Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata. 2451
Letter CXXXVIII. 2450
1. What was my state of mind, think you, when I received your piety’s letter? When I
thought of the feelings which its language expressed, I was eager to fly straight to Syria; but
when I thought of the bodily illness, under which I lay bound, I saw myself unequal, not
only to flying, but even to turning on my bed. This day, on which our beloved and excellent
brother and deacon, Elpidius, has arrived, is the fiftieth of my illness. I am much reduced
by the fever. For lack of what it might feed on, it lingers in this dry flesh as in an expiring
wick, and so has brought on a wasting and tedious illness. Next my old plague, the liver,
coming upon it, has kept me from taking nourishment, prevented sleep, and held me on
the confines of life and death, granting just life enough to feel its inflictions. In consequence
I have had recourse to the hot springs, and have availed myself of help from medical men.
But for all these the mischief has proved too strong. Perhaps another man might endure
it, but, coming as it did unexpectedly, no one is so stout as to bear it. Long troubled by it
as I have been, I have never been so distressed as now at being prevented by it from meeting
you and enjoying your true friendship. I know of how much pleasure I am deprived, although
last year I did touch with the tip of my finger the sweet honey of your Church.
2. For many urgent reasons I felt bound to meet your reverence, both to discuss many
things with you and to learn many things from you. Here it is not possible even to find
genuine affection. And, could one even find a true friend, none can give counsel to me in
the present emergency with anything like the wisdom and experience which you have acquired
in your many labours on the Church’s behalf. The rest I must not write. I may,
however, safely say what follows. The presbyter Evagrius, 2452 son of Pompeianus of Antioch,
who set out some time ago to the West with the blessed Eusebius, has now returned from
Rome. He demands from me a letter couched in the precise terms dictated by the Westerns.
My own he has brought back again to me, and reports that it did not give satisfaction to the
more precise authorities there. He also asks that a commission of men of repute may be
promptly sent, that they may have a reasonable pretext for visiting me. My sympathisers
2450 Placed in 373.
2451 The translation of Sec. 1, down to “medical men,” is partly Newman’s.
2452 On Evagrius, known generally as Evagrius of Antioch, to distinguish him from Evagrius the historian,
see especially Theodoret, Ecc. Hist. v. 23. He had travelled to Italy with Eusebius of Vercellæ. His communication
to Basil from the Western bishops must have been disappointing and unsatisfactory. On his correspondence
with Basil, after his return to Antioch, see Letter clvi. His consecration by the dying Paulinus in 388 inevitably
prolonged the disastrous Meletian schism at Antioch.
To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata.
585