Послание 37. К Иосифу, архиепископу Солунскому

Now your letter sent to me, filled with humility, your wisdom and love for me, the unfortunate one, and your praise that exceeds my dignity, my blessed brother and father, contains pure and unmixed truth, shining far from your light-like soul. Having joyfully accepted it, I thanked Christ, who had fulfilled my desire, the Giver of all good things. And how not to thank? You, enriched with knowledge and zeal for what is due, and moreover, a true son of a common father, think and act in accordance with us, the lowest! This is good; For me, when I am listened to, the consent of both of us is especially desirable. Through it, the ray of truth shines more clearly, and the deceit, or, more precisely, the nocturnal flicker of those who oppose it, is weakened and darkened. However, forgive me, I was amazed when I found the necessary division in the letter. For this is not a division of the necessary, but of the accidental, which is divided into three: greater, equal and less. And the first is divided into the present and the future; then the present is divided into constant and happening; and what happens is divided into subject and predicate. Often what happens turns into what exists, and this already turns into what is necessary. But the subsequent does not pass back into the previous one, although it comes from it. For if something is necessary, then it is no longer accidental; and what often happens, passing into the existing, becomes necessary. For example: every person is a grammarian; and: a certain person is a grammarian. The first is accidental, because it can be so, but the second is necessary, since it really exists. After his death, this necessary reality ceases. This, so to speak, exists if it exists, that is, as long as it exists. But there is something else that never changes from what it is, for example, eternal goods, the Angel and the soul. So, we have found what we were looking for: one who falls under the rule concerning the accidental can sometimes be punished for other dishonest deeds according to the rule that concerns the necessary; and the one who falls under the latter cannot be punished by accident; this is no longer allowed and is tantamount to the impossible. For everything impossible is, in the opposite sense, the same as necessary; for example, it is necessary for the sun to shine, and, conversely, it is impossible for it not to shine. If it did not once shine, as your holiness says, precisely during the suffering of Christ (I don’t know how it happens at night), then these are miraculous, not ordinary, not constant phenomena, but supernatural, or supernatural; and firstly, this happened during the dispensation of Christ, and secondly, the current lawlessness was not committed in a hidden place and not in passing, but clearly and accepted as a law by a conciliar act, the expulsion of those who defend the truth, as if for the crime of any of the divine rules, or, more correctly, for a grave and wicked heresy. Oh, the insolence of those who are responsible for this! But since they are threatened with condemnation for contempt for the divine laws, or rather, the Gospel and all the rules, it is dangerous for us, the humble, to ignore anything that is proper. What kind of economy can there be in relation to those who serve together with those who combined adulterers and presided over the council that approved adultery, as the divine Basil said? For he says that sometimes those who have withdrawn along with the disobedient, if they repent, are accepted into the same rank 65, but not from us, even if they repented, but from those of equal rank, according to the expression of the divine Dionysius. I leave the rest to your prudence, which can holyly see through what is hidden from us. Praise God for the release of the brothers, if this is fair. Praise be to God and for your God-given patience, my brother, in the cruel grief from the people there, who were not circumcised in the spirit. Do not leave me with a constant reminder that awakens me, sleeping, still in need of the sacred prayers of everyone in general, especially our father and yours. I learned that you, by the grace of God, wrote a certain work, and I would like, if you allow, to read it for benefit. To Amphilochius. Rule 1. Works in Russian translation. T.VII. S.6. M., 1892. You might be interested in: