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# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 20

Letter XX.
To Leontius the Sophist.
I too do not write often to you, but not more seldom than you do to me, though many have travelled hitherward from your part of the world. If you had sent a letter by every one of them, one after the other, there would have been nothing to prevent my seeming to be actually in your company, and enjoying it as though we had been together, so uninterrupted has been the stream of arrivals. But why do you not write? It is no trouble to a Sophist to write. Nay, if your hand is tired, you need not even write; another will do that for you. Only your tongue is needed. And though it does not speak to me, it may assuredly speak to one of your companions. If nobody is with you, it will talk by itself. Certainly the tongue of a Sophist and of an Athenian is as little likely to be quiet as the nightingales when the spring stirs them to song. In my own case, the mass of business in which I am now engaged may perhaps afford some excuse for my lack of letters. And peradventure the fact of my style having been spoilt by constant familiarity with common speech may make me somewhat hesitate to address Sophists like you, who are certain to be annoyed and unmerciful, unless you hear something worthy of your wisdom. You, on the other hand, ought assuredly to use every opportunity of making your voice heard abroad, for you are the best speaker of all the Hellenes that I know; and I think I know the most renowned among you; so that there really is no excuse for your silence. But enough on this point.
I have sent you my writings against Eunomius. Whether they are to be called child’s play, or something a little more serious, I leave you to judge. So far as concerns yourself, I do not think you stand any longer in need of them; but I hope they will be no unworthy weapon against any perverse men with whom you may fall in. I do not say this so much because I have confidence in the force of my treatise, as because I know well that you are a man likely to make a little go a long way. If anything strikes you as weaker than it ought to be, pray have no hesitation in showing me the error. The chief difference between a friend and a flatterer is this; the flatterer speaks to please, the friend will not leave out even what is disagreeable.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in 364.
* ↑ cf. Letter xxxv.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/The Twelve Books/Book II/Chapter 1

Chapter I.
Of the Canonical System of the Nocturnal Prayers and Psalms.
Girt, therefore, with this twofold girdle of which we have spoken, the soldier of Christ should next learn the system of the canonical prayers and Psalms which was long ago arranged by the holy fathers in the East. Of their character, however, and of the way in which we can pray, as the Apostle directs, “without ceasing,” we shall treat, as the Lord may enable us, in the proper place, when we begin to relate the Conferences of the Elders.

## Footnotes

* ↑ See Book I. c. xi.
* ↑ 1 Thess. v. 17.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/The Twelve Books/Book II/Chapter 12

Chapter XII.
Of the reason why while one sings the Psalms the rest sit down during the service; and of the zeal with which they afterwards prolong their vigils in their cells till daybreak.
This canonical system of twelve Psalms, of which we have spoken, they render easier by such bodily rest that when, after their custom, they celebrate these services, they all, except the one who stands up in the midst to recite the Psalms, sit in very low stalls and follow the voice of the singer with the utmost attention of heart. For they are so worn out with fasting and working all day and night that, unless they were helped by some such indulgence, they could not possibly get through this number standing up. For they allow no time to pass idly without the performance of some work, because not only do they strive with all earnestness to do with their hands those things which can be done in daylight, but also with anxious minds they examine into those sorts of work which not even the darkness of night can put a stop to, as they hold that they will gain a far deeper insight into subjects of spiritual contemplation with purity of heart, the more earnestly that they devote themselves to work and labour. And therefore they consider that a moderate allowance of canonical prayers was divinely arranged in order that for those who are very ardent in faith room might be left in which their never-tiring flow of virtue might spend itself, and notwithstanding no loathing arise in their wearied and weak bodies from too large a quantity. And so, when the offices of the canonical prayers have been duly finished, every one returns to his own cell (which he inhabits alone, or is allowed to share with only one other whom partnership in work or training in discipleship and learning has joined with him, or perhaps similarity of character has made his companion), and again they offer with greater earnestness the same service of prayer, as their special private sacrifice, as it were; nor do any of them give themselves up any further to rest and sleep till when the brightness of day comes on the labours of the day succeed the labours and meditations of the night.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/The Twelve Books/Book II/Chapter 13

Chapter XIII.
The reason why they are not allowed to go to sleep after the night service.
And these labours they keep up for two reasons, besides this consideration,—that they believe that when they are diligently exerting themselves they are offering to God a sacrifice of the fruit of their hands. And, if we are aiming at perfection; we also ought to observe this with the same diligence. First, lest our envious adversary, jealous of our purity against which he is always plotting, and ceaselessly hostile to us, should by some illusion in a dream pollute the purity which has been gained by the Psalms and prayers of the night: for after that satisfaction which we have offered for our negligence and ignorance, and the absolution implored with profuse sighs in our confession, he anxiously tries, if he finds some time given to repose, to defile us; then above all endeavouring to overthrow and weaken our trust in God when he sees by the purity of our prayers that we are making most fervent efforts towards God: so that sometimes, when he has been unable to injure some the whole night long, he does his utmost to disgrace them in that short hour. Secondly, because, even if no such dreaded illusion of the devil arises, even a pure sleep in the interval produces laziness in the case of the monk who ought soon to wake up; and, bringing on a sluggish torpor in the mind, it dulls his vigour throughout the whole day, and deadens that keenness
of perception and exhausts that energy of heart which would be capable of keeping us all day long more watchful against all the snares of the enemy and more robust. Wherefore to the Canonical Vigils there are added these private watchings, and they submit to them with the greater care, both in order that the purity which has been gained by Psalms and prayers may not be lost, and also that a more intense carefulness to guard us diligently through the day may be secured beforehand by the meditation of the night.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Missæ. The use of this word for the offices of the Canonical Hours, though not common, is found also in the Thirtieth Canon of the Council of Agde, a.d. 506. “At the end of the morning and evening missœ, after the hymns, let the little chapters from the Psalms be said.”
* ↑ Pinguetudo.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/The Twelve Books/Book II/Chapter 14

Chapter XIV.
Of the way in which they devote themselves in their cells equally to manual labour and to prayer.
And therefore they supplement their prayer by the addition of labour, lest slumber might steal upon them as idlers. For as they scarcely enjoy any time of leisure, so there is no limit put to their spiritual meditations. For practising equally the virtues of the body and of the soul, they balance what is due to the outer by what is profitable to the inner man; steadying the slippery motions of the heart and the shifting fluctuations of the thoughts by the weight of labour, like some strong and immoveable anchor, by which the changeableness and wanderings of the heart, fastened within the barriers of the cell, may be shut up in some perfectly secure harbour, and so, intent only on spiritual meditation and watchfulness over the thoughts, may not only forbid the watchful mind to give a hasty consent to any evil suggestions, but may also keep it safe from any unnecessary and idle thoughts: so that it is not easy to say which depends on the other—I mean, whether they practise their incessant manual labour for the sake of spiritual meditation, or whether it is for the sake of their continuous labours that they acquire such remarkable spiritual proficiency and light of knowledge.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Exterioris hominis stipendia cum emolumentis interioris exœquant.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/The Twelve Books/Book II/Chapter 16

Chapter XVI.
How no one is allowed to pray with one who has been suspended from prayer.
Further, if one of them has been suspended from prayer for some fault which he has committed, no one has any liberty of praying with him before he performs his penance on the ground, and reconciliation and pardon for his offence has been publicly granted to him by the Abbot before all the brethren. For by a plan of this kind they separate and cut themselves off from fellowship with him in prayer for this reason—because they believe that one who is suspended from prayer is, as the Apostle says, “delivered unto Satan:” and if any one, moved by an ill-considered affection, dares to hold communion with him in prayer before he has been received by the elder, he makes himself partaker of his damnation, and delivers himself up of his own free will to Satan, to whom the other had been consigned for the correction of his guilt. And in this he falls into a more grievous offence because, by uniting with him in fellowship either in talk or in prayer, he gives him grounds for still greater arrogance, and only encourages and makes worse the obstinacy of the offender. For, by
giving him a consolation that is only hurtful, he will make his heart still harder, and not let him humble himself for the fault for which he was excommunicated; and through this he will make him hold the Elder’s rebuke as of no consequence, and harbour deceitful thoughts about satisfaction and absolution.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Cf. III. vii., and the description of this penance in IV. xvi.
* ↑ 1 Cor. v. 5; 1 Tim. i. 20.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/The Twelve Books/Book II

Book II.
Of the Canonical System of the Nocturnal Prayers and Psalms.

## 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
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/The Twelve Books/Book II/Chapter 15

Chapter XV.
Of the discreet rule by which every one must retire to his cell after the close of the prayers; and of the rebuke to which any one who does otherwise is subject.
And so, when the Psalms are finished, and the daily assembly, as we said above, is broken up, none of them dares to loiter ever so little or to gossip with another: nor does he presume even to leave his cell throughout the whole day, or to forsake the work which he is wont to carry on in it, except when they happen to be called out for the performance of some necessary duty, which they fulfil by going out of doors so that there may not be any chattering at all among them. But every one does the work assigned to him in such a way that, by repeating by heart some Psalm or passage of Scripture, he gives no opportunity or time for dangerous schemes or evil designs, or even for idle talk, as both mouth and heart are incessantly taken up with spiritual meditations. For they are most particular in observing this rule, that none of them, and especially of the younger ones, may be caught stopping even for a moment or going anywhere together with another, or holding his hands in his. But, if they discover any who in defiance of the discipline of this rule have perpetrated any of these forbidden things, they pronounce them guilty of no slight fault, as contumacious and disobedient to the rules; nor are they free from suspicion of plotting and nefarious designs. And, unless they expiate their fault by public penance when all the brethren are gathered together, none of them is allowed to be present at the prayers of the brethren.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Post orationum missam. See note on c. vii.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume XI/John Cassian/The Twelve Books/Book II/Chapter 17

Chapter XVII.
How he who rouses them for prayer ought to call them at the usual time.
But he who has been entrusted with the office of summoning the religious assembly and with the care of the service should not presume to rouse the brethren for their daily vigils irregularly, as he pleases, or as he may wake up in the night, or as the accident of his own sleep or sleeplessness may incline him. But, although daily habit may constrain him to wake at the usual hour, yet by often and anxiously ascertaining by the course of the stars the right hour for service, he should summon them to the office of prayer, lest he be found careless in one of two ways: either if, overcome with sleep, he lets the proper hour of the night go by, or if, wanting to go to bed and impatient for his sleep, he anticipates it, and so may be thought to have secured is own repose instead of attending to the spiritual office and the rest of all the others.

## Footnotes

* ↑ The rule of S. Benedict is similarly careful that the brethren may not oversleep themselves. See c. xi. and xlvii.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume I/Church History of Eusebius/Book II/Chapter 24

Chapter XXIV.—Annianus the First Bishop of the Church of Alexandria after Mark.
1. When Nero was in the eighth year of his reign, Annianus succeeded Mark the evangelist in the administration of the parish of Alexandria.

## Footnotes

* ↑ 62 a.d. With this agrees Jerome’s version of the Chron., while the Armenian version gives the seventh year of Nero.
* ↑ Annianus, according to Bk. III. chap. 14, below, held his office twenty-two years. In Apost. Const. VII. 46 he is said to have been ordained by Mark as the first bishop of Alexandria. The Chron. Orient. 89 (according to Westcott in the Dict. of Christ. Biog.) reports that he was appointed by Mark after he had performed a miracle upon him. He is commemorated in the Roman martyrology with St. Mark, on April 25.
* ↑ Upon Mark’s connection with Egypt, see above, chap. 16, note 1.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume X/Works/Concerning Repentance/Book II

Book II.

## 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
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume X/Works/Concerning Repentance/Book II/Chapter 12

Note on the Penitential Discipline of the Early Church.
It was always believed in the Church that the power of binding and loosing had been entrusted by our Lord to His apostles, and by them handed on to their successors in the ministry. The earlier practice would seem to have been short and simple: exclusion from Communion, some outward discipline, not always continued for a long period, and reconciliation on true repentance, these matters being decided by the bishop at his discretion. Gradually the practice became more systematized, various periods of discipline were prescribed for various sins, and the time for this discipline was lengthened.
There were three parts in the discipline of Penitence as a whole:
1. Confession, ἐξομολόγησις, a term used frequently of the whole course.
2. Penance, properly so called, i.e. the mortifications, fasting, etc., prescribed.
3. Reconciliation, performed solemnly by the bishop, often at Easter.
The confession was probably in private to the bishop, who determined whether any public confession should be made or not. But as only great sins—at first, idolatry, adultery, and murder (peccata mortalia)—were punished by outward penance, it was clear that the sin must have been very grievous.
The Montanists taught that the Church had not power to forgive great sins, and this led to clearing the doctrine, and from the middle of the third century, even those who had lapsed into idolatry were admitted to penance.
Hermas already says: τοῖς δούλοις τοῦθεοῦ μέτανοιά ἐστι μία, Mand. iv. 1. And this rule seems to have been maintained as regards the formal penance and reconciliation, not as implying doubt of possible forgiveness, but as a matter of discipline, and this rule deprived those who fell a second time from communion at least till their deathbed.
For this public penance the Greek words are μετάνοια and ἐξομολόγησις; the Latin, penitentia and frequently exomologesis. As the word penitentia includes not merely sorrow for sin and change of heart, but also penance, or the penalty inflicted by authority, and is used in such phrases as penitentiam agere or facere, it has been necessary in the translation of the De Penitentia to vary the English terms, and to use sometimes repentance, sometimes penance.
For further information on this subject, the reader is referred specially to the Articles, Buss-Disciplin, in the Freiburg Kirchen-Lexikon, by Wetzer and Welte; and to those on Exomologesis, Penitence, and Reconciliation, in the Dict. of Christian Antiquities, where other authorities and references will be found.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume X/Works/Concerning Repentance/Book II/Chapter 1

Chapter I.
St. Ambrose gives additional rules concerning repentance, and shows that it must not be delayed.
1. Although in the former book we have written many things which may tend to the more perfect practice of repentance, yet inasmuch as a great deal more may be added, we will continue the repast so as not to seem to have relinquished the provisions of our teaching only half consumed.
2. For repentance must be taken in hand not only anxiously, but also quickly, lest perchance that father of the house in the Gospel who planted a fig-tree in his vineyard should come and seek fruit on it, and finding none, say to the vine-dresser: “Cut it down, why doth it cumber the ground?” And unless the vine-dresser should intercede and say: “Lord, let it alone this year also, until I dig about it and dung it, and if it bear fruit—well; but if not let it be cut down.”
3. Let us then dung this field which we possess, and imitate those hard-working farmers, who are not ashamed to satiate the land with rich dung and to scatter the grimy ashes over the field, that they may gather more abundant crops.
4. And the Apostle teaches us how to dung it, saying: “I count all things but dung, that I may gain Christ,” and he, through evil report and good report, attained to pleasing Christ. For he had read that Abraham, when confessing himself to be but dust and ashes, in his deep humility found favour with God. He had read how Job, sitting among the ashes, regained all that he had lost. He had heard in the utterance of David, how God “raiseth the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill.”
5. Let us then not be ashamed to confess our sins unto the Lord. Shame indeed there is when each makes known his sins, but that shame, as it were, ploughs his land, removes the ever-recurring brambles, prunes the thorns, and gives life to the fruits which he believed were dead. Follow him who, by diligently ploughing his field, sought for eternal fruit: “Being reviled we bless, being persecuted we endure, being defamed we entreat, we are made as the offscouring of the world.” If you plough after this fashion you will sow spiritual seed. Plough that you may get rid of sin and gain fruit. He ploughed so as to destroy in himself the last tendency to persecution. What more could Christ give to lead us on to the pursuit of perfection, than to convert and then give us for a teacher one who was a persecutor?

## Footnotes

* ↑ S. Luke xiii. 7.
* ↑ S. Luke xiii. 8, 9.
* ↑ Phil. iii. 8.
* ↑ Gen. xviii. 27.
* ↑ Job ii. 8.
* ↑ Job xlii. 10.
* ↑ Ps. cxiii. [cxii.] 7.
* ↑ 1 Cor. iv. 12, 13.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume III/Theodoret/Letters/Letter 101

CI. To the Deaconess Celarina.
The flames of the war against us have been lit up again. After yielding awhile, the enemy of men has once more armed against us men nurtured in lies, who utter open slander against me, and say that I divide our one Lord Jesus Christ into two sons. I however know the distinction between Godhead and manhood, and confess one Son, God the Word made man. I assert that He is God eternal, who was made man at the end of days, not by the change of the Godhead, but by the assumption of the manhood. It is however needless for me to inform your piety of my sentiments, for you have exact knowledge of what I preach, and how I instruct the ignorant. I beseech you therefore since the workers of lies have poured their insults upon all the godly bishops of the East at once, and overwhelmed the churches with a storm, that your piety will show all possible zeal on behalf of the doctrines of the gospel and the peace of the churches. On this account the very godly bishops have left the churches shepherded by them, have disregarded the inclemency of winter, and endured the labours of their long journey, that they may calm the tempest which has arisen. I am sure that your godly excellency will regard them as champions of piety and governors of the churches.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume III/Theodoret/Letters/Letter 103

CIII. To the Count Apollonius.
The very godly bishops have been led to travel to the imperial city by the calumnies uttered against me, and I by their holinesses send your excellency my salutation, and pay the debt of friendship, not indeed to wipe out the cherished obligation, but to make it greater. For in truth the obligations of friendship are increased by their discharge. That I should now be reaping the fruits of calumny is not extraordinary, for, in that I am human, there is nothing that I must not expect. All troubles of this kind must be borne by them that have learned wisdom; one thing only is distressing—that harm should accrue to the soul.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Cf. Letter LXXIII. Apollonius was “comes sacrarum largitionum” in 436.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume III/Theodoret/Letters/Letter 107

CVII. To the Presbyter Theodotus.
The struggles which your piety has undergone on behalf of the apostolic doctrines are not unknown, but are frequently mentioned alike by those who have known them by experience, and by others who have heard of them from these. Continue, my dear sir, your efforts, and fight for the doctrines of the Fathers. For these I too am buffeted in all directions and, while I receive the shock of the great waves, I beseech our Governor either to nod his head and scatter the tempest, or enable the victims of the storm by His grace to play the man.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume III/Theodoret/Letters/Letter 106

CVI. To Abraham the Œconomus.
By the godly bishops I salute you. I beseech you to give heed to the churches’ calm, and to disperse the waves of calumny. “Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap,” as says the divine Apostle. Without doubt then he who fights for the apostolic doctrines shall reap the fruit of the apostolic blessing and enjoy the Apostles’ devotion.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Gal. vi. 7