2. I have been specially struck with admiration at your having been distressed even by the dispute of the monks on the Mount of Olives, and at your expressing a wish that some means might be found of reconciling them to one another. I have further been glad to hear that you have not been unaware of the unfortunate steps, taken by certain persons, which have caused disturbance among the brethren, and that you have keenly interested yourself even in these matters. But I have deemed it hardly worthy of your wisdom that you should entrust the rectification of matters of such importance to me: for I am not guided by the grace of God, because of my living in sin; I have no power of eloquence, because I have cheerfully withdrawn from vain studies; and I am not yet sufficiently versed in the doctrines of the truth. I have therefore already written to my beloved brethren at the Mount of Olives, our own Palladius, and Innocent the Italian, in answer to their letters to me, that it is impossible for me to make even the slightest addition to the Nicene Creed, except the ascription of Glory to the Holy Ghost, because our Fathers treated this point cursorily, no question having at that time arisen concerning the Spirit. As to the additions it is proposed to make to that Creed, concerning the incarnation of our Lord, I have neither tested nor accepted them, as being beyond my comprehension. I know well that, if once we begin to interfere with the simplicity of the Creed, we shall embark on interminable discussion, contradiction ever leading us on and on, and shall but disturb the souls of simpler folk by the introduction of new phrases.