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| To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata.
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Letter
CXCVIII.2690
To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata.
After the letter conveyed
to me by the officiales2691
| 2691 Clergy engaged
in crafts. | I have received one
other despatched to me later. I have not sent many myself, for I
have not found any one travelling in your direction. But I have
sent more than the four, among which also were those conveyed to me
from Samosata after the first epistle of your holiness. These I
have sealed and sent to our honourable brother Leontius,
peræquator of Nicæa, urging that by his agency they may be
delivered to the steward of the household of our honourable brother
Sophronius, that he may see to their transmission to you.
As my letters are going through
many hands, it is likely enough that because one man is very busy or
very careless, your reverence may never get them. Pardon me,
then, I beseech you, if my letters are few. With your usual
intelligence you have properly found fault with me for not sending, as
I ought, a courier of my own when there was occasion for doing so; but
you must understand that we have had a winter of such severity that all
the roads were blocked till Easter, and I had no one disposed to brave
the difficulties of the journey. For although our clergy do seem
very numerous, they are men inexperienced in travelling because they
never traffic, and prefer not to live far away from home, the majority
of them plying sedentary crafts, whereby they get their daily
bread. The brother whom I have now sent to your reverence I have
summoned from the country, and employed in the conveyance of my letter
to your holiness, that he may both give you clear intelligence as to me
and my affairs, and, moreover, by God’s grace, bring me back
plain and prompt information about you and yours. Our dear
brother Eusebius the reader has for some time been anxious to hasten to
your holiness, but I have kept him here for the weather to
improve. Even now I am under no little anxiety lest his
inexperience in travelling may cause him trouble, and bring on some
illness; for he is not robust.
2. I need say nothing to you by letter about the
innovations of the East, for the brothers can themselves give you
accurate information. You must know, my honoured friend, that,
when I was writing these words, I was so ill that I had lost all hope
of life. It is impossible for me to enumerate all my painful
symptoms, my weakness, the violence of my attacks of fever, and my bad
health in general. One point only may be selected. I have
now completed the time of my sojourn in this miserable and painful
life. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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