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| To the ascetics under him.
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Letter
CCXXVI.2914
To the ascetics under him.
It may be that the holy God
will grant me the joy of a meeting with you, for I am ever longing to
see you and hear about you, because in no other thing do I find rest
for my soul than in your progress and perfection in the commandments of
Christ. But so long as this hope remains unrealized I feel bound
to visit you through the instrumentality of our dear and God-fearing
brethren, and to address you, my beloved friends, by letter.
Wherefore I have sent my reverend and dear brother and fellow-worker in
the Gospel, Meletius the presbyter. He will tell you my yearning
affection for you, and the anxiety of my soul, in that,
night and day, I
beseech the Lord in your behalf, that I may have boldness in the
day of our Lord Jesus Christ through your salvation, and that
when your work is tried by the just judgment of God you may shine
forth in the brightness of the saints. At the same time the
difficulties of the day cause me deep anxiety, for all Churches
have been tossed to and fro, and all souls are being
sifted. Some have even opened their mouths without any
reserve against their fellow servants. Lies are boldly
uttered, and the truth has been hidden. The accused are
being condemned without a trial, and the accusers are believed
without evidence. I had heard that many letters are being
carried about against myself, stinging, gibbeting, and attacking
me for matters about which I have my defence ready for the
tribunal of truth; and I had intended to keep silence, as indeed
I have done; for now for three years I have been bearing the
blows of calumny and the whips of accusation, content to think
that I have the Lord, Who knows all secrets, as witness of its
falsehood. But I see now that many men have silence as a
corroboration of these slanders, and have formed the idea that my
silence was due, not to my longsuffering, but to my inability to
open my lips in opposition to the truth. For these reasons
I have attempted to write to you, beseeching your love in Christ
not to accept these partial calumnies as true, because, as it is
written, the law judges no man unless it have heard and known his
actions.2915
2. Nevertheless before a fair judge the
facts themselves are a sufficient demonstration of the truth.
Wherefore, even if I be silent, you can look at events. The very
men who are now indicting me for heterodoxy have been seen openly
numbered with the heretical faction. The very accusers who
condemn me for other men’s writings, are plainly contravening
their own confessions, given to me by them in writing. Look at
the conduct of the exhibitors of this audacity. It is their
invariable custom to go over to the party in power, to trample on their
weaker friends, and to court the strong. The writers of those
famous letters against Eudoxius and all his faction, the senders of
them to all the brotherhood, the protesters that they shun their
communion as fatal to souls, and would not accept the votes given for
their deposition, because they were given by heretics, as they
persuaded me then,—these very men, completely forgetful of all
this, have joined their faction.2916
| 2916 The events
referred to happened ten years before the date assigned for this
letter, when the Semi-Arians summoned Eudoxius to Lampsacus, and
sentenced him to deprivation in his absence. (Soc. H.E.
iv. 2–4; Soz. H.E. vi. 7.) On the refusal of
Valens to ratify the deposition and ultimate banishment of the
Anti-Eudoxians, Eustathius went to Rome to seek communion with
Liberius, subscribed the Nicene Confession, and received
commendatory letters from Liberius to the Easterns. Soc.
H.E. iv. 12. Eudoxius died in 370. | No room
for denial is left them. They laid their mind bare when they
embraced private communion with them at Ancyra, when they had not yet
been publicly received by them. Ask them, then, if Basilides, who
gave communion to Ecdicius, is now orthodox, why when returning from
Dardania, did they overthrow his altars in the territory of Gangra, and
set up their own tables?2917
| 2917 On the
action of Eustathius on this occasion, cf. Letter ccli.
Basilides is described as a Paphlagonian. On Ecdicius,
intruded by Demosthenes into the see of Paranassus, cf.
Letter ccxxxvii. | Why have they
comparatively recently2918
| 2918 So the Ben.
ed. for μέχρι
νῦν, with the idea that the action of
Eusthathius in currying favour with the Catholics of Amasea and Zela
by opposing the Arian bishops occupying those sees, must have taken
place before he had quite broken with Basil. Tillemont (ix.
236) takes νῦν
to mean 375. Amasea and Zela (in Migne erroneously
Zeli. On the name, see Ramsay’s Hist. Geog. Asia
M. 260) are both on the Iris. | attacked the
churches of Amasea and Zela and appointed presbyters and deacons there
themselves? If they communicate with them as orthodox, why do
they attack them as heretical? If they hold them to be heretical,
how is it that they do not shun communion with them? Is it not,
my honourable brethren, plain even to the intelligence of a child, that
it is always with a view to some personal advantage that they endeavour
to calumniate or to give support? So they have stood off from me,
not because I did not write in reply (which is alleged to be the main
ground of offence), nor because I did not receive the chorepiscopi whom
they assert they sent. Those who are trumping up the tale will
render an account to the Lord. One man, Eustathius,2919
| 2919 A
chorepiscopus; not of course to be confounded with Eustathius of
Sebaste. | was sent and gave a letter to the court of
the vicar, and spent three days in the city. When he was on the
point of going home, it is said that he came to my house late in the
evening, when I was asleep. On hearing that I was asleep, he went
away; he did not come near me on the next day, and after thus going
through the mere form of discharging his duty to me, departed.
This is the charge under which I am guilty. This is the sin
against which these long-suffering people have neglected to weigh the
previous service wherein I served them in love. For this error
they have made their wrath against me so severe that they have caused
me to be denounced in all the Churches throughout the world—at
least, that is, wherever they could.
3. But
of course this is not the real cause of our separation. It was
when they found that they would recommend themselves to
Euzoius2920
if they were
alienated from me, that they devised these pretences. The
object was to find some ground of recommendation with the
authorities for their attack upon me. Now they are beginning
to run down even the Nicene Creed, and nickname me
Homoousiast, because in
that creed the Only begotten Son is said to be homoousios with God the Father.
Not that one essence is divided into two kindred parts; God
forbid! This was not the meaning of that holy and God-beloved
synod; their meaning was that what the Father is in essence, such is
the Son. And thus they themselves have explained it to us, in
the phrase Light of Light. Now it is the Nicene Creed,
brought by themselves from the west, which they presented to the
Synod at Tyana, by which they were received.2921
| 2921 i.e.
after their return from Rome, and another Synod in Sicily, in
367. | But they have an ingenious theory
as to changes of this kind; they use the words of the creed as
physicians use a remedy for the particular moment, and substitute
now one and now another to suit particular diseases. The
unsoundness of such a sophism it is rather for you to consider than
for me to prove. For “the Lord will give you
understanding”2922
to know what is
the right doctrine, and what the crooked and perverse. If
indeed we are to subscribe one creed to-day and another tomorrow,
and shift with the seasons, then is the declaration false of him who
said, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.”2923
But if it is true, then “Let
no man deceive you with [these] vain words.” They
falsely accuse me of introducing novelties about the Holy
Spirit. Ask what the novelty is. I confess what I have
received, that the Paraclete is ranked with Father and Son, and not
numbered with created beings. We have made profession of our
faith in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and we are baptized in the
name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Wherefore we never
separate the Spirit from conjunction2924
| 2924 συνάφεια.
cf. note on p. 16. |
with the Father and the Son. For our mind, enlightened by the
Spirit, looks at the Son, and in Him, as in an image, beholds the
Father. And I do not invent names of myself, but call the Holy
Ghost Paraclete; nor do I consent to destroy His due glory.
These are truly my doctrines. If any one wishes to accuse me
for them, let him accuse me; let my persecutor persecute me.
Let him who believes in the slanders against me be ready for the
judgment. “The Lord is at hand.” “I am
careful for nothing.”2925
4. If any one in Syria is writing, this is
nothing to me. For it is said “By thy words thou shalt be
justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”2926
Let my own words judge me. Let
no one condemn me for other men’s errors nor adduce letters
written twenty years ago in proof that I would allow communion to the
writers of such things. Before these things were written, and
before any suspicion of this kind had been stirred against them, I did
write as layman to layman. I wrote nothing about the faith in any
way like that which they are now carrying about to calumniate me.
I sent nothing but a mere greeting to return a friendly communication,
for I shun and anathematize as impious alike all who are affected with
the unsoundness of Sabellius, and all who maintain the opinions of
Arius. If any one says that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are the
same, and supposes one thing under several names, and one hypostasis
described by three persons, I rank such an one as belonging to the
faction of the Jews.2927
| 2927 cf.
Letter ccx. p. 249. | Similarly, if
any one says that the Son is in essence unlike the Father, or degrades
the Holy Ghost into a creature, I anathematize him, and say that he is
coming near to the heathen error. But it is impossible for the
mouths of my accusers to be restrained by my letter; rather is it
likely that they are being irritated at my defence, and are getting up
new and more violent attacks against me. But it is not difficult
for your ears to be guarded. Wherefore, as far as in you lies, do
as I bid you. Keep your heart clear and unprejudiced by their
calumnies; and insist on my rendering an account to meet the charges
laid against me. If you find that truth is on my side do not
yield to lies; if on the other hand you feel that I am feeble in
defending myself, then believe my accusers as being worthy of
credit. They pass sleepless nights to do me mischief. I do
not ask this of you. They are taking to a commercial career, and
turning their slanders against me into a means of profit. I
implore you on the other hand to stop at home, and to lead a decorous
life, quietly doing Christ’s work.2928
I advise you to avoid communication
with them, for it always tends to the perversion of their
hearers. I say this that you may keep your affection for the
uncontaminated, may preserve the faith of the Fathers in its integrity,
and may appear approved before the Lord as friends of the
truth.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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