Letter 30

30. To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata.

If I were to write out one after another all the reasons by which I have been held back up to the present, eager though I am to come to your reverence, I should fill out the length of an endless history. The successive illnesses, the harshness of the winter, the press of affairs — these I forbear to mention, since they are known and have already been declared to your perfection. But now I have been deprived even of my mother, the one consolation I had in life — and this too taken from me because of my sins. And do not laugh at me as though, at this age, I were bewailing an orphan's lot; but pardon me if I cannot endure with composure the parting from a soul whose equal I see in none of those left to me. So again my ailments have returned to me, and again I lie upon my bed, tossing upon strength altogether small, and all but expecting, with every hour, the necessary end of life.

And the churches are in nearly the same condition as my body — no good hope showing itself anywhere, while affairs ever slide away toward the worse. Yet for now Neocaesarea and Ancyra have seemed to have successors to those who have departed, and up to this moment they are at rest. But neither have those who plot against us been permitted, up to the present, to do anything worthy of their anger and bitterness; and the cause of this we plainly ascribe to your embassies on behalf of the churches. Therefore do not grow weary in praying for the churches and in entreating God. Give my warmest greetings to those who have been counted worthy to minister to your holiness.