Letter 61: To the Presbyter Archibius,
To the Presbyter Archibius,
I did not ignore your two recent letters. I wrote back without delay and gave my reply to the deeply devout presbyter Eusebius. But the letter was held up: winter weather kept the ships in harbor, warning of a coming storm and bidding sailors and pilots to wait.
So I discharged my debt for the moment -- not in order to stop being a debtor, but to increase what I owe. For this is the nature of the obligation of friendship: it grows many times greater every time you pay it. Those who try to honor the laws of friendship only increase the power of its love, blowing sparks into a flame and kindling an ever-greater warmth, while everyone caught in that fire strives to outdo the other in affection.
Accept this defense, my dear friend. Forgive the delay. And send me a letter telling me how you are.
Human translation — New Advent (NPNF / ANF series)
Related Letters
Gregory to Athanasius, Presbyter of Isauria. As we are afflicted and mourn for those whom the error of heretical pravity has cut off from the unity of the Church, so we rejoice with those whom their profession of the Catholic faith retains within her bosom. And, as it is our duty to oppose the impiety of the former with pastoral solicitude, so i...
Personally, I find wise the things that you you claim are absurd.
In my former letter it seemed to me sufficient to point out to your excellency, that all that portion of the people of the holy Church of Antioch who are sound in the faith, ought to be brought to concord and unity. My object was to make it plain that the sections, now divided into several parts, ought to be united under the God-beloved bishop M...
That one of the things hardest to achieve, if indeed it be not impossible, is to rise superior to calumny, I am myself fully persuaded, and so too, I presume, is your excellency. Yet not to give a handle by one's own conduct, either to inquisitive critics of society, or to mischief makers who lie in wait to catch us tripping, is not only possibl...
1. I have received your reverence's letter and I am delighted at the title which you have felicitously applied to the writing which they have composed in calling it a writing of divorcement. Matthew 19:7 What defense the writers will be able to make before the tribunal of Christ, where no excuse will avail, I am quite unable to conceive.