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

To Nectarius.
Letter CCXC. 3253
May many blessings rest on those who encourage your excellency in maintaining a
constant correspondence with me! And regard not such a wish as conventional merely, but
as expressing my sincere conviction of the value of your utterances. Whom could I honour
above Nectarius—known to me from his earliest days as a child of fairest promise, who now
through the exercise of every virtue has reached a position of the highest eminence?—So
much so, that of all my friends the dearest is the bearer of your letter.
Touching the election of those set over districts, 3254 God forbid that I should do anything
for the gratification of man, through listening to importunities or yielding to fear. In that
case I should be not a steward, but a huckster, battering the gift of God for the favour of
man. But seeing that votes are given but by mortals, who can only bear such testimony as
they do from outward appearances, while the choice of fit persons is committed in all humility
to Him Who knows the secrets of the heart, haply it is best for everybody, when he
has tendered the evidence of his vote, to abstain from all heat and contention, as though
some self-interest were involved in the testimony, and to pray to God that what is advantageous
may not remain unknown. Thus the result is no longer attributable to man, but a
cause for thankfulness to God. For these things, if they be of man, cannot be said to be; but
are pretence only, altogether void of reality.
Consider also, that when a man strives with might and main to gain his end, there is no
small danger of his drawing even sinners to his side; and there is much sinfulness, such is
the weakness of man’s nature, even where we should least expect it.
Again, in private consultation we often offer our friends good advice, and, though we
do not find them taking it, yet we are not angry. Where then it is not man that counsels,
but God that determines, shall we feel indignation at not being preferred before the determination
of God?
And if these things were given to man by man, what need were there for us to ask them
of ourselves? Were it not better for each to take them from himself? But if they are the gift
of God, we ought to pray and not to grieve. And in our prayer we should not seek our own
will, but leave it to God who disposes for the best.
3253 Placed in the episcopate.
3254 On the word συμμορίας the Ben. note is: “Hac voce non designatur tota diocesis, sed certos quidam
pagorum numerus chorepiscopo commissus, ut patet ex epist. cxlii.,” q.v., “erat autem chorepiscoporum sedes insigni
alicui affixa pago, cui alii pagi attribuebantur. Unde Basilius in epist. clxxxviii. § 10. Auctor est Amphilochio ut
agrum Mestiæ subjectum Vasodis subjiciat.
To Nectarius.
860
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