Letters 1 part 25/32

For indeed the report has already reached the whole surrounding region, proclaiming the shame of the man who fell among you — who, out of desire for empty glory, brought upon himself the most shameful disgrace, and was found to have forfeited the rewards of the faith through self-love, while not even obtaining that wretched petty glory itself for whose sake, in his longing, he sold himself to impiety — being met instead with the righteous hatred of those who fear the Lord.

But he, by his present choice, has furnished the clearest proof of his whole life — that he never lived in hope of the promises laid up for us by the Lord;

but whatever he transacted among men — both words of faith and a semblance of piety — all of it was contrived for the deception of those he met.

But how does what has happened trouble you? In what way have you become worse than you were on account of this? One has been lost from your fullness/company;

and even if another one or two went off along with him, these are pitiable for their fall, but your body remains whole by the grace of God.

For indeed that which was useless has fallen away, while that which remains has not been mutilated.

And if it grieves you that you have been driven out from the church walls, yet you shall lodge under the shelter of the God of heaven, and the angel who watches over the church has gone forth together with you.

So that they now lie down each day in empty houses, preparing for themselves a heavy judgment through the scattering of the people.

And if there is also some hardship in this matter, I am persuaded, before the Lord, that it will not turn out in vain for you.

So that the more trials you undergo, the more abundant the reward you may expect from the righteous Judge.

Therefore neither be distressed at present circumstances, nor grow weary in hope.

For yet a very little while, and he who takes hold of you will come to you, and will not delay.

...to find some consolation for our long separation through communication by letter.

And when you pray, we ask this above all else and foremost: ask of the Lord that we may be delivered from perverse and wicked men, who have gained such mastery over the peoples that now we picture to ourselves nothing other than the very events of the Jewish captivity.

For the more the churches decline into weakness, the more the love of power among men flourishes.

And now the title of the episcopate has fallen among wretched men, slaves born of slaves, since none of the servants of God is willing to put himself forward — leaving it to men given over to despair, such as those now sent by Anysius, the creature of Euippius, and Ecdicius of Parnassus, whom he who appointed him has left behind in the churches as an evil provision of his own for the life to come.

These men have now driven my brother out of Nyssa, and installed in his place a man — or rather a mere slave — worth but a few obols, whose corruption of the faith rivals that of those who appointed him.

As for the affairs of Nicopolis, who could lament them adequately, seeing that the wretched Fronto, who formerly pretended to plead the cause of truth, has in the end shamefully betrayed both the faith and himself, and received as the wage of his betrayal a name of infamy? For he received from them, as he supposes, the dignity of the episcopate, but by the grace of God he has become a common abomination to the whole of Armenia.

Except that nothing is too bold for them to attempt, nor are they ever at a loss for accomplices fit for their purpose.

As for the rest of the affairs of Syria, our brother Antiochus both knows them better than we do and will relate them to you.

As to what I ought to write through them, or how I should come to terms with those who write to me, I myself am at a loss;

but if you should quickly find those who are coming to us, be so good as to let us know.

'Would that you had not begged him,' it is said, 'for the man is proud.' For indeed it is the nature of proud characters, when courted, to become still more disdainful of others.

...having quarreled with those who declared the truth to them, and having confirmed the heresy through their own doing.

For I myself, apart from the customary form, wished to write to their leader concerning them;

concerning ecclesiastical matters, nothing at all — except so far as to hint that they know neither the truth that is among us, nor accept the way by which they might learn it — and in general, that one ought not to attack those who have been humbled by trials, nor to judge rank itself to be arrogance, a sin which alone suffices to create enmity toward God.

TO THE PRESBYTERS OF NICOPOLIS. You did well both in writing to us, and in writing through such a man, who even without a letter would have sufficed to give us ample comfort in our cares and to give an accurate account of the situation.

For there were many things we sought to learn from one who knew them most clearly, since reports were reaching us in distorted form; and all these things our most beloved and most honored brother Theodosius, our fellow presbyter, related to us steadily and with full knowledge.

What therefore we counsel for ourselves, this also we write to your piety:

that these things which have happened to you have also happened to many others, and not only in the present time, but in past time as well there are countless examples of such things;

some of these the histories have left recorded in writing, while others we have received by unwritten memory from those who knew them — namely, that trials for the sake of the name of the Lord have beset both individual men and whole cities among those who had set their hope in Him.

But nevertheless all these things passed away, and none of the grievous things kept its sorrow undying.

Just as hailstorms and torrents, and all such sudden evils, easily injure and ravage what is soft, but when they meet with what resists them, they suffer something rather than do anything;

so also the violent trials that were stirred up against the Church have proven weaker than the firmness of faith in Christ.

As therefore the cloud of hail has passed and the torrent has flowed away through the ravine (for the one dissolved into clear sky, and the other vanished into the deep, leaving dry and moistureless the path by which it flowed);

so also the things that now buffet us like a storm will, a little later, be no more.

Only if we consent not to look at the present, but to fix our gaze with hope a little further ahead.

Whether then the trial is heavy, brothers, let us endure its hardships.

For no one is crowned who has not been struck in the contests, nor covered with the dust of the arena.

Or, if these are but trifling games of the devil, and those sent against us are troublesome — because they are servants of such a one — yet contemptible, because God has joined weakness to their wickedness, let us guard against the reproach of lamenting greatly over small sufferings.

For there is but one thing worthy of grief: the ruin of that man himself who, for the sake of transient glory (if indeed one ought to call it glory to disgrace oneself publicly), has deprived himself of the eternal honor of the righteous.

You are children of confessors and children of martyrs, who resisted sin even unto blood.

Let each of you use his own family's examples for steadfastness in defense of piety.

None of you has been torn by scourges, no one's house has been confiscated;

we have not dwelt in exile, we have not come to know a prison.

What terrible thing have we suffered? Unless perhaps this is the very grievous thing — that we have suffered nothing, and have not been counted worthy of sufferings for Christ's sake.

For Judas, having preferred death by hanging to living in shame, showed himself perhaps more worthy of choice than those who now, having become shameless in the face of every human reproach, are for that reason disposed toward disgraceful things without any sense of shame.

Only do not be deceived by their false speech, when they profess orthodoxy of faith.

For such men are traffickers in Christ, and not Christians, since they always prefer whatever is profitable to them in this present life over living according to the truth.

When they thought they were acquiring this empty office, they attached themselves to the enemies of Christ;

when they saw the people growing enraged, they again feign orthodoxy.

I do not recognize as bishop, nor would I number among the priests of Christ, the man who has been put forward for leadership by profane hands for the overthrow of the faith.

But you, if you have any part with us, will clearly think the same things as we do;

but if you take counsel by yourselves, each is master of his own judgment; we are innocent of this blood.

so that some who had not been received into communion, nor had accepted the laying on of their hand, afterward, when peace had come, forced themselves to be numbered among the fullness of the priesthood.

We greet through you all the clergy, both those in the city and those in the countryside, together with all the people who fear the Lord.

TO EUSEBIUS, BISHOP OF SAMOSATA. It is not so as to increase your despondency that we do not spare recounting hardships often in our letters to your honor, but so as both to give ourselves some comfort through our groanings, which by nature somehow disperse the pain hidden deep within whenever they occur, and to spur your greatness of mind to more fervent prayer on behalf of the Churches.

For Moses too, of course, was always praying on behalf of the people; yet when the battle against Amalek was joined, he did not let down his hands from morning until evening, but the outstretching of the saint's hands continued unbroken to the end of the battle.

So also we ourselves, though we have come to the very extremity of evils, are not letting go of our hope in God, but from every side we are looking about for His help.

Therefore we have now turned our eyes to you also, our most honored brothers, whom we often expected would appear to us in the time of our afflictions;

but having fallen from that hope, we too said to ourselves, 'I waited for one who would grieve with me, and there was none, and for comforters, and I found none.'

For such are our sufferings that they have reached even the ends of our inhabited world; and if, when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, surely it was fitting that your compassion also should be affected together with us, who have labored so long a time.

For it is not nearness of place, but union in the Spirit, that by nature produces the intimacy which we have believed to exist between us and your love.

Why then has there come to us no letter of consolation, no visit of brethren, nothing else owed to us by the law of love? For this is now the thirteenth year since the heretical war rose up against us, in which more afflictions have come upon the Churches than are recorded from the time the Gospel of Christ has been proclaimed.

We beg to be excused from narrating these things to you in detail, lest perhaps the weakness of our speech should diminish the vividness of the evils;

and at the same time we do not think that you need instruction, since you have long since been taught the truth of these matters by report.

the people, having abandoned the houses of prayer, gather together in the deserts.

women and children and old men and those otherwise weak, suffering hardship in the open air amid the most violent rains and snowstorms and winds and the frost of winter, and likewise in summer beneath the blazing heat of the sun.

refusing to become partakers of the wicked leaven of Arius.

How could words vividly set these things before you, unless experience itself and the sight seen with one's own eyes should move you to sympathy? Wherefore we entreat you, now at last, to stretch out a hand to the Churches of the East, which have already sunk to their knees, and to send certain men to remind us of the rewards laid up for endurance of sufferings on behalf of Christ.

For the familiar voice does not by nature have as much effect as a strange voice does in producing consolation, especially when it comes from men known for the noblest qualities by the grace of God — such as report proclaims you to be to all mankind: men who have remained unwounded in the faith, and who have kept inviolate the apostolic deposit.

But our own case has not been like this; rather, we have had some who, through desire for glory and through that pride which most of all overthrows the souls of Christians, have grown bold in certain innovations of expression, whence the Churches, having become unsound, received the heretical corruption flowing in upon them, like vessels grown porous.

But you, O beloved and greatly longed-for by us, become physicians to the wounded, and trainers to those who are healthy;

healing what has fallen sick, and anointing what is healthy for piety.

TO THE ITALIAN AND GALLIC BISHOPS, CONCERNING THE STATE AND CONFUSION OF THE CHURCHES. To the truly most God-beloved and most longed-for brothers and like-minded fellow-ministers, the bishops throughout Gaul and Italy, Basil, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, having deigned to call the whole Church of God His own body, and having shown each one of us to be members of one another, has granted also to all of us to be intimately related to all, according to the harmony proper to members of a body.

Since therefore the head cannot say to the feet:

'I have no need of you' — surely you also will not bear to reject us, but will sympathize with us in the afflictions to which we have been delivered on account of our sins, just as much as we also rejoice with you who are glorified in the peace which the Lord has granted you.

Already, then, on other occasions too we have cried out to your love for aid and sympathy for us, but assuredly, because the time of our vindication had not yet been fulfilled, you were not permitted to rise up in our defense.

For we desire, most of all, that our confusion should be made manifest, through your piety, even to the ruler himself who governs the realm in your parts;

but if this is difficult, at least that some should come from among you to visit and console those afflicted, so that they might set before their own eyes the sufferings of the East, which cannot possibly be received by hearing alone, since no words can be found that vividly set our situation before you.

And what is most grievous of all is this: that while those who suffer ill-treatment receive their sufferings in the full assurance of martyrdom, the people do not honor these contestants in the rank of martyrs, because the persecutors also bear the name of Christians.

There is one charge now being vehemently punished: the exact observance of the traditions of the Fathers.

Neither is gray hair held in reverence by these judges of iniquity, nor the practice of piety, nor a manner of life according to the Gospel maintained from youth to old age.

though not a shred of proof has been brought forward for the accusations, they are handed over to punishments.

Some, indeed, neither knew their accusers, nor saw any courts, nor were even falsely charged at all; but, seized by force in the dead of night, they were driven into exile, delivered over to death by the hardships of the wilderness.

But what follows these things is known to everyone, even if we ourselves remain silent;

banishments of presbyters, banishments of deacons, the plundering of the whole clergy.

For there is compulsion either to worship the image, or to be delivered over to the cruel flame of the scourges.

Groaning of the peoples, ceaseless tears both in their homes and in public, all lamenting to one another what they suffer.

For no one is so stony-hearted as to bear meekly the orphanhood of being deprived of a father.

The sound of mourners in the city, the sound in the fields, on the roads, in the deserts.

One pitiable voice, as all speak forth their grievous woes.

Joy and spiritual gladness have been taken away.

Our feasts have been turned into mourning, houses of prayer have been shut up, the altars of spiritual worship lie idle.

No longer are there gatherings of Christians, no longer presiding seats of teachers, no saving instruction, no festal assemblies, no nightly hymn-singing, nor that blessed exultation of soul which comes upon the souls of those who believe in the Lord, arising from their assemblies and from communion in the spiritual gifts.

In this present time there is neither ruler nor prophet nor leader, neither offering nor incense, nor a place to bring an offering before the Lord and find mercy.

We write these things to you who already know them, because there is no part of the inhabited world which any longer remains ignorant of our calamities.

So it is fitting that you should not suppose we make these remarks for the sake of instruction, nor to remind your gracious selves of what you already know.

For we know that you would never forget us, any more than a mother forgets the offspring of her womb.

But since those who are held fast by some pain are naturally inclined to ease their sufferings somewhat through groaning, this too we do: we, as it were, unload the burden of our grief by reporting to your love our manifold calamities, in the hope that, being moved the more earnestly to prayers on our behalf, you may prevail upon the Lord to be reconciled to us.

Now if it were only afflictions that were wearing us down, we would have counseled ourselves to keep quiet and to rejoice in our sufferings for Christ's sake, since "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us."

But now we fear lest the evil, growing ever greater—like a flame advancing through burning fuel—once it has consumed what is near, may catch hold also of what is far off.

For the evil of heresy spreads like a grass-fire in a pasture, and there is fear lest, having devoured our churches, it may now creep on and reach also the healthy part of your diocese among you.

Perhaps, then, it is because sin has abounded among us that we were the first to be handed over as food for the flesh-devouring teeth of the enemies of Christ.

Or perhaps—and this is the more likely conjecture—it is because the Gospel of the kingdom, beginning from our regions, went forth into all the inhabited world, that for this reason the common enemy of our souls contends that the words of apostasy, taking their beginning from these same regions, should be spread throughout the whole world.

For upon those on whom the light of the knowledge of Christ has shone, upon these he also devises that the darkness of impiety should come.

Reckon our sufferings, then, as your own, as genuine disciples of the Lord.

It is not for money, not for glory, not for any other temporal thing that we are warred against; but for our common possession, the ancestral treasure of sound faith, that we stand our ground and struggle.

Grieve with us, O lovers of the brethren, because among us the mouths of the pious have been shut, while every bold and blasphemous tongue of those who speak wickedness against God has been opened.

The pillars and the foundation of the truth are scattered abroad;

overlooked, deprived of freedom of speech.

Be in agony for the peoples, and do not look only to your own affairs—that you lie at anchor in calm harbors, God's grace granting you full shelter from the storm of the spirits of wickedness.

But also stretch out a hand to the churches that are storm-tossed, lest, being utterly abandoned, they suffer complete shipwreck of the faith.

Groan on our behalf, because the Only-begotten is blasphemed, and there is none to speak against it.

The Holy Spirit is set at naught, and he who is able to refute this is driven away.

Among them there is a great God and a lesser one.

The Son is reckoned to be, not a name of nature, but an appellation of a certain honor;

that the Holy Spirit does not complete the Holy Trinity, nor share in the divine and blessed nature, but is one of the things from creation, thrown together at random and by chance with the Father and the Son.

"Who will give water to my head, and to my eyes a fountain of tears?" And I will weep for the people many days, who are being driven toward destruction by these wicked teachings.

The ears of the more simple-hearted are being swept away;

they have now come into the habit of heretical impiety.

The infants of the Church are being reared together on the words of impiety.

For what else can they do? Baptisms performed by them, funeral processions for the departed, visitations of the sick, consolation of the sorrowful, help for the afflicted, assistance of every kind, participation in the mysteries—

all these, being performed through them, become a bond of concord binding the people to them;

so that, after a little time has passed, even should some opportunity arise, there will no longer be any hope that those who have been held fast by this long-standing deception can be called back again to the full knowledge of the truth.

For these reasons it was necessary that many of us should hasten together to your Reverence, and that each should become a narrator of his own affairs.

But now let even this very fact be to you a proof of the hardship in which we are living: that we are not even masters of our own travel.

For if anyone should absent himself from his own church even for the briefest time, he will leave the people abandoned to those who lie in wait.

and he is able to supply, by his own account, whatever has escaped our letter, since he has followed everything closely with precision and is himself a zealot for the orthodox faith.

Receive him in peace, and send him back to us speedily, bearing good tidings of the zeal which you have for helping the brotherhood.

TO PATROPHILUS, BISHOP OF THE CHURCH IN AEGAE. I have read your letter, which you sent by our brother Strategius, our fellow-presbyter, and I read it with pleasure.

For how could I not, seeing it was written by a prudent man, and from a heart taught by the Lord's commandment to achieve love toward all? And I very nearly discerned the reason for your silence in the time past.

For you seemed like one perplexed and astonished:

whether that Basil, who from boyhood served such-and-such a man in such-and-such a way, who did this and that at such-and-such times, who took upon himself war against countless foes for the sake of his devotion to the One—whether this same man has now become another out of the man he was, and has taken up war in place of love; and all the other things you wrote, showing sufficiently your soul's amazement at the unaccountable change in circumstances.

And if you also took me to task in any way, I did not receive this with displeasure.

For I am not so unreceptive to admonition as to be vexed at the loving rebukes of the brethren.

Indeed, I am so far from being grieved at what was written that I very nearly laughed at it;

for although such great things once seemed to us to confirm our mutual friendship, you yourself wrote that you had experienced so great an astonishment over trifles that had merely reached as far as you.

Have you, then, suffered the same thing as the many, who, abandoning the examination of the nature of the matters themselves, pay attention instead to the persons about whom the reports are made, and thus become not examiners of the truth, but assessors of the differences among persons, forgetting the admonition that "to show partiality in judgment is not good"?

Nevertheless, since God does not accept the person of man, I will not refuse to make known to you also the defense which I have prepared for the great tribunal.

That from the beginning nothing on our part, neither small nor great, has been the cause of the estrangement;

but men who hated us, for reasons known to themselves (for it is not for me to say anything about them), kept making continual slanders.

And once, and even twice, we shook off these slanders;

but since the matter proved endless, and there was no use in continual self-defense—we being settled far away, while the liars, being close at hand, could wound with their slanders against us a heart easily overcome, one not taught to keep the other ear undefiled for the one who is absent—and since the people of Nicopolis were demanding some assurance of faith (a fact of which you surely were not ignorant either), it seemed good to us to undertake the ministry of the letter.

For we reckoned that we would accomplish two things at once:

to persuade the people of Nicopolis not to think ill of the man, and to stop the mouths of those who were slandering us, since agreement in the faith would shut out the calumnies from both sides.

And so indeed the statement of faith was drawn up, and was presented by us, and was subscribed.

When it had been subscribed, a place was also appointed for a second synod, and another time, so that our brothers throughout the diocese, having come together, might be united with one another, and their communion might thenceforth be genuine and without guile.

We, then, and the brethren with us, met together on the appointed day—some being present already, others streaming in—all cheerful and eager, as though running toward peace;

and we sent letters from us, and day-runners, signaling that we were present;

for indeed the place appointed for the reception of those assembling was ours.

But when no one came from the other side, neither running ahead nor bringing good news of the arrival of those expected, and those whom we had sent returned reporting much dejection and murmuring there, as though a new faith had been proclaimed by us;

and it was said that they had bound themselves by oath not to permit their bishop to cross over to us;

and someone came also bearing to us a letter, dedicated in form, but containing no mention at all of what had originally been agreed upon;

and the brother Theophilus, worthy of all my reverence and honor, sending one of those who were with him, made known certain things which he thought it both incumbent on him to say and fitting for us to hear.

For he did not deem it worth his while to write, not so much because he feared the evidence a letter would provide, as because he was concerned not to be put under the necessity of addressing us as bishops—except that, in any case, the words were vehement and uttered from a heart inflamed.

At this we broke up, put to shame and downcast in spirit, having nothing to answer those who questioned us.

Not much time passed in the meantime before there was a journey as far as Cilicia, and a return from there, and immediately letters forbidding communion with us.

As for me, I have never regarded Apollinarius as an enemy; indeed, there are respects in which I even hold the man in reverence;

yet I have not so bound myself to the man as to take upon myself his indictments, since I myself have some things to charge against him, having come across some of his treatises.

I do not, however, recall either having asked him for a book concerning the Holy Spirit, or having received one sent by him.

But I hear that he has become the most prolific of all writers, though I myself have come across only a few of his treatises;

for I have no leisure to search out such things, and at the same time I am somewhat reluctant to accept newer writings—I, whose bodily health does not even permit me to devote myself diligently, and in the manner I ought, to the reading of the divinely inspired Scriptures.

What then is this to me, if someone has written something that does not please a certain person? And yet, if one man must answer for the charges against another, let him who accuses me on account of Apolinarius answer to us on behalf of Arius, his own teacher, and on behalf of Aetius, his own disciple.

But we were neither taught anything nor became a disciple of the man whose charges they turn against us.

Being affected by this letter, as was natural, and astonished at so unreasonable and sudden a change, I was not even able to make any reply.

For my heart was bound tight, my tongue grew slack, my hand went numb, and I suffered the affliction of an ignoble soul (for the truth shall be told, though it is one deserving of pardon)—

I very nearly fell into misanthropy, and every character seemed suspect to me, and I thought that the good of love does not exist in human nature, but is a fair-sounding word that lends a certain adornment to those who use it, yet does not in truth reside in the heart of man as a real disposition.