Letter 58

58. To his brother Gregory.

How could I do battle with you by letter? How could I rebuke you worthily for your kindness in all things? Tell me, who is caught a third time in the same nets? Who falls a third time into the same snare? Not even one of the brute beasts would easily suffer this. You fabricated a letter for me and brought it as though from the most reverend bishop and our common uncle, deceiving me — I know not why. I received it as brought by you from the bishop. For why should I not have? Out of excessive joy I showed it to many of my friends; I gave thanks to God. The fabrication was exposed, the bishop himself with his own voice disowning it. We were put to shame over it; we prayed that the earth might open beneath us, having been clothed in the reproach of trickery and falsehood and deceit. A second time again they delivered me a letter, as sent from the bishop himself by the hand of your servant Asterius. Neither did the bishop truly send that one, as our most reverend brother Anthimus reported to us. A third time again Adamantius came to us bringing one. How was I to receive the things sent through you and your people? I could have prayed to have a heart of stone, so as neither to remember the past nor to feel the present — to bear every blow with my head bowed to the earth, like the cattle. But what am I to do against my own reason, which after one and a second trial can no longer admit anything without examination?

I have written these things in reproach of your simplicity, which, though in no way fitting for Christians otherwise, I see to be unsuited to the present time as well; so that at least for the future you may both guard yourself and spare me. For — since I must speak to you with frankness — you are an untrustworthy agent in such matters. Yet whoever those may be who have written, we have answered them as is fitting. Whether, then, you yourself were laying a trial for me, or whether you truly received the letter from the bishops and sent it, you have the replies. But it would have been more fitting for you to have other concerns at the present time, being a brother and not yet having forgotten nature, and not regarding us in the place of an enemy, since we have come into a manner of life that wears down our body and afflicts even our soul by surpassing our strength. But nevertheless, since you are so set on war, for this very reason you must now be present and share in our affairs. "For brothers," it is said, "should be useful in times of need."

But if the most reverend bishops truly accept a meeting with us, let them make known to us a fixed place and time, and send for us by their own men. For just as I do not refuse to go myself to meet my uncle, so, if the summons is not made with the fitting form, I will not endure it.