Letters 1 part 5/11

My son Euphemius has not yet arrived, but is expected, and I think you will need to take little trouble, should he come.

TO THE SAME. Fortunatus, who is delivering this letter to you, is our friend and close acquaintance;

but if some further recommendation is needed, he is also a deacon among those held in high regard.

This much you needed to learn from us.

The rest, I know, you will supply of your own accord — namely, to regard the man as one of your own, and to attend to him with solicitous care wherever he may need your godly concern.

For whatever good you do to him, you will be doing good to us.

TO THE SAME. Make our affairs your own, even as you have already made them your own before now, and have shown this by your deeds.

May you also embrace as your own our beloved brother and fellow-presbyter Lucian — being pleased to receive him kindly in other matters as well, and encouraging him to care for the household of our kinsfolk there;

since, by God's help, the matter has already reached a favorable conclusion, through both your judgment and the loving-kindness of Him who is greater.

TO THE SAME. What tyranny you inflict on us — out of friendship!

our rule concerning invitations is being disturbed, and we are admitting the cloak-wearers, though not yet transgressing so far as those among the Greeks who are skilled in matters of love.

For they not only sacrifice to passion as to a god, but also grant pardon for oaths broken for love's sake.

But if we too transgress somewhat, because we act thus out of friendship, in this we are not truly sinning.

Come, then, if you wish, having changed your attire, so that both things may go as well as possible for us — both that we obtain you, and that we do not fail to keep the rule;

but if not, then come by all means even in your traveling cloak.

And even if someone should prosecute us for transgression, we shall at least plead this much in our defense: that you belong among those who fulfill the invitation, not merely among those invited.

But if anyone among us should not accept this excuse, what will he say to the following point?

namely, that we are calling upon you as one calling upon an orphan? In this way, then, you will indeed have your tyranny, since the occasion is yours.

Thirdly, and most important, it is open to you, even as one who invites us to the feast, likewise to share in that same invitation.

You, then, we shall receive on these terms, thus pleading our case.

But as for our sister, no one will hold us to account if she comes; rather, on the contrary, both she and we will be held to account if she does not come.

So then, let the feast come unbidden;

but you have been invited; come to meet us, in part by taking courage in us, in part through prayer, so that you may make our festal gathering the more radiant.

since, with God's help, your bodily needs have been sufficiently provided for—or rather, in an orphan's fashion and, so to speak, most enviably and nobly.

TO PHILAGRIOS. The cause of our not being able to be together with one another is the same for us both:

for your body treats you as it does—I say no more—and know that I too am in a very wretched condition.

For I would not have hesitated, above all, upon returning from my journey abroad—know this well—both to run to you and embrace you and to make use of you as a counselor concerning the matters at hand, a man who is both friend and wise and lofty in piety.

But what remained—that we converse with one another by letters—this you yourself did, doing well, and we do it too.

The matters about which you write are for us no small thing, nor of little account;

wherefore we ourselves, having examined these matters neither carelessly nor negligently, but very diligently, have arrived at this judgment.

We have grown weary of contending against envy, and against the holy bishops who dissolve our common concord and make the interest of the faith a matter secondary to their own private quarrels.

But if to abandon the Church is dangerous, as you write, which Church do you mean? If our own, I too say so, and it is rightly said;

but if you mean the one that in no way belongs to us, nor was ever officially assigned to us, we are without blame.

But are we bound by this—that we took care of it for a certain time? Many others too would be bound by the same argument, as many as have taken care of others' affairs.

And perhaps the labor is rewarded, while the relinquishing of it incurs no liability.

Fear nothing, then, on our account for this reason at least;

but rather fear this—lest we be harmed in some way.

TO NECTARIUS. It was fitting that the royal statue should adorn the imperial city.

But it cast us far away and threw us aside as some kind of refuse, and chaff, and a wave of the sea.

But since the possessions of friends are held in common, I for my part make your good fortune my own, and I consider that I share both in your glory and in your other prosperity.

Do you also share, as is fitting, in the cares and circumstances here, with those of your friends who are far away;

and do not, having received the good alone, keep it to yourself—this indeed the way of the tragedians—but take your share also of the labors along with your friend, that you may be altogether just, dealing justly and equitably with friendship and with friends.

And may prosperity remain with you for a longer time, so that you may do good the more; or rather, may it come to you unfailing and eternal, once you have crossed over from the prosperity here to that which is there.

TO BOSPORIOS. I stand in reverence before the diligence of your invitation;

but I would be more ashamed of myself were I not to write the truth.

so greatly do I revere my gray hairs, and our common table, and my labors from youth—yet among you I am treated as less than the very worst, and dishonored by those by whom I should least have expected to be.

TO ANYSIOS. You ask how matters stand with us.

I shall answer by means of a certain story.

The Athenians, it is said, sent an embassy to the Lacedaemonians when they were under a tyranny;

and the purpose of the embassy was that some kindness might be shown to them from that quarter.

And when they returned from the embassy, someone then asked:

"How did the Lacedaemonians treat you?" "As slaves," they said, "very kindly;

but as free men, very insolently."

This, then, I too am able to write;

for we fare more kindly than those given up as hopeless, but more harshly than those who are the object of God's care.

For my illness still troubles me—or rather, greatly grieves me—and my friends, doing me harm, do not relent, injuring me to the extent of their power.

But pray that the Divine may be gracious to us, and one of two things will follow: either we shall altogether escape these terrors, or we shall endure them.

And this too is, reasonably, a lessening of misfortune.

TO NECTARIUS. Our own affairs stand as they stand;

we sit without war and without troubles, having honored the safe prize of silence above all else.

And we have derived some benefit from our quietude, having, by the mercy of God, sufficiently recovered from our illness.

And may God, who has honored you, join in guiding your priesthood together with you, granting that it be raised above every malicious attack.

But that we may give proof of our confidence in one another, and not suffer anything merely human while standing before God, I for my part present this plea to you, and do you readily grant it to me.

We are concerned for our most genuine son Pancratius, doing this for many necessary reasons.

Be willing to receive him kindly, and to commend him to the more earnest of your friends, so that he may attain his purpose.

And his purpose is to obtain, through some public service, freedom from harassment;

since not even one life is free from the malice of wicked men—a fact you yourself also know.

TO PHILAGRIOS. How do the affairs of your body stand? Or is it plain that, however they may stand, the account will be brief? But concerning your soul, I shall not ask how it fares.

For I know that it fares very well indeed;

since you nobly philosophize amid the sufferings of your body, receiving the matter as a trial of virtue rather than as a disorder of matter, so that your suffering may be more blessed to you than the health of others.

which things, even if we should be bold to write to others, yet to venture them with you as judge is not safe.

Nevertheless, we shall try not to contradict you when you bid us.

TO SOPHRONIUS. Our withdrawal has something favorable about it—freedom from business and quietude;

yet at the cost of friendship and companionship, so great a thing.

Others enjoy your perfection;

but for us it would be a great thing if we could have even this—the shadow of conversation that is in letters.

Shall we see you again? Shall we embrace you, our boast, and will this be granted to the remnant of our life? If it should be granted, all thanks be to God;

but if not, we are already dead in the greatest part of ourselves.

But do you remember your Gregory, and relate our affairs to others.

TO AMAZONIOS. If any of our common friends should ask you (and I am persuaded there are many such):

"Where is our Gregory now, and what is he doing?"—say boldly that he philosophizes in tranquility, giving as much thought to those who wrong him as to those of whom it is not even known whether they exist;

but if the same person should ask you again:

"And how does he bear the separation from his friends?"—no longer say boldly that he philosophizes, but rather that he is in a very ignoble state.

For one man is weaker in one thing, another in another; but we are weak in the matter of friendship and friends.

One of these is also the admirable Amazonios.

Perhaps you might comfort us by one thing alone, and make us easier concerning you, if you would remember us and, by your letters, persuade us that you are doing so.

TO LEONTIOS. O propitious illness, and O malice of my enemies, through which I have become free, outside the Sodomite fire and the dissolution of the episcopate!

But how do matters stand with you regarding God? May these things go well; but for the rest, however they may stand, let us leave them be.

Yet a little while, and I shall see my insolent foes, when our affairs are judged by fire.

We greet you, and through you, our common friends.

Remember my stonings.

To Hypatius. For a long time we have suffered loss, because the first among cities did not have the first among men.

For it was necessary, I think, that the good be poured forth and the benefit become common to all, so that you might sow good order from on high, just as those who tamed the crops for food sowed their seeds—at least as it seems in myths and fictions.

But it remains for me to grieve even more, because, having enjoyed only so much as a little lightning briefly lighting up the sight, I was then overcome by envy and withdrew into myself, yielding to others the rule of the Church and the more comely tabernacle (if I may put it so, on account of those who readily make sport of things not fit for sport).

But you, O best of all men, keep the same disposition toward us which, like the magnet, draws iron filings to itself.

To Heracleianus. You are always with us the good Heracleianus, both speaking something of learning and hearing it.

and Constantinople, fair as she is, shares in our joy on your account, even if only for a time, since envy has so willed it.

But if Gregory were also with you, it would be better for both.

What first, or what greatest, of the just claims on his behalf should I mention—that he is a deacon, or that he is poor, or that he is a stranger belonging more to others than to us, or that he is respectable in his manner of life and a priest of the martyrs and a resident alien? And know that he even feeds strangers beyond his means.

And perhaps this alone is a fault of his: that he alone, among the people there, compels others to be good.

Of these claims, judge for yourselves which is the greatest;

but for the man's sake, grant pardon on account of them all, lest, while benefiting the community in small things, you seem to bring great loss upon yourselves—not, as the saying goes, clothing the naked, but rather stripping him.

since they are able to do so, even without willing it.

To Gigantius. Delighted by your greeting, I was still more delighted by what you write—not because we are praised (for that is a small thing), but because you think rightly;

and the bond of your love toward us is the shared hope of the same things, and the true worship of the Trinity, which we utter more than we breathe, both amid dangers and free of them, giving all else over to the times to carry about as they please, but holding this unmoved in our souls—the one unfailing treasure, and truly our own.

As for me, whenever I call to mind everything else—how many afflictions have beset us, and how many still beset us, and the instability of the evils that whirl us about above and below, and the war waged against us by everyone though we do no wrong—yet when I look to this alone, that I was deemed worthy to become a herald of the truth at a time when sound teaching had been cast away and spat out in a land desert, untrodden, and waterless, according to what is written, it is little to say that I dispel all distress; rather, I even rejoice exceedingly, as one deemed worthy of things greater than myself.

To what purpose, then, do I write these things? That I might make this clear: that my only firm friendship and kinship is with those who are so disposed.

And of those so disposed, who, if of sound mind, would willingly stay away? And what greater feast is there than to keep festival together with such people? But if illness and the winter storm hinder my eagerness, I myself shall bear the loss;

but do you also forgive me, and pray for another occasion for us to meet.

What is the fairest thing in life? I would say it is friends.

And of these, whom must one honor most? I would say the good.

And of these, whom do you name first? I know that I shall place no one else before your virtue.

And I write these things not flattering your power, but honoring your character, of which we are perhaps but small heralds, yet not failing so far as lies within our power;

and not heralds only, but fellow-combatants as well, contributing our share of power through our prayers.

I had wished to bring the letter to a close at this point;

but since we not only revere the Divine but also require it to do good, do you likewise accept this—not being troubled by us (for our concerns are no trouble to you;

this I can conjecture from what has gone before)—but rather being reminded by us of your suppliant Euphemius.

Again I bring him before you, and again I earnestly entreat you not only to receive the young man kindly, but also to forgive his slowness, since, having taken charge of an orphaned estate, he was of necessity occupied with the small household; but also to advance him further, both for our honor and for the glory of your nobility of character.

For though there are many whom you have benefited and will benefit, this one is for you no less an occasion for honor than any other, as I taught you when present.

And now I ask to be trusted;

for he is at once pitiable on account of his orphaned state, and beloved by us on account of his character—not to mention his close bond of blood.

To Olympius. I know that whatever other favors I have obtained, I have received them from your gentleness;

and may God repay you for these with his own good gifts, and may it be one of these good things that you pass through your office with good repute and splendor.

But the favor I now ask, I come rather to give than to receive—if it is not too bold to say so.

I bring wretched Philoumene before you through myself, that she may fall down before your tribunal and set before you the tears with which she breaks our soul.

Now what wrongs she has suffered, and at whose hands, she herself will make clear;

for it is not safe for us to accuse anyone; but we must at least say this much—that widowhood and orphanhood ought to be helped by all who have sense, and especially by those in whose case a wife and children hang in the balance, the great pledges that call for mercy;

since indeed we judge our fellow human beings, being human ourselves.

But pardon us for pleading this cause by letter, since we are hindered by illness.

What remains, then, but to entreat God and to supplicate your kindness—of Him, that he bring to your mind the more beneficial course;

and of you, that you not harshly dismiss our intercession, but gently receive wretched Paul, whom justice has perhaps brought under your hand, so that this may render you the more illustrious through the greatness of your gentleness, and may win for your kindness the benefit of our prayers—if they are worth anything at all.

To the Same. Behold, here is yet another occasion for a letter to you—letters which you yourself bring about, if the truth must be told, by provoking us through your custom of honoring us.

Behold, here is another suppliant for you as well—this man bound by fear, our kinsman Eustratius, who together with us and through us falls before your goodness, neither enduring to remain in continual defiance of your authority, though a just fear has thoroughly alarmed him, nor choosing to fall before you through anyone but us, so that he might make the kindness shown him the more honorable for himself, by employing such intercessors as you yourself, if for no other reason, make great by thus receiving their entreaties.

I will say one thing, and briefly.

The other favors, the earlier ones, you gave us of your own accord; but this one you will grant according to your own judgment;

since you have once for all set out to console our old age and infirmity with such honors.

And I will add that by this you always make the Divine more gracious toward yourself.

For he who has mastered the whole will more easily master the part;

and besides, it tames anger that is not voiced aloud, but consumes itself within.

To the Same. We keep silence in speech, being taught thereby to say what must be said, and we are trained to master our passions.

If someone accepts this, well and good;

but if not, this too is a gain of silence: not even to answer the crowd.

To the Same. I do not forbid our meeting;

for even if my tongue is silent, I will gladly lend my ears to your words, since hearing what ought to be heard is no less honorable than speaking it.

for since, by speaking, I did not restrain other tongues, I have taught silence by silence, training like with like.

since, in giving us the Law, he did not thereby cleanse us, he tames man by what is human, according to the great loving-kindness of his providence toward us.

To Eugenius. You practice the philosophic life through solitude and such immoderate fasting; I, through silence.

Let us share our respective gifts with one another;

and when we come together as one, we shall sing to God in common, bearing fruit—well-reasoned silence in the one case, and so likewise God-inspired speech.

To Keleusius. I have received you even while remaining silent, so that you might learn that silence too has a message, spoken through the pen.

But I will say what is fitting for friendship and for such an occasion.

You transgress the law, O judge, by not fasting;

and how will you keep the laws of men, while disregarding those of God? Cleanse your court of judgment, lest one of two things befall you—either you become wicked, or you are thought to be so.

To set shameful spectacles before oneself is to make a theatrical show of oneself.

The sum of the matter: know, O judge, that you yourself are being judged, and you will sin the less.

I had nothing better than these things to offer you.

To the Same. Do not judge me for keeping silent, for neither do I judge you for speaking—following what Paul laid down concerning foods.

But if you do judge, fear your own tongue, lest it be moved against you first, should it find you more deserving of silence.

To the Same. Since you accuse me of silence and rusticity, O talkative and citified one, come, let me relate to you a fable not without charm, in hopes that by this means at least I might restrain you from your chatter.

The swallows used to mock the swans for their unwillingness to converse with men or to make their music public, but instead to spend their days about the meadows and rivers, embracing solitude, singing but little, and even what they did sing, singing only among themselves, as though ashamed of their own music.

These, then, are the ancient and Attic tales—Pandion, Athens, Tereus, Thrace, the journey abroad, the marriage bond, the outrage, the mutilation, the woven letters, and above all Itys, and how we became birds out of human beings. And the swans scarcely deigned to acknowledge them, having despised even the talk of their chattering; but when they did deign to...

But 'for our sake,' they said, 'you there — someone might even come into the wilderness in order to hear our music, whenever we open our wings for the West Wind to breathe into them something sweet and harmonious.'

So that, even if we do not sing much, nor in many settings, yet this very thing is the most beautiful thing about us: that we practice our melody with philosophic measure, and do not mingle our music with tumult.

But you — when you come to nest among them, people are vexed, and when you sing, they turn away.

And quite justly so: you who, not even with your tongue cut out, are able to keep silent, but instead, bewailing your own voicelessness and the misfortune that has befallen you, prove more talkative than any of the eloquent and musical creatures. 'Understand what I am telling you,' says Pindar, 'and if you find my silence better than your eloquence, cease your idle chatter against our silence.'

Or shall I tell you a proverb, altogether true and altogether concise: that swans will sing only when jackdaws have fallen silent.

Such, then, are the things that come from your Reverence.

But we, in return, give back the greater of what we possess — our prayers.

So that you may have some memorial from us — and likewise from the holy Basil — we have sent you a small volume containing selections from Origen's Philocalia, useful to lovers of learning.

Deign to accept this, and to give us proof of its benefit, aided by both zeal and the Spirit.

To Eulalius. Lamis, too, has become for me a place of silence and a training-ground for philosophy.

Having viewed it while I was silent, I now desire to see it also while speaking, so that I may both fulfill the longing of the brothers and free you, the poor interpreters of my gestures, from your pettiness.

For I myself will be present, speaking — no longer subject to allegory or conjecture, but understood plainly.

To the same. Something strange has happened to me.

Having kept silent when you were present, I now long for you in your absence, so that I may both impart speech and receive it.

For it is good, as with everything else, so also with words, to dedicate the firstfruits first to the Word, and then to those who fear the Lord.

To Eugenius. 'There is a time for every matter,' says Ecclesiastes.

Therefore, 'I set a guard upon my mouth' when it was time to do so; and 'behold, I will not restrain my lips,' since this too has its own time.

'For I kept silent,' says Scripture.

Shall I then be silent forever? I was silent for my own sake.

But as for them, if they should say what is fitting, it is all grace.

But if not, we will also stop up our ears.

This, for me, is the mystery of silence: that just as I have sacrificed a mind that cannot be uttered, so I might also sacrifice a word that has been purified.

For the holy day of Pascha, which we have now come to meet, I know to be an initiation into the good things of that world beyond, being a festival of passing-over.

Of these things you also did well to remind us, both by what you sent and by what you write.

As for me, I have already passed through many a Pascha, and this I have gained from a longer life.

But now I desire a purer one, having come out of this Egypt of life, heavy and dark, and having been freed from the clay and brick-making to which we are bound, so as to migrate to the land of promise.

Pray for us in these things, and intercede earnestly, if you have any care to do us the greatest good.

May it often be granted to you to celebrate the feast together with the community of the Church, being in a fit condition of life.

For thus she [the Church] summons the greater share to understanding rather than to age.

The ancient fathers, then, used to pray for their children, among other things, the 'dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth' (unless someone prefers to understand these things also in a more elevated sense); but we shall give back to you the whole thing in a spiritual manner.

'May the Lord fulfill all your petitions,' and may you become the father of such children — if I must pray for you briefly and fittingly — as the kind of child you yourself show yourself to be toward your own [spiritual] fathers, so that, among other things, we too may be glorified in you.

To the same. You owe us attendance, too, as to the sick, if indeed visiting the infirm is one of the commandments.

And at the same time, not a few matters of the Church require common deliberation.

For the sake of all these things, then, deign to come without hesitation.

For even if the labor be great, the reward is equally weighty.

To the same. I delighted in your visit, and I cherish our fellowship, even though I had otherwise resolved to remain at home and practice philosophy in quiet.

For this I found, of all things, to be the most profitable for me.

But since the air is still turbulent and my illness has not relented, I beg you, be patient a little while, and join in prayer with us for [my] health.

And whenever the time is right, we shall come, relying upon your prayers.

To the same. Do you call for me? We indeed hasten.

And we hasten to draw near to you alone, and by ourselves alone.

For we greet synods and assemblies from a distance, ever since we have had experience of the wickedness of the many — to put it mildly.

What, then, still remains? Assist this righteous longing through your prayers, so that we may obtain what we are eager for.

To Olympius. Even gray hair may be taught something, it seems, and old age is not altogether to be trusted in matters of understanding.

I, for my part, knowing better than anyone the mind and impiety of the Apollinarians, and seeing their madness to be intolerable, supposed that through forbearance I would make them gentle and would soften them little by little — this indeed I also held out as my hope.

But I unwittingly, it seems, made them worse, and harmed the Church by my untimely philosophy/leniency.

For clemency does not shame the wicked.

And now, if it had been possible for me to teach these things myself in person, I would not have hesitated, be well assured, but would even have strained beyond my strength to come and fall before your Honor.

But since my illness has driven me further, and it has become necessary for me to make use of the hot springs of Xanxaris, on the advice of the physicians, I make this letter in my stead.

The wicked men — who shall come to a wicked end — dared, in addition to all their other [crimes], either to summon bishops already deposed by every synod of East and West, or to take advantage of men passing by (for I cannot say this precisely), and, rising up against every imperial decree and your own ordinances, to place the title of bishop upon one of the impious and counterfeit men among them — emboldened, I think, by nothing so much as by my own [near-]lifeless state (for so it must be called).

If these things are bearable, let your Firmness bear them.

We too will bear them, just as indeed we have often borne such things before.

But if they are grievous and not even bearable to the most pious emperors themselves, then deign to take action against what has happened, even if it be less than [proportionate to] their madness.

To the same. In a dream, I was of good cheer.

But having lingered a while, I was suddenly carried off by my illness, which was in part already causing me pain, and in part still threatening [worse].

And if one must find some comparison for this affliction, I suffered the same thing as octopuses do, which, being violently torn away from the rocks, are endangered even in their suckers — some part of which they leave behind upon the rocks, or else they take on something from them in turn.

Such, then, is my situation.

But the things which, had I been present, I would have asked of your Goodness — these same things I have ventured to ask even in my absence.

I found my son Nicobulus greatly burdened by the anxiety of the journey and by his confinement at the monastery — a man both frail and unaccustomed to such things, and unable to bear solitude.

For any other purpose that may please you, be willing to make use of him.

For indeed he is eager to serve your Authority in all things.

But from this particular care, if possible, set him free.

If for no other reason, then also in honor of him as our own attendant, since, having asked much concerning many things and having obtained it, we now stand in need of your gentleness toward ourselves as well.

And to me, disposed as I am in this state, it is the more pleasant.

For being given up for lost nearly every day makes me hold to you all the more, as one who is always gaining the last days as extra profit.

And since I acknowledge this profit, I owe repayment to my most reverend son Nicobulus, from whom the profit comes.

What the poor do in looking to the wealthy, so that they may receive benefit from them, this I too do, through you, in discharging my debt to this man.

He is in need of freedom from care, having been accustomed to this his whole life long.

Deign to assist him toward this.

And let there be a great reward for the bearer of this letter, our son Anthimus, in proportion to his great [services].

Who is this man? One worthy to obtain your patronage, in whatever he may need.

And of the greatest help to us in our plea on his behalf is the man himself, of illustrious military service, perhaps known even to your greatness, and the misfortune of his body, which at once persuades by its very appearance.

Grievous indeed in itself, but, as being undeserved, all the more grievous, as is natural.

When to these is added our own entreaty, I know it will the more surely accomplish what is being sought.

To the Same. If my body were not treating me so ill, and if I did not hold gloomy hopes concerning its survival, the first and greatest gain would have been your meeting and company, which has now been wholly taken from you on my account;

and secondly, that I myself would have fulfilled this mission in person.

But since I lie utterly fettered by illness, and am deprived of this against my will, I do what is second best: I approach you by letter, greet you, embrace you, and take courage to entreat you concerning our fellow-deacon Eugenius, whom I beg to obtain from your magnanimity.

If, then, his familiarity with the impious Regianus is no wrongdoing (for he appears guilty of nothing else), then grant this for the sake of justice itself, of which you are the arbiter and champion;