|
AFTER these events a pestilential disease followed the war, and at
the approach of the feast he wrote again to the brethren, describing
the sufferings consequent upon this calamity.
"To other men the present might not seem to be a suitable time for a
festival. Nor indeed is this or any other time suitable for them;
neither sorrowful times, nor even such as might be thought especially
cheerful. Now, indeed, everything is tears and every one is
mourning, and wailings resound daily through the city because of the
multitude of the dead and dying. For as it was written of the
firstborn of the Egyptians, so now 'there has arisen a great cry,
for there is not a house where there is not one dead.' And would that
this were all! For many terrible things have happened already.
First, they drove us out; and when alone, and persecuted, and put
to death by all, even then we kept the feast. And every place of
affliction was to us a place of festival: field, desert, ship, inn,
prison; but the perfected martyrs kept the most joyous festival of
all, feasting in heaven. After these things war and famine followed,
which we endured in common with the heathen. But we bore alone those
things with which they afflicted us, and at the same time we
experienced also the effects of what they inflicted upon and suffered
from one another; and again, we rejoiced in the peace of Christ,
which he gave to us alone.
"But after both we and they had enjoyed a very brief season of rest
this pestilence assailed us; to them more dreadful than any dread, and
more intolerable than any other calamity; and, as one of their own
writers has said, the only thing which prevails over all hope.
But to us this was not so, but no less than the other things was it an
exercise and probation. For it did not keep aloof even from us, but
the heathen it assailed more severely." Farther on he adds:
"The most of our brethren were unsparing in their exceeding love and
brotherly kindness. They held fast to each other and visited the sick
fearlessly, and ministered to them continually, serving them in
Christ. And they died with them most joyfully, taking the affliction
of others, and drawing the sickness from their neighbors to themselves
and willingly receiving their pains. And many who cared for the sick
and gave strength to others died themselves having transferred to
themselves their death. And the popular saying which always seems a
mere expression of courtesy, they then made real in action, taking
their departure as the others' 'offscouring.'
"Truly the best of our brethren departed from life in this manner,
including some presbyters and deacons and those of the people who had
the highest reputation; so that this form of death, through the great
piety and strong faith it exhibited, seemed to lack nothing of
martyrdom. And they took the bodies of the saints in their open hands
and in their bosoms, and closed their eyes and their mouths; and they
bore them away on their shoulders and laid them out; and they clung to
them and embraced them; and they prepared them suitably with washings
and garments. And after a little they received like treatment
themselves, for the survivors were continually following those who had
gone before them.
"But with the heathen everything was quite otherwise. They deserted
those who began to be sick, and fled from their dearest friends.
And they cast them out into the streets when they were half dead, and
left the dead like refuse, unburied. They shunned any participation
or fellowship with death; which yet, with all their precautions, it
was not easy for them to escape."
After this epistle, when peace had been restored to the city, he
wrote another festal letter to the brethren in Egypt, and again
several others besides this. And there is also a certain one extant
On the Sabbath, and another On Exercise. Moreover, he wrote
again an epistle to Hermammon and the brethren in Egypt, describing
at length the wickedness of Decius and his successors, and mentioning
the peace under Gallienus.
|
|