CHAPTER XXXI

THE BENEVOLENCE OF JOHN TOWARDS THE SCYTHIANS.—ZEAL MANIFESTED BY HIM AGAINST MARCION

THE bishop, on being informed that some nomadic tribes of Scythia, who pitched their tents along the banks of the Ister, thirsted for the waters of salvation, but had no one to bring the spring to them, sought out men willing to imitate the labours of the apostles, and sent them to these people. I have read some of his letters written to Leontius, the bishop of Ancyra, in which he speaks of the conversion of the Scythians, and begs him to send to them men capable of showing them the way of salvation. Hearing that there were in our neighbourhood certain villages in which the errors of Marcion were held, he wrote to the pastor of that region, and exhorted him to eradicate the evil, and offered him the aid of the imperial power. The heart-felt solicitude with which, like the divine apostle, he watched over the welfare of the churches, is clearly evinced by the facts which have been just related.