Letter 136

136. To Eusebius, Bishop of Samosata

In what condition the good Isaaces found us, he will himself relate to you better than I can, even if his tongue is not adequate to set forth in tragic style the overpowering excess of my sufferings, so great was the magnitude of my illness. And what is likely is clear to everyone who knows me even a little. For if, in my seeming good health, I was weaker for living than those given up for dead, one may judge what I must have been in sickness. And yet it ought to have been (grant pardon to a fever that mocks me) that, since to be ill was natural to me, in this change of condition the better part of health should now have remained to me. But since it is a scourge of the Lord, intensifying my pain with additions proportioned to my deserts, I acquired weakness upon weakness, so that henceforth it is plain even to a child that of all necessity this husk of ours must depart — unless, perhaps, the loving-kindness of God, granting us in his long-suffering time for repentance, should now too, as often before, work some release and a way out from desperate troubles. Let these things, then, be as is pleasing to him and profitable to us.

But as for how the affairs of the churches are perishing and being sold for nothing, while we, for the sake of our own security, overlook our neighbours' concerns and cannot even see this — that with the common misfortune each man's interest too is lost together — what need is there to speak? Especially to a man who, foreseeing each thing from afar, both bore witness beforehand and proclaimed it, and yourself rose up first and roused up the rest as well, writing, coming in person, leaving nothing undone, uttering every cry — things which we remember at each new event, but profit by no longer. And now, had not my sins stood in my way — first our most reverend and beloved brother Eustathius the co-deacon, falling into a grievous sickness, kept me waiting two whole months, watching day by day for his recovery; then all who were with me fell sick, of whom brother Isaaces will recount the remnants; and last of all I myself was held by this disease — else I should long ago have been with your Honour, not that I could be of any use to the common cause, but that I might gain for myself great profit from meeting you. For I had resolved to get beyond the reach of ecclesiastical missiles, because of our defencelessness against the machinations of our opponents. May the great hand of God preserve you to all your life, noble guardian of the faith and watchful champion of the churches; and may he count us worthy, before our departure, of meeting you, for the profit of our souls.