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

To Eustathius the Physician. 2500
Letter CLI. 2499
If my letters are of any good, lose no time in writing to me and in rousing me to write.
We are unquestionably made more cheerful when we read the letters of wise men who love
the Lord. It is for you to say, who read it, whether you find anything worth attention in
what I write. Were it not for the multitude of my engagements, I should not debar myself
from the pleasure of writing frequently. Pray do you, whose cares are fewer, soothe me by
your letters. Wells, it is said, are the better for being used. The exhortations which you
derive from your profession are apparently beside the point, for it is not I who am applying
the knife; it is men whose day is done, who are falling upon themselves. 2501 The phrase of
the Stoics runs, “since things do not happen as we like, we like what happens;” but I cannot
make my mind fall in with what is happening. That some men should do what they do not
like because they cannot help it, I have no objection. You doctors do not cauterise a sick
man, or make him suffer pain in some other way, because you like it; but you often adopt
this treatment in obedience to the necessity of the case. Mariners do not willingly throw
their cargo overboard; but in order to escape shipwreck they put up with the loss, preferring
a life of penury to death. Be sure that I look with sorrow and with many groans upon the
separation of those who are holding themselves aloof. But yet I endure it. To lovers of the
truth nothing can be put before God and hope in Him. 2502
2499 Placed in 373.
2500 cf. Letter clxxxix. On those who had renounced communion with Eustathius the bishop.
2501 i.e. Eustathius, the bishop, is rushing upon the knife.
2502 The view of the Ben. Ed. is that the bales thrown overboard represent the loss of unity incurred by the
Sebastenes by leaving the communion of Eustathius for his own. cf. Letter ccxxxvii.
To Eustathius the Physician.
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