Letter 94: The loving-kindness of the Lord has already given you an opportunity to carry out your good intentions.

To Protogenes the Prefect. The loving-kindness of the Lord has already given you an opportunity to carry out your good intentions. He has given you a greater opportunity now, so that your Excellency may more easily champion the cause of truth under attack, bring the lies to nothing, and give the churches the calm for which they so intensely long. Your Excellency will have learned from many other sources how great a surge is overwhelming the churches of the East. You will gain more precise information, however, from the devout bishops who, on account of it, have undertaken this long winter journey — relying, next after the grace of God, on the providence of your authority. Scatter the storm for us, O Christian man. Change this moonless night into clear sunshine. Bridle the tongues that are being set in motion against us. We, by God's grace, are ever fighting for the apostolic decrees, and we preserve undefiled the faith laid down at Nicaea, calling impious all who dare to violate its definitions. As evidence that what I say is true, call as witnesses my catechumens, those I have baptized, the hearers of my discourses in the churches. If these men mean to accuse me in accordance with the law, they must convict me in my presence, not slander me behind my back. Your Excellency, in judging other cases, is accustomed to render verdicts precisely in this way — discerning which side holds the right from the arguments of both prosecution and defense.

Letter 94