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

To Epiphanius the bishop. 3132
Letter CCLVIII. 3131
1. It has long been expected that, in accordance with the prediction of our Lord, because
of iniquity abounding, the love of the majority would wax cold. 3133 Now experience has
confirmed this expectation. But though this condition of things has already obtained among
us here, it seems to be contradicted by the letter brought from your holiness. For verily it
is no mere ordinary proof of love, first that you should remember an unworthy and insignificant
person like myself; and secondly, that you should send to visit me brethren who are
fit and proper ministers of a correspondence of peace. For now, when every man is viewing
every one else with suspicion, no spectacle is rarer than that which you are presenting.
Nowhere is pity to be seen; nowhere sympathy; nowhere a brotherly tear for a brother in
distress. Not persecutions for the truth’s sake, not Churches with all their people in tears;
not this great tale of troubles closing round us, are enough to stir us to anxiety for the welfare
of one another. We jump on them that are fallen; we scratch and tear at wounded places;
we who are supposed to agree with one another launch the curses that are uttered by the
heretics; men who are in agreement on the most important matters are wholly severed from
one another on some one single point. How, then, can I do otherwise than admire him who
in such circumstances shews that his love to his neighbour is pure and guileless, and, though
separated from me by so great a distance of sea and land, gives my soul all the care he can?
2. I have been specially struck with admiration at your having been distressed even by
the dispute of the monks on the Mount of Olives, and at your expressing a wish that some
means might be found of reconciling them to one another. I have further been glad to hear
that you have not been unaware of the unfortunate steps, taken by certain persons, which
have caused disturbance among the brethren, and that you have keenly interested yourself
even in these matters. But I have deemed it hardly worthy of your wisdom that you should
entrust the rectification of matters of such importance to me: for I am not guided by the
grace of God, because of my living in sin; I have no power of eloquence, because I have
cheerfully withdrawn from vain studies; and I am not yet sufficiently versed in the doctrines
of the truth. I have therefore already written to my beloved brethren at the Mount of Olives,
3131 Placed in 377.
3132 The learned and saintly bishop of Salamis in Cyprus. About this time he published his great work against
heresy, the Πανάριον, and also travelled to Antioch to reconcile the Apollinarian Vitalis to Paulinus. On the
failure of his efforts, and the complicated state of parties at Antioch at this time, cf. Epiphan., lxxvii. 20–23;
Jerome, Epp. 57, 58, and Soz., H.E. vi. 25.
3133 cf. Matt. xxiv. 12.
To Epiphanius the bishop.
809
295