Letters 1 part 17/32

But now I think I shall change my own mind as well, and laugh at the proverb, seeing it to be so good a nurse of youthful vigor, since it has restored our ruler to full strength.

And henceforth I shall consider nothing comparable to it — not even the Homeric lotus, nor even that ambrosia, whatever it truly was, which fed the Olympians.

As for me, whether I ask for it often or not at all, I shall die but once regardless.

But since death comes in any case, do not hesitate to eat a pleasant relish, one vainly maligned by the proverb.

TO AMPHILOCHIUS, CONCERNING THE CANONS. To a foolish man who asks, it is said, wisdom shall be reckoned;

and it seems that the question of a wise man makes even the fool wise;

which is, by the grace of God, what happens to us, as often as we receive the letters from your industrious soul.

For from the very question we become more attentive to ourselves and more prudent, being taught many things which we did not know, and the concern for accuracy becomes our teacher.

Indeed, even now, though we had never before given thought to your questions, we were compelled both to examine them accurately, and to recall whatever we had heard from the elders, and to reckon up for ourselves the related matters we had been taught.

Now concerning the question about the Cathari, it has both been stated before, and you have rightly recalled, that one must follow the custom of each region, because those who at that time dealt with these matters held differing views concerning their baptism.

For the ancients judged that that baptism which departs in nothing from the faith should be received;

wherefore they called some of them heresies, others schisms, and others illicit assemblies.

Heresies are those who have utterly broken away and become estranged in the faith itself; schisms are those who, on account of certain ecclesiastical causes and curable disputes, have become divided from one another; and illicit assemblies are the gatherings held by unruly presbyters or bishops, and by uninstructed people.

For instance, if someone, having been examined for an offense, was suspended from ministry, and did not submit to the canons, but claimed for himself the presidency and the ministry, and certain others departed with him, forsaking the catholic Church — such a thing is an illicit assembly.

A schism is to hold a differing view concerning penance from those in the Church. Heresies, for example, are that of the Manichaeans, and the Valentinians, and the Marcionites, and these same Pepuzians;

for with them the difference concerns at once the very faith in God.

It seemed good, then, to those of old times to reject the baptism of heretics altogether;

But the baptism of those who have merely split off is to be accepted, since they are still of the Church.

But those who are in the schismatic assemblies, once they have been reformed by notable repentance and conversion, are to be joined again to the Church; so that often even those who, holding rank, went off along with the insubordinate, when they repent, are received back into that same rank.

The Pepuzians, then, are manifestly heretics.

For they blasphemed against the Holy Spirit, unlawfully and shamelessly bestowing the title of the Paraclete upon Montanus and Priscilla.

Whether, then, it is that they deify mere men and are thereby condemned,

or that they insult the Holy Spirit by comparing him with men, and are thus liable to eternal condemnation, since blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable,

what reason, then, is there for the baptism of these people, who baptize into the Father and the Son and Montanus or Priscilla, to be approved? For those baptized into things not handed down to us have not truly been baptized at all.

For the absurdity of this is at once evident, and plain to all who have even a small share of reasoning.

The Cathari, too, are themselves among those who have split off.

It is our custom to subject all these—the Cathari, the Encratites, and the Hydroparastatae—to a single ruling, because the beginning of their separation came about through schism;

but those who departed from the Church no longer had the grace of the Holy Spirit resting upon them;

for the transmission of grace failed once the succession was interrupted.

For those who first withdrew received their ordinations from the Fathers, and through the laying on of their hands they possessed the spiritual gift;

but those who broke away, having become laymen, no longer had authority either to baptize or to ordain, being no longer able to bestow on others a grace of the Holy Spirit from which they themselves had fallen away.

But since it has, on the whole, seemed good to some of those in Asia, for the sake of economy toward the majority of the people, that their baptism be accepted, let it be accepted.

But we must recognize the villainy of the Encratites: in order to make themselves unacceptable to the Church, they went on to attempt to preempt matters with a baptism of their own;

and thus they also falsified their own tradition.

I think, then, that since nothing definite has been pronounced concerning them, it is fitting for us to set aside their baptism;

and if anyone has received it from them, upon coming to the Church he is to be baptized.

If, however, this is likely to be an obstacle to the general economy, then the custom must again be followed, and we must follow the Fathers who have administered our affairs.

For I am apprehensive that, in wishing to make them reluctant about baptizing, we may hinder those who are being saved, on account of the severity of the proposal.

But if they observe our form of baptism, let this not deter us.

For we are not obliged to render them a favor in return, but to be subject to the strict accuracy of the canons.

In every case let it be laid down as a rule that those who come forward for that baptism are to be anointed in the presence of the faithful, obviously, and thus to approach the mysteries.

I know that we received the brothers Izois and Saturninus, who were of that order, into the seat of bishops.

So that we can no longer distinguish from the Church those who are joined to their order, since, through the acceptance of their bishops, we have as it were set forth a kind of rule for communion with them.

A woman who destroys a fetus by deliberate design undergoes the penalty for murder.

With us there is no precise distinction made between the formed and the unformed fetus.

For here what is avenged is not only the one who was to be born, but also the woman herself, who plotted against her own life; for in the great majority of such attempts the women themselves die.

Added to this is also the destruction of the embryo, another murder, at least according to the intent of those who dare such things.

but the remedy is to be determined not by a fixed length of time, but by the manner of the repentance.

Accordingly, since his ministry is not restored to him, they have settled upon this alone as the extent of the punishment.

These, then, are the matters drawn from the established precedents.

But in general, the truer remedy is withdrawal from sin.

So that he who set aside grace for the sake of fleshly pleasure will, through the mortification of the flesh and all the discipline that comes through self-control—having departed from the pleasures by which he was ruined—furnish us with complete proof of his own healing.

...of the custom; but with those who have not embraced the utmost rigor, we are to follow the pattern that has been handed down.

Concerning those in a third marriage and those in multiple marriages, they have determined the same canon proportionately applied as in the case of those in a second marriage;

for one year in the case of a second marriage, though others prescribe two years.

But those in a third marriage they exclude for three, and often even four, years.

And such a thing they no longer call marriage, but polygamy, or rather a chastened fornication.

"The man you now have," it says, "is not your husband," seeing that those who have exceeded the measure of a second marriage are no longer worthy to be called by the name of husband or wife.

We have received it as a custom, in the case of those in a third marriage, that the exclusion be five years—not from the canons, but from the practice of those who preceded us.

Those among the heretics who repent at the point of death must be received; received, of course, not without discernment, but only after testing whether they show true repentance, and whether they have fruits that bear witness to their zeal for salvation.

The fornications of consecrated women are not to be reckoned as marriage, but their union is to be dissolved by every means.

For this is both profitable for the security of the Church and will give the heretics no handle against us, as though we were drawing people to ourselves by granting license to sin. Sodomites, and those guilty of bestiality, and murderers, and sorcerers, and adulterers, and idolaters have been deemed worthy of the same condemnation.

So then, keep for these cases too the same pattern that you keep for the others.

As for those who, after thirty years, have repented of an impurity they committed in ignorance, it is not even fitting for us to hesitate in receiving them.

For both their ignorance renders them worthy of pardon, and the voluntary nature of their confession, and the length of time that has elapsed.

For they have been handed over to Satan for nearly a whole generation of a man's life, that they might be taught not to behave shamefully.

So then, give orders that they now be received without further delay, especially if they also have tears that move your compassion, and show forth a life worthy of sympathy.

He who in a fit of anger uses an axe against his own wife is a murderer.

You have rightly reminded me, and in a manner worthy of your own good sense, to speak at greater length about these matters, since there are many distinctions among voluntary and involuntary acts.

For it is entirely involuntary, and far removed from what the agent intended, when a man hurls a stone at a dog or a tree and instead strikes a person.

For his impulse was to drive off the animal or to knock down the fruit, and the passerby happened by chance to fall under the blow in passing; such a thing is therefore involuntary.

Involuntary, too, is the case where someone, wishing to correct another, strikes him with a strap or a rod that is not hard, and the one struck dies.

For here what is to be considered is the intention, namely that he wished to improve the offender, not to kill him.

Among involuntary acts also is this: when one who is defending himself against another in a fight, with a stick or with his bare hand, deals a blow unsparingly to a vital spot, so as to injure him, but not so as to kill him outright.

But this already borders on the voluntary.

For one who resorts to so great an instrument for self-defense, or who deals the blow without restraint, plainly, because he is overpowered by passion, has no regard for the man.

Likewise, both the one who uses a heavy piece of wood and the one who uses a stone beyond human strength are numbered among the involuntary offenders, having intended one thing and done another.

For in his anger he dealt such a blow as to kill the one struck;

and yet perhaps his intent was only to bruise him, not to kill him outright.

But one who uses a sword or any such weapon has no excuse whatsoever, and especially one who hurls an axe,

so that, because of the weight of the iron, its edge, and the great distance it travels, the blow necessarily proves fatal.

Wholly voluntary again, and admitting of no doubt whatsoever, is the case of robbers and of assaults made in war.

For the former commit murder for the sake of money, evading detection, while those engaged in war go about killing, choosing openly not to frighten or correct their opponents, but to destroy them outright.

And indeed, even if for some other reason someone concocts a magical potion, and it causes death, we reckon such an act voluntary;

as women often do, attempting through certain incantations and binding-spells to draw men into love for themselves, and administering to them drugs that produce a clouding of the mind.

Such women, when they cause death—even though they intended one thing and brought about another—are nevertheless, because of the magical and forbidden nature of the practice, reckoned among those who commit murder voluntarily.

So too those who administer abortifacient drugs are themselves murderers, as are those who take the poisons that destroy the embryo.

The Lord's pronouncement, according to the logical sequence of its meaning, applies equally to men and women, that it is not permitted to depart from marriage except on the ground of fornication.

But custom does not stand thus; rather, in the case of women we find much strictness observed, since the Apostle says:

"He who is joined to a harlot is one body [with her]," and Jeremiah says:

"If a wife becomes another man's, she shall not return to her husband, but shall surely be defiled"; and again:

"He who keeps an adulteress is foolish and impious."

But custom prescribes that even men who commit adultery and live in fornication should still be kept by their wives.

So that I do not know whether a woman living with a man who has been put away by his wife can rightly be called an adulteress.

For here the charge concerns the woman who put away her husband, depending on what cause she left the marriage.

For whether it was because, being beaten, she could not bear the blows, she ought rather to have endured than to be separated from her husband;

or whether it was because she could not bear financial loss, this excuse too is not weighty enough.

But if it was because he was living in fornication, we do not have this observance in the custom of the Church; rather, a wife was not commanded to separate even from an unbelieving husband, but to remain, because of the uncertainty of the outcome.

"For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband?" So that the woman who leaves is an adulteress, if she has gone to another man.

But the man who was left is to be pardoned, and the woman who lives with such a man is not condemned.

If, however, the husband departs from his wife and goes to another, he himself is an adulterer, because he causes her to be made an adulteress;

and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has drawn to herself a man belonging to another.

As for those who swear that they will not accept ordination, if they recant their oath, let them not be compelled to commit perjury.

For even if there seems to be some canon that grants indulgence to such persons, yet we have learned by experience that those who have broken their oath do not prosper.

One must also consider the form of the oath, the words used, the disposition from which they swore, and the minute additions in the wording;

so that, if there is no mitigating circumstance from any quarter whatsoever, such persons must be left entirely to their oath.

As for the matter concerning Severus, or rather the presbyter ordained by him, it seems to me to admit of some such mitigation, if you also agree.

As for that field belonging to Mestia, to which the man was publicly assigned, order that it be made tributary to Vasoda.

For thus that man will not break his oath by not withdrawing from the place, and Longinus, having Cyriacus with him, will not leave the church desolate, nor condemn his own soul through idleness.

And we too shall be seen not to be acting contrary to the canons, in showing indulgence to Cyriacus, who swore to remain with the people of Mindana, yet accepted the transfer.

For his return will constitute the keeping of his oath.

And his yielding to this dispensation will not be reckoned to him as perjury, since it was not stipulated in the oath that he would not withdraw from Mindana even for a short time, but rather that he would continue to remain there thereafter.

As for Severus, who pleads forgetfulness as his excuse, we shall grant him indulgence, saying that the Knower of hidden things will not overlook His own Church being harmed by such a man—who acted uncanonically from the very start, who bound others by an oath contrary to the Gospels, who taught the breaking of oaths by the very means by which he was transferred, and who now lies by feigning this forgetfulness.

But since we are not judges of hearts, but judge from what we hear, let us leave vengeance to the Lord, and ourselves receive him without discrimination, granting pardon to human weakness for his forgetfulness.

As for the one who committed involuntary manslaughter, he has sufficiently fulfilled his penance in the eleven years.

And even if the victim did not rise up after the blows, yet, since he did not intend to kill him, the one who struck him is indeed a homicide, but an involuntary one, on account of his intention.

The canon has entirely excluded twice-married men from ministry.

Killings in war our fathers did not reckon as murders, granting pardon, as it seems to me, to those defending chastity and piety.

Yet perhaps it is well to advise that, since their hands are not clean, they abstain from communion alone for three years.

He who takes interest, if he consents to spend the unjust gain on the poor and to be freed henceforth from the malady of love of money, is acceptable for the priesthood.

I am amazed at you for demanding grammatical precision in Scripture, and for supposing that the wording of the translation is constrained, expressing only its own clear sense, rather than precisely rendering what is properly signified by the Hebrew tongue.

But since it is necessary not to pass over idly the problem raised by a man given to inquiry, I note that the birds of the heaven and the fish of the sea received the same origin in the making of the world.

For both kinds were brought forth out of the waters.

The reason is that the same property belongs to each of them.

For the one kind swims through the water, while the other, as it were, swims through the air.

The form of the expression, though inappropriately applied with respect to fish in the strict sense, is nevertheless quite fittingly applied with respect to all creatures that dwell in the waters.

For the birds of the heaven have been made subject to man, and the fish of the sea—and not these alone, but also all that pass through the paths of the seas.

For not everything that lives in water is a fish, such as the cetaceans—whales, hammerhead sharks, dolphins, and seals, and moreover sea-horses, sea-dogs, saw-fish, sword-fish, and sea-cows; or, if you will, also sea-anemones, scallops, and all shellfish, none of which is a fish, and yet all of these pass through the paths of the seas.

Now Naaman was great, not "before the Lord," but "before his master"—that is, he was one of those who held power alongside the king of the Syrians.

Attend, therefore, carefully to Scripture, and you will find the solution to the question right there.

TO EUSTATHIUS, CHIEF PHYSICIAN. The practice of medicine is, indeed, for all of you who pursue it, a work of philanthropy.

And it seems to me that, among all the pursuits valued in life, the one who places your science foremost would attain the fitting judgment and not miss the mark of what is proper, since life—the thing most prized of all—is to be shunned and full of pain, if it is not possible to possess it together with health;

and it is your art that supplies health.

But for you, this science is exceptionally well-mastered, and you set for yourself broader boundaries of philanthropy, not confining the benefit of your art to bodies alone, but also devising the correction of the soul's ailments.

I say this not merely following the reports of the many, but taught also by my own experience—in many other instances, and especially now, in the indescribable malice of our enemies, which, like a torrent of evil, poured against our life, [malice] which you skillfully dispersed, dissolving this grievous inflammation of our heart by the pouring-on of your consoling words.

For as I looked upon the repeated and manifold assault of our enemies against us, I thought it necessary to keep silent and to receive quietly what was brought against us, and not to speak in opposition to those armed with falsehood—that evil weapon which often thrusts home its edge even through the truth.

But you, acting rightly, urged me not to betray the truth, but to refute the slanderers, lest many be harmed while falsehood prevails over the truth.

It seemed to me, then, that those who have taken up an unprovoked hatred against us were doing something very like the fable of Aesop.

For just as he made the wolf bring certain accusations against the lamb—the wolf being, as it were, ashamed to seem to be killing without just cause one who had done him no prior harm—and the lamb easily dissolving every charge brought by slander, the wolf did not in the least relax his onslaught, but though defeated by just arguments, conquered by his teeth;

so too those for whom hatred against us has been pursued as though it were something good—blushing, perhaps, at seeming to hate without cause—fabricate charges and accusations against us, and do not persist to the end in any of the things they say, but now allege this reason for their hostility against us, and shortly after another, and yet again another.

Their malice stands firm on nothing at all; rather, whenever they are shaken off from this charge, they cling to another, and from that one again they seize upon yet another;

and even if all the charges are refuted, they do not desist from hating.

They accuse us of proclaiming three gods, and they fill the ears of the many with this din, and do not cease contriving this slander persuasively.

But truth fights on our behalf, since we show, both publicly to all and privately to those who meet with us, that everyone who says there are three gods has been anathematized by us, and is judged not even to be a Christian.

But when they hear this, Sabellius is at once ready at hand for them to bring against us, and the malady stemming from him is loudly rumored to be our teaching.

Again, in the face of this too, we put forward our usual weapon, the truth, showing that we shudder at such a heresy no less than at Judaism.

What then? Have they, after so many attempts, grown weary and fallen silent? It is not so.

But they bring against us a new charge, framing the accusation against us in this way, against those who confess three hypostases:

they accuse us of saying there is one goodness, one power, and one Godhead.

And this, they say, is not outside the truth;

But in bringing this charge, they allege that their custom does not have this, and that Scripture does not agree with it.

What, then, do we say to this as well? We do not consider it just to make the custom prevailing among them a law and a rule of right doctrine.

For if custom has strong force for proving correctness, then it is certainly permitted to us also to put forward, in turn, the custom prevailing among us.

But if they reject this custom of ours, neither are we bound at all to follow theirs.

Let the God-inspired Scripture, then, be our arbiter, and with whichever party its doctrines are found to be in harmony with the divine words, upon them will the verdict of truth surely fall.

It is one thing to distinguish the hypostases, and another thing no longer to number any of the God-befitting names in the plural, but, as has been said before, to proclaim in the singular the one goodness and power and Godhead, and all such things.

As for the distinction of the hypostases, then, those who dogmatize about a difference of substances in the divine nature would surely not be opposed to it.

that those who speak of three substances should not also speak of three hypostases

Therefore this alone stands as the accusation: that the names applied to the divine nature are proclaimed only in the singular.

But our answer to this is ready and clear.

For whoever condemns those who speak of one Godhead will necessarily side with the one who speaks of many, or with the one who speaks of none.

For it is not possible to conceive anything else beside what has been stated.

But the divinely inspired teaching nowhere permits speaking of many; wherever it does make mention, it speaks of the Godhead only in the singular.

"For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead." And elsewhere:

"For his invisible things from the creation of the world are perceived, being understood through the things that are made—both his eternal power and divinity." If, then, to extend the number of godheads into a plurality belongs only to those infected with the error of polytheism, while to deny the divinity altogether would belong to atheists, what argument is there that accuses us of confessing one Godhead? But they reveal the aim of their argument more openly:

they concede that the Father is God, and agree that the Son is likewise honored with the name of Godhead;

but that the Spirit, though numbered together with the Father and the Son, is no longer included together with the concept of Godhead; rather, holding that the power of the Godhead stops at the Son, they separate the nature of the Spirit from the divine glory.

Therefore we too must make our defense, as briefly as we are able, against this notion as well.

What then is our argument? When the Lord handed down the saving faith to those being made disciples by the word, he joined the Holy Spirit together with the Father and the Son.

And what has once been joined together, we affirm, holds this conjunction throughout.

For that which is joined in one respect is not thereby separated in others; rather, in the life-giving power by which our nature is transformed from a corruptible life into immortality, the power of the Spirit is taken together with the Father and the Son—and likewise in many other respects, such as in the notion of goodness, of holiness, of eternity, of wisdom, of uprightness, of sovereignty, of power; and everywhere, evidently, it maintains its inseparability in all the names conceived with reference to what is higher.

We therefore consider it right to hold that what is joined with the Father and the Son in so many exalted and God-befitting notions should not be thought to be distinguished from them in any respect.

For we know of no difference of higher and lower among the names conceived concerning the divine nature, such that it should be thought permissible—while granting the Spirit fellowship in the lesser names—to judge it unworthy of the more exalted ones.

For all the concepts and names befitting God have equal honor with one another, since none of them differs in the meaning concerning the underlying reality.

For the appellation "good" does not lead the mind to one underlying reality while "wise" and "powerful" and "just" lead it to another; rather, whatever names you utter, the thing signified through all of them is one.

And even if you say "God," you will be pointing to the very same reality that you conceived through the other names.

But if all the names applied to the divine nature are equivalent to one another in indicating the underlying reality, though each guides our thought to the same thing by a different emphasis, what reason is there, while granting the Spirit fellowship with the Father and the Son in the other names, to separate it from Godhead alone? For it is altogether necessary either to grant it fellowship in this name as well, or else not to grant it in the rest either.

For if it is worthy in those, it is by no means unworthy in this one either.

But if, according to their argument, it is too small to admit fellowship with the Father and the Son in the name of Godhead, then it is not worthy to partake of any other of the names befitting God either.

For when the names are examined and compared with one another according to the emphasis discerned in each, none of them will be found to fall short of the appellation "God."

and it is even applied to lesser things—or rather, divine Scripture does not withhold this common designation even in the case of things wholly at variance with God, when it calls idols by the appellation "God."

For it says, "Let the gods that did not make heaven and earth be taken away and cast beneath the earth."

And again it says, "All the gods of the nations are demons."

And the medium, conjuring up souls for Saul by her sorceries, says that she saw the souls he sought as "gods."

But Balaam too, being a certain augur and diviner, carrying his instruments of divination in his hand, as Scripture says, and having through his curious augural art procured for himself teaching from demons, is nevertheless recorded by Scripture as one who "consulted with God."

And one could gather many such instances from the divine Scriptures and set them forth, showing that this name holds no primacy above the other names befitting God, seeing that, as has been said, we find it also applied by the same term even to things wholly discordant with him.

But we have been taught by Scripture that the name "holy," "incorruptible," "upright," and "good" is nowhere made common with things that ought not to bear it.