書信集 第 1 章 第 22/32 段

if they did not know nor understand that because of these things the wrath of God came upon us, what common account have we with them? But we ought to bear witness to them both night and day, both publicly and privately, and let us not consent to be led away with them into their wickedness, praying above all to win them and to deliver them from the snare of the Evil One;

but if we are not able to do this, let us at least be earnest to save our own souls from eternal condemnation.

TO AMPHILOCHIUS, BISHOP OF ICONIUM. The business for the sake of which our brother Aelianus came, he accomplished on his own, needing no assistance whatsoever from us.

But he gave us a twofold favor, both bringing letters from your piety and furnishing us the occasion to write to you.

We greet, therefore, through him, your true and inimitable love, and we entreat you to pray for us now, if ever, since we stand in need of the help that comes from your prayers.

For my body, worn down by the journey to Pontus, is afflicted with sickness beyond endurance.

That matter I had long wished to make known to your discernment (which I forgot, having been diverted by some other prior concern), I now remind you of, namely, that you would deign to send a diligent man into Lycia, to look into who are those of the right faith,

since, being wholly estranged from the Asian mind, they consent to be enrolled as our associates in communion.

Someone made known to us these, and even more besides, as being sound in the faith, and I gave great thanks to God, if indeed there are any at all in the region of Asia who are outside the harm done by the heretics.

If, then, it is possible, let us for now examine them without letters;

and once convinced, we shall then also send a letter, and shall endeavor to summon one of them to a meeting with us.

May all things concerning the Church of Iconium, most beloved by us, come to pass in due season.

We greet, through you, all the honored clergy and those who are with your piety.

TO THE CLERGY OF SAMOSATA. The Lord, who orders all things for us by measure and weight, and who brings trials that do not exceed our strength, but tests the champions of piety through circumstance, yet does not allow them to be tempted beyond what they can bear, and who gives tears to drink in due measure to those who must be proven whether in afflictions they preserve their gratitude toward God, has especially manifested His own loving-kindness in the dispensation concerning you, not permitting the persecution brought by the enemies to be of such a kind as could overturn or shake anyone from the faith in Christ.

For having matched you against light and easily-defeated adversaries, He has, in your victory over them, prepared for you the prize of endurance.

Since you despise the mighty force of the assault from without, he — as I hear — devised that certain griefs and pettinesses should arise among you toward one another, which at first are small and easily healed, but as time goes on, growing through contentiousness, are apt to fall altogether into an incurable state.

If, then, it were possible, I myself would have come in person and entreated you.

But since the present circumstances do not permit this, we offer you this letter in place of a personal supplication, so that, showing due regard for our entreaties, you may put an end to all contentiousness toward one another, and quickly send me the good news that you have forgiven one another's grievances.

For I want your understanding to know this: that he is great before God who humbly submits himself to his neighbor, and without shame takes the accusations upon himself, even if they are not true, for the sake of granting the great benefit of peace to the Church of God.

Let there be, then, among you a good rivalry as to who shall first be deemed worthy to be called a son of God, procuring for himself this honor through peacemaking.

And the most God-beloved bishop has also written to you what is fitting, and he writes again what pertains to him.

But we too, since it has still been granted to us to be nearer to you, are unable to be negligent of your affairs.

Therefore, when the most devout brother Theodore the subdeacon arrived and reported that the Church was in grief and turmoil, we were deeply shattered and struck to the heart with profound anguish; we could not rest content, but exhorted you, casting aside every mutual self-justification toward one another, to bring about peace, so that you might neither give pleasure to your adversaries nor betray the boast of the Church which is now proclaimed throughout the whole world — that all of you live thus in one body, as though governed by a single soul and heart.

We greet, through your devout selves, all the people of God, both those in dignities and civil authority, and the whole body of the clergy, and we exhort them to remain true to themselves.

For we seek no addition on their part, since by the display of their good works they have already forestalled and precluded every possibility of surpassing them.

TO THOSE IN BEROEA. The Lord has given a great consolation to those who are deprived of face-to-face meeting: converse by letter, from which one may learn not the bodily features, but the disposition of the soul itself.

Wherefore now too, on receiving the letter of your devout selves, we at once came to know you and took up love for you into our hearts, having had no need of a long time to produce familiarity in us.

For from the very thought stored up in your letter we were kindled to love for the beauty of your soul.

For besides what was written, being such as it was, the worthiness of the brothers who acted as intermediaries showed us your affairs still more clearly.

For our most beloved and most devout fellow-presbyter Acacius, recounting more than was written and setting before our eyes your daily struggle and your vigorous steadfastness on behalf of piety, produced in us such wonder and roused in us such longing to enjoy the good things among you, that we pray to the Lord that an occasion may one day come for us to know your affairs by our own experience.

...of the city, and of those who take the lead in its public life, the nobility of their character and the genuineness of their disposition toward God, so that we blessed the Church that is made complete from such members, and now pray that greater spiritual calm may be given to you, so that you may obtain the enjoyment of what you now displayed in the time of struggle, in the time of rest.

For it is somehow the nature of hardships, once experienced, to bring pleasure to those who recall them.

But for the present we exhort you not to grow faint-hearted, not to give up in the face of the continuance of afflictions.

For the crowns are near, and near is the Lord's help.

Do not pour out your former labors in vain; do not render useless the toil that is renowned throughout the whole world.

Short-lived are the conditions of human affairs;

"All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of the grass."

"The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever." Let us hold fast to the commandment that endures, and despise the passing show.

Your example has set upright many churches.

Unwittingly you have gathered for yourselves a great reward, in that through your example you have called those less experienced to the same zeal.

Rich is the Rewarder, who is able to grant you prizes worthy of your contests.

TO THOSE IN BEROEA. We came to know you beforehand, most beloved, from the report of your celebrated devotion and from the crown of your confession in Christ.

And perhaps one of you might say:

"And who is it that has conveyed this report across so great a distance?" The Lord Himself, who, setting those who are pious toward Him upon the lampstand like a lamp, makes them shine throughout the whole world.

Or is it not the custom for the prize of victory to proclaim the champions among contestants, and for the invention of a work to proclaim its engineers? And if for these and such as these an unforgettable memory endures, how much more for those who are pious in Christ, of whom the Lord Himself says —

"Those who glorify Me I will glorify" — how shall He not make them known and conspicuous to all, spreading out, alongside the rays of the sun, the brightness of their flashing splendor? And again you have implanted in us a greater longing for you, having deemed us worthy of a letter — and such a letter, in which, in addition to your former contests on behalf of piety, you lavished upon us a rich and yet more vigorous fortitude of soul on behalf of the true faith.

In these things we rejoice with you, and we pray together that the God of all, whose is the contest, and whose is the arena, and through whom are the crowns, may produce zeal in you, grant strength of soul, and bring your work to perfect success in His sight.

For we have caught our breath amid the continuity of trials, and by your words we have been strengthened, and by the memory of your contests we have become more vigorous to bear, without yielding, the contest that lies before us.

For the conflagration that has devoured much of the East is already creeping in upon our own region, and having set ablaze all that surrounds it, strives to take hold also of the churches in Cappadocia, which for a time the smoke from the neighboring fire had already moved to tears.

...by the breath of His mouth, and might cut short the flame of this evil fire.

For who is so cowardly and unmanly, or so untrained for athletic toils, as not to be strengthened for the contest by your words of encouragement, and to pray to be proclaimed crowned along with you? For you have already stripped for the arena of piety ahead of others, and have repelled many trials of heretical wrestling-bouts, and have endured much of the burning heat of temptations — both the foremost of the Church, you to whom the ministry of the altar has been entrusted, and each one of the people, even the most powerful among them.

For this above all is admirable in you and worthy of every acceptance, that you are all one in the Lord — some leading the way toward the good, others following with one accord.

For this reason we pray night and day to the King of the ages to keep the people in the wholeness of the faith, and to keep for it the clergy, like a sound head set upon the height, providing from itself forethought to the members of the body subject to it.

For when the eyes perform their own proper function, the works of the hands are skillful, and the movements of the feet are unstumbling, and no part of the body is deprived of the care that is fitting to it.

Therefore we exhort you — as you do and will do — to hold fast to one another; and you who have been entrusted with the care of souls, to sustain each one and cherish them as beloved children; and the people, to preserve toward you the reverence and honor owed to fathers, so that in the good order of the Church your strength and the firmness of your faith in Christ may be preserved, the name of God may be glorified, and the good of love may increase and abound.

And may we, hearing of it, rejoice at your progress according to God; and if we are still bidden to sojourn in this world in the flesh, may we one day see you in the peace of God —

but if instead we should be bidden to depart from this life, may we see you crowned in the splendor of the saints, together with those who are approved through endurance and every demonstration of good works.

TO EUSTATHIUS OF SEBASTEIA. "There is a time to keep silence, and a time to speak," says the word of Ecclesiastes.

So also now, since the time of silence has become sufficient, it is at last opportune to open my mouth for the disclosure of the truth of what is unknown, since the great Job too bore his misfortunes in silence for a long time, showing his courage precisely in this — by enduring the most unbearable sufferings.

But when he had passed sufficient time in silence, and had remained shutting up his anguish in the depth of his heart, then he opened his mouth and uttered those things which all men know.

And for us too, this is now the third year of silence; the boast of the prophet has become an object of emulation for us, who says —

"For indeed slander humbles a man, and slander drives about the poor."

If, then, the evil arising from slander is so great as to bring down even the man already perfect (for by the term "man" the Word hints at this) from his height, and to make the poor man — that is, the one deficient in great doctrines (as it also seems to be the meaning of the prophet, who says —

— that the proverb speaks of being driven about and shaken), yet nonetheless I thought it right to bear the painful things in silence, awaiting some correction to come through the very deeds themselves.

For I did not suppose that those things were said against us out of any malice, but out of ignorance of the truth.

But since I see that the enmity grows apace with time, and that they do not repent of what was said from the beginning, nor take any thought for healing what is past, but rather elaborate it further and remain arrayed toward the very purpose which they set up from the start, contriving to injure our life and defile our reputation among the brethren — the safety of silence no longer appears to me prudent.

But there came to my mind the word of Isaiah, who says —

"I have kept silence: shall I also always keep silence and endure? I have been patient like a woman in travail."

May it be granted to us both to receive the reward for our silence and to gain some strength in our rebukes, so that by speaking in reproof we may dry up this bitter torrent of falsehood that has poured out against us, so that we too might say —

"Our soul has passed through the torrent"; and again —

"If the Lord had not been with us, when men rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us up alive; then the water would have drowned us."

I had spent much time in vanity, and had squandered nearly all my youth in the vain labor which I expended in acquiring the teachings of that wisdom which God had made foolish; then, when at last, as if roused from a deep sleep, I looked toward the wondrous light of the truth of the Gospel, and perceived the uselessness of the wisdom of the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing, having wept many tears over my pitiable life, I prayed that guidance might be given to me for my introduction to the doctrines of piety.

And before all else it was my concern to make some correction of my character, which had for a long time been perverted by association with worthless men.

So then, reading the Gospel, and seeing there that the greatest occasion for perfection is the selling of one's possessions and sharing them with the needy among the brethren, and altogether to be without care for this life and to allow the soul to be turned back by no attachment to the things here, I prayed to find one of the brothers who had chosen this way of life, so that together with him I might cross over this deep flood of life.

And indeed I found many such in Alexandria, and many throughout the rest of Egypt, and others in Palestine, and in Coele-Syria, and in Mesopotamia —

whose self-control in diet I admired, whose endurance in toils I admired, whose vigor in prayers astonished me, and how they mastered sleep, being bowed down by no natural necessity, ever preserving the lofty and unenslaved disposition of their soul amid hunger and thirst, amid cold and nakedness — not turning back toward the body, nor allowing themselves to expend any thought upon it, but living as though in a flesh not their own, they showed by their very deeds what it is to sojourn as strangers here, and what it is to have one's citizenship in heaven.

Admiring these things, and blessing the life of these men — because they show by their deeds that they bear about in the body the dying of Jesus — I too prayed that, so far as was possible for me, I might be an emulator of those men.

For this reason, then, when I saw some in my own homeland attempting to emulate those men, I thought I had found some help toward my own salvation, and I made the things seen a proof of the things unseen.

Since, then, what is hidden within each of us is unclear, I judged the lowliness of one's clothing to be a sufficient indication of humility, and it was enough for me, as proof, to see a coarse cloak, a girdle, and sandals of untanned leather.

And though many tried to draw me away from familiarity with them, I could not bear it when I saw them preferring the life of endurance to a life of enjoyment, and because of the singularity of their way of life I felt a zealous attachment toward them.

I did not receive slanders against them, even though many affirmed that they did not hold right opinions concerning God, but, having been made disciples of the champion of the present heresy, were secretly sowing his teachings —

since I had never personally heard these things, I regarded those who reported them as slanderers.

But when at length I was called to the leadership of the Church, concerning those who had been given over to us as guardians and overseers of our life, under the pretense, forsooth, of helpfulness and loving fellowship — I am silent, lest I should seem, by saying things incredible, to bring myself into disrepute, or, if believed, to furnish those who believe me an occasion for misanthropy.

This nearly happened to me too, had not the mercies of God swiftly overtaken me beforehand.

For I nearly fell into suspicion of everyone, thinking that nothing in anyone could be trusted, my soul having been struck by treacherous dealings.

Nevertheless, it still seemed for a time that there was some semblance of familiarity between us and them.

And discussions on doctrines took place between us once and again, and we seemed, having come to agreement, not to be at variance.

For since they found that we uttered the same words concerning faith in God which they had heard from us throughout the whole time (for even if in other respects we are worthy of groans, yet in this one thing I dare to boast in the Lord — that I never held erroneous opinions concerning God, or, holding different views, afterward learned otherwise —

but the conception of God which I received from childhood from my blessed mother and my grandmother Macrina, this, grown to maturity, I have retained within myself —

for I did not exchange one set of ideas for another in the fuller development of the doctrine, but I brought to completion the principles that had been handed down to me by them.

For just as that which grows becomes greater from a small beginning, yet remains the same as itself, not changing in kind, but being brought to perfection through growth —

So I reckon that, for my part, this same doctrine has grown through advancement)

so that let them examine their own conscience, and let them consider the tribunal of Christ, whether they have ever heard from us anything other than what we now say — those who have now spread rumors against us for false doctrine, and who, with the denunciatory letters they composed against us, have filled every ear round about.

Hence we too have come to the necessity of this defense.

For we are accused of blasphemy against God, not on the basis of any writing we have put forth, nor of anything we have ever spoken unwritten, by word of mouth, openly, in the churches of God.

But not even a witness has been found who says he heard from us, spoken privately in a corner, any of the impious things alleged.

From what source, then, are we condemned, if we neither write impiously, nor speak publicly to anyone's harm, nor in our private house-to-house conversations pervert those we meet? O what a strange drama!

"So-and-so," he says, "wrote something in Syria that was not pious;"

"and you wrote to him more than twenty years ago."

"Therefore you are that man's partner, and let his accusations become yours as well." But, O man who is a friend of truth, who has been taught that falsehood is the offspring of the devil, how were you persuaded that that letter was mine? For you neither sent to inquire, nor asked, nor were you informed by me, who could have told you the truth.

But even if the letter is indeed mine, how is it clear that this composition which has now come into your hands is contemporary with my letter? Who told you that this writing is twenty years old? And how is it clear that the composition belongs to that very man to whom my letter was sent? And even if that man is indeed the author, and I did write to him, and the date of my letter and of his composition is the same — what proof is there that I accepted it in my mind and hold that opinion within myself? Ask yourself:

...words? Were not stenographers present at all times, taking down what I dictated against the heresy? Were not the most faithful of your own disciples with me at all times? When visiting the brotherhoods and spending whole nights with them in prayer, always speaking and hearing about God without contentiousness, did I not give exact proofs of my own thinking? How then has the experience of so long a time proved weaker than so unsound and feeble a suspicion? And what witness of my disposition ought there to have been, before you? What was spoken by us concerning the faith at Chalcedon, what was often said at Heraclea, what was said earlier at Caesarea in the suburb — were not all these things in agreement from us? Were not all consistent with one another? — except, as I said, that some growth through advancement is to be observed in what is said, which is not a change from worse to better, but a filling up of what was lacking, through the addition of knowledge.

How is it that you do not also consider this, that "the father shall not bear the sin of the child, nor shall the son bear the sin of the father; each shall die in his own sin"? But to me the man slandered by you is neither father nor son.

For he has been neither my teacher nor my disciple.

But if the sins of parents must become accusations against their children, it would be far more just for the doctrines of Arius to become charges against his disciples;

and if someone begot Aetius the heretic, then the charges against the son ascend upon the head of the father.

But if it is not just for anyone to be accused on account of those, it is surely far more just that we not be held to account in words for men in no way related to us, even if they did sin at all, if indeed anything worthy of condemnation was written by them.

For I may be forgiven for disbelieving what is said against them, since the experience I myself have suffered establishes how readily prone my accusers are to slander.

For indeed, if it was because they were deceived and supposed me to share the opinion of those who wrote those Sabellian statements which they themselves now circulate, that they proceeded to slander me, even so they would not deserve forgiveness, casting their blasphemies and wounding, before any clear proofs, even those who had never associated with them — not to mention those bound to them in the closest friendship; and it is proof that they are not led by the Holy Spirit that they hold false suppositions within themselves.

He who is about to sever the friendship of a brother must take much thought, and pass many sleepless nights, and with many tears seek the truth from God.

For if the rulers of this world, when they are about to condemn some evildoer to death, draw the curtains and summon the most experienced men to deliberate over the matter before them, and spend much time at it, now looking to the strictness of the law, now moved by respect for the community of shared nature, and after much groaning and lamenting the necessity, become, before all the people, mere servants administering the law under constraint, not carrying out the condemnation for their own pleasure —

how much more worthy of diligence, concern, and counsel with many should a man be considered, who is about to break off a friendship among brothers confirmed over a long span of time? Yet a single letter — and that itself of doubtful authorship — was enough!

For you could not even say that you recognized it from the marks of the signature, since it was not the original writing that came into your hands, but a copy that had been transcribed.

From a single letter, then, and that an old one —

for it is now twenty years since anything was written to that man.

And in the intervening time I have no witness of my own purpose and life so qualified as those who now stand as my accusers.

But in fact the letter is not the cause of the separation; rather there is another reason for the division, which I am ashamed to state, and about which I have kept silent all this while — except that what has now happened has made it necessary for me, for the benefit of many, to disclose their whole design.

Let these good men suppose that communion with us is an obstacle to their attaining power.

And since they had previously been bound by a certain written profession of faith which we had proposed to them — not that we ourselves distrusted their disposition, for I confess we did not, but wishing to heal the suspicions which many of our like-minded brethren held concerning them — so that nothing from that confession might seem to stand as an obstacle to their being accepted by those now in power, they renounced communion with us, and this letter was devised as the pretext for the breach.

The clearest sign of what I say is this: that, having resolved to break from us and having composed the accusations they wished to bring against us, before ever sending the letter to us they were circulating it everywhere.

For the letter had already appeared seven days before it reached my hands, as some, having received it from others, were about to pass it on to yet others.

For thus they devised to hand it from one to another, so that its circulation throughout the whole region might be swift.

And these things were already being told to us at that time by those who reported their affairs to us most clearly.

But we decided to keep silent, until He who reveals the deep things should make their affairs public by the clearest and most incontrovertible proofs.

To Genethlius the Presbyter. I received the letter of your reverence, and I commended the title which you so aptly gave to the book composed by them, calling it a "bill of divorce."

As for those who wrote it, what defense they have prepared for it before the unerring judgment-seat of Christ, I am unable to conceive.

For having set forth an accusation against us, and having vehemently inveighed against us, and having narrated what they wished — not what the truth holds — having fashioned for themselves an appearance of great humility and heaped upon us a mass of arrogance, as though we had not received those they sent — all falsehoods, or at least most of them, lest I speak too dangerously — as men seeking to persuade men and not God, and seeking to please men and not God, with whom nothing is preferred above the truth, thus they have composed their book.

Then, beneath their writings against us, they appended heretical statements, concealing the author of the impiety, so that the many and simpler folk, from the accusation against us already set down, might suppose the attached statements to be ours — because those who craftily slander us passed over in silence the name of the father of these wicked doctrines, and left it to the suspicion of the more simple-minded that we were the ones who either conceived or wrote these things.