who feels more deeply the troubles of the brethren? What through all the West is more honoured than your venerable gray hairs? O most honoured father, leave behind you some memorial worthy of your life and character. By this one act crown your innumerable efforts on behalf of true religion. Despatch from the holy Church placed under your care men of ability in sound doctrine to the bishops in the West. Recount to them the troubles whereby we are beset. Suggest some mode of relief. Be a Samuel to the Churches. Share the grief of the beleaguered people. Offer prayers for peace. Ask favour from the Lord, that He will send some memorial of peace to the Churches. I know how weak letters are to move men in matters of such importance; but you yourself no more need exhortation from others than the noblest athletes need the children’s cheers. It is not as though I were instructing one in ignorance; I am only giving a new impulse to one whose energies are already roused. For the rest of the affairs of the East perhaps you may need the aid of more, and we must wait for the Westerns. But plainly the discipline of the Church of Antioch depends upon your reverence’s being able to control some, to reduce others to silence, and to restore strength to the Church by concord. No one knows better than you do, that, like all wise physicians, you ought to begin your treatment in the most vital parts, and what part is more vital to the Churches throughout the world than Antioch?
Only let Antioch be restored to harmony, and nothing will stand in the way of her supplying, as a healthy head, soundness to all the body. Truly the diseases of that city, which has not only been cut asunder by heretics, but is torn in pieces by men who say that they are of one mind with one another, stand in need of your wisdom and evangelic sympathy. To unite the sundered parts again, and bring about the harmony of one body, belongs to Him alone Who by His ineffable power grants even to the dry bones to come back again to sinews and flesh. But the Lord always works His mighty works by means of them that are worthy of Him. Once again, in this case too, we trust that the ministry of matters so important may beseem your excellency, with the result that you will lay the tempest of the people, do away with the party superiorities, and subject all to one another in love, and give back to the Church her ancient strength.
Letter LXVII. To Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria . In my former letter it seemed to me sufficient to point out to your excellency, that all that portion of the people of the holy Church of Antioch who are sound in the faith, ought to be brought to concord and unity. My object was to make it plain that the sections, now divided into several parts, ought to be united under the God-beloved bishop Meletius. Now the same beloved deacon, Dorotheus, has requested a more distinct statement on these subjects, and I am therefore constrained to point out that it is the prayer of the whole East, and the earnest desire of one who, like myself, is so wholly united to him, to see him in authority over the Churches of the Lord. He is a man of unimpeachable faith; his manner of life is incomparably excellent, he stands at the head, so to say, of the whole body of the Church, and all else are mere disjointed members. On every ground, then, it is necessary as well as advantageous, that the rest should be united with him, just as smaller streams with great ones. About the rest, however, a certain amount of management is needed, befitting their position, and likely to pacify the people. This is in keeping with your own wisdom, and with your famous readiness and energy. It has however by no means escaped your intelligence, that this same course of procedure has already recommended itself to the Westerns who are in agreement with you, as I learn from the letters brought to me by the blessed Silvanus.
Letter LXVIII. To Meletius, bishop of Antioch . I wished to detain the reverend brother Dorotheus, the deacon, so long at my side, with the object of keeping him until the end of the negociations, and so by him acquainting your excellency with every detail. But day after day went by; the delay was becoming protracted; now, the moment that some plan, so far as is possible in my difficulties, has occurred to me concerning the course to be taken, I send him to approach your holiness, to make a personal report to you on all the circumstances, and show you my memorandum, to the end that, if what has occurred to me seems to you to be likely to be of service, your excellency may urge on its accomplishment. To be brief, the opinion has prevailed that it is best for this our brother Dorotheus to travel to Rome, to move some of the Italians to undertake a voyage by sea to visit us, that they may avoid all who would put difficulties in their way. My reason for this course is that I see that those, who are all powerful with the Emperor, are neither willing nor able to make any suggestion to him about the exiled, but only count it so much to the good that they see no worse thing befalling the Churches. If, then, my plan seems good also to your prudence, you will be good enough both to indite letters and dictate memoranda as to the points on which he must enlarge, and as to whom he had better address himself. And so that your despatches may have weight and authority, you will add all those who share your sentiments, even though they are not on the spot. Here all is uncertain; Euippius has arrived, but so far has made no sign. However, he and those who think with him from the Armenian Tetrapolis and Cilicia are threatening a tumultuous meeting.
Letter LXIX. To Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria . 1. As time moves on, it continually confirms the opinion which I have long held of your holiness; or rather that opinion is strengthened by the daily course of events. Most men are indeed satisfied with observing, each one, what lies especially within his own province; not thus is it with you, but your anxiety for all the Churches is no less than that which you feel for the Church that has been especially entrusted to you by our common Lord; inasmuch as you leave no interval in speaking, exhorting, writing, and despatching emissaries, who from time to time give the best advice in each emergency as it arises. Now, from the sacred ranks of your clergy, you have sent forth the venerable brother Peter, whom I have welcomed with great joy. I have also approved of the good object of his journey, which he manifests in accordance with the commands of your excellency, in effecting reconciliation where he finds opposition, and bringing about union instead of division. With the object of offering some contribution to the action which is being taken in this matter, I have thought that I could not make a more fitting beginning than by having recourse to your excellency, as to the head and chief of all, and treating you as alike adviser and commander in the enterprise. I have therefore determined to send to your reverence our brother Dorotheus the deacon, of the Church under the right honourable bishop Meletius, being one who at once is an energetic supporter of the orthodox faith, and is earnestly desirous of seeing the peace of the Churches. The results, I hope, will be, that, following your suggestions (which you are able to make with the less likelihood of failure, both from your age and your experience in affairs, and because you have a greater measure than all others of the aid of the Spirit), he may thus attempt the achievement of our objects. You will welcome him, I am sure, and will look upon him with friendly eyes. You will strengthen him by the help of your prayers; you will give him a letter as provision by the way; you will grant him, as companions, some of the good men and true that you have about you; so you will speed him on the road to what is before him. It has seemed to me to be desirable to send a letter to the bishop of Rome, begging him to examine our condition, and since there are difficulties in the way of representatives being sent from the West by a general synodical decree, to advise him to exercise his own personal authority in the matter by choosing suitable persons to sustain the labours of a journey,—suitable, too, by gentleness and firmness of character, to correct the unruly among us here; able to speak with proper reserve and appropriateness, and thoroughly well acquainted with all that has been effected after Ariminum to undo the violent measures adopted there. I should advise that, without any one knowing anything about it, they should travel hither, attracting as little attention as possible, by the sea, with the object of escaping the notice of the enemies of peace. 2. A point also that is insisted upon by some of those in these parts, very necessarily, as is plain even to myself, is that they should drive away the heresy of Marcellus, as grievous and injurious and opposed to the sound faith.
For up to this time, in all the letters which they write, they are constant in thoroughly anathematizing the ill-famed Arius and in repudiating him from the Churches. But they attach no blame to Marcellus, who propounded a heresy diametrically opposite to that of Arius, and impiously attacked the very existence of the Only begotten Godhead, and erroneously understood the term “Word. ” He grants indeed that the Only begotten was called “Word,” on coming forth at need and in season, but states that He re turned again to Him whence He had come forth, and had no existence before His coming forth, nor hypostasis after His return. The books in my possession which contain his unrighteous writings exist as a proof of what I say. Nevertheless they nowhere openly condemned him, and are to this extent culpable that, being from the first in ignorance of the truth, they received him into the communion of the Church. The present state of affairs makes it specially necessary that attention should be called to him, so that those who seek for their opportunity, may be prevented from getting it, from the fact of sound men being united to your holiness, and all who are lame in the true faith may be openly known; that so we may know who are on our side, and may not struggle, as in a night battle, without being able to distinguish between friends and foes. Only I do beseech you that the deacon, whom I have mentioned, be despatched by the earliest possible packet, that at least some of the ends which we pray for may be accomplished during the ensuing year. One thing, however, even before I mention it, you quite understand and I am sure will give heed to, that, when they come, if God will, they must not let loose schisms among the Churches; and, even though they find some who have personal reasons for mutual differences, they must leave no means untried to unite all who are of the same way of thinking. For we are bound to regard the interests of peace as paramount, and that first of all attention be paid to the Church at Antioch, lest the sound portion of it grow diseased through division on personal grounds. But you will yourself give more complete attention to all these matters, so soon as, by the blessing of God, you find every one entrusting to you the responsibility of securing the peace of the Church.
Letter LXX. Without address . To renew laws of ancient love, and once again to restore to vigorous life that heavenly and saving gift of Christ which in course of time has withered away, the peace, I mean, of the Fathers, is a labour necessary indeed and profitable to me, but pleasant too, as I am sure it will seem to your Christ-loving disposition. For what could be more delightful than to behold all, who are separated by distances so vast, bound together by the union effected by love into one harmony of members in Christ’s body? Nearly all the East (I include under this name all the regions from Illyricum to Egypt) is being agitated, right honourable father, by a terrible storm and tempest. The old heresy, sown by Arius the enemy of the truth, has now boldly and unblushingly reappeared. Like some sour root, it is producing its deadly fruit and is prevailing. The reason of this is, that in every district the champions of right doctrine have been exiled from their Churches by calumny and outrage, and the control of affairs has been handed over to men who are leading captive the souls of the simpler brethren. I have looked upon the visit of your mercifulness as the only possible solution of our difficulties. Ever in the past I have been consoled by your extraordinary affection; and for a short time my heart was cheered by the gratifying report that we shall be visited by you. But, as I was disappointed, I have been constrained to beseech you by letter to be moved to help us, and to send some of those, who are like minded with us, either to conciliate the dissentient and bring back the Churches of God into friendly union, or at all events to make you see more plainly who are responsible for the unsettled state in which we are, that it may be obvious to you for the future with whom it befits you to be in communion. In this I am by no means making any novel request, but am only asking what has been customary in the case of men who, before our own day, were blessed and dear to God, and conspicuously in your own case. For I well remember learning from the answers made by our fathers when asked, and from documents still preserved among us, that the illustrious and blessed bishop Dionysius, conspicuous in your see as well for soundness of faith as for all other virtues, visited by letter my Church of Cæsarea, and by letter exhorted our fathers, and sent men to ransom our brethren from captivity. But now our condition is yet more painful and gloomy and needs more careful treatment. We are lamenting no mere overthrow of earthly buildings, but the capture of Churches; what we see before us is no mere bodily slavery, but a carrying away of souls into captivity, perpetrated day by day by the champions of heresy. Should you not, even now, be moved to succour us, ere long all will have fallen under the dominion of the heresy, and you will find none left to whom you may hold out your hand.
Letter LXXI. Basil to Gregory . 1. I have received the letter of your holiness, by the most reverend brother Helenius, and what you have intimated he has told me in plain terms. How I felt on hearing it, you cannot doubt at all. However, since I have determined that my affection for you shall outweigh my pain, whatever it is, I have accepted it as I ought to do, and I pray the holy God, that my remaining days or hours may be as carefully conducted in their disposition towards you as they have been in past time, during which, my conscience tells me, I have been wanting to you in nothing small or great. [But that the man who boasts that he is now just beginning to take a look at the life of Christians, and thinks he will get some credit by having something to do with me, should invent what he has not heard, and narrate what he has never experienced, is not at all surprising. What is surprising and extraordinary is that he has got my best friends among the brethren at Nazianzus to listen to him; and not only to listen to him, but as it seems, to take in what he says. On most grounds it might be surprising that the slanderer is of such a character, and that I am the victim, but these troublous times have taught us to bear everything with patience. Slights greater than this have, for my sins, long been things of common occurrence with me. I have never yet given this man’s brethren any evidence of my sentiments about God, and I have no answer to make now. Men who are not convinced by long experience are not likely to be convinced by a short letter. If the former is enough let the charges of the slanderers be counted as idle tales. But if I give license to unbridled mouths, and uninstructed hearts, to talk about whom they will, all the while keeping my ears ready to listen, I shall not be alone in hearing what is said by other people; they will have to hear what I have to say. ] 2. I know what has led to all this, and have urged every topic to hinder it; but now I am sick of the subject, and will say no more about it, I mean our little intercourse. For had we kept our old promise to each other, and had due regard to the claims which the Churches have on us, we should have been the greater part of the year together; and then there would have been no opening for these calumniators. Pray have nothing to say to them; let me persuade you to come here and assist me in my labours, particularly in my contest with the individual who is now assailing me. Your very appearance will have the effect of stopping him; directly you show these disturbers of our home that you will, by God’s blessing, place yourself at the head of our party, you will break up their cabal, and you will shut every unjust mouth that speaketh unrighteousness against God. And thus facts will show who are your followers in good, and who are the halters and cowardly betrayers of the word of truth. If, however, the Church be betrayed, why then I shall care little to set men right about myself, by means of words, who account of me as men would naturally account who have not yet learned to measure themselves.
Perhaps, in a short time, by God’s grace, I shall be able to refute their slanders by very deed, for it seems likely that I shall have soon to suffer somewhat for the truth’s sake more than usual; the best I can expect is banishment, or, if this hope fails, after all Christ’s judgment-seat is not far distant. [If then you ask for a meeting for the Churches’ sake, I am ready to betake myself whithersoever you invite me. But if it is only a question of refuting these slanders, I really have no time to reply to them. ]
Letter LXXII. To Hesychius . I know your affection for me, and your zeal for all that is good. I am exceedingly anxious to pacify my very dear son Callisthenes, and I thought that if I could associate you with me in this I might more easily achieve my object. Callisthenes is very much annoyed at the conduct of Eustochius, and he has very good ground for being so. He charges the household of Eustochius with impudence and violence against himself. I am begging him to be propitiated, satisfied with the fright which he has given the impudent fellows and their master, and to forgive, and end the quarrel. Thus two results will follow; he will win the respect of men, and praise with God, if only he will combine forbearance with threats. If you have any friendship and intimacy with him, pray ask this favour of him, and, if you know any in the town likely to be able to move him, get them to act with you, and tell them that it will be specially gratifying to me. Send back the deacon so soon as his commission is performed. After men have fled for refuge to me, I should be ashamed not to be able to be of any use to them.
Letter LXXIII. To Callisthenes . 1. When I had read your letter I thanked God; first, that I been greeted by a man desirous of doing me honour, for truly I highly estimate any intercourse with persons of high merit; secondly, with pleasure at the thought of being remembered. For a letter is a sign of remembrance; and when I had received yours and learnt its contents I was astonished to find how, as all were agreed, it paid me the respect due to a father from a son. That a man in the heat of anger and indignation, eager to punish those who had annoyed him, should drop more than half his vehemence and give me authority to decide the matter, caused me to feel such joy as I might over a son in the spirit. In return, what remains for me but to pray for all blessings for you? May you be a delight to your friends, a terror to your foes, an object of respect to all, to the end that any who fall short in their duty to you may, when they learn how gentle you are, only blame themselves for having wronged one of such a character as yourself! 2. I should be very glad to know the object which your goodness has in view, in ordering the servants to be conveyed to the spot where they were guilty of their disorderly conduct. If you come yourself, and exact in person the punishment due for the offence, the slaves shall be there. What other course is possible if you have made up your mind? Only that I do not know what further favour I shall have received, if I shall have failed to get the boys off their punishment. But if business detain you on the way, who is to receive the fellows there? Who is to punish them in your stead? But if you have made up your mind to meet them yourself, and this is quite determined on, tell them to halt at Sasima, and there show the extent of your gentleness and magnanimity. After having your assailants in your own power, and so showing them that your dignity is not to be lightly esteemed, let them go scot free, as I urged you in my former letter. So you will confer a favour on me, and will receive the requital of your good deed from God. 3. I speak in this way, not because the business ought so to be ended, but as a concession to your agitated feelings, and in fear lest somewhat of your wrath may remain still raw. When a man’s eyes are inflamed the softest application seems painful, and I am afraid lest what I say may rather irritate than calm you. What would really be most becoming, bringing great credit to you, and no little cause of honour to me with my friends and contemporaries, would be for you to leave the punishment to me. And although you have sworn to deliver them to execution as the law enjoins, my rebuke is still of no less value as a punishment, nor is the divine law of less account than the laws current in the world. But it will be possible for them, by being punished here by our laws, wherein too lies your own hope of salvation, both to release you from your oath and to undergo a penalty commensurate with their faults. But once more I am making my letter too long.
In the very earnest desire to persuade you I cannot bear to leave unsaid any of the pleas which occur to me, and I am much afraid lest my entreaty should prove ineffectual from my failing to say all that may convey my meaning. Now, true and honoured son of the Church, confirm the hopes which I have of you; prove true all the testimony unanimously given to your placability and gentleness. Give orders to the soldier to leave me without delay; he is now as tiresome and rude as he can well be; he evidently prefers giving no cause of annoyance to you to making all of us here his close friends.
Letter LXXIV. To Martinianus . 1. How high do you suppose one to prize the pleasure of our meeting one another once again? How delightful to spend longer time with you so as to enjoy all your good qualities! If powerful proof is given of culture in seeing many men’s cities and knowing many men’s ways, such I am sure is quickly given in your society. For what is the difference between seeing many men singly or one who has gained experience of all together? I should say that there is an immense superiority in that which gives us the knowledge of good and beautiful things without trouble, and puts within our reach instruction in virtue, pure from all admixture of evil. Is there question of noble deed; of words worth handing down; of institutions of men of superhuman excellence? All are treasured in the store house of your mind. Not then, would I pray, that I might listen to you, like Alcinous to Ulysses, only for a year, but throughout all my life; and to this end I would pray that my life might be long, even though my state were no easy one. Why, then, am I now writing when I ought to be coming to see you? Because my country in her troubles calls me irresistibly to her side. You know, my friend, how she suffers. She is torn in pieces like Pentheus by veritable Mænads, dæmons. They are dividing her, and dividing her again, like bad surgeons who, in their ignorance, make wounds worse. Suffering as she is from this dissection, it remains for me to tend her like a sick patient. So the Cæsareans have urgently appealed to me by letter, and I must go, not as though I could be of any help, but to avoid any blame of neglect. You know how ready men in difficulties are to hope; and ready too, I ween, to find fault, always charging their troubles on what has been left undone. 2. Yet for this very reason I ought to have come to see you, and to have told you my mind, or rather to implore you to bethink you of some strong measure worthy of your wisdom; not to turn aside from my country falling on her knees, but to betake yourself to the Court, and, with the boldness which is all your own, not to let them suppose that they own two provinces instead of one. They have not imported the second from some other part of the world, but have acted somewhat in the same way in which some owner of horse or ox might act, who should cut it in two, and then think that he had two instead of one, instead of failing to make two and destroying the one he had. Tell the Emperor and his ministers that they are not after this fashion increasing the empire, for power lies not in number but in condition. I am sure that now men are neglecting the course of events, some, possibly, from ignorance of the truth, some from their being unwilling to say anything offensive, some because it does not immediately concern them. The course likely to be most beneficial, and worthy of your high principles, would be for you, if possible, to approach the Emperor in person. If this is difficult both on account of the season of the year and of your age, of which, as you say, inactivity is the foster brother, at all events you need have no difficulty in writing.
If you thus give our country the aid of a letter, you will first of all have the satisfaction of knowing that you have left nothing undone that was in your power, and further, by showing sympathy, if only in appearance, you will give the patient much comfort. Would only that it were possible for you to come yourself among us and actually see our deplorable condition! Thus, perhaps, stirred by the plain evidence before you, you might have spoken in terms worthy alike of your own magnanimity and of the affliction of Cæsarea. But do not withhold belief from what I am telling you. Verily we want some Simonides, or other like poet, to lament our troubles from actual experience. But why name Simonides? I should rather mention Æschylus, or any other who has set forth a great calamity in words like his, and uttered lamentation with a mighty voice. 3. Now we have no more meetings, no more debates, no more gatherings of wise men in the Forum, nothing more of all that made our city famous. In our Forum nowadays it would be stranger for a learned or eloquent man to put in an appearance, than it would for men, shewing a brand of iniquity or unclean hands, to have presented themselves in Athens of old. Instead of them we have the imported boorishness of Massagetæ and Scythians. And only one noise is heard of drivers of bargains, and losers of bargains, and of fellows under the lash. On either hand the porticoes resound with doleful echoes, as though they were uttering a natural and proper sound in groaning at what is going on. Our distress prevents our paying any attention to locked gymnasia and nights when no torch is lighted. There is no small danger lest, our magistrates being removed, everything crash down together as with fallen props. What words can adequately describe our calamities? Some have fled into exile, a considerable portion of our senate, and that not the least valuable, prefering perpetual banishment to Podandus. When I mention Podandus, suppose me to mean the Spartan Ceadas or any natural pit that you may have seen, spots breathing a noxious vapour, to which some have involuntarily given the name Charonian. Picture to yourself that the evils of Podandus are a match for such a place. So, of three parts, some have left their homes and are in exile, wives and hearth and all; some are being led away like captives, the majority of the best men in the city, a piteous spectacle to their friends, fulfilling their enemies’ prayers; if, that is, any one has ever been found to call down so dire a curse upon our heads. A third division yet remains: these, unable to endure abandonment by their old companions, and at the same time unable to provide for themselves, have to hate their very lives. This is what I implore you to make known everywhere with an eloquence all your own, and that righteous boldness of speech which your manner of life gives you. One thing distinctly state; that, unless the authorities soon change their counsels, they will find none left on whom to exercise their clemency. You will either prove some help to the state, or at least you will have done as Solon did, who, when he was unable to defend his abandoned fellow citizens on the capture of the Acropolis, put on his armour, and sat down before the gates, thus making it plain by this guise that he was no party to what was going on.
Of one thing I am assured, even though at the present moment there may be some who do not approve of your advice, the day is not far distant when they will give you the greatest credit for benevolence and sagacity, because they see events corresponding with your prediction.
Letter LXXV. To Aburgius . You have many qualities which raise you above the common run of men, but nothing is more distinctly characteristic of you than your zeal for your country. Thus you, who have risen to such a height as to become illustrious throughout all the world, pay a righteous recompense to the land that gave you birth. Yet she, your mother city, who bore you and nursed you, has fallen into the incredible condition of ancient story; and no one visiting Cæsarea; not even those most familiar with her, would recognise her as she is; to such complete abandonment has she been suddenly transformed, many of her magistrates having been previously removed, and now nearly all of them transferred to Podandus. The remainder, torn from these like mutilated extremities, have themselves fallen into complete despair, and have caused such a general weight of despondency, that the population of the city is now but scanty; the place looks like a desert, a piteous spectacle to all who love it, and a cause for delight and encouragement to all who have long been plotting for our fall. Who then will reach out a hand to help us? Who will drop a tear of pity over our faith? You have sympathised with a stranger city in like distress; will not your kindly excellency feel for her who gave you birth? If you have any influence, show it in our present need. Certainly you have great help from God, Who has never abandoned you, and has given you many proofs of His kindness. Only be willing to exert yourself in our behalf, and use all the influence you have for the succour of your fellow citizens.
Letter LXXVI. To Sophronius the Master . The greatness of the calamities, which have befallen our native city, did seem likely to compel me to travel in person to the court, and there to relate, both to your excellency and to all those who are most influential in affairs, the dejected state in which Cæsarea is lying. But I am kept here alike by ill-health and by the care of the Churches. In the meantime, therefore, I hasten to tell your lordship our troubles by letter, and to acquaint you that never ship, drowned in sea by furious winds, so suddenly disappeared, never city shattered by earthquake or overwhelmed by flood, so swiftly vanished out of sight, as our city, engulfed by this new constitution, has gone utterly to ruin. Our misfortunes have passed into a tale. Our institutions are a thing of the past; and all our men of high civil rank, in despair at what has happened to our magistrates, have left their homes in the city and are wandering about the country. There is a break therefore in the necessary conduct of affairs, and the city, which ere now gloried both in men of learning and in others who abound in opulent towns, has become a most unseemly spectacle. One only consolation have we left in our troubles, and that is to groan over our misfortunes to your excellency and to implore you, if you can, to reach out the helping hand to Cæsarea who falls on her knees before you. How indeed you may be able to aid us I am not myself able to explain; but I am sure that to you, with all your intelligence, it will be easy to discover the means, and not difficult, through the power given you by God, to use them when they are found.