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# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume I/Church History of Eusebius/Book IV
## Contents

* Chapter 1
* Chapter 2
* Chapter 3
* Chapter 4
* Chapter 5
* Chapter 6
* Chapter 7
* Chapter 8
* Chapter 9
* Chapter 10
* Chapter 11
* Chapter 12
* Chapter 13
* Chapter 14
* Chapter 15
* Chapter 16
* Chapter 17
* Chapter 18
* Chapter 19
* Chapter 20
* Chapter 21
* Chapter 22
* Chapter 23
* Chapter 24
* Chapter 25
* Chapter 26
* Chapter 27
* Chapter 28
* Chapter 29
* Chapter 30
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Conferences of John Cassian, Part II/Conference XI/Chapter 1

Chapter I.
Description of the town of Thennesus.
When we were living in a monastery in Syria after our first infancy in the faith, and when after we had grown somewhat we had begun to long for some greater grace of perfection, we determined straightway to seek Egypt and penetrating even to the remotest desert of the Thebaid, to visit very many of the saints, whose glory and fame had spread abroad everywhere, with the wish if not to emulate them at any rate to know them. And so we came by a very lengthy voyage to a town of Egypt named Thennesus, whose inhabitants are so surrounded either by the sea or by salt lakes that they devote themselves to business alone and get their wealth and substance by naval commerce as the land fails them, so that indeed when they want to build houses, there is no soil sufficient for this, unless it is brought by boat from a distance.

## Footnotes

* ↑ It is very doubtful whether Cassian ever carried out the intention, of which he here speaks, of visiting the Thebaid. So far as we can trace the course of his wanderings, he does not seem to have penetrated farther into Egypt than the desert of Scete.
* ↑ Thennesus, a town at the Tanitic mouth of the Nile near Lake Menzaleh. For the description of the neighbouring country compare Conference VII. c. xxvi.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Conferences of John Cassian, Part II/Conference XI/Chapter 15

Chapter XV.
The postponement of the explanation which is asked for.
Chæremon: It is indeed a sign of the utmost blessedness and of singular goodness both continually to learn and to teach that love by which we cling to the Lord, so that meditation on Him may, as the Psalmist says, occupy all the days and nights of our life, and may support our soul, which insatiably hungers and thirsts after righteousness, by continually chewing the cud of this heavenly food. But we must also, in accordance with the kindly forethought of our Saviour, make some provision for the food of the body, that we faint not by the way, for “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And this we must now secure by taking a little food, so that after supper, the mind may be rendered more attentive for the careful tracing out of what you want.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Cf. Ps. i. 2.
* ↑ Cf. S. Matt. xv. 32.
* ↑ S. Matt. xxvi. 41.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Conferences of John Cassian, Part II/Conference XI/Chapter 4

Chapter IV.
Of Abbot Chæremon and his excuse about the teaching which we asked for.
And so the blessed Archebius thought it best to take us first to Chæremon, because he was nearer to his monastery, and because he was more advanced than the other two in age: for he had passed the hundredth year of his life, vigorous only in spirit, but with his back bowed with age and constant prayer, so that, as if he were once more in his childhood he crawled with his hands hanging down and resting on the ground. Gazing then at one and the same time on this man’s wonderful face and on his walk (for though all his limbs had already failed and were dead yet he had lost none of the severity of his previous strictness) when we humbly asked for the word and doctrine, and declared that longing for spiritual instruction was the only reason for our coming, he sighed deeply and said: What doctrine can I teach you, I in whom the feebleness of age has relaxed my former strictness, as it has also destroyed my confidence in speaking? For how could I presume to teach what I do not do, or instruct another in what I know I now practise but feebly and coldly? Wherefore I do not allow any of the younger men to live with me now that I am of such an advanced age, lest the other’s strictness should be relaxed owing to my example. For the authority of a teacher will never be strong unless he fixes it in the heart of his hearer by the actual performance of his duty.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Chæremon is perhaps the same person of whom a short account is given in the Lausiac History of Palladius, c. xcii.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Conferences of John Cassian, Part II/Conference XI/Chapter 10

Chapter X.
How it is the perfection of love to pray for one’s enemies and by what signs we may recognize a mind that is not yet purified.
When then any one has acquired this love of goodness of which we have been speaking, and the imitation of God, then he will be endowed with the Lord’s heart of compassion, and will pray also for his persecutors, saying in like manner: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But it is a clear sign of a soul that is not yet thoroughly purged from the dregs of sin, not to sorrow with a feeling of pity at the offences of others, but to keep to the rigid censure of the judge: for how will he be able to obtain perfection of heart, who is without that by which, as the Apostle has pointed out, the full requirements of the law can be fulfilled, saying: “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ,” and who has not that virtue of love, which “is not grieved, is not puffed up, thinketh no evil,” which “endureth all things, beareth all things.” For “a righteous man pitieth the life of his beasts: but the heart of the ungodly is without pity.” And so a monk is quite certain to fall into the same sins which he condemns in another with merciless and inhuman severity, for “a stern king will fall into misfortunes,” and “one who stops his ears so as not to hear the weak, shall himself cry, and there shall be none to hear him.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ S. Luke xxiii. 34.
* ↑ Gal. vi. 2.
* ↑ 1 Cor. xiii. 4–7.
* ↑ Prov. xii. 10 (LXX.).
* ↑ Prov. xiii. 17; xxi. 13.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Conferences of John Cassian, Part II/Conference XI/Chapter 11

Chapter XI.
A question why he has called the feeling of fear and hope imperfect.
Germanus: You have indeed spoken powerfully and grandly of the perfect love of God. But still this fact disturbs us; viz., that while you were exalting it with such praise, you said that the fear of God and the hope of eternal reward were imperfect, though the prophet seems to have thought quite differently about them, where he said: “Fear the Lord, all ye His saints, for they that fear Him lack nothing.” And again in the matter of observing God’s righteous acts he admits that he has done them from consideration of the reward, saying: “I have inclined my heart to do thy righteous acts forever, for the reward.” And the Apostle says: “By faith Moses when he
was grown up, denied himself to be the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to be afflicted with the people of God than to have the pleasure of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasure of the Egyptians; for he looked unto the reward.” How then can we think that they are imperfect, if the blessed David boasted that he did the righteous acts of God in hope of a recompense, and the giver of the Law is said to have looked for a future reward and so to have despised the adoption to royal dignity, and to have preferred the most terrible affliction to the treasures of the Egyptians?

## Footnotes

* ↑ Ps. xxxiii. (xxxiv.) 10.
* ↑ Ps. cxviii. (cxix.) 112.
* ↑ Heb. xi. 24–26.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Conferences of John Cassian, Part II/Conference XI/Chapter 14

Chapter XIV.
A question about complete chastity.
Germanus: Now that you have finished your discourse on perfect chastity, we want also to ask somewhat more freely about the end of chastity. For we do not doubt that those lofty heights of love, by which, as you have hitherto explained, we mount to the image and likeness of God, cannot possibly exist without perfect purity. But we should like to know whether a lasting grant of it can be secured so that no incitement to lust may ever disturb the serenity of our heart, and that thus we may be enabled to pass the time of our sojourneying in the flesh free from this carnal passion, so as never to be inflamed by the fire of excitement.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Conferences of John Cassian, Part II/Conference XI/Chapter 2

Chapter II.
Of Bishop Archebius.
And when we arrived there, God gratified our wishes, and had brought about the arrival of that most blessed and excellent man Bishop Archebius, who had been carried off from the assembly of anchorites and given as Bishop to the town of Panephysis, and who kept all his life long to his purpose of solitude with such strictness that he relaxed nothing of the character of his former humility, nor flattered himself on the honour that had been added to him (for he vowed that he had not been summoned to that office as fit for it, but complained that he had been expelled from the monastic system as unworthy of it because though he had spent thirty-seven years in it he had never been able to arrive at the purity so high a profession demands); he then when he had received us kindly and most graciously in the aforesaid Thennesus whither the business of electing a Bishop there had brought him, as soon as he heard of our wish and desire to inquire of the holy fathers even in still more remote parts of Egypt: “Come,” said he, “see in the meanwhile the old men who live not far from our monastery, the length of whose service is shown by their bent bodies, as their holiness shines forth in their appearance, so that even the mere sight of them will give a great lesson to those who see them: and from them you can learn not so much by their words as by the actual example of their holy life, what I grieve that I have lost, and having lost cannot give to you. But I think that my poverty will be somewhat lessened by this zeal of mine, if when you are seeking that pearl of the Gospel which I have not, I at least provide where you can conveniently procure it.”

## Footnotes

* ↑ Archebius has already been mentioned in Conference VII. xxvi; and in the Institutes V. xxxvii., xxxviii., two stories are told illustrative of his kindness and goodness of disposition; but he is not known to us from any other source except Cassian’s writings.
* ↑ For the situation of Panephysis, see the note on the Institutes, Book IV. c. xxx.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/Conferences of John Cassian, Part II/Conference XI/Chapter 3

Chapter III.
Description of the desert where Chæremon, Nesteros, and Joseph lived.
And so he took his staff and scrip, as is there the custom for all monks starting on a journey, and himself led us as guide of our road to his own city, i.e., Panephysis, the lands of which and indeed the greater part of the neighbouring region (formerly an extremely rich one since from it, as report says, everything was supplied for the royal table), had been covered by the sea which was disturbed by a sudden earthquake and overflowed its banks, and so (almost all the villages being in ruins) covered what were formerly rich lands with salt marshes, so that you might think that what is spiritually sung in the psalm was a literal prophecy of that region. “He hath turned rivers into a wilderness; and the springs of waters into a thirsty land: a fruitful land into saltness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.” In these districts then many towns perched in this way on the higher hills were deserted by their inhabitants and turned by the inundation into islands, and these afforded the desired solitude to the holy anchorites, among whom three old men; viz., Chæremon, Nesteros and Joseph, stood out as anchorites of the longest standing.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Ps. cvi. (cvii.) 33 sq.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VII/Letters of Gregory Nazianzen/Miscellaneous Letters/To Sophronius, Prefect of Constantinople/Letter XCIII

Ep. XCIII.
(Written soon after Gregory’s resignation of the Archbishopric.)
Our retreat and leisure and quiet have about them something very agreeable to me; but the fact that they cut me off from your friendship and society is not so advantageous but rather the other way. Others enjoy your Perfection, to me it would be really a great boon if I might have just that shadow of conversation which comes in a letter. Shall I see you again? Shall I embrace again him of whom I am so proud, and shall this be granted to the remnant of my life? If so, all thanks to God: if not, the best part of my life is over. Pray remember your friend Gregory and pray for him.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VII/Letters of Gregory Nazianzen/Miscellaneous Letters/To Theodore, Bishop of Tyana/Letter CLII

Ep. CLII.
(On his retirement from Constantinople Gregory had at the request of the Bishops of the Province, and especially of Theodore of Tyana the Metropolitan, and Bosporius Bishop of Colonia (see letters above) and at the earnest solicitation of the people, undertaken the charge of the Diocese of Nazianzus; but he very soon found that his health was not equal to so great a task, and that he could not fulfil its calls upon him. He struggled on for some time, but at length, finding himself quite unequal to it, he wrote as follows to the Metropolitan:)
It is time for me to use these words of Scripture, To whom shall I cry when I am wronged? Who will stretch out a hand to me when I am oppressed? To whom shall the burden of this Church pass, in its present evil and paralysed condition? I protest before God and the Elect Angels that the Flock of God is being unrighteously dealt with in being left without a Shepherd or a Bishop, through my being laid on the shelf. For I am a prisoner to my ill health and have been very quickly removed thereby from the Church, and made quite useless to everybody, every day breathing my last, and getting more and more crushed by my duties. If the Province had any other head, it would have been my duty to cry out and protest to it continually.  But since Your Reverence is the Superior, it is to you I must look. For, to leave out everything else, you shall learn from my fellow-priests, Eulalius the Chorepiscopus and Celeusius, whom I have specially sent to Your Reverence, what these robbers who have now got the upper hand, are both doing and threatening. To repress them is not in the power of my weakness, but belongs to your skill and strength; since to you, with His other gifts God has given that of strength also for the protection of His Church. If in saying and writing this I cannot get a hearing, I shall take the only course remaining to me, that of publicly proclaiming and making known that this Church needs a Bishop, in order that it may not be injured by my feeble health. What is to follow is matter for your consideration.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Hab. ii. 1.
* ↑ Chorepiscopi;—a grade of clergy called into existence in the latter part of the Third Century, first in Asia Minor, to meet the difficulty of providing Episcopal supervision in the country districts of large Dioceses.  They seemed to have been allowed to confer the Minor, but not the Holy Orders, unless by special commission from the Diocesan, on the ground of their lack of original Jurisdiction. That they were originally possessed of full Episcopal Orders there can be no doubt, but eventually the position was allowed to be held by Priests, and in the West the office became practically merged in that of the Archdeacon.
* ↑ The Apollinarians.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VII/Letters of Gregory Nazianzen/Miscellaneous Letters/To Sophronius, Prefect of Constantinople/Letter CXXXV

Ep. CXXXV.
(About the middle of a.d. 382 Theodosius, on the recommendation of S. Damasus, summoned a new Synod of Eastern Bishops to meet at Constantinople, to try and heal the schism which had been embittered by the election of Flavian at Antioch. As soon as Gregory heard of the convocation of this Synod he wrote to several of his influential friends at Court, to beg them to do their utmost for the promotion of peace.)
I am philosophizing at leisure. That is the injury my enemies have done me, and I should be glad if they would do more of the same sort, that I might look upon them still more as benefactors. For it often happens that those who are wronged get a benefit, while they, whom we would treat well, suffer injury.  That is the state of my affairs. But if I cannot make every one believe this, I am very anxious, that at all events you, for them all, to whom I most willingly give an account of my affairs, should know, or rather I feel certain that you do know it, and can persuade those who do not. You, however, I beg to give all diligence, now at any rate, if you have not done so before, to bring together to one voice and mind the sections of the world that are so unhappily divided; and above all if you should perceive, as I have observed, that they are divided not on account of the Faith, but by petty private interests. To succeed in doing this would earn you a reward; and my retirement would have less to grieve over if I could see that I did not grasp at it to no purpose, but was like a Jonas, willingly casting myself into the sea, that the storm might cease and the sailors be saved. If, however, they are still as storm-tost as ever, I at all events have done what I could.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VII/Letters of Gregory Nazianzen/Miscellaneous Letters/To Sophronius, Prefect of Constantinople/Letter XXXIX

Ep. XXXIX.
(About the same date. A recommendation of one Amazonius, whose learning was much respected by Gregory.)
I wish well to all my friends. And when I speak of friends, I mean honourable and good men, linked with me in virtue, if indeed I myself have any claim to it. Therefore at the present time when seeking how I might do a kindness to my excellent brother Amazonius (for I was very much pleased with the man in some intercourse which has lately taken place between us), I thought I might return him one favour for all,—in your friendship and protection. For in a short time he shewed proof of an extensive education, both of the kind which I used once to be very zealous for, when I was shortsighted, and of that for which I am zealous in its place since I have been able to contemplate the summit of virtue. Whether I in my turn have appeared to him to be worth anything in respect of virtue is his affair. At any rate I shewed him the best things I have, namely, my friends to him as my friend. Of these I reckon you as the first and truest, and want you to shew yourself so to him—as your common Country demands, and my desire and promise begs; for I promised him your patronage in return for all his kindness.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VII/Letters of Gregory Nazianzen/Miscellaneous Letters/To Theodore, Bishop of Tyana
## Contents

* Letter LXXVII
* Letter CXV
* Letter CXXI
* Letter CXXII
* Letter CXXIII
* Letter CXXIV
* Letter CLII
* To Bosporius, Bishop of Colonia
* To Theodore, Archbishop of Tyana
* Letter CLXIII
* Letter CLXXXIII
* Letter CXXXIX
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VII/Letters of Gregory Nazianzen/Miscellaneous Letters/To Sophronius, Prefect of Constantinople/Letter XXII

Ep. XXII.
(Is for Amphilochius, written at the same time and in consequence of the same trouble as that which we have placed second of the letters to Cæsarius.)
As we know gold and stones by their look, so too we may distinguish good men from bad in the same way, and do not need a very long trial. For I should not have needed many words in pleading for my most honourable son Amphilochius with Your Magnanimity. I should rather have expected some strange and incredible thing to happen than that he would do anything dishonourable, or think of such a thing, in a matter of money; such a universal reputation has he as a gentleman, and as wiser than his years. But what must he suffer? Nothing escapes envy, for some word of blame has touched even him, a man who has fallen under accusation of crime through simplicity rather than depravity of disposition. But do not allow it to be tolerable to you to overlook him in his vexations and trouble. Not so, I entreat your sacred and great mind, but honour your country and aid his virtue, and have a respect for me who have attained to glory by and through you; and be everything to this man, adding the will to the power, for I know that there is nothing of equal power with Your Excellency.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Sophronius and Amphilochius were natives of Cæsarea.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VII/Letters of Gregory Nazianzen/Miscellaneous Letters/To Sophronius, Prefect of Constantinople/Letter XXXVII

Ep. XXXVII.
(A letter of recommendation for Eudoxius a Rhetorician for whom Gregory had a warm regard.)
To honour a mother is a religious duty. Now, different individuals have different mothers; but the common mother of all is our country. This mother you have honoured by the splendour of your whole life; and you will honour her again now by obtaining for me that which I entreat. And what is my request? You certainly know Eudoxius the Rhetorician, the most learned of her sons. His son, to speak concisely, another Eudoxius both in life and learning, now approaches you through me. In order then to get yourself a yet better name, be helpful to him in the matters for which he asks your assistance. For it were a shame were you, who are the universal Patron of our Country, and who have done good to so many, and I will add, who will yet continue to do so, should not honour above all him who is most excellent in learning and in his eloquence, which you ought to honour, if for no other reason, because he uses it to praise your goodness.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VII/Letters of Gregory Nazianzen/Miscellaneous Letters/To Sophronius, Prefect of Constantinople/Letter XXI

§4. To Sophronius, Prefect of Constantinople.
(Sophronius, a native of the Cappadocian Cæsarea, was an early friend and fellow-student of Gregory and Basil. He entered the Civil Service, and soon rose to high office. In a.d. 365 he was appointed Prefect of Constantinople, as a reward for timely intimation which he gave to the Emperor Valens of the usurpation attempted by Procopius. He is chiefly known to us by the letters of Gregory and Basil, invoking his good offices for various persons. Ep. 21 was written in a.d. 369 to commend to him Nicobulus, Gregory’s nephew by marriage, the husband of Alypiana, daughter of his sister Gorgonia. This Nicobulus was a man of great wealth and ability, but much disinclined for public life.  Gregory constantly writes to one and another high official to get him excused from appointments which had been thrust upon him.)
Ep. XXI.
Gold is changed and transformed into various forms at various times, being fashioned into many ornaments, and used by art for many purposes; yet it remains what it is—gold; and it is not the substance but the form which admits of change. So also, believing that your kindness will remain unchanged for your friends, although you are ever climbing higher, I have ventured to send you this request, because I do not more reverence your high rank than I trust your kind disposition. I entreat you to be favourable to my most respectable son Nicobulus, who is in all respects allied with me, both by kindred and by intimacy, and, which is more important, by disposition. In what matters, and to what extent? In whatever he may ask your aid, and as far as may seem to you to befit your Magnanimity. I on my part will repay you the best I have. I have the power of speech, and of proclaiming your goodness, if not nearly according to its worth, at any rate to the best of my ability.