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

To the presbyter Genethlius.
Letter CCXXIV. 2903
1. I have received your reverence’s letter and I am delighted at the title which you have
felicitously applied to the writing which they have composed in calling it “a writing of divorcement.”
2904 What defence the writers will be able to make before the tribunal of Christ,
where no excuse will avail, I am quite unable to conceive. After accusing me, violently
running me down, and telling tales in accordance not with the truth but with what they
wished to be true, they have assumed a great show of humility, and have accused me of
haughtiness for refusing to receive their envoys. They have written, as they have, what is
all—or nearly all—for I do not wish to exaggerate,—lies, in the endeavour to persuade men
rather than God, and to please men rather than God, with Whom nothing is more precious
than truth. Moreover into the letter written against me they have introduced heretical expressions,
and have concealed the author of the impiety, in order that most of the more
unsophisticated might be deceived by the calumny got up against me, and suppose the
portion introduced to be mine. For nothing is said by my ingenious slanderers as to the
name of the author of these vile doctrines, and it is left for the simple to suspect that these
inventions, if not their expression in writing, is due to me. Now that you know all this, I
exhort you not to be perturbed yourselves, and to calm the excitement of those who are
agitated. I say this although I know that it will not be easy for my defence to be received,
because I have been anticipated by the vile calumnies uttered against me by persons of influence.
2. Now as to the point that the writings going the round as mine are not mine at all,
the angry feeling felt against me so confuses their reason that they cannot see what is profitable.
Nevertheless, if the question were put to them by yourselves, I do think that they
would not reach such a pitch of obstinate perversity as to dare to utter the lie with their own
lips, and allege the document in question to be mine. And if it is not mine, why am I being
judged for other men’s writings? But they will urge that I am in communion with Apollinarius,
and cherish in my heart perverse doctrines of this kind. Let them be asked for proof.
If they are able to search into a man’s heart, let them say so; and do you admit the truth of
all that they say about everything. If on the other hand, they are trying to prove my being
in communion on plain and open grounds, let them produce either a canonical letter written
by me to him, or by him to me. Let them shew that I have held intercourse with his clergy,
or have ever received any one of them into the communion of prayer. If they adduce the
letter written now five and twenty years ago, written by layman to layman, and not even
2903 Placed in 375.
2904 Matt. xix. 7.
To the presbyter Genethlius.
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