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Nevita is zealous in his duty, and I cannot myself be everywhere. For Ursulus I have mourned sincerely, and I deeply deplore that neither time nor circumstances allowed me to examine into his case myself. I should certainly have spared him, Gregory! I have thought, too, of restoring to his heirs any property he has left behind.

Great Emperor, you owe me no reckoning for your acts. I only wished to tell you that all these tidings fell like thunderbolts in Caesarea and Nazianzus, and the other Cappadocian cities. How shall I describe their effect! Our internal wranglings were silenced by the common danger. Many rotten branches of the Church fell away; but in many indifferent hearts the light of the Lord was kindled with a fervour before undreamt-of. Meanwhile oppression overtook God's people. The heathen—I mean, my Emperor, those whom I call heathen—began to threaten, to injure,to persecute us

Retaliation,—retaliation, Gregory!

Far be it from me to justify all that my fellow Christians may have done in their excessive zeal for the cause of the Church. But you, who are so enlightened, and have power over all alike, cannot permit the living to suffer for the faults of the dead. Yet so it has been in Cappadocia. The enemies of the Christians, few in number, but thirsting after gain, and burning with eagerness