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

some of the calumnies spread abroad about me, you did not think me deserving of being
visited by you in love. Now, therefore, I myself take the initiative. I beg to state that I am
perfectly ready to rid myself, in your presence, of the charges urged against me, but only on
condition that my revilers are admitted to stand face to face with me before your reverences.
If I am convicted, I shall not deny my error. You, after the conviction, will receive pardon
from the Lord for withdrawing yourselves from the communion of me a sinner. The successful
accusers, too, will have their reward in the publication of my secret wickedness. If,
however, you condemn me before you have the evidence before you, I shall be none the
worse, barring the loss I shall sustain of a possession I hold most dear—your love: while
you, for your part, will suffer the same loss in losing me, and will seem to be running counter
to the words of the Gospel: “Doth our law judge any man before it hear him?” 2730 The reviler,
moreover, if he adduce no proof of what he says, will be shewn to have got nothing
from his wicked language but a bad name for himself. For what name can be properly applied
to the slanderer 2731 except that which he professes to bear by the very conduct of which he
is guilty? Let the reviler, therefore, appear not as slanderer, 2732 but as accuser; nay, I will
not call him accuser, I will rather regard him as a brother, admonishing in love, and producing
conviction for my amendment. And you must not be hearers of calumny, but triers
of proof. Nor must I be left uncured, because my sin is not being made manifest.
[3. Let not this consideration influence you. ‘We dwell on the sea, we are exempt from
the sufferings of the generality, we need no succour from others; so what is the good to us
of foreign communion?’ For the same Lord Who divided the islands from the continent
by the sea, bound the island Christians to those of the continent by love. Nothing, brethren,
separates us from each other, but deliberate estrangement. We have one Lord, one faith,
the same hope. The hands need each other; the feet steady each other. The eyes possess
their clear apprehension from agreement. We, for our part, confess our own weakness, and
we seek your fellow feeling. For we are assured, that though ye are not present in body, yet
by the aid of prayer, ye will do us much benefit in these most critical times. It is neither
decorous before men, nor pleasing to God, that you should make avowals which not even
the Gentiles adopt, which know not God. Even they, as we hear, though the country they
live in be sufficient for all things, yet, on account of the uncertainty of the future, make
much of alliances with each other, and seek mutual intercourse as being advantageous to
them. Yet we, the sons of fathers who have laid down the law that by brief notes the proofs
of communion should be carried about from one end of the earth to the other, and that all
should be citizens and familiars with all, now sever ourselves from the whole world, and are
2730 John vii. 51.
2731 τὸν διαβάλλοντα.
2732 διάβολος.
To the bishops of the sea coast.
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