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

Letter CCXLIII. 3036
To the bishops of Italy and Gaul concerning the condition and confusion of the Churches.
1. To his brethren truly God-beloved and very dear, and fellow ministers of like mind,
the bishops of Gaul and Italy, Basil, bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia. Our Lord Jesus
Christ, Who has deigned to style the universal Church of God His body, and has made us
individually members one of another, has moreover granted to all of us to live in intimate
association with one another, as befits the agreement of the members. Wherefore, although
we dwell far away from one another, yet, as regards our close conjunction, we are very near.
Since, then, the head cannot say to the feet, I have no need of you, 3037 you will not, I am
sure, endure to reject us; you will, on the contrary, sympathize with us in the troubles to
which, for our sins, we have been given over, in proportion as we rejoice together with you
in your glorying in the peace which the Lord has bestowed on you. Ere now we have also
at another time invoked your charity to send us succour and sympathy; but our punishment
was not full, and you were not suffered to rise up to succour us. One chief object of our
desire is that through you the state of confusion in which we are situated should be made
known to the emperor of your part of the world. 3038 If this is difficult, we beseech you to
send envoys to visit and comfort us in our affliction, that you may have the evidence of
eyewitnesses of those sufferings of the East which cannot be told by word of mouth, because
language is inadequate to give a clear report of our condition.
2. Persecution has come upon us, right honourable brethren, and persecution in the
severest form. Shepherds are persecuted that their flocks may be scattered. And the worst
of all is that those who are being treated ill cannot accept their sufferings in proof of their
testimony, nor can the people reverence the athletes as in the army of martyrs, because the
name of Christians is applied to the persecutors. The one charge which is now sure to secure
severe punishment is the careful keeping of the traditions of the Fathers. For this the pious
are exiled from their homes, and are sent away to dwell in distant regions. No reverence is
shown by the judges of iniquity to the hoary head, to practical piety, to the life lived from
boyhood to old age according to the Gospel. No malefactor is doomed without proof, but
bishops have been convicted on calumny alone, and are consigned to penalties on charges
wholly unsupported by evidence. Some have not even known who has accused them, nor
3036 Placed in 376.
3037 1 Cor. xii. 21.
To the bishops of Italy and Gaul concerning the condition and confusion…
3038 i.e. Gratian, who succeeded Valentinian I. in 375.
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