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| To the Master Vincomalus.
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CXL. To the Master
Vincomalus.1986
| 1986 The internal evidence of the letter makes it synchronize with the
preceding. The advocacy of the cause of Theodoretus by Vincomalus is
the more striking in that it does not appear to have been suggested by
personal friendship. Vincomalus was Consul Designate in 452. (Dict.
Christ. Biog. iv. 1159. Labbe iv. 843.) Magister =
“Magister Officiorum,” cf. note on p.
283. |
I have been much astonished to
learn that your magnificence, though quite unacquainted with me and
mine, and knowing only the wrong that had been done me, stood up as my
advocate, and left no means untried to undo the results of the
conspiracy against me. But your excellency will assuredly receive
recompense from our bountiful Lord, for He who promised to give a
reward for a little water will doubtless give greater recompense to the
givers of greater gifts.
I have indeed endured such
sufferings as none, or at least very few, of the ancients have
undergone, and this not only from my open foes, but, as I apprehend,
from my real friends. The former attacked me, the latter betrayed
me.
Who in the world ever heard of
such a trial? Who ever commanded a criminal to be tried in his absence
after chaining him up at a distance of more than five and thirty
stages? What judge has ever been so savage and inhuman as not only to
try men, aye but to condemn men the sound of whose voice he has never
heard, and this in most savage and inhuman fashion? The Lord has
ordered the erring brother, who spurns advice, after a first, second
and third admonition, to be treated as “an heathen man and a
publican.”1987
Now these
most equitable and righteous judges have not even given to them of the
same faith with themselves the treatment which they give to heathen men
and publicans. These indeed they do see and occasionally converse with,
and that with all honour and deference where they appear to be of rank
and dignity. But they have ordered me to be cut off from home, from
water, from everything. This is the way in which they have wished to
become imitators of our Father in heaven “Who maketh His sun to
rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just
and on the unjust.”1988
But of these
men I will say no more. The tribunal of the Lord is at hand where is
required not stage pretence but the reality of life. Now I beseech your
excellency to express my thanks to the emperor, the lover of Christ and
victorious, and to the very pious and godly Augusta, for having made
true religion the firm root of their pious empire, and to implore their
majesties to make the peace of the churches firm by commanding the
assembling of a council, not of men of violence who throw the
discussion into confusion, but of the lovers of the truth who confirm
the apostolic teaching, and repudiate this new fangled and spurious
heresy. And I pray that of these honourable endeavours you may reap the
fruit at the hands of our loving Lord.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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