Letters 141–181

… have. But you, it seems to me, though there are many friends and many words of consolation, could be consoled by none so well as by yourself and by his memory; for the two of you have become for all others an example of philosophy, and a kind of spiritual rule, both of good order in prosperity and of endurance in sorrow. For philosophy knows these two things: to bear good fortune with moderation and misfortune with dignity. This is what we have to say to your Honour. But as for me who write this, what time or what word will console me, except your company and conversation, which the blessed one has left us in place of everything, so that, seeing his features in you as in a fine, clear mirror, we may think that we have him too?

… the mercy too, from the harshness. But perhaps it is better to be long-suffering, and to give many an example of long-suffering from what we suffer. For words do not persuade the many as action does, which is silent exhortation. We think it a great thing to obtain justice from those who have wronged us; great, I say (for this too is useful for the correction of others); but much greater and more godlike than this is to endure when we suffer. For the one muzzles wickedness, but the other persuades men to be good, which is much better and more perfect than not being wicked. Let us consider that a great task of kindness lies before us, and let us forgive what was done against us, so that we too may obtain forgiveness, and let us bring kindness beforehand in return for kindness. Phinehas was called zealous because he ran the Midianite woman through together with the fornicator and took away reproach from the sons of Israel; but he was praised more because he prayed for the people when they had fallen. Let us too stand and make atonement, and let the plague be stayed, as it is written; and let this be reckoned to us as righteousness. Moses too was praised because he killed the Egyptian, grieving for the Israelite; but he was admired more because by his prayer he healed his sister Miriam when she was struck with leprosy for murmuring. Consider also what follows. The Ninevites are threatened with destruction, but they buy off their sin with tears. Manasseh was the most lawless of kings, but by his lament became the most famous of the saved. “What shall I do with you, Ephraim?” says God. How much wrath is in the word! And yet protection is added. What is swifter than kindness? The disciples ask for the fire of Sodom against those who would not receive Jesus, but he refuses the vengeance. Peter cuts off the ear of Malchus, one of those who were insulting him, but Jesus restores it. And what of the one who asked whether a brother who sins should be forgiven seven times? Is he not condemned for pettiness? For to the seven times, seventy

times seven are added. And what of the debtor in the Gospels, who did not forgive what he had been forgiven: is he not made to pay more bitterly for it? And what of the form of the prayer: does it not wish us to obtain forgiveness by forgiving? Having so many examples, let us imitate God's kindness, and not wish to learn from our own case how great an evil is the requital of sin. You see the order of goodness. He first gives a law, then commands, promises, threatens, reproaches, raises his hand, holds back, threatens again; when he is forced, he brings a blow, and that little by little, opening room for amendment. Let us not, then, strike all at once (for it is not safe), but bringing them to their senses by fear, let us conquer by kindness, and keep them bound to reverence by their conscience rather than tormented by our wrath. Let us not wither a fig tree that can still bear fruit, nor condemn it as useless and cumbering the ground, when the care and attention of a skilled farmer may perhaps heal it. Nor let us so quickly destroy so great and famous a work because of an attack, perhaps, of the evil one and his envy; but let us wish rather to appear perfect in kindness, and lovers of the poor more than lovers of strict justice; and let us not listen to those who inflame us to this more than to those who restrain us, considering, if nothing else, the shame, if we should seem to be fighting against the poor, who have this great advantage, that even when they do wrong they are pitied for their misfortune. Imagine now that all the poor and those who feed the poor are falling at your feet, and all the monks and virgins supplicating for them. Grant the favour to them all in return for this (since they have been crushed enough, as is clear from what they begged of us), and above all to us who intercede for them. If it seems terrible to you to be dishonoured by them, let it seem much more terrible that we who advise you thus should not be heard. And may God forgive the good Paul for the insults he committed against us.

[Letter 78. To Theotecnus] We know that it is hard, while the injustice is fresh and the anger still boiling, to accept reasoning. For anger and grief blind us, especially when there is ground for just indignation. Yet since we too are among those wronged and insulted with you, and are no less indignant, we have the right also to advise you against dishonour. We have suffered terrible things; add, if you like, such as no other man has. But let us not on this account wrong ourselves too, nor hate piety more than is good for us. A wife is a great thing, and a daughter precious; but not more precious than the soul. Remember that you were lately counted worthy of grace and cleansed by the washing of sins; and the danger is no ordinary one, of staining the gift with blood and needing another cleansing. Let us not, then, plot against ourselves, nor throw away our freedom of speech before God by showing ourselves bitter to those who wronged us and indignant beyond measure. Let us leave the man to God and to the punishments there; and let us make the Judge kind to us by showing ourselves kind, and let us forgive, so that we may be forgiven. And let no vain reasoning deceive you, that to prosecute justly and to hand over the lawbreaker to the laws incurs no guilt. There are laws of the Romans, and there are ours too. But theirs are immoderate and harsh, going as far as blood; ours are kind and humane, and do not allow us to give rein to anger against those who wrong us. Let us abide by these, and follow these, so that by granting small things (for life here is small and worth nothing) we may receive great things from God in return: his kindness and the hopes of the world to come.

[Letter 79. To Simplicia] You praise our holy and common father, the support of the faith, the rule of truth and stamp of piety, the grey hair full of wisdom, the man who surpassed the measures of human life and virtue, the faithful servant and great high priest, the mediator between God and men, the dwelling-place of the Spirit; in this you do rightly, since every word falls short of that holy and blessed soul, unless my affection deceives me, or my grief mingled with longing. But this I wonder at very much: how you praise him as holy and so far honour him fittingly, and yet try to undo his work, as though it were that of the unholy, of those who most deserve insult, who lived and died at random. For if you are claiming his fellow shepherd as a slave of your own, or are pursuing this little gain, I cannot see how I can praise it, to put it mildly, and it is quite unworthy of your magnanimity. For how is it not absurd to honour the Divine with gold and silver and the superfluities of property, where display perhaps counts for more than piety, but to wish to deprive the Church of a priest altogether, and to rob it of the holiest of its offerings? But if you are vexed because we did this by our own authority, and did not remind your nobility or give your generosity room to act, you would be saying something just, and the feeling is human; but know that the gift is greater for you now than it would have been then, at that

time, by as much as it is more generous to pardon those who took than to give oneself. In that way you would have seemed to grant a favour to God alone; but in this way you grant it to us too, his servants, who have been counted worthy to bear his name. Do not, then, be angry either with him or with us. For he has been compelled by force, not done wrong; and as for us, what is surprising if, trusting in your kindness, we went so far, trusting also the common vote of the whole district? Whether some gave it to win favour or with evil intent, they themselves would know, and they will answer to God. It is not ours to know this, or to pry into everyone's mind. But how was it easy for us to repel them, or to overlook so many tears, or the desolation of the district, so long without care, without a shepherd, without spiritual oversight? And this should be clear to you before all: that those who agreed then and deny it now are doing a thing neither pious nor honourable. They would have been much better speaking against it then than flattering now, undoing their own acts, and fearing men rather than God. Imagine them saying again, in their fickleness, that they changed out of fear of you; and that much more truly, since they must always go wrong and hunt for false and sophistical excuses. If you think this rightly said, but you demand a settlement (for I hear this too, though you made no charge in your letter), let it be demanded justly and humanely, and we will find no fault; for we too do not like masters' fair claims to suffer loss. What is left? Perhaps to lay hold of the man as unworthy, and on this ground to attack the appointment.

For this is a somewhat more seemly way of making a charge. My answer to this is simple and easy. Just as we leave no one else under accusation unexamined, not even if he is one of our close friends and well-born (for nothing is more to be revered than God and the canon), so we will not let this man go either. But if anyone has any charge to bring, let him be examined before us, in your presence and with you sitting in judgment with us, if you wish, or otherwise in your absence; and if he is found innocent, let him be acquitted, even if he is a slave; since slaves and masters have the same Father and God, and justice is not defined by rank. But if he is convicted, then he will be condemned by his own sin. In this way neither will the canon be insulted nor the departed be dishonoured (our own part may perhaps be overlooked, as of no account); and you yourself will escape an evil suspicion: that because you are estranged from us and from the sound faith you are contriving this sophistically and not nobly, moved by one thing but striking at another. This I advise you not to incur, as neither holy nor seemly; nor, dishonouring our laws, to take refuge in those outside, nor to keep quarrelling with us, but to forgive us if we acted too simply out of the freedom of grace, and to accept being nobly defeated rather than winning badly by opposing the Spirit.

[Letter 81. To Gregory of Nyssa] You are distressed at your travels, and you seem to yourself unstable, like pieces of wood carried along on the waters. By no means, my admirable friend; do not feel like this. Their motion is involuntary, but your going about is according to God, and doing good to many is your stability, even if you are not fixed in one place. Unless one would also blame the sun because it runs round sowing its rays and giving life to everything it passes over; and, praising the fixed stars, find fault with the planets, whose very wandering is harmonious.

… and also to let us know by letter that you are doing this. For the one is a favour to justice, the other to us. But see that you do not grow weary of doing us good in future too; and may you always be seen to add something to your zeal, so that we may admire you even more. As for our son Euphemius, he is not yet …, but it is hoped, and I think he will not need much effort from you, if he comes. Fortunatus, who hands you this letter, is … our relative too, and, if I must add something, a deacon of those who are well spoken of. This you had to learn from us. The rest I know you will add of yourself: to regard the man as one of your own and with care, in whatever he needs of your Reverence. Whatever good you do him, you will be doing us a kindness.

… then, if you wish, changing your dress, so that both may go as well as possible for us: having you, and not failing of our principle. If not, then at any rate even in your fine cloak. And if anyone prosecutes us for breaking the rule, let us plead at least this far: that you are among those who perform the prayer, not among those invited. But if one of us does not accept this, what will you say to that? That we invite you as an orphan. In this way, then, even playing the tyrant, since the occasion is yours. Third, and greatest: you may, as one who invites us to prayer, share in the prayer. So we will receive you, pleading in this way. As for your sister, no one of us … if she came, but on the contrary would excuse both her and us if she did not. So let her come unbidden; but you are invited, and come, trusting partly in us and partly in the prayer, so that you may make our festival brighter, since by God's grace your belly has been well enough managed, or rather in an orphan's fashion and, if I may put it so, very … and nobly.

… that we should converse with one another by letter; this you yourself have done, and done well, and we are doing it too. The matters you write about are not small to us, nor of small account; and so we too, having considered them not in passing nor carelessly but very carefully, have come to this decision. We are weary of contending against envy and against the holy bishops who dissolve the common concord and make the faith a side-issue of their private quarrels. Therefore we have decided to back water, as the saying goes, and to draw into ourselves, as they say the nautilus does when it senses a storm, and to watch others from afar striking and being struck, while we ourselves make ready for the things there. And if it is dangerous to leave the Church, as you write, which Church? If ours, I say so too, and you are right; but if one that does not belong to us at all, nor was proclaimed for us, we are not accountable. But because we took care of it for some time, are we bound by this? Many others too would be bound, who have taken care of churches not their own. And perhaps the labour earns a reward, while giving it up is not liable to account. So fear nothing about us on this score; but rather fear this, lest we be harmed.

… I think, to share also in the rest of your prosperity. And do you yourself share, as you should, in the cares and difficulties here with your friends who are away; and do not keep the good to yourself alone, as the tragedians' saying goes, but help your friend in his labours in turn, so that you may be just in every way, dealing justly and equally with friendship and with friends. And may your good fortune stay with you a long time, so that you may do more good; or rather, may it be yours inalienably and eternally, when after prosperity here you cross over to the life there. [Letter to Bosporius, bishop of Colonia] I respect the diligence of your summons. But I would be more ashamed of myself if I did not write the truth. I fear our affairs are at an end; so ashamed am I of my grey hair, our common table, and our labours from youth, now that I count for less with you than the worst of men, and am dishonoured by those from whom I would least have expected it.

… . This too is a fair lessening of misfortune. [Letter 91. To Nectarius, archbishop of Constantinople] Our affairs are as they are: we sit without war or trouble, valuing above everything the riskless prize of silence. And we have gained something from our quiet, having by God's mercy fairly recovered from our illness. Prosper …, as the divine David says; and may God, who has honoured you, help you administer the priesthood, granting it to be above all abuse. And so that we may give proof of our confidence in one another, and suffer nothing merely human as we stand before God, I make this request of you; and do you readily nod assent. We are concerned for our most genuine Pancratius, of necessity, for many reasons. Be willing to receive him kindly, and to commend him to the more serious of your friends, so that he may attain his aim. His aim is to obtain freedom from public burdens through some military service; since not a single way of life is free from the abuse of the wicked, as you yourself know.

… proof, to give us such orders about such matters. We would dare to write such things even to others, but to run risks with you as judge is not safe. Still, we will try not to refuse your command. [Letter 93. To Sophronius, the prefect] Our retirement has something good for us, its freedom from affairs and its quiet; but not so much as there is harm in being separated from your friendship and company, so great a good. Others enjoy your perfection; for us it would be much even to have this: the shadow of conversation that letters give. Shall we see you again? Shall we embrace our pride? Will this be granted to the remnant of our life? If it is granted, all thanks to God; if not, we are already dead for the greater part. But remember your Gregory, and tell of our affairs. [Letter 94. To Amazonius] If any of our common friends (and we have many) asks you, “Where is Gregory? What is he doing?”, say boldly that he lives as a philosopher in quiet, caring as much for those who wrong him as for those not even known to have been born: so unconquerable is he. But if the same man asks you again, “And how does he bear separation from his friends?”, do not boldly say any longer that he is a philosopher, but that he takes it very ignobly. For one man is weak in one thing and another in another; we are weak toward friendship and friends. Of these the admirable Amazonius is one. Perhaps you could heal us with one thing alone and make us easier on your account: if you remember us, and show by letters that you do so. [Letter 95. To Leontius] O happy sickness, and abuse of my enemies,

… through which we have been set free, out of the fire of Sodom and the slackness of the bishops. How are your affairs with God? Let these be well; the rest, however they are, let us bid farewell. A little while yet, and I shall see those who insulted me, when our affairs are judged by fire. We greet you, and through you our common friends. Remember my stonings. [Letter 96. To Sophronius] We have suffered loss for a long time, while the first of cities did not have the first of men. For the good had to be poured out, I think, and the benefit of all to become common, so that you might sow good order from on high, as those who tamed our food sowed seeds, so at least the myths and fictions hold. But for me there is still more pain, that having enjoyed you only as much as a lightning flash briefly lights up the sight, I was then overcome by envy and withdrew into myself, yielding to others the government of the Church and the more seemly stage (if I may put it so, because of those who lightly mock what deserves instruction). But you, best of all men, keep the same disposition toward us, which, like the magnet, draws iron to itself. [Letter 97. To Heracleianus] You are always with us, good Heracleianus, both saying something learned and listening; and fair Constantinople is with us because of you, even if only for a time, since envy so willed. And if Gregory too were with you, it would be better for both of us.

You will show this by the letters you send us, which is all that is possible. [Letter 98. To the town councillors] You seem to me, if it were up to you, not even to keep your hands off the wallet of Diogenes of Sinope, but to lay hands on him too, charging him with practising a trade: his cloak and his staff and the very owning of nothing for philosophy's sake, and going now to one door and now to another, living at random and from whatever came to hand; since you are trying to impose on our brother Theotecnus the tax on trades. What should I name first, or as greatest, of the just claims on his behalf? That he is a deacon, or that he is poor, or that he is a stranger and belongs to others rather than to us, or that he is venerable in his life, a minister and neighbour of the martyrs? You know too that he entertains strangers beyond his means. And perhaps this is his only wrong, that he alone of those there forces himself to be good. Which of these is greatest, judge for yourselves. But excuse the man on account of them all, lest you seem to benefit the community a little while doing yourselves great harm, not clothing the naked, as the saying goes, but stripping him. [Letter 99. To Homophronius] I hear that you are living as a recluse, and may you become for us John the Baptist, or Elijah of Carmel; and may those who hate us do us only this wrong: to gather us to God and to give ourselves genuinely to the things above, freed from affairs and tumults, so that they may do us good unwillingly at least, since they cannot do it willingly.

[Letter 100. To Gigantius] I was glad of the invitation, and more than glad of what you write, not because we are praised (that is a small thing), but because you think rightly; and the bond of your love for us is the hope of the same things and the genuine worship of the Trinity, which we utter more than we breathe, in danger and out of danger, giving other things to the times to carry about as they will, but holding this unmoved in our souls, the only treasure that is free from envy and truly ours. As for me, when I consider other things, how many afflictions have surrounded us and surround us still, and the unevenness of the evils that whirl us up and down, and the war waged against us by all though we do no wrong, and look only to this, that I was counted worthy to become a herald of the truth when sound teaching had been cast aside and spat upon in a desert land, trackless and waterless, as it is written: it is too little to say that I am freed from all distress; I even rejoice exceedingly, as one counted worthy of greater things than I deserve. To what end do I write this? To show that the only firm friendship and intimacy for me is with those who are so disposed. And who in his right mind would willingly be absent from those so disposed? What feast is greater than to keep the feast with such men? But if sickness and the winter hinder my eagerness, I will bear the loss myself; but do you forgive me, and pray for another occasion for us to meet.

[Letter 101. To Cledonius the presbyter, against Apollinarius] To the most honoured and most God-beloved brother and fellow presbyter Cledonius, Gregory sends greeting in the Lord. We wish to learn what this innovation in the Church is, which allows anyone who wishes, and every passer-by, as it is written, to tear apart the flock that has been well led, and to plunder it by thievish assaults, or rather by robbers' and senseless teachings. For if those who have now come in had anything to condemn in us concerning the faith, not even then should they have dared such things without consulting us. They ought first to have persuaded us, or been willing to be persuaded (if we count for anything, as men who fear God, who have laboured for the word and have benefited the Church), and then, if at all, to innovate; and then perhaps there would have been some excuse for the offenders. But since our faith has been proclaimed in writing and without writing, here and further away, in danger and out of danger, how is it that some attempt such things, while others keep quiet? And this is not yet the terrible thing, though it is terrible, that men lodge their own false doctrine in simpler souls through the agency of more mischievous ones; but that they also lie about us, as though we shared their opinion and mind, putting the bait round the hook, and through this pretence wickedly fulfilling their own will, and making our simplicity, in which we looked upon them as brothers and

not as strangers, a provision for wickedness. And not only this, but, as I hear, they also say that they have been received by the Western synod, by which they had formerly been condemned, as is well known to all. If, then, those who hold the views of Apollinarius have been received, either now or formerly, let them prove it, and we will be content. For it is clear that they have assented to the right doctrine, since it is not possible otherwise for them to have obtained this. And they will certainly prove it, either by a synodal tome or by letters of communion; for this is the custom of synods. But if this is mere talk and invention, devised for show and for credibility with the many because of the trustworthiness of the persons named, teach them to keep quiet, and …; for we think this befits your way of life and your orthodoxy. Let not the men deceive, nor be deceived, accepting the “Lord's man,” as they themselves call him, or rather our Lord and God, as without a mind. For we do not separate the man from the Godhead, but we teach as dogma one and the same, who formerly was not man but God and the only Son before the ages, unmixed with body and with all that belongs to body, but at the end also man, assumed for our salvation; passible in flesh, impassible in Godhead; circumscribed in body, uncircumscribed in spirit; the same earthly and heavenly, seen and known by the mind, contained and uncontained; so that by one and the same, whole man and God, the whole man who had fallen under sin might be refashioned. If anyone does not regard holy Mary as Theotokos, he is cut off from the Godhead. If anyone says that he passed through the Virgin as through a channel, but was not formed in her divinely and humanly at once (divinely, because without a man; humanly, because by the law of gestation), he is likewise godless. If anyone says that the man was formed and that God afterwards slipped into him,

let him be condemned. For this is not a birth of God but an escape from birth. If anyone introduces two Sons, one from God the Father and a second from the mother, and not one and the same, may he also fall from the adoption promised to those who believe rightly. For there are two natures, God and man, since there are also soul and body; but not two Sons, nor two Gods. For neither are there here two men, even though Paul spoke in this way of the inner man and the outer. And to speak briefly: the elements of which the Saviour is made are one thing and another (if indeed the invisible is not the same as the visible, nor the timeless as what is under time), but he is not one person and another; God forbid! For both are one by the blending, God having become man and man having been made god, or however one might name it. I say “one thing and another,” the reverse of the case in the Trinity. For there it is one person and another, so that we do not confuse the hypostases; but not one thing and another, for the three are one and the same in Godhead. If anyone says that he worked in him by grace, as in a prophet, but was not and is not joined to him according to essence, may he be empty of the higher working, or rather full of the opposite. If anyone does not worship the Crucified, let him be anathema and be ranked with the … . If anyone says that he was made perfect by works, or that after the baptism, or after the resurrection from the dead, he was counted worthy of adoption, like those whom the Greeks bring in as enrolled among the gods, let him be anathema. For

what has a beginning, or makes progress, or is being perfected, is not God, even if he is spoken of in this way because of his gradual manifestation. If anyone says that he has now put off the holy flesh, and that the Godhead is bare of the body, and not that he both is and will come with what he assumed, may he not see the glory of his coming. For where is the body now, if not with him who assumed it? For it has not, according to the drivel of the Manichees, been laid up in the sun, to be honoured through dishonour; nor poured out into the air and dissolved, like the nature of a voice, the flow of an odour, or the course of lightning that does not stand still. And how then could he be touched after the resurrection, or one day be seen by those who pierced him? For Godhead by itself is invisible. But he will come with the body, as my doctrine holds, but such as he was seen by the disciples on the mountain, or as he was shown, the Godhead overpowering the flesh. And as we say these things to remove suspicion, so we write the following to correct the innovation. …