Epistulae

To Eustathius the Philosopher I had already grown weary of the insults of fortune, which had always placed some obstacle in the way of my meeting with you, when you somehow wonderfully recalled and comforted me by your letter. For I was already turning over in my own mind whether what is commonly bruited about by the many might be true, that there is some necessity and fate which governs both the small and the greater of our affairs, and that we men are masters of nothing; or, if not this, that some chance altogether drives human life. And you will have much pardon for these reasonings, when you learn the causes by which I was led into them. I left Athens, despising what was there, because of the report of your philosophy. I passed by the city on the Hellespont as no Odysseus passed the songs of the Sirens. And I admired Asia, but hastened to the metropolis of the good things in it. But when I reached my homeland and, seeking you in it, the great benefit, did not find you, then from that point many and various occasions of unexpected hindrances befell me. For either I had to be ill and therefore be left behind, or, when setting out for the East, to be unable to depart together, and finally, after countless labors, reaching Syria, to be unable to be with the philosopher, who had set out for the Egyptians. So again I had to go to Egypt, a long and difficult journey, and not even there to have what I was eager for. But I was so desperately in love that I had either to set out for Persia and accompany you as far as possible into the barbarian territory (for you went there too, so great was the contentiousness of the demon), or to sit still in Alexandria, which is what actually happened.

I think that, if I had not, like some animal following a branch held out to it, given up, I would have followed you even beyond Nysa in India, and wandered to whatever farthest corner of our inhabited world there is. And why say much? But finally, now that you are living in the same region, it was not possible for me to meet with you, being prevented by long illnesses; which, unless they become more moderate for the future, we will not even in the winter be with your learning. Are these not works of fate, as you yourself would say? Are these not of necessity? Do these not, almost, surpass even the poets' myths about Tantalus? But, as I said, I have become easier through letters and am no longer of the same opinion. I say that one must give thanks to God for the good things when they are given, and not be vexed when they are stored up. And so for us, if He grants that I be with you, we will consider this both best and most pleasant. But if He delays, we will bear the loss gently. For He manages our affairs better in every way than we could foresee. To Gregory the Companion I recognized your letter, just as those who recognize the children of friends from the likeness appearing in them to their parents. For that you said the arrangement of the place is not great enough to produce some impulse in your soul toward life with us, before you learn something about the manner and way of life, was truly your thought and that of your soul, which considers all things here as nothing compared to the blessedness laid up for us in the promises.

As for me, I am ashamed to write what I myself am doing in this remote place, night and day. For I left the pursuits of the city as the starting-points of countless evils, but I have not yet been able to leave myself behind. But I am like those who are perishing at sea from inexperience in sailing and are seasick; they are displeased with the size of the ship, as providing much tossing, and then, transferring from there to a skiff or a small boat, they are everywhere seasick and at a loss, for their nausea and bile accompany them. Something like this, then, is our own condition. For, carrying our internal passions everywhere with us, we are amid similar disturbances, so that we have gained no great advantage from this solitude. What, however, ought to be done, and whence it would have been possible for us to follow the footsteps of the one who guides us to salvation—"For if anyone," he says, "wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me"—these are the things. It is fitting to try to keep the mind in stillness. For just as an eye that is constantly turned about, now moving sideways, now frequently turned up and down, cannot see the object clearly, but the gaze must be fixed upon the visible if it is to make a clear sight, so also the human mind, distracted by countless cares of the world, cannot clearly gaze upon the truth. But the one not yet yoked by the bonds of marriage is disturbed by raging desires, ungovernable impulses, and certain unloving loves, while the one already bound together with a spouse is overtaken by another turmoil of cares.

hind myself. In childlessness, there is desire for children; in the possession of children, there is the care of raising them, the guarding of a wife, the management of a household, the oversight of servants, the losses from contracts, the quarrels with neighbors, the entanglements in courts, the dangers of commerce, the toils of farming. Each day brings its own darkness to the soul, and the nights, taking up the cares of the day, deceive the mind with the same fantasies. The only escape from these is separation from the whole world. But withdrawal from the world is not to be physically outside it, but to sever the soul from sympathy with the body and to become cityless, homeless, propertyless, friendless, possessionless, lifeless, without business, without transactions, ignorant of human teachings, ready to receive in the heart the impressions that come from divine teaching. And the preparation of the heart is the unlearning of the teachings that have previously occupied it from evil habit. For it is not possible to write on wax without first smoothing out the marks that lie upon it, nor to set divine teachings in a soul without removing its preconceptions from habit. For this, solitude provides us the greatest benefit, calming our passions and giving leisure to reason to cut them out of the soul entirely. For just as wild beasts are easily overcome when tamed, so desires, angers, fears, and griefs—the venomous evils of the soul—when calmed by quiet and not inflamed by constant irritation, become more easily conquered by the power of reason.

Let the place, then, be such as our own is, free from the mingling of men, so that the continuity of ascetic practice may be interrupted by nothing from without. Asceticism in piety nourishes the soul with divine thoughts. What, then, is more blessed than to imitate on earth the chorus of angels: at the very beginning of the day to hasten to prayers, honoring the Creator with hymns and songs; then, when the sun has shone purely, to turn to tasks, with prayer everywhere accompanying him, and to season the labors with hymns as with salt? For the cheerful and sorrowless state of the soul is granted by the consolations of hymns. Quiet, then, is the beginning of purification for the soul, with the tongue not speaking of human affairs, with the eyes not surveying the comeliness and symmetry of bodies, with the ear not relaxing the tension of the soul in listening to melodies made for pleasure, nor in the words of witty and jesting men, which especially tends to dissolve the tension of the soul. For the mind, not being scattered abroad, nor diffused through the senses into the world, returns to itself, and through itself ascends to the conception of God; and, being encompassed and illumined by that beauty, it even forgets its own nature, being drawn down neither by concern for food nor by anxiety for clothing, but, enjoying leisure from earthly cares, it transfers all its zeal to the acquisition of eternal goods.

how temperance and courage may be achieved by him, and how justice and prudence and the remaining virtues, which are subdivided under these general ones, may properly accomplish each of the things in life that they suggest to the earnest man. The greatest path to the discovery of what is proper is the study of the divinely inspired Scriptures. For in these are found both the precepts for actions, and the lives of the blessed men, handed down in writing, are set forth like living images of the life according to God, for the imitation of good works. And so, concerning whatever each person perceives himself to be deficient, by occupying himself with that, as from some common dispensary, he finds the appropriate remedy for the ailment. And the lover of temperance continually unrolls the story of Joseph and learns from him the actions of temperance, finding him not only self-controlled in regard to pleasures, but also habitually disposed toward virtue. Courage is taught from Job, who, not only when the circumstances of his life turned against him, becoming poor from rich and childless from having fine children in a single moment, remained the same, preserving everywhere the unbowed spirit of his soul, but was not provoked even when his friends came to console him, mocking him and aggravating his pains.

Again, one who considers how a person might become both gentle and high-spirited at the same time, so as to use anger against sin and gentleness toward people, will find that David was noble in his deeds of valor in war, yet gentle and unmoved in his responses to enemies. Such also was Moses, rising up with great anger against those who sinned against God, but enduring with a gentle soul the slanders against himself. And everywhere, just as painters, when they copy a portrait from a portrait, frequently looking at the model, strive to transfer its character to their own work of art, so too must the one who is eager to perfect himself in all the parts of virtue look, as it were, at living and active statues—the lives of the saints—and make their good his own through imitation. Again, prayers succeeding readings take up the soul, rendered fresher and more vigorous by its longing for God. A good prayer is one that imparts a clear conception of God to the soul. And this is the dwelling of God within us: to have God established in oneself through memory. Thus we become a temple of God, when the continuity of memory is not interrupted by earthly cares, when the mind is not disturbed by unexpected passions, but the God-loving person, having fled from all things, withdraws to God and, driving away what summons us to vice, dwells in practices that lead to virtue.

And first of all, it is fitting to be earnest about the use of speech, not to be ignorant, but to ask without contentiousness, to answer without ambition, not to interrupt the one conversing when he says something useful, nor to desire to insert one's own speech ostentatiously, setting measures for speech and hearing, to learn without shame and to teach without envy, and, if something has been learned from another, not to conceal it like base women who substitute bastards, but to proclaim gratefully the father of the discourse. A moderate tone of voice is to be preferred, so that it neither escapes hearing by its smallness nor is burdensome by the magnitude of its tension. Having examined in oneself what is to be said, then to make the speech public. To be affable in encounters, sweet in conversations—not seeking pleasantness through jesting, but having gentleness through benevolent exhortation. To reject harshness everywhere, even if one must reprove. For having lowered oneself through humility, you will thus be readily received by the one in need of healing. Often the manner of reproof used by the prophet is also useful to us, who, when David sinned, did not impose the sentence of condemnation from himself, but, using the device of a character, made him the judge of his own transgression, so that, having brought forth the judgment against himself, he would no longer blame the one who exposed him. Accompanying a humble and downcast spirit are a gloomy eye and a gaze bent to the ground, a neglected appearance, unkempt hair, soiled clothing.

so that what those who practice self-discipline do by design may appear in us spontaneously. The tunic should be drawn in by a belt close to the body; the belt itself should be neither above the loins, for that is womanish, nor loose, so that the tunic sags, for that is slovenly. The gait should be neither sluggish, as that would indicate a slackness of the soul, nor violent and bustling, as that would reveal its impulses to be erratic. The purpose of clothing is one: to be a covering for the flesh, sufficient for winter and summer. Neither the brightness of color nor the fineness and softness of fabric should be sought. For paying attention to the pleasing colors in clothing is equal to female adornment, which women practice by dyeing their cheeks and hair with an alien bloom. Indeed, the tunic should be of such thickness that it does not need a companion to warm the wearer. The shoe should be cheap in value, yet adequately fulfill its need. And in general, just as in clothing it is proper to consider what is necessary, so in food, bread will fulfill the need, and water will quench the thirst for one who is healthy, and whatever side dishes from seeds can preserve the body’s strength for necessary needs. One should eat without displaying a ravenous gluttony, but everywhere preserving steadiness, gentleness, and self-control in pleasures; nor should one then have the mind idle in thought about God, but make the very nature of the foods and the constitution of the receiving body a starting point for doxology.

How many various kinds of foods, adapted to the peculiarity of bodies, have been devised by the one who orders all things. Prayers before food, to become worthy of God's provisions, both those He now gives and those He has stored up for the future. Prayers after food, containing thanksgiving for what has been given and a request for what has been promised. One fixed hour for food, recurring at the same period, so that of the twenty-four hours of the day and night, this one is consumed for the body; the rest the ascetic spends occupied in the work of the mind. Sleep light and easily broken, naturally following from the moderation of diet, but by design interrupted by concerns for great matters. For to be held fast in deep slumber, with one's limbs relaxed, so as to provide leisure for improper fantasies, makes those who sleep thus exist in a daily death. But what dawn is for others, that midnight is for ascetics of piety, especially since the stillness of the night grants leisure to the soul, with neither eyes nor ears transmitting harmful sounds or sights to the heart, but the mind alone, by itself, consorting with God, correcting itself by the memory of sins, setting boundaries for itself for the avoidance of evil, and seeking from God cooperation for the perfection of what is earnestly pursued.

To Candidianus. When I took your letter in my hands, I experienced something worth hearing. I approached it with reverence, as if it announced some public matter, and, as I was loosening the wax at the moment of unsealing, I feared to look at it, like no Spartan under accusation fears a Laconian scytale. But when I had unsealed it and gone through everything point by point, laughter came over me—partly from pleasure at hearing nothing untoward, partly from judging your words against those of Demosthenes. For he, when he was providing choruses and aulos-players for a few, no longer deemed himself worthy of being called a chorēgos, but you are the same both when providing and when not, providing indeed for more tens of thousands of soldiers than the number of men for whom he supplied provisions. You do not even write to us in a formal manner, but in your usual way, and you abate nothing of your zeal for letters, but, as Plato says, in the storm and hail of affairs, as if taking refuge behind some strong wall, you do not let your soul be filled with any disturbance; rather, you do not even allow others to be so, so far as your part is concerned. Such are your affairs, so great and admirable to those capable of seeing, and again not admirable to one who judges by the whole purpose of your life. But hear also my affairs, which are both paradoxical and, for me, consistent.

A certain rustic man, one of those living with us in Annisa, upon the death of my servant—having no contract with him, having neither approached me, nor accused me, nor asked to receive anything from me willingly, nor threatened to use force if he did not get it—suddenly, with some others like him in their madness, attacked our house, beat the women who were guarding it, broke down the doors, and carried off everything, taking some things himself and offering others for plunder to whoever wished. So that we may not be the ultimate limit of weakness and appear to everyone as suitable for attack, be entreated now to bring to bear the zeal you have displayed in all our affairs. For only in this way would our freedom from trouble be preserved, if we were aligned with your energy. Sufficient justice for us would be if, through the chief magistrate, he were arrested and confined for a short time in prison. For we are not only aggrieved at what we have suffered, but we also need security for the future. To Olympius. What are you doing, O admirable one, driving away from the wilderness the poverty dear to us and the nurse of philosophy? For I think you would even be prosecuted by her for ejectment, if she were to acquire a voice, saying that I chose to live with this man, who now praises Zeno, who, having lost everything in a shipwreck, uttered nothing ignoble but said, "Well done, Fortune, you are driving us into the philosopher's cloak," and now praises Cleanthes, who drew water from the well for wages, from which he both supported himself and paid fees to his teachers.

He never ceased to admire Diogenes, who prided himself on being content with only what nature provides, so much so that he threw away his wooden cup when he learned from a boy to drink by cupping his hands and bending over. These things and the like our companion poverty would reproach you with, now that she has been driven out by your great gifts, and she would add a threat: "If I catch you here again, I will show that your former life was Sicilian or Italian luxury; thus I will punish you precisely with my own means." And so much for that. I was pleased to hear that you have already begun your treatment, and I pray that you benefit from it. It would be fitting for your holy soul to have a body that serves without pain. To Nectarius, a consolatory letter. I had not yet passed the third or fourth day after being struck by the news of the unbearable calamity, and still being uncertain—because the messenger of the grievous tidings could not clearly relate to us what had happened, and because I prayed it was not true, being reluctant to accept the rumors—I received a letter from the bishop precisely indicating the unwelcome news. At that, how much I groaned and how many tears I shed, what need is there to say? For who is so stony-hearted, or so utterly outside human nature, as to bear the event without emotion, or to have his soul seized only by a moderate passion? The heir of a brilliant house, the support of a family, the hope of a fatherland, the offspring of pious parents raised amid countless prayers, in the very flower of his age, snatched from the midst of his father's hands, is gone. What nature of adamant would these things not be sufficient to dissolve and lead to sympathy?

Thus it is no great matter if the evil has touched us deeply, since we have been completely attached to you from the beginning, making both your joys and your sorrows our own. Yet it seemed that up to the present time the things causing you grief were few, while for the most part your affairs were proceeding smoothly; but suddenly, by the malice of a demon, all the prosperity and cheerfulness of that house has been obliterated, and we have become a gloomy tale for the world. If, then, we wish to lament and weep over what has happened, the time of our life will not suffice, and all men, groaning with us, will be unable to equal the lamentation to the calamity; but even if the stream of rivers should become tears, it will not suffice to fulfill the dirge for what has occurred. If, however, we now wish to bring forth the gift of God which he has placed in our hearts—I mean the prudent reason, which in times of prosperity knows how to set limits for our souls, and in more grievous circumstances leads us to remember human affairs, and suggests to us what we have seen and heard, that life is full of such sufferings and that there are many examples of human misfortunes, and, above all, that it is a command of God that those who have believed in Christ should not grieve over the departed, because of the hope of resurrection, and that for great endurance great crowns of glory are stored up with the Giver of the Prize—if we allow reason to sing this to us, perhaps we might find some moderate relief from the evil.

Therefore I exhort you, as a noble combatant, to stand firm against the magnitude of the blow and not to succumb to the weight of grief, nor to let your soul be swallowed up, being convinced of this: that even if the reasons for what is administered by God escape us, yet what has been arranged by the wise and loving God is entirely acceptable, even if it is painful. For He Himself knows how He disposes what is beneficial for each person and why the ends of life are unequal for us. For there is some cause incomprehensible to men, on account of which some are taken away from here more quickly, while others are left behind to endure further hardship in this painful life. Therefore we ought to worship His love for humanity in all things and not be vexed, remembering that great and celebrated utterance which the great athlete Job proclaimed, when he saw ten children crushed at one table in a brief moment of time: "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it seemed good to the Lord, so it came to pass." Let us make this marvel our own; the reward from the righteous Judge is equal for those who display equal deeds of valor. We have not been deprived of the child, but have given him back to the one who lent him; nor has his life been annihilated, but it has been changed for the better; it is not earth that has hidden our beloved, but heaven that has received him. Let us wait a little while, and we shall be with the one we long for. For even if the journey

son has departed before us, yet we all travel this same path and await the same lodging. May it only be granted that we become like him in purity through virtue, so that by the guilelessness of our character we may obtain the same rest as the infants in Christ. To the Wife of Nectarius, a Consolation. I was inclined to remain silent toward your modesty, thinking that, just as to an inflamed eye even the softest of soothing remedies causes distress, so to a soul afflicted by heavy grief, even if it brings much consolation, speech seems somehow burdensome when offered in the midst of acute pain. But since it occurred to me that my words would be addressed to a Christian woman long instructed in divine matters and well prepared for human events, I did not consider it right to neglect my duty. I know what a mother's heart is like, and when I reflect on your particular kindness and gentleness toward all, I reckon how great the pain is likely to be in the present circumstances. You have lost a child whom, while he lived, all mothers deemed blessed and prayed that their own might be like him, and at his death they groaned, as each buried her own in the earth. His death was a blow to two homelands, both ours and that of the Cilicians. With him the great and illustrious family collapsed, as if shaken when its support was removed. O encounter of an evil demon, how great an evil it has wrought! O earth, compelled to receive such a calamity! The sun itself, if it has any perception, must have shuddered at that gloomy sight. And what could one say equal to what the soul's perplexity suggests?

But our affairs are not without providence, as we have learned in the Gospel, that not even a sparrow falls without the will of our Father, so that if anything has happened, it has happened by the will of our Creator. And who has resisted the will of God? Let us accept what has occurred; for by being discontented we neither correct what has happened nor destroy ourselves. Let us not accuse the just judgment of God. We are ignorant, so as to judge his ineffable judgments. Now the Lord is testing your love for him. Now the opportunity is present for you to receive the portion of the martyrs through endurance. The mother of the Maccabees saw the death of seven children and did not groan nor let fall an ignoble tear, but gave thanks to God because she saw them being freed from the bonds of the flesh by fire and iron and the most grievous tortures, and she was judged praiseworthy before God and renowned among men. Great is the suffering, I also say, but great also are the rewards from the Lord laid up for those who endure. When you became a mother and saw your child and gave thanks to God, you certainly knew that, being mortal, you gave birth to a mortal. What then is surprising, if the mortal died? But what grieves us is the untimeliness. It is unclear whether this is not timely, since we do not know how to choose what is beneficial for our souls and to set limits for human life. Look around at the whole world in which you dwell, and consider that all visible things are mortal and all are subject to decay. Look up at the sky; even this will one day be dissolved; at the sun; not even this will endure.

All the stars, land and water animals, the beauties around the earth, the earth itself—all are perishable, all will soon cease to exist. Let the thought of this be a consolation for what has happened. Do not measure the calamity by itself, for it will appear unbearable to you; but compare it with all human affairs, and from this you will find its consolation. Above all, I have this strong thing to say: spare your spouse; you are a consolation to each other; do not make the misfortune harder for him by consuming yourself in grief. But I do not think that speech is sufficient for exhortation; rather, I consider that prayer is needed for the present circumstances. Therefore I pray that the Lord Himself, by His ineffable power, touching your heart, may instill light in your soul through good thoughts, so that you may have from within the resources of consolation. To the Companion Gregory: Not even then was I unaware, when I was writing to your learnedness, that every theological utterance is inferior to the thought of the speaker, and inferior to the desire of the inquirer, because speech is somehow naturally weaker in serving what is conceived. If, then, our thought is weak, and our tongue is weaker than this, what should we expect for what has been said, except that a poverty of words will be charged? Yet it was not possible, for this reason, to pass over the question in silence. For there is a danger of betrayal in not readily giving answers about God to those who love the Lord. Now, whether what was said there seems sufficient, or whether it needs some more precise addition, it requires a suitable time for correction.

Now we urge you, as we have already urged, to devote yourself entirely to the advocacy of the truth and to the impulses arising in your mind from God for the establishment of the good, being content with these and seeking nothing more from us, who, being far inferior to what is suspected, rather harm the argument by our own weakness than add any strength to the truth through advocacy. To the Caesareans, an Apology concerning the Withdrawal. I have often wondered what has come over you with respect to us, and why you are so overcome by our insignificance—small, slight, and perhaps having nothing lovable—and urge us on with words, reminding us of friendship and fatherland, as if trying to turn back some exiles to their fatherly affections and to themselves. I, for my part, confess that I have become an exile and would not deny it, but you would learn the cause, now that you desire it. Chiefly, struck then by the unexpected, like those who are suddenly startled by abrupt noises, I did not restrain my thoughts, but I fled far away and dwelt for a considerable time apart from you; then, too, a certain longing came over me for the divine doctrines and for the philosophy concerning them. For how, I said, could I master the evil that dwells with us? Who would become a Laban for me, delivering me from Esau and guiding me to the highest philosophy?

But since, with God’s help, we have achieved our aim to the best of our ability, having found a chosen vessel and a deep well—I mean Gregory, the mouth of Christ—allow us, I beg you, a little time, just a little; we ask this not because we cherish life in the cities (for we are not unaware that the evil one through such means contrives deception for men), but because we judge association with the saints to be most beneficial. For in speaking and hearing more frequently about divine doctrines, we acquire a habit of contemplation that is not easily lost. So much for our own situation. But you, O my divine and most beloved of all heads, beware of the shepherds of the Philistines, lest someone unnoticed stop up your wells and muddy the pure knowledge concerning the faith. For this is always their concern: not to teach the more innocent souls from the divine Scriptures, but to pervert the truth by means of external wisdom. For the one who introduces “unbegotten” and “begotten” into our faith, and who dogmatizes that which always exists as once not existing, and who makes the Father, who is by nature and always Father, become a father, and the Spirit—

The one who is not holy, not eternal, not straightforward is a Philistine, begrudging the sheep of our Patriarch, so that they may not drink from the pure and leaping water that leads to eternal life, but rather draw upon themselves the saying of the prophet: "They have abandoned me, a spring of living water, and dug for themselves broken cisterns, which will not be able to hold water." Must we not confess God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, as the divine words and those who have understood them more sublimely have taught? Against those who charge us with tritheism, let this be said: that we confess one God, not in number, but in nature. For everything that is said to be one in number is not truly one, nor is it simple in nature; and God is confessed by all to be simple and uncompounded. Therefore God is not one in number. What I mean is this. We say that the cosmos is one in number, but it is not one in nature, nor is it something simple. For we divide it into the elements of which it consists: fire, water, air, and earth. Again, a human being is called one in number. For we often speak of one human being. But this one is not simple, being composed of body and soul. Similarly, we would call an angel one in number, but not one in nature, nor simple; for we conceive of the angel's hypostasis as an essence with sanctity. If, then, everything that is one in number is not one in nature, and that which is one in nature and simple is not one in number, and we say that God is one in nature, how do they introduce number to us, when we entirely exclude it from that blessed and intelligible nature?

For number belongs to quantity, and quantity is conjoined with bodily nature; for number is of bodily nature. And we have believed our Lord to be the creator of bodies. Hence every number signifies those things which have received a material and circumscribed nature, while the monad and the unit are indicative of the simple and incomprehensible essence. Therefore, whoever confesses the Son of God or the Holy Spirit to be number or creation unwittingly introduces a material and circumscribed nature. By circumscribed I mean not only that which is contained in place, but also that which the one who was to bring it from non-being into being has encompassed in foreknowledge, and which it is possible to comprehend by knowledge. Thus every holy thing which has a circumscribed nature also has an acquired holiness and is not incapable of evil. But the Son and the Holy Spirit are a source of sanctification, by which every rational creation is sanctified in proportion to its virtue. Yet we, according to the true account, call the Son neither like nor unlike the Father. For each of these is equally impossible. For like and unlike are spoken with respect to qualities, and the divine is free from quality. But confessing identity of nature, we accept both the consubstantial and avoid composition, since the God and Father in essence has begotten the God and Son in essence. For from this the consubstantial is shown. For the God in essence is consubstantial with the God in essence, since both man is called god, as in "I said you are gods," and the demon is called god, as in "The gods of the nations are demons.

But some are named by grace, others by falsehood. God alone is God by essence. And when I say "alone," I signify the holy and uncreated essence of God. For "alone" is said both of a particular man and of universal nature in general. Of a particular man, for example, as in the case of Paul, that he alone was snatched up to the third heaven and heard unspeakable words which it is not permitted for a man to utter. Of universal nature, as when David says: "Man, his days are like grass." For here he indicates not a particular man, but universal nature. For every man is temporary and mortal. Thus we understand those statements as spoken of nature: "The one alone having immortality," and "To the only wise God," and "No one is good except the one God." For "one" here signifies the same as "alone." And "The one who stretched out the heaven alone." And again: "You shall worship your Lord God and serve him alone." And "There is no God except me." For "one" and "alone" when said of God in Scripture are not said in contradistinction to the Son or the Holy Spirit, but in opposition to those who are not gods, but are falsely named. As in: "The Lord alone led them, and there was no foreign god with them." And: "The sons of Israel removed the Baals and the groves of Astarte and served the Lord alone." And again Paul: "Just as there are many gods and many lords, but for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.

But we are inquiring here how, having said "One God," he was not satisfied with the term (for we have said that "alone" and "one" in reference to God indicate nature), but also added "Father" and made mention of Christ. I suspect, then, that Paul, the vessel of election, did not now think it sufficient to proclaim only that the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, which he indicated through the phrase "One God," unless he also, through the addition of "Father," indicated the one from whom all things come, and through the mention of the Lord, signified the Word through whom all things exist, and again, through the inclusion of "Jesus Christ," announced the incarnation, set forth the passion, and revealed the resurrection. For "Jesus Christ" conveys such concepts to us. Hence, even before the passion, the Lord Jesus Christ declines to be proclaimed and instructs the disciples not to tell anyone that he is Jesus the Christ. For it is his purpose, after completing the economy, after the resurrection from the dead and the ascension into heaven, to permit them to proclaim him as Jesus the Christ. Such also is the saying, "That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent," and "Believe in God, and believe in me," the Holy Spirit everywhere securing our understanding, so that by attending to one we do not fall away from the other, and by focusing on theology we do not neglect the economy, and impiety does not arise for us from what is lacking.

Let us now examine, to the best of our ability, the words of Holy Scripture which our opponents take up and distort to their own understanding for the purpose of overthrowing the glory of the Only-Begotten, unfolding their meaning. And first let us set down the passage: "I live because of the Father." For this is one of the arrows shot into heaven by those who have impiously used it. Here the saying does not, I think, refer to pre-eternal life (for everything that lives because of another cannot be self-living, just as that which is heated by another cannot be self-heat; and our Lord said, "I am the life"), but to this life in the flesh and in this time, which He lived because of the Father. For by His will He sojourned in the life of men, and He did not say, "I lived because of the Father," but "I live because of the Father," clearly indicating the present time. It is also possible that He means the life which Christ lives having the Word of God within Himself. And that this is what is meant we shall know from what follows. And He says, "He who eats me will live because of me." For we eat His flesh and drink His blood, becoming communicants through the incarnation and the sensible life of the Word and Wisdom. For He called His entire mystical sojourn flesh and blood, and indicated the teaching composed of practical, natural, and theological elements, through which the soul is nourished and prepared for the contemplation of beings. And this is perhaps what is meant by the saying. And again: "My Father is greater than I.

For even this expression has been used by the ungrateful creatures, the offspring of the evil one. But I have come to believe that from this very phrase the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father is made clear. For I know that comparisons are properly made among things of the same nature. For we speak of an angel as greater than an angel, and a man as more righteous than a man, and a bird as swifter than a bird. If, then, comparisons are made among things of the same kind, and the Father is said to be greater than the Son by comparison, then the Son is consubstantial with the Father. There is also another meaning latent in the expression. For what wonder is it that he, being the Word and having become flesh, confessed the Father to be greater than himself, when he appeared inferior to angels in glory and to men in form? For it is said, "You diminished him, a little less than angels." And again, "He who was diminished a little less than angels." And, "We saw him, and he had no form nor beauty, but his form was lacking in comparison with all men." All these things he endured because of his great love for the creature, in order to recover the lost sheep and to mingle it with the saved, and to lead back to his own healthy homeland the one who had gone down from Jerusalem to Jericho and because of that had fallen among robbers. Or will the heretic also reproach him with the manger, through which he, being irrational, was nourished by the Word, and bring up his poverty, that the son of the carpenter did not possess a small bed? For this reason the Son is less than the Father, because for your sake he became dead, in order to free you from death and make you a partaker of heavenly life.

Just as if someone were to blame the physician because he stoops over the foul-smelling sufferings and shares in them, in order to heal those who have suffered. For your sake he is ignorant even of the hour and the day of Judgment; and yet nothing escapes the notice of true Wisdom, for all things came to be through her. But no human being has ever been ignorant of what he has made. Yet this he administers for the sake of your weakness, so that neither may those who have sinned fall into despair because of the narrowness of the deadline, as though no time for repentance were left, nor, on the other hand, may those who are fighting long against the opposing power desert because of the length of time. So he manages both groups through his feigned ignorance: for the one he shortens the time because of the noble struggle, for the other he stores up a time for repentance because of their sins. And yet in the Gospels he counted himself among those who are ignorant, because of the weakness of the many, as I said, while in the Acts of the Apostles, speaking privately to the perfect, he says with an exception of himself: "It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has set in his own authority." And let these things be said more coarsely according to the first approach. But now we must examine the meaning of the saying more loftily and knock at the door of knowledge, that I might be able to rouse the householder who gives the spiritual bread to those who ask him, since those whom we are eager to feast are friends and brothers.

The holy disciples of our Savior, having gone beyond contemplation, as far as is possible for men, and having been purified by the Word, seek the end and long to know the final blessedness, which our Lord declared that even his angels and he himself are ignorant of, calling "day" the precise comprehension of the conceptions of God, and "hour" the contemplation of the one and the monad, the knowledge of which he assigned to the Father alone. I suspect, therefore, that God is said to know concerning himself that which he is, and not to know that which he is not. For God is said to know justice and wisdom, being himself justice and wisdom, but to be ignorant of injustice and wickedness; for God, who created us, is not injustice and wickedness. If, then, God is said to know concerning himself that which he is, and not to know that which he is not, and our Lord, according to the concept of the incarnation and the more material teaching, is not the ultimate object of desire, then our Savior does not know the end and the final blessedness. "But not even the angels know," he says, that is, neither the contemplation in them nor the principles of their ministries are the ultimate object of desire. For their knowledge is also material in comparison with face-to-face. Only the Father, he says, knows, since he himself is the end and

the final blessedness. For when we no longer recognize God in mirrors nor through intermediaries, but approach him as alone and one, then we shall know the final end. For they say that the entire material knowledge is the kingdom of Christ, but the immaterial contemplation—and, as one might say, the contemplation of divinity itself—belongs to God the Father. And our Lord himself is also the end and the final blessedness according to the concept of the Word. For what does he say in the Gospel? "And I will raise him up on the last day," calling resurrection the transition from material knowledge to immaterial contemplation, and calling the last day this knowledge after which there is no other. For then our mind rises up and is roused to a blessed height, whenever it contemplates the unity and singularity of the Word. But since our mind, thickened by matter, is bound to the clay and mingled with mud, and is unable to gaze at pure contemplation, it is guided through the worlds akin to its body, perceives the activities of the creator, and for the time being recognizes these from their results, so that, gradually increasing, it may one day be strong enough to approach divinity itself naked. And according to this concept, I think, are also said: "My Father is greater than I," and "It is not mine to give, but it is prepared by the Father for those for whom it is prepared." For this is also Christ's handing over the kingdom to God the Father, being a firstfruits and not an end, according to the more material teaching, as I said, which is considered with reference to us and not to the Son himself.

That these things are so, when the disciples again asked in the Acts of the Apostles, "When will you restore the kingdom to Israel?" he says: "It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has set in his own authority." That is, the knowledge of such a kingdom is not for those bound by flesh and blood. For this contemplation the Father has deposited in his own authority, calling "authority" those who are under authority, and "his own" those of whom ignorance of lower matters does not partake. Do not understand times and seasons as perceptible, but as certain intervals of knowledge produced by the intelligible sun. For that prayer of our Lord must be brought to completion. For it is Jesus who prayed: "Grant that they also may be one in us, as I and you are one, Father." For God, being one, becoming in each one, unites all, and number is destroyed by the presence of the monad. And I have thus applied myself to the text according to the second Epicheiresis. But if someone speaks better or piously corrects our words, let him speak and correct, and the Lord will reward on our behalf. For no envy dwells among us, since we have not entered upon this examination of the words for the sake of contentiousness or vainglory, but for the benefit of the brethren, lest the earthenware vessels containing the treasure of God be thought to be rejected by the stony-hearted and uncircumcised men armed with foolish wisdom. Again, through the wise Solomon in Proverbs it is built: "For the Lord, he says, created me.

And the beginning of the ways is called evangelic, leading us to the kingdom of the heavens, not being creation in essence, but having become a way according to the economy. For having come to be and having been created signify the same thing. For he has become a way and a door and a shepherd and an angel and a sheep and again high priest and apostle, other names being applied according to other conceptions. What would the heretic say again about the unsubordinate God and the one who has become for our sins? For it is written: "When all things are subordinate to him, then the Son himself will be subordinate to the one who subordinates all things to him." Do you not fear, O man, God being called unsubordinate because of you? For he makes your own subordination his own, and when you resist virtue, he calls himself unsubordinate. Thus once he also said that he himself was the one being persecuted. "For Saul," he says, "Saul, why do you persecute me?" when he was running to Damascus, wishing to bind the disciples of Christ. And again he calls himself naked when one of the brothers was naked. "For I was naked," he says, "and you clothed me." And when another was in prison, he said that he himself was the one confined. For he himself took up our weaknesses and bore our diseases. And one of the weaknesses is also insubordination, and this he bore. Therefore the Lord appropriates to himself the circumstantial events that happen to us, taking upon himself our passions from his communion with us. But also the phrase "The Son can do nothing of himself" the God-fighters take for the destruction of the hearers. But to me this saying especially proclaims that the Son is of the same nature as the Father.

For if each of the rational creatures is able to do something of its own accord, being self-determined and having an equal inclination toward the worse and the better, but the Son is not able to do anything of his own accord, the Son is not a creature. And if he is not a creature, he is consubstantial with the Father. Again, none of the creatures can do all that it wishes. But the Son in heaven and on earth did all that he wished. Therefore the Son is not a creature. And again, all creatures either consist of opposites or are receptive of opposites. But the Son is justice itself and immaterial; therefore the Son is not a creature. And if this is not so, he is consubstantial with the Father. And this examination, according to our ability, of the passages set forth is sufficient for us. But now let us proceed also against those who oppose the Holy Spirit, clearing away every height of thought raised up against the knowledge of God. You say the Holy Spirit is a creature. But every creature is a slave of its creator. "For all things," it says, "are your slaves." But if it is a slave, it has its holiness as an acquired property; and everything that has its holiness as an acquired property is not incapable of receiving evil; but the Holy Spirit, being holy in essence, is called a source of sanctification; therefore the Holy Spirit is not a creature. And if it is not a creature, it is consubstantial with God. And how, tell me, do you call a slave that which frees you from slavery through baptism? "For the law," it says, "of the Spirit of life freed you from the law of sin.

But you will never dare to say that his substance is mutable, looking to the nature of the opposing power, which, like lightning, fell from heaven and fell out of true life, because it had acquired holiness as an addition and alteration followed upon evil counsel. Therefore, having fallen from the Monad and cast off the angelic dignity, it was named from its manner "Devil," its former and blessed state having been extinguished, and this opposing power having been kindled. Then, if one were to call the Holy Spirit a creature, one introduces its nature as limited. How then will "The Spirit of the Lord has filled the inhabited world" and "Where shall I go from your Spirit" stand? But one does not even confess it as simple in nature, it seems. For one names it one in number. But everything that is one in number is not simple, as I said. And if the Holy Spirit is not simple, it is composed of substance and sanctification; and such a thing is composite. And who is so foolish as to call the Holy Spirit composite and not simple and, according to the principle of simplicity, consubstantial with the Father and the Son? But if we must advance the argument and contemplate greater things, let us from this especially observe the divine power of the Holy Spirit. We find three creations named in Scripture: one and first, the production from non-being into being; second, the change from worse to better; third, the resurrection of the dead. In these you will find the Holy Spirit working together with the Father and the Son. For it is the substantialization of the heavens. And what does David say?

By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power. Again, man is created through baptism. "For if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." And what does the Savior say to his disciples? "Go forth and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." You see here also the Holy Spirit present together with the Father and the Son. And what would you say about the resurrection of the dead, when we pass away and return to our dust? For we are earth and will go to the earth, and the Holy Spirit will send and create us and renew the face of the earth. For what the holy Paul called resurrection, David called renewal. Let us again hear from the one who was snatched up to the third heaven. What does he say? "That you are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you." And every temple of God is a temple. If we are a temple of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is God. And it is called a temple of Solomon, but as the one who built it. If we are temples of the Holy Spirit in this way, the Holy Spirit is God: "For the one who built everything is God." But if it is as the one worshipped and dwelling within us, we will confess it to be God. "For you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone." And if they reject the name "God," let them learn what this name signifies. For it is called God from having placed all things or from beholding.

If, then, God is named from having placed or beheld all things, and the Spirit knows all things of God, as the spirit in us knows our things, the Holy Spirit is God. And again, if the sword of the Spirit is a word of God, the Holy Spirit is God. For the sword belongs to him whose word it is also called. And if it is named the right hand of the Father—"For the right hand of the Lord made power," and "Your right hand, Lord, shattered enemies"—and the Holy Spirit is the finger of God, according to the saying, "If I in the finger of God cast out demons," which in another Gospel is written as "If I in the Spirit of God cast out demons," the Holy Spirit is of the same nature as the Father and the Son. And concerning the worshipful and holy Trinity, let these things be said by us for the present. For it is not now possible to examine the discourse about it more extensively. But you, having received from our humility seeds, cultivate for yourselves a ripe ear of grain, since we are also asked for the interest, as you know, on such things. And I trust in God that you will bear fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold because of the purity of your life. "For blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." And think nothing else, brothers, to be the kingdom of heaven than the true understanding of beings, which the divine Scriptures also call blessedness. For if "the kingdom of heaven is within you," and concerning the inner man nothing exists by which contemplation is constituted, contemplation would be the kingdom of heaven.

For we now see the shadows as in a mirror, but later, having been freed from this earthly body and having put on an incorruptible and immortal one, we shall behold the archetypes of these things. And we shall see them, if indeed we steer our own life toward the straight and take forethought for right faith, without which no one will see the Lord. "For into a soul that is evil-crafty," it says, "wisdom will not enter, nor will it dwell in a body that is defiled by sins." And let no one interrupt, saying that while you are ignorant of things at your feet, you philosophize to us about the incorporeal and entirely immaterial substance. For I consider it absurd to allow the senses to be filled without hindrance with their own objects, but to exclude the mind alone from its proper activity. For just as sense is the apprehending of sensible things, so the mind is of intelligible things. And this too must be said: that the Creator God has made the natural criteria untaught. For no one teaches the eyes to perceive colors or shapes, nor the ear to perceive sounds and voices, nor the sense of smell to perceive fragrant and foul vapors, nor taste to perceive flavors and juices, nor touch to perceive soft and hard, or hot and cold. Nor would anyone teach the mind to apply itself to intelligible things. And just as, if these should suffer something, they require only care and

own function easily, so also the mind, bound to the flesh and filled with its phantasms, requires faith and right conduct, which set its feet like those of a deer and place it upon the heights. This very thing the wise Solomon also enjoins, and at one time he presents to us the unashamed worker, the ant, and through it sketches for us the practical path, and at another time the wax-molding instrument of the wise bee, and through it hints at natural contemplation, in which the discourse concerning the Holy Trinity is also blended, since from the beauty of creatures the creator is analogously perceived. But having given thanks to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, let us set an end to the letter, since every measure is best, as the proverb also says. To Maximus the Philosopher. Words are truly images of souls. Therefore we have come to know you through your letter, as they say, from the claws the lion, and we rejoiced to find you not idly disposed concerning the first and greatest of goods, love for God and for one's neighbor. And we take as a sign of the former your kindness toward us, and of the latter your zeal for knowledge. That all things consist in these two is known to every disciple of Christ. As for the works of Dionysius which you seek, they came to us, and very many at that; but the books are not at hand, and therefore we did not send them. We hold this opinion: we do not admire everything of the man; there are some things we even reject entirely.

For nearly this whole heresy now so much talked about—I mean that of the Anomoean—he is, as far as we know, the first to have supplied men with its seeds. The cause, I think, is not malice of intention, but an excessive desire to oppose Sabellius. I am accustomed, at any rate, to compare him to a gardener who, straightening the twist of a young plant, then by the excess of his counter-pull misses the middle and draws the shoot to the opposite side. Something of this sort, we find, has happened in the case of this man. For, vehemently opposing the impiety of the Libyan, he unwittingly let himself be carried into the opposite evil by his excessive ambition. It would have been enough for him to show that Father and Son are not the same in subject, and to have these as his trophies against the blasphemer; but he, in order to prevail very clearly and from a surplus, posits not only a difference of hypostases, but also a difference of essence, a diminution of power, and a variation of glory. So that from this it happened that he exchanged one evil for another, but missed the correctness of the doctrine. For this reason he is also various in his writings, at one time abolishing the homoousion because of its evil use in the denial of the hypostases, at another time accepting it in his apologies to his namesake. Besides this, he has also uttered words about the Spirit that are least fitting for a spiritual man, banishing it from the worshiped divinity and numbering it somewhere below with the created and ministering nature. Such, then, is the man.

As for myself, if I must speak my own opinion, I accept the phrase "like in essence" if it includes the word "indistinguishably," since it then leads to the same meaning as "homoousios," according, of course, to the sound understanding of "homoousios." This is what those at Nicaea understood when they called the Only-Begotten "Light from Light" and "true God from true God" and such things, and then consistently added "homoousios." For neither between light and light, nor between truth and truth, nor between the essence of the Only-Begotten and that of the Father, is it possible to conceive any variation. If, therefore, someone accepts it in the way I have said, I welcome the phrase. But if someone separates the "indistinguishable" from the "like"—as those in Constantinople have done—I suspect the term of diminishing the glory of the Only-Begotten. For we often apply the term "like" even to faint resemblances that fall far short of their archetypes. Since, therefore, I think "homoousios" is less open to abuse, I myself adopt it. But why do you not visit us, O best of men, so that we might discuss these matters in person and not entrust such great things to lifeless letters, especially since we have decided not to publicize our own views too much? Lest you say to us what Diogenes said to Alexander—that it is the same distance from you to here as from here to you. For we, on account of illness, are almost like plants always rooted in the same place, and having lived unnoticed, we count this among the chief goods.

May you be strong, as they say, and having made yourself a citizen of the world, you would be justified in coming here as well, as to a part of your own domain. For even if peoples and cities, in which you display your virtuous actions, are fitting for you practical men, yet for contemplation and the activity of the mind, through which we are united with God, quiet is a good helper; and we cultivate this quiet abundantly and without stint in this remote place, together with, so to speak, the God who has provided it to us. But if you must by all means attend to the powerful and look down on us who lie low, then write other things and make this one more pleasant. There is a certain art of hunting doves, of this kind. When those who are zealous for such things have become masters of one dove and have made it tame and a messmate to themselves, then they anoint its wings with myrrh and allow it to flock together with those outside. The fragrance of that myrrh makes that independent flock a possession of the one who owns the tame dove. For the others follow the sweet-smelling ones and are brought into the house. Why do I begin the letter from this point? Because, having taken the son Dionysius, once Diomedes, and having anointed the wings of his soul with divine myrrh, I sent him out to your reverence, so that you yourself might fly up with him and reach the nest which the aforementioned has built among us. If, then, I should see these things in my lifetime, and your reverence turned to the lofty life, I will beg many persons worthy of God to pay the owed honor to him.

Untitled, concerning a friend. By the grace of God, having passed the holy day together with our children, and having truly celebrated a perfect feast for the Lord on account of their surpassing love for God, we sent them forth in health to your nobility, praying to the benevolent God that a peaceful angel, a helper and fellow traveler, be given to them, and that you be found by them in health and in every peaceful state, so that wherever you may be, serving the Lord and giving thanks to him, you may gladden us as long as we are in the world, hearing from you. But if the Holy One should grant that you be more quickly freed from these cares, we entreat you to prefer nothing to your sojourn with us. For I think you will not find those who so love and cultivate friendship with you. Therefore, as long as the Holy One ordains this separation, deign to console us with letters on every pretext. To Olympius. You used to write to us, at first little, now not even little, and it seems that brevity, advancing with time, is becoming complete silence. Return, then, to your custom, for we will no longer blame you for being laconic with us in letters, but we will consider even small letters, being symbols of your great disposition, to be of great worth. Only write to us.

To Olympius. Just as each of the other ripe fruits appears in its own season—flowers in spring, ears of grain in summer, the apple in autumn—so words are the fruit of winter. To Gregory, a companion. When my brother Gregory wrote to me long ago that he wished to meet with us, and added that this same thing had been decided by you as well, I was unable to remain, partly because, having been deceived many times, I am rather hesitant to believe, and partly because I was distracted by my occupations. For I must now depart for Pontus, where perhaps at last, if God wills, we shall cease from our wandering. For having despaired of the vain hopes—or rather the dreams, to speak more truly (for I praise the one who said that hopes are the dreams of those who are awake)—I went to Pontus in search of a way of life. There God showed me a place exactly suited to my character, so that what we often used to fashion in our minds while at leisure and even in jest, I now see in reality. For it is a high mountain covered with deep forest, watered on the north side by cold and transparent streams. At its foot a level plain is spread out, continually enriched by the moisture from the mountain. A wood of various and diverse trees, growing spontaneously around it, serves almost as a wall for it, so that even Calypso's island, which Homer seems to have admired for its beauty above all others, is small in comparison. For it is not far from being an island, since it is enclosed on all sides by barriers.

Deep ravines have broken around it on two sides; on the flank, the river flowing beneath the cliff is itself a continuous and impassable wall; and on the other side, the mountain, extending and joined to the ravines by crescent-shaped spurs, blocks the accessible parts of the foothills. There is a single entrance to it, of which we are masters. As for the dwelling, another neck receives it, holding up a high ridge on the summit, so that this plain lies spread beneath the eyes, and from the height one can see the river flowing around, providing, it seems to me, no less delight than that which those from Amphipolis experience when they observe the Strymon. For the one, spreading out in a sluggish stream and almost becoming a lake, is deprived by its stillness of being a river; the other, flowing as swiftly as any river I know, is roughened a little by the neighboring rock, from which it is thrown back and coiled into a deep whirlpool, offering a most pleasant sight to me and to every spectator, and providing the most ample benefit to the locals, nurturing an unspeakable abundance of fish in its eddies. Why need I mention the exhalations from the earth or the breezes from the river? As for the abundance of flowers or of songbirds, another might marvel at them, but I have no leisure to attend to these. The greatest thing we can say about the place is that, being suitable for every kind of crop-bearing due to the favorableness of its location, it is the sweetest of all to me.

of fruits nurtures tranquility, not only because it is free from urban disturbances, but also because it does not send forth any traveler except those who mingle with us for hunting. For in addition to other things, it is also a game-preserving place—not of bears or wolves like yours (may it not be so!), but it pastures herds of deer, wild goats, and hares, and whatever else is like them. So do you not realize how great a danger I, foolish man, came near to, in my eagerness to exchange such a place for Tibernene, the abyss of the inhabited world? Forgive me now as I hasten to it. For surely not even Alcmaeon, when he found the Echinades, endured his wandering any longer. To Arcadius, Count of Private Affairs. The citizens of our metropolis gave me a greater favor than they received, by providing me with an occasion for writing to your honor. For the kindness on account of which they received the letter from us existed in them even before our letter, because of the customary and naturally inherent gentleness you have toward all. But I considered the occasion of addressing your unsurpassed excellence the greatest gain, praying to the holy God that as you advance in pleasing Him and as your renown increases, I may both rejoice myself and share in the joy of those benefited by your oversight, and that I may one day see those who deliver my letters to you, together with all others, hymning your gentleness, always learning that their intercession with me to your unsurpassed excellence has not been useless.

To Eunomius the Heretic. He who says that the discovery of beings is attainable has certainly by some method and sequence, through the knowledge of beings, applied his own mind, and having exercised himself on what is easily grasped and smaller, through comprehension, he has thus advanced himself even to a comprehensive imagination of that which is beyond every conception. Therefore, let him who boasts of having comprehended the knowledge of beings explain how the smallest of visible things is constituted by nature, and let him say what the nature of the ant is: whether its life is sustained by breath and respiration, whether its body is divided by bones, whether its joints are tightened by sinews and ligaments, whether the position of the sinews is held in place by a covering of muscles and glands, whether the marrow extends from the crown to the tail along the spinal vertebrae, whether it imparts impulsive power to the moving limbs through the enclosure of the nervous membrane, whether it has a liver and a bile duct on the liver, kidneys and heart and arteries and veins, membranes and diaphragms, whether it is bare or hairy, whether it is single-hoofed or has split bases, how long it lives, and what is their mode of generation from each other, for how long the offspring is gestated, and how not all ants are footed nor all winged, but some are among those that come from the ground, while others are borne through the air. So then, let him who boasts of the knowledge of beings first tell the nature of the ant, and then let him thus discourse on the power that surpasses every mind.

If you have not yet grasped the nature of the smallest ant by knowledge, how do you boast to conceive of the incomprehensible power of God? To Origen You delight us when heard, and when read you provide us with more vivid joys through what you write. And great thanks to the good God, who has allowed the truth to suffer no diminution in the betrayal of those who supposedly prevail, but has filled up the advocacy of the word of piety through you. Those others, like hemlock or aconite or any other man-killing herb, having bloomed for a short time, will quickly wither. For you, the Lord will provide a flourishing and ever-fresh reward for what has been spoken on behalf of his name. In return for these things, may the Lord grant you every abundance of household and extend the blessing to children's children. I saw the most noble children, the clear marks of your goodness, with pleasure, and I embraced them, and I pray for them all that the father himself would pray. To Macarius and John Neither do farmers find the labors of agriculture strange, nor is the storm at sea unexpected for sailors, nor is the summer sweat surprising for those who work for hire, nor is the affliction in the present world untrained for those who have chosen to live piously. But to each of those mentioned, a familiar and known toil is joined, not chosen for its own sake, but for the enjoyment of expected goods. For hopes, which hold together and sustain the whole of human life, console the difficulty in each of these.

Of the fruits above the earth or those laboring beneath it, some have been utterly deceived in their hopes, enjoying only a semblance of pleasure; while for those whose end has turned out according to their intention, a second hope was again needed, the first having quickly passed and withered. But for those who have labored for piety alone, no falsehood has annihilated their hopes, no end has marred their struggles, since the secure and enduring kingdom of heaven succeeds them. Therefore, let false slander not disturb you, nor the threat of rulers frighten you; let not the mockery and insult of acquaintances grieve you, nor the condemnation of those who pretend to care, under the guise of advice, trouble you, as long as the word of truth fights on our side. Let right reason contend against all, calling as its ally the Teacher of piety, our Lord Jesus Christ, for whose sake suffering is sweet and death is gain. To Gregory, the Companion. A letter came to me recently from you, clearly yours, not so much by the character of the hand as by the idiom of the epistle. For the words were few, presenting much thought. To it I did not reply immediately, because I was away from home, and the letter-carrier, having delivered the letter to one of my associates, departed. But now, through Peter, I address you, both discharging the debt of salutation and providing an occasion for a second letter. In any case, there is no trouble in a Laconian epistle, such as those that come from you to me each time.

To Leontius the Sophist Your letters to us have been long in coming, but no longer than those from your region, and this despite the many and continuous visitors who have come to us from your country. If you had entrusted letters to all of them in turn, nothing would have prevented you from seeming to be with us, and from enjoying our presence and company as if we were there, so continuous was the multitude of those arriving to us. But why do you not write? Yet surely no task is more fitting for a sophist than writing; or rather, if your hand is idle, you need not even write—another will serve you. Only a tongue is needed, which, even if it does not converse with us, will at any rate speak to one of those present; and if no one is present, it will converse with itself; it will never be silent, being sophistic and Attic, no more than the nightingales when spring stirs them to song. For us, the density of our present occupation might perhaps provide an excuse for the scarcity of letters, and the fact that we have become somewhat coarsened by satiety with vulgarity naturally creates a reluctance to address you sophists, who, if you do not hear something worthy of your own wisdom, will be annoyed and will not tolerate it. But for you, on the contrary, it is fitting on every occasion to make your voice public, being as you are skilled in speaking, as I myself know, among the Greeks. For I know, I think, the most renowned among you. So there is no excuse for you to be silent. And so much for that. I have also sent the work against Eunomius.

Whether these are to be called play, or things more serious than play, I leave to you to judge, you who no longer, I think, need such things for your own affairs, but I expect that for those who encounter the perverse, it will be for you no ignoble weapon, not that I entrust so much to the power of the composition, but because I know well that from small starting points you are inventive for many things. But if anything appears to you weaker than the need requires, do not hesitate to point it out. For this especially distinguishes a friend from a flatterer, that the one speaks for pleasure, while the other does not refrain even from things that cause pain. To Leontius the Sophist. The good Julian seems to enjoy something of the common state of affairs in his own matters. For he himself is demanded of and accused vehemently, since everything now is full of those being demanded of and accused. Yet only not of deficiencies in taxes, but of letters. And yet from where he has fallen short I do not know. For he always gave a letter, and received one. Unless somewhere with you this much-talked-of quadruple has been preferred. For not even the Pythagoreans so preferred the tetractys as those now selecting public documents prefer the quadruple. And yet perhaps the opposite might have been likely, that you, being a sophist and abounding in so many words, should be subject to us for the payment of quadruples. And do not think we write these things in annoyance. For I rejoice even in your reproaches, since they say that for good men everything happens with the addition of the good, so that even their griefs and angers become fitting. Indeed, one would more gladly see the beloved angry than another paying court.

Never, then, should you cease from making such accusations. For these accusations themselves will be a kind of writing, than which I have no more precious hearing nor one that brings greater pleasure. ON THE PERFECTION OF THE LIFE OF MONKS. Since many things are indicated by the God-inspired Scripture and must be set right by those who are zealous to please God, I have thought it necessary, for the present, to speak briefly in reminder only of those matters which have been stirred up among you, as I have learned from the God-inspired Scripture itself, leaving the testimony concerning each point, which is easy to grasp, to be recognized by those who are occupied with reading, who will be able to remind others also. That the Christian must think thoughts worthy of the heavenly calling and conduct himself worthily of the Gospel of Christ. That the Christian must not be distracted nor drawn away by anything from the memory of God and of His will and judgments. That the Christian, having become superior to the legal ordinances in all things, must neither swear nor lie. That one must not blaspheme, that one must not insult, that one must not fight, that one must not avenge oneself, that one must not return evil for evil, that one must not become angry. That one must be patient, suffering whatever one may, and reprove the wrongdoer at the right time, not in passion for one's own vengeance, but in desire for the correction of the brother, according to the commandment of the Lord. That one must not say anything about an absent brother with the purpose of slandering him, which is backbiting, even if what is said is true. That one must turn away from the one who backbites a brother.

That one ought not to utter witticisms. That one ought not to laugh, nor to endure jesters. That one ought not to speak idly, saying anything that is neither for the benefit of the hearers nor for the necessary and permitted service of God; so that even those who are working should strive, as far as possible, to work in silence, and even the good words themselves should be directed to those who have been entrusted, after testing, to administer speech for the edification of the faith, so that the Holy Spirit of God may not be grieved. That one ought not, when any newcomer arrives, to approach or speak to any of the brethren on his own authority, before those who have been appointed to the care of good order in all things have discerned how it pleases God for the common good. That one ought not to be enslaved to wine, nor to be passionate about meat, and in general to be fond of no food or drink; for the one who is striving practices continence in all things. That of the things given to each for use, one ought to hold or store nothing as one's own, but in one's care, attending to all things as belonging to the master, to overlook nothing that is cast aside or neglected, should it so happen. That one ought not to be one's own master, but, as one handed over by God into servitude to the brethren of one soul, so to think and do everything, each in his own rank. That one ought not to murmur, either in the straitness of necessities or in the toil of labors, since those who have been appointed to authority over these matters have the judgment concerning each.

That one ought not to raise a shout, nor to adopt any posture or movement in which anger or elation is characterized, from the conviction that God is present. That one ought to proportion the voice to the need. That one ought not to answer or do anything to anyone with boldness or contempt, but in all things to show gentleness and respect toward all. That one ought not to wink with the eye deceitfully, nor to use any other posture or movement of a limb that grieves the brother or indicates contempt. That one ought not to be adorned in garments or shoes, which is ostentation. That one ought to use things that are cheap for the needs of the body. That one ought not to spend anything beyond necessity and for lavishness, which is misuse. That one ought not to seek honor or contend for precedence. That one ought to prefer everyone before oneself. That one ought not to be insubordinate. That one ought not to eat idly when able to work, but even one occupied with some of the virtuous pursuits and for the glory of Christ should force oneself to the zeal of work according to one's ability. That one ought to do everything, even to the point of eating and drinking, with the approval of the superiors, with reason and conviction, as for the glory of God. That one ought not to pass from one work to another without the approval of those who are charged with ordering the

such things are assigned, unless some unavoidable necessity suddenly calls for help to one who is unable. That each one ought to remain in the position to which he was assigned and not, exceeding his own measure, encroach upon those not assigned, unless those entrusted with these matters deem someone in need of assistance. That one ought not to be found from one workshop in another. That one ought not to do anything out of contentiousness or strife toward someone. That one ought not to envy another's good repute, nor rejoice in anyone's shortcomings. That one ought, in the love of Christ, to be grieved and distressed at a brother's shortcomings, but to rejoice at his successes. That one ought not to be indifferent toward those who sin or to be complacent with them. That the one who rebukes ought to rebuke with all compassion, with fear of God and with the aim of turning the sinner back. That the one who is rebuked or reproved ought to accept it readily, recognizing his own benefit in the correction. That one ought not, when someone is being accused, to contradict the accuser in the presence of that person or of others. But if ever the accusation should appear unreasonable to someone, he ought to raise the matter privately with the accuser and either satisfy him or be satisfied. That each one ought, as far as he is able, to attend to one who has something against him. That one ought not to bear a grudge against one who has sinned and is repenting, but to forgive from the heart. That the one who says he repents of a sin ought not only to be stricken with remorse for what he sinned, but also to produce fruits worthy of the repentance.

That one who has been disciplined for first offenses and deemed worthy of remission, if he sins again, prepares for himself a judgment of wrath worse than the former. That one who persists in his fault after a first and second admonition must be made known to the superior, so that if he is rebuked by many he may be shamed. But if he is not corrected even thus, he is to be cut off as a scandal from the rest and "be regarded as a pagan and a tax-collector" for the security of those who work at the zeal of obedience, according to what is said: "When the impious fall, the righteous become fearful." And one must also mourn for him, as for a limb cut off from the body. That the sun must not set upon the provocation of a brother, lest the night intervene between the two and leave an inexorable charge on the day of Judgment. That one must not wait for an opportunity for his own correction, because he has no certainty about the morrow, since many who have planned many things have not reached the morrow. That one must not be deceived by the filling of the belly, through which nocturnal fantasies occur. That one must not be distracted by immoderate labor and exceed the limits of self-sufficiency, according to the Apostle who said: "Having provisions and coverings, we shall be content with these, because excess beyond need bears the image of greed, and greed has the condemnation of idolatry." That one must not be avaricious nor hoard for useless purposes what one ought not. That one who approaches God must embrace poverty in all things and be nailed by the fear of God, according to the one who said: "Nail my flesh with your fear.

For I was afraid because of your judgments." May the Lord grant that, having received what has been said with full assurance, you may display fruits worthy of the Spirit to the glory of God, by the good will of God and the cooperation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. SUPPLEMENTARY LETTER TO A MONK: So-and-so, as he says, having condemned the vanity of this life and having learned that the pleasant things of this life have their end here, only furnishing fuel for the eternal fire, and have a swift passage, came to me, wishing to depart from the wretched and much-lamented life, to abandon the pleasures of the flesh, and henceforth to proceed on the path that leads to the dwellings of the Lord. Since, therefore, it is necessary, if he has by nature come to desire the truly blessed way of life and has conceived the good and praiseworthy love in his own soul, having loved our Lord God with all his heart, with all his strength, and with all his mind, that he be shown by your piety the difficulties and hardships of the narrow and afflicted path, and that he be established in hope of the things not yet seen, but stored up in promises for those worthy of the Lord, I therefore write and entreat your incomparable perfection in Christ to prescribe, if possible, and even without me, to effect his renunciation in a manner pleasing to God, and to initiate him according to the decisions of the holy Fathers and the things set forth in writing by them.

Now let everything that seems precise in the ascetic life be set before him, and thus let him be brought to the life, having voluntarily taken up the struggles for piety and having submitted himself to the good yoke of the Lord; and, in imitation of Him who became poor for our sake and wore flesh, let him conduct himself and run toward the goal for the prize of the higher calling, and obtain acceptance from the Lord. For I postponed receiving him here with the crown of love according to God, though he was eager, wishing, together with your reverence, to anoint him for such contests and to appoint over him as trainer one of you whom he himself might seek, one who trains well and produces a proven wrestler through intense and blessed care, wounding and casting down the world-ruler of this darkness, and also the spiritual forces of wickedness, against which, according to the blessed Apostle, our struggle lies. What I wished to do with you, let your love in Christ do even without me. To Athanasius, Father of Athanasius the Bishop That a man's life is superior to slanders is among the most difficult things—not to say impossible—I myself am convinced, and I think your goodness does not doubt. However, to provide no handle from oneself, neither to those who closely watch matters nor to those who maliciously lie in wait for our slips, this is both possible and characteristic of those who conduct their lives intelligently and according to the aim of piety.

Do not think us so easily persuaded or so pliable as to accept uncritically the renunciations made by just anyone. For we remember the spiritual precept that warns against admitting vain hearsay. Nevertheless, since you yourselves—those who have devoted effort to learning—say that visible things are signs of invisible ones, we ask this (and do not take it amiss if something is said by us in the form of instruction; for God has chosen the weak things of the world and the despised, and through them often arranges the salvation of those who are being saved): what I say and enjoin is this—that every word and every proper action be performed with circumspection, and according to the apostolic precept, that no offense be given in any matter. For I consider it fitting that a man who has labored much in the study of letters, who has governed nations and cities, and who emulates the great virtue of his ancestors, should present his life as a model of virtue. As for your disposition toward your children, you ought not now to demonstrate it by argument, since you showed it long ago, from the time you became a father, not only by employing the natural affection which even irrational animals provide for their offspring, as you yourself have said and as experience shows, but also by evidently intensifying your love through deliberate choice, the more you see them to be such as are worthy.

are of our fathers' prayers. So it is not we who need to be persuaded about these matters, for the testimony from the events themselves is sufficient. Yet it is not untimely to add this for the sake of truth, that it is not brother Timothy, the chorepiscopus, who reported to us the rumors. For neither in conversation nor by letter has he uttered anything, small or great, bearing slander against you. So we do not deny having heard something; but it is not Timothy who is fabricating the slanders against you. But when we hear, we will do at least this, following Alexander's example: we will keep the other ear unimpaired for the one being slandered. To Athanasius, Bishop of Ancyra Some of those who have come to us from Ancyra—many of them, and not easy to count, all speaking in agreement—have reported that you, my dear head (how shall I put it euphemistically?), do not remember us with the greatest pleasure, nor in accordance with your own character. But I am astonished by nothing human, be assured, nor is any change in anything unexpected, for I have long since learned the weakness of nature and its easy turning to opposites. Hence, if any of my affairs have changed and from former honor there are now insults and outrages against me, I do not make much of this. But that which first appeared to me truly paradoxical and extraordinary was that you are the one who is so disposed toward us as to be angry and vexed with us, and even to threaten, as the report of those who heard says. As for the threats, I have utterly (for the truth must be spoken) laughed at them.

I would be quite a child if I were afraid of such bogeymen. But that which seemed to me fearful and worthy of much concern is this: that your precision, which we have believed to be preserved in few as a support of orthodoxy and a seed of ancient and true love for the consolation of the Churches, should have so far partaken of the present state of affairs as to make the blasphemies of chance persons more authoritative than our long experience, and to be led to a suspicion of absurdities without proofs. And yet why do I say suspicion? For one who has been indignant and has threatened, as they say, seems to have displayed anger not as one suspecting, but as one already clearly and incontrovertibly convinced. But, as I said, we refer the cause of these things to the occasion. For how much effort it would have been, O admirable one, to converse in a brief letter, as it were alone with one, about what you wished, or, if you did not trust such matters to writing, to summon me to yourself? But if it was absolutely necessary to speak out and the difficulty of restraining anger allowed no time for delay, it was possible at least to use one of those who are suitable and naturally capable of keeping secrets as a messenger of our words. But now whose ears are not filled with talk, among those who visit you for any reason whatever, that we are writing and composing some sort of nonsense? For they say that you used this very word, those who relate your words verbatim. But when I consider my own mind in many ways, it does not at all release me from perplexity. So that something like this occurred to me:

lest one of the heretics, having maliciously inscribed my name in his own writings, should have distressed your orthodoxy and induced you to utter that expression. For you, who have undergone those great and celebrated struggles for the sake of orthodoxy, would not have endured to bring this reproach against the writings composed by us against those who have dared to say that the Son and God is unlike in substance to God and Father, or against those who have blasphemed that the Holy Spirit is a creature and a product. But you yourself would resolve our perplexity, if you should be willing to declare openly the things that moved you to anger against us. To Caesarius, the brother of Gregory. Thanks be to God, who both displays his own wonders to you and has preserved you from so great a death for your fatherland and for us your relatives. It remains, therefore, that we should not appear ungrateful nor unworthy of such a great benefaction, but according to our ability to proclaim the marvels of God and to hymn that philanthropy of which we have had experience in deed; and not to render thanks by word alone, but also in deed to become such as we are persuaded we now are, judging by the wonders concerning you. And we further exhort you to serve God all the more, always increasing fear with additions and advancing toward perfection, so that we may be shown to be prudent stewards of the life for which the goodness of God has preserved us. For if there is a command for all of us to present ourselves to God as living from the dead, how much more so for those who have been raised from the gates of death?

This would be most especially accomplished, as I persuade myself, if we should wish always to hold the same mind which we had at the time of the dangers. For surely some thought entered us then of the vanity of life and how nothing human is trustworthy or stable, things having such easy reversals. And some repentance, as was likely, arose in us for what had passed, and promises concerning the future, if we should be preserved, to serve God and to take care of ourselves with all exactness. For if the danger of death hanging over us gave any thought, I think you were then reflecting either on these things or on things very near to them. So that we have become liable to the payment of a necessary debt. These things, being at once overjoyed at the gift of God, and at the same time also having concern for the future, I have taken courage to remind your perfection. It is for you to receive our words kindly and gently, as is your custom also in conversations face to face. TO BISHOP EUSEBIUS OF SAMOSATA When, by the grace of God and the help of your prayers, I seemed to recover a little from my illness and I took stock of my own strength, then the winter came on, confining us at home and compelling us to remain in place. For even if it turned out much milder than usual, yet it was sufficient for me as an obstacle not only to travel by myself, but not even to be able to peep out of my little room a little. But this is not a small thing for me, to be deemed worthy to converse with your piety through letters and to be already refreshed beforehand by the hope of your responses.

If the season should permit, and if some time of life should still remain to us, and if the famine should not render the journey impassable for us, we would quickly attain our desire through your prayers, and, finding you at your hearth, we would be filled at full leisure with the great treasures of the wisdom in you. To the Church of Neocaesarea, a consolatory letter. The events demanded our personal presence, both to join with you, the most intimate, in completing the honor to the blessed one, and to share in the dejection over the calamity from the very sight of the more sorrowful things, and also to partake with you in necessary deliberations. But since many things hinder bodily union, it remained to share with you in the present circumstances through a letter. Now the marvels of the man, on account of which especially we consider the loss to be unbearable for us, would not be contained within the measure of a letter, and besides it is untimely to bring forward a discourse with a multitude of his noble deeds, our soul being so prostrate with grief. For what of his is such as to be worthy of falling from our memory or of being consigned to silence? To speak of all at once is impossible, but to speak in part I fear may be a betrayal of the truth. Gone is a man who most manifestly surpassed all his contemporaries in every human good together, a support of his country, an ornament of Churches, a pillar and foundation of the truth, a bulwark of faith in Christ, a security for his own, most formidable to adversaries, a guardian of ancestral institutions, an enemy of innovation.

in himself displaying the ancient form of the Church, as from some sacred image, shaping the character of the Church under him according to the pattern of the ancient state, so that those who associated with him seemed to have associated with the luminaries who shone forth two hundred years and more before. Thus he brought forward nothing of his own, nothing that was an invention of a newer mind, but, according to the blessing of Moses, he knew how to produce from the innermost treasures of his heart the old things of the old and the old things from the face of the young. For this reason, too, he was deemed worthy of precedence in the assemblies of his peers not according to age, but he was above all in the antiquity of his wisdom, enjoying the primacy by common consent. As for the profit of such a discipline, no one would seek it, looking to you. For you alone, of those we know, or at least among very few, have passed your life in such a winter and tempest of affairs, unshaken by his governance. For the storm of heretical spirits, bringing floods and shipwrecks to easily turned souls, did not touch you. Nor may it ever touch you, O Master of all, who gave to your servant Gregory, who from the beginning laid the foundation of the Church, the grace of the greatest tranquility. Do not betray this in the present time, nor, by immoderate lamentations and by making yourselves subject to grief, yield the necessary occasions to those who lie in wait.

But if it is absolutely necessary to mourn (though I say this not, lest we become like those who have no hope in this respect), you, if you please, like a mourning chorus having set your own leader before you, more melodiously bewail the event with him. And yet, even if the man was not driven to extreme old age, still, as far as the time of your oversight is concerned, he did not lack life, and he partook of the body only to the extent of displaying the endurance of his soul in his pains. Perhaps one of you might suppose that time is an increase of sympathy and an addition of affection, and not an occasion for satiety in those who have experienced it, so that the longer you have experienced his beneficence, the more you feel the loss; and the shadow of a righteous body is worthy of the whole to the pious. And would that many of you were of this mind (for I do not say that one should be careless of the man), but I advise, as a human, to bear the grief. For all that can be said by those bewailing the loss does not escape me either. The tongue is silent, flooding the ears like rivers, and the depth of the heart, for the present incomprehensible to anyone, weaker than dreams, as far as concerns men, flits away and is gone. Who was sharper than he in foreseeing the future? Who, in such a stable and firm character of soul, was able to approach matters more swiftly than lightning? O city, already seized by many afflictions, yet by no one so much harmed in the vital points of life. Now the fairest ornament has faded from you.

The Church is closed, the feasts are gloomy, the sacred council longs for its leader, the mystical teachings await their interpreter, the children their father, the elders their contemporary, those in authority their chief, the people their patron, those in need of a livelihood their provider; all, calling him by the most intimate names, each raising a lament appropriate to him and fitting for their own grief. But whither is my speech carried away by the pleasure of tears? Shall we not come to our senses? Shall we not become ourselves? Shall we not look to the common Master, who, having assigned each of the saints to serve in his own generation, has recalled them to himself at the appointed times? Now remember his words at the opportune moment, when he, while assembling you, always instructed: "Beware," he said, "of the dogs, beware of the evil workers." Many are the dogs. Why do I say dogs? Rather, they are grievous wolves, hiding their treachery under the appearance of sheep, tearing apart the flock of Christ throughout the whole world. These you must guard against under the oversight of some watchful shepherd. It is for you to ask for him, purifying your souls of all contentiousness and love of preeminence, and for the Lord to reveal him, who, from the great patron of your Church, Gregory, down to this blessed one, adding one upon another and joining them together, as if from some joint of precious stones, has bestowed such wonderful beauty upon your Church. So that there is no need to despair of those who follow. For the Lord knows his own, and he would bring forward into the midst those perhaps not expected by us.

For a long time now, my desire to cease speaking has been prevented by the pain in my heart, but I charge you, by the Fathers, by the right faith, by this blessed man, to rouse your soul, each one judging the object of his zeal as his own concern and considering that he himself will first enjoy the outcome of affairs in either direction, and not, as happens with the many, to thrust the care of common matters onto one's neighbor, and then, when each neglects affairs with the same mindset, for all to escape notice having drawn upon themselves a private evil through their negligence. Receive these words either as neighborly sympathy, or as communion of like-minded believers, or, what is more true, as obeying the law of love and avoiding the danger of silence, with all goodwill, persuaded that you are our boast, just as we are yours until the day of the Lord, and that from the shepherd who will be given to you, we will either be united more closely in the bond of love, or be brought to complete separation—which may it not be, nor will it be by the grace of God, nor would I now say anything blasphemous. And we wish you to know this, that even though we did not have the blessed man joining us for the peace of the Churches, due to certain preconceptions, as he himself assured us, yet we never at any time fell short, with God and men who have experienced us as witnesses, of being of the same faith with him and always invoking him as a partner in our struggles against the heretics.

The Church of Ancyra, Consolatory. For a long time, the shock of the heaviest tidings of the evil that has befallen has caused us silence. But when we have somewhat recovered from the speechlessness which we have suffered, like those whose ears are stunned by a great thunderclap, we have of necessity groaned over the event and, lamenting in the midst of it, have sent this letter to you, not for the sake of consolation (for what word could be found as a physician for so great a calamity?), but signifying to you, as far as possible, the pain of our heart through this utterance. Now I would have need of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and if there is any other of the blessed men who has passionately bewailed the greatest calamities. A man has fallen, truly a pillar and foundation of the truth; or rather, he himself has been lifted to the blessed life and has departed from us, but there is no small danger that many may fall together with this support being removed and the rottenness of some may become evident. A mouth has been closed that gushed with righteous boldness and with words of grace for the edification of the brotherhood. The counsels of a mind truly moved by God are gone. Oh, how often have I (for I will accuse myself) been moved to indignation against the man, because, having become wholly possessed by the desire to depart and be with Christ, he did not prefer to remain in the flesh for our sake. Upon whom then shall we lay the cares of ecclesiastical affairs? Whom shall we take as a partner in our sorrows? Whom as a sharer in our joy? Oh, the truly dreadful and gloomy desolation! How exactly have we been likened to a pelican of the desert?

But the members of the Church that were joined together, as by some soul, by his leadership into one sympathy and precise communion, are preserved through the bond of peace for spiritual harmony firmly, and will be preserved forever, this being granted by God, that the works of that blessed soul, all that he labored for the Churches of God, remain steadfast and immovable. Yet the struggle is not small, lest some strifes and dissensions again arise over the election of the departed one and overturn all the labor at once from a chance quarrel. To Eusebius, Bishop of Samosata. If I were to write in order all the reasons by which I have been detained up to the present, even though I was very eager to come to your reverence, I would fill an endless length of narrative. I pass over successive illnesses, the burden of winter, and the pressure of affairs, as they are known and have already been made clear to your perfection. But now, the only comfort I had in life, my mother, has also been taken from me by my sins. And do not laugh at me as one lamenting orphanhood at this age, but pardon me for not bearing the separation from a soul patiently, for I see nothing equal to her among those who remain. So my ailments have returned to me, and again I lie on a bed, my strength entirely slight, wavering, and almost every hour expecting the necessary end of life. And the Churches are in a state almost like my body, with no good hope appearing, and things always slipping toward the worse.

For the present, Neocaesarea and Ancyra have seemed to have successors for those who have departed, and up to now they remain quiet. But even to us, those who plot against us have not been permitted up to the present to do anything worthy of their wrath and bitterness. And we openly attribute the cause of this to your embassies on behalf of the Churches. So do not grow weary in praying for the Churches and in beseeching God. Greet abundantly those who have been deemed worthy to serve your holiness. To Eusebius the Bishop. The famine has not yet released us, for which reason our stay in the city is necessary, either for the sake of administration or for compassion toward those who are distressed. Hence even now I was not able to share the journey with the most venerable brother Hypatius, whom I address as brother not merely for the sake of praise, but because of the natural kinship existing between us. For we are of the same blood. What he suffers has not escaped your reverence. But it grieves us that every hope of comfort for him has been cut off, since those who possess the gifts of healing do nothing of their usual practices for him.

to be allowed to act. Therefore, again I call upon the aid of your prayers. But you, be moved to take up your usual role, both on account of your own compassion for the suffering and for our sake who intercede on his behalf, and, if possible, summon the most reverent of the brothers to yourself, so that care for him may be administered under your own eyes; but if this is impossible, deign to send him on with letters and commend him to those ahead. To the Magistrate Sophronius. Our most God-beloved brother Gregory the bishop also suffers from the present circumstances. For he is distressed along with everyone else, being struck by successive outrages, like unexpected blows. For men who do not fear God, perhaps also compelled by the magnitude of the evils, harass him on the grounds that he received Caesar's money from them. And the loss itself is not grievous; for he long ago learned to despise money, but because, having received utterly small amounts from that source, since his life was spent among servants and men no better than servants in character, who, with great license having distributed things of greatest value, preserved only the very least for these; which, thinking it subject to no one, they immediately spent on the needy, both on account of their own choice and on account of the voice of the departed. For he is said to have said this when dying, that I wish all my possessions to become the property of the poor. So, as stewards of the Lord's command, they immediately administered them advantageously, and now there surrounds a Christian's poverty and the meddlesomeness of one of the market people.

Therefore, I have set forth everything to your praiseworthy goodness, so that, honoring the man whom you have known from of old, glorifying the Lord who takes upon himself what befalls his servants, and honoring us who are your special friends, you may speak with the Count of the Treasuries about him as is fitting, and devise with your great wisdom a means of deliverance from these insulting and unbearable harassments. Surely no one is so ignorant of the man as to suspect anything unseemly of him, as though he were clinging to his money and feigning such matters. For the proof of his liberality is at hand. He gladly surrenders the remnants of his property to the treasury, so that his property may be received, while the advocate of the treasury speaks to those who attack him and demands proofs, because of our inexperience in such matters. For it is possible for your perfection to learn that, while he was able, no one went away failing to obtain what he wished, but each received what he sought without trouble, so that many even regretted not having asked for more from the beginning; this especially produced many slanderers. For, looking to the example of those who preceded, one after another succeeds in calumny. Therefore, we entreat your reverence to stand firm against all these things and, like a flood, to check and break the continuity of evils. You know how to help in the matter, so that you need not be taught the method by us, who, through inexperience in worldly affairs, are ignorant even of this very thing—how we might obtain deliverance.

Therefore, be both counselor and protector yourself, devising the form of assistance through your great wisdom. And who else knows how to honor an old friendship, respect virtue, and sympathize with those who labor, as you do? Since, then, matters have befallen our most God-beloved brother, Gregory the bishop, which are not otherwise bearable and especially contrary to his character, it seemed best to us to take refuge in your protection and to find from you some resolution of the calamities. For it is an unbearable calamity to be compelled to say things which one is neither by nature inclined nor willing to say, to be demanded money when one is poor, and to be dragged into the public eye and made a spectacle of, when one has long since decided to pass through life in quiet. Whether it is useful for you to speak with the Count of the Treasuries, or with certain others, would be a matter for your wisdom. To Eusebius, Bishop of Samosata: How could we be silent about present circumstances, or, being unable to endure this, find some speech worthy of what is happening, so that our voice does not resemble a groan, but a lament that adequately indicates the weight of the evil? Tarsus too is lost to us. And this is not the only terrible thing, although it is unbearable; for there is something more grievous than this: that such a great city, so blessed in its prosperity that it unites Isaurians, Cilicians, Cappadocians, and Syrians through itself, should become a mere byproduct of destruction due to the madness of one or two men, while you are waiting, deliberating, and looking at one another.

The best course, then, is according to the physicians' contrivance (and I have great abundance of such examples, due to my constant illness): when the magnitude of the pain exceeds all bounds, they devise insensibility by their art for the sufferer, and for our own souls, so that we may not be overwhelmed by unbearable pains, to pray for insensibility to evils. Nevertheless, even in such a wretched state, we have employed one consolation: to look to your gentleness and, from your thought and memory, to soothe the grieving part of the soul. For just as for the eyes, when they have gazed intently at bright things, it brings some relief to return to the dark and greenish colors, so for our souls, like a gentle touch removing the pain, is the memory of your gentleness and orderliness, especially when we reflect that you have fulfilled everything on your part. By this you have sufficiently shown to us humans, if we judge matters gratefully, that nothing has been lost through your fault, and before God you have acquired for yourself a great reward for your zeal for good things. May the Lord grant you to us and to his Churches, for the benefit of life and the correction of our souls, and may he deem us worthy again of your beneficial company.

Untitled, concerning Leontius. I have written to you about many matters as being of concern to me, and I shall write about even more. For it is not possible for those in need to run out, nor is it possible for us to refuse the favor. There is no one more closely connected to me, nor more able to give me relief in whatever good he might experience, than the most venerable brother Leontius. So arrange his household as you would if you found me myself, not in this poverty in which I now am with God, but possessed of some prosperity and owning fields. For it is clear that you would not have made me poor, but would have preserved my present circumstances or increased my prosperity. Therefore we ask you to do this also in the aforementioned house of the man. The reward for you for all this is the usual one from me, a prayer to the holy God on behalf of your labors, you being good and noble and anticipating the requests of those in need. Untitled, for assistance. The presbyter of this village, I think, has long been known to your nobility, that he is my foster-brother. What else then need I say to entreat your kindness to look upon him favorably and to help him in his affairs? For if you love me, as indeed you do, it is clear that you also choose to give relief with all your power to those whom I have in my own place. What then is it that I ask? That the old tax assessment be preserved for him. For he also labors not a little in serving us for our livelihood, because we, as you yourself know, possess nothing of our own, but are content with what belongs to friends and relatives.

As therefore my own house, or rather as your own, so regard the house of this brother, and in return for your beneficence toward him, God will provide to you and to your house and to your whole family his customary grace. And know that it is very much my concern that the man not be harmed by the equal treatment. THE UNTITLED LETTER CONCERNING A FELLOW NURSLING. I am therefore apprehensive about the multitude of letters. I am compelled to produce them forcibly, not bearing the burden of those who demand that we speak out. Yet I write nonetheless, having no other means of relief than to give them the letters which they ask of us on each occasion. I fear, then, that since many present letters, this brother here may be considered one of the many. For I confess that I have many friends and relatives in my homeland, and that I myself have been placed in the paternal order through this habit which the Lord has assigned to us. But I have this one as a fellow nursling, the son of the woman who reared me, and I pray that the house in which I was raised may remain in a similar state, so that the sojourn of your graciousness, which benefits all, may not become an occasion for grief to the man. But since even now I am still supported from the same house, having nothing of my own but being content with what belongs to my beloved ones, I beg you to spare the household in which I was raised, as preserving for me the provision of my sustenance. And may God deem you worthy of eternal rest in return for these things. But I wish your graciousness to know this as the truest of all: that most of the slaves were given to him by us as payment for our nurture, our parents having provided them.

But the reward is not a complete gift, but a use for life. So, if any burden arises concerning these things, it is possible for him to send them back to us, and we shall again become liable for payments and debtors through another route. To Brother Gregory, On the Difference Between Ousia and Hypostasis. Since many, not distinguishing the commonality of ousia in the mystical doctrines from the account of the hypostases, fall into the same notions and think that there is no difference between saying ousia or hypostasis (whence it has pleased some of those who accept such things without examination, just as they speak of one ousia, so also to speak of one hypostasis, and conversely those who accept the three hypostases think it necessary to dogmatize the division of the ousiai according to the same number from this confession), therefore, lest you also suffer the same, I have made for you a brief memorandum of the account concerning this. Now, as to present in brief, the meaning of the terms is as follows. Of all names, some are said of many things differing in number and have a more universal

has some significance, such as "man." For the one who says this, having indicated the common nature through the name, did not circumscribe by the utterance the particular man, the one individually known by the name. For Peter is no more a man than Andrew, John, and James. Therefore, the commonality of the meaning, extending equally to all those placed under the same name, requires a distinction by which we will recognize not the universal man, but Peter or John. But names have a more specific indication, through which not the commonality of nature is observed in the meaning, but a circumscription of some thing having no communion with the homogeneous, according to the particular, such as Paul or Timothy. For such an utterance no longer moves toward the commonality of nature, but, having separated from the inclusive meaning, presents through the names an impression of circumscribed things. Therefore, when two or more exist under the same thing, such as Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, and a discussion is sought concerning the essence of men, one will not give one account of essence for Paul, another for Silvanus, and another for Timothy, but whatever accounts show the essence of Paul will also apply to the others, and those who are described by the same account of essence are consubstantial with one another. But when someone, having learned the common, turns the contemplation to the particulars by which one is separated from the other, the distinguishing account of each will no longer coincide in all respects with that of the other, even if it is found to have the common in some things. This, then, we say.

the particular thing spoken of is made clear by the word of hypostasis. For the one who said "man" produced in the hearer a certain scattered notion by the indefiniteness of the meaning, so that the nature was indicated by the name, but the subsistent thing individually indicated by the name was not signified. But the one who said "Paul" showed the nature subsisting in the thing indicated by the name. This, then, is hypostasis: not the indefinite concept of substance, which finds no stability from the commonality of the meaning, but that which presents and circumscribes the common and uncircumscribed in a particular thing through the properties that appear, as is customary for Scripture to do in many other places and in the narrative concerning Job. For since it was going to relate the things about him, first having mentioned the common and said "man," it immediately cuts off by the particularizing in the addition of "who." But it passed over in silence the description of substance as bringing no benefit for the present purpose of the discourse, and characterizes the particular through his own distinguishing marks, mentioning both place and the characteristics of character and whatever external things, taken together, were going to separate him and set him apart from the common meaning, so that through all these the clear description of the person being narrated becomes evident from the name, from the place, from the properties of the soul, from the things observed externally about him. But if it had given the account of substance, no mention of the things said would have occurred in the interpretation of nature.

For the same word would have applied to Baldad the Sauchite and Sophar the Minaean and to each of the men mentioned there. Therefore, if you take the principle of difference which you have recognized in our case concerning both substance and hypostasis, and transfer it to the divine doctrines, you will not err. Whatever your mind conceives the being of the Father to be (for it is impossible to fix the soul upon any distinct thought, since it is convinced that it is beyond every thought), you will conceive this also of the Son, and likewise of the Holy Spirit. For the word of the uncreated and the incomprehensible is one and the same for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. For one is not more incomprehensible and uncreated, and another less. But since it is necessary to have an unconfused distinction in the Trinity through the particular signs, we will not include what is commonly contemplated—I mean, for example, the uncreated or that which is beyond all comprehension, or anything of that sort—in the judgment of what is particular, but we will seek only those things by which the conception of each will be clearly and unmixedly separated from that which is contemplated together with it. It seems to me, therefore, to be well to trace the argument in this way. Everything good that reaches us from divine power we say is an energy of the grace that works all in all, as the Apostle says: "All these things the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each individually as it wills.

When we inquire whether the supply of goods, having its beginning from the Holy Spirit alone, thus reaches the worthy, we are again guided by Scripture to believe that the Monogenes God is the originator and cause of the supply of goods that are effected for us through the Spirit. For we have been taught by Holy Scripture that all things have come to be through him and are constituted in him. When, then, we are raised up to that conception as well, we are again led by the divinely inspired guidance and taught that through that power all things are brought from non-being into being, yet not even from that power without beginning, but there is a power ungenerated and without beginning subsisting, which is the cause of the cause of all beings. For from the Father is the Son, through whom are all things, with whom the Holy Spirit is always inseparably conceived. For it is not possible to come to the thought of the Son without being first illumined by the Spirit. Since, therefore, the Holy Spirit, from whom the entire supply of goods flows forth to creation, depends on the Son, with whom it is inseparably comprehended, and has its being attached to the cause of the Father, from whom it also proceeds, it has this as a distinguishing mark of its hypostatic peculiarity: to be known after the Son and together with him, and to subsist from the Father. But the Son, who makes known the Spirit proceeding from the Father through himself and with himself, having shone forth alone in a monogenic manner from the ungenerated light, has no communion with the Father or with the Holy Spirit in the peculiarity of his distinguishing marks, but is known alone by the signs mentioned.

The God over all alone has the distinctive mark of His own hypostasis, that of being Father and of subsisting from no cause, and by this sign He is again known in a unique way. For this reason, we say that in the community of essence the marks contemplated in the Trinity are incompatible and incommunicable, by which the particularity of the persons handed down in the faith is presented, each being apprehended distinctly by its own marks, so that through the said signs the separateness of the hypostases is discovered; but with regard to the infinite and incomprehensible, to being uncreated and not contained in any place, and to all such things, there is no variation in the life-giving nature (I speak of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), but rather a continuous and unbroken communion is observed in them. And by whatever thoughts one might conceive the majesty of any one of those believed in the Holy Trinity, through the same one will proceed without variation to see the glory of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with the mind not faltering in any interval between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For there is nothing interposed between them, neither any subsisting thing other than the divine nature that could divide it from itself by the insertion of something alien, nor any insubstantial void of distance that would cause the harmony of the divine essence with itself to gape, separating the continuity by the insertion of emptiness.

But he who has conceived the Father has conceived Him in Himself and has also taken in the Son together in his thought. And he who has taken this Son has not separated the Spirit, but, following the order while being conjoined in nature, has imprinted in himself the faith of the three blended together at once. And he who has mentioned only the Spirit has included in this confession also that of which the Spirit is. And since the Spirit is of Christ and from God, as Paul says, just as one who grasps one end of a chain draws the other end along with it, so he who draws the Spirit, as the prophet says, has through it drawn along both the Son and the Father. And if one truly takes the Son, he will have Him on both sides, on the one hand bringing His own Father, on the other His own Spirit. For neither can He who is always in the Father be cut off from the Father, nor will He who works all things in it ever be separated from His own Spirit. Likewise, he who receives the Father has also taken in the Son and the Spirit in potentiality. For it is not possible to conceive a cut or division in any way, such that the Son could be thought of apart from the Father or the Spirit be separated from the Son, but some ineffable and inconceivable communion and distinction is apprehended in these, neither does the difference of the hypostases break the continuity of nature, nor does the commonality according to essence dissolve the distinctiveness of the characteristics.

Do not be surprised, then, that we speak of the same thing as both united and distinct, and that we conceive, as if in a riddle, a certain new and paradoxical distinction that is united and a union that is distinct. For if one does not hear the argument contentiously and for the sake of contradiction, it is possible to find such a thing even in the realm of the sensible. And receive my argument as an example and a shadow of the truth, not as the truth of the matters themselves. For it is not possible for what is observed in examples to be applied in every respect to the things for which the use of examples is employed. From what source, then, do we claim that the distinct and the connatural are to be analogized from what appears to us in sensation? Have you ever seen the radiance of the bow in the cloud in springtime—I mean that bow which common speech is accustomed to call the rainbow, which those skilled in these matters say is formed when some moisture is mixed with the air, and the force of the winds squeezes the moist and thick, already cloudy vapor in the vapors into rain? And they say it is formed in this way: when the sun’s ray, running obliquely under the dense and overcast cloud, then, in a straight line, impresses its own circle upon some cloud, a kind of bending and return of the light to itself occurs, as the gleam rebounds from the moist and shining surface.

Since the nature of fiery sparks is such that, if they fall upon some smooth surface, they are reflected back upon themselves, and this circular shape is produced by the ray in the moist and smooth part of the air, it necessarily follows that, according to the shape of the solar circle, the air adjacent to the cloud is also circumscribed by the gleaming radiance. This radiance, then, is both continuous with itself and divided. For being many-colored and many-formed, it imperceptibly blends with itself through the varied hues of its dye, stealing from our vision the meeting of the differently colored parts with one another in a hidden manner, so that it is impossible to discern the intermediate place that both mixes and separates the difference of colors—between the blue and the fiery, or between the fiery and the purple, or between that and the amber. For all their rays, when seen together, are both clear and, by concealing the signs of their mutual conjunction, escape detection, so that it is impossible to discover how far the fiery or the emerald gleam extends and from what point it begins no longer to be such as it appears in the clear light. Just as, then, in this example we clearly discern the differences of colors, yet it is not possible for perception to grasp the separation of one from the other, so consider it possible for me to do likewise concerning divine doctrines.

to be considered: the particularities of the hypostases, like some flower of the phenomena seen in the rainbow, flash forth upon each of the things believed in the Holy Trinity, while no difference of one from the other is conceived in the property according to nature, but the distinctive properties shine forth in each in the commonality of the essence. For there too in the example, the one essence was that which radiates that many-colored radiance, refracted through the sun's ray, while the flower of the phenomenon is multiform, the discourse teaching us even through creation not to be empty-minded in the arguments concerning the doctrine, when we fall into the difficulty of contemplation and grow dizzy at the assent to what is said. For just as in the case of things visible to the eyes, experience proved stronger than the account of the cause, so also in the case of doctrines that transcend, faith is stronger than apprehension through reasonings, teaching both the separation in hypostasis and the conjunction in essence. Since, then, the discourse has observed something common in the Holy Trinity and something particular, the account of commonality is referred to essence, while hypostasis is the sign of the particular in each. But perhaps someone thinks that the account given concerning hypostasis does not agree with the meaning of the Apostle's writing where he says concerning the Lord: "the radiance of his glory and the character of his hypostasis.

If we have defined hypostasis as the concurrence of the particularities around each one, and it is agreed that, just as in the case of the Father there is something distinctively contemplated through which he alone is known, so in the same manner it is believed concerning the Only-begotten, how then does Scripture here ascribe the name of hypostasis to the Father alone, while it calls the Son a form of the hypostasis, characterized not by his own but by the Father's distinguishing marks? For if hypostasis is the sign of the distinctive character of each one's existence, and it is agreed that the Father's peculiarity is to be unbegotten, and the Son is formed by the Father's particularities, then it no longer remains that the term "unbegotten" is said of the Father alone by way of exception, if the existence of the Only-begotten is also characterized by the Father's distinctive feature. But we say that the Apostle's discourse here fulfills another purpose, toward which he looked when he used these expressions, speaking of a radiance of glory and a character of the hypostasis; and whoever understands this accurately will find nothing conflicting with what we have said, but rather that the argument is carried on with a certain distinctive meaning. For the apostolic discourse does not aim at how the hypostases might be distinguished from each other by the signs that appear, but rather at how the genuine, undivided, and connected relationship of the Son to the Father might be understood. For he did not say:

Who is the glory of the Father," and yet while the truth is thus, leaving this aside as agreed, teaching that one should not conceive of one form of glory in the Father and another in the Son, he defines the glory of the Only-Begotten as the radiance of the Father's own glory, constructing from the example of light that the Son is conceived together with the Father without interval. For just as from the flame there is the radiance, yet the radiance is not posterior to the flame, but the flame shone forth and the light was simultaneously radiated, so he intends that the Son is conceived from the Father, yet the Only-Begotten is not separated by any spatial extension from the Father's existence, but one always understands together with the cause that which is from it. In the same manner, then, as if interpreting the previously given meaning, he speaks of the character of hypostasis, guiding us by bodily examples to the understanding of the invisible. For just as a body is entirely in a shape, but the definition of the shape is one and that of the body another, and no one giving the definition of each of these would coincide with that of the other, yet even if you distinguish the shape from the body in thought,

body, nature does not admit of separation, but one is conceived together with the other in conjunction. Thus the Apostle thinks: even if the word of faith teaches the distinction of the hypostases as unconfused and separate, yet he also presents the closeness and, as it were, natural affinity of the Only-begotten to the Father through the things said, not as if the Only-begotten were not in a hypostasis, but as not admitting any interval of his own union with the Father; so that one who has gazed upon the character of the Only-begotten through the eyes of the soul may also come to a perception of the hypostasis of the Father, the property observed in them not being interchanged or commingled, so as to ascribe generation to the Father or ungenerateness to the Son, but as it being impossible to separate one from the other and apprehend the remainder alone by itself. For it is not possible to name the Son without also coming to a perception of the Father, since this appellation relatively also implies the Father. Therefore, since he who has seen the Son sees the Father, as the Lord says in the Gospels, for this reason he says that the Only-begotten is the character of the hypostasis of the Father. And that the meaning may be better understood, we will also adduce other utterances of the Apostle in which he calls him the image of the invisible God and again the image of his goodness, not because the image differs from the archetype in respect of the notion of invisibility and goodness, but to show that it is the same as the prototype, even if it is other.

For the logic of the image would not be preserved unless it possessed clarity and identity in all respects. Therefore, one who has contemplated the beauty of the image comes to a perception of the archetype. And one who has taken in his mind the form, as it were, of the Son has imprinted the character of the Father's hypostasis, seeing through the Son the Father, not beholding the ungenerateness of the Father in the likeness (for then it would be entirely identical and not different), but having observed the unbegotten beauty in the begotten. Just as one who has perceived the reflection of a form in a clear mirror has obtained a clear knowledge of the person depicted, so one who has known the Son has received in his heart the character of the Father's hypostasis through the knowledge of the Son. For all that is the Father's is seen in the Son, and all that is the Son's belongs to the Father, since the whole Son remains in the Father and again has the whole Father in himself. Thus the hypostasis of the Son becomes, as it were, the form and face for the recognition of the Father, and the hypostasis of the Father is recognized in the form of the Son, while the property contemplated in them remains for the clear distinction of the hypostases.

Julianus to Basilius. The proverb says, "You do not announce war," and I would add from comedy, "O gold of words you have announced." Come then, show this in deeds and hasten to us. For you will arrive as a friend to a friend. The common and continuous occupation with affairs seems somehow burdensome to those who make it a secondary matter, but those who share in the care are fair-minded, as I persuade myself, and cooperative and altogether capable for everything. I therefore grant myself ease, so that I may neglect nothing and rest. For we associate with each other not only with that courtly pretense which I think you have experienced up to now, according to which they praise while hating with a hatred as great as that for the most hostile enemies, but with the appropriate freedom toward each other, both refuting, when necessary, and reproaching, while loving each other no less than the most intimate companions. Hence it is possible for us (may envy be absent) to be serious while relaxed and not to be distressed while being serious, and to sleep without fear, since even when awake I am awake not more for myself than for all others, as is reasonable. These things I have perhaps chattered and babbled to you, having suffered something foolish (for I praised myself like Astydamas), but I have written these things in order to persuade you that your presence will rather advance our cause, as that of a prudent man, than take away anything from the occasion. Hasten then, as I said, using the public post. After spending time with us for as long as you wish, you will go wherever you desire, sent by us as is fitting.

Julianus to Basilius. Displaying the innate calmness and love of humanity that I have had from childhood, I have up to the present won over as subjects those dwelling under the sun. For behold, every race of barbarians as far as the boundaries of the Ocean has come bearing gifts to me. Likewise also the Sagadares, reared around the Danube, the beautifully variegated and pure-formed ones, to whom there is no sight of men but a wild form, even they prostrate themselves at my footprints, promising to do those things that befit my reign. But you, beyond the power of these, have thought fit, while claiming to be clothed in reverence, to take on shamelessness and to proclaim everywhere that I am unworthy of the Roman empire. Or do you not know? I happen to be a descendant of Constans the most mighty, and because of these words spoken to me concerning you, I do not even at present depart from the disposition toward you which I and you, while still young, shared together in the best letters. And now behold, with calm purpose I decree that a thousand pounds of gold be sent to me by you, as I am about to set out on the Persian war, while I am still on the highway. Therefore, having counted out and weighed the aforementioned gold, send it through a trusted man of your own, sealed with your ring, so that, even if late, you may become calmer concerning what has been sent, I being ready to dig up the entire city of Caesarea and overturn its cultivated works, and to set up temples and altars in every place, and to persuade those dwelling in it to yield to the Roman emperor and not to be arrogant. For what I have read, I have condemned.

Basilius to Julianus. Your brave deeds in your present fortune are small, and the prowess you have displayed is paltry—not against us, but against yourself. For I am seized with great trembling whenever I call to mind that you have put on the purple robe and that your dishonorable head is adorned with a crown, which, without piety, renders the kingdom not honorable but dishonorable. No one has ever been seen more ridiculous than you, so that, having returned and become exceedingly great, from where base and beauty-hating demons dragged you into this, you not only think beyond all nature but also exalt yourself against God, and attempt to insult the Church, the nurse and mother of all, by sending me, the most insignificant, a message demanding that ten hundred pounds of gold be dispatched to you from us. And the weight of the gold did not astonish my mind, even though it is very great, but it caused me to weep bitterly over your swift ruin. For I have reflected on how you and I together learned the most beautiful letters and jointly went through the divinely inspired Scriptures, and then—

Nothing escaped your notice, but now you have become unadorned, encamped as you are by such a mindset. For you knew that we, yesterday, were not suffering from insatiable greed for money, and now, behold, in the present situation you have demanded from us a thousand pounds of gold to be sent to you. Therefore, most excellent one, be willing to spare us, who possess so much that, if we wished to eat, it would not suffice for us. For the art of cooks is idle among us, and their knife does not come into contact with blood. The best of our foods are leaves of vegetables with a very small loaf and sour wine, so that our senses, not being stunned by gluttony, may not conduct themselves with insatiable greed. And Laüsos, your distinguished tribune, who has been allotted to you for your earnest pursuits, reported to us that a certain woman made an approach to your Serenity concerning the destruction of her child who had been poisoned, and that it has been judged by you that sorcerers are nowhere to exist and, if they exist, are to be put to death, but that only those are to live whose battle is with wild beasts. And this, rightly judged by you, has appeared strange to me. For such a thing is full of absurdity: how you attempt to heal the greatest of grievous wounds with small remedies. For one who dares to insult God makes vain provision for widows and orphans. For the former is mad and dangerous, the latter characteristic of a compassionate and rational person. But it is burdensome for us to speak to an emperor, being private citizens, and it will be even more burdensome for you to speak thus to God. For who could be found as a mediator between God and men?

To Chilon, his own disciple. I will be the cause of a saving matter for you, genuine brother, if you are gladly advised by us on what is to be done, especially concerning those things about which you yourself have asked us to advise you. For many have perhaps dared to begin the solitary life, but few have perhaps labored to complete it worthily. And the end assuredly does not lie in the intention alone, but the profit of the labors lies in the end. Therefore, there is no benefit for those who do not press on toward the goal of their purpose, but stop only at the beginning of the monastic life; indeed, they also leave their own intention laughable, being accused of cowardice and thoughtlessness by outsiders. For the Lord also says concerning such persons: "Who, wishing to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the expense, whether he has the means for completion? Lest, having laid a foundation and being unable to finish, passersby begin to mock him, saying, 'This man laid a foundation and was unable to complete it.'" Therefore, let the beginning eagerly have its progress toward the achievement. For the most noble athlete Paul, wishing us not to be anxious about past goods, but to advance day by day, says: "Forgetting the things behind, and stretching out toward the things ahead, I pursue the prize of the upward calling according to the goal." For such is the whole of human life, not content with what has been attained, but nourished not so much by what has been attained as by what is to come.

For what benefit is yesterday's fullness of the belly to a man, when today the natural hunger finds no proper solace of food? So then, neither is the soul's gain from yesterday's right action, when today's righteous conduct is lacking. "For as I find you," it says, "so I will judge you." Therefore, the labor of the righteous man is vain, and the way of the sinner is blameless, if a change occurs, the one having changed from better to worse, the other from worse to better. These things are also to be heard from Ezekiel, as from the mouth of the Lord, when he teaches: "For if," he says, "the righteous man, turning aside, commits a fault, I will not remember the righteous deeds he did, but he will die in his sin." And he says the same about the sinner: "If, having turned back, he does righteousness, he will live a life in it." For where are the many labors of Moses the servant, when a moment's contradiction canceled his entry into the promised land? And where is Gehazi's association with Elisha, when he drew leprosy upon himself for the sake of love of money? And what benefit was the abundance of wisdom to Solomon and his prior such conception of God, when later, from his woman-madness, he fell into idolatry? But not even the blessed David did his exaltation leave blameless, because of his offense regarding Uriah.

The fall of Judas from the better to the worse is sufficient to secure the one who lives according to God, for he, after being a disciple of Christ for so long, later sold the Teacher for a small gain and procured a noose for himself. Let this therefore be known to you, brother, that it is not the one who begins well who is perfect, but the one who ends well who is approved before God. "Do not therefore give sleep to your eyes, brother, nor drowsiness to your eyelids," that you may "be saved like a gazelle from snares and like a bird from a trap." For see that you walk in the midst of snares and walk upon a high wall, whence the fall is not without danger for the one who falls. Do not therefore immediately stretch yourself to the extremity of asceticism; above all, do not trust yourself, lest from inexperience you fall from the height of asceticism. For gradual progress is better. Little by little, then, steal the pleasures of life, effacing from yourself every habit, lest you ever stir up all the pleasures at once and bring upon yourself a crowd of temptations. When you have overcome one passion of pleasure by force, then array yourself against another pleasure, and thus you will overcome all pleasures in due time. For pleasure has one name, but the things are many. Therefore, brother, be first of all patient in every temptation. And by what kinds of temptations is the faithful one tested? By worldly losses, accusations, falsehoods, disobediences, slanders, persecutions. By these and such things is the faithful one tested.

Then also be quiet, not hasty in speech, not contentious, not quarrelsome, not vainglorious, not fond of explaining, but faithful; not verbose, but always ready, not for teaching, but for learning. Do not pry into worldly lives, from which you gain no benefit. For it is said: "So that my mouth may not speak the deeds of men." For one who speaks gladly of the deeds of sinners readily stirs up pleasures against himself. Rather, busy yourself with the life of the righteous; for thus you will find benefit for yourself. Do not be a show-off, going around villages or houses, but flee from these as snares for souls. But if someone, out of great reverence, urges you to enter his house for many reasons, let such a person learn to follow the faith of the centurion who, when Jesus was hastening to him for the sake of healing, declined, saying: "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only speak a word and my son will be healed." And when Jesus said to him: "Go, let it be as you have believed," the son was healed from that hour. Let this therefore be known to you, brother, that it was not the presence of Christ, but the faith of the one asking that freed the sick man. So also now, with you praying in whatever place you are, and the sick man believing that he will be helped by your prayers, everything will turn out for him as he desires. But do not love your own people more than the Lord. For it is said: "He who loves father or mother or brothers more than me is not worthy of me." And what does the Lord's commandment mean?

If anyone," he says, "does not take up his cross and follow me, he cannot be my disciple." If you have died with Christ from your relatives according to the flesh, why do you wish to move again among them? And if you rebuild through your relatives what you have broken down for Christ, you make yourself a transgressor. Do not, therefore, depart from your place on account of a debt to your relatives; for in departing from your place, you may perhaps depart from your way. Do not be fond of crowds, do not be fond of places, do not be fond of cities, but be fond of solitude, always remaining with yourself without distraction, considering prayer and psalmody as your work. Do not neglect the readings, especially the New Testament, because from the Old Testament harm often arises—not that it was written harmfully, but because the mind of those harmed is weak. For every bread is nourishing, but it is harmful to those who are ill. Thus, "every Scripture is inspired and beneficial," and nothing through it is common, except to the one who considers it common, to him it is common. "Test everything, hold fast to the good, abstain from every form of evil." "For all things are permitted, but not all things are beneficial." Be, therefore, unobjectionable, gracious, brotherly, pleasant, and humble to those you meet in all things, not falling short of the purpose of hospitality through costly foods, but being content with what is at hand; take nothing more from anyone than the daily need of the solitary life. And especially flee gold as a plotter against the soul and father of sin, and servant of the devil.

Do not, under the pretext of service to the poor, place yourself under the yoke of love of money. If someone brings you money for the sake of the poor, and you know of some who are in need, advise that very person to whom the money belongs to carry it to the needy brothers, lest the reception of the money defile your conscience. Flee pleasures, pursue self-control, and exercise the body with labors, accustom the soul to trials. Considering the dissolution of body and soul as a release from every evil, await the enjoyment of eternal goods, of which all the saints have become partakers. And you, ceaselessly weighing, set the pious reasoning against the diabolical thought, as if on a balance, yielding to this by the inclination of the scale. And especially when the evil thought rises up and says: "What benefit is there for you in this manner of life in this place? What profit is there for you in the withdrawal from the company of men? Or have you not known that the bishops appointed by God for the Churches of God live together with men in the customary way and ceaselessly perform spiritual festivals, in which, above all, benefit comes to those who are present? For there are revelations of proverbial riddles, solutions of apostolic teachings, exposition of evangelical meanings, hearing of theology, spiritual encounters with brothers which, from the sight of the face, provide great benefit to those who meet them. And you, having made yourself a stranger to so many goods, sit here, perhaps wild as the beasts.

For you see here great quiet, not a little inhumanity, a lack of teaching, estrangement from brothers, and the spirit having much idleness concerning the commandment of God. Therefore, when such and so many seemingly plausible pretexts arise and the evil thought wishes to break you down, oppose it through pious reasoning with the experience of the matter, saying: "Since you tell me that the things in the world are good, for this reason I have settled here, having judged myself unworthy of the good things of the world. For the bad is mixed with the good things of the world, and the bad prevails. For having once been present at spiritual festivals, I barely encountered one brother who, while seeming to fear the Lord, was held by the devil, and I heard from him clever words and fabricated tales for the deception of those who met him. And after him I encountered many thieves, plunderers, tyrants. I saw the unseemly form of drunkards, the blood of the oppressed. I also saw the beauty of women