Letter 29

29. To the church of Ancyra, in consolation.

The shock of the most grievous tidings of the evil that has befallen imposed upon us a long silence. But now that we have somewhat recovered from the speechlessness which we suffered — like men struck dumb in their hearing by a great thunderclap — we have of necessity groaned over what has happened, and, lamenting all the while, have sent forth this letter to you; not for the sake of consolation (for what word could be found to heal so great a calamity?), but to signify to you by this voice, as far as we are able, the pain of our heart. Now I had need of the laments of Jeremiah, or of any other of the blessed men who, with feeling, bewailed the magnitude of a calamity.

A man has fallen who was truly a pillar and ground of the Church; or rather, he himself, lifted up to the blessed life, has departed from us; but the danger is not small that many, when this support has been taken from under them, may fall together with it, and the unsoundness of some be laid bare. There is closed a mouth of righteous boldness, teeming with words of grace for the building up of the brotherhood. Gone are the counsels of a mind that was truly moved in God. Oh, how many times — for I will accuse myself — it came over me to be vexed at the man, that, having become wholly given to the desire to depart and to be with Christ, he did not, for our sake, prefer to remain in the flesh. Upon whom, now, are we to lay off the cares of the churches? Whom shall we take as a partner in our griefs? Whom as a sharer of our gladness? Oh, the dreadful and gloomy desolation indeed! How exactly have we been made like a pelican of the wilderness!

But surely the members of the Church that were joined together — as it were by a single soul, his oversight, fitted into one fellow-feeling and exact communion — are kept firmly, through the bond of peace, in their spiritual jointure, and will be kept so forever; God granting that the works of that blessed soul, all that he contended for on behalf of the churches of God, abide steadfast and unmoved. Yet the struggle is not small, lest again certain rivalries and dissensions, kindled over the choice of the one who is to preside, should overturn all the labour together through some chance quarrel.