To the Presbyters of Nicopolis.

1.  You have done quite right in sending me a letter, and in sending it by the hands of one who, even if you had not written, would have been perfectly competent to give me considerable comfort in all my anxieties, and an authentic report as to the position of affairs.  Many vague rumours were continually reaching me, and therefore I was desirous of getting information on many points from some one able to give it through accurate knowledge.  Touching all these I have received a satisfactory and intelligent narrative from our well-beloved and honourable brother Theodosius the presbyter.  I now write to your reverences the advice which I give myself, for in many respects our positions are identical; and that not only at the present moment, but in times gone by too, as many instances may prove.  Of some of these we possess records in writing; others we have received through unwritten recollection from persons acquainted with the facts.  We know how, for the sake of the name of the Lord, trials have beset alike individuals and cities that have put their trust in Him.  Nevertheless, one and all have passed away, and the distress caused by the days of darkness has not been everlasting.  For just as when hail-storm and flood, and all natural calamities, at once injure and destroy things that have no strength, while they are only themselves affected by falling on the strong, so the terrible trials set in action against the Church have been proved feebler than the firm foundation of our faith in Christ.  The hail-storm has passed away; the torrent has rushed over its bed; clear sky has taken the place of the former, and the latter has left the course without water and dry, over which it travelled, and has disappeared in the deep.  So, too, in a little while the storm, now bursting upon us, will cease to be.  But this will be on the condition of our being willing not to look to the present, but to gaze in hope at the future somewhat further off.

2.  Is the trial heavy, my brethren?  Let us endure the toil.  No one who shuns the blows and the dust of battle wins a crown.  Are those mockeries of the devil, and the enemies sent to attack us, insignificant?  They are troublesome because they are his ministers, but contemptible because God has in them combined wickedness with weakness.  Let us beware of being condemned for crying out too loud over a little pain.  Only one thing is worth anguish, the loss of one’s own self, when for the sake of the credit of the moment, if one can really call making a public disgrace of one’s self credit, one has deprived one’s self of the everlasting reward of the just.  You are children of confessors; you are children of martyrs; you have resisted sin unto blood.³⁰²³

3023 cf. Heb. xii. 4.

3024 κατεξάνθη.  cf. the use of καταξαίνω (=card or comb) in the Letter of the Smyrneans on the Martyrdom of Polycarp, § 2, “They were so torn by lashes that the mechanism of their flesh was visible, even as far as the veins and arteries.”  cf. note, p. 2, on the difference between the persecution of the Catholics by Valens and that of the earlier Christians by earlier emperors, though exile and confiscation were suffered in Basil’s time.

3025 cf. Acts v. 41.

3.  Only do not be deceived by their lies when they claim to be of the right faith.  They are not Christians, but traffickers in Christ,³⁰²⁶

3026 χριστέμποροι.  cf. the use of the cognate subst. χριστεμ πορία in the letter of Alexander of Alexandria in Theodoret, Ecc. Hist. i. 3.  χριστέμπορος occurs in the Didache, § 12, and in the Pseud. Ig., e.g., ad Mag. ix.

3027 ἱερεῦσι.  cf. note in Letter liv. p. 157.

3028 cf. Matt. iv. 24.

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