I have had every desire and have really done my best to obey, if only in part, the imperial order and the friendly letter of your excellency.  I am sure that your every word and every thought are full of good intentions and right sentiments.  But I have not been permitted to show my ready concurrence by practical action.  The truest cause is my sins, which always rise before me and always hamper my steps.  Then, again, there is the alienation of the bishop who had been appointed to cooperate with me, why, I know not; but my right reverend brother Theodotus, who promised from the beginning to act with me, had cordially invited καταγαγών .  So six mss., but the Ben. Ed. seem rightly to point out that the invitation never resulted in actual “conducting.” me from Getasa to Nicopolis. i.e. The Armenian Nicopolis.  When however he saw me in the town, he was so shocked at me, and so afraid of my sins, that he could not bear to take me either to morning or evening prayer.  In this he acted quite justly so far as my deserts go, and quite as befits my course of life, but not in a manner likely to promote the interests of the Churches.  His alleged reason was that I had admitted the very reverend brother Eustathius to communion.  What I have done is as follows.  When invited to a meeting held by our brother Theodotus, and wishful, for love’s sake, to obey the summons, that I might not make the gathering fruitless and vain, I was anxious to hold communication with the aforementioned brother Eustathius. I put before him the accusations concerning the faith, advanced against him by our brother Theodotus, and I asked him, if he followed the right faith, to make it plain to me, that I might communicate with him; if he were of another mind he must know plainly that I should be separated from him.  We had much conversation on the subject, and all that day was spent in its examination; when evening came on we separated without arriving at any definite conclusion.  On the morrow, we had another sitting in the morning and discussed the same points, with the addition of our brother Pœmenius, the presbyter of Sebasteia, who vehemently pressed the argument against me.  Point by point I cleared up the questions on which he seemed to be accusing me, and brought them to agree to my propositions.  The result was, that, by the grace of the Lord, we were found to be in mutual agreement, even on the most minute particulars.  So about the ninth hour, after thanking God for granting us to think and say the same thing, we rose up to go to prayer.  In addition to this I ought to have got some written statement from him, so that his assent might be made known to his opponents and the proof of his opinion might be sufficient for the rest.  But I was myself anxious, with the desire for great exactitude, to meet my brother Theodotus, to get a written statement of the faith from him, and to propose it to Eustathius; that so both objects might be obtained at once, the confession of the right faith by Eustathius and the complete satisfaction of Theodotus and his friends, and they would have no ground for objection after the acceptance of their own propositions.  But Theodotus, before learning why we were met and what had been the result of our intercourse, decided not to allow us to take part in the meeting.  So midway on our journey we set out back again, disappointed that our efforts for the peace of the Churches had been counteracted.