Letters

³ So when I beheld certain men in my own country striving to copy their ways, I felt that I had found a help to my own salvation, and I took the things seen for proof of things unseen. And since the secrets in the hearts of each of us are unknown, I held lowliness of dress to be a sufficient indication of lowliness of spirit; and there was enough to convince me in the coarse cloak, the girdle, and the shoes of untanned hide. And though many were for withdrawing me from their society, I would not allow it, because I saw that they put a life of endurance before a life of pleasure; and, because of the extraordinary excellence of their lives, I became an eager supporter of them.

And so it came about that I would not hear of any fault being found with their doctrines, although many maintained that their conceptions about God were erroneous, and that they had become disciples of the champion of the present heresy, and were secretly propagating his teaching. But, as I had never at any time heard these things with my own ears, I concluded that those who reported them were calumniators. Then I was called to preside over the Church. Of the watchmen and spies, who were given me under the pretence of assistance and loving communion, I say nothing, lest I seem to injure my own cause by telling an incredible tale, or give believers an occasion for hating their fellows, if I am believed.

This had almost been my own case, had I not been prevented by the mercy of God. For almost every one became an object of suspicion to me, and smitten at heart as I was by wounds treacherously inflicted, I seemed to find nothing in any man that I could trust. But so far there was, nevertheless, a kind of intimacy kept up between us. Once and again we held discussions on doctrinal points. and apparently we seemed to agree and keep together. But they began to find out that I made the same statements concerning my faith in God which they had always heard from me.

For, if other things in me may move a sigh, this one boast at least I dare make in the Lord, that never for one moment have I held erroneous conceptions about God, or entertained heterodox opinions, which I have learned later to change. The teaching about God which I had received as a boy from my blessed mother and my grandmother Macrina, I have ever held with increased conviction. On my coming to ripe years of reason I did not shift my opinions from one to another, but carried out the principles delivered to me by my parents.

Just as the seed when it grows is first tiny and then gets bigger but always preserves its identity, not changed in kind though gradually perfected in growth, so I reckon the same doctrine to have grown in my case through gradually advancing stages. What I hold now has not replaced what I held at the beginning. Let them search their own consciences. Let these men who have now made me the common talk on the charge of false doctrine, and deafened all men's ears with the defamatory letters which they have written against me, so that I am compelled thus to defend myself, ask themselves if they have ever heard anything from me, differing from what I now say, and let them remember the judgment seat of Christ.