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ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN.

SELECT LETTERS

[Translated by Charles Gordon Browne, M.A., Rector of Lympstone, Devon; and
James Edward Swallow, M.A., Chaplain of the House of Mercy, Horbury.]


DIVISION I: LETTERS ON THE APOLLINARIAN CONTROVERSY.

TO NECTARIUS, BISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE (EP. CCII.)

   The Care of God, which throughout the time before us guarded the
Churches, seems to have utterly forsaken this present life. And my soul is
immersed to such a degree by calamities that the private sufferings of my
own life hardly seem to be worth reckoning among evils (though they are so
numerous and great, that if they befel anyone else I should think them
unbearable); but I can only look at the common sufferings of the Churches;
for if at the present crisis some pains be not taken to find a remedy for
them, things will gradually get into an altogether desperate condition.
Those who follow the heresy of Arius or Eudoxius (I cannot say who stirred
them up to this folly) are making a display of their disease, as if they
had attained some degree of confidence by collecting congregations as if by
permission. And they of the Macedonian party have reached such a pitch of
folly that they are arrogating to themselves the name of Bishops, and are
wandering about our districts babbling of Eleusius(a) as to their
ordinations. Our bosom evil, Eunomius, is no longer content with merely
existing; but unless he can draw away everyone with him to his ruinous
heresy, he thinks himself an injured man. All this, however, is endurable.
The most grievous item of all in the woes of the Church is the boldness of
the Apollinarians, whom your Holiness has overlooked, I know not how, when
providing themselves with authority to hold meetings on an equality with
myself. However, you being, as you are, thoroughly instructed by the grace
of God in the Divine Mysteries on all points, are well informed, not only
as to the advocacy of the true faith, but also as to all those arguments
which have been devised by the heretics against the sound faith; and yet
perhaps it will not be unseasonable that your Excellency should hear from
my littleness that a pamphlet by Apollinarius has come into my hands, the
contents of which surpass all heretical pravity. For he asserts that the
Flesh which the Only-begotten Son assumed in the Incarnation for the
remodelling of our nature was no new acquisition, but that that carnal
nature was in the Son from the beginning. And he puts forward as a witness
to this monstrous assertion a garbled quotation from the Gospels, namely,
No man hath Ascended up into Heaven save He which came down from Heaven,
even the Son of Man which is in Heaven.(a) As though even before He came
down He was the Son of Man, and when He came down He brought with Him that
Flesh, which it appears He had in Heaven, as though it had existed before
the ages, and been joined with His Essence. For he alleges another saying
of an Apostle, which he cuts off from the whole body of its context, that
The Second Man is the Lord from Heaven.(b) Then he assumes that that Man
who came down from above is without a mind, but that the Godhead of the
Only-begotten fulfils the function of mind, and is the third part of this
human composite, inasmuch as soul and body are in it on its human side, but
not mind, the place of which is taken by God the Word. This is not yet the
most serious part of it; that which is most terrible of all is that he
declares that the Only-begotten God, the Judge of all, the Prince of Life,
the Destroyer of Death, is mortal, and underwent the Passion in His proper
Godhead; and that in the three days' death of His body, His Godhead also
was put to death with His body, and thus was raised again from the dead by
the Father. It would be tedious to go through all the other propositions
which he adds to these monstrous absurdities. Now, if they who hold such
views have authority to meet, your Wisdom approved in Christ must see that,
inasmuch as we do not approve their views, any permission of assembly
granted to them is nothing less than a declaration that their view is
thought more true than ours. For if they are permitted to teach their view
as godly men, and with all confidence to preach their doctrine, it is
manifest that the doctrine of the Church has been condemned, as though the
truth were on their side. For nature does not admit of two contrary
doctrines on the same subject being both true. How then could your noble
and lofty mind submit to suspend your usual courage in regard to the
correction of so great an evil? But even though there is no precedent for
such a course, let your inimitable perfection in virtue stand up at a
crisis like the present, and teach our most pious Emperor, that no gain
will come from his zeal for the Church on other points if he allows such an
evil to gain strength from freedom of speech for the subversion of sound
faith.

To CLEDONIUS THE PRIEST AGAINST APOLLINARIUS. (EP. CI.)

TO OUR MOST REVEREND AND GOD-BELOVED BROTHER AND FELLOW-PRIEST

   CLEDONIUS, GREGORY, GREETING IN THE LORD.

   I desire to learn what is this fashion of innovation in things
Concerning the Church, which allows anyone who likes, or the passerby,(a)
as the Bible says, to tear asunder the flock that has been well led, and to
plunder it by larcenous attacks, or rather by piratical and fallacious
teachings. For if our present assailants had any ground for condemning us
in regard of the faith, it would not have been right for them, even in that
case, to have ventured on such a course without giving us notice. They
ought rather to have first persuaded us, or to have been willing to be
persuaded by us (if at least any account is to be taken of us as fearing
God, labouring for the faith, and helping the Church), and then, if at all,
to innovate; but then perhaps there would be an excuse for their outrageous
conduct. But since our faith has been proclaimed, both in writing and
without writing, here and in distant parts, in times of danger and of
safety, how comes it that some make such attempts, and that others keep
silence?

   The most grievous part of it is not (though this too is shocking) that
the men instil their own heresy into simpler souls by means of those who
are worse; but that they also tell lies about us and say that we share
their opinions and sentiments; thus baiting their hooks, and by this cloak
villainously fulfilling their will, and making our simplicity, which looked
upon them as brothers and not as foes, into a support of their wickedness.
And not only so, but they also assert, as I am told, that they have been
received by the Western Synod, by which they were formerly condemned, as is
well known to everyone. If, however, those who hold the views of
Apollinarius have either now or formerly been received, let them prove it
and we will be content. For it is evident that they can only have been so
received as assenting to the Orthodox Faith, for this were an impossibility
on any other terms. And they can surely prove it, either by the minutes of
the Synod, or by Letters of Communion, for this is the regular custom of
Synods. But if it is mere words, and an invention of their own, devised for
the sake of appearances and to give them weight with the multitude through
the credit of the persons, teach them to hold their tongues, and confute
them; for we believe that such a task is well suited to your manner of life
and orthodoxy. Do not let the men deceive themselves and others with the
assertion that the "Man of the Lord," as they call Him, Who is rather our
Lord and God, is without human mind. For we do not sever the Man from the
Godhead, but we lay down as a dogma the Unity and Identity of Person, Who
of old was not Man but God, and the Only Son before all ages, unmingled
with body or anything corporeal; but Who in these last days has assumed
Manhood also for our salvation; passible in His Flesh, impassible in His
Godhead; circumscript in the body, uncircumscript in the Spirit; at once
earthly and heavenly, tangible and intangible, comprehensible and
incomprehensible; that by One and the Same Person, Who was perfect Man and
also God, the entire humanity fallen through sin might be created anew.

   If anyone does not believe that Holy Mary is the Mother of God, he is
severed from the Godhead. If anyone should assert that He passed through
the Virgin as through a channel, and was not at once divinely and humanly
formed in her (divinely, because without the intervention of a man;
humanly, because in accordance with the laws of gestation), he is in like
manner godless. If any assert that the Manhood was formed and afterward was
clothed with the Godhead, he too is to be condemned. For this were not a
Generation of God, but a shirking of generation. If any introduce the
notion of Two Sons, one of God the Father, the other of the Mother, and
discredits the Unity and Identity, may he lose his part in the adoption
promised to those who believe aright. For God and Man are two natures, as
also soul and body are; but there are not two Sons or two Gods. For neither
in this life are there two manhoods; though Paul speaks in some such
language of the inner and outer man. And (if I am to speak concisely) the
Saviour is made of elements which are distinct from one another (for the
invisible is not the same with the visible, nor the timeless with that
which is subject to time), yet He is not two Persons. God forbid! For both
natures are one by the combination, the Deity being made Man, and the
Manhood deified or however one should express it. And I say different
Elements, because it is the reverse of what is the case in the Trinity; for
There we acknowledge different Persons so as not to confound the persons;
but not different Elements, for the Three are One and the same in Godhead.

   If any should say that it wrought in Him by grace as in a Prophet, but
was not and is not united with Him in Essence--let him be empty of the
Higher Energy, or rather full of the opposite. If any worship not the
Crucified, let him be Anathema and be numbered among the Deicides. If any
assert that He was made perfect by works, or that after His Baptism, or
after His Resurrection from the dead, He was counted worthy of an adoptive
Sonship, like those whom the Greeks interpolate as added to the ranks of
the gods, let him be anathema. For that which has a beginning or a progress
or is made perfect, is not God, although the expressions may be used of His
gradual manifestation. If any assert that He has now put off His holy
flesh, and that His Godhead is stripped of the body, and deny that He is
now with His body and will come again with it, let him not see the glory of
His Coming. For where is His body now, if not with Him Who assumed it? For
it is not laid by in the sun, according to the babble of the Manichaeans,
that it should be honoured by a dishonour; nor was it poured forth into the
air and dissolved, us is the nature of a voice or the flow of an odour, or
the course of a lightning flash that never stands. Where in that case were
His being handled after the Resurrection, or His being seen hereafter by
them that pierced Him, for Godhead is in its nature invisible. Nay; He will
come with His body--so I have learnt--such as He was seen by His Disciples
in the Mount, or as he shewed Himself for a moment, when his Godhead
overpowered the carnality. And as we say this to disarm suspicion, so we
write the other to correct the novel teaching. If anyone assert that His
flesh came down from heaven, and is not from hence, nor of us though above
us, let him be anathema. For the words, The Second Man is the Lord from
Heaven;(a) and, As is the Heavenly, such are they that are Heavenly; and,
No man hath ascended up into Heaven save He which came down from Heaven,
even the Son of Man which is in Heaven;(b) and the like, are to be
understood as said on account of the Union with the heavenly; just as that
All Things were made by Christ,(g) and that Christ dwelleth in your
hearts(a) is said, not of the visible nature which belongs to God, but of
what is perceived by the mind, the names being mingled like the natures,
and flowing into one another, according to the law of their intimate union.

   If anyone has put his trust in Him as a Man without a human mind, he is
really bereft of mind, and quite unworthy of salvation. For that which He
has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead
is also saved. If only half Adam fell, then that which Christ assumes and
saves may be half also; but if the whole of his nature fell, it must be
united to the whole nature of Him that was begotten, and so be saved as a
whole. Let them not, then, begrudge us our complete salvation, or clothe
the Saviour only with bones and nerves and the portraiture of humanity. For
if His Manhood is without soul, even the Arians admit this, that they may
attribute His Passion to the Godhead, as that which gives motion to the
body is also that which suffers. But if He has a soul, and yet is without a
mind, how is He man, for man is not a mindless animal? And this would
necessarily involve that while His form and tabernacle was human, His soul
should be that of a horse or an ox, or some other of the brute creation.
This, then, would be what He saves; and I have been deceived by the Truth,
and led to boast of an honour which had been bestowed upon another. But if
His Manhood is intellectual and nor without mind, let them cease to be thus
really mindless. But, says such an one, the Godhead took the place of the
human intellect. How does this touch me? For Godhead joined to flesh alone
is not man, nor to soul alone, nor to both apart from intellect, which is
the most essential part of man. Keep then the whole man, and mingle Godhead
therewith, that you may benefit me in my completeness. But, he asserts, He
could not contain Two perfect Natures. Not if you only look at Him in a
bodily fashion. For a bushel measure will not hold two bushels, nor will
the space of one body hold two or more bodies. But if you will look at what
is mental and incorporeal, remember that I in my one personality can
contain soul and reason and mind and the Holy Spirit; and before me this
world, by which I mean the system of things visible and invisible,
contained Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. For such is the nature of
intellectual Existences, that they can mingle with one another and with
bodies, incorporeally and invisibly. For many sounds are comprehended by
one ear; and the eyes of many are occupied by the same visible objects, and
the smell by odours; nor are the senses narrowed by each other, or crowded
out, nor the objects of sense diminished by the multitude of the
perceptions. But where is there mind of man or angel so perfect in
comparison of the Godhead that the presence of the greater must crowd out
the other? The light is nothing compared with the sun, nor a little damp
compared with a river, that we must first do away with the lesser, and take
the light from a house, or the moisture from the earth, to enable it to
contain the greater and more perfect. For how shall one thing contain two
completenesses, either the house, the sunbeam and the sun, or the earth,
the moisture and the river? Here is matter for inquiry; for indeed the
question is worthy of much consideration. Do they not know, then, that what
is perfect by comparison with one thing may be imperfect by comparison with
another, as a hill compared with a mountain, or a grain of mustard seed
with a bean or any other of the larger seeds, although it may be called
larger than any of the same kind? Or, if you like, an Angel compared with
God, or a man with an Angel. So our mind is perfect and commanding, but
only in respect of soul and body; not absolutely perfect; and a servant and
a subject of God, not a sharer of His Princedom and honour. So Moses was a
God to Pharaoh,(a) but a servant of God,(b) as it is written; and the stars
which illumine the night are hidden by the Sun, so much that you could not
even know of their existence by daylight; and a little torch brought near a
great blaze is neither destroyed, nor seen, nor extinguished; but is all
one blaze, the bigger one prevailing over the other.

   But, it may be said, our mind is subject to condemnation. What then of
our flesh? Is that not subject to condemnation? You must therefore either
set aside the latter on account of sin, or admit the former on account of
salvation. If He assumed the worse that He might sanctify it by His
incarnation, may He not assume the better that it may be sanctified by His
becoming Man? If the clay was leavened and has become a new lump, O ye wise
men, shall not the Image be leavened and mingled with God, being deified by
His Godhead? And I will add this also: If the mind was utterly rejected, as
prone to sin and subject to damnation, and for this reason He assumed a
body but left out the mind, then there is an excuse for them who sin with
the mind; for the witness of God-- according to you--has shewn the
impossibility of healing it. Let me state the greater results. You, my good
sir, dishonour my mind (you a Sarcolater, if I am an Anthropolater(a) that
you may tie God down to the Flesh, since He cannot be otherwise tied; and
therefore you take away the wall of partition. But what is my theory, who
am but an ignorant man, and no Philosopher. Mind is mingled with mind, as
nearer and more closely related, and through it with flesh, being a
Mediator between God and carnality.

   Further let us see what is their account of the assumption of Manhood,
or the assumption of Flesh, as they call it. If it was in order that God,
otherwise incomprehensible, might be comprehended, and might converse with
men through His Flesh as through a veil, their mask and the drama which
they represent is a pretty one, not to say that it was open to Him to
converse with us in other ways, as of old, in the burning bush(b) and in
the appearance of a man.(g) But if it was that He might destroy the
condemnation by sanctifying like by like, then as He needed flesh for the
sake of the flesh which had incurred condemnation, and soul for the sake of
our soul, so, too, He needed mind for the sake of mind, which not only fell
in Adam, but was the first to be affected, as the doctors say of illnesses.
For that which received the command was that which failed to keep the
command, and that which failed to keep it was that also which dared to
transgress; and that which transgressed was that which stood most in need
of salvation; and that which needed salvation was that which also He took
upon Him. Therefore, Mind was taken upon Him. This has now been
demonstrated, whether they like it or no, by, to use their own expression,
geometrical and necessary proofs. But you are acting as if, when a man's
eye had been injured and his foot had been injured in consequence, you were
to attend to the foot and leave the eye uncared for; or as if, when a
painter had drown something badly, you were to alter the picture, but to
pass over the artist as if he had succeeded. But if they, overwhelmed by
these arguments, take refuge in the proposition that it is possible for God
to save man even apart from mind, why, I suppose that it would be possible
for Him to do so also apart from flesh by a mere act of will, just as He
works all other things, and has wrought them without body. Take away, then,
the flesh as well as the mind, that your monstrous folly may be complete.
But they are deceived by the latter, and, therefore, they run to the flesh,
because they do not know the custom of Scripture. We will teach them this
also. For what need is there even to mention to those who know it, the fact
that everywhere in Scripture he is called Man, and the Son of Man?

   If, however, they rely on the passage, The Word was made Flesh and
dwelt among us,(a)and because of this erase the noblest part of Man (as
cobblers do the thicker part of skins) that they may join together God and
Flesh, it is time for them to say that God is God only of flesh, and not of
souls, because it is written, "As Thou hast given Him power over all
Flesh,"(b) and "Unto Thee shall all Flesh come;"(g) and "Let all Flesh
bless His holy Name,"(d) meaning every Man. Or, again, they must suppose
that our fathers went down into Egypt without bodies and invisible, and
that only the Soul of Joseph was imprisoned by Pharaoh, because it is
written, '' They went down into Egypt with threescore and fifteen
Souls,"(e) and "The iron entered into his Soul,"(z) a thing which could not
be bound. They who argue thus do not know that such expressions are used by
Synecdoche, declaring the whole by the part, as when Scripture says that
the young ravens call upon God,(h) to indicate the whole feathered race; or
Pleiades, Hesperus, and Arcturus(th) are mentioned, instead of all the
Stars and His Providence over them.

   Moreover, in no other way was it possible for the Love of God toward us
to be manifested than by making mention of our flesh, and that for our sake
He descended even to our lower part. For that flesh is less precious than
soul, everyone who has a spark of sense will acknowledge. And so the
passage, The Word was made Flesh, seems to me to be equivalent to that in
which it is said that He was made sin,(k) or a curse(l) for us; not that
the Lord was transformed into either of these, how could He be? But because
by taking them upon Him He took away our sins and bore our iniquities.(m)
This, then, is sufficient to say at the present time for the sake of
clearness and of being understood by the many. And I write it, not with any
desire to compose a treatise, but only to check the progress of deceit; and
if it is thought well, I will give a fuller account of these matters at
greater length.

   But there is a matter which is graver than these, a special point which
it is necessary that I should not pass over. I would they were even cut off
that trouble you,(a) and would reintroduce a second Judaism, and a second
circumcision, and a second system of sacrifices. For if this be done, what
hinders Christ also being born again to set them aside, and again being
betrayed by Judas, and crucified and buried, and rising again, that all may
be fulfilled in the same order, like the Greek system of cycles, in which
the same revolutions of the stars bring round the same events? For what the
method of selection is, in accordance with which some of the events are to
occur and others to be omitted, let these wise men who glory in the
multitude of their books shew us.

   But since, puffed up by their theory of the Trinity, they falsely
accuse us of being unsound in the Faith and entice the multitude, it is
necessary that people should know that Apollinarius, while granting the
Name of Godhead to the Holy Ghost, did not preserve the Power of the
Godhead. For to make the Trinity consist of Great, Greater, and Greatest,
as of Light, Ray, and Sun, the Spirit and the Son and the Father (as is
clearly stated in his writings), is a ladder of Godhead not leading to
Heaven, but down from Heaven. But we recognize God the Father and the Son
and the Holy Ghost, and these not as bare titles, dividing inequalities of
ranks or of power, but as there is one and the same title, so there is one
nature and one substance in the Godhead.

   But if anyone who thinks we have spoken rightly on this subject
reproaches us with holding communion with heretics, let him prove that we
are open to this charge, and we will either convince him or retire. But it
is not safe to make any innovation before judgment is given, especially in
a matter of such importance, and connected with so great issues. We have
protested and continue to protest this before God and men. And not even
now, be well assured, should we have written this, if we had not seen that
the Church was being tom asunder and divided, among their other tricks, by
their present synagogue of vanity.(b) But if anyone when we say and protest
this, either from some advantage they will thus gain, or through fear of
men, or monstrous littleness of mind, or through some neglect of pastors
and governors, or through love of novelty and proneness to innovations,
rejects us as unworthy of credit, and attaches himself to such men, and
divides the noble body of the Church, he shall bear his judgment, whoever
he may be,(a) and shall give account to God in the day of judgment.(b) But
if their long books, and their new Psalters, contrary to that of David, and
the grace of their metres, are taken for a third Testament, we too will
compose Psalms, and will write much in metre. For we also think we have the
spirit of God,(g) if indeed this is a gift of the Spirit, and not a human
novelty. This I will that thou declare publicly, that we may not be held
responsible, as overlooking such an evil, and as though this wicked
doctrine received food and strength from our indifference.

AGAINST APOLLINARIUS; THE SECOND LETTER TO CLEDONIUS.

(EP. CII.)

   Forasmuch as many persons have come to your Reverence seeking
confirmation of their faith, and therefore you have affectionately asked me
to put forth a brief definition and rifle of my opinion, I therefore write
to your Reverence, what indeed you knew before, that I never have and never
can honour anything above the Nicene Faith, that of the Holy Fathers who
met there to destroy the Arian heresy; but am, and by God's help ever will
be, of that faith; completing in detail that which was incompletely said by
them concerning the Holy Ghost; for that question had not then been mooted,
namely, that we are to believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are of
one Godhead, thus confessing the Spirit also to be God. Receive then to
communion those who think and teach thus, as I also do; but those who are
otherwise minded refuse, and hold them as strangers to God and the Catholic
Church. And since a question has also been mooted concerning the Divine
Assumption of humanity, or Incarnation, state this also clearly to all
concerning me, that I join in One the Son, who was begotten of the Father,
and afterward of the Virgin Mary, and that I do not call Him two Sons, but
worship Him as One and the same in undivided Godhead and honour. But if
anyone does not assent to this statement, either now or hereafter, he shall
give account to God at the day of judgment.

   Now, what we object and oppose to their mindless opinion about His Mind
is this, to put it shortly; for they are almost alone in the condition
which they lay down, as it is through want of mind that they mutilate His
mind. But, that they may not accuse us of having once accepted but of now
repudiating the faith of their beloved Vitalius(a) which he handed in in
writing at the request of the blessed Bishop Damasus of Rome, I will give a
short explanation on this point also. For these men, when they are
theologizing among their genuine disciples, and those who are initiated
into their secrets, like the Manichaeans among those whom they call the
"Elect," expose the full extent of their disease, and scarcely allow flesh
at all to the Saviour. But when they are refuted and pressed with the
common answers about the Incarnation which the Scripture presents, they
confess indeed the orthodox words, but they do violence to the sense; for
they acknowledge the Manhood to be neither without soul nor without reason
nor without mind, nor imperfect, but they bring in the Godhead to supply
the soul and reason and mind, as though It had mingled Itself only with His
flesh, and not with the other properties belonging to us men; although His
sinlessness was far above us, and was the cleansing of our passions.

   Thus, then, they interpret wrongly the words, But we have the Mind of
Christ,(b) and very absurdly, when they say that His Godhead is the mind of
Christ, and not understanding the passage as we do, namely, that they who
have purified their mind by the imitation of the mind which the Saviour
took of us, and, as far as may be, have attained conformity with it, are
said to have the mind of Christ; just as they might be testified to have
the flesh of Christ who have trained their flesh, and in this respect have
become of the same body and partakers of Christ; and so he says "As we have
borne the image of the earth(g) we shall also bear the image of the
heavenly." And so they declare that the Perfect Man is not He who was in
all points tempted like as we are yet without sin;(a) but the mixture of
God and Flesh. For what, say they, can be more perfeet than this?

   They play the same trick with the word that describes the Incarnation,
viz.: He was made Man, explaining it to mean, not, He was in the human
nature with which He surrounded Himself, according to the Scripture, He
knew what was in man;(b) but teaching that it means, He consorted and
conversed with men, and taking refuge in the expression which says that He
was seen on Earth and conversed with Men.(g) And what can anyone contend
further? They who take away the Humanity and the Interior Image cleanse by
their newly invented mask only our outside,(d) and that which is seen; so
far in conflict with themselves that at one time, for the sake of the
flesh, they explain all the rest in a gross and carnal manner (for it is
from hence that they have derived their second Judaism and their silly
thousand years delight in paradise, and almost the idea that we shall
resume again the same conditions after these same thousand years); and at
another time they bring in His flesh as a phantom rather than a reality, as
not having been subjected to any of our experiences, not even such as are
free from sin; and use for this purpose the apostolic expression,
understood and spoken in a sense which is not apostolic, that our Saviour
was made in the likeness of Men and found in fashion as a Man,(e) as though
by these words was expressed, not the human form, but some delusive phantom
and appearance.

   Since then these expressions, rightly understood, make for orthodoxy,
but wrongly interpreted are heretical, what is there to be surprised at if
we received the words of Vitalius in the more orthodox sense; our desire
that they should be so meant persuading us, though others are angry at the
intention of his writings? This is, I think, the reason why Damasus
himself, having been subsequently better informed, and at the same time
learning that they hold by their former explanations, excommunicated them
and overturned their written confession of faith with an Anathema; as well
as because he was vexed at the deceit which he had suffered from them
through simplicity.

   Since, then, they have been openly convicted of this, let them not be
angry, but let them be ashamed of themselves; and let them not slander us,
but abase themselves and wipe off from their portals that great and
marvellous proclamation and boast of their orthodoxy, meeting all who go in
at once with the question and distinction that we must worship, not a God-
bearing Man, but a flesh-bearing God. What could be more unreasonable than
this, though these new heralds of truth think a great deal of the title?
For though it has a certain sophistical grace through the quickness of its
antithesis, and a sort of juggling quackery grateful to the uninstructed,
yet it is the most absurd of absurdities and the most foolish of follies.
For if one were to change the word Man or Flesh into God (the first would
please us, the second them), and then were to use this wonderful
antithesis, so divinely recognized, what conclusion should we arrive at?
That we must worship, not a God-bearing Flesh, but a Man-bearing God. O
monstrous absurdity! They proclaim to us to-day a wisdom hidden ever since
the time of Christ--a thing worthy of our tears. For if the faith began
thirty years ago, when nearly four hundred years had passed since Christ
was manifested, vain all that time will have been our Gospel, and vain our
faith; in vain will the Martyrs have borne their witness, and in vain have
so many and so great Prelates presided over the people; and Grace is a
matter of metres and not of the faith.

   And who will not marvel at their learning, in that on their own
authority they divide the things of Christ, and assign to His Manhood such
sayings as He was born, He was tempted, He was hungry, He was thirsty, He
was wearied, He was asleep; but reckon to His Divinity such as these: He
was glorified by Angels, He overcame the Tempter, He fed the people in the
wilderness, and He fed them in such a manner, and He walked upon the sea;
and say on the one hand that the "Where have ye laid Lazarus?"(a) belongs
to us, but the loud voice "Lazarus, Come Forth"(b) and the raising him that
had been four days dead, is above our nature; and that while the "He was in
an Agony, He was crucified, He was buried," belongs to the Veil, on the
other hand, "He was confident, He rose again, He ascended," belong to the
Inner Treasure; and then they accuse us of introducing two natures,
separate or conflicting, and of dividing the supernatural and wondrous
Union. They ought, either not to do that of which they accuse us, or not to
accuse us of that which they do; so at least if they are resolved to be
consistent and not to propound at once their own and their opponents'
principles. Such is their want of reason; it conflicts both with itself and
with the truth to such an extent that they are neither conscious nor
ashamed of it when they fall out with themselves. Now, if anyone thinks
that we write all this willingly and not upon compulsion, and that we are
dissuading from unity, and not doing our utmost to promote it, let him know
that he is very much mistaken, and has not made at all a good guess at our
desires, for nothing is or ever has been more valuable in our eyes than
peace, as the facts themselves prove; though their actions and brawlings
against us altogether exclude unanimity.

EP. CXXV.

TO OLYMPIUS.

   Even hoar hairs have something to learn; and old age, it would seem,
cannot in all respects be trusted for wisdom. I at any rate, knowing better
than anyone, as I did, the thoughts and the heresy of the Apollinarians,
and seeing that their folly was intolerable; yet thinking that I could tame
them by patience and soften them by degrees, I let my tropes make me eager
to attain this object. But, as it seems, I overlooked the fact that I was
making them worse, and injuring the Church by my untimely philosophy. For
gentleness does not put bad men out of countenance. And now if it had been
possible for me to teach you this myself, I should not have hesitated, you
may be sure, even to undertake a journey beyond my strength to throw myself
at the feet of your Excellency. But since my illness has brought me too
far, and it has become necessary for me to try the hot baths of Xanxaris at
the advice of my medical men, I send a letter to represent me. These wicked
and utterly abandoned men have dared, in addition to all their other
misdeeds, either to summon, or to make a bad use of the passage (I am not
prepared to say precisely which) of certain Bishops, deprived by the whole
Synod of the Eastern and Western Church; and, in violation of all Imperial
Ordinances, and of your commands, to confer the name of Bishop on a certain
individual of their own misbelieving and deceitful crew; encouraged to do
so, as I believe, by nothing so much as my great infirmity; for I must
mention this. If this is to be tolerated, your Excellency will tolerate it,
and I too will bear it, as I have often before. But if it is serious, and
not to be endured by our most august Emperors, pray punish what has been
done--though more mildly than such madness merits.

DIVISION II.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH SAINT BASIL THE GREAT, ARCHBISHOP OF CAESAREA.

EP. I.

   (Perhaps about A.D. 357 or 358; in answer to a letter which is not now
extant.)

TO BASIL HIS COMRADE.

   I have failed, I confess, to keep my promise. I had engaged even at
Athens, at the time of our friendship and intimate connection there (for I
can find no better word for it), to join you in a life of philosophy. But I
failed to keep my promise, not of my own will, but because one law
prevailed against another; I mean the law which bids us honour our parents
overpowered the law of our friendship and intercourse. Yet I will not fail
you altogether, if you will accept this offer. I shall be with you half the
time, and half of it you will be with me, that we may have the whole in
common, and that our friendship may be on equal terms; and so it will be
arranged in such a way that my parents will not be grieved, and yet I shall
gain you.

EP. II.

   (Written about the same time, in reply to another letter now lost.)

   I do not like being joked about Tiberina and its mud and its winters, O
my friend, who are so free from mud, and who walk on tiptoe, and trample on
the plains. You who have wings and are borne aloft, and fly like the arrows
of Abaris, in order that, Cappadocian though you are, you may flee from
Cappadocia. Have we done you an injury, because while you are pale and
breathing hard and measuring the sun, we are sleek and well fed and not
pressed for room? Yet this is your condition. You are luxurious and rich,
and go to market. I do not approve of this. Either then cease to reproach
us with our mud (for you did not build your city, nor we make our winter),
or else for our mud we will bring against you your hucksters, and the rest
of the crop of nuisances which infest cities.

EP. IV.

(In answer to Ep. XIV., of Basil, about 361.)

   You may mock and pull to pieces my affairs, whether in jest or in
earnest. This is a matter of no consequence; only laugh, and take your fill
of culture, and enjoy my friendship. Everything that comes from you is
pleasant to me, no matter what it may be, and how it may look. For I think
you are chaffing about things here, not for the sake of chaffing, but that
you may draw me to yourself, if I understand you at all; just like people
who block up streams in order to draw them into another channel. That is
how your sayings always seem to me.

   For my part I will admire your Pontus and your Pontic darkness, and
your dwelling place so worthy of exile, and the hills over your head, and
the wild beasts which test your faith, and your sequestered spot that lies
under them ... or as I should say your mousehole with the stately names of
Abode of Thought, Monastery, School; and your thickets of wild bushes, and
crown of precipitous mountains, by which may you be, not crowned but,
cloistered; and your limited air; and the sun, for which you long, and can
only see as through a chimney, O sunless Cimmerians of Pontus, who are
condemned not only to a six months' night, as some are said to be, but who
have not even a part of your life out of the shadow, but all your life is
one long night, and a real shadow of death, to use a Scripture phrase. And
admire your strait and narrow road, leading ... I know not if it be to the
Kingdom, or to Hades, but for your sake I hope it is the Kingdom ... And as
for the intervening country, what is your wish? Am falsely to call it Eden,
and the fountain divided into four heads, by which the world is watered, or
the dry and waterless wilderness (only what Moses will come to tame it,
bringing water out of the rock with his staff)? For all of it which has
escaped the rocks is full of gullies; and that which is not a gully is a
thicket of thorns; and whatever is above the thorns is a precipice; and the
road above that is precipitous, and slopes both ways, exercising the mind
of travellers, and calling for gymnastic exercises for safety. And the
river rushes roaring down, which to you is a Strymon of Amphipolis for
quietness, and there are not so many fishes in it as stones, nor does it
flow   into a lake, but it dashes into abysses, O my grandiloquent friend
and inventor of new names. For it is great and terrible, and overwhelms the
psalmody of those who live above it; like the Cataracts and Catadoupa of
the Nile, so does it roar you down day and night. It is rough and fordless;
and it has only this morsel of kindness about it, that it does not sweep
away your dwelling when the torrents and winter storms make it mad. This
then is what I think of those Fortunate Islands and of you happy people.
And you are not to admire the crescent-shaped curves which strangle rather
than cut off the accessible parts of your Highlands, and the strip of
mountain ridge that hangs over your heads, and makes your life like that of
Tantalus; and the draughty breezes, and the vent-holes of the earth, which
refresh your courage when it fails; and your musical birds that sing (but
only of famine), and fly about (but only about the desert). No one visits
it, you say, except for hunting; you might add, and except to look upon
your dead bodies. This is perhaps too long for a letter, but it is too
short for a comedy. If you can take my jokes kindly you will do well, but
if not, I will send you some more.

EP. V.

(CIRCA A. D. 361.)

   Since you do take my jokes kindly, I send you the rest. My prelude is
from Homer.

"Come now and change thy theme,

And sing of the inner adornment."

     -- OD. viii. 492.

Your roofless and doorless hut, your fireless and smokeless hearth, your
walls dried by fire, that we may not be hit by the drops of the mud,
condemned like Tantalus thirsting in the midst of waters, and that pitiable
feast with nothing to eat, to which we were invited from Cappadocia, not as
to a Lotus-eater's poverty, but to a table of Alcinous--we young and
miserable survivors of a wreck. For I remember those loaves and the broth
(so it was called), yes, and I shall remember them too, and my poor teeth
that slipped on your hunks of bread, and then braced themselves up, and
pulled themselves as it were out of mud. You yourself will raise these
things to a higher strain of tragedy, having learnt to talk big through
your own sufferings ... for if we had not been quickly delivered by that
great supporter of the poor--I mean your mother--who appeared opportunely
like a harbour to men tossed by a storm, we should long ago have been dead,
rather pitied than admired for our faith in Pontus. How shall I pass over
that garden which was no garden and had no vegetables, and the Augean
dunghill which we cleared out of the house, and with which we filled it up
(sc. the garden), when we drew that mountainous wagon, I the vintager, and
you the valiant, with our necks and hands, which still bear the traces of
our labours. ''O earth and sun, O air and virtue" (for I will indulge a
little in tragic tones), not that we might bridge the Hellespont, but that
we might level a precipice. If you are not put out by the mention of the
circumstances, no more am I; but if you are, how much more was I by the
reality. I pass by the rest, through respect for the others from whom I
received much enjoyment.

EP. VI.

     (Written about the same time, in a more serious vein.)

   What I wrote before about our stay in Pontus was in joke, not in
earnest; what I write now is very much in earnest. O that one would place
me as in the month of those former days,(a) in which I luxuriated with you
in hard living; since voluntary pain is more valuable than involuntary
delight. O that one would give me back those psalmodies and vigils and
those sojournings with God in prayer, and that immaterial, so to speak, and
unbodied life. O for the intimacy and one-souledness of the brethren who
were by you divinized and exalted: O for the contest and incitement of
virtue which we secured by written Rules and Canons; O for the loving
labour in the Divine Oracles, and the light we found in them by the
guidance of the Holy Ghost. Or, if I may speak of lesser and slighter
matters, O for the daily courses and experiences; O for the gatherings of
wood, and the cutting of stone; O for the golden plane-tree, more precious
than that of Xerxes, under which sat, not a King enfeebled by luxury, but a
Monk worn out by hard life, which I planted and Apollos (I mean your
honourable self) watered;(a) but God gave the increase to our honour, that
a memorial might remain among you of my diligence, as in the Ark we read
and believe, did Aaron's rod that budded.(b) To long for all this is very
easy, but it is not easy to attain it. But do you come to me, and conspire
with me in virtue, and co-operate with me, and aid me by your prayers to
keep the profit which we used to get together, that I may not perish by
little and little, like a shadow as the day draws to its close. I would
rather breathe you than the air, and only live while I am with you, either
actually in your presence, or virtually by your likeness in your absence.

EP. VIII.

   (Written to S. Basil shortly after his Ordination as Priest, probably
toward the end of A.D. 362.)

   I approve the beginning of your letter; but what is there of yours that
I do not approve? And you are convicted of having written just like me;(g)
for I, too, was forced into the rank of the Priesthood, for indeed I never
was eager for it. We are to one another, if ever any men were, trustworthy
witnesses of our love for a humble and lowly philosophy. But perhaps it
would have been better that this had not happened, or I know not what to
say, as long as I am in ignorance of the purpose of the Holy Ghost. But
since it has come about, we must bear it, at least so it seems clear to me;
and especially when we take the times into consideration, which are
bringing in upon us so many heretical tongues, and must not put to shame
either the hopes of those who have trusted us thus, or our own lives.

EP. XIX.

   It is a time for prudence and endurance, and that we should not let
anyone appear to be of higher courage than ourselves, or let all our
labours and toils be in an instant brought to nothing. Why do I write this,
and wherefore? Our Bishop Eusebius, very dear to God (for so we must for
the future both think and write of him), is very much disposed to agreement
and friendship with us; and as fire softens iron, so has time softened him;
and I think a letter of appeal and invitation will come to you from him, as
he intimated to me, and as many persons who are well acquainted with his
affairs assure me. Let us be beforehand with him then, either by going to
him, or by writing to him; or rather by first writing and then going; in
order that we may not by and by be put to shame by being defeated when it
was in our power to secure a victory by being honourably and
philosophically beaten, which so many are asking from us. Be persuaded by
me then, and come; both on this account and on account of the bad times;
for a conspiracy of heretics is assailing the Church; some of them are here
now, and are troubling us; and others, rumour says, are coming; and there
is reason to fear lest the Word of Truth should be swept away, unless there
be stirred up very soon the spirit of a Bezaleel, the wise Master builder
of such arguments and dogmas. If you think I ought to go too, to stay with
you and travel with you, I will not refuse to do even this.

   (We insert here the three letters to Eusebius, which are so closely
connected with the above as not to seem out of place. )

EP. XVI.

TO EUSEBIUS, BISHOP OF CAESAREA.

   Since I am addressing a man who does not love falsehood, and who is the
keenest man I know at detecting it in another, however it may be twined in
skilful and varied labyrinths; and, moreover, on my own part I will say it,
though against the grain I do not like artifice, either, both from my
natural constitution, and because God's Word has formed me so. Therefore I
write what presents itself to my mind; and I beg you to excuse my plain
speaking, or you will wrong the truth by depriving me of my liberty, and
forcing me to restrain within myself the pain of my grief, like some secret
and malignant disease. I rejoice that I have your respect (for I am a man,
as some one has said before), and that I am summoned to Synods and
spiritual conferences. But I am troubled at the slight which has been
inflicted on my most Reverend brother Basil, and is still inflicted on him
by Your Reverence; for I chose him as the companion of my life and words
and highest philosophy, and he is so still; and I never had reason to
regret my judgment of him. It is more temperate to speak thus of him, that
I may not seem to be praising myself in admiring him. You, however, I
think, by honouring me and dishonouring him, seem to be acting like a man
who should with one hand stroke a man's head, and with the other hand
strike him on the face; or while tearing up the foundations of a house
should paint the walls and decorate the exterior. If then you will listen
to me, this is what you will do, and I claim to be listened to, for this is
justice. If you will pay due attention to him, he will do the like by you.
And I will follow him as a shadow does the body, being of little worth and
inclined to peace. For I am not so mean as to be willing in other respects
to philosophize, and to be of the better part, but to overlook a matter
which is the end of all our teaching, namely love; especially in regard to
a Priest, and one of so high a character, and one whom I know of all my
acquaintances to be the best both in life and doctrine and conduct. For my
pain shall not obscure the truth.

EP. XVII.

TO EUSEBIUS, ARCHBISHOP OF CAESAREA.

   I did not write in an insolent spirit, as you complain of my letter,
but rather in a spiritual and philosophical one, and as was fitting, unless
this too wrongs "your most eloquent Gregory." For though you are my
Superior in rank, yet you will grant me something of liberty and just
freedom of speech. Therefore be kinder to me. But if you regard my letter
as coming from a servant, and from one who has not the right even to look
you in the face, I will in this instance accept your stripes and not even
shed a tear. Will you blame me for this also? That would befit anyone
rather than your Reverence. For it is the part of a high-souled man to
accept more readily the freedom of a friend than the flattery of an enemy.

EP. XVIII.

TO EUSEBIUS OF CAeSAREA.

   I was never meanly disposed towards your Reverence; do not find me
guilty. But after allowing myself a little liberty and boldness, just to
relieve and heal my grief, I at once bowed and submitted, and willingly
subjected myself to the Canon. What else could I have done, knowing both
you and the Law of the Spirit? But if I had been ever so mean and ignoble
in my sentiments, yet the present time would not allow such feelings, nor
the wild beasts which are rushing on the Church, nor your own courage and
manliness, so purely and genuinely fighting for the Church. I will come
then, if you wish it, and take part with you in prayers and in conflict,
and will serve you, and like cheering boys will stir up the noble athlete
by my exhortations.

EP. XL.

TO THE GREAT BASIL.

   (About the middle of the year 370. On the death of Eusebius Basil seems
to have formed a desire that his friend Gregory should succeed to the
vacant Metropolitanate; and so he wrote to him, without mentioning the
death of the Archbishop, to come to him at Caesarea, representing himself
as dangerously ill. Gregory, deeply grieved at the news, set off at once,
but had not proceeded far on his way when he learned that Basil was in his
usual health, and that the Bishops of the Province were assembling at
Caesarea for the Election of a Metropolitan. He saw through the artifice at
once; and thinking that Basil had wished to secure his presence at the
Metropolis in order that his influence might bring about his own (Basil's)
Election, he wrote him the following indignant letter. Nevertheless both he
and his father felt that no one was so well fitted to succeed to the vacant
throne; and so Gregory wrote in his father's name the three letters which
we have placed next, addressed respectively to the people of Caesarea, to
the Bishops attending the Synod, and to Eusebius Bishop of Samosata.)

   Do not be surprized if I say something strange, which has not been said
before by anyone. I think you have the reputation of being a steady safe
and strong-minded man, but also of being more simple than safe in much that
you plan and do. For that which is free from evil is also in proportion
slow to suspect evil, as is shewn by what has just occurred. You have
summoned me to the Metropolis at the moment when a council has been called
for the election of a Bishop, and your pretext is very seemly and
plausible. You pretend to be very ill, indeed at your last breath, and to
long to see me and to bid me a last farewell; I do not know with what
object, even what my presence can effect in the matter. I started in great
grief at what had happened; for what could be of higher value to me than
your life, or more distressing than your departure? And I shed a fountain
of tears; and I wailed aloud; and I felt myself now for the first time
unphilosophically disposed. What did I leave unperformed of all that befits
a funeral? But as soon as I found that the Bishops were assembling at the
City, at once I stopped short in my course; and I wondered first that you
had not perceived what was proper, or guarded against people's tongues,
which are so given to slander the guileless; and secondly that you did not
think the same course to be fitting for me as for yourself, though our life
and our rule and everything is common to us both, who have been so closely
associated by God from the first. Thirdly, for I must say this also, I
wondered whether you remembered that such nominations are worthy of the
more religious, not of the more powerful, nor of those most in favour with
the multitude. For these reasons then I backed water, and held back. Now,
if you think as I do, come to this determination, to avoid these public
turmoils and evil suspicions. I shall see your Reverence when the matters
are settled and time allows, and I shall have more and graver reproaches to
address to you.

EP. XLI.

TO THE PEOPLE OF CAeSAREA, IN HIS FATHER'S NAME.

   I am a little shepherd, and preside over a tiny flock, and I am among
the least of the servants of the Spirit. But Grace is not narrow, or
circumscribed by place. Wherefore let freedom of speech be given even to
the small,--especially when the subject matter is of such great importance,
and one in which all are interested--even to deliberate with men of hoary
hairs, who speak with perhaps greater wisdom than the ordinary run of men.
You are deliberating on no ordinary or unimportant matter, but on one by
which the common interest must necessarily be promoted or injured according
to the decision at which you arrive. For our subject matter is the Church,
for which Christ died, and the guide who is to present it and lead it to
God. For the light of the body is the eye,(a) as we have heard; not only
the bodily eye which sees and is seen, but that which contemplates and is
contemplated spiritually. But the light of the Church is the Bishop, as is
evident to you even without our writing it. As then the straightness or
crookedness of the course of the body depends upon the clearness or dulness
of the eye, so must the Church necessarily share the peril or safety
incurred by the conduct of its Chief. You must then take thought for the
whole Church as the Body of Christ, but more especially for your own, which
was from the beginning and is now the Mother of almost all the Churches, to
which all the Commonwealth looks, like a circle described round a centre,
not only because of its orthodoxy proclaimed of old to all, but also
because of the grace of unanimity so evidently bestowed upon it by God. You
then have summoned us also to your discussion of this matter, and so are
acting rightly and canonically. But we are oppressed by age and infirmity,
and if we by the strength given us by the Holy Ghost could be present
(nothing is incredible to them that believe), this would be best for the
common welfare and most pleasant to ourselves, that we might confer
something on you, and ourselves have a part of the blessing; but if I
should be kept away through weakness, I will give at any rate whatever can
be given by one who is absent.

   I believe that there are others among you worthy of the Primacy, both
because of the greatness of your city, and because it has been governed in
times past so excellently and by such great men; but there is one man among
you to whom I cannot prefer any, our son well beloved of God, Basil the
Priest (I speak before God as my witness); a man of pure life and word, and
alone, or almost alone, of all qualified in both respects to stand against
the present times, and the prevailing wordiness of the heretics. I write
this to men of the priestly and monastic Orders, and also to the
dignitaries and councillors, and to the whole people. If you should approve
it, and my vote should prevail, being so just and right, and given with
God's aid, I am and will be with you in spirit; or rather I have already
set my hand to the work and am bold in the Spirit. But if you should not
agree with me, but determine something else, and if the matter is to be
settled by cliques and relationships, and if the hand of the mob is again
to disturb the sincerity of your vote, do what pleases you--I shall stay at
home.

EP. XLIII.

   (The comprovincial Bishops had notified the elder Gregory of their
Synod, but without mentioning its date or purpose or inviting him to take
part in it--probably because they knew how strongly he would support the
election of Basil, to which they were unfavourable. S. Gregory therefore
wrote the following letter in his father's name.)

TO THE BISHOPS.

   How sweet and kind you are, and how full of love. You have invited me
to the Metropolis, because, as I imagine, you are going to take some
counsel about a Bishop. So much I learn from you, though you have not told
me either that I am to be present, or why, or when, but have merely
announced to me suddenly that you were setting out, as though resolved not
to respect me, and as not desirous that I should share your counsels, but
rather putting a hindrance in the way of my coming, that you may not meet
me even against my will. This is your way of action, and I will put up with
the insult, but I will set before you my view and how I feel. Various
people will put forward various candidates, each according to his own
inclinations and interests, as is usually the case at such times. But I
cannot prefer anyone, for my conscience would not allow it, to my dear son
and fellow priest Basil. For whom of all my acquaintance do I find more
approved in his life, or more powerful in his word, or more furnished
altogether with the beauty of virtue? But if you allege weak health against
him, I reply that we are choosing not an athlete but a teacher. And at the
same time is seen in this case the power of Him that strengthens and
supports the weak, if such they be. If you accept this vote I will come and
take part, either in spirit or in body. But if you are marching to a
foregone conclusion, and faction is to overrule justice, I shall rejoice to
have been overlooked. The work must be yours; but pray for me.(a)

EP. XLII.

   (There still seemed a probability that intrigues and party spirit would
carry the day, and so the two Gregories determined to call in the aid of
Eusebius of Samosata, though he did not belong to the Province. He had been
a conspicuous champion of orthodoxy against the Arian Emperor Valens, and
the Gregories hoped much from his presence at the Synod. He responded to
their appeal, and undertook the three hundred miles of very difficult
travelling to throw in his influence with the cause which they had at
heart. He saw, however, that it was necessary that the aged Bishop of
Nazianzus, notwithstanding his years and infirmities, should make the
effort, and he persuaded him to go. The result was all that could be
desired; for Basil was elected by a unanimous vote. The letter, which S.
Gregory wrote in his own name to thank him, will be found later on.)

TO EUSEBIUS, BISHOP OF SAMOSATA.

   O that I had the wings of a dove, or that my old age could be renewed,
that I might be able to go to your charity, and to satisfy the longings
that I have to see you, and to tell you the troubles of my soul, and in you
to find some comfort for my afflictions. For since the death of the blessed
Bishop Eusebius I am not a little afraid lest they who on a former occasion
set traps for our Metropolis, and wanted to fill it with heretical tares,
should now seize the opportunity, and uproot by their evil teaching the
piety which has with so much labour been sown in the hearts of men, and
should tear asunder its unity, as they have done in many Churches. As soon
as I received letters from the Clergy asking me not to forget them in their
present circumstances, I looked round about me, and remembered your love
and your right faith and the zeal with which you are ever possessed for the
Churches of God; and therefore I sent my beloved Eustathius, my Deacon and
helper, to warn your Reverence, and to entreat you, in addition to all your
toils for the Churches, to meet me, and both to refresh my old age by your
coming, and to establish in the Orthodox Church that piety which is so
famous, by giving her with us (if we may be deemed worthy to have a share
with you in the good work) a Shepherd according to the will of the Lord,
who shall be able to rule His people. For we have a man before our eyes,
and you are not unacquainted with him; and if we are permitted to obtain
him I know that we shall acquire great boldness towards God, and shall
confer a very great benefit upon the people who have called upon our aid. I
beg you again and again to put away all delay, and to come to us before the
bad weather of the winter sets in.

EP. XLV.

   (After the Consecration every one thought that Gregory would at once
join his friend; and Basil himself much wished for his assistance. But
Gregory thought it better to restrain his desire to see his friend until
jealousies had time to calm down. So he wrote the following letter to
explain the reasons for his staying away at this juncture.)

TO BASIL.

   When I learnt that you had been placed on the lofty throne, and that
the Spirit had prevailed to publish the candle upon the candlestick, which
even before shone with no dim light, I was glad, I confess. Why should I
not be, seeing as I did that the commonwealth of the Church was in sorry
plight, and needed such a guiding hand? Yet I did not run to you off hand,
nor shall I run to you, not even if you ask me yourself. First, in order
that I may be careful of your dignity, and that you may not seem to be
collecting partisans under the influence of bad taste and hot temper, as
your calumniators would say; and secondly that I may make for myself a
reputation for stability, and above illwill. When then will you come,
perhaps you will ask, and how long will you put it off? As long as God
shall bid me, and until the shadow of the present enmity and slander shall
have passed away. For the lepers, I well know, will not hold out very long
to keep our David out of Jerusalem.

EP. XLVI.

   (The new Archbishop seems not to have been satisfied with the reasons
given in Gregory's last letter; so the latter writes again.)

TO BASIL.

   How can any affairs of yours be mere grape-gleanings to me, O dear and
sacred friend?

   "What a word has escaped the fence of your teeth," or how could you
dare to say such a thing, if I too may be somewhat daring? How could your
mind set it going, or your ink write it, or your paper receive it, O
lectures and Athens and virtues and literary labours! You almost make me
write a tragedy by what you have written. Do you not know me or yourself,
you eye of the world, and great voice and trumpet and palace of learning?
Your affairs trifles to Gregory? What then on earth could any one admire,
if Gregory admire not you? There is one spring among the seasons, one sun
among the stars, and one heaven that embraces all things; and so your voice
is unique among all things, if I am capable of judging such things, and not
deceived by my affection--and this I do not think to be the case. But if it
is because I do not value you according to your worth that you blame me,
you must also blame all mankind; for no one else has or will sufficiently
admire you, unless it be yourself, and your own eloquence, at least if it
were possible to praise oneself, and if such were the custom of our speech.
But if you are accusing me of despising you, why not rather of being mad?
Or are you vexed because I am acting like a philosopher? Give me leave to
say that this and this alone is higher than even your conversation.

EP. XLVII.

   (The division of the civil Province of Cappadocia into two Provinces in
the year 372 was followed by ecclesiastical troubles. Anthimus, the Bishop
of Tyana, the civil metropolis of the new division of Cappadocia Secunda,
maintained that the Ecclesiastical divisions must necessarily follow the
civil, and by consequence claimed for himself that the purely civil action
of the State had ipso facto elevated him to the dignity of Metropolitan of
the new Province; and this pretension was supported by the Bishops of that
district, who were as a rule not well disposed towards the great
Archbishop. The next three letters are connected with this dispute.)

TO BASIL.

   I hear that you are being troubled by this fresh innovation, and are
being worried by some sophistical and not unusual officiousness on the part
of those in power; and it is not to be wondered at. For I was not ignorant
of their envy, or of the fact that many of those around you are making use
of you to further their own interests, and are kindling the spark of
meanness. I have no fear of seeing you un-philosophically affected by your
troubles, or in any way unworthy of yourself and me. Nay, I think that it
is now above all that my Basil will be known, and that the philosophy which
all your life you have been collecting will shew itself, and will overcome
the abuse as with a high wave; and that you will remain unshaken while
others are being troubled. If you think it well, I will come myself and
perhaps shall be able to give you some assistance by my counsel (if the sea
needs water, you do counsel!); but in any case I shall derive benefit, and
shall learn philosophy by beating my part of the abuse.

EP. XLVIII.

   (Shortly after the events described above, Basil determined to
strengthen his own hands by creating a number of new Bishoprics in the
disputed Province, to one of which, Sasima, he consecrated Gregory, very
much against the will of the latter, who felt that he had been hardly used,
and did not attempt to disguise his reluctance. See Gen. Prolegg. p. 195.)

TO BASIL.

   Do leave off speaking of me as an ill-educated and uncouth and
unfriendly man, not even worthy to live, because I have ventured to be
conscious of the way in which I have been treated. You yourself would admit
that I have not done wrong in any other respect, and my own conscience does
not reproach me with having been unkind to you in either great or small
matters; and I hope it never may. I only know that I saw that I had been
deceived--too late indeed, but I saw it--and I throw the blame on your
throne, as having on a sudden lifted you above yourself; and I am weary of
being blamed for faults of yours, and of having to make excuses for them to
people who know both our former and our present relations. For of all that
I have to endure this is the most ridiculous or most pitiable thing, that
the same person should have both to suffer the wrong and to bear the blame,
and this is my present case. Different people blame me for different things
according to the tastes of each, or each man's disposition, or the measure
of their ill feeling on my account; but the kindest reproach me with
contempt and disdain, and they throw me on one side after making use of me,
like the most valueless vessels, or those frames upon which arches are
built, which after the building is complete are taken down and cast aside.
We will let them be and say what they please; no one shall curb their
freedom of speech. And do you, as my reward, pay off those blessed and
empty hopes, which you devised against the evil speakers, who accused you
of insulting me on pretence of honouring me, as though I were lightminded
and easily taken in by such treatment. Now I will plainly speak out the
state of my mind, and you must not be angry with me. For I will tell you
just what I said at the moment of the suffering, not in a fit of anger or
so much in the sense of astonishment at what had happened as to lose my
reason or not to know what I said. I will not take up arms, nor will I
learn tactics which I did not learn in former times, when the occasion
seemed more suitable, as every one was arming and in frenzy (you know the
illness of the weak), nor will I face the martial Anthimus, though he be an
untimely warrior, being myself unarmed and unwarlike, and thus the more
exposed to wounds. Fight with him yourself if you wish (for necessity often
makes warriors even of the weak), or look out for some one to fight when he
seizes your mules, keeping guard over a defile, and like Amalek of old,
barring the way against Israel. Give me before all things quiet. Why should
I fight for sucking pigs and fowls, and those not my own, as though for
souls and canons? Why should I deprive the Metropolis of the celebrated
Sasima, or lay bare and unveil the secret of your mind, when I ought to
join in concealing it? Do you then play the man and be strong and draw all
parties to your own conclusion, as the rivers do the winter torrents,
without regard for friendship or intimacy in good, or for the reputation
which such a course will bring you. Give yourself up to the Spirit alone. I
shall gain this only from your friendship, that I shall learn not to trust
in friends, or to esteem anything more valuable than God.

EP. XLIX.

TO BASIL.

   You accuse me of laziness and idleness, because I did not accept your
Sasima, and because I have not bestirred myself like a Bishop, and do not
arm you against each other like a bone thrown into the midst of dogs. My
greatest business always is to keep free from business. And to give you an
idea of one of my good points, so much do I value freedom from business,
that I think I might even be a standard to all men of this kind of
magnanimity, and if only all men would imitate me the Churches would have
no troubles; nor would the faith, which every one uses as a weapon in his
private quarrels, be pulled in pieces.

EP. L.

   (At the request of Anthimus it would appear that S. Gregory wrote to S.
Basil a letter, not now extant, proposing a conference between the rival
Metropolitans. Basil took umbrage at the well-meant proposal, and wrote a
stiff letter to S. Gregory, to which the following is the reply.)

TO BASIL.

   How hotly and like a colt you skip in your letters. Nor do I wonder
that when you have just become the property of glory you should wish to
shew me what you find glory to be, so that you may make yourself more
majestic, like those painters who picture the seasons. But, to explain the
whole matter about the Bishops, and the letter by which you were annoyed;
what was my starting point, and how far I went, and where I stopped,
appears to me to be too long a matter for a letter, and to be a subject not
so much for an apology as for a history. To explain it to you concisely:--
the most noble Anthimus came to us with certain Bishops, whether to visit
my Father (this at least was the pretext), or to act as he did act. He
sounded me in many ways and on many subjects; dioceses, the marshes of
Sasima, my ordination, ... flattering, questioning, threatening, pleading,
blaming, praising, drawing circles round himself, as though I ought only to
look at him and his new Metropolis, as being the greater. Why, I said, do
you draw your line to include our city, for we too deem our Church to be
really a Mother of Churches, and that too from ancient times? In the end he
went away without having gained his object, much out of breath, and
reproaching me with Basilism, as if it were a kind of Philipism. Do you
think I did you wrong in this? And now look at the letter from me, who, you
say, insulted you. They fashioned a Synodal summons to me; and when I
declined it and said that the thing was an insult, they then asked as an
alternative that through me you should be invited to deliberate upon these
matters. This I promised, in order to prevent their first plan being
carried out; placing the whole matter in your hands, if you choose to call
them together, and where and when. And if I have not injured you in this,
tell me where there is room for injury. If you have to learn this from me,
I will read you the letter which Anthimus sent me, after invading the
marshes, notwithstanding my prohibitions and threats, insulting and
reviling me, and as it were singing a song of triumph over my defeat. And
what reason is there that I should offend him for your sake and at the same
time displease you, as though I were currying favour with him? You ought to
have learnt this first, my dear friend; and even if it had been so, you
should not have insulted me,--if only because I am a Priest. But if you are
very much disposed to ostentation and quarrelsomeness, and speak as my
Superior--as the Metropolitan to an insignificant Suffragan, or even as to
a Bishop without a See--I too have a little pride to set against yours.
That is very easy to anybody, and is perhaps the most suitable course.

EP. LVIII.

   (An attack had been made in Gregory's presence on the orthodoxy of
Basil in respect of the Deity of God the Holy Ghost; and in this letter he
gives his friend an account of the way in which he had defended him.
Unfortunately Basil was not pleased with the letter, taking it as intended
to convey reproach under the guise of friendly sympathy.)

TO BASIL.

   From the first I have taken you, and I take you still, for my guide of
life and my teacher of the faith, and for every thing honourable that can
be said; and if any one else praises your merits, he is altogether with me,
or even behind me, so far am I surpassed by your piety, and so thoroughly
am I yours. And no wonder; for the longer the intimacy the greater the
experience; and where the experience is more abundant the testimony is more
perfect. And if I get any profit in life it is from your friendship and
company. This is my disposition in regard to these matters, and I hope
always will be. What I now write I write unwillingly, but still I write it.
Do not be angry with me, or I shall be very angry myself, if you do not
give me credit for both saying and writing it out of goodwill to you.

   Many people have condemned us as not firm in our faith; those, I mean,
who think and think rightly that we thoroughly agree. Some openly charge us
with heresy, others with cowardice; with heresy, those who believe that our
language is not sound; with cowardice, they who blame our reserve. I need
not report what other people say; I will tell you what has recently
happened.

   There was a party here at which a great many distinguished friends of
ours were present, and amongst them was a man who wore the name and dress
which betoken piety (i.e. a Monk). They had not yet begun to drink, but
were talking about us, as often happens at such parties, and made us rather
than anything else the subject of their conversation. They admired
everything connected with you, and they brought me in as professing the
same philosophy; and they spoke of our friendship, and of Athens, and of
our conformity of views and feelings on all points. Our Philosopher was
annoyed by this. "What is this, gentlemen?" he said, with a very mighty
shout, "what liars and flatterers you are. You may praise these men for
other reasons if you like, and I will not contradict you; but I cannot
concede to you the most important point, their orthodoxy. Basil and Gregory
are falsely praised; the former, because his words are a betrayal of the
faith, the latter, because his toleration aids the treason."

   What is this, said I, O vain man and new Dathan and Abiram in folly?
Where do you come from to lay down the law for us? How do you set yourself
up as a judge of such great matters? "I have just come," he replied, "from
the festival of the Martyr Eupsychius(a), (and so it really was), and there
I heard the great Basil speak most beautifully and perfectly upon the
Godhead of the Father and the Son, as hardly anyone else could speak; but
he slurred over the Spirit." And he added a sort of illustration from
rivers, which pass by rocks and hollow out sand. "As for you my good sir,"
he said, looking at me, "you do now express yourself openly on the Godhead
of the Spirit," and he referred to some remarks of mine in speaking of God
at a largely attended Synod, as having added in respect of the Spirit that
expression which has made a noise, (how long shall we hide the candle under
the bushel?) "but the other man hints obscurely, and as it were, merely
suggests the doctrine, but does not openly speak out the truth; flooding
people's ears with more policy than piety, and hiding his duplicity by the
power of his eloquence."

   "It is," I said, "because I (living as I do in a corner, and unknown to
most men who do not know what I say, and hardly that I speak at all) can
philosophize without danger; but his word is of greater weight, because he
is better known, both on his own account and on that of his Church. And
everything that he says is public, and the war around him is great, as the
heretics try to snatch every naked word from Basil's lips, to get him
expelled from the Church; because he is almost the only spark of truth left
and the vital force, all else around having been destroyed; so that evil
may be rooted in the city, and may spread over the whole world as from a
centre in that Church. Surely then it is better to use some reserve in the
truth, and ourselves to give way a little to circumstances as to a cloud,
rather than by the openness of the proclamation to risk its destruction.
For no ham will come to us if we recognize the Spirit as God from other
phrases which lead to this conclusion (for the truth consists not so much
in sound as in sense), but a very great injury would be done to the Church
if the truth were driven away in the person of one man." The company
present would not receive my economy, as out of date and mocking them; but
they shouted me down as practising it rather from cowardice than for
reason. It would be much better, they said, to protect our own people by
the truth, than by your so-called Economy to weaken them while failing to
win over the others. It would be a long business and perhaps unnecessary to
tell you all the details of what I said, and of what I heard, and how vexed
I was with the opponents, perhaps immoderately and contrary to my own usual
temper. But, in fine, I sent them away in the same fashion. But do you 0
divine and sacred head, instruct me how far I ought to go in setting forth
the Deity of the Spirit; and what words I ought to use, and how far to use
reserve; that I may be furnished against opponents. For if I, who more than
any one else know both you and your opinions, and have often both given and
received assurance on this point, still need to be taught the truth of this
matter, I shall be of all men the most ignorant and miserable.

EP. LIX.

   (The reply to Basil's somewhat angry answer to the last.)

TO BASIL.

   This was a case which any wiser man would have foreseen; but I who am
very simple and foolish did not fear it in writing to you. My letter
grieved you; but in my opinion neither rightly nor justly, but quite
unreasonably. And whilst you did not acknowledge that you were hurt,
neither did you conceal it, or if you did it was with great skill, as with
a mask, hiding your vexation under an appearance of respect. But as to
myself if I acted in this deceitfully or maliciously, I shall be punished
not more by your vexation than by the truth itself; but if in simplicity
and with my accustomed goodwill, I will lay the blame on my own sins rather
than on your temper. But it would have been better to have set this matter
straight, rather than to be angry with those who offer you counsel. But you
must see to your own affairs, inasmuch as you are quite capable of giving
the same advice to others. You may look upon me as very ready, if God will,
both to come to you, and to join you in the conflict, and to contribute all
that I can. For who would flinch, who would not rather take courage in
speaking and contending for the truth under you and by your side?

Ep. LX.

   (Gregory was not able, owing to the serious illness of his Mother, to
carry out the promise at the end of Ep. LIX.; so he writes to explain and
excuse himself.)

TO BASIL.

   The Carrying Out of your bidding depends partly on me; but partly, and
I venture to think principally, on your Reverence. What depends on me is
the good will and eagerness, for I never yet avoided meeting you, but have
always sought opportunities, and at the present moment am even more
desirous of doing so. What depends on your Holiness is that my affairs be
set straight. For I am sitting by my lady Mother, who has for a long time
been suffering from illness. And if I could leave her out of danger you
might be well assured that I would not deprive myself of the pleasure of
going to you. So give me the help of your prayers for her restoration to
health, and for my journey to you.

DIVISION III.

MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS.

I. LETTERS TO HIS BROTHER CAeSARIUS.

Ep. VII.

   (On the death of the Emperor Constantius the undisputed succession
devolved on his cousin Julian the Apostate, who at once began to employ all
the power of the Empire to discourage, while not absolutely persecuting,
Christianity, and to restore the supremacy of the ancient Paganism. One of
his first acts was to dismiss all the men who had held high dignities under
his predecessor. S. Caesarius, Gregory's brother, was however to be
excepted; Julian, who had perhaps known and esteemed him at Athens, did all
that he could to keep him at Court, and to attach him to himself. This
caused much anxiety to Gregory and other friends of Caesarius, who foresaw
that Julian would do his utmost to shake the young man's faith, and could
not feel sure that he would have courage to resist such assaults. In his
trouble Gregory wrote him the following letter. Shortly afterwards the
expected attempt was made. S. Caesarius bravely held his ground against the
Emperor, and after declaring his unalterable determination to hold firm to
his faith, resigned his office at Court and withdrew to Nazianzus.)

   I have had enough to blush for in you; that I was grieved, it is hardly
necessary to say to him who of all men knows me best. But, not to speak of
my own feelings, or of the distress with which the rumour about you filled
me (and let me say also the fear), I should have liked you, had it been
possible, to have heard what was said by others, both relations and
outsiders, who are any way acquainted with us (Christians I mean, of
course,) about you and me; and not only some of them, but everyone in turn
alike; for men are always more ready to philosophize about strangers than
about their own relations. Such speeches as the following have become a
sort of exercise among them: Now a Bishop's son takes service in the army;
now he covets exterior power and fame; now he is a slave of money, when the
fire is being rekindled for all, and men are running the race for life; and
he does not deem the one only glory and safety and wealth to be to stand
nobly against the times, and to place himself as far as possible out of
reach of every abomination and defilement. How then can the Bishop exhort
others not to be carried along with the times, or to be mixed up with
idols? How can he rebuke those who do wrong in other ways, seeing his own
home takes away his right to speak freely? We have every day to hear this,
and even more severe things, some of the speakers perhaps saying them from
a motive of friendship, and others with unfriendly feelings. How do you
think we feel, and what is the state of mind with which we, men professing
to serve God, and to deem the only good to be to look forward to the hopes
of the future, hear such things as these? Our venerable Father is very much
distressed by all that he hears, which even disgusts him with life. I
console and comfort him as best I can, by making myself surety for your
mind, and assuring him that you will not continue thus to grieve us. But if
our dear Mother were to hear about you (so far we have kept her in the dark
by various devices), I think she would be altogether inconsolable; being,
as a woman, of a weak mind, and besides unable, through her great piety, to
control her feelings on such matters. If then you care at all for yourself
and us, try some better and safer course. Our means are certainly enough
for an independent life, at least for a man of moderate desires, who is not
insatiable in his lust for more. Moreover, I do not see what occasion for
your settling down we are to wait for, if we let this one pass. But if you
cling to the same opinion, and every thing seems to you of small account in
comparison with your own desires, I do not wish to say anything else that
may vex you, but this I foretell and protest, that one of two things must
happen; either you, remaining a genuine Christian, will be ranked among the
lowest, and will be in a position unworthy of yourself and your hopes; or
in grasping at honours you will injure yourself in what is more important,
and will have a share in the smoke, if not actually in the fire.

Ep. XIV. and XXIII.

   (Under the Emperor Valens Caesarius returned to public life and was
made Quaestor of Bithynia. While he was in this office the following
letters were written to him by his brother on behalf of two cousins,
Eulalius, who afterwards succeeded Gregory in the Bishopric of Nazianzus,
and with whom Gregory was on terms of intimate friendship, and
Amphilochius, who, through the roguery of a partner, had got into some
trouble at Constantinople about money matters, and for whom he asks aid and
advice. Some however think that this letter is not addressed to his brother
(who may have been at Constantinople at the time), but to some other
officer of high rank at the Imperial Court. Amphilochius soon after retired
from the world, and by A.D. 347 was already bishop of the important See of
Iconium. Gregory's letters to him are given later in this division.)

   Do a kindness to yourself and to me, of a kind that you will not often
have an opportunity of doing, because opportunities for such kindnesses do
not often occur. Undertake a most righteous protection of my dear cousins,
who are worried more than enough about a property which they bought as
suitable for retirement, and capable of providing them with some means of
living; but after having completed the purchase they have fallen into many
troubles, partly through finding the vendors dishonest, and partly through
being plundered and robbed by their neighbours, so that it would be a gain
to them to get rid of their acquisition for the price they gave for it,
plus the not small sum they have spent on it besides. If, then, you would
like to transfer the business to yourself, after examining the contract to
see how it may be best and most securely done, this course would be most
acceptable both to them and me; but if you would rather not, the next best
course would be to oppose yourself to the officiousness and dishonesty of
the man, that he may not succeed in gaining one advantage over their want
of business habits, either by wronging them if they retain their property,
or by inflicting loss upon them if they part with it. I am really ashamed
to write to you on such a subject. All the same, since we owe it to them,
on account both of their relationship and of their profession (for of whom
would one rather take care than of such, or what would one be more ashamed
of than of being unwilling to confer such a benefit?) do you either for
your own sake, or for mine, or for the sake of the men themselves, or for
all these sakes put together, by all means do them this kindness.

Ep. XXIII.

   Do not be surprized if I ask of you a great favour; for it is from a
great man that I am asking it, and the request must be measured by him of
whom it is made; for it is equally absurd to ask great things from a small
man, and small things from a great man, the one being unseasonable, and the
other mean. I therefore present to you with my own hand my most precious
son Amphilochius, a man so famous (even beyond his years) for his
gentlemanly bearing, that I myself, though an old man, and a Priest, and
your friend, would be quite content to be as much esteemed. What wonder is
it if he was cheated by a man's pretended friendship, and did not suspect
the swindle? For not being himself a rogue, he did not suspect roguery, but
thought that correction of language rather than of character was what was
wanted, and therefore entered into partnership with him in business. What
blame can attach to him for this with honest men? Do not then allow
wickedness to get the better of virtue; and do not dishonour my grey hairs,
but do honour to my testimony, and add your kindness to my benedictions,
which are perhaps of some account with God before Whom we stand.

Ep. XX.

   (In A.D. 368 the City of Nicaea in Bithynia was almost entirely
destroyed by a terrible earthquake. Caesarius lost his house, and his
personal escape was almost miraculous. Gregory writes (as also did Basil)
to congratulate him on his escape, and profits by the occasion to urge upon
him retirement from his secular avocations. Caesarius soon resolved to
follow this advice, and was taking steps to carry this resolution into
effect, when he died suddenly, early in A.D. 369, aged only 40. He left the
whole of his large property to the poor, but it fell for a time into the
hands of designing persons, and Gregory, who was his brother's executor,
had much difficulty in recovering it for the purpose for which it had been
intended. (See the letter to Sophronius, Prefect of Constantinople on this
subject.) He was buried at Nazianzus in the Church of the Martyrs, in a
vault which his parents had prepared for themselves. Gregory preached the
funeral sermon, which is given in the former part of this volume. These
four are the only letters known to have passed between the brothers.)

   Even frights are not without use to the wise; or, as I should say, they
are very valuable and salutary. For, although we pray that they may not
happen, yet when they do they instruct us. For the afflicted soul, as Peter
(a) somewhere admirably says, is near to God; and every man who escapes a
danger is brought into nearer relation to Him Who preserved him. Let us not
then be vexed that we had a share in the calamity, but let us give thanks
that we were delivered. And let us not shew ourselves one thing to God in
the time of peril, and another when the danger is over, but let us resolve,
whether at home or abroad, whether in private life or in public office (for
I must say this and may not omit it), to follow Him Who has preserved us,
and to attach ourselves to His side, thinking little of the little concerns
of earth; and let us furnish a tale to those who come after us, great for
our glory and the benefit of our soul, and at the same time a very useful
lesson to all, that danger is better than security, and that misfortune is
preferable to success, at least if before our fears we belonged to the
world, but after them we belong to God. Perhaps I seem to you somewhat of a
bore, by writing to you so often on the same subject, and you will think my
letter a piece not of exhortation but of ostentation, so enough of this.
You will know that I desire and wish especially that I might be with you
and share your joy at your preservation, and to talk over these matters
later on. But since that cannot be, I hope to receive you here as soon as
may be, and to celebrate our thanksgiving together.

2. To S. GREGORY OF NYSSA.

   (Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, was a younger brother of Basil the Great.
Ordained a Reader at an early age he grew tired of his vocation, and became
a professor of Rhetoric. This gave scandal in the Church and occasioned
much grief to his friends. Gregory of Nazianzus, wrote him the following
letter of remonstrance, which was not without effect, for shortly
afterwards he gave up his secular avocation, and retired to the Monastery
which his brother Basil had founded in Pontus. Here he spent several years
in the study of Holy Scripture and the best Commentators.)

EP. I.

   There is one good point in my character, and I will boast myself of one
point out of many. I am equally vexed with myself and my friends over a bad
plan. Since, then, all are friends and kinsfolk who live according to God,
and walk by the same Gospel, why should you not hear from me in plain words
what all men are saying in whispers? They do not approve your inglorious
glory (to borrow a phrase from your own art), and your gradual descent to
the lower life, and your ambition, the worst of demons, according to
Euripides. (a) For what has happened to you, O wisest of men, and for what
do you condemn yourself, that you have cast away the sacred and delightful
books which you used once to read to the people (do not be ashamed to hear
this), or have hung them up over the chimney, as men do in winter with
rudders and hoes, and have applied yourself to salt and bitter ones, and
preferred to be called a Professor of Rhetoric rather than of Christianity?
I, thank God, would rather be the latter than the former. Do not, my dear
friend, do not let this be longer the case, but, though it is full late,
become sober again, and come to yourself once more, and make your apology
to the faithful, and to God, and to His Altars and Sacraments, from which
you have withdrawn yourself. And do not say to me in proud rhetorical
style, What, was I not a Christian when I practised rhetoric? Was I not a
believer when I was engaged among the boys? And perhaps you will call God
to witness. No, my friend, not as thoroughly as you ought to have been,
even if I grant it you in part. What of the offence to others given by your
present employment--to others who are prone naturally to evil --and of the
opportunity afforded them both to think and to speak the worst of you?
Falsely, I grant, but where was the necessity? For a man lives not for
himself alone but also for his neighbour; nor is it enough to persuade
yourself, you must persuade others also. If you were to practise boxing in
public, or to give and receive blows in the theatre, or to writhe and twist
yourself shamefully, would you speak of yourself as having a temperate
soul? Such an argument does not befit a wise man; it is frivolous to accept
it. If you make a change I shall rejoice even now, said one of the
Pythagorean philosophers, lamenting the fall of a friend; but, he wrote, if
not you are dead to me. But I will not yet say this for your sake. Being a
friend, he became an enemy, yet still a friend, as the Tragedy says. But I
shall be grieved (to speak gently), if you do neither yourself see what is
right, which is the highest method of all, nor will follow the advice of
others, which is the next. Thus far my counsel. Forgive me that my
friendship for you makes me grieve, and kindles me both on your behalf and
on behalf of the whole priestly Order, and I may add on that of all
Christians. And if I may pray with you or for you, may God who quickeneth
the dead aid your weakness.

EP. LXXII.

   (When S. Gregory was consecrated Bishop of Nyssa the Imperial Throne
was occupied by Valens, an ardent Arian, whose mind was bent on the
destruction of the Nicene Faith. He appointed, with this object, one
Demosthenes, a former clerk of the Imperial Kitchen, to be Vicar of the
civil Diocese of Pontus. An old quarrel with Basil had made this man
unfriendly to Gregory, and after persecuting him in various small ways for
some time he procured, A.D. 275, the summoning of a Synod to enquire into
some allegations of irregularity in his consecration, and to try Gregory on
some frivolous charges of malversation of Church funds. Gregory was unable
to attend this Synod, which met at Ancyra, on account of an attack of
pleurisy; and another was summoned to meet at Nyssa itself. Gregory however
refused to appear, and was deposed as contumacious. Thereupon Valens
banished him, and he seems to have fallen into very low spirits, almost
into despondency at the apparent triumph of the heretical party. The three
letters which follow throw some light upon his state at this time. They
were written in answer to letters of his now lost, and their object was to
comfort him in his trouble and to encourage him to take heart again in the
hope of a good day coming. This more cheerful tone was justified by the
event, for on the death of Valens, A.D. 378, the exiled Bishops were
restored by Gratian, and Gregory was replaced in his Episcopal Throne, to
the great joy of the faithful of his Diocese.)

   Do not let your troubles distress you too much. For the less we grieve
over things, the less grievous they are. It is nothing strange that the
heretics have thawed, and are taking courage from the springtime, and
creeping out of their holes, as you write. They will hiss for a short time,
I know, and then will hide themselves again, overcome both by the truth and
the times, and all the more so the more we commit the whole matter to God.

EP. LXXIII.

   As to the subject of your letter, these are my sentiments. I am not
angry at being overlooked, but I am glad when I am honoured. The one is my
own desert, the other is a proof of your respect. Pray for me. Excuse this
short letter, for anyhow, though it is short, it is longer than silence.

EP. LXXIV.

   Although I am at home, my love is expatriated with you, for affection
makes us have all things common. Trusting in the mercy of God, and in your
prayers, I have great hopes that all will turn out according to your mind,
and that the hurricane will be turned into a genfie breeze, and that God
will give you this reward for your orthodoxy, that you will overcome your
opponents. Most of all I long to see you shortly, and to have a good time
with you, as I pray. But if you delay owing to the pressure of affairs, at
any rate cheer me by a letter, and do not disdain to tell me all about your
circumstances, and to pray for me, as you are accustomed to do. May God
grant you health and good spirits in all circumstances,--you who are the
common prop of the whole Church.

EP. LXXVI.

   (Basil the Great died Jan. 1, A.D. 379. Gregory of Nazianzus was
prevented by very serious illness from attending his funeral, and therefore
wrote as follows to Gregory of Nyssa.)

   This, then, was also reserved for my sad life, to hear of the death of
Basil, and the departure of that holy soul, which has gone from us that it
may be with the Lord, for which he had been preparing himself all his life.
And among all the other losses I have had to endure this is the greatest,
that by reason of the bodily sickness from which I am still suffering and
in great danger, I cannot kiss that holy dust, or be with you to enjoy the
consolations of a just philosophy, and to comfort our common friends. But
to see the desolation of the Church, shorn of such a glory, and bereft of
such a crown, is what no one, at least no one of any feeling, can bear to
let his eyes look upon, or his ear hearken to. But you, I think, though you
have many friends and will receive many words of condolence, yet will not
derive comfort so much from any as from yourself and your memory of him;
for you two were a pattern to all of philosophy, a kind of spiritual
standard, both of discipline in prosperity, and of endurance in adversity;
for philosophy bears prosperity with moderation and adversity with dignity.
This is what I have to say to Your Excellency. But for myself who write so,
what time or what words shall comfort me, except your company and
conversation, which our blessed one has left me in place of all, that
seeing his character in you as in a bright and shining mirror, I may think
myself to possess him also!

EP. LXXXI.

   You are distressed by your travels, and think yourself unsteady, like a
stick carried along by a stream. But, my dear friend, you must not let
yourself feel so at all. For the travels of the stick are involuntary, but
your course is ordained by God, and your stability is in doing good to
others, even though you are not fixed to a place; unless indeed one ought
to find fault with the sun, for going about the world scattering his rays,
and giving life to all thins on which he shines; or, while praising the
fixed stars, one should revile the planets, whose very wandering is
harmonious.

EP. CLXXXII.

   (Gregory after his resignation of the Patriarchal See of Constantinople
had retired to Nazianzus, and had been persuaded to undertake the
administration of the diocese then vacant, until the vacancy should be
filled. The Bishops of the Province wished him to retain it altogether, and
therefore were in no hurry to proceed to election. At length however they
yielded to the continually expressed wishes of Gregory and chose his cousin
Eulalius. Soon however Gregory's enemies spread abroad a report that this
election had been made against his wishes, and with the intention of
unfairly ousting him from the administration of that Church. The following
letter was written in consequence of this slander.)

   Woe is me that my sojourning is prolonged, and, which is the greatest
of my misfortunes, that war and dissensions are among us, and that we have
not kept the peace which we received from our holy fathers. This I doubt
not you will restore, in the power of the Spirit who upholds you and yours.
But let no one, I beg, spread false reports about me and my lords the
bishops, as though they had proclaimed another bishop in my place against
my will. But being in great need, owing to my feeble health, and fearing
the responsibility of a Church neglected, I asked this favour of them,
which was not opposed to the Canon Law, and was a relief to me, that they
would give a Pastor to the Church. He has been given to your prayers, a man
worthy of your piety, and I now place him in your hands, the most reverend
Eulalius, a bishop very dear to God, in whose arms I should like to die. If
any be of opinion that it is not right to ordain another in the lifetime of
a Bishop, let him. know that he will not in this matter gain any hold upon
us. For it is well known that I was appointed, not to Nazianzus, but to
Sasima, although for a short time out of reverence for my father, I as a
stranger undertook the government.

EP. CXCVII.

A LETTER OF CONDOLENCE ON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER THEOSEBIA.

   I had started in all haste to go to you, and had got as far as
Euphemias, when I was delayed by the festival which you are celebrating in
honour of the Holy Martyrs; partly because I could not take part in it,
owing to my bad health, partly because my coming at so unsuitable a time
might be inconvenient to you. I had started partly for the sake of seeing
you after so long, and partly that I might admire your patience and
philosophy (for I had heard of it) at the departure of your holy and
blessed sister, as a good and perfect man, a minister of God, who knows'
better than any the things both of God and man; and who regards as a very
light thing that which to others would be most heavy, namely to have lived
with such a soul, and to send her away and store her up in the safe
garners, like a shock of the threshingfloor gathered in due season,(a) to
use the words of Holy Scripture; and that in such time that she, having
tasted the joys of life, escaped its sorrows through the shortness of her
life; and before she had to wear mourning for you, was honoured by you with
that fair funeral honour which is due to such as she. I too, believe me,
long to depart, if not as you do, which were much to say, yet only less
than you. But what must we feel in presence of a long prevailing law of God
which has now taken my Theosebia (for I call her mine because she lived a
godly life; for spiritual kindred is better than bodily), Theosebia, the
glory of the church, the adornment of Christ, the helper of our generation,
the hope of woman; Theosebia, the most beautiful and glorious among all the
beauty of the Brethren; Theosebia, truly sacred, truly consort of a priest,
and of equal honour and worthy of the Great Sacraments? Theosebia, whom all
future time shall receive, resting on immortal pillars, that is, on the
souls of all who have known her now, and of all who shall be hereafter. And
do not wonder that I often invoke her name. For I rejoice even in the
remembrance of the blessed one. Let this, a great deal in few words, be her
epitaph from me, and my word of condolence for you, though you yourself are
quite able to console others in this way through your philosophy in all
things. Our meeting (which I greatly long for) is prevented by the reason I
mentioned. But we pray with one another as long as we are in the world,
until the common end, to which we are drawing nigh, overtake us. Wherefore
we must bear all things, since we shall not for long have either to rejoice
or to suffer.

3. TO EUSEBIUS BISHOP OF SAMOSATA.

EP. XLII.

   (This letter, urging his friend to attend at Caesarea for the election
of a Metropolitan in succession to Eusebius, has been already given in the
second division of this Selection.)

EP. XLIV.

   (Eusebius, having in response to the appeal referred to above, betaken
himself to Caesarea, the Elder Gregory, though in very feeble health,
resolved to attend the Synod in person, that Basil's Election might be
secured by their joint exertions, Gregory the Younger sent the following
letter by his father to explain to his friend the reason why he had not
come too. The date is about September of the year 379.)

   Whence shall I begin your praises, and by what name shall I give you
your right appellation? The pillar and ground of the church, or a light in
the world, using the very words of the apostle, or a crown of glory to the
remaining portion of christendom;(a) or a gift of God, or the bulwark of
your country, or the standard of faith, or the ambassador of truth, or all
these at once, and more than all? And these excessive praises I will prove
by what we shall see. What rain ever came so seasonably to a thirsty land,
what water flowing out of the rock to those in the wilderness? What such
Bread of Angels did ever man eat? When did Jesus the common Lord ever so
seasonably present Himself to His drowning disciples, and tame the sea, and
save the perishing, as you have shewn yourself to us in our weariness and
distress, and in our immediate danger as it were of shipwreck? I need not
speak of other points, with what courage and joy you filled the souls of
the orthodox, and how many you delivered from despair.

   But our mother church, Caesarea I mean, is now really putting off the
garments of her widowhood at the sight of you, and putting on again her
robe of cheerfulness, and will be yet more resplendent when she receives a
pastor worthy of herself and of her former Bishops and of your hands. For
you yourself see what is the state of our affairs, and what a miracle your
zeal has wrought, and your toil, and your godly plainness of speech. Age is
renewed, disease is conquered,(a) they leap who were in their beds, and the
weak are girded with power. By oil this I guess that our matters too will
turn out as we desire. You have my father, moreover, representing both
himself and me, to put a glorious close to his whole life and to his
venerable age by this present struggle on behalf of the Church. And I shall
receive him back, I am well assured, strengthened by your prayers, and with
youth renewed, for one must confidently commit all in faith to them. But if
he should end his life in this anxiety, it would be no calamity to attain
to such an end in such a cause. Pardon me, I beg of you, if I give way a
little to the tongues of evil men, and delay a little to come and embrace
you, and to complete in person what I now pass over of the praises due to
you.

EP. LXIV.

   (In the year 374 Eusebius and other orthodox Bishops of the East were
banished by Valens and their thrones filled with Arian intruders. Eusebius
was ordered to retire to Thrace, and his journey lay through Cappadocia,
where he saw Basil, but Gregory to his great grief was too unwell to leave
his house and go to meet him. Instead he sent the following letter.)

   When Your Reverence was passing through our country I was so ill as not
to be able even to look out of my house. And I was grieved not so much on
account of the illness, though it brought about the fear of the worst, as
by the inability to meet your holiness and goodness. My longing to see your
venerable face was like that which a man would naturally feel who needed
healing of spiritual wounds, and expected to receive it from you. But
though at that time the effect of my sins was that I missed the meeting
with you, it is now by your goodness possible for me to find a remedy for
my trouble, for if you will deign to remember me in your acceptable
prayers, this will be to me a store of every blessing from God, both in
this my life and in the age to come. For that such a man, such a combatant
for the Faith of the Gospel, one who has endured such persecutions, and won
for himself such confidence before the all-righteous God by his patience in
tribulation--that such a man should deign to be my patron also in his
prayers will gain for me, I am persuaded, as much strength as I should have
gained through one of the holy martyrs. Therefore let me entreat you to
remember your Gregory without ceasing in all the matters in which I desire
to be worthy of your remembrance.

EP. LXV.

   (Eusebius having replied to the former letter Gregory wrote again,
having an opportunity of communicating with his friend through one
Eupraxius, a disciple of Eusebius, who passed through Cappadocia on his way
to visit his master. This letter is sometimes attributed to Basil.)

   Our reverend brother Eupraxius has always been dear to me and a true
friend, but he has shewn himself dearer and truer through his affections
for you, inasmuch as even at the present time he has hurried to your
reverence, like, to use David's words, a hart to quench his great and
unendurable thirst with a sweet and pure spring at your patience in
tribulations. Deign then to be his patron and mine.

   Happy indeed are they who are permitted to come near you, and happier
still is he who can place upon his sufferings for Christ's sake and upon
his labours for the truth, a crown such as few of those who fear God have
obtained. For it is not an untested virtue that you have shown, nor is it
only, in a time of calm that you have sailed aright and steered the souls
of others, but you have shone in the difficulties of temptations, and have
been greater than your persecutors, having nobly departed from the land of
your birth. Others possess the threshold of their fathers,--we the heavenly
City; others perhaps hold our throne, but we Christ. O what a profitable
exchange! How little we give up, to receive how much! We went through fire
and water, and I believe that we shall also come out into a place of
refreshment. For God will not forsake us for ever, or abandon the true
faith to persecution, but according to the multitude of our pains His
comforts shall make us glad. This at any rate we believe and desire. But do
you, I beg, pray for our humility. And as often as occasion shall present
itself bless us without hesitation by a letter, and cheer us up by news of
yourself', as you have just been good enough to do.

EP. LXVI.

   (The following letter is sometimes attributed to Basil, and is found in
his works as well as in those of Gregory. The MSS. however, with only a
single exception, give it to the latter.)

   You give me pleasure both by writing and remembering me, and a much
greater pleasure by sending me your blessing in your letter. But if I were
worthy of your sufferings and of your conflicts for Christ and through
Christ I should have been counted worthy also to come to you, to embrace
Your Piety, and to take example by your patience in your sufferings. But
since I am not worthy of this, being troubled with many afflictions and
hindrances I do what is next best. I address Your Perfection, and I beg you
not to be weary of remembering me. For to be deemed worthy of your letters
is not only profitable to me, but is also a matter to boast of to many
people, and is an honour, because I am considered by a man of so great
virtue, and such near relations with God, that he can bring others also by
word and example into relation to Him.

4. To SOPHRONIUS, PREFECT OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

   (Sophronius, a native of the Cappadocian Caesarea, was an early friend
and fellow-student of Gregory and Basil. He entered the Civil Service, and
soon rose to high office. In A.D. 365 he was appointed Prefect of
Constantinople, as a reward for timely intimation which he gave to the
Emperor Valens of the usurpation attempted by Procopius. He is chiefly
known to us by the letters of Gregory and Basil, invoking his good offices
for various persons. Ep. 21 was written in A.D. 369 to commend to him
Nicobulus, Gregory's nephew by marriage, the husband of Alypiana, daughter
of his sister Gorgonia. This Nicobulus was a man of great wealth and
ability, but much disinclined for public life. Gregory constantly writes to
one and another high official to get him excused from appointments which
had been thrust upon him.)

EP. XXI

   Gold is changed and transformed into various forms at various times,
being fashioned into many ornaments, and used by art for many purposes; yet
it remains what it is--gold; and it is not the substance but the form which
admits of change. So also, believing that your kindness will remain
unchanged for your friends, although you are ever climbing higher, I have
ventured to send you this request, because I do not more reverence your
high rank than I trust your kind disposition. I entreat you to be
favourable to my most respectable son Nicobulus, who is in all respects
allied with me, both by kindred and by intimacy, and, which is more
important, by disposition. In what matters, and to what extent? In whatever
he may ask your aid, and as far as may seem to you to befit your
Magnanimity. I on my part will repay you the best I have. I have the power
of speech, and of proclaiming your goodness, if not nearly according to its
worth, at any rate to the best of my ability.

EP. XXII.

   (Is for Amphilochius, written at the same time and in consequence of
the same trouble as that which we have placed second of the letters to
Caesarius.)

   As we know gold and stones by their look, so too we may distinguish
good men from bad in the same way, and do not need a very long trial. For I
should not have needed many words in pleading for my most honourable son
Amphilochius with Your Magnanimity. I should rather have expected some
strange and incredible thing to happen than that he would do anything
dishonourable, or think of such a thing, in a matter of money; such a
universal reputation has he as a gentleman, and as wiser than his years.
But what must he suffer? Nothing escapes envy, for some word of blame has
touched even him, a man who has fallen under accusation of crime through
simplicity rather than depravity of disposition. But do not allow it to be
tolerable to you to overlook him in his vexations and trouble. Not so, I
entreat your sacred and great mind, but honour your country(a) and aid his
virtue, and have a respect for me who have attained to glory by and through
you; and be everything to this man, adding the will to the power, for I
know that there is nothing of equal power with Your Excellency.

EP. XXIX.

   (Of the same year. Here Caesarius had bequeathed all his property to
the poor; but his house had been looted by his servants, and his friends
could only find a comparatively small sum. Besides this a number of
persons, shortly afterwards, presented themselves as creditors of his
estate, and their claims, though incapable of proof, were paid. Then others
kept coming forward, until at last the family refused to admit any. more.
Then a lawsuit was threatened. Gregory intensely disliking all this, and
dreading moreover the scandal which might be caused by legal proceedings,
writes as follows to the Prefect.)

   You see how matters stand with me, and how the circle of human affairs
goes round, now some now others flourishing or the reverse, and neither
prosperity nor adversity remaining constant with us, as the saying is, but
ever changing and altering, so that one might trust the breezes, or letters
written in the waters, rather than human prosperity. For what reason is
this? I think it is in order that by the contemplation of the uncertainty
and anomaly of all these things we may learn the rather to have recourse to
God and to the future, giving scanty thoughts to shadows and dreams. But
what has produced this talk, for it is not without a cause that I thus
philosophize, and I am not idly boasting ?

   Caesarius was once one of your not least distinguished friends; indeed,
unless my brotherly affection deceives me, he was one of your most
distinguished, for he was remarkably well informed, and for gentlemanly
conduct was above the average, and was celebrated for the number of his
friends; among the very first of these, as he always thought and as he
persuaded me, Your Excellency held the first place. These are old stories,
and you will add to them of your own accord in rendering honours to his
memory; for it is human nature to add something to the praises of the
departed. But now (that you may not pass over this story without a tear, or
that you may weep to some good and useful purpose), he lies dead,
friendless, solitary, pitiable, deemed worthy of a little myrrh (if even of
so much), and of the last small coverings, and it is much that he has found
even thus much compassion. But his enemies, as I hear, have fallen upon his
estate, and from all quarters with great violence are plundering it, or are
about to do so. O cruelty! O savagery! And there is no one to hinder them;
but even the kindest of his friends only calls upon the laws as his utmost
favour. If I may put it concisely, I am become a mere drama, who once was
wont to be happy. Do not let this seem to you to be tolerable, but help me
by sympathy and by sharing my indignation, and do right by the dead
Caesarius. Yes, in the name of friendship herself; yes, by all that you
hold dearest; by your hope (which may you make secure by shewing yourself
faithful and true to the departed), I pray you do this kindness to the
living, and make them of good hope. Do you think that I am grieved about
the money? It would have been a more intolerable disgrace to me if
Caesarius alone, who thought he had so many friends, turned out to have
none. Such is my request, and from such a cause does it arise, for perhaps
my affairs are not altogether matters of indifference to you. In what you
will assist me, and by what means, and how, the matter itself will suggest
and your wisdom will consider.

EP. XXXVII.

   (A letter of recommendation for Eudoxius a Rhetorician for whom Gregory
had a warm regard.)

   To honour a mother is a religious duty. Now, different individuals have
different mothers; but the common mother of all is our country. This mother
you have honoured by the splendour of your whole life; and you will honour
her again now by obtaining for me that which I entreat. And what is my
request? You certainly know Eudoxius the Rhetorician, the most learned of
her sons. His son, to speak concisely, another Eudoxius both in life and
learning, now approaches you through me. In order then to get yourself a
yet better name, be helpful to him in the matters for which he asks your
assistance, For it were a shame were you, who are the universal Patron of
our Country, and who have done good to so many, and I will add, who will
yet continue to do so, should not honour above all him who is most
excellent in learning and in his eloquence, which you ought to honour, if
for no other reason, because he uses it to praise your goodness.

EP. XXXIX.

   (About the same date. A recommendation of one Amazonius, whose learning
was much respected by Gregory.)

   I wish well to all my friends. And when I speak of friends, I mean
honourable and good men, linked with me in virtue, if indeed I myself have
any claim to it. Therefore at the present time when seeking how I might do
a kindness to my excellent brother Amazonius (for I was very much pleased
with the man in some intercourse which has lately taken place between us),
I thought I might return him one favour for all,--in your friendship and
protection. For in a short time he shewed proof of an extensive education,
both of the kind which I used once to be very zealous for, when I was
shortsighted, and of that for which I am zealous in its place since I have
been able to contemplate the summit of virtue. Whether I in my turn have
appeared to him to be worth anything in respect of virtue is his affair. At
any rate I shewed him the best things I have, namely, my friends to him as
my friend. Of these I reckon you as the first and truest, and want you to
shew yourself so to him--as your common Country demands, and my desire and
promise begs; for I promised him your patronage in return for all his
kindness.

EP. XCIII.

   (Written soon after Gregory's resignation of the Archbishopric.)

   Our retreat and leisure and quiet have about them something very
agreeable to me; but the fact that they cut me off from your friendship and
society is not so advantageous but rather the other way. Others enjoy your
Perfection, to me it would be really a great boon if I might have just that
shadow of conversation which comes in a letter. Shall I see you again?
Shall I embrace again him of whom I am so proud, and shall this be granted
to the remnant of my life? If so, all thanks to God: if not, the best part
of my life is over. Pray remember your friend Gregory and pray for him.

EP. CXXXV.

   (About the middle of A.D. 382 Theodosius, on the recommendation of S.
Damasus, summoned a new Synod of Eastern Bishops to meet at Constantinople,
to try and heal the schism which had been embittered by the election of
Flavian at Antioch. As soon as Gregory heard of the convocation of this
Synod he wrote to several of his influential friends at Court, to beg them
to do their utmost for the promotion of peace.)

   I am philosophizing at leisure. That is the injury my enemies have done
me, and I should be glad if they would do more of the same sort, that I
might look upon them still more as benefactors. For it often happens that
those who are wronged get a benefit, while they, whom we would treat well,
suffer injury. That is the state of my affairs. But if I cannot make every
one believe this, I am very anxious, that at all events you, for them all,
to whom I most willingly give an account of my affairs, should know, or
rather I feel certain that you do know it, and can persuade those who do
not. You, however, I beg to give all diligence, now at any rate, if you
have not done so before, to bring together to one voice and mind the
sections of the world that are so unhappily divided; and above all if you
should perceive, as I have observed, that they are divided not on account
of the Faith, but by petty private interests. To succeed in doing this
would earn you a reward; and my retirement would have less to grieve over
if I could see that I did not grasp at it to no purpose, but was like a
Jonas, willingly casting myself into the sea, that the storm might cease
and the sailors be saved. If, however, they are still as storm-tost as
ever, I at all events have done what I could.

5. To AMPHILOCHIUS THE YOUNGER.

EP. IX.

   (Constantine and Constantius had granted exemption from the military
tax to all clerics. This privilege was, however, abolished by Julian, and
was restored by Valentinian and Valens: but the collectors of revenue often
tried to levy it on them in spite of the exemption. The collector at
Nazianzus tried to do this in the case of a Deacon named Euthalius, in
whose behalf Gregory wrote the following letter to Amphilochius, who was at
the time one of the principal magistrates of the province. The date of the
letter is given as A.D. 372, the year of Gregory's Ordination to the
Priesthood. For further particulars about this Amphilochius, see introd. to
letters II. and III. to Caesarius Epp. 22, 23.)

   Support a wellbuilt chamber with columns of gold, as Pindar(a) says,
and make yourself from the beginning known to us on the right side in our
present anxiety, that you may build yourself a notable palace, and shew
yourself in it with a good fame. But how will you do this? By honouring God
and the things of God, than Whom there can be nothing greater in your eyes.
But how, and by what act can you honour Him? By this one act, by protecting
the servants of God and ministers of the altar. One of these is our fellow
deacon Euthalius, on whom, I know not how, the officers of the Prefecture
are trying to impose a payment of gold after his promotion to the higher
rank. Pray do not allow this. Reach a hand to this deacon and to the whole
clergy, and above all to me, for whom you care; for otherwise he would have
to endure a grievous wrong, alone of men deprived of the kindness of the
time and the privilege granted by the Emperor to the Clergy, and would even
be insulted and fined, possibly on account of my weakness. It would be well
for you to prevent this even if others are not well disposed.

EP. XIII.

   (See the first letter to Sophronius. The nature of the trouble here
alluded to is unknown. There are several letters to various persons in
reference to his troubles and difficulties, many of them coming from his
reluctance to undertake the duties of any public office. He died at an
early age, leaving his widow, Alypiana, with a large family to bring up in
very reduced circumstances. Her troubles and the education of her children
were matters of much concern to Gregory, whose frequent letters on the
subject will be found below.)

   I approve the statement of Theognis, who, while not praising the
friendship which goes no further than cups and pleasures, praises that
which extends to actions in these words, Beside a full wine cup a man has
many friends: But they are fewer when grave troubles press. We, however,
have not shared winecups with each other, nor indeed have we often met
(though we ought to have been very careful to do so, both for our own sake,
and for the sake of the friendship which we inherited from our fathers),
but we do ask for the goodwill which shews itself in acts. A struggle is at
hand, and a very serious struggle. My son Nicobulus has got into unexpected
troubles, from a quarter from which troubles would least be looked for.
Therefore I beg you to come and help us as soon as you can, both to take
part in trying the case, and to plead our cause, if you find that a wrong
is being done us. But if you cannot come, at any rate do not let yourself
be previously retained by the other side, or sell for a small gain the
freedom which we know from everybody's testimony has always characterized
you.

EP. XXV.

   (Amphilochius was acquitted of the charges made against him, referred
to in former letters; but the result of the accusation on his own mind was
such that he resigned his office, and retired to a sort of hermitage at a
place called Ozizala, not far from Nazianzus, where he devoted his hours of
labour to the cultivation of vegetables. The four letters which follow are
of no special importance, and are only given as specimens of the lighter
style which Gregory could use with his intimate friends.)

   I did not ask you for bread, just as I would not ask for water from the
inhabitants of Ostracine. But if I were to ask for vegetables from a man of
Ozizala it were no strange thing, nor too great a strain on friendship; for
you have plenty of them, and we a great dearth. I beg you then to send me
some vegetables, and plenty of them, and the best quality, or as many as
you can (for even small things are great to the poor); for I am going to
receive the great Basil, and you, who have had experience of him full and
philosophical, would not like to know him hungry and irritated.

EP. XXVI.

   What a very small quantity of vegetables you have sent me! They must
surely be golden vegetables! And yet your whole wealth consists of orchards
and rivers and groves and gardens, and your country is productive of
vegetables as other lands are of gold, and

You dwell among meadowy leafage.

But corn is for you a fabulous happiness, and your bread is the bread of
angels, as the saying is, so welcome is it, and so little can you reckon
upon it. Either, then, send me your vegetables less grudgingly, or--I won't
threaten you with anything else, but I won't send you any corn, and will
see whether there is any truth in the saying that grasshoppers live on dew!

EP. XXVII.

   You make a joke of it; but I know the danger of an Ozizalean starving
when he has taken most pains with his husbandry. There is only this praise
to be given them, that even if they die of hunger they smell sweet, and
have a gorgeous funeral. How so? Because they are covered with plenty of
all sorts of flowers.

EP. XXVIII.

   In visiting the mountain cities which border on Pamphylia I fished up
in the Mountains a sea Glaucus; I did not drag the fish out of the depths
with a net of flax, but I snared my game with the love of a friend. And
having once taught my Glaucus to travel by land, I sent him as the bearer
of a letter to Your Goodness. Please receive him kindly, and honour him
with the hospitality commended in the Bible, not forgetting the vegetables.

EP. LXII.

   (The Armenian referred to is probably Eustathius Bishop of Sebaste, the
capital of Armenia Minor. He had been a disciple of Arius, but more than
once professed the Nicene Faith, changing his opinions with his company.
His personal character however stood very high, and for a long time S.
Basil regarded him with affectionate esteem. Indeed S. Basil's Rule for
Monks is based on one drawn up by him. But after Basil's elevation to the
Episcopate Eustathius began to oppose him and to calumniate him on all
sides, and even entered openly into communion with the Arians. It would
seem that this man tried to get Amphilochius round to his side, and through
him Gregory.)

   The Injunction of your inimitable Honour is not barbaric, but Greek, or
rather christian; but as for the Armenian on whom you pride yourself so, he
is a downright barbarian, and far from our honour.

EP. LXIII.

TO AMPHILOCHIUS THE ELDER.

   (In A.D. 374 Amphilochius was made Bishop of Iconium; and his father, a
man of the same name, was deeply aggrieved at being thus deprived of his
son, to whom he had looked to support him in his old age, and accused
Gregory of being the cause. Gregory, who had just lost his own father,
writes to undeceive him, and to convince him how much he dreads the burden
of the responsibilities of the episcopate for his friend as well as for
himself.)

   Are you grieving? I, of course, am full of joy! Are you weeping? I, as
you see, am keeping festival and glorying in the present state of things!
Are you grieved because your son is taken from yon and promoted to honour
on account of his virtue, and do you think it a terrible misfortune that he
is no longer with you to tend your old age, and, as his custom is, to
bestow on you all due care and service? But it is no grief to me that my
father has left me for the last journey, from which he will return to me no
more, and I shall never see him again! Then I for my part do not blame you,
nor do I ask you for due condolence, knowing as I do that private troubles
allow no leisure for those of strangers; for no man is so friendly and so
philosophical as to be above his own suffering and to comfort another when
needing comfort himself. But you on the contrary heap blow on blow, when
you blame me, as I hear you do, and think that your son and my brother is
neglected by us, or even betrayed by us, which is a still heavier charge;
or that we do not recognize the loss which all his friends and relatives
have suffered, and I more than all, because I had placed in him my hopes of
life, and looked upon him as the only bulwark, the only good counsellor,
and the only sharer of my piety. And yet, on what grounds do you form this
opinion? If on the first, be assured that I came over to you on purpose,
and because I was troubled by the rumour, and I was ready to share your
deliberations while it was still time for consultation about the matter;
and you imparted anything to me rather than this, whether because you were
in the same distress, or with some other purpose, I know not what. But if
the last. I was prevented from meeting you again by my grief, and the
honour I owed my father, and his funeral, over which I could not give
anything precedence, and that when my sorrow was fresh, and it would not
only have been wrong but also quite improper to be unseasonably
philosophical, and above human nature. Moreover, I thought that I was
previously engaged by the circumstances, especially as his had come to such
a conclusion as seemed good to Him who governs all our affairs. So much
concerning this matter. Now I beg you to put aside your grief, which is
most unreasonable I am sure; and if you have any further grievance, bring
it forward that you may not grieve both me in part and yourself, and put
yourself in a position unworthy of your nobility, blaming me instead of
others, though I have done you no wrong, but, if I must say the truth, have
been equally tyrannized over by our common friend, although you used to
think me your only benefactor.

EP. CLXXI.

TO AMPHILOCHIUS, BISHOP OF ICONIUM.

   Scarcely yet delivered from the pains of my illness, I hasten to you,
the guardian of my cure. For the tongue of a priest meditating of the Lord
raises the sick. Do then the greater thing in your priestly ministration,
and loose the great mass of my sins when you lay hold of the Sacrifice of
Resurrection. For your affairs are a care to me waking or sleeping, and you
are to me a good plectrum, and have made a welltuned lyre to dwell within
my soul, because by your numerous letters you have trained my soul to
science. But, most reverend friend, cease not both to pray and to plead for
me when you draw down the Word by your word, when with a bloodless cutting
you sever the Body and Blood of the Lord, using your voice for the
glaive.(a)

EP. CLXXXIV.

   (Bosporius, Bishop of Colonia in Cappadocia Secunda, who had apparently
taken a prominent part in the election and consecration of Eulalius to the
See of Nazianzus, was accused of heresy by Helladius Archbishop of
Caesarea, and a Council met at Parnassus to try him, A.D. 383. Gregory, not
being able personally to attend this Synod, writes to Amphilochius, to beg
him to undertake the defence of the accused. The letter is lost, but
Gregory's friend carried out his mission with success, and the following
letter is to thank him for his kindness.)

   The LORD fulfil all thy petitions (do not despise a father's prayer),
for you have abundantly refreshed my age, both by having gone to Parnassus,
as you were invited to do, and by having refuted the calumny against the
most Reverend and God-beloved Bishop. For evil men love to set down their
own faults to those who convict them. For the age of this man is stronger
than all the accusations, and so is his life, and we too who have often
heard from him and taught others, and those whom he has recovered from
error and added to the common body of the church; but yet the present evil
times called for more accurate proof on account of the slanderers and evil-
disposed; and this you have supplied us with, or rather you have supplied
it to those who are of tickler mind and easily led away by such men. But if
you will undertake a longer journey, and will personally give testimony,
and settle the matter with the other bishops, you will be doing a spiritual
work worthy of your Perfection. I and those with me salute your Fraternity.

6. To NECTARIUS ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

   (Gregory, having failed to persuade the Council of A. D. 381 to end the
schism at Antioch by recognizing Paulinus as successor to Meletius, thought
it best for the sake of peace to resign the Archbishopric. The Council
elected in his place Nectarius, a catechumen at the time, who was Praetor
of Constantinople, and he was consecrated and enthroned June 9, 381.
Gregory always maintained cordial relations with him; and the following
letter was written in answer to the formal announcement of his election.)

EP. LXXXVIII.

   It was needful that the Royal Image should adorn the Royal City. For
this reason it wears you upon its bosom, as was fitting, with the virtues
and the eloquence, and the other beauties with which the Divine Favour has
conspicuously enriched you. Us it has treated with utter contempt, and has
cast away like refuse and chaff or a wave of the sea. But since friends
have a common interest in each other's affairs, I claim a share in your
welfare, and feel myself a partaker in your glory and the rest of your
prosperity. Do you also, as is fitting, partake of the anxieties and
reverses of your exiles, and not only (as the tragedians say) hold and
stick to happy circumstances, but also take your part with your friend in
troubles; that you may be perfectly just, living justly and equally in
respect of friendship and of your friends. May good fortune abide with you
long, that you may do yet more good; yes, may it be with you irrevocably
and eternally, after your prosperity here, unto the passage to that other
world.

EP. XCI.

   (A letter of no great importance, except as shewing the friendly
feelings which Gregory continued to maintain towards his successor.)

   Affairs with us go on as usual: we are quiet without strifes and
disputes, valuing as we do the reward (which has no risk attaching to it)
of silence, beyond everything. And we have derived some profit from this
rest, having by God's mercy fairly recovered from our illness. Do you ride
on and reign, as holy David says,(a) and may God, Who has honoured you with
Priesthood, accompany you throughout, and set it for you above all slander.
And that we may give each other a proof of our courage, and may not suffer
any human calamity as we stand before God, I send this message to you, and
do you promptly assent to it. There are many reasons which make me very
anxious about our very dear Pancratius. Be good enough to receive him
kindly, and to commend him to the best of your friends, that he may attain
his object. His object is through some kind of military service to obtain
relief from public office, though there is no single kind of life that is
unexposed to the slanders of worthless men, as you very well know.

EP. CLI.

   (Written about A.D. 382, commending his friend George, a deacon of
Nazianzus, to the good offices of the Archbishop and the Count of the
Domestics, or Master of the Imperial Household, on account of his private
troubles and anxieties.)

   People in general make a very good guess at your disposition--or
rather, they do not conjecture, but they do not refuse to believe me when I
pride myself on the fact that you deem me worthy of no small respect and
honour. One of these people is my very precious son George, who having
fallen into many losses, and being very much overwhelmed by his troubles,
can find only one harbour of safety, namely, to be introduced to you by us,
and to obtain some favour at the hands of the Most Illustrious the Count of
the Domestics. Grant them this favour, either to him and his need, or else,
if you prefer it, to me, to whom I know you have resolved to grant all
favours; and facts also persuade me that this is true of you.

EP. CLXXXV.

   (See Introduction to Ep. CLXXXIV. above, p. 469. Bosporius was to be
sent to Constantinople that his cause might there be tried in the Civil
Courts. Gregory therefore writes to the Archbishop to point out what a
serious infringement of the rights of the Church this would be. Probably
the attitude which Nectarius took up at the suggestion of Gregory was the
occasion of the Edict which Theodosius addressed in February, A.D. 384 or
5, to the Augustal Prefect, withdrawing all clerics from the jurisdiction
of the civil tribunals, and placing them under the exclusive control of the
episcopal courts.)

   Whenever different people praise different points in you, and all are
pushing forward your good fame, as in a marketplace, I contribute whatever
I can, and not less than any of them, because you deign also to honour me,
to cheer my old age, as a well-beloved son does that of his father. For
this reason I now also venture to offer to you this appeal on behalf of the
Most Reverend and God-beloved Bishop Bosporius; though ashamed on the one
hand that such a man should need any letter from me, since his venerable
character is assured both by his daily life and by his age; and on the
other hand not less ashamed to keep silence and not to say a word for him,
while I have a voice, and honour faith, and know the man most intimately.
The controversy about the dioceses you will no doubt yourself resolve
according to the grace of the Spirit which is in you, and to the order of
the canons. But I hope Your Reverence will see that it is not to be endured
that our affairs are to be posted up in the secular courts. For even if
they who are judges of such courts are Christians, as by the mercy of God
they are, what is there in common between the Sword and the Spirit? And
even if we yield this point, how or where can it be just that a dispute
concerning the faith should be interwoven with the other questions? Is our
God-beloved Bishop Bosporius to-day a heretic? Is it to-day that his hoar
hair is set in the balance, who has brought back so many from their error,
and has given so great proof of his orthodoxy, and is a teacher of us all?
No, I entreat you, do not give place to such slanders; but if possible
reconcile the opposing parties and add this to your praises; but if this
may not be, at all events do not allow us all, (with whom he has lived, and
with whom he has grown old,) to be outraged by such insolence,--us whom you
know to be accurate preachers of the Gospel, both when to be so was
dangerous, and when it is free from risk; and to be unable to endure any
detraction from the One Unapproachable Godhead. And I beg you to pray for
me who am suffering from serious illness. I and all who are with me salute
the brethren who surround you. May you, strong and of good courage and of
good fame in the Lord, grant to us and the Churches the support which all
in common demand.

EP. CLXXXVI.

(A letter of introduction for a relative.)

   What would you have done if I had come in person and taken up your
time? I am quite certain you would have undertaken with all zeal to deliver
me from the slander, if I may take as a token what has happened before. Do
me this favour, then, through my most discreet kinswoman who approaches you
through me, reverencing first the age of your petitioner, and next her
disposition and piety, which is more than is ordinarily found in a woman;
and besides this, her ignorance in business-matters, and the troubles now
brought upon her by her own relations; and above all, my entreaty. The
greatest favour you can do me is speed in the benefit for which I am
asking. For even the unjust judge in the Gospel(a) shewed kindness to the
widow, though only after long beseeching and importunity. But from you I
ask for speed, that she may not be overwhelmed by being long burdened with
anxieties and miseries in a foreign land; though I know quite well that
Your Piety will make that alien land to be a fatherland to her.

EP. CCII.

   (An important letter on the Apollinarian controversy has already been
given above.)

7. To THEODORE, BISHOP OF TYANA.

   (Theodore, a native of Arianzus, and an intimate friend of Gregory,
accompanied him to Constantinople A.D. 379, and shared his persecution by
the Arians, who broke into their church during the celebration of the
divine liturgy, and pelted the clergy with stones. Theodore could not bring
himself to put up with this, and declared his intention of prosecuting the
aggressors. Gregory wrote the following letter to dissuade him from this
course, by shewing him how much more noble it is to forgive than to
revenge.)

EP. LXXVII.

   I hear that you are indignant at the outrages which have been committed
on us by the Monks and the Mendicants. And it is no wonder, seeing that you
never yet had felt a blow, and were without experience of the evils we have
to endure, that you did feel angry at such a thing. But we as experienced
in many sorts of evil, and as having had our share of insult, may be
considered worthy of belief when we exhort Your Reverence, as old age
teaches and as reason suggests. Certainly what has happened was dreadful,
and more than dreadful,--no one will deny it: that our altars were
insulted, our mysteries disturbed, and that we ourselves had to stand
between the communicants and those who would stone them, and to make our
intercessions a cure for stonings; that the reverence due to virgins was
forgotten, and the good order of monks, and the calamity of the poor, who
lost even their pity through ferocity. But perhaps it would be better to be
patient, and to give an example of patience to many by our sufferings. For
argument is not so persuasive of the world in general as is practice, that
silent exhortation.

   We think it an important matter to obtain penalties from those who have
wronged us: an important matter, I say, (for even this is sometimes useful
for the correction of others)--but it is far greater and more Godlike, to
bear with injuries. For the former course curbs wickedness, but the latter
makes men good, which is much better and more perfect than merely being not
wicked. Let us consider that the great pursuit of mercifulness is set
before us, and let us forgive the wrongs done to us that we also may obtain
forgiveness, and let us by kindness lay up a store of kindness.

   Phineas was called Zelotes because he ran through the Midianitish woman
with the man who was committing fornication with her,(a) and because he
took away the reproach from the children of Israel: but he was more praised
because he prayed for the people when they had transgressed.(b) Let us then
also stand and make propitiation, and let the plague be stayed, and let
this be counted unto us for righteousness. Moses also was praised because
he slew the Egyptian that oppressed the Israelite;(g) but he was more
admirable because he healed by his prayer his sister Miriam when she was
made leprous for her murmuring.(d) Look also at what follows. The people of
Nineve are threatened with an overthrow, but by their tears they redeem
their sin. (e) Manasses was the most lawless of Kings.(z) but is the most
conspicuous among those who have attained salvation through mourning.

   O Ephraim what shall I do unto thee,(h) saith God. What anger is here
expressed--and yet protection is added. What is swifter than Mercy? The
Disciples ask for flames of Sodom upon those who drive Jesus away, but He
deprecates revenge.(th) Peter cuts off the ear of Malchus, one of those who
outraged Him, but Jesus restores it.(k) And what of him who asks whether he
must seven times forgive a brother if he has trespassed, is he not
condemned for his niggardliness, for to the seven is added seventy times
seven?(a) What of the debtor in the Gospel who will not forgive as he has
been forgiven?(b) Is it not more bitterly exacted of him for this? And what
saith the pattern of prayer? Does it not desire that forgiveness may be
earned by forgiveness?

   Having so many examples let us imitate the mercy of God, and not desire
to learn from ourselves how great an evil is requital of sin. You see the
sequence of goodness. First it makes laws, then it commands, threatens,
reproaches, holds out warnings, restrains, threatens again, and only when
forced to do so strikes the blow, but this little by little, opening the
way to amendment. Let us then not strike suddenly (for it is not safe to do
so), but being selfrestrained in our fear let us conquer by mercy, and make
them our debtors by our kindness, tormenting them by their conscience
rather than by anger. Let us not dry up a fig tree which may yet bear
fruit,(g) nor condemn it as useless and cumbering the ground, when possibly
the care and diligence of a skilful gardener may yet heal it. And do not
let us so quickly destroy so great and glorious a work through what is
perhaps the spite and malice of the devil; but let us choose to shew
ourselves merciful rather than severe, and lovers of the poor rather than
of abstract justice; and let us not make more account of those who would
enkindle us to this than of those who would restrain us, considering, if
nothing else, the disgrace of appearing to contend against mendicants who
have this great advantage that even if they are in the wrong they are
pitied for their misfortune. But as things are, consider that all the poor
and those who support them, and all the Monks and Virgins are falling at
your feet and praying you on their behalf. Grant to all these for them this
favour (since they have sufferred enough as is clear by what they have
asked of us) and above all to me who am their representative. And if it
appear to you monstrous that we should have been dishonoured by them,
remember that it is far worse that we should not be listened to by you when
we make this request of you. May God forgive the noble Paulus his outrages
upon us.

EP. CXV.

   (Sent about Easter A.D. 382 with a copy of the Philocalia, or
Chrestomathy of Origen's works edited by himself and S. Basil.)

   You anticipate the Festival, and the letters, and, which is better
still, the time by your eagerness, and you bestow on us a preliminary
festival. Such is what Your Reverence gives us. And we in return give you
the greatest thing we have, our prayers. But that you may have some small
thing to remember us by, we send you the volume of the Philocalia of
Origen, containing a selection of passages useful to students of
literature. Deign to accept this, and give us a proof of its usefulness,
being aided by diligence and the Spirit.

EP. CXXI.

   (Written a little later, as a letter of thanks for an Easter Gift.
Theodore had quite recently been made Archbishop of Tyana.)

   We rejoice in the tokens of love, and especially at such a season, and
from one at once so young a man, and so perfect; and, to greet you with the
words of Scripture, stablished in your youth,(a) for so it calls him who is
more advanced in wisdom than his years lead us to expect. The old Fathers
prayed for the dew of heaven. and fatness of the earth(b) and other such
things for their children, though perhaps some may understand these things
in a higher sense; but we will give you back all in a spiritual sense. The
Lord fulfil all thy requests,(g) and mayest thou be the father of such
children(d) (if I may pray for you concisely and intimately) as you
yourself have shewn yourself to your own parents, so that we, as well as
every one else, may be glorified concerning you.

EP. CXXII.

   You owe me, even as a sick man, tending, for one of the commandments is
the visitation of the sick. And you also owe to the Holy Martyrs their
annual honour, which we celebrate in your own Arianzus on the 23rd of the
month which we call Dathusa.(e) And at the same time there are
ecclesiastical affairs not a few which need our common examination. For all
these reasons then, I beg you to come at once: for though the labour is
great, the reward is equivalent.

EP. CXXIII.

   (To excuse himself for postponing his acceptance of an invitation.)

   I reverence your presence, and I delight in your company; although
otherwise I counselled myself to remain at home and philosophize in quiet,
for I found this of all courses the most profitable for myself. And since
the winds are still somewhat rough, and my infirmity has not yet left me, I
beg you to bear with me patiently for a little while, and to join me in my
prayers for health; and as soon as the fit season comes I will attend upon
your requests.

EP. CXXIV.

   (A little later on, when the weather was more settled, Gregory accepts
the invitation and proposes to come at once, but declines to attend the
Provincial Synod.)

   You call me? And I hasten, and that for a private visit. Synods and
Conventions I salute from afar, since I have experienced that most of them
(to speak moderately) are but sorry affairs. What then remains? Help with
your prayers my just desires that I may obtain that for which I am anxious.

EP. CLII.

   (On his retirement from Constantinople Gregory had at the request of
the Bishops of the Province, and especially of Theodore of Tyana the
Metropolitan, and Bosporius Bishop of Colonia (see letters above) and at
the earnest solicitation of the people, undertaken the charge of the
Diocese of Nazianzus; but he very soon found that his health was not equal
to so great a task, and that he could not fulfil its calls upon him. He
struggled on for some time, but at length, finding himself quite unequal to
it, he wrote as follows to the Metropolitan:)

   It is time for me to use these words of Scripture, To whom shall I cry
when I am wronged?(a) Who will stretch out a hand to me when I am
oppressed? To whom shall the burden of this Church pass, in its present
evil and paralysed condition? I protest before God and the Elect Angels
that the Flock of God is being unrighteously dealt with in being left
without a Shepherd or a Bishop, through my being laid on the shelf. For I
am a prisoner to my ill health and have been very quickly removed thereby
from the Church, and made quite useless to everybody, every day breathing
my last, and getting more and more crushed by my duties. If the Province
had any other head, it would have been my duty to cry out and protest to it
continually. But since Your Reverence is the Superior, it is to you I must
look. For, to leave out everything else, you shall learn from my fellow--
priests, Eulalius the Chorepiscopus(a) and Celeusius, whom I have specially
sent to Your Reverence, what these robbers(b) who have now got the upper
hand, are both doing and threatening. To repress them is not in the power
of my weakness, but belongs to your skill and strength; since to you, with
His other gifts God has given that of strength also for the protection of
His Church. If in saying and writing this I cannot get a hearing, I shall
take the only course remaining to me, that of publicly proclaiming and
making known that this Church needs a Bishop, in order that it may not be
injured by my feeble health. What is to follow is matter for your
consideration.

EP. CLIII.

   (S. Gregory had to carry out his threat. He resigned the care of
Nazianzus, and nothing would induce him to withdraw his resignation.
Bosporius wrote him an urgent letter with this object, but he replied as
follows:)

To BOSPORIUS, BISHOP OF COLONIA.

   Twice I have been tripped up by you, and have been deceived (you know
what I mean), and, if it was justly, may the Lord smell from you an odour
of sweet savour;(g) if unjustly, may the Lord pardon it. For so it is
reasonable for me to speak of you, seeing we are commanded to be patient
when injuries are inflicted on us. But as you are master of your own
opinions, so am I of mine. That troublesome Gregory will no longer be
troublesome to you. I will withdraw myself to God, Who alone is pure and
guileless. I will retire into myself. This I have determined; for to
stumble twice on the same stone is attributed by the proverb to fools
alone.

TO THEODORE, ARCHBISHOP OF TYANA.

EP. CLVII.

   (S. Gregory succeeded at the end of A.D. 382 in convincing the
Metropolitan and his Comprovincials of his sincerity in desiring to retire;
and so they began to cast about for a Successor. Gregory desired that his
cousin the Chorepiscopus Eulalius should be nominated, but the Bishops felt
some jealousy at what they took to be an attempt on his part to dictate to
them, and refused to allow him to take any part in the election, on the
ground that he either never had been, or at any rate had ceased to be one
of the Bishops of the Province. He protested, but finding that he could not
convince them he withdrew his claim to a vote and wrote to Theodore, as
follows:--)

   Our spiritual affairs have reached their limit: I will not trouble you
any further. Join together: take your precautions: take counsel against us:
let our enemies have the victory: let the canons be accurately observed,
beginning with us, the most ignorant of men. There is no ill-will in
accuracy; only do not let the rights of friendship be impeded. The children
of my very honoured son Nicobulus have come to the city to learn shorthand.
Be kind enough to look upon them with a fatherly and kindly eye (for the
canons do not forbid this), but especially take care that they live near
the Church. For I desire that they should be moulded in character to virtue
by continual association with Your Perfectness.

EP. CLXIII.

   (George a layman of Paspasus, was sent by Theodore of Tyana to Saint
Gregory that the latter might convince him of his error and sin in
repudiating an oath which he had taken, on the ground that it was taken in
writing and not viva voce. Gregory seems to have brought him to a better
mind, and sent him back to the Metropolitan with the following letter,
requesting that due penance be imposed upon him, and have its length
regulated by his contrition. This letter was read to the Second Council of
Constantinople in 553, by Euphrantes, a successor of Theodore in the See of
Tyana, and was accepted by the Fathers, wherefore it is regarded as having
almost the force of a Canon of the Church Universal.)

   God grant you to the Churches, both for our glory, and for the benefit
of many, being as you are so circumspect and cautious in spiritual matters
as to make us also more cautious who are considered to have some advantage
over you in years. Since, however, you have wished to take us as partners
in your spiritual inquiry (I mean about the oath which George of Paspasus
appears to have sworn), we will declare to Your Reverence what presents
itself to our mind. Very many people, as it seems to me, delude themselves
by considering oaths which are taken with the sanction of spoken
imprecations to be real oaths, but those which are written and not verbally
uttered, to be mere matter of form, and no oaths at all. For how can we
suppose that while a written schedule of debts is more binding than a
verbal acknowledgment, yet a written oath is something other than an oath?
Or to speak concisely, we hold an oath to be the assurance given to one who
asked for and obtained it. Nor is it sufficient to say that he suffered
violence (for the violence was the Law by which he bound himself), nor that
afterwards he won the cause in the Law Court--for the very fact that he
went to law was a breach of his oath. I have persuaded our brother George
of this, not to pretend excuses for his sin, and not to seek out arguments
to defend his transgression, but to recognize the writing as an oath, and
to bewail his sin before God and Your Reverence, even though he formerly
deceived himself and took a different view of it. This is what we have
personally argued with him; and it is evident that if you will discourse
with him more. carefully, you will deepen his contrition, since you are a
great healer of souls, and having treated him according to the Canon for as
long a time as shall seem right, you will afterwards be able to confer
indulgence upon him in the matter of time. And the measure of the time must
be the measure of his compunction.

EP. CLXXXIII.

   (Helladius, Archbishop of Caesarea, contested the validity of the
election of Eulalius to the Bishopric of Nazianzus, and accused Bosporius
of heresy. S. Gregory here throws the whole weight of his authority into
the other scale. It is however manifest from the very terms of the letter
that the person addressed is not Theodore of Tyana. It was conjectured by
Clemencet that perhaps he was Theodore of Mopsuestia.)

   Envy, which no one easily escapes, has got some foothold amongst us.
See, even we Cappadocians are in a state of faction, so to speak--a
calamity never heard of before, and not to be believed--so that no flesh
may glory(a) in the sight of God, but that we may be careful, since we are
all human, not to condemn each other rashly. For myself, there is some gain
even from the misfortune (if I may speak somewhat paradoxically), and I
really gather a rose out of thorns, as the proverb has it. Hitherto I have
never met Your Reverence face to face, nor conversed with you by letter,
but have only been illuminated by your reputation; but now I am of
necessity compelled to approach you by letter, and I am very grateful to
him who has procured me this privilege. I omit to write to the other
Bishops about whom you wrote to me, as the opportunity has not yet arisen.
Moreover my weak health makes me less active in this matter; but what I
write to you I write to them also through you. My Lord the God-beloved
Bishop Helladius(a) must cease to waste his labour on our concerns. For it
is not through spiritual earnestness, but through party zeal, that he is
seeking this; and not for the sake of accurate compliance with the canons,
but for the satisfaction of anger, as is evident by the time he has chosen,
and because many have moved with him unreasonably, for I must say this, and
not trouble myself about it. If I were physically in a condition to govern
the Church of Nazianzus, to which I was originally appointed, and not to
Sasima as some would falsely persuade you, I should not have been so
cowardly or so ignorant of the Divine Constitutions as either to despise
that Church, or to seek for an easy life in preference to the prizes which
are in store for those who labour according to God's will, and work with
the talent committed to their care. For what profit should I have from my
many labours and my great hopes, if I were ill advised in the most
important matters? But since my bodily health is bad, as everyone can
plainly see, and I have not any responsibility to fear on account of this
withdrawal, for the reason I have mentioned, and I saw that the Church
through cleaving to me was suffering in its best interests and almost being
destroyed through my illness, I prayed both before and now again my Lords
the God-beloved Bishops (I mean those of our own Province) to give the
Church a head, which they have done by God's Grace, worthy both of my
desire and of your prayers. This I would have you both know yourself, most
honourable Lord, and also inform the rest of the Bishops, that they may
receive him and support him by their votes, and not bear heavily on my old
age by believing the slander. Let me add this to any letter. If your
examination finds my Lord the God-beloved Priest Bosporius guilty
concerning the faith--a thing which it is not lawful even to suggest--(I
pass over his age and my personal testimony) judge him so yourselves. But
if the discussion about the dioceses is the cause of this evil report and
this novel accusation, do not be led away by the slander, and do not give
to falsehoods a greater strength than to the truth, I beg you, lest you
should cast into despair those who desire to do what is right. May you be
granted good health and spirits and courage and continual progress in the
things of God to us and to the Church, whose common boast you are.

EP. CXXXIX.

   (This letter is written at a somewhat earlier date in reference to the
consent he had been induced to give to remaining for some time longer as
administrator of the See of Nazianzus. It is certainly not addressed to
Theodore of Tyana.)

   He Who raised David His servant from the Shepherd's work to the Throne,
and Your Reverence from the flock to the Work of the Shepherd: He that
orders our-affairs and those of all who hope in Him according to His own
Will: may He now put it into the mind of Your Reverence to know the
dishonour which I have suffered at the hands of my Lords the Bishops in the
matter of their votes, in that they have agreed to the Election,(a) but
have excluded us. I will not lay the blame on Your Reverence, because you
have but recently come to preside over our affairs, and are, as is to be
expected, for the most part unacquainted with our history. This is quite
enough: for I have no mind to trouble you further, that I may not seem
burdensome at the very beginning of our friendship. But I will tell you
what suggests itself to me in taking counsel with God. I retired from the
Church at Nazianzus, not as either despising God, or looking down on the
littleness of the flock (God forbid that a philosophic(b) soul should be so
disposed); but first because I am not bound by any such appointment: and
secondly because I am broken down by my ill health, and do not think myself
equal to such anxieties. And since you too have been heavy on me, in
reproaching me with my resignation, and I myself could not endure the
clamours against me, and since the times are bard, threatening us with an
inroad of enemies to the injury of the commonwealth of the whole Church, I
finally made up my mind to suffer a defeat which is painful to my body, but
perhaps not bad for my soul. I make over this miserable body to the Church
for as long as it may be possible, thinking it better to suffer any
distress to the flesh rather than to incur a spiritual injury myself or to
inflict it upon others, who have thought the worst of us, judging from
their own experience. Knowing this, do pray for me, and approve my
resolution: and perhaps it is not out of place to say, mould yourself to
piety.

8. To NICOBULUS.

   (See the introduction to the first letter to Sophronius above.)

EP. XII. (about A.D. 365).

   You joke me about Alypiana as being little and unworthy of your size,
you tall and immense and monstrous fellow both in form and strength. For
now I understand that soul is a matter of measure, and virtue of Weight,
and that rocks are more valuable than pearls, and crows more respectable
than nightingales. Well, well! rejoice in your bigness and your cubits, and
be in no respect inferior to the famed sons of Aloeus.(a) You ride a horse,
and shake a spear, and concern yourself with wild beasts. But she has no
such work; and no great strength is needed to carry a comb,(b) or to handle
a distaff, or to sit by a loom, "For such is the glory of woman."(g) And if
you add this, that she has become fixed to the ground on account of prayer,
and by the great movement of her mind has constant communion with God, what
is there here to boast of in your bigness or the stature of your body? Take
heed to seasonable silence: listen to her voice: mark her unadornment, her
womanly virility, her usefulness at home, her love of her husband. Then you
will say with the Laconian, that verily soul is not a subject for measure,
and the outer must look to the inner man. If you look at the things in this
way you will leave off joking and deriding her as little, and you will
congratulate yourself on your marriage.

EP. LI.

   (An answer to a request made by Nicobulus for a treatise on the art of
writing letters. Benoit thinks this and the following ones were written to
the Younger Nicobulus.)

   Of those who write letters, since this is what you ask, some write at
too great a length, and others err on the side of deficiency; and both miss
the mean, like archers shooting at a mark and sending some shafts short of
it and others beyond it; for the missing is the same though on opposite
sides. Now the measure of letters is their usefulness: and we must neither
write at very great length when there is little to say, nor very briefly
when there is a great deal. What? Are we to measure our wisdom by the
Persian Schoene, or by the cubits of a child, and to write so imperfectly
as not to write at all but to copy the midday shadows, or lines which meet
right in front of you, whose lengths are foreshortened and which show
themselves in glimpses rather than plainly, being recognized only by
certain of their extremities? We must in both respects avoid the want of
moderation and hit off the moderate. This is my opinion as to brevity; as
to perspicuity it is clear that one should avoid the oratorical form as
much as possible and lean rather to the chatty: and, to speak concisely,
that is the best and most beautiful letter which can convince either an
unlearned or an educated reader; the one, as being within the reach of the
many; the other, as above the many; and it should be intelligible in
itself. It is equally disagreeable to think out a riddle and to have to
interpret a letter. The third point about a letter is grace: and this we
shall safeguard if we do not write in any way that is dry and unpleasing or
unadorned and badly arranged and untrimmed, as they call it; as for
instance a style destitute of maxims and proverbs and pithy sayings, or
even jokes and enigmas, by which language is sweetened. Yet we must not
seem to abuse these things by an excessive employment of them. Their entire
omission shews rusticity, but the abuse of them shews insatiability. We may
use them about as much as purple is used in woven stuffs. Figures of speech
we shall admit, but few and modest. Antitheses and balanced clauses and
nicely divided sentences, we shall leave to the sophists, or if we do
sometimes admit them, we shall do so rather in play than in earnest. My
final remark shall be one which I heard a clever man make about the eagle,
that when the birds were electing a king, and came with various adornment,
the most beautiful point about him was that he did not think himself
beautiful. This point is to be especially attended to in letter-writing, to
be without adventitious ornament and as natural as possible. So much about
letters I send you by a letter; but perhaps you had better not apply it to
myself, who am busied about more important matters. The rest you will work
out for yourself, as you are quick at learning, and those who are clever in
these matters will teach you.

EP. LII.

   (Nicobulus asked Gregory to publish a collection of his letters.
Gregory forwards a copy.)

   You are asking flowers from an autumn meadow, and arming Nestor in his
old age, in demanding from me now something clever in the way of language,
after I have long neglected all that is enjoyable in language and in life.
But yet (since it is not an Eurysthean or Herculean labour that you are
imposing on me, but rather one which is very agreeable and quiet, to
collect for you as many of my own letters as I can), do you place this
volume among your books--a work not amatory but oratorical, and not for
display so much as for use, and that for our own home.(a) For different
authors have different characteristics, greater or smaller. Mine is a
tendency to instruct by maxims and positive statements wherever opportunity
occurs. And as in a legitimate child, so also in language, the father is
always visible, not less than parents are shewn by bodily characteristics.
Mine are such as I have mentioned. You may repay me both by writing and by
deriving profit from what I have written. I cannot ask for or request any
better reward than this, either more profitable to the asker, or more
becoming him who gives it.

EP. LIII.

   (Gregory put a collection of Basil's letters with his own, and gave
them the first place. Nicobulus seems to have been surprised at this, and
asked the reason. Gregory explains as follows.)

   I have always preferred the Great Basil to myself, though he was of the
contrary opinion; and so I do now, not less for truth's sake than for
friendship's. This is the reason why I have given his letters the first
place and my own the second. For I hope we two will always be coupled
together; and also I would supply others with an example of modesty and
submission.

EP. LIV.

   On Laconicism. To be laconic is not merely, as you suppose, to write
few words, but to say a great deal in few words. Thus I call Homer very
brief and Antimachus lengthy. Why? Because I measure the length by the
matter and not by the letters.

EP. LV.

   An Invitation. You flee when I pursue you: perhaps in accordance with
the laws of love, to make yourself more valuable. Come then, and fill up at
last the loss I have suffered by your long delay. And if any home affairs
detain you, you shall leave us again, and so make yourself more precious as
an object of desire.

9. TO OLYMPIUS.

   (Olympius was Prefect of Cappadocia Secunda in 382. One letter to him
against the Apollinarians, has already been given; the rest, which are to
follow are mainly recommendations of various persons to his patronage.)

EP. CIV.

   All The Other favours which I have received I know to be due to your
kindness; and may God reward you for them with His own mercies; and may one
of these be, that you may discharge your office of prefect with good fame
and splendour from beginning to end. In what I now ask I come rather to
give than to receive, if it is not arrogant to say so. I personally
introduce poor Philumena to you. to entreat your justice, and to move you
to the tears with which she afflicts my soul. She herself will explain to
you in what and by whom she has been wronged, for it would not be fight for
me to bring accusations against any one. But this much it is necessary for
me to say, that widowhood and orphanhood have a right to the assistance of
all right-minded men, and especially of those who have wife and children,
those great pledges of pity, since we--ourselves only men--are set to judge
men. Pardon me that I plead with you for these by letter, since it is by
ill health that I am deprived of seeing a ruler so kind and so conspicuous
for virtue that even the prelude of your administration is more precious
than the good fame of others even at the end of their term.

EP. CV.

   The time is swift, the struggle great, and my sickness severer,
reducing me almost to immovability. What is left but to pray to God, and to
supplicate your kindness, the one, that He will incline your mind to
gentler counsels, the other that you will not roughly dismiss our
intercession, but will receive kindly the wretched Paulus, whom justice has
brought under your hands, perhaps in order that it may make you more
illustrious by the greatness of your kindness, and may commend our prayers
(such as they are) to your mercy.

EP. CVI.

   Here is another laying before you a letter, of which, if the truth may
be said, you are the cause yourself, for you provoke them by the honour you
do them. Here too is another petitioner for you, a prisoner of fear, our
kinsman Eustratius, who with us and by us entreats your goodness, inasmuch
as he cannot endure to be in perpetual rebellion against your government,
even though a just terror has frightened him, nor does he choose to entreat
you by anyone else than me, that he may make your mercy to him more
conspicuous through his use of such intercessors, whom at all events you
yourself make great by thus accepting their appeal. I will say one thing,
and that briefly. All the other favours you conferred upon me; but this you
will confer upon your own judgment, since once you purposed to comfort our
age and infirmity with such honours. And I will add that you are
continually rendering God more propitious to you.

EP. CXXV. (Given above, 1.)

EP. CXXVI.

   (While Gregory was at Xantharis an opportunity presented itself for
seeing Olympius, but a return of illness prevented him from taking
advantage of it. He writes to express his regret, and takes the opportunity
also to request that Nicobulus may be exempted from the charge of the
Imperial Posts.)

   I was happy in a dream. For having been brought as far as the Monastery
to obtain some comfort from the bath, and then hoping to meet you, and
having this good fortune almost in my hands, and having delayed a few days,
I was suddenly carried away by my illness, which was already painful in
some respects and threatening in others. And, if one must find some
conjecture to account for the misfortune, I suffered in the same way as the
polypods do, which if torn by force from the rocks risk the loss of the
suckers by which they attach themselves to the rocks, or carry off some
portion of the latter. Something of this kind is my case. And what I should
have asked Your Excellency for had I seen you, I now venture to ask for
though I am absent. I found my son Nicobulus much worried by the care of
the Post, and by close attention to the Monastery. He is not a strong man,
and has great distaste for solitude. Make use of him for anything else you
please, for he is eager to serve your authority in all things; but if it be
possible set him free from this charge, if for no other reason, at any rate
to do him honour as my Hospitaller. Since I have asked many favours from
you for many people, and have obtained them, I need also your kindness for
myself.

EP. CXXXI.

   (In 382 Gregory was summoned to a Synod at Constantinople; he wrote to
Procopius, the Prefectus Urbi, and declined to go, on the ground of his
great dislike to Episcopal Synods, from which, he said, he had never known
any good to result. However he seems to have received a more urgent summons
through Icarius and Olympius. His reply to Icarius has been lost; that to
Olympius is as follows.)

   It is more serious to me than my illness, that no one will believe that
I am ill, but that so long a journey is enjoined upon me, and I am pushed
into the midst of troubles from which I rejoiced to have withdrawn, and
almost thought that I ought to be grateful for this to my bodily
affliction. For quiet and freedom from affairs is more precious than the
splendour of a busy life. I wrote this yesterday to the Most Illustrious
Icarius, from whom I received the same summons: and I now beg your
Magnanimity also to write this for me, for you are a very trustworthy
witness of my ill health. Another proof of my inability is the loss which I
have now suffered in having been unable even to come and enjoy your
society, who are so kind a Governor, and so admirable for virtue that even
the preludes of your term of office are more honourable than the good fame
which others can earn by the end of theirs.

EP. CXL.

   Again I write when I ought to come: but I gain confidence to do so from
yourself, O Umpire of spiritual matters (to put the first thing first), and
Corrector of the Commonweal--and both by Divine Providence: who have also
received as the reward of your piety that your affairs would prosper to
your mind.

and that you alone should find attainable what to every one else is out of
reach. For wisdom and courage conduct your government, the one discovering
what is to be done, and the other easily carrying out what has been
discovered. And the greatest of all is the purity of your hands with which
all is directed. Where is your ill-gotten gold? There never was any; it was
the first thing you condemned to exile as an invisible tyrant. Where is
illwill? It is condemned. Where is favour? Here you do bend somewhat (for I
will accuse you a little), but it is in imitating the Divine Mercy, which
at the present time your soldier Aurelius entreats of you by me. I call him
a foolish fugitive, because he has placed himself in our hands, and through
ours in yours, sheltering himself under our gray hair and our Priesthood
(for which you have often professed your veneration) as if it were under
some Imperial Image. See, this sacrificing and unbloodstained hand leads
this man to you; a hand which has written often in your praise, and will I
am sure write yet more, if God continue your term of government--yours, I
mean, and that of your colleague Themis.

EP. CXLI.

   (The people of Nazianzus had in some way incurred the loss of civic
rights; and the Order for the forfeiture of the title of City had been
signed by Olympius. This led to something like a revolt on the part of a
certain number of the younger citizens: and this Olympius determined to
punish by the total destruction of the place. S. Gregory was again
prevented by sickness from appearing in person before the Governor: but he
pleaded the cause of his native city (using its official Latin name of
Diocaesarea) in the following letters so successfully as to induce Olympius
to pardon the outbreak.)

   Again an opportunity for kindness: and again I am bold enough to commit
to a letter my entreaty about so important a matter. My illness makes me
thus bold, for it does not even allow me to go out, and it does not permit
me to make a fitting entrance to you. What then is my Embassy? Pray receive
it from me gently and kindly. The death of a single man, who to-day is and
to-morrow will not be and will not return to us is of course a dreadful
thing. But it is much more dreadful for a City to die, which Kings rounded,
and time compacted, and a long series of years has preserved. I speak of
Diocaesarea, once a City, a City no longer, unless you grant it mercy.
Think that this place now falls at your feet by me: let it have a voice,
and be clothed in mourning and cut off its hair as in a tragedy, and let it
speak to you in such words as these:

   Give a hand to me that lie in the dust: help the strengthless: do not
add the weight of your hand to time, nor destroy what the Persians have
left me. It is more honourable to you to raise up cities than to destroy
those that are distressed. Be my founder, either by adding to what I
possess, or by preserving me as I am. Do not suffer that up to the time of
your administration I should be a City, and after you should be so no
longer: do not give occasion to after times to speak evil of you, that you
received me numbered among cities, and left me an uninhabited spot, which
was once a city, only recognizable by mountains and precipices and woods.

   This let the City of my imagination do and say to your mercy. But deign
to receive an exhortation from me as your friend: certainly chastise those
who have rebelled against the Edict of your authority. On this behalf I am
not bold to say anything, although this piece of audacity was not, they
say, of universal design, but was only the unreasoning anger of a few young
men. But dismiss the greater part of your anger, and use a larger
reasoning. They were grieved for their Mother's being put to death; they
could not endure to be called citizens, and yet to be without political
rights: they were mad: they committed an offence against the law: they
threw away their own safety: the unexpectedness of the calamity deprived
them of reason. Is it really necessary that for this the city should cease
to be a city? Surely not. Most excellent, do not write the order for this
to be done. Rather respect the supplication of all citizens and statesmen
and men of rank--for remember the calamity will touch all alike--even if
the greatness of your authority keeps them silent, sighing as it were in
secret. Respect also my gray hair: for it would be dreadful to me, after
having had a great city, now to have none at all, and that after your
government the Temple which we have raised to God, and our love for its
adornment, is to become a dwelling for beasts. It is not a terrible thing
if some statues were thrown down--though in itself it would be so--but I
would not have you think that I am speaking of this, when all my care is
for more important things: but it is dreadful if an ancient city is to be
destroyed with them--one which has splendidly endured, as I, who am
honoured by you, and am supposed to have some influence, have lived to see.
But this is enough upon such a subject, for I shall not, if I speak at
greater length, find anything stronger than your own reasons, by which this
nation is governed--and may more and greater ones be governed by them too,
and that in greater commands. This however it was needful that Your
Magnanimity should know about those who have fallen before your feet, that
they are altogether wretched and despairing, and have not shared in any
disorder with those who have broken the law, as I am certified by many who
were then present. Therefore deliberate what you may think expedient, both
for your own reputation in this world, and your hopes in the next. We will
bear what you determine--not indeed without grief--but we will bear it: for
what else can we do? If the worse determination prevail, we shall be
indignant, and shall shed a tear over our City that has ceased to be.

EP. CXLII.

   Though my desire to meet you is warm, and the need of your petitioners
is great, yet my illness is invincible. Therefore I am bold to commit my
intercession to writing. Have respect to our gray hair, which you have
already often reverenced by good actions. Have respect also to my
infirmity, to which my labours for God have in part contributed, if I may
swagger a little. For this cause spare the citizens who look to me because
I use some freedom of speech with you. And spare also the others who are
under any care. For public affairs will suffer no damage through mercy,
since you can do more by fear than others by punishment. May you, as your
reward for this, obtain such a Judge as you shew yourself to your
petitioners and to me their intercessor.

EP. CXLIII.

   What does much experience, and experience of good do for men? It
teaches kindness, and inclines them to those who entreat them. There is no
such education in pity as the previous reception of goodness. This has
happened to myself among others. I have learned compassion by the things
which I have suffered. And do you see my greatness of soul when I myself
need your gentleness in my own affairs? I intercede for others, and do not
fear lest I should exhaust all your kindness on other men's concerns. I am
writing thus on behalf of the Presbyter Leontius--or, if I may so describe
him, the ex-Presbyter. If he has suffered sufficiently for what he has
done, let us stop there, lest excess become injustice. And if there is
still any balance of punishment due, and the consequences of his crime have
not yet equalled his offence, yet remit it for our sake and God's, and that
of the sanctuary, and the general assembly of the priests, among whom he
was once numbered, even though he has now shewn himself unworthy of them,
both by what he has done and by what he has suffered. If I can prevail with
you it will be best; but if not, I will bring to you a more powerful
intercessor, her who is the partner both of your rule and of your good
fame.

EP. CXLIV.

   (Verianus, a citizen of Nazianzus, had been offended by his son-in-law,
and on this account wished his daughter to sue for a divorce. Olympius
referred the matter to the Episcopal arbitration of S. Gregory, who refused
to countenance the proceeding, and writes the two following letters, the
first to the Prefect, the second to Verianus himself.)

   Haste is not always praiseworthy. For this reason I have deferred my
answer until now about the daughter of the most honorable Verianus, both to
allow for time setting matters right, and also because I conjecture that
Your Goodness does not approve of the divorce, inasmuch as you entrusted
the enquiry to me, whom you knew to be neither hasty nor uncircumspect in
such matters. Therefore I have refrained myself till now, and, I venture to
think, not without reason. But since we have come nearly to the end of the
allotted time, and it is necessary that you should be informed of the
result of the examination I will inform you. The young lady seems to me to
be of two minds, divided between reverence for her parents and affection
for her husband. Her words are on their side, but her mind, I rather think,
is with her husband, as is shewn by her tears. You will do what commends
itself to your justice, and to God who directs you in all things. I should
most willingly have given my opinion to my son Verianus that he should pass
over much of what is in question, with a view not to confirm the divorce,
which is entirely contrary to our law,(a) though the Roman law may
determine otherwise. For it is necessary that justice be observed--which I
pray you may ever both say and do.

TO VERIANUS.

EP. CXLV.

   Public executioners commit no crime, for they are the servants of the
laws: nor is the sword unlawful with which we punish criminals. But
nevertheless, the public executioner is not a laudable character, nor is
the death-bearing sword received joyfully. Just so neither can I endure to
become hated by confirming the divorce by my hand and tongue. It is far
better to be the means of union and of friendship than of division and
parting of life. I suppose it was with this in his mind that our admirable
Governor entrusted me with the enquiry about your daughter, as one who
could not proceed to divorce abruptly or unfeelingly. For he proposed me
not as Judge, but as Bishop, and placed me as a mediator in your unhappy
circumstances. I beg you therefore, to make some allowance for my timidity,
and if the better prevail, to use me as a servant of your desire: I rejoice
in receiving such commands. But if the worse and more cruel course is to be
taken, seek for some one more suitable to your purpose. I have not time,
for the sake of favouring your friendship (though in all respects I have
the highest regard for you), to offend against God, to Whom I have to give
account of every action and thought. I will believe your daughter (for the
truth shall be told) when she can lay aside her awe of you, and boldly
declare the truth. At present her condition is pitiable--for she assigns
her words to you, and her tears to her husband.

TO OLYMPIUS. EP. CXLVI.

   This is what I said as if by a sort of prophecy, when I found you
favourable to every request, and was making insatiable use of your
gentleness, that I fear I shall exhaust your kindness upon the affairs of
others. For see, a contest of my own has come (if that is mine which
concerns my own relations), and I cannot speak with the same freedom.
First, because it is my own. For to entreat for myself, though it may be
more useful, is more humiliating. And next, I am afraid of excess as
destroying pleasure, and opposing all that is good. So matters stand, and I
conjecture only too rightly. Nevertheless with confidence in God before
Whom I stand, and in your magnanimity in doing good, I am bold to present
this petition.

   Suppose Nicobulus to be the worst of men:--though his only crime is
that through me he is an object of envy, and more free than he ought to be.
And suppose that my present opponent is the most just of men. For I am
ashamed to accuse before Your Uprightness one whom yesterday I was
supporting: but I do not know if it will seem to you just that punishment
should be demanded for one man's crimes from another, though these were
quite strange to him, and had not even his consent; from the man who has so
stirred his household and been so upset as to have surrendered to his
accuser more readily than the latter wished. Must Nicobulus or his children
be reduced to slavery as his persecutors desire? I am ashamed both of the
ground of the persecution and of the time, if this is to be done while both
you are in power and I have influence with you. Not so, most admirable
friend, let not this be suggested to Your Integrity. But recognizing by the
winged swiftness of your mind the malice from which this proceeds, and
having respect to me your admirer, shew yourself a merciful judge to those
who are being disturbed--for to-day you are not merely judging between man
and man, but between virtue and vice; and to this more consideration than
by an ordinary man must be given by those who are like you in virtue and
are skilful governors. And in return for this you shall have from me not
only the matter of my prayers, which I know you do not, like so many men,
despise; but also that I will make your government famous with all to whom
I am known.

EP. CLIV.

   To me you are Prefect even after the expiry of your term of office--for
I judge things differently from the run of men--because you embrace in
yourself every prefectoral virtue. For many of those who sit on lofty
thrones are to me base, all those whose hand makes them base and slaves of
their subjects.(a) But many are high and lofty though they stand low, whom
virtue places on high and makes worthy of greater government. But what have
I to do with this? No longer is the great Olympius with us, nor does he
bear our rudder-lines. We are undone, we are betrayed, we have become again
the Second Cappadocia, after having been made the First by you. Of other
men's matters why should I speak? but who will cherish the old age of your
Gregory, and administer to his weakness the enchantment of honours, and
make him more honourable because he obtains kindness for many from you? Now
then depart on your journey with escort and greater pomp, leaving behind
for us many team, and carrying with you much wealth, and that of a kind
which few Prefects do, good fame, and the being inscribed on all hearts,
pillars not easily moved. If you preside over us again with greater and
more illustrious rule, (this is what our longing augurs), we shall offer to
God more perfect thanks.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning in
1867. (LNPF II/VII, Schaff and Wace). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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