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

To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata.
Letter CXCVIII. 2690
After the letter conveyed to me by the officiales 2691 I have received one other despatched
to me later. I have not sent many myself, for I have not found any one travelling in your
direction. But I have sent more than the four, among which also were those conveyed to
me from Samosata after the first epistle of your holiness. These I have sealed and sent to
our honourable brother Leontius, peræquator of Nicæa, urging that by his agency they may
be delivered to the steward of the household of our honourable brother Sophronius, that
he may see to their transmission to you. As my letters are going through many hands, it is
likely enough that because one man is very busy or very careless, your reverence may never
get them. Pardon me, then, I beseech you, if my letters are few. With your usual intelligence
you have properly found fault with me for not sending, as I ought, a courier of my own
when there was occasion for doing so; but you must understand that we have had a winter
of such severity that all the roads were blocked till Easter, and I had no one disposed to brave
the difficulties of the journey. For although our clergy do seem very numerous, they are
men inexperienced in travelling because they never traffic, and prefer not to live far away
from home, the majority of them plying sedentary crafts, whereby they get their daily bread.
The brother whom I have now sent to your reverence I have summoned from the country,
and employed in the conveyance of my letter to your holiness, that he may both give you
clear intelligence as to me and my affairs, and, moreover, by God’s grace, bring me back
plain and prompt information about you and yours. Our dear brother Eusebius the reader
has for some time been anxious to hasten to your holiness, but I have kept him here for the
weather to improve. Even now I am under no little anxiety lest his inexperience in travelling
may cause him trouble, and bring on some illness; for he is not robust.
2. I need say nothing to you by letter about the innovations of the East, for the brothers
can themselves give you accurate information. You must know, my honoured friend, that,
when I was writing these words, I was so ill that I had lost all hope of life. It is impossible
for me to enumerate all my painful symptoms, my weakness, the violence of my attacks of
fever, and my bad health in general. One point only may be selected. I have now completed
the time of my sojourn in this miserable and painful life.
2690 Placed in 375.
2691 Clergy engaged in crafts.
To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata.
677
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