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| To Ascholius.
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Letter CLXIV.2547
To Ascholius.2548
1. It would not be
easy for me to say how very much delighted I am with your
holiness’s letter. My words are too weak to express all
that I feel; you, however, ought to be able to conjecture it, from the
beauty of what you have written. For what did not your letter
contain? It contained love to God; the marvellous description of
the martyrs, which put the manner of their good fight so plainly before
me that I seemed actually to see it; love and kindness to
myself; words of surpassing
beauty. So when I had taken it into my hands, and read it many
times, and perceived how abundantly full it was of the grace of the
Spirit, I thought that I had gone back to the good old times, when
God’s Churches flourished, rooted in faith, united in love, all
the members being in harmony, as though in one body. Then the
persecutors were manifest, and manifest too the persecuted. Then
the people grew more numerous by being attacked. Then the blood
of the martyrs, watering the Churches, nourished many more champions of
true religion, each generation stripping for the struggle with the zeal
of those that had gone before. Then we Christians were in peace
with one another, the peace which the Lord bequeathed us, of which, so
cruelly have we driven it from among us, not a single trace is now left
us. Yet my soul did go back to that blessedness of old, when a
letter came from a long distance, bright with the beauty of love, and a
martyr travelled to me from wild regions beyond the Danube, preaching
in his own person the exactitude of the faith which is there
observed. Who could tell the delight of my soul at all
this? What power of speech could be devised competent to describe
all that I felt in the bottom of my heart? However, when I saw
the athlete, I blessed his trainer: he, too, before the just
Judge, after strengthening many for the conflict on behalf of true
religion, shall receive the crown of righteousness.
2. By bringing the blessed
Eutyches2549
| 2549 Eutyches
was a Cappadocian, who was taken prisoner by the Goths, in the reign
of Gallienus, in a raid into Cappadocia. It was through the
teaching of these captives that the ancestors of Ulphilas became
Christians. cf. Philost., H.E. ii.
5. | to my
recollection, and honouring my country for having sown the seeds of
true religion, you have at once delighted me by your reminder of the
past, and distressed me by your conviction of the present.
None of us now comes near Eutyches in goodness: so far are we
from bringing barbarians under the softening power of the Spirit,
and the operation of His graces, that by the greatness of our sins
we turn gentle hearted men into barbarians, for to ourselves and to
our sins I attribute it that the influence of the heretics is so
widely diffused. Peradventure no part of the world has escaped
the conflagration of heresy. You tell me of struggles of
athletes, bodies lacerated for the truth’s sake, savage fury
despised by men of fearless heart, various tortures of persecutors,
and constancy of the wrestlers through them all, the block and the
water whereby the martyrs died.2550
| 2550 The Ben.
note illustrates these modes of martyrdom from the letter of the
Gothic Church, supposed to have been written by Ascholius, sent to
Cæsarea with the body of Saint Sabas, who suffered under
Athanaricus, king of the Goths, in the end of the fourth
century. “They bring him down to the water, giving
thanks and glorifying God; then they flung him down, and put a block
about his neck, and plunged him into the depth. So slain by
wood and water, he kept the symbol of salvation undefiled, being 38
years old.” cf. Ruinart., Act.
Sinc. p. 670. | And
what is our condition? Love is grown cold; the teaching of the
Fathers is being laid waste; everywhere is shipwreck of the Faith;
the mouths of the Faithful are silent; the people, driven from the
houses of prayer, lift up their hands in the open air to their Lord
which is in heaven. Our afflictions are heavy, martyrdom is
nowhere to be seen, because those who evilly entreat us are called
by the same name as ourselves. Wherefore pray to the Lord
yourself, and join all Christ’s noble athletes with you in
prayer for the Churches, to the end that, if any further time
remains for this world, and all things are not being driven to
destruction, God may be reconciled to his own Churches and restore
them to their ancient peace.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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