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

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To the bishops of the Pontic Diocese. 3115<br />

Letter CCLII. 3114<br />

<strong>The</strong> honours of martyrs ought to be very eagerly coveted by all who rest their hopes on<br />

the Lord, <strong>and</strong> more especially by you who seek after virtue. By your disposition towards<br />

the great <strong>and</strong> good among your fellow servants you are shewing your affection to our common<br />

Lord. Moreover, a special reason for this is to be found in the tie, as it were, of blood,<br />

which binds the life of exact discipline to those who have been made perfect through endurance.<br />

Since then Eupsychius <strong>and</strong> Damas <strong>and</strong> their company are most illustrious among<br />

martyrs, <strong>and</strong> their memory is yearly kept in our city <strong>and</strong> all the neighbourhood, the <strong>Church</strong>,<br />

calling on you by my voice, reminds you to keep up your ancient custom of paying a visit.<br />

A great <strong>and</strong> good work lies before you among the people, who desire to be edified by you,<br />

<strong>and</strong> are anxious for the reward dependent on the honour paid to the martyrs. Receive,<br />

therefore, my supplications, <strong>and</strong> consent of your kindness to give at the cost of small trouble<br />

to yourselves a great boon to me. 3116<br />

3114 Placed in 376.<br />

3115 In the title the word διοίκησις is used in its oldest ecclesiastical sense of a patriarchal jurisdiction com-<br />

mensurate with the civil diocese, which contained several provinces. cf. the IXth Canon of Chalcedon, which<br />

gives an appeal from the metropolitan, the head of the province, to the exarch of the “diocese.” “<strong>The</strong> title exarch<br />

is here applied to the primate of a group of provincial churches, as it had been used by Ibas, bishop of Edema,<br />

at his trial in 448; alluding to the ‘Eastern Council’ which had resisted the council of Ephesus, <strong>and</strong> condemned<br />

Cyril, he said, ‘I followed my exarch,’ meaning John of Antioch (Mansi vii. 237; compare Evagrius iv. 11, using<br />

‘patriarchs’ <strong>and</strong> ‘exarchs’ synonymously). Reference is here made not to all such prelates, but to the bishops of<br />

Ephesus, Cæsarea in Cappadocia, <strong>and</strong> Heraclea, if, as seems possible, the see of Heraclea still nominally retained<br />

its old relation to the bishop of Thrace.” Bright, Canons of the First Four Gen. Councils, pp. 156, 157. <strong>The</strong><br />

Pontic diocese was one of Constantine’s thirteen civil divisions.<br />

3116 cf. p. 184, n. cf. Proleg. Eupsychius, a noble bridegroom of Cæsarea, was martyred under Julian for his<br />

share in the demolition of the temple of Fortune. Soz. v. 11. cf. Greg. Naz., Ep. ad Bas. lviii. September 7 was<br />

the day of the feast at Cæsarea.<br />

To the bishops of the Pontic Diocese.<br />

803

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