Letter 157: Ep. CLVII. To Theodore, Archbishop of Tyana.

(A little later on, when the weather was more settled, Gregory accepts the invitation and proposes to come at once, but declines to attend the Provincial Synod.) You call me? And I hasten, and that for a private visit. Synods and Conventions I salute from afar, since I have experienced that most of them (to speak moderately) are but sorry affairs.

You owe me, even as a sick man, tending, for one of the commandments is the visitation of the sick. And you also owe to the Holy Martyrs their annual honour, which we celebrate in your own Arianzus on the 23rd of the month which we call Dathusa. And at the same time there are ecclesiastical affairs not a few which need our common examination.

(Sent about Easter a.d. 382 with a copy of the Philocalia, or Chrestomathy of Origen's works edited by himself and S. Basil.) You anticipate the Festival, and the letters, and, which is better still, the time by your eagerness, and you bestow on us a preliminary festival.

Gregory to Theodore, Physician at Constantinople. My most beloved son the deacon Sabinianus , on his return to me, brought me no letter from your Glory; but he conveyed hither what had been sent for the poor and captives; whence I understood the reason. It was that you would not speak by letters to a man, having by a good deed made your address ...

(Written a little later, as a letter of thanks for an Easter gift. Theodore had quite recently been made Archbishop of Tyana.) We rejoice in the tokens of love, and especially at such a season, and from one at once so young a man, and so perfect; and, to greet you with the words of Scripture, established in your youth, for so it calls him who i...