Letters 357–387

But struggle nobly and manfully against the first trial, so that he may not attempt a second and a third bout and others after them, but go away beaten and ashamed. For we know his wrestling holds, having learned them over a long time and in our own contests against him. [Letter 219. To Helladius] The words I shall address to you I shall address out of goodwill, so that I may fairly ask above all to be heard, or if not, to be forgiven for the advice. Not many approve of your action concerning our most honoured brother and fellow presbyter Sacerdos, as done on the slander of some rather than on your own judgment; they perhaps do not know the course of events, but, looking at the outcome by itself, they do not praise it. These things you yourself would know; for it is not for us to meddle in your affairs, you who lay down for others what they must do. But we beg your goodness, first, to give back to the man all the oversight of what he cared for. For it is not so easy for anyone to be a philosopher, even the most enduring and philosophical, as to bear being deprived of such labours and such long habit. If not, then the second course: arrange the care of the poor as you wish and through whom you yourself approve, but leave in his hands the care of the monastery and the brothers; and do not grieve him by innovation, and grieve still more those who cling to their accustomed life and cannot bear, as it were, the tearing apart of the members of one body. For some of them came to us and lamented this. If, then, the man seems to you to have something venerable of his own (as is fitting), respect him for his own sake, his grey hair, his labours, and the others,

… which he undertook for God's sake, showing a piety older than his years, and those he bore in feeding the poor and caring for the brothers. If this seems small to you, at least do not dishonour us and our intercession; and before all else, let go your anger and grief against him, yes, I beg you, and treat him as a father treats his child. If he has grieved you at all, which I do not think, forgive it for our sake, and say or write nothing about him that is unworthy, not of him, but of your gentleness; and if anything has been written, undo it. Nor make public your grief, which it is better to hide than to make known to those outside; so that in this as in other things you may teach him patience by your example. [Letter 220. To the same] Of what you wrote, some things are very gentle and kind; about the rest I do not know what to say, except that they grieve us, and very reasonably, as I persuade myself. For if our brother and fellow presbyter Sacerdos is justly accused, which I do not think, it is grievous; for how could such piety and such labours be undone so quickly? And if this is a slander contrived by those who envy him, this too is painful: that one whose way of life was joined to yours should be estranged from you by abuse. Accept, then, what I judged the best and most profitable course in the present circumstances. I have sent the brother himself to you, or rather sent him on his way as he was setting out, to heal the grievance in person and to tell you everything truthfully. About some matters he says he is ready to make his defence; others he will show to have been fabricated as lies. This he persuaded us of too, as one who speaks in the fear of God.

[Letter 221. To Homophronius] You invite us to the gathering; and I prayed to be in such bodily health as to be with you even unbidden, to see your holy house, the dwelling of Christ, the root of the holy branches, truly the mother of children who rejoices and whose children rejoice. I know this and am persuaded in the Lord, and therefore I say it boldly, even if something grievous has now befallen us: the lamp of Israel will not be quenched, even if it is buffeted by the winds of the evil one; nor will God's goodness be hidden longer, which he hides for those who fear him for unspeakable reasons of his economy; but it will rather be glorified and admired through your endurance and the hope that does not put to shame. And exhort our most honoured son Sacerdos too not to lose heart, nor to suffer anything unworthy of himself, but so to handle the time as to take his griefs as material for philosophy. Let him still serve our most honoured bishop; let him still strengthen the brothers, so that, above all, our work which we undertook in the Lord, so great and so famous, may not be destroyed. If it is, we will at least show fairness and overcome envy, having given no hold against ourselves to the wicked who hate us without cause.

… having suffered …, as regards the hope there … ; and perhaps so that we may know grace from the things here … . What is it? A company of praiseworthy travellers; whom Thecla too will follow shortly, the … handmaid and first fruits of good things, having remained a little … , so as both to honour them by her endurance … and to become for many an example of … philosophy in these things. Let us praise, then, the same … , and accept the economy … higher. Have these words now in place of us, and be with us in your thoughts, even if you find better ones … . And if we are counted worthy to see you face to face too, with all your household, greater would be the favour … thoughts,

… the pains here, when he says, “For he hid me in his tent in the day of evils.” And he not only lays aside his pain when he remembers God, but even rejoices: “For I remembered God,” he says, “and rejoiced.” Those who are attached to the world suffer pain too, and much more than those who serve God. But their suffering is without reward, while for us even suffering is rewarded, when we endure for God's sake. Come, let us weigh the grievous against the pleasant, and the present against the future; and we shall find that these are not even a tiny fraction of those, so far do the better things exceed. A good medicine for us, then, when we are in pain, is to remember God and the hopes there, and to experience what David did, being enlarged in affliction; not to be cramped in our thoughts, nor covered by grief as by a cloud, but then above all to hold to hope and to look through to the blessedness there, laid up for those who endure. We would be most persuaded to hold out in terrible things, and to be above the many when we are in pain, if we considered what we promised God and what we hoped for when we came to philosophy. To be rich? To be cheerful? To prosper in this life? Or, on the contrary, to be afflicted, to suffer hardship, to be in straits, to bear all things, to endure all things for the hope of what is to come? These, I know, not those, were what we expected. I fear, then, that we may be belying our compact with God, when we seek to have these things and also hope for those. … let us not undo the bargain, but bear these things so as to obtain those. Those who afflicted us have afflicted us; those who have departed have grieved us; but let us keep our soul unenslaved to passions. So let us overcome what grieves us,

… let us grant to them; for I am persuaded that the souls of the saints perceive our affairs. Above all and before all, let us reckon this: that it is absurd to be philosophers when there is no need, but to appear unphilosophical in our sufferings, and not to become a pattern for the many, of endurance in terrible things as of thanksgiving in cheerful ones. I write this not to teach you as one who does not know, but to remind you as one who knows. May the God of consolation keep you unwounded by your sufferings, and grant us to see your piety again, and to be persuaded by deeds that our labour was not in vain, but that we are something more to you than others; so that, as we shared your affliction, so we may have you as a partner in philosophy; which perhaps is owed to this grey hair of ours and to our labours for God.

[Letter 225. To Hellebichus] What losses we suffer from our sickness! I ought to have hastened to you, embraced you, and recalled our old friendship and intimacy. But our bodily state is not such. Therefore we come to you by letter and greet you with our salutation. And since we ought to bring some gift, we offer this: Mamas the reader, the son of a soldier, but consecrated to God for his character. Release him to God and to us, and do not count him among the … , and give him his freedom in writing, so that he may not be harassed by others either. For so you will make your hopes in war and command favourable for yourself. Yes, I beg you, see to this. For those who hold the greatest things in their hands, and on whom everything hangs in the balance, must take most thought of God and of the help that comes from him.

… a manifest cause. Since we do not persuade the many that we live as philosophers without guile, and give all our affairs to God. Who does not praise a plant just bursting into flower? Whom does a crop just being bound into sheaves, promising a ripe ear, not gladden? And whom does a newly initiated soul not gladden, just being adorned for God and beginning to shake off its earthly fetters, so that it may be with God and see the truth of the things of which we now see the shadows? I rejoice, then, for these reasons especially in our beloved brother and fellow deacon Evagrius, seeing him advancing not ignobly toward philosophy; since philosophy is also the love of wisdom. And I rejoice that he also brings me your friendship, and I will rejoice still more if you write more often and repay us with more tokens of friendship.

To what does my example point? There was between us a friendship pure and without guile (a thing rare, especially now, and found among few), and what made it was not so much kinship, nor a common fatherland, nor, as Homer says, “lovely companionship of youth,” as likeness of character and delight in the same things, which most of all fixes friendships and makes them firmer. Now our families too are being joined (the word is with God), so that our friendship may be increased and we may belong more to one another. And God brings this about, helping a just affection. Have us, then, through our sweetest son Euphemius; and we have you through your sweetest daughter. As for what follows, I do not know on whose behalf, or to whom, I should rather speak: to your Honour on behalf of the young man, or to the young man about you. For a father's goodwill is equal toward his children. But I pray that the union may be for every good, and such as is fitting when God joins it. [Letter 231. To Eusebius, a friend] … the dearest; the time of marriage, the foundation of life, and the prayers of fathers being fulfilled. But we are absent, who ought most of all to be present and to pray with you. And yet I promised; for hope lay under the longing, since wishing is enough to deceive. And having often set out and often hesitated, at last I was defeated by my sickness. Let others, then, call upon the Loves (since jesting too belongs to a wedding), and paint the beauty of the maiden, and set against it the grace of the bridegroom, and pelt the bridal chambers with words along with flowers. But I will sing you my own wedding song: The Lord bless you out of Zion, and himself join your union, and may you see your children's children, and, it is not much to say, better ones. This I would have prayed for you if present, and now I pray it. Let the rest be your concern, and let the father crown them, as he prayed to. For this is the rule we have set whenever we have attended weddings: theirs are the crowns, ours the prayers, which I know are not bounded by places.

We have not been invited to the wedding of our daughter, yet we are present, keeping the feast with you, sharing your eagerness, and praying for you all that is best. One of the good things is that Christ be present at the wedding (for where Christ is, there is seemliness), and that water become wine, that is, that everything be changed for the better; so that things that should not be mixed are not mixed, and bishops and buffoons, prayers and applause, … and flute-playing are not brought together. For the weddings of Christians, like everything else, must have seemliness; and seemliness is dignity. These are the gifts we bring to the wedding; and may you give us obedience in return. As for the bridegroom, if he follows these things, you have a son; if not, a soldier. [Letter 233. To Ablabius] I hear that you are in love with sophistry, and that the thing is wonderful: to speak pompously, to look grand, to walk high and lofty, to let your spirit carry you off to Marathon and Salamis, those ornaments of yours, and to think of nothing but Miltiadeses and Cynegeiruses, Callimachuses and Telemachuses, and to have everything dressed up sophistically and as close as possible to the attack. If, then, along with this you make some account of virtue too, you are ours, and success will come to you on the way; but if you are wholly a sophist and forget our friendship and what we often discussed with each other about the good, I will say nothing else harsh. But this perhaps it is fair to say: know that you play a little among the youngsters, but will be mocked very much by yourself, when good sense comes to you, but later.

[Letter 234. To Olympianus] The booklet you received from us, the Letters of Aristotle, I could have not taken back but left with you, a gift fitting for a man of letters and a fine reminder of our friendship. But so that you may not bring an indictment against us for unlawful dealing and insult toward an official, being a most clever orator and the best of judges, on the ground that we are trying to corrupt a judge so incorruptible and above all bribery, let what we gave come back to us. And we seek a reward from your Eloquence, nothing else (for what could you give us, who philosophize by not even having?), but writing itself; so that your repayment may be in proportion, discharging the favour of the Letters with letters. [Letter 235. To Adamantius]

… accepts, even if we do not lay it aside altogether. But if you think these things rightly said, but that it is not philosophical to ask a price for books, … the money, and the poor will settle the counter-claim. [Letter 236. To Libanius] I, a mother, have sent a son to a father: the mother by nature to the father by eloquence. As you care for me, so you will care for him. [Letter 237. To Macedonius] We are not insatiable in receiving kindness from friends, even if you are unstinting in doing it. Therefore we have sent the psalm-singer back to you as agreed, an excellent man besides (as far as one can learn in a short time), and perhaps pleasing to you for his psalmody, which always contains a reminder of God and of salvation. And if you do us a kindness again, whenever it pleases you and the time seems right, you will do better, and this will be more worthy of your friendship. [Letter 238] To the most reverent brotherhood in Christ, adorned in every way, the brotherhood of the blessed Leucadius at Sannabadae, to the monks and virgins sanctified in Christ Jesus, Gregory sends greeting in the Lord. What has happened by God's economy is, for those who have sense, a ground not for tears but for thanksgiving: that the athlete has gone out of the stadium with the good contest he contested, and has been received by the president of the games, so as to receive the crown of righteousness and to increase

by himself the chorus of the angels. All these things, and such things, become an occasion of joy and gladness for those who look to the truth according to the Gospel. But since a certain custom has prevailed of being sad at the departure of the saints and of receiving consolation from those who love us, for this reason we neither agree to say anything sad and downcast, nor do we advise you to lend your ears to such words. But we discharge the consolation we owe by advising your modesty always to look to him by looking at one another. For this we pray, that each man and each woman may be formed by the life of the blessed one, so that when you look at one another you may be assured that you are gazing on his likeness. Let his purity form your life, his freedom from anger, his humility, his active philosophy, his keeping his soul always intent on God, his not being carried away by the deceits of this life; so that, seeing these things in one another, you may paint his memorial in yourselves, and neither he nor you may come into death. For in your life he too will be shown living always, and you, by your good conduct, will make yourselves strangers to the fellowship of death. May the Lord shelter you, healthy and advancing in soul and body in the power of the Holy Spirit, remembering us in your prayers. [Letter 239. To Epiphanius] With one law I challenge another: the one that bids a father be honoured, with the one that bids children be taught. Now, then, I lead you toward the finest things; and receive this letter as a right hand of friendship. And if you reply, and are willing to do so often, perhaps you will make even an old man a warrior, no less noble than Nestor.

… I have written, and I am persuaded that to him too … . O the idleness, not to say the … ! Even Arganthonius would be short for us in a reckoning of sleep, so soundly have we slept. Where is that band of ours? Where the common studies and gatherings, and the sweet and abundant spring from which we drew? I for my part am getting up and shaking off the dust, like the horses of Achilles, late indeed (for I hesitate to say it), and tossing my mane. Do not think I am jesting. But whether you care at all for our friendship will be shown by what you write. … That you dart about like the stars, rising now in one part of the barbarian land and now in another, now supplying soldiers' rations, now appearing before the emperor in brilliant state: this report, messenger of good news, never ceases to announce to us. We pray to God that your undertaking may go on as it should, and that you may advance to a great dignity, and may one day appear to one who is wasting away. For we have only so much share in life as to breathe.

“I very much wonder, and am exceedingly amazed at the sobriety …,” and so on. [Letter 244. To Basilissa] If it is not superfluous to rouse one who labours to further labours, I will not hesitate, for our common safety, to strengthen your eagerness as best I can, not by adding other or foreign precepts, but by reminding you of what we have often said and you are accustomed to practise. They are these: to lead the soul above its griefs by occupying it with the best things; to remove from the mind everything foreign to virtue and unworthy of your judgment; to strain yourself toward piety and every seemliness; to refine the mind so as neither to accept nor to think anything unexamined; to strengthen your prudence at every time and in every way by keeping company with the counsels of the holy ones who went before; to set justice toward kin and strangers above all enmity and friendship; to have self-control as your housemate and companion everywhere, sincerely rooted in the soul and firmly established; not to change your character with the unevenness and changes of life. For neither is it seemly to let one's spirit shrink in poverty, nor safe to be proud in abundance. Therefore it is best to practise self-control in pleasures and endurance in griefs; not to remember former wealth; to ask for sufficiency; to love what is given; to hope for the better; to bear bodily sickness gently; to complain of nothing and to rail at nothing, but to be thankful toward Providence, whatever it may be, which often hides the causes of what happens but does not neglect what is deserved; in view of which, reckon before you say what is to be said

and before you do what is to be done; for so everything you say or do will be free from regret. Think that seemliness lies not in outward coverings; consider having few needs to be true and firm wealth; for to be firmly rich lies not in possessing much but in needing little: the one is in your power, the other belongs to outside things. Regulate your manner with gentleness, your disposition with calm, your tongue with brevity of speech. And through these adorn your head by covering it, your brows by keeping them lowered, your eyes by looking modestly, your mouth by saying nothing unseemly, your ears by lending them only to serious things, and your whole face with the colour of modesty. In all things and through all things keep yourself undefiled, like an untouched treasure. For the adornment proper and fitting to women is dignity, steadiness, and self-control. Consider the finest and easiest luxury to be the food that is needed; for this is praiseworthy in itself, to be chosen for a life of self-control, best for health and good proportion and all other seemliness, and not without profit for discipline.