Letters 200–205

To Amphilochius, concerning the Canons

I wrote some time ago in reply to the questions of your reverence, but I did not send the letter, partly because from my long and dangerous illness I had not time to do so; partly because I had no one to send with it.  I have but few men with me who are experienced in travelling and fit for service of this kind.  When you thus learn the causes of my delay, forgive me.  I have been quite astonished at your readiness to learn and at your humility.  You are entrusted with the office of a teacher, and yet you condescend to learn, and to learn of me, who pretend to no great knowledge.  Nevertheless, since you consent, on account of your fear of God, to do what another man might hesitate to do, I am bound for my part to go even beyond my strength in aiding your readiness and righteous zeal.

XVII.  You asked me about the presbyter Bianor—can he be admitted among the clergy, because of his oath?  I know that I have already given the clergy of Antioch a general sentence in the case of all those who had sworn with him; namely, that they should abstain from the public congregations, but might perform priestly functions in private.  Moreover, he has the further liberty for the performance of his ministerial functions, from the fact that his sacred duties lie not at Antioch, but at Iconium; for, as you have written to me yourself, he has chosen to live rather at the latter than at the former place.  The man in question may, therefore, be received; but your reverence must require him to shew repentance for the rash readiness of the oath which he took before the unbeliever, being unable to bear the trouble of that small peril.

XVIII.  Concerning fallen virgins, who, after professing a chaste life before the Lord, make their vows vain, because they have fallen under the lusts of the flesh, our fathers, tenderly and meekly making allowance for the infirmities of them that fall, laid down that they might be received after a year, ranking them with the digamists.  Since, however, by God’s grace the Church grows mightier as she advances, and the order of virgins is becoming more numerous, it is my judgment that careful heed should be given both to the act as it appears upon consideration, and to the mind of Scripture, which may be discovered from the context.  Widowhood is inferior to virginity; consequently the sin of the widows comes far behind that of the virgins.  Let us see what Paul writes to Timothy.  “The young widows refuse:  for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry; having damnation because they have cast off their first faith.”  If, therefore, a widow lies under a very heavy charge, as setting at naught her faith in Christ, what must we think of the virgin, who is the bride of Christ, and a chosen vessel dedicated to the Lord?  It is a grave fault even on the part of a slave to give herself away in secret wedlock and fill the house with impurity, and, by her wicked life, to wrong her owner; but it is forsooth far more shocking for the bride to become an adulteress, and, dishonouring her union with the bridegroom, to yield herself to unchaste indulgence.  The widow, as being a corrupted slave, is indeed condemned; but the virgin comes under the charge of adultery.  We call the man who lives with another man’s wife an adulterer, and do not receive him into communion until he has ceased from his sin; and so we shall ordain in the case of him who has the virgin.  One point, however, must be determined beforehand, that the name virgin is given to a woman who voluntarily devotes herself to the Lord, renounces marriage, and embraces a life of holiness.  And we admit professions dating from the age of full intelligence.  For it is not right in such cases to admit the words of mere children.  But a girl of sixteen or seventeen years of age, in full possession of her faculties, who has been submitted to strict examination, and is then constant, and persists in her entreaty to be admitted, may then be ranked among the virgins, her profession ratified, and its violation rigorously punished.  Many girls are brought forward by their parents and brothers, and other kinsfolk, before they are of full age, and have no inner impulse towards a celibate life.  The object of the friends is simply to provide for themselves.  Such women as these must not be readily received, before we have made public investigation of their own sentiments.

XIX.  I do not recognise the profession of men, except in the case of those who have enrolled themselves in the order of monks, and seem to have secretly adopted the celibate life.  Yet in their case I think it becoming that there should be a previous examination, and that a distinct profession should be received from them, so that whenever they may revert to the life of the pleasures of the flesh, they may be subjected to the punishment of fornicators.

XX.  I do not think that any condemnation ought to be passed on women who professed virginity while in heresy, and then afterwards preferred marriage.  “What things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law.”  Those who have not yet put on Christ’s yoke do not recognise the laws of the Lord.  They are therefore to be received in the church, as having remission in the case of these sins too, as of all, from their faith in Christ.  As a general rule, all sins formerly committed in the catechumenical state are not taken into account.  The Church does not receive these persons without baptism; and it is very necessary that in such cases the birthrights should be observed.

XXI.  If a man living with a wife is not satisfied with his marriage and falls into fornication, I account him a fornicator, and prolong his period of punishment.  Nevertheless, we have no canon subjecting him to the charge of adultery, if the sin be committed against an unmarried woman.  For the adulteress, it is said, “being polluted shall be polluted,” and she shall not return to her husband:  and “He that keepeth an adulteress is a fool and impious.”  He, however, who has committed fornication is not to be cut off from the society of his own wife.  So the wife will receive the husband on his return from fornication, but the husband will expel the polluted woman from his house.  The argument here is not easy, but the custom has so obtained.

XXII.  Men who keep women carried off by violence, if they carried them off when betrothed to other men, must not be received before removal of the women and their restoration to those to whom they were first contracted, whether they wish to receive them, or to separate from them.  In the case of a girl who has been taken when not betrothed, she ought first to be removed, and restored to her own people, and handed over to the will of her own people whether parents, or brothers, or any one having authority over her.  If they choose to give her up, the cohabitation may stand; but, if they refuse, no violence should be used.  In the case of a man having a wife by seduction, be it secret or by violence, he must be held guilty of fornication.  The punishment of fornicators is fixed at four years.  In the first year they must be expelled from prayer, and weep at the door of the church; in the second they may be received to sermon; in the third to penance; in the fourth to standing with the people, while they are withheld from the oblation.  Finally, they may be admitted to the communion of the good gift.

XXIII.  Concerning men who marry two sisters, or women who marry two brothers a short letter of mine has been published, of which I have sent a copy to your reverence.  The man who has taken his own brother’s wife is not to be received until he have separated from her.

XXIV.  A widow whose name is in the list of widows, that is, who is supported by the Church, is ordered by the Apostle to be supported no longer when she marries.

There is no special rule for a widower.  The punishment appointed for digamy may suffice.  If a widow who is sixty years of age chooses again to live with a husband, she shall be held unworthy of the communion of the good gift until she be moved no longer by her impure desire.  If we reckon her before sixty years, the blame rests with us, and not with the woman.

XXV.  The man who retains as his wife the woman whom he has violated, shall be liable to the penalty of rape, but it shall be lawful for him to have her to wife.

XXVI.  Fornication is not wedlock, nor yet the beginning of wedlock.  Wherefore it is best, if possible, to put asunder those who are united in fornication.  If they are set on cohabitation, let them admit the penalty of fornication.  Let them be allowed to live together, lest a worse thing happen.

XXVII.  As to the priest ignorantly involved in an illegal marriage, I have made the fitting regulation, that he may hold his seat, but must abstain from other functions.  For such a case pardon is enough.  It is unreasonable that the man who has to treat his own wounds should be blessing another, for benediction is the imparting of holiness.  How can he who through his fault, committed in ignorance, is without holiness, impart it to another?  Let him bless neither in public nor in private, nor distribute the body of Christ to others, nor perform any other sacred function, but, content with his seat of honour, let him beseech the Lord with weeping, that his sin, committed in ignorance, may be forgiven.

XXVIII.  It has seemed to me ridiculous that any one should make a vow to abstain from swine’s flesh.  Be so good as to teach men to abstain from foolish vows and promises.  Represent the use to be quite indifferent.  No creature of God, received with thanksgiving, is to be rejected.  The vow is ridiculous; the abstinence unnecessary.

XXIX.  It is especially desirable that attention should be given to the case of persons in power who threaten on oath to do some hurt to those under their authority.  The remedy is twofold.  In the first place, let them be taught not to take oaths at random:  secondly, not to persist in their wicked determinations.  Any one who is arrested in the design of fulfilling an oath to injure another ought to shew repentance for the rashness of his oath, and must not confirm his wickedness under the pretext of piety.  Herod was none the better for fulfilling his oath, when, of course only to save himself from perjury, he became the prophet’s murderer.  Swearing is absolutely forbidden, and it is only reasonable that the oath which tends to evil should be condemned.  The swearer must therefore change his mind, and not persist in confirming his impiety.  Consider the absurdity of the thing a little further.  Suppose a man to swear that he will put his brother’s eyes out:  is it well for him to carry his oath into action?  Or to commit murder? or to break any other commandment?  “I have sworn, and I will perform it,” not to sin, but to “keep thy righteous judgments.”  It is no less our duty to undo and destroy sin, than it is to confirm the commandment by immutable counsels.

XXX.  As to those guilty of abduction we have no ancient rule, but I have expressed my own judgment.  The period is three years; the culprits and their accomplices to be excluded from service.  The act committed without violence is not liable to punishment, whenever it has not been preceded by violation or robbery.  The widow is independent, and to follow or not is in her own power.  We must, therefore, pay no heed to excuses.

XXXI.  A woman whose husband has gone away and disappeared, and who marries another, before she has evidence of his death, commits adultery.  Clerics who are guilty of the sin unto death are degraded from their order, but not excluded from the communion of the laity.  Thou shalt not punish twice for the same fault.

XXXIII.  Let an indictment for murder be preferred against the woman who gives birth to a child on the road and pays no attention to it.

XXXIV.  Women who had committed adultery, and confessed their fault through piety, or were in any way convicted, were not allowed by our fathers to be publicly exposed, that we might not cause their death after conviction.  But they ordered that they should be excluded from communion till they had fulfilled their term of penance.

XXXV.  In the case of a man deserted by his wife, the cause of the desertion must be taken into account.  If she appear to have abandoned him without reason, he is deserving of pardon, but the wife of punishment.  Pardon will be given to him that he may communicate with the Church.

XXXVI.  Soldiers’ wives who have married in their husbands’ absence will come under the same principle as wives who, when their husbands have been on a journey, have not waited their return.  Their case, however, does admit of some concession on the ground of there being greater reason to suspect death.

XXXVII.  The man who marries after abducting another man’s wife will incur the charge of adultery for the first case; but for the second will go free.

XXXVIII.  Girls who follow against their fathers’ will commit fornication; but if their fathers are reconciled to them, the act seems to admit of a remedy.  They are not however immediately restored to communion, but are to be punished for three years.

XXXIX.  The woman who lives with an adulterer is an adulteress the whole time.

XL.  The woman who yields to a man against her master’s will commits fornication; but if afterwards she accepts free marriage, she marries.  The former case is fornication; the latter marriage.  The covenants of persons who are not independent have no validity.

XLI.  The woman in widowhood, who is independent, may dwell with a husband without blame, if there is no one to prevent their cohabitation; for the Apostle says; “but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.”

XLII.  Marriages contracted without the permission of those in authority, are fornication.  If neither father nor master be living the contracting parties are free from blame; just as if the authorities assent to the cohabitation, it assumes the fixity of marriage.

XLIII.  He who smites his neighbour to death is a murderer, whether he struck first or in self defence.

XLIV.  The deaconess who commits fornication with a heathen may be received into repentance and will be admitted to the oblation in the seventh year; of course if she be living in chastity.  The heathen who, after he has believed, takes to idolatry, returns to his vomit.  We do not, however, give up the body of the deaconess to the use of the flesh, as being consecrated.

XLV.  If any one, after taking the name of Christianity, insults Christ, he gets no good from the name.

XLVI.  The woman who unwillingly marries a man deserted at the time by his wife, and is afterwards repudiated, because of the return of the former to him, commits fornication, but involuntarily.  She will, therefore, not be prohibited from marriage; but it is better if she remain as she is.

XLVII.  Encratitæ, Saccophori, and Apotactitæ are not regarded in the same manner as Novatians, since in their case a canon has been pronounced, although different; while of the former nothing has been said.  All these I re-baptize on the same principle.  If among you their re-baptism is forbidden, for the sake of some arrangement, nevertheless let my principle prevail.  Their heresy is, as it were, an offshoot of the Marcionites, abominating, as they do, marriage, refusing wine, and calling God’s creature polluted.  We do not therefore receive them into the Church, unless they be baptized into our baptism.  Let them not say that they have been baptized into Father, Son and Holy Ghost, inasmuch as they make God the author of evil, after the example of Marcion and the rest of the heresies.  Wherefore, if this be determined on, more bishops ought to meet together in one place and publish the canon in these terms, that action may be taken without peril, and authority given to answers to questions of this kind.

XLVIII.  The woman who has been abandoned by her husband, ought, in my judgment, to remain as she is.  The Lord said, “If any one leave his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, he causeth her to commit adultery;” thus, by calling her adulteress, He excludes her from intercourse with another man.  For how can the man being guilty, as having caused adultery, and the woman, go without blame, when she is called adulteress by the Lord for having intercourse with another man?

XLIX.  Suffering violation should not be a cause of condemnation.  So the slave girl, if she has been forced by her own master, is free from blame.

L.  There is no law as to trigamy:  a third marriage is not contracted by law.  We look upon such things as the defilements of the Church.  But we do not subject them to public condemnation, as being better than unrestrained fornication.

To Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium

Letter CC.

To Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium.

I am attacked by sickness after sickness, and all the work given me, not only by the affairs of the Church, but by those who are troubling the Church, has detained me during the whole winter, and up to the present time.  It has been therefore quite impossible for me to send any one to you or to pay you a visit.  I conjecture that you are similarly situated; not, indeed, as to sickness, God forbid; may the Lord grant you continued health for carrying out His commandments.  But I know that the care of the Churches gives you the same distress as it does me.  I was now about to send some one to get me accurate information about your condition.  But when my well beloved son Meletius, who is moving the newly enlisted troops, reminded me of the opportunity of my saluting you by him, I gladly accepted the occasion to write and had recourse to the kind services of the conveyor of my letter.  He is one who may himself serve instead of a letter, both because of his amiable disposition, and of his being well acquainted with all which concerns me.  By him, then, I beseech your reverence especially to pray for me, that the Lord may grant to me a riddance from this troublesome body of mine; to His Churches, peace; and to you, rest; and, whenever you have settled the affairs of Lycaonia in apostolic fashion, as you have began, an opportunity to visit also this place.  Whether I be sojourning in the flesh, or shall have been already bidden to take my departure to the Lord, I hope that you will interest yourself in our part of the world, as your own, as indeed it is, strengthening all that is weak, rousing all that is slothful and, by the help of the Spirit Which abides in you, transforming everything into a condition well pleasing to the Lord.  My very honourable sons, Meletius and Melitius, whom you have known for some time, and know to be devoted to yourself, keep in your good care and pray for them.  This is enough to keep them in safety.  Salute in my name, I beg you, all who are with your holiness, both all the clergy, and all the laity under your pastoral care, and my very religious brothers and fellow ministers.  Bear in mind the memory of the blessed martyr Eupsychius, and do not wait for me to mention him again.  Do not take pains to come on the exact day, but anticipate it, and so give me joy, if I be yet living on this earth.  Till then may you, by the grace of the Holy One, be preserved for me and for God’s Churches, enjoying health and wealth in the Lord, and praying for me.

To Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium

Letter CCI.

To Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium.

I long to meet you for many reasons, that I may have the benefit of your advice in the matters I had in hand, and that on beholding you after a long interval I may have some comfort for your absence.  But since both of us are prevented by the same reasons, you by the illness which has befallen you, and I by the malady of longer standing which has not yet left me, let us, if you will, each forgive the other, that both may free ourselves from blame.

To Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium

Letter CCII.

To Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium.

Under other circumstances I should think it a special privilege to meet with your reverence, but above all now, when the business which brings us together is of such great importance.  But so much of my illness as still clings to me is enough to prevent my stirring ever so short a distance.  I tried to drive as far as the martyrs and had a relapse almost into my old state.  You must therefore forgive me.  If the matter can be put off for a few days, I will, by God’s grace join you, and share your anxieties.  If the business presses, do, by God’s help, what has to be done; but reckon me as present with you and as participating in your worthy deeds.  May you, by the grace of the Holy One, be preserved to God’s Church, strong and joyous in the Lord, and praying for me.

To the bishops of the sea coast

Letter CCIII.

To the bishops of the sea coast.

I have had a strong desire to meet you, but from time to time some hindrance has supervened and prevented my fulfilling my purpose.  I have either been hindered by sickness, and you know well how, from my early manhood to my present old age, this ailment has been my constant companion, brought up with me, and chastising me, by the righteous judgment of God, Who ordains all things in wisdom; or by the cares of the Church, or by struggles with the opponents of the doctrines of truth.  [Up to this day I live in much affliction and grief, having the feeling present before me, that you are wanting to me.  For when God tells me, who took on Him His sojourn in the flesh for the very purpose that, by patterns of duty, He might regulate our life, and might by His own voice announce to us the Gospel of the kingdom,—when He says, ‘By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another,’ and whereas the Lord left His own peace to His disciples as a farewell gift, when about to complete the dispensation in the flesh, saying, ‘Peace I leave with you, My peace I give you,’ I cannot persuade myself that without love to others, and without, as far as rests with me, peaceableness towards all, I can be called a worthy servant of Jesus Christ.  I have waited a long while for the chance of your love paying us a visit.  For ye are not ignorant that we, being exposed to all, as rocks running out in the sea, sustain the fury of the heretical waves, which, in that they break around us, do not cover the district behind.  I say “we” in order to refer it, not to human power, but to the grace of God, Who, by the weakness of men shows His power, as says the prophet in the person of the Lord, ‘Will ye not fear Me, who have placed the sand as a boundary to the sea?’ for by the weakest and most contemptible of all things, the sand, the Mighty One has bounded the great and full sea.  Since, then, this is our position, it became your love to be frequent in sending true brothers to visit us who labour with the storm, and more frequently letters of love, partly to confirm our courage, partly to correct any mistake of ours.  For we confess that we are liable to numberless mistakes, being men, and living in the flesh.]

2.  But hitherto, very honourable brethren, you have not given me my due; and this for two reasons.  Either you failed to perceive the proper course; or else, under the influence of some of the calumnies spread abroad about me, you did not think me deserving of being visited by you in love.  Now, therefore, I myself take the initiative.  I beg to state that I am perfectly ready to rid myself, in your presence, of the charges urged against me, but only on condition that my revilers are admitted to stand face to face with me before your reverences.  If I am convicted, I shall not deny my error.  You, after the conviction, will receive pardon from the Lord for withdrawing yourselves from the communion of me a sinner.  The successful accusers, too, will have their reward in the publication of my secret wickedness.  If, however, you condemn me before you have the evidence before you, I shall be none the worse, barring the loss I shall sustain of a possession I hold most dear—your love:  while you, for your part, will suffer the same loss in losing me, and will seem to be running counter to the words of the Gospel:  “Doth our law judge any man before it hear him?”  The reviler, moreover, if he adduce no proof of what he says, will be shewn to have got nothing from his wicked language but a bad name for himself.  For what name can be properly applied to the slanderer except that which he professes to bear by the very conduct of which he is guilty?  Let the reviler, therefore, appear not as slanderer, but as accuser; nay, I will not call him accuser, I will rather regard him as a brother, admonishing in love, and producing conviction for my amendment.  And you must not be hearers of calumny, but triers of proof.  Nor must I be left uncured, because my sin is not being made manifest.

[3.  Let not this consideration influence you.  ‘We dwell on the sea, we are exempt from the sufferings of the generality, we need no succour from others; so what is the good to us of foreign communion?’  For the same Lord Who divided the islands from the continent by the sea, bound the island Christians to those of the continent by love.  Nothing, brethren, separates us from each other, but deliberate estrangement.  We have one Lord, one faith, the same hope.  The hands need each other; the feet steady each other.  The eyes possess their clear apprehension from agreement.  We, for our part, confess our own weakness, and we seek your fellow feeling.  For we are assured, that though ye are not present in body, yet by the aid of prayer, ye will do us much benefit in these most critical times.  It is neither decorous before men, nor pleasing to God, that you should make avowals which not even the Gentiles adopt, which know not God.  Even they, as we hear, though the country they live in be sufficient for all things, yet, on account of the uncertainty of the future, make much of alliances with each other, and seek mutual intercourse as being advantageous to them.  Yet we, the sons of fathers who have laid down the law that by brief notes the proofs of communion should be carried about from one end of the earth to the other, and that all should be citizens and familiars with all, now sever ourselves from the whole world, and are neither ashamed at our solitariness, nor shudder that on us is fallen the fearful prophecy of the Lord, ‘Because of lawlessness abounding, the love of the many shall wax cold.’]

4.  Do not, most honourable brethren, do not suffer this.  Rather, by letters of peace and by salutations of love, comfort me for the past.  You have made a wound in my heart by your former neglect.  Soothe its anguish, as it were, by a tender touch.  Whether you wish to come to me, and examine for yourselves into the truth of what you hear of my infirmities, or whether by the addition of more lies my sins are reported to you to be yet more grievous, I must accept even this.  I am ready to welcome you with open hands and to offer myself to the strictest test, only let love preside over the proceedings.  Or if you prefer to indicate any spot in your own district to which I may come and pay you the visit which is due, submitting myself, as far as may be, to examination, for the healing of the past, and the prevention of slander for the future, I accept this.  Although my flesh is weak, yet, as long as I breathe, I am responsible for the due discharge of every duty which may tend to the edification of the Churches of Christ.  Do not, I beseech you, make light of my entreaty.  Do not force me to disclose my distress to others.  Hitherto, brethren, as you are well aware, I have kept my grief to myself, for I blush to speak of your alienation from me to those of our communion who are at a distance.  I shrink at once from paining them and from gratifying those who hate me.  I alone am writing this now; but I send in the name of all the brethren in Cappadocia, who have charged me not to employ any chance messenger, but some one who, in case I should, from my anxiety not to be too prolix, leave out any points of importance, might supply them with the intelligence wherewith God has gifted him.  I refer to my beloved and reverend fellow presbyter Petrus.  Welcome him in love, and send him forth to me in peace, that he may be a messenger to me of good things.

To the Neocæsareans

Letter CCIV.

To the Neocæsareans.

1.  [There has been a long silence on both sides, revered and well-beloved brethren, just as if there were angry feelings between us.  Yet who is there so sullen and implacable towards the party which has injured him, as to lengthen out the resentment which has begun in disgust through almost a whole life of man?]  This [is happening in our case, no just occasion of estrangement existing, as far as I myself know, but on the contrary, there being, from the first, many strong reasons for the closest friendship and unity.  The greatest and first is this, our Lord’s command, pointedly saying, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another.”]  Again, the apostle clearly sets before us the good of charity where he tells us that love is the fulfilling of the law; and again where he says that charity is a good thing to be preferred to all great and good things, in the words, “Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.  And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burnt and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”  Not that each of the points enumerated could be performed without love, but that the Holy One wishes, as He Himself has said, to attribute to the commandment super-eminent excellency by the figure of hyperbole.

2.  [Next, if it tend much towards intimacy to have the same teachers, there are to you and to me the same teachers of God’s mysteries, and spiritual Fathers, who from the beginning were the founders of your Church.  I mean the great Gregory, and all who succeeding in order to the throne of your episcopate, like stars rising one after another, have tracked the same course, so as to leave the tokens of the heavenly polity most clear to all who desire them.]  And if natural relationships are not to be despised, but are greatly conducive to unbroken union and fellowship, these rights also exist naturally for you and me.  [Why is it, then, O venerable among cities, for through you I address the whole city, that no civil writing comes from you, no welcome voice, but your ears are open to those who aim at slander?]  I am therefore the more bound to groan, the more I perceive the end they have in view.  There is no doubt as to who is the originator of the slander.  He is known by many evil deeds, but is best distinguished by this particular wickedness, and it is for this reason that the sin is made his name.  But you must put up with my plain speaking.  You have opened both ears to my slanderers.  You heartily welcome all you hear without any enquiry.  Not one of you distinguishes between lies and truth.  Who ever suffered for lack of wicked accusations when struggling all alone?  Who was ever convicted of lying in the absence of his victim?  What plea does not sound plausible to the hearers when the reviler persists that such and such is the case, and the reviled is neither present nor hears what is urged against him?  Does not even the accepted custom of this world teach you, in reference to these matters, that if any one is to be a fair and impartial hearer, he must not be entirely led away by the first speaker, but must wait for the defence of the accused, that so truth may be demonstrated by a comparison of the arguments on both sides?  “Judge righteous judgment.”  This precept is one of those most necessary for salvation.

3.  When I say this I am not forgetful of the words of the Apostle, who fled from human tribunals and reserved the defence of all his life for the unerring judgment seat, when he said, “With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man’s judgment.”  Your ears have been preoccupied by lying slanders, slanders that have touched my conduct, slanders that have touched my faith in God.  Nevertheless, knowing, as I do, that three persons at once are injured by the slanderer, his victim, his hearer, and himself; as to my own wrong, I would have held my tongue, be sure; not because I despise your good opinion, (how could I, writing now as I do and earnestly pleading as I do that I may not lose it?) but because I see that of the three sufferers the one who is least injured is myself.  It is true that I shall be robbed of you, but you are being robbed of the truth, and he who is at the bottom of all this is parting me from you, but he is alienating himself from the Lord, inasmuch as no one can be brought near to the Lord by doing what is forbidden.  Rather then for your sakes than for mine, rather to rescue you from unendurable wrong am I pleading.  For who could suffer a worse calamity than the loss of the most precious of all things, the truth?

4.  [What say I, brethren?  Not that I am a sinless person; not that my life is not full of numberless faults.  I know myself; and indeed I cease not my tears for my sins, if by any means I may be able to appease my God, and to escape the punishment threatened against them.  But this I say:  let him who judges me, hunt for motes in my eye, if he can say that his own is clear.]  I own, brethren, that I need the care of the sound and healthy, and need much of it.  If he cannot say that it is clear, and the clearer it is the less will he say so—(for it is the part of the perfect not to exalt themselves; if they do they will certainly come under the charge of the pride of the Pharisee, who, while justifying himself, condemned the publican) let him come with me to the physician; let him not “judge before the time until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts.”  Let him remember the words, “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged;” and “Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned.”  [In a word, brethren, if my offences admit of cure, why does not such an one obey the teacher of the Churches, “Reprove, exhort, rebuke”?  If, on the other hand, my iniquity be past cure, why does he not withstand me to the face, and, by publishing my transgressions, deliver the Churches from the mischief which I bring on them?]  Do not put up with the calumny uttered against me within the teeth.  This is the abuse which any slave-girl from the grindstone might utter; this is the kind of fine shewing-off you might expect from any street vagabond; their tongues are whetted for any slander.  But [there are bishops; let appeal be made to them.  There is a clergy in each of God’s dioceses; let the most eminent be assembled.  Let whoso will, speak freely, that I may have to deal with a charge, not a slander.]  Let my secret wickedness be brought into full view; let me no longer be hated, but admonished as a brother.  It is more just that we sinners should be pitied by the blessed and the sinless, than that we should be treated angrily.

5.  [If the fault be a point of faith, let the document be pointed out to me.  Again, let a fair and impartial inquiry be appointed.  Let the accusation be read; let it be brought to the test, whether it does not arise from ignorance in the accuser, not from blame in the matter of the writing.  For right things often do not seem such to those who are deficient in accurate judgment.  Equal weights seem unequal when the arms of the balance are of different sizes.]  Men whose sense of taste is destroyed by sickness, sometimes think honey sour.  A diseased eye does not see many things which do exist, and notes many things which do not exist.  The same thing frequently takes place with regard to the force of words, when the critic is inferior to the writer.  The critic ought really to set out with much the same training and equipment as the author.  A man ignorant of agriculture is quite incapable of criticising husbandry, and the distinctions between harmony and discord can only be adequately judged by a trained musician.  But any one who chooses will set up for a literary critic, though he cannot tell us where he went to school, or how much time was spent in his education, and knows nothing about letters at all.  I see clearly that, even in the case of the words of the Holy Spirit, the investigation of the terms is to be attempted not by every one, but by him who has the spirit of discernment, as the Apostle has taught us, in the differences of gifts;—“For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gift of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits.”  If, therefore, my gifts are spiritual, he who wishes to judge them must shew proof of his own possession of the gift of “discerning of spirits.”  If, on the contrary, as he calumniously contends, my gifts are of the wisdom of this world, let him shew that he is an adept in this world’s wisdom, and I will submit myself to his verdict.  And [let no one suppose that I am making excuses to evade the charge.  I put it into your hands, dearest brethren, to investigate for yourselves the points alleged against me.  Are you so slow of intelligence as to be wholly dependent upon advocates for the discovery of the truth?  If the points in question seem to you to be quite plain of themselves, persuade the jesters to drop the dispute.  [If there be anything you do not understand, put questions to me, through appointed persons who will do justice to me; or ask of me explanations in writing.  And take all kinds of pains that nothing may be left unsifted.

6.  What clearer evidence can there be of my faith, than that I was brought up by my grandmother, blessed woman, who came from you?  I mean the celebrated Macrina who taught me the words of the blessed Gregory; which, as far as memory had preserved down to her day, she cherished herself, while she fashioned and formed me, while yet a child, upon the doctrines of piety.  And when I gained the capacity of thought, my reason being matured by full age, I travelled over much sea and land, and whomsoever I found walking in the rule of godliness delivered, those I set down as fathers,] and made them my soul’s guides in my journey to God.  And up to this day, by the grace of Him who has called me in His holy calling to the knowledge of Himself, I know of no doctrine opposed to the sound teaching having sunk into my heart; nor was my soul ever polluted by the ill-famed blasphemy of Arius.  If I have ever received into communion any who have come from that teacher, hiding their unsoundness deep within them, or speaking words of piety, or, at any rate, not opposing what has been said by me, it is on these terms that I have admitted them; and I have not allowed my judgment concerning them to rest wholly with myself, but have followed the decisions given about them by our Fathers.  For after receiving the letter of the very blessed Father Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, which I hold in my hand, and shew to any one who asks, wherein he has distinctly declared that any one expressing a wish to come over from the heresy of the Arians and accepting the Nicene Creed, is to be received without hesitation and difficulty, citing in support of his opinion the unanimous assent of the bishops of Macedonia and of Asia; I, considering myself bound to follow the high authority of such a man and of those who made the rule, and with every desire on my own part to win the reward promised to peacemakers, did enroll in the lists of communicants all who accepted that creed.

7.  [The fair thing would be to judge of me, not from one or two who do not walk uprightly in the truth, but from the multitude of bishops throughout the world, connected with me by the grace of the Lord.  Make enquiries of Pisidians, Lycaonians, Isaurians, Phrygians of both provinces, Armenians your neighbours, Macedonians, Achæans, Illyrians, Gauls, Spaniards, the whole of Italy, Sicilians, Africans, the healthy part of Egypt, whatever is left of Syria; all of whom send letters to me, and in turn receive them from me.]  From these letters, alike from all which are despatched from them. and from all which go out from us to them, you may learn that we are all of one mind, and of one opinion.  [Whoso shuns communion with me, it cannot escape your accuracy, cuts himself off from the whole Church.  Look round about, brethren, with whom do you hold communion?  If you will not receive it from me, who remains to acknowledge you?  Do not reduce me to the necessity of counselling anything unpleasant concerning a Church so dear to me.]  There are things now which I hide in the bottom of my heart, in secret groaning over and bewailing the evil days in which we live, in that the greatest Churches which have long been united to one another in brotherly love, now, without any reason, are in mutual opposition.  Do not, oh! do not, drive me to complain of these things to all who are in communion with me.  Do not force me to give utterance to words which hitherto I have kept in check by reflection and have hidden in my heart.  Better were it for me to be removed and the Churches to be at one, than that God’s people should suffer such evil through our childish ill-will.  [Ask your fathers, and they will tell you that though our districts were divided in position, yet in mind they were one, and were governed by one sentiment.  Intercourse of the people was frequent; frequent the visits of the clergy; the pastors, too, had such mutual affection, that each used the other as teacher and guide in things pertaining to the Lord.]