Letter CLXXXI.857    Placed in 374.

To Otreius, bishop of Melitene.858    In Armenia Minor, now Malatia.  Basil asks him for and offers sympathy in the exile of Eusebius.  Otreius was at Tyana in 367, and at Constantinople in 381 (Labbe ii. 99 and 955).

Your reverence is, I know, no less distressed than myself at the removal of the very God-beloved bishop Eusebius.  We both of us need comfort.  Let us try to give it to one another.  Do you write to me what you hear from Samosata, and I will report to you anything that I may learn from Thrace.859    Where Eusebius was in exile.

It is to me no slight alleviation of our present distress to know the constancy of the people.  It will be the same to you to have news of our common father.  Of course I cannot now tell you this by letter, but I commend to you one who is fully informed, and will report to you in what condition he left him, and how he bears his troubles.  Pray, then, for him and for me that the Lord will grant him speedy release from his distress.

ΟΤΡΗΙῼ ΕΠΙΣΚΟΠῼ ΜΕΛΙΤΙΝΗΣ

[1] Οἶδα ὅτι καὶ τῆς σῆς εὐλαβείας τοσοῦτον ἅπτεται ὁ χωρισμὸς τοῦ θεοφιλεστάτου ἐπισκόπου Εὐσεβίου ὅσον καὶ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν. Ἐπεὶ οὖν ἀμφότεροι χρῄζομεν παρακλήσεως, ἀλλήλοις γινόμεθα παραμυθία. Καὶ σύ τε ἡμῖν ἐπίστελλε τὰ ἐκ Σαμοσάτων, ἡμεῖς τε ἅπερ ἂν μάθωμεν ἀπὸ τῆς Θρᾴκης ἀπαγγελοῦμεν. Φέρει γὰρ ἐμοὶ μὲν τὸ γινώσκειν τοῦ λαοῦ τὴν ἔνστασιν οὐ μικρὰν ῥᾳστώνην ἐκ τῶν παρόντων λυπηρῶν, τῇ δὲ σῇ χρηστότητι τὸ διδάσκεσθαι ἐν οἷς ἐστιν ὁ κοινὸς ἡμῶν πατήρ. Ἀμέλει καὶ νῦν οὐ γράμματι σημαίνειν ἔχομεν, ἀλλ' αὐτὸν παρεστήσαμέν σοι τὸν ἀκριβῶς εἰδότα καὶ ἀπαγγέλλοντα ἐν οἷς αὐτὸν κατέλιπε καὶ ὅπως φέροντα τὰ συμπίπτοντα. Εὔχου τοίνυν καὶ ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ καὶ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, ἵνα ὁ Κύριος ταχεῖαν ἐπαγάγῃ τῶν δεινῶν τούτων τὴν λύσιν.