To the Prefect Eutrechius, on the Plots Against Him

I have been very much astonished that your lordship sent me no word of the plots against me. To defeat them might well have been difficult for anyone without the means of proving their authors liars. But to send word of what was going on needed not so much power as friendship. We had hoped that, once your excellency had been summoned to the imperial city and chosen to adorn the prefect’s high seat, every storm in the church would be calmed. But we are suffering disturbances such as we did not see even at the beginning of the dispute. The churches of Phoenicia are in trouble; those of Palestine are in trouble too, as everyone with one voice reports, and the letters of the most pious bishops prove the distress. All the saints among us groan, and every devout congregation is in mourning. While we were looking for an end to our former troubles, we have been struck with new ones. [a]

I myself have been forbidden to leave the territory of Cyrrhus, if the dispatch shown to me is genuine, which is said to be written in the hand of our victorious emperor. It runs as follows: “Since so-and-so, the bishop of this city, is continually assembling synods, and this is a cause of trouble to the orthodox, see to it with proper care and wisdom that he lives at Cyrrhus and does not leave it for another city.” I have accepted the sentence, and I am staying put. Your lordship can bear witness to my feelings, for you know how, when I arrived at Antioch, I left in a hurry because of those who wanted to keep me there. And those who gave both their ears to my slanderers and would not keep one for me were certainly in the wrong. Even murderers, and those who violate other men’s marriage beds, are given a chance to defend themselves. They are not sentenced until they have been convicted in their own presence, or have confessed that the charges against them are true. But a high priest who has held the office of bishop for twenty-five years, after spending his earlier life in a monastery, who has never troubled a court, and has never once been prosecuted by anyone, is treated as a mere plaything of slander. He is not allowed even the right that grave robbers have, of being questioned about the truth of the accusations brought against them. Yet they have done wrong; I have done no wrong.

But I am ready for still heavier troubles. However much they are annoyed at my lamenting the calamities of Phoenicia, I will not stop doing so as long as I see them. The only judgment I hold in awe is the judgment of God. Even so, I pray for them, that they may obtain forgiveness from the God of all; and for your excellency, that you may always live in honor, excel in every good thing, speak out boldly against lies, and fight on the side of the truth. And let those who devised this plot know that even if I go away to the farthest ends of the earth, God will not let ungodly doctrines be established. He will nod his head and destroy those who bow down to abominable doctrines.