Letters 139–152

… services, nor the love of the people; but they also maltreated their bodies, dishonoured them, handed them over to exile, and plundered the property of all they could find, neither respecting the condemnation of men nor foreseeing the fearful recompense of the just Judge. These things astounded us and almost drove us out of our wits. And along with these reflections came this thought too: has the Lord altogether forsaken his churches? Is it the last hour, and is the apostasy making its entrance through these things, so that the lawless one may at last be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship? 2. But whether the temptation is for a season, bear it, noble contestants of Christ; or whether things are being handed over to total ruin, let us not lose heart at the present, but let us await the revelation from heaven and the appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. For if all creation will be dissolved and the form of this world will be changed, what wonder if we too, being part of creation, suffer the common sufferings and are handed over to afflictions, which the just Judge brings upon us according to the measure of our strength, not letting us be tempted beyond what we are able, but with the temptation giving also the way out, that we may be able to endure? The crowns of the martyrs await you, brothers; the choirs of the confessors are ready to stretch out their hands to you and to receive you into their own number. Remember the saints of old, that none who lived in luxury or was flattered was deemed worthy of the crowns of endurance; but all, tried by fire through great afflictions, showed their genuineness. For some had trial of mockings and scourgings, others were sawn asunder, and others died by the slaughter of the sword. These are the boasts of the saints. Blessed is he who has been deemed worthy of sufferings for Christ; more blessed is he who has abounded in sufferings; for the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 3. If, then, it were possible for me to come myself, I would have preferred nothing to meeting you, so as to see the athletes of Christ, embrace them, and share in your prayers and in the spiritual gifts among you. But since my body is now consumed by a long illness, so that I cannot even get down from my bed, and those who lie in wait for us are many, like ravenous wolves, watching for the moment when they may snatch the sheep of Christ, I have necessarily resorted to visiting you by letter, asking first that you make earnest supplications for me, that I may be deemed worthy to serve the Lord according to the gospel of the kingdom at least for the remaining days or hours; and then that you pardon my absence and the slowness of this letter. For I could hardly find a man able to serve our desire; I mean our son Eugenius the monk, through whom I ask you to pray for us and for the whole church, and to write back to us about yourselves, so that, knowing, we may be in better heart.

… the crown of patience and of hope in him. Let us not, then, grow weary in contending in the struggles for godliness, nor through despair throw away what we have laboured for. For it is not a single act of courage nor a short labour that shows the steadfastness of the soul; but he who tests our hearts wishes us to be proved winners of the crowns of righteousness through a long and drawn-out testing. Only let our mind be kept unyielding, let the firmness of faith in Christ be preserved unshaken, and he who will help us will come quickly; he will come and will not delay. For expect affliction upon affliction, hope upon hope; yet a little, yet a little. So the Holy Spirit knows how to cheer his nurslings with the promise of what is to come. For after the afflictions comes hope, and the things hoped for are close at hand. For even if one were to speak of the whole … 2. As for a creed, we neither accept a newer one written for us by others, nor do we ourselves dare to hand on the offspring of our own mind, lest we make the words of godliness human; but what we have been taught by the holy fathers, that we announce to those who ask us. There has been in use in our church since the fathers' time the faith written by the holy fathers who assembled at Nicaea; we think that it is on your lips too, but so as not to incur a charge of sloth we do not decline to set down its very words in this letter. They are these: 'We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father as only-begotten, that is, from the essence of the Father; light from light, true God from true God; begotten, not made; of the same essence as the Father; through whom all things came into being, the things in heaven and the things on earth; who for us men and for our salvation came down, was made flesh, became man, suffered, and rose on the third day, ascended into the heavens, and comes to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit. But those who say "There was once when he was not," and "Before he was begotten he was not," and that "he came into being from things that are not," or who claim that the Son of God is from another hypostasis or essence, or changeable or alterable, these the catholic and apostolic church anathematizes.' We believe these things. But since the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is left undefined, the Pneumatomachi not having appeared at that time, that those must be anathematized who say … created … [Letter 141] To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata. 1. I have now received two letters from your inspired and most perfect prudence. One of them described clearly to us how we were expected by the people under the hand of your holiness, and how grieved we were to have missed the most holy synod. The other, older, as I guess from the writing, but delivered to us later, contained teaching befitting you and necessary for us: not to grow careless about the churches of God, nor little by little to give up affairs to the opponents, by which their side will grow and ours be diminished. I think that I have answered both; but now too, since it is uncertain whether those entrusted with the service kept our answers safe, I make my defence on the same matters. For the absence I write the truest excuse, the report of which I think has reached even your holiness: that I was held by an illness that brought me down to the very gates of death. And even now, while I was sending word about these things, I wrote carrying the remnants of the illness; and they are such as would be enough for another man to be hard-to-bear diseases. 2. As to the charge that the affairs of the churches have been betrayed to the opponents by our carelessness, I want your piety to know that the bishops supposedly in communion with us, whether from sloth, or from still regarding us with suspicion and not sincerely, or from the devil's opposition to good actions, will not consent to help us. In appearance, indeed, most of us are with one another, the good Bosporius having joined us as well; but in truth they help us in none of the most necessary things; so that I am hindered for the most part from recovering by this very despondency, my illnesses constantly returning from the severe grief. What could I do alone, when the canons, as you know yourself, do not permit such arrangements to one person? And yet what care have I not taken? Of what judgment have I not reminded them, partly by letter, partly in meeting? For they even came to the city on a report of my death. But since it pleased God that they should find us alive, we spoke to them as was fitting. And when present they are respectful and promise everything fitting; but when they have left they run back again to their own mind. These things we too enjoy from the common state of affairs, the Lord having plainly forsaken us, who have let love grow cold because lawlessness has multiplied. But for all things let your great and most powerful supplication to God suffice us. For perhaps we may either become of some use to affairs, or, failing in our efforts, escape condemnation.

To the accountant of the prefects. I gathered all our brothers the chorepiscopi at the synod of the blessed martyr Eupsychius, to make them known to your honour; but since you were absent, they must be introduced to your perfection by letter. Get to know, then, this brother, who is worthy to be trusted by your prudence because of his fear of the Lord. And whatever he reports to your good will on behalf of the poor, deign to believe as from one who speaks the truth, and to give what help you can to those in distress. You will deign, clearly, also to visit the poorhouse of the district under him and to release it entirely from the tax. For this has already pleased your colleague too, to make the small property of the poor free from public burdens.

To another accountant. If it were possible for me to be with your honour myself, I would certainly have referred to you in person what I wished, and have stood up for those in distress; but since bodily illness and pressure of business draw me away, I commend to you in my place this brother the chorepiscopus, so that, attending to him sincerely, you may use him as an adviser, since he is able to advise about affairs truthfully and wisely. When you deign to see the poorhouse managed by him (and you will see it, I know well, and not pass it by, since you are not inexperienced in the work, but, as someone told me, you maintain one of those in Amasea out of what the Lord has given you), when, then, you see this one too, you will provide him with everything he asks. For your colleague too has already promised me some kindness toward the poorhouses. I say this not that you should imitate another (for you are likely to lead others in good things), but that you may know that others too have been moved by us about these very things.

To the officer of the prefects. You surely know this man from meeting him in the city; nevertheless we introduce him to you also by letter, commending him because he will be useful to you in many of the things you care about, since he is able to suggest what must be done both wisely and piously. What you said to me in my ear, now is the time to show, when the aforementioned brother shows you the affairs of the poor.

To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata. I know the countless labours you have endured for the churches of God; and I am not ignorant of the multitude of occupations, whose management you conduct not as a side matter but according to the will of the Lord. And I consider the man who sits on your borders, so that you must all, like birds cowering before an eagle, each keep from running far from cover. None of this has escaped me. But longing is a forceful thing, both to hope for what cannot be and to attempt the impossible; or rather, hope in the Lord is the strongest of all. For not from irrational desire but from the strength of faith I expect that a way will appear in difficulties and that you will easily overcome all hindrances, so as to see the church dearest to you and to be seen by her; for she prizes above all good things to look on your face and to hear your voice. Do not, then, make her hopes unfulfilled. For last year, when I came back from Syria and brought her the promise I had received, how high do you think I raised her with hope? Do not, then, put off your visit to her to another time, admirable friend. For even if it may be possible to see her at some time, yet not with us, whom illness is pressing to depart at last from this painful life. [Letter 146] To Antiochus. I cannot blame you for sloth or carelessness because you kept silent when an occasion for letters arose. For the greeting you sent through the hand dear to me I value more than many letters. In return for it, then, I greet you, and urge you earnestly to hold fast to the salvation of the soul, disciplining all the passions of the flesh by reason, and keeping the thought of God continually established in your soul as in a most holy temple; and in every action and every word to set before your eyes the judgment seat of Christ, so that your individual deeds, gathered together at that exact and fearful examination, may bring you glory on the day of recompense, when you are deemed worthy of praise before the whole creation. And if the great man would consent to make the journey to us, it would be no small gain to see you with him in our country.

To Aburgius. Until now I thought Homer's tales a myth, when I went through the second part of his poem, in which he tells the sufferings of Odysseus. But the reversal that befell the most excellent Maximus has taught us to think those tales, until now mythical and wholly incredible, quite believable. For he too became governor of no mean nation, like that general of the Cephallenians; and as the other, though he set out with much wealth, came back naked, so misfortune has so treated this man that he was in danger of being seen by those at home in borrowed rags. And he has suffered these things having perhaps provoked some Laestrygonians against himself, and having fallen in with a Scylla in woman's form, with a dog's inhumanity and savagery. Since, then, he has barely managed to swim through this inescapable surge, he beseeches you through us, asking that you respect our common nature and, grieved at his undeserved misfortunes, not hide his case in silence but report it to those in power, so that, if possible, some help may come to him against the harassment contrived against him; or if not, that at least the intention of the one who has run riot against him may be made public. For the exposure of the wickedness of those who plotted against him is sufficient comfort to the wronged man.

To Trajan. It brings much comfort to the afflicted even to be able to lament their misfortunes, especially when they meet men able, from the nobility of their character, to sympathize with what is painful. Hence the most revered brother Maximus, who governed our homeland, having suffered as no other man ever yet has, stripped of all he had, both what came to him from his father and what he had collected from earlier labours, having suffered countless hardships in body in his wanderings up and down, and not having kept unharmed even his civic standing, for the sake of which free men are accustomed to undergo every labour, has lamented much to us about what befell him, and asked that through us the Iliad of evils that surrounds him might be made plain to you in summary. And I, since I could not otherwise relieve him of any of his troubles, readily granted this favour: to report to your decorum a few things out of the many I heard from him, since he himself seemed to me to blush to narrate his misfortunes plainly. For even if what has happened shows the wrongdoer to be wicked, yet it shows the sufferer to belong to the most pitiable lot, since the very fact of falling into god-sent evils seems somehow to be proof of having been handed over to sufferings. But it is enough for him, as comfort for what has happened, that you look on him with a kindly eye, and that the all-sufficient grace which all enjoy and cannot exhaust (I mean your gentleness) be poured out on him too. And we are all firmly persuaded that in the courts too your favour will give him a great start toward victory. And this man himself, who asked for our letter as being of some help, is the most just of all … [Letter 149] To Trajan. You yourself have seen with your own eyes the ill-treatment of Maximus, formerly of good repute, now the most pitiable of all men, who governed our homeland (would that he had not!). For I think the governorship of provinces will be something many will pray to avoid, if their leaderships are to end in such a conclusion. So what need is there for us to report each thing we saw and heard to a man able, through great sharpness of mind, to guess the rest from a few of the facts? Yet I shall perhaps not seem superfluous to you in saying this: that, many and terrible as were the things dared against him before your arrival, what came afterward was such as to make what went before seem humane. Such an excess of insult and loss and of ill-treatment of his very body had the things later devised against him by the man in power. And now he has come under guard to fill up here the remnant of his evils, unless you are willing to stretch your great hand over the distressed man. I know that I am doing something superfluous in urging your kindness to humanity. Yet since I wish to be useful to the man, I beseech your dignity to add something for our sake to your natural zeal for the good, so that the benefit of our appeal on his behalf may be plain to the man.

To Amphilochius, as from Heraclidas. 1. I remember the conversations we once had with each other, and I have not forgotten what I said and what I heard from your nobility. And now public life no longer holds me. For though I am the same in heart and have not yet put off the old man, yet in outward form, and by putting myself far from the affairs of life, I seem now to have set foot, as it were, on the road of the life according to Christ. I sit by myself, like those about to put out to sea, watching what is to come. For sailors need winds for a good voyage, but we need someone to guide us by the hand and conduct us safely through the salt waves of life. For I reckon that I need first a bridle for my youth, then spurs for the race of godliness. The agent of these is clearly reason, now disciplining our disorder, now rousing the sluggishness of the soul. Again I need other medicines, to wash off the dirt of habit. For you know that we, who have long been accustomed to the marketplace, are unsparing of words and unguarded against the imaginings of the evil one that arise in the mind. We are overcome by honour too, and do not easily lay aside thinking something of ourselves. For these things I reckon that I need a great and experienced teacher. And then, to have the eye of the soul cleansed, so that, all the darkening from ignorance being removed like a film, it may be able to gaze on the beauty of the glory of God, I judge to be no small task, nor one whose benefit lasts for a short time. I know well that your eloquence sees these things too and wishes that someone may be found for this help; and if God ever grants me to meet your decorum, I shall clearly learn more about what I ought to care for. For now, from great ignorance, I cannot even know how much I lack; except that I have not at all repented of my first impulse, nor does my soul flag toward the goal of the life according to God, which you feared on my account, doing well and fittingly, lest, turning back, I should become a pillar of salt, as a certain woman suffered, as I hear. Still, the outside authorities hem me in, the magistrates searching for me as a deserter; but my own heart restrains me most, bearing witness to itself of what I have said. 2. But since you mentioned agreements and announced that you would accuse me, you made me laugh in this dejection of mine, because you are still an orator and do not give up your cleverness. For I think thus, unless as an ignorant man I altogether miss the truth: that there is one road leading to the Lord, and all who travel toward him journey together with one another and go by one agreement of life. So where could I go and be separated from you, and not live with you and serve God with you, to whom we fled for refuge together? Our bodies will be separated by places, but the eye of God clearly watches over both of us in common, if indeed my life too is worthy to be overseen by the eyes of God; for I read somewhere in the Psalms, 'The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous.' For I pray both for you and for everyone who chooses as you do, to be with you in body too, and every night and day to bend the knees with you to our Father in heaven, and with anyone else who calls on God worthily; for I know that communion in prayers brings much gain. But if, as often as it happens that I groan cast aside in a different corner, the charge of lying is surely to follow me, I cannot fight against the argument, but already condemn myself as a liar, if in my old indifference I uttered anything of the kind that makes me liable to the charge of falsehood. 3. When I came near Caesarea, to learn how things stood, and could not bring myself to go into the city itself, I took refuge in the neighbouring poorhouse, to learn there what I wished. Then, when the most God-beloved bishop visited according to his custom, I referred to him the matters your eloquence had enjoined on us. What he answered could not be kept in our memory, and it went beyond the measure of a letter. But in summary he said this about poverty: that the measure is that each should limit his possessions to his last tunic. And he gave us proofs from the Gospel: one, that John the Baptist said, 'He who has two tunics, let him share with him who has none'; another, that the Lord forbade his disciples to have two tunics. He added to these also: 'If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor.' He said that the parable of the pearl also bears on this: that the merchant who found the precious pearl went away, sold all his possessions, and bought it. He added to these that one should not entrust the distribution of goods even to oneself, but to the one entrusted with managing the affairs of the poor. And this he confirmed from the Acts: that they sold their possessions, brought them, and laid them at the feet of the apostles, and by them it was distributed to each as anyone had need. For he said that experience is needed to discern the one truly in need from the one who asks out of greed. And he who gives to the afflicted has given to the Lord and will receive the reward from him; but he who gives to every wanderer has thrown it to a dog, troublesome for his shamelessness, not pitiable for his want. 4. About how we ought to live day by day, he said little in proportion to the greatness of the subject; but I wished you to learn it from him himself, for it is not reasonable for me to spoil the exactness of his teachings. And I prayed to visit him with you some time, so that you might both keep exactly in memory what is said and by your own intelligence find out what is lacking. For this I remember out of the many things I heard: that teaching on how a Christian should live needs not so much speech as daily example. And I know that, if the bond of caring for your father in his old age did not hold you, you would neither yourself have preferred anything to meeting the bishop, nor would you have advised me to leave him and wander in deserts. For the caves and the rocks await us; but the benefits that come from men do not always remain with us. So, if you will bear my advice, you will persuade your father to allow you to leave him for a little and to meet a man who knows much, both from the experience of others and from his own intelligence, and who is able to share it with those who come to him.

To Eustathius the chief physician. If our letters are of any use, do not let any time pass without writing to us and rousing us to write. For we ourselves are plainly made happier by reading the letters of wise men who love the Lord; and whether you for your part find anything in ours worth attention is for you, the readers, to know. If we were not drawn away by the multitude of our occupations, we would not keep ourselves from the delight of writing constantly; but you, whose cares are fewer, charm us with letters as often as you can. For they say that wells become better by being drawn from. Your exhortations drawn from medicine seem to go beside the point, since it is not we who apply the knife, but those whose usefulness is spent who are falling away of themselves. So the Stoic's saying runs: 'Since things do not happen as we wish, we wish them as they happen.' But I do not consent to make my mind agree with the events, though I do not disapprove of people doing unwillingly something that is necessary. For neither do you physicians wish to burn the sick man or otherwise give him pain; yet you often accept it, yielding to the severity of the disease. Nor do sailors willingly throw their cargo overboard; but to escape shipwreck they submit to the jettison, preferring life in poverty to death. So be sure that we too bear painfully and with countless laments the separation of those who stand aloof from us; but we bear it nonetheless, since to lovers of the truth nothing is more precious than God and the hope in him.

To Victor the general. If I failed to write to anyone else, I might perhaps justly incur a charge of carelessness or forgetfulness; but how is it possible to forget you, whose name is spoken among all men? How could I be careless toward you, who surpass almost everyone in the world in the height of your dignities? But the cause of our silence is plain: we hesitate to trouble so great a man. But if, besides your other virtue, you have consented not only to receive letters sent by us but even to ask for those left unwritten, see, we write now with confidence, and we will write in future too, praying to the holy God that you may be given the reward for your honour toward us. On behalf of the church you have anticipated our appeals, doing everything that we could have asked. And you do it not to please men but God, who has honoured you, who has given you good things in this present life and will give others in the age to come, because you have walked his way in truth, keeping your heart unswerving in the soundness of the faith from beginning to end. [Letter 153] To Victor, the former consul. As often as we happen to read letters from your decorum, so often we confess our thanks to God that you continue both to remember us and not to lessen, through any slander, the love which you once consented to take up through a most right judgment or a kindly acquaintance. We pray, then, to the holy God that you may continue in the same disposition toward us, and that we may be worthy of the honour you pay us by your letter.