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| To the presbyter Genethlius.
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Letter
CCXXIV.2903
To the presbyter Genethlius.
1. I have received
your reverence’s letter and I am delighted at the title which you
have felicitously applied to the writing which they have composed in
calling it “a writing of divorcement.”2904
What defence the writers will be able
to make before the tribunal
of Christ, where no excuse will avail, I am quite unable to
conceive. After accusing me, violently running me down, and
telling tales in accordance not with the truth but with what they
wished to be true, they have assumed a great show of humility, and have
accused me of haughtiness for refusing to receive their envoys.
They have written, as they have, what is all—or nearly
all—for I do not wish to exaggerate,—lies, in the endeavour
to persuade men rather than God, and to please men rather than God,
with Whom nothing is more precious than truth. Moreover into the
letter written against me they have introduced heretical expressions,
and have concealed the author of the impiety, in order that most of the
more unsophisticated might be deceived by the calumny got up against
me, and suppose the portion introduced to be mine. For nothing is
said by my ingenious slanderers as to the name of the author of these
vile doctrines, and it is left for the simple to suspect that these
inventions, if not their expression in writing, is due to me. Now
that you know all this, I exhort you not to be perturbed yourselves,
and to calm the excitement of those who are agitated. I say this
although I know that it will not be easy for my defence to be received,
because I have been anticipated by the vile calumnies uttered against
me by persons of influence.
2. Now as to the point that the writings
going the round as mine are not mine at all, the angry feeling felt
against me so confuses their reason that they cannot see what is
profitable. Nevertheless, if the question were put to them by
yourselves, I do think that they would not reach such a pitch of
obstinate perversity as to dare to utter the lie with their own lips,
and allege the document in question to be mine. And if it is not
mine, why am I being judged for other men’s writings? But
they will urge that I am in communion with Apollinarius, and cherish in
my heart perverse doctrines of this kind. Let them be asked for
proof. If they are able to search into a man’s heart, let
them say so; and do you admit the truth of all that they say about
everything. If on the other hand, they are trying to prove my
being in communion on plain and open grounds, let them produce either a
canonical letter written by me to him, or by him to me. Let them
shew that I have held intercourse with his clergy, or have ever
received any one of them into the communion of prayer. If they
adduce the letter written now five and twenty years ago, written by
layman to layman, and not even this as I wrote it, but altered (God
knows by whom), then recognise their unfairness. No bishop is
accused if, while he was a layman, he wrote something somewhat
incautiously on an indifferent matter; not anything concerning the
Faith, but a mere word of friendly greeting. Possibly even my
opponents are known to have written to Jews and to Pagans, without
incurring any blame. Hitherto no one has ever been judged for any
such conduct as that on which I am being condemned by these
strainers-out of gnats.2905
God, who
knows men’s hearts, knows that I never wrote these things, nor
sanctioned them, but that I anathematize all who hold the vile opinion
of the confusion of the hypostases, on which point the most impious
heresy of Sabellius has been revived. And all the brethren who
have been personally acquainted with my insignificant self know it
equally well. Let those very men who now vehemently accuse me,
search their own consciences, and they will own that from my boyhood I
have been far removed from any doctrine of the kind.
3. If any one enquires what my opinion is,
he will learn it from the actual little document, to which is appended
their own autograph signature. This they wish to destroy, and
they are anxious to conceal their own change of position in slandering
me. For they do not like to own that they have repented of their
subscription to the tract I gave them; while they charge me with
impiety from the idea that no one perceives that their disruption from
me is only a pretext, while in reality they have departed from that
faith which they have over and over again owned in writing, before many
witnesses, and have lastly received and subscribed when delivered to
them by me. It is open to any one to read the signatures and to
learn the truth from the document itself. Their intention will be
obvious, if, after reading the subscription which they gave me, any one
reads the creed which they gave Gelasius,2906
| 2906 cf.
Letter cxxx. p. 198. |
and observes what a vast difference there is between the two
confessions. It would be better for men who so easily shift their
own position, not to examine other men’s motes but to cast out
the beam in their own eye.2907
I am making a
more complete defence on every point in another letter;2908
| 2908 i.e.
Letter ccxxiii. | this will satisfy readers who want fuller
assurance. Do you, now that you have received this letter, put
away all despondency, and confirm the love to me,2909
which makes me eagerly long for union with
you. Verily it is a great sorrow to me, and a pain in my heart
that cannot be assuaged, if the slanders uttered against me so far
prevail as to chill your love and to alienate us from one
another. Farewell.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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