LETTER OF OUR HOLY FATHER GREGORY, BISHOP OF NYSSA, TO HIS BROTHER PETER, BISHOP OF SEBASTE
A Having with difficulty found a little leisure, I was able to attend to the care of my health after my return from Armenia, and to collect the notes which I had composed against Eunomius at the advice of your intelligence, so that my labor finally took the form of an oration, and the oration took the form of a book. But I have not written against both of Eunomius's books; for so much time was not granted to me, since he who had lent me that heretical book demanded it back very importunately and churlishly, and gave me sufficient time neither to copy it nor to examine it at my leisure. For having applied myself to this work for only seventeen days, it could not be that in so short a time I should refute both books.
B But having been often importuned by many men—men held by some zeal for the truth, because rumor had already spread, I know not how, that I had completed a refutation against the blasphemer Eunomius—I judged it to be in the interest of the matter to use you as my counselor above all regarding this: whether the work ought to be published, or some other course should be taken. That which renders me hesitant is this: When I received the book of Eunomius at the very time of the falling asleep [death] of the holy Basil, while my heart was still burning with desire for him and grieving greatly on account of the common calamity of the Churches—and since Eunomius had written not only what seemed to give structure to his own dogma, but had diligently spent more effort on the revilings which he composed with great toil against our father—being thereupon provoked by the insults uttered by him, I showed C in some places a certain anger and heat of heart against the writer. Since the many perhaps judge us otherwise—knowing that we are of such a character as to endure with an even and patient mind those who impetuously rise up against us, and that we have [learned] from the discipline of St. Basil the moderation of
LETTER OF PETER OF SEBASTE TO SAINT GREGORY
in our habits, as far as we are able, we are accustomed to show; I feared that from these things which I have written against this adversary, I might appear to readers as one who is easily inflamed by the insults of calumniators. But lest I be thought such a person, there stands the fact that I am not angry on my own behalf, but because of the shameful things said against our father. For in such matters it perhaps deserves greater forgiveness to be angered than to act with moderation. A
If, however, the beginnings of the discourse are considered as if alien to the contest, I hope that one who is possessed of judgment will not reluctantly approve of the plan of our discourse. For it was not fitting that we should leave the reputation and esteem of the great Basil, torn apart by the slandering of the adversary, undefended; nor that we should sprinkle such things here and there throughout the disputation; although also to one who weighs these things carefully, they may appear a part of the struggle: since the adversary's disputation is also divided into two parts, to wit, into calumnies and into the reprehension of sound doctrine, it was necessary that we also direct our own defense against both parts. Furthermore, for the sake of clarity, and so that the series of those things which are discussed concerning the doctrine itself might not be interrupted by the interposition of calumnies, B we necessarily distributed the work into two parts: at the beginning indeed being intent upon warding off the insults which are thrown at us, and afterwards upon the defense of the orthodox dogma to the best of our ability. The disputation contains not only the overturning of heretical depravity, but also the instruction and explanation of our own dogmas. For we deemed it shameful and altogether unworthy of a noble spirit that, while our enemies do not hide their own absurdity, we should not most freely profess the truth. C