Letter 28

28. To the church of Neocaesarea, in consolation.

What had befallen demanded our own presence, both that we might join with you, his nearest kin, in rendering the honour due to the blessed man, and that, from the very sight of those in mourning, we might share in the dejection occasioned by the loss, and that we might take part with you in your necessary deliberations. But since many things hindered our bodily presence, it remained for us to share with you, by letter, in what has come to pass.

Now the wonders of the man — on whose account above all we reckon our loss to be past bearing — no measure of a letter could contain; and in any case it is untimely to bring forward a discourse upon the multitude of his noble deeds when our soul has so collapsed beneath grief. For which of his deeds is of such a kind that it would be fitting either to let it fall from our memory or to pass it over in silence? To tell them all at once, in a single stroke, is impossible; and to tell them in part, I fear, would carry a betrayal of the truth. There has departed from us a man who, most conspicuously of all in his own time, surpassed all human goods together — a support of his country, an ornament of the churches, a pillar and ground of the truth, a stay of faith in Christ, a security to his own, most hard to fight against for his adversaries, a guardian of the laws of the fathers, an enemy of innovation; showing in himself the ancient form of the Church, and shaping the appearance of the church under him after the model of the ancient order, as from some sacred and venerable image, so that those who lived with him seemed to have lived with the men who shone forth like luminaries two hundred years ago and more.

Thus the man brought forward nothing of his own, nothing that was the discovery of a more recent mind, but, according to the blessing of Moses, he knew how to bring forth from the inner shrine of his heart, out of good treasures, old things and old, and old things from before the face of the new. For this reason also he was deemed worthy of precedence in the assemblies of his peers, not according to his age, but he stood above them all by the antiquity of his wisdom, reaping the first place by common consent. How great is the gain of such a training, no one would inquire who looks to you. For you alone, of those we know — or at most among very few — have, through his steering, led a life unshaken in so great a storm and tempest of affairs. For the squall of heretical spirits never touched you, that brings drownings and shipwrecks upon souls easily overturned. And may it never touch you, O Master of all things, who to your servant Gregory, who from the beginning laid the foundation of the Church, gave the grace of an untroubled calm reaching over the longest time.

Do not you betray that grace in the present moment; nor, by immoderate lamentation and by giving yourselves over to grief, surrender the seasons of what is necessary to those who lie in wait. But if you must by all means lament — though indeed I say you must not, that we may not in this be made like those who have no hope — yet, if it seems good to you, like some mourning chorus setting your leader at your head, weep over what has befallen more tunefully, in concert with him.

And yet, even if the man had not been driven to extreme old age, still, for the length of his oversight over you, he was not wanting in years of life. And of his body he partook only so far as to show through it the endurance of his soul amid his sufferings. But perhaps one of you might suppose that time too is an increase of fellow-feeling and an addition of affection, not an occasion of satiety to those who have had the experience, so that, the longer the time in which you have known his benefaction, the more keenly you feel his loss. Yet to the devout even the shadow of a righteous body is worth the whole. And may there be many of you of this mind. For neither do I myself say that one ought to be indifferent toward the man, but I counsel you to bear the grief in human measure; since whatever can be said by those who bewail the loss does not escape even me.

The tongue is silent that flooded the ears like rivers; and the depth of his heart, for now grasped by no one, has flown away, departing, weaker than dreams so far as men are concerned. Who was keener than he to foresee the future? Who, in so steady and firm a temper of soul, was able to come upon affairs quicker than lightning? O city, already overtaken by many sufferings, yet by none so wounded in the very vitals of your life! Now has the fairest ornament withered away from you; the church is shut up, the festivals are gloomy, the sacred council longs for its chief; the mystical words await their expounder, the children their father, the elders their contemporary, the magistrates their leader, the people their patron, those in need of sustenance their nourisher; all calling upon him by the names dearest to them, each over his own grief raises a lament of his own and proper to himself.

But where is my discourse carried away by the pleasure of weeping? Shall we not sober ourselves? Shall we not become our own again? Shall we not look to the common Master, who, having entrusted each of the saints to serve his own generation, has called them back again to himself at the fitting times? Now is the time to remember his words, who, in addressing you in assembly, always charged you, saying, Beware 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, who everywhere throughout the world tear apart the flock of Christ. Against these you must be on guard, under the oversight of some watchful shepherd. Him it is yours to ask, keeping your souls pure of all contentiousness and love of pre-eminence, and the Lord's to appoint — who, from the great patron of your church, Gregory, down to this blessed man, by adding ever one upon another and fitting them together, as from some joining of precious stones, has bestowed upon your church a beauty wonderful to behold. So that one must not despair of those to come. For the Lord knows those who are his, and would bring into your midst those whom we, perhaps, do not expect.

Long now have I wished to make an end of speaking, but the pain of my heart does not permit it. Yet I charge you, by the fathers, by the right faith, by this blessed man, to rouse up your soul, each one judging the common concern to be his own, and reckoning that he himself will be the first to reap the outcome, whichever way affairs turn; and not, as happens with the many, to thrust off the care of common things upon his neighbour, and then, with each one slighting affairs in his own thought, that all should, unawares, draw down upon themselves a private evil through their negligence.

These things, whether as the sympathy of neighbours, or as the fellowship of those who share the same faith, or — what is truer — of those who obey the law of love and shun the danger that comes of keeping silent, receive with all goodwill, being persuaded that you are our boast, as we are yours, in the day of the Lord; and that, by the shepherd who shall be given to you, we shall either be the more united in the bond of love, or else come to complete separation — which may it not be, nor shall it be, by the grace of God, nor would I myself now utter anything of ill omen. But this we wish you to know, that even though we did not have the blessed man as one running together with us toward the peace of the churches — owing to certain prejudices, as he himself assured us — yet, in our agreement of faith with him and in his always calling us a partner in the struggles against the heretics, we never, with God as witness and with the men who have had experience of us, at any time fell short.