Letter 138

138. To Eusebius, Bishop of Samosata

What state of soul do you think I was in when I received the letter of your Reverence? For if I looked to the affection in the letter, I straightway set out to fly to the land of the Syrians; but if to the sickness of body by which I lay fettered, I felt myself in want not only of flying but even of turning over on my bed. For this was the fiftieth day I was passing in illness, on which our beloved and most zealous brother Elpidius, the co-deacon, came to us; greatly wasted by the fever which, for want of material to feed it, wrapped itself about this dry flesh as about a burnt-out wick, and brought on a wasting and lingering sickness. And next, my old affliction, this liver of mine, taking over, shut me off from food, drove sleep from my eyes, and held me on the borders of life and death, granting me only so much life as to be conscious of the troubles that come from it. So I had recourse even to naturally hot waters, and submitted to certain attentions from physicians. But this violent malady confounded them all; for if the habit of it is present, another man might bear it, but when it falls on one unaccustomed, no one is so adamantine as to hold out against it.

Long troubled by it, I was never so grieved as now, when I was hindered by it from meeting your true love. For what gladness of heart we were deprived of I know full well, since with the very tip of my finger I tasted last year the sweetest honey of the church among you.

I, moreover, for the sake of other pressing matters too, needed to come together with your Reverence, and to take counsel about many things and to learn many things. For there is no finding here even true love; and even when one finds someone who loves greatly, there is no one able, in a manner approaching your perfect wisdom and the experience which you have gathered from many labours about the churches, to give us counsel concerning what lies before us.

The other matters, then, I could not write; but those things which it is safe to set forth are these. The presbyter Evagrius, son of Pompeianus of Antioch, who once set out with the blessed Eusebius for the West, has now returned from Rome, demanding of us a letter containing word for word the very things written by those of the West (for he brought back to us our own letter, as not having satisfied the more exacting among them there), and that an embassy be at once pressed forward through men of repute, so that the men may have a respectable pretext for our being visited.

Those at Sebasteia who hold our views, having laid bare the festering sore of the false doctrine of Eustathius, demand of us some ecclesiastical attention.

Iconium is a city of Pisidia, in old times the first after the greatest, but now it too presides over a district which, gathered from various sections, has received the administration of its own province. This city calls upon us also for a visitation, to give it a bishop; for Faustinus has died.

Whether, then, one should not shrink from ordinations beyond one's borders, and what answer should be given to the Sebastenes, and how one should be disposed towards the proposals of Evagrius — about all this I needed to be instructed by meeting your Honour in person, of which I have been deprived through my present weakness. If, then, it be possible to come upon someone arriving here quickly, deign to send me answers about everything; but if not, pray that what is pleasing to the Lord may come into my mind. And in the synod bid that mention be made of us, and pray yourself for us, and take the people with you, that we may be counted worthy to serve, during the remaining days or hours of our sojourn, as is pleasing to the Lord.