Letter to the Presbyters and People of Italy

Tears were mingled with joy in me: and my mind, eager to read, was held back by the occupation of tears. And both were necessary, so that each sense in this fulfillment of longing might desire to anticipate the other in its offices of love. Thus, judging myself to be serving with you in this occupation for days, I forgot past labors: for joys surrounded me on every side, offering from one side steadfast faith, from another love, from another fruit; so that, placed amid so many and such great goods, I suddenly judged myself, as I said above, to be not in exile but with you. I rejoice therefore, dearest brethren, in your faith: I rejoice in the salvation that follows faith: I rejoice in the fruits, because you press on not only while stationed there, but also from afar.

For as a farmer has grafted onto a good tree, one which on account of its fruits does not suffer the axe, is not consigned to the flames; so also we wish and desire to render to your holiness not only bodily service, but to spend our very souls for your salvation. You have stretched out, as I said, firm branches with fruit, and have labored to reach me across such great distances of lands. I rejoice as a farmer, and willingly pluck the fruits of your labor, because you were willing to do so much: and not only I, or the most holy presbyters and deacons who are with me or the other brethren, but also all who long for you. For you have refreshed, as the most blessed Apostle says, my inmost being, when you fulfilled the divine commandments, which it was fitting for Christians to fulfill toward a bishop or ecclesiastical men, whom you know to be laboring in exile for the cause of faith.

You have fulfilled what it was fitting for brethren to do for brethren, and for sons to render to a father. But since we, wishing according to the divine commandments to make for you heavenly things from earthly, stable things from perishable, eternal fruits from fragile; we began through necessity, bearing it patiently, to sow daily. The poor rejoiced in your fruits: not only the people of that very city, but all glorified God: and those who were able to see what love you had toward me, seeing it from those very fruits, glorified God, and named us with all honor together with your blessing.

The devil, enemy of the innocent, foe of justice, adversary of faith, seeing this, because in this work God was being blessed, inflamed against us his Arianites, who had long been sighing not only on account of this work, but also on account of their own faithlessness, to which they could not persuade us, that they might become violent; using this manner which he has always employed, that those whom he could not persuade, he might terrify by force and power. He therefore gathered a multitude of his own, who drag us to the workshop of their faithlessness and mock us: and they declare that all this power has been handed over to them by the emperor. While therefore they were saying many things and boasting of their power, I wished to show them in this, that what they could do amounted to nothing, when, keeping silent, I handed over my body to them as to executioners, which the Lord said could be handed over in persecutions.

With how free a spirit I was, while I suffered at their hands, and was shut in, and was kept for four days, and heard the reproaches and persuasions of various persons: in this I showed it, because I did not say a single word. They wished to add to their malice, that brethren, that is, presbyters and deacons, should withdraw from me; and they also said they would forbid the rest from approaching me. I, lest I should eat bread from the hands of the faithless, or rather of transgressors (which is worse) of the faithless, as the Apostle says, made a written note to them in this manner:

Eusebius, servant of God, together with his fellow servants who labor with me for the cause of faith, to Patrophilus the keeper with his companions.

That by the force and fury of many you not only dragged me along the ground, but at times carried me supine with my body stripped from this lodging which you gave me through your agents and those acting in affairs, from which I never went out except by your violence; God knows this, and the city knows it, nor can you deny it here and in the future. Therefore I reserve the cause to God, that as he himself shall ordain, it may be able to receive its end.

Meanwhile know that I have decreed this (so that the account may stand now and in the future, and here), that in the lodging in which you keep me shut, in which, thrusting me back more cruelly after the first carrying away, you dared to carry me out in the same manner and cast me into a single cell, I will eat no bread nor drink water, unless first each of you shall have declared, not only by word but also in writing, that you will not prevent my brethren who willingly suffer these things with me for the cause of faith from offering necessary food from the lodging where they stay, nor those who have deigned to visit me from doing so. It would indeed have been fitting to depart from the body, lest I be compelled to tell those who often wish to know of so great a crime as you have committed against divine and public law.

But lest any of the faithless call you cruel toward us, and think that we, ignorant of the divine precepts, wished rather to avoid shame than to obey the Lord, and therefore wished to presume upon this: I say again that unless you shall have declared both by word and in writing, you will be murderers by your prohibition.

Almighty God knows this: and his Only-begotten Son knows it, born from him in an ineffable manner, who for the cause of our salvation, God of eternal power, put on perfect man, willed to suffer, triumphed over death and rose on the third day, sits at the right hand of the Father, and is to come to judge the living and the dead: and the Holy Spirit knows it: the catholic Church is witness, which so confesses: that I shall not be guilty before myself, but you, who wished to prevent my fellow servants from ministering necessary things.

And if you shall have prepared this, you ought to be despised: not as one fearing death, but lest after my departure you say that I wished to go out by voluntary death and find for yourselves some cloud of accusation against us: know that I will reach out to the Churches, which I can reach meanwhile by sealed letters; I will reach out also to the servants of God, so that in their gathering, the whole world may be able to recognize what the integral faith, which has been approved by all catholic bishops, suffers from the Arianites whom it previously condemned. Likewise I, Eusebius the bishop, have subscribed.

I adjure you who shall read this letter, by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that you do not suppress it, but hand it on to another to be read.

They therefore, scarcely softened by this note on the fourth day, compelled us to return fasting to the lodging in which we had stayed. They saw meanwhile how the people received us returning with joy. They surrounded our lodging with lamps. We began, with the Lord's approval, to minister again to those in need. Their inhumanity could not endure this, and they turned our love into their hatred. They could scarcely tolerate nearly twenty-five days. They burst out again, and come armed with clubs to our lodging with a band of desperate men, break through a wall by way of another's enclosure, and come to us by force. Again they seize us, and shut us in stricter custody with only the most beloved presbyter Tegrinus. They also seize all our brethren, that is the presbyters and deacons, and lock them up. After three days they send them by their own power into exile in various places.

Other brethren who had come to visit us they put in the public prison, and keep them shut up for very many days. Rushing again to the lodging, they destroy everything that had been procured either for expenses or for the poor. But because this public crime of theirs was being noted by all the citizens, they used this argument, that they restored some of the lesser things, and boasted that they had restored our property to us. The provisions however they kept with themselves: and after so great a crime they sought, if it could be done, to deny it in such a way that they permitted none of my people to come to me to bring food necessary for the body. Scarcely on the sixth day, with various people crying out to them, they permitted one to come. As far as it lay with them, they showed the minds of murderers; whom first, lest they should cease from malice, they dismissed on the fourth day.

Afterward scarcely on the sixth, with us failing, they permitted him to come at last with food. Such therefore are the works of the Arianites.

See, most holy brethren, whether this is not persecution, while we who guard the catholic faith suffer these things: and consider more deeply whether it is not also far worse than that which was carried out by those who served idols. Those cast into prison, yet did not prevent their own people from coming to them. How greatly therefore has Satan wounded the Churches through the cruelty of the Arianites! Those who ought to free others put them in public custody. Those who say they suffer for the cause of justice commit violence. Those who are taught by the divine law not to reclaim their own plundered goods plunder the goods of others. Moreover, how great a cruelty has seized them, while they rejoice in temporal possessions.

In the public prison, when robbers are shut in, the power of seeing their own people is not denied them by the torturers or by the judges: from us even our own people are prevented: and devoted brethren, lest they come, are not only kept away from the lodging in which we are held, but are threatened with intimidation lest they approach the prison. Thus they have subjected all, as I have most clearly recognized. I will begin with the bishops: while some fear to lose their honor, they have lost the faith itself; and while they are unwilling to lose earthly possessions and immunities, they have judged the heavenly treasures and true security to be nothing. So also the rest have been led, while they see the bishops fearing to lose these things, they have begun to love what they cannot always have.

Thus the Arianites terrify the rich, while they threaten them with proscription: thus the poor, while they have the power of shutting them in prison. And what great madness it is! In the place where we are held, they cast into prison not only the men who serve us, but also holy consecrated virgins without any fear of God in public custody. But as the wicked elders did not rejoice, who sought to violate the chastity of Susanna; so neither will these always rejoice, who strive to subject the Church to their faithlessness by various persecution and excessive oppression. For holy Daniel said to those men: Thus did the daughters of Israel fear and lie with you. But let human fear depart, most holy ones, from your souls, since you have the consolation of the Lord, who says: Fear not those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. It is a time of testing: it is a time that those who have been tested may become known and manifest.

Therefore they have received human assistance, because they do not have divine: for if they had it, they would never subject to themselves by earthly power the souls of the innocent.

We ought to write much about their evils, by which not I alone, but very many are oppressed; but lest we be able to do this and make their cruelty known by letters, we are kept in the strictest custody by them. For this reason both our own people and friends are prevented from approaching us. But the Lord has granted me to send this letter to you through our most beloved deacon Syrus, whom I had the power of sending; because by the providence of our Lord he had gone at that time to visit the holy places, and was not found among the other brethren.

For the rest, we have with difficulty written this letter in whatever manner we could, always beseeching God that he would restrain the guards hour by hour, and grant that the deacon might bring you tidings rather of our toil than letters of any kind of greeting. On account of which I earnestly ask you to guard the faith with all vigilance, to keep concord, to devote yourselves to prayers, to be mindful of us without ceasing: that the Lord may deign to free his Church which labors throughout the whole world, and that we who are oppressed may be able to rejoice with you once freed: which the Lord will deign to grant, at your petitions, through our Lord Jesus Christ who is with him blessed from ages and unto all ages of ages, Amen.

Again I ask, and I beseech you through the mercy of God, that each one add his greeting in this letter; for necessity prevented me from writing to each individually, as I was accustomed to do. Thus in this letter I address you all, brethren, but also holy sisters, sons and daughters, every sex I call upon, every age I entreat, that being content with this greeting, you would deign, in our service, to greet also those who are outside, and who deign to love us. Our brethren who are with me greet you, the presbyters and deacons, and also all our people: who together with me earnestly ask that, mindful of us, you would deign to greet all your own in our service. I have moreover sent the letter which I wrote to Patrophilus my guard, so that from it you may know that we can neither be terrified by the threats of the Arians, nor be led by their serpentine smooth subtlety into fellowship with them.

May the Divinity protect you, and cause you to live and flourish both here and in the life to come with all your own, most dear and most deeply longed-for brethren.