Letter 154

154. To Ascholius, bishop of Thessalonica

You have done well, and in accordance with the law of spiritual love, in taking the lead in writing to me and, by your good example, summoning me to a like zeal. For the friendship of the world needs eyes and meeting, that from there a beginning of intimacy may arise; but those who know how to love spiritually do not use the flesh as the broker of their friendship, but are led by the communion of faith to spiritual union. Thanks, then, to the Lord, who has comforted my heart by showing that love has not grown cold in all men, but that there are somewhere in the world those who display the stamp of the discipleship of Christ. And indeed it seemed to me that your situation resembles the stars in their nightly conjunction, shining out in different quarters of the heaven — whose brightness is delightful, but whose unexpectedness, surely, is more delightful still. Such are you also, you luminaries of the churches, altogether few and easily numbered in this gloomy state of things, shining as it were in a moonless dark; and beyond the charm that comes from your virtue, you have besides the quality of being longed for through the rarity of finding you.

Your letter made your disposition sufficiently known to me. For though it was small in the number of its syllables, yet by the uprightness of its thought it gave me a sufficient proof of your purpose. For to have been earnest in the cause of the most blessed Athanasius is the clearest sign of being sound in the greatest matters. In return, then, for the gladness your letter brought, I owe much gratitude to my most honoured son Euphemius; for whom I myself also pray that every help may come from the Holy One. And I beg you to join your prayers with mine, that we may receive him back speedily, together with his most decorous yokefellow, who is our daughter in the Lord. And be entreated yourself not to set the limit of my gladness at its very beginning, but, on every occasion that offers, to write, and by the frequency of our converse to increase your disposition toward me; and to indicate how the affairs of your churches stand as regards their concord. As for affairs here, pray that with us too there may come a great calm, when the Lord has rebuked the wind and the sea.