A Request for News of the East

I said: “Truly, you have clearly shown what a sincere love can do, since for my sake you have crossed so many seas and so much land, traveling, so to speak, from the rising of the sun in the East to where it sets in the West. Come, then: we are here in a quiet place by ourselves, with nothing else to occupy us, and we feel it our duty to give our attention to what you say. Come, I beg you, tell us the whole story of your travels. Tell us, please, how the faith of Christ is flourishing in the East, what peace the saints enjoy, what the customs of the monks are, and with what signs and miracles Christ is working in his servants. For in this region of ours, and in the circumstances we are placed in, life itself has become a weariness to us. So we will gladly hear from you whether Christians are at least allowed to live in the desert.”

In reply to this, Postumianus said: “I will do as I see you wish. But first I beg you to tell me whether all those whom I left here as priests are still the same as I knew them before I went away.” [a]

Then I exclaimed: “Please do not ask about such matters. Either you know them as well as I do, I think, or, if you do not, it is better that you hear nothing about them. I cannot help saying this, however: not only are those you ask about no better than they were when you knew them, but even the one man who used to be a great friend of mine, and in whose affection I used to find some comfort against the persecutions of the rest, has been more unkind to me than he ought to have been. However, I will not say anything harsher about him, both because I once valued him as a friend and because I loved him even when he was thought to be my enemy. I will only add that while I was silently turning these things over in my mind, this grief troubled me deeply: that I had almost lost the friendship of a man who was both wise and devout. But let us turn away from these sorrowful subjects, and rather let us listen to you, as you promised some time ago.”

Postumianus exclaimed: “Let it be so.” When he said this, we all fell silent, while he moved his sackcloth robe, on which he had sat down, a little nearer to me, and began as follows.