transmit them when I wish, and not when I have no need of them. Show then, even in this, your genuine friendship, and the reverence you have for us, by bearing with us in this; and send a letter quickly, signifying by it that you were not in the least grieved. For if you do not do this, you intend to plunge us into perpetual anxiety and care; for we will not cease to be solicitous, lest we have been a nuisance, for we are held fast by great desire for your affection, and to refresh your nobility. Since, therefore, we have used an excuse, signify to us how you received it. For as your kindness can understand, we had no need to use an excuse with others who had done the same thing, and who were very dear to us, but it was enough to reject what was sent; but with your reverence we both use an excuse and beseech you not to take it ill, nor will we cease to say these things repeatedly until you signify to us that you were not in the least angry. But if we obtain such a letter, we will consider that we have received double, triple, and many times more than what was sent. For this, most of all, can serve as a token of the reverence and honor with which you hold us.
CCXXXIII. To the Bishop of Antioch.
It was right, indeed, for your piety not to have your mind subverted by the words of those who have spoken, but in such a quantity of falsehoods to investigate the truth with great attention. For if you were to suppose all that is bruited about to be truth, all would be in danger; but if, by judgment and laws, things that are hidden are investigated, I would gladly seek judgment from you, were it not that someone might again cast other shafts of calumny at me. For I fear, I fear now the shadows and images, since you have judged so. The friends have sent away the messenger of friendship; those who were near have stood at a distance, and those who were far off have hurled the shafts of calumny. You have brought it about that I suffered shipwreck in the midst of the harbor. But even if I am cast out of the city, and severed from the Church, I am resolved to prepare myself to bear any punishment. It has been decreed for me to philosophize, and to bear adversity bravely; for I know, I know most certainly, that solitude is firmer than the city, and the beasts of the field are more gentle than friends. Farewell.
CCXXXIV. To Brison.
Having spent almost seventy days on the journey, from which your majesty can reckon how many and how great the evils we have suffered, as the fear of the Isaurians pressed upon us on all sides, and we contended with intolerable fevers, we at last reached Cucusus, the most desolate place in the whole world. And I do not say these things to weary anyone, or to ask that you should be annoyed, and to beg that we be transferred hence—for we have already endured what was most grievous, namely the hardship of the journey—but I ask this favor of you, that you write to us assiduously, and do not, because we have been relegated further from you, deprive us of that consolation on that account. For you know how much that brings us relief, however much we are afflicted and beset by calamities, when we can be informed of the health of our friends, and that you are cheerful and safe, and clearly free from care. So that, therefore, we may derive no small pleasure from this, write to us assiduously regarding these things. For you will not refresh us slightly, but you will also soothe our weariness with immense consolation, since you are not unaware of how we are accustomed to rejoice in your prosperity.
CCXXXV. To Porphyrius, Bishop of Rhosus.
How firm, how constant, how immovable your love is, does not escape me, nor that any difficulty of affairs could shake it; and this you have shown by the things themselves. For which reason we too, although afflicted by disease, and brought to Cucusus, the most desolate place of this whole world of ours, and besieged by the incursions of the Isaurians, and vexed by many calamities, both write and pay the due salutation to your piety, separated indeed in body, but united in soul, and receive therefrom great consolation. For although this change is beset by no light difficulties, we yet draw the greatest consolation from the fact that we are not far absent from you, and can frequently, with but a small interval of this journey lying between, both send letters to you and receive them from you. For if we enjoy this festival—for I consider this a festival, and a solemnity, and an occasion of immense pleasure—we will not catch even the slightest sense of this solitude, fear, and anxiety.
CCXXXVI. To Carterius the Governor.
Cucusus is indeed a place desolate beyond measure; nevertheless, it does not so much sadden us with its solitude as it exhilarates us with its quiet, and the fact that it causes us no trouble in any respect. Therefore, having been brought to this solitude as if to a certain harbor, we sit, and we rest from the evils we endured on the journey, and with this quiet we dispel the remnants of the disease and evils we have undergone. I use this language with your magnificence for this reason, that I understand you are wonderfully gladdened by our quiet, since we can never have any forgetfulness of those things which were done by you there, while you were calming those preposterous and importune tumults, and moving every stone so that we might live in security, and were performing in all respects what belonged to your part. These things we proclaim before all, whithersoever we are carried, and we hold no small gratitude for you, my lord, most to be respected, on account of this such great solicitude; but that not