1.  I have received your reverence’s letter and I am delighted at the title which you have felicitously applied to the writing which they have composed in calling it “a writing of divorcement.” Matt. xix. 7.  What defence the writers will be able to make before the tribunal of Christ, where no excuse will avail, I am quite unable to conceive.  After accusing me, violently running me down, and telling tales in accordance not with the truth but with what they wished to be true, they have assumed a great show of humility, and have accused me of haughtiness for refusing to receive their envoys.  They have written, as they have, what is all—or nearly all—for I do not wish to exaggerate,—lies, in the endeavour to persuade men rather than God, and to please men rather than God, with Whom nothing is more precious than truth.  Moreover into the letter written against me they have introduced heretical expressions, and have concealed the author of the impiety, in order that most of the more unsophisticated might be deceived by the calumny got up against me, and suppose the portion introduced to be mine.  For nothing is said by my ingenious slanderers as to the name of the author of these vile doctrines, and it is left for the simple to suspect that these inventions, if not their expression in writing, is due to me.  Now that you know all this, I exhort you not to be perturbed yourselves, and to calm the excitement of those who are agitated.  I say this although I know that it will not be easy for my defence to be received, because I have been anticipated by the vile calumnies uttered against me by persons of influence.