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| To Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch.
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Epistle VII.
To Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch1310
| 1310 Anastasius had
been threatened with deposition and exile (a.d. 563) by the Emperor Justinian, and the sentence had
been carried into effect (a.d. 570) by
Justinian’s successor, Justin II. Notwithstanding this,
Gregory after his own accession acknowledged him as the true patriarch
of Antioch; and, probably owing to his intercession with the Emperor
Maurice, Anastasius was restored to his patriarchal See on the death of
Gregory, who had been intruded into it, a.d.
593. Other Epistles to, or concerning this Anastasius are I. 25,
26, 28; V. 39; VII. 27, 33; VIII. 2. | .
Gregory to Anastasius, &c.
I have found what your Blessedness has written to be as
rest to the weary, as health to the sick, as a fountain to the thirsty,
as shade to the oppressed with heat. For those words of yours did
not seem even to be expressed by the tongue of the flesh, inasmuch as
you so disclosed the spiritual love which you bear me as if your soul
itself were speaking. But very hard was that which followed, in
that your love enjoined me to bear earthly burdens, and that, having
first loved me spiritually, you
afterwards, loving me as I think in
temporal wise, pressed me down to the ground with the burden you laid
upon me; so that, losing utterly all uprightness of soul, and
forfeiting the keen vision of contemplation, I may say, not in the
spirit of prophecy, but from experience, I am bowed down and brought
low altogether (Ps. cxviii. 1071311
| 1311 In English
Bible, cxix. 107. | ). For
indeed such great burdens of business press me down that my mind can in
no wise lift itself up to heavenly things. I am tossed by the
billows of a multitude of affairs, and, after the ease of my former
quiet, am afflicted by the storms of a tumultuous life, so that I may
truly say, I am come into the depth of the sea, and the storm hath
overwhelmed me (Ps. lxviii. 31312
).
Stretch out, therefore, the hand of your prayer to me in my danger, you
that stand on the shore of virtue. But as to your calling me the
mouth and the lantern of the Lord, and
alleging that I profit many, this also adds to the load of my
iniquities, that, when my iniquity ought to have been chastised, I
receive praises instead of chastisement. But with what a bustle
of earthly business I am distracted in this place, I cannot express in
words; yet you can gather it from the shortness of this letter, in
which I say so little to him who I love above all others.
Further, I apprize you that I have requested our most serene lords with
all possible urgency to allow you to come to the threshold of Peter,
the prince of the apostles, with your dignity restored to you, and to
live here with me so long as it may please God; to the end that, as long as I am accounted worthy of
seeing you, we may relieve the weariness of our pilgrimage by speaking
to each other of the heavenly country.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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