Letter 198

198. To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata.

After the letter brought to us by the officials, I received one other afterwards sent to us. We ourselves have written — not many letters, indeed, because we did not even succeed in finding people travelling to you, but yet more than four — among which we forwarded to the most reverend brother Leontius, the assessor of Nicaea, those letters brought to us from Samosata sealed under the first writings of your piety, asking through him that they be conveyed to the steward of the house of the most reverend brother Sophronius, so that he might take charge of their delivery to you. Since, then, the letters pass through many hands, it is likely that the engagements or negligence of some one person became the cause of your reverence not receiving them. So pardon us, we beg, for the scarcity of letters.

As for the fact that, when it was needful to send someone from among ourselves, we did not do this — you yourself, with your own discernment, rightly inquired after it and reproached us; but know that the winter in our parts was so severe that all the roads were closed until the days of Easter, and that we have no one of bold disposition toward the hardships of the journey. For even though our clergy seems somehow to be numerous, yet they are men unpractised in travel, since they neither engage in trade nor choose to dwell abroad, but most of them handle the sedentary crafts, having from there their means of daily life. So, for instance, this brother whom we have now sent to your reverence — we summoned him from the country and made use of him as bearer of the letters to your holiness, that he may both clearly announce our affairs, and convey to us, by the grace of God, plainly and quickly, the news from there. And our most beloved brother Eusebius the reader, who has long been eager to go to your piety, we have kept back, awaiting the mildness of the weather. And even now I am in no slight anxiety, lest his being unaccustomed to travel produce some strain on him, and provide a cause of sickness to a body easily disposed toward weakness.

As for the innovations in the East, it is superfluous for us to indicate them by letter, since the brethren themselves are well able to report them of their own knowledge. But know, head most honoured by me, that when I was writing these things, I was so wretchedly disposed that henceforth all my hopes of living had failed. For it is not even possible to recount the multitude of the symptoms that came upon me, and the weakness, and the greatness of the fevers, and how malignant they were; only that out of all of them one conclusion is gathered: that the time of our sojourning in this wretched and painful life is at last fulfilled.