Letter CCXLIX. [3092]
Without address. Commendatory.
I congratulate this my brother, in being delivered from our troubles here and in approaching your reverence. In choosing a good life with them that fear the Lord he has chosen a good provision for the life to come. I commend him to your excellency and by him I beseech you to pray for my wretched life, to the end that I may be delivered from these trials and begin to serve the Lord according to the Gospel.
[3092] Placed in 376.
Letter CCL. [3093]
To Patrophilus, bishop of Ægæ.
There has been some delay in my receiving your answer to my former letter; but it has reached me through the well-beloved Strategius, and I have given thanks to the Lord for your continuance in your love to me. What you have now been kind enough to write on the same subject proves your good intentions, for you think as you ought, and you counsel me to my gain. But I see that my words will be extending too far, if I am to reply to everything written to me by your excellency. I therefore say no more than this, that, if the blessing of peace goes no further than the mere name of peace, it is ridiculous to go on picking out here one and there another, and allow them alone a share in the boon, while others beyond number are excluded from it. But if agreement with mischievous men, under the appearance of peace, really does the harm an enemy might do to all who consent to it, then only consider who those men are who have been admitted to their companionship, who have conceived an unrighteous hatred against me; who but men of the faction not in communion with me. There is no need now for me to mention them by name. They have been invited by them to Sebasteia; they have assumed the charge of the Church; they have performed service at the altar: they have given of their own bread to all the people, being proclaimed bishops by the clergy there, and escorted through all the district as saints and in communion. If one must adopt the faction of these men, it is absurd to begin at the extremities, and not rather to hold intercourse with those that are their heads. [3094] If then we are to count heretic and shun no one at all, why, tell me, do you separate yourself from the communion of certain persons? But if any are to be shunned, let me be told by these people who are so logically consistent in everything, to what party those belong whom they have invited over from Galatia to join them? If such things seem grievous to you, charge the separation on those who are responsible for it. If you judge them to be of no importance, forgive me for declining to be of the leaven of the teachers of wrong doctrine. [3095] Wherefore, if you will, have no more to do with those specious arguments, but with all openness confute them that do not walk aright in the truth of the Gospel.
[3093] Placed in 376.
[3094] i.e. with Euzoius, Eudoxius, and the more pronounced Arians.
[3095] ton heterodidaskalounton. cf. 1 Tim. i. 3. The Ben. note compares Greg., Orat. xii. 203.
Letter CCLI. [3096]
To the people of Evæsæ. [3097]
1. My occupations are very numerous, and my mind is full of many anxious cares, but I have never forgotten you, my dear friends, ever praying my God for your constancy in the faith, wherein ye stand and have your boasting in the hope of the glory of God. Truly nowadays it is hard to find, and extraordinary to see, a Church pure, unharmed by the troubles of the times, and preserving the apostolic doctrine in all its integrity and completeness. Such is your Church shewn at this present time by Him who in every generation makes manifest them that are worthy of His calling. May the Lord grant to you the blessings of Jerusalem which is above, in return for your flinging back at the heads of the liars their slanders against me, and your refusal to allow them entry into your hearts. I know, and am persuaded in the Lord, that "your reward is great in heaven," [3098] even on account of this very conduct. For you have wisely concluded among yourselves, as indeed is the truth, that the men who are "rewarding me evil for good, and hatred for my love," [3099] are accusing me now for the very same points which they are found to have themselves confessed and subscribed.
2. Their presenting you with their own signatures for an accusation against me is not the only contradiction into which they have fallen. They were unanimously deposed by the bishops assembled at Constantinople. [3100] They refused to accept this deposition and appealed to a synod of impious men, [3101] refusing to admit the episcopacy of their judges, in order not to accept the sentence passed upon them.
The reason alleged for their non-recognition was their being leaders of wicked heresy. All this [3102] happened nearly seventeen years ago. The principal men of those who deposed them were Eudoxius, Euippius, George, [3103] Acacius, and others unknown to you. [3104]
The present tyrants of the churches are their successors, some ordained to fill their places, and others actually promoted by them.
3. Now let those who charge me with unsound doctrine tell me in what way the men whose deposition they refused to accept were heretical. Let them tell me in what way those promoted by them, and holding the same views as their fathers, are orthodox. If Euippius was orthodox, how can Eustathius, whom he deposed, be other than a layman? If Euippius was a heretic, how can any one ordained by him be in communion with Eustathius now? But all this conduct, this trying to accuse men and set them up again, is child's play, got up against the Churches of God, for their own gain.
When Eustathius was travelling through Paphlagonia, he overthrew the altars [3105] of Basilides of Paphlagonia, [3106] and used to perform divine service on his own tables. [3107] Now he is begging Basilides to be admitted to communion. He refused to communicate with our reverend brother Elpidius, because of his alliance with the Amasenes; [3108] and now he comes as a suppliant to the Amasenes, petitioning for alliance with them. Even ye yourselves know how shocking were his public utterances against Euippius: now he glorifies the holders of Euippius's opinions for their orthodoxy, if only they will cooperate in promoting his restitution. And I am all the while being calumniated, not because I am doing any wrong, but because they have imagined that they will thus be recommended to the party at Antioch. The character of those whom they sent for last year from Galatia, as being likely by their means to recover the free exercise of their episcopal powers, is only too well known to all who have lived even for a short time with them. I pray that the Lord may never allow me leisure to recount all their proceedings. I will only say that they have passed through the whole country, with the honour and attendance of bishops, escorted by their most honourable bodyguard and sympathizers; and have made a grand entry into the city, and held an assembly with all authority. The people have been given over to them. The altar has been given over to them. How they went to Nicopolis, and could do nothing there of all that they had promised, and how they came, and what appearance they presented on their return, is known to those who were on the spot. They are obviously taking every single step for their own gain and profit. If they say that they have repented, let them shew their repentance in writing; let them anathematize the Creed of Constantinople; let them separate from the heretics; and let them no longer trick the simple-minded. So much for them and theirs.
4. I, however, brethren beloved, small and insignificant as I am, but remaining ever by God's grace the same, have never changed with the changes of the world. My creed has not varied at Seleucia, at Constantinople, at Zela, [3109] at Lampsacus, and at Rome. My present creed is not different from the former; it has remained ever one and the same. As we received from the Lord, so are we baptized; as we are baptized, so we make profession of our faith; as we make profession of our faith, so do we offer our doxology, not separating the Holy Ghost from Father and Son, nor preferring Him in honour to the Father, or asserting Him to be prior to the Son, as blasphemers' tongues invent. [3110] Who could be so rash as to reject the Lord's commandment, and boldly devise an order of his own for the Names? But I do not call the Spirit, Who is ranked with Father and Son, a creature. I do not dare to call slavish that which is royal. [3111] And I beseech you to remember the threat uttered by the Lord in the words, "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." [3112] Keep yourselves from dangerous teaching against the Spirit. "Stand fast in the faith." [3113] Look over all the world, and see how small the part is which is unsound. All the rest of the Church which has received the Gospel. from one end of the world to the other, abides in this sound and unperverted doctrine. From their communion I pray that I may never fall, and I pray that I may have part and lot with you in the righteous day of our Lord Jesus Christ, when He shall come to give to every one according to his conduct.
[3096] Placed in 376.
[3097] Euassai. Possibly Ptolemy's Seioua. Ramsay, Hist. Geog. A. M. 304. Now Yogounes, i.e. Agios 'Ioannes.
[3098] Matt. v. 12.
[3099] Ps. cix. 5.
[3100] i.e. in January 360. Soc. ii. 41-43; Soz. iv. 24.
[3101] The Synod of Lampsacus in 365 is probably referred to, but Socrates (v. 14) mentions several synods of the Homoiousians.
[3102] i.e. the deposition.
[3103] Of uncertain see.
[3104] A ms. variety is "to me."
[3105] thusiasteria .
[3106] i.e.Basilides, bishop of Gangra. cf. Letter ccxxvi. p. 268.
[3107] trapezon .
[3108] i.e.the Arian bishop of Amasia, who was intruded into the place of Eulalius. On the state of the Amasene church at his time, cf. Soz. vii. 2.
[3109] cf. Letter ccxxvi. p. 268.
[3110] cf. De Sp. S. chap. xii. p. 18.
[3111] cf. Ps. li. 12, LXX.
[3112] Matt. xii. 31, 32.
[3113] 1 Cor. xvi. 13.