Epistulae

Much distressed as I was by the flouts of what is called fortune, who always seems to be hindering my meeting you, I was wonderfully cheered and comforted by your letter, for I had already been turning over in my mind whether what so many people say is really true, that there is a certain Necessity or Fate which rules all the events of our lives...

1. [I recognised your letter, as one recognises one's friends' children from their obvious likeness to their parents. Your saying that to describe the kind of place I live in, before letting you hear anything about how I live, would not go far towards persuading you to share my life, was just like you; it was worthy of a soul like yours, which m...

1. When I took your letter into my hand, I underwent an experience worth telling. I looked at it with the awe due to a document making some state announcement, and as I was breaking the wax, I felt a dread greater than ever guilty Spartan felt at sight of the Laconian scytale.

What do you mean, my dear Sir, by evicting from our retreat my dear friend and nurse of philosophy, Poverty? Were she but gifted with speech, I take it you would have to appear as defendant in an action for unlawful ejectment. She might plead I chose to live with this man Basil, an admirer of Zeno, who, when he had lost everything in a shipwrec...

1. I heard of your unendurable loss, and was much distressed. Three or four days went by, and I was still in some doubt because my informant was not able to give me any clear details of the melancholy event.

1. I hesitated to address your excellency, from the idea that, just as to the eye when inflamed even the mildest of remedies causes pain, so to a soul distressed by heavy sorrow, words offered in the moment of agony, even though they do bring much comfort, seem to be somewhat out of place. But I bethought me that I should be speaking to a Christ...

When I wrote to you, I was perfectly well aware that no theological term is adequate to the thought of the speaker, or the want of the questioner, because language is of natural necessity too weak to act in the service of objects of thought. If then our thought is weak, and our tongue weaker than our thought, what was to be expected of me in wha...

1. I have often been astonished at your feeling towards me as you do, and how it comes about that an individual so small and insignificant, and having, maybe, very little that is lovable about him, should have so won your allegiance. You remind me of the claims of friendship and of fatherland, and press me urgently in your attempt to make me co...

1. Speech is really an image of mind: so I have learned to know you from your letters, just as the proverb tells us we may know the lion from his claws. I am delighted to find that your strong inclinations lie in the direction of the first and greatest of good things — love both to God and to your neighbour.

The art of snaring pigeons is as follows. When the men who devote themselves to this craft have caught one, they tame it, and make it feed with them. Then they smear its wings with sweet oil, and let it go and join the rest outside.

After by God's grace I had passed the sacred day with our sons, and had kept a really perfect feast to the Lord because of their exceeding love to God, I sent them in good health to your excellency, with a prayer to our loving God to give them an angel of peace to help and accompany them, and to grant them to find you in good health and assured ...

Before you did write me a few words: now not even a few. Your brevity will soon become silence. Return to your old ways, and do not let me have to scold you for your laconic behaviour.

As all the fruits of the season come to us in their proper time, flowers in spring, grain in summer, and apples in autumn, so the fruit for winter is talk. About this page Source. Translated by Blomfield Jackson.

My brother Gregory writes me word that he has long been wishing to be with me, and adds that you are of the same mind; however, I could not wait, partly as being hard of belief, considering I have been so often disappointed, and partly because I find myself pulled all ways by business. I must at once make for Pontus, where, perhaps, God willing,...

The townsmen of our metropolis have conferred on me a greater favour than they have received, in giving me an opportunity of writing to your excellency. The kindness, to win which they have received this letter from me, was assured them even before I wrote, on account of your wonted and inborn courtesy to all. But I have considered it a very gre...

He who maintains that it is possible to arrive at the discovery of things actually existing, has no doubt by some orderly method advanced his intelligence by means of the knowledge of actually existing things. It is after first training himself by the apprehension of small and easily comprehensible objects, that he brings his apprehensive facult...

It is delightful to listen to you, and delightful to read you; and I think you give me the greater pleasure by your writings. All thanks to our good God Who has not suffered the truth to suffer in consequence of its betrayal by the chief powers in the State, but by your means has made the defense of the doctrine of true religion full and satisfa...

The labours of the field come as no novelty to tillers of the land; sailors are not astonished if they meet a storm at sea; sweats in the summer heat are the common experience of the hired hind; and to them that have chosen to live a holy life the afflictions of this present world cannot come unforeseen. Each and all of these have the known and ...

I received a letter from you the day before yesterday. It is shown to be yours not so much by the handwriting as by the peculiar style. Much meaning is expressed in few words.

I too do not write often to you, but not more seldom than you do to me, though many have travelled hitherward from your part of the world. If you had sent a letter by every one of them, one after the other, there would have been nothing to prevent my seeming to be actually in your company, and enjoying it as though we had been together, so unint...

The excellent Julianus seems to get some good for his private affairs out of the general condition of things. Everything nowadays is full of taxes demanded and called in, and he too is vehemently dunned and indicted. Only it is a question not of arrears of rates and taxes, but of letters.

Without address. On the Perfection of the Life of Solitaries. 1.

A certain man, as he says, on condemning the vanity of this life, and perceiving that its joys are ended here, since they only provide material for eternal fire and then quickly pass away, has come to me with the desire of separating from this wicked and miserable life, of abandoning the pleasures of the flesh, and of treading for the future a r...

That one of the things hardest to achieve, if indeed it be not impossible, is to rise superior to calumny, I am myself fully persuaded, and so too, I presume, is your excellency. Yet not to give a handle by one's own conduct, either to inquisitive critics of society, or to mischief makers who lie in wait to catch us tripping, is not only possibl...

1. I have received intelligence from those who come to me from Ancyra, and they are many and more than I can count, but they all agree in what they say, that you, a man very dear to me, (how can I speak so as to give no offense?) do not mention me in very pleasant terms, nor yet in such as your character would lead me to expect. I, however, lear...

Thanks to God for showing forth His wonderful power in your person, and for preserving you to your country and to us your friends, from so terrible a death. It remains for us not to be ungrateful, nor unworthy of so great a kindness, but, to the best of our ability, to narrate the marvellous works of God, to celebrate by deed the kindness which ...

When by God's grace, and the aid of your prayers, I had seemed to be somewhat recovering from my sickness, and had got my strength again, then came winter, keeping me a prisoner at home, and compelling me to remain where I was. True, its severity was much less than usual, but this was quite enough to keep me not merely from travelling while it l...

1. What has befallen you strongly moved me to visit you, with the double object of joining with you, who are near and dear to me, in paying all respect to the blessed dead, and of being more closely associated with you in your trouble by seeing your sorrow with my own eyes, and so being able to take counsel with you as to what is to be done. But...

My amazement at the most distressing news of the calamity which has befallen you for a long time kept me silent. I felt like a man whose ears are stunned by a loud clap of thunder. Then I somehow recovered a little from my state of speechlessness.

If I were to write at length all the causes which, up to the present time, have kept me at home, eager as I have been to set out to see your reverence, I should tell an interminable story. I say nothing of illnesses coming one upon another, hard winter weather, and press of work, for all this has been already made known to you. Now, for my sins,...

The death is still with us, and I am therefore compelled to remain where I am, partly by the duty of distribution, and partly out of sympathy for the distressed. Even now, therefore, I have not been able to accompany our reverend brother Hypatius, whom I am able to style brother, not in mere conventional language, but on account of relationship...

Our God — beloved brother, Gregory the bishop, shares the troubles of the times, for he too, like everybody else, is distressed at successive outrages, and resembles a man buffeted by unexpected blows. For men who have no fear of God, possibly forced by the greatness of their troubles, are reviling him, on the ground that they have lent Cæsariu...

Who knows so well as you do how to respect an old friendship, to pay reverence to virtue, and to sympathise with the sick? Now my God-beloved brother Gregory the bishop has become involved in matters which would be under any circumstances disagreeable, and are quite foreign to his bent of mind. I have therefore thought it best to throw myself on...

How could I be silent at the present juncture? And if I cannot be silent, how am I to find utterance adequate to the circumstances, so as to make my voice not like a mere groan but rather a lamentation intelligibly indicating the greatness of the misfortune? Ah me!

I have written to you about many people as belonging to myself; now I mean to write about more. The poor can never fail, and I can never say, no. There is no one more intimately associated with me, nor better able to do me kindnesses wherever he has the ability, than the reverend brother Leontius.

It has, I think, been long known to your excellency that the presbyter of this place is a foster brother of my own. What more can I say to induce you in your kindness, to view him with a friendly eye, and give him help in his affairs? If you love me, as I know you do, I am sure that you will endeavour, to the best of your power, to relieve any o...

I look with suspicion on the multiplication of letters. Against my will, and because I cannot resist the importunity of petitioners, I am compelled to speak. I write because I can think of no other means of relieving myself than by assenting to the supplications of those who are always asking letters from me.

1. Many persons, in their study of the sacred dogmas, failing to distinguish between what is common in the essence or substance, and the meaning of the hypostases, arrive at the same notions, and think that it makes no difference whether οὐσία or hypostasis be spoken of. The result is that some of those who accept statements on these subjects wi...

The proverb says You are not proclaiming war, and, let me add, out of the comedy, O messenger of golden words. Come then; prove this in act, and hasten to me. You will come as friend to friend.

While showing up to the present time the gentleness and benevolence which have been natural to me from my boyhood, I have reduced all who dwell beneath the sun to obedience. For lo! every tribe of barbarians to the shores of ocean has come to lay its gifts before my feet.

1. The heroic deeds of your present splendour are small, and your grand attack against me, or rather against yourself, is paltry. When I think of you robed in purple, a crown on your dishonoured head, which, so long as true religion is absent, rather disgraces than graces your empire, I tremble.

1. If, my true brother, you gladly suffer yourself to be advised by me as to what course of action you should pursue, specially in the points in which you have referred to me for advice, you will owe me your salvation. Many men have had the courage to enter upon the solitary life; but to live it out to the end is a task which perhaps has been ac...

O faithful man of solitary life, and practiser of true religion, learn the lessons of the evangelic conversation, of mastery over the body, of a meek spirit, of purity of mind, of destruction of pride. Pressed into the service, add to your gifts, for the Lord's sake; robbed, never go to law; hated, love; persecuted, endure; slandered, entreat. ...

1. I do not wish you joy, for there is no joy for the wicked. Even now I cannot believe it; my heart cannot conceive iniquity so great as the crime which you have committed; if, that is, the truth really is what is generally understood.

1. I am doubly alarmed to the very bottom of my heart, and you are the cause. I am either the victim of some unkindly prepossession, and so am driven to make an unbrotherly charge; or, with every wish to feel for you, and to deal gently with your troubles, I am forced to take a different and an unfriendly attitude.

1. Now is the time to quote the words of the prophet and to say, Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. Jeremiah 9:1 Though they are wrapped in profound silence and lie stunned by their misfortune, robbed of all sense of feeling by the fatal blow, ...

Who will give me wings like a dove? Or how can my old age be so renewed that I can travel to your affection, satisfy my deep longing to see you, tell you all the troubles of my soul, and get from you some comfort in my affliction? For when the blessed bishop Eusebius fell asleep, we were under no small alarm lest plotters against the Church of ...

I have had considerable difficulty in finding a messenger to convey a letter to your reverence, for our men are so afraid of the winter that they can hardly bear even to put their heads outside their houses. We have suffered from such a very heavy fall of snow that we have been buried, houses and all, beneath it, and now for two months have been...

I thanked the Holy God when I read your letter, most pious brother. I pray that I may not be unworthy of the expectations you have formed of me, and that you will enjoy a full reward for the honour which you pay me in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I was exceedingly pleased to hear that you have been occupied in a matter eminently becoming a...

Whom, indeed, could it better befit to encourage the timid, and rouse the slumbering, than you, my godly lord, who have shown your general excellence in this, too, that you have consented to come down among us, your lowly inferiors, like a true disciple of Him Who said, I am among you, not as a fellow , but as he that serves. Luke 22:27 For you ...

How do you think my heart was pained at hearing of the slanders heaped on me by some of those that feel no fear of the Judge, who shall destroy them that speak leasing? I spent nearly the whole night sleepless, thinking of your words of love; so did grief lay hold upon my heart of hearts. For verily, in the words of Solomon, slander humbles a man.

1. I have been very much distressed by a painful report which reached my ears; but I have been equally delighted by my brother, beloved of God, bishop Bosporius, who has brought a more satisfactory account of you. He avers by God's grace that all those stories spread abroad about you are inventions of men who are not exactly informed as to the ...

1. My soul is deeply pained at the enormity of the matter on which I write, if for this only, that it has caused general suspicion and talk. But so far it has seemed to me incredible.

I am much distressed that the canons of the Fathers have fallen through, and that the exact discipline of the Church has been banished from among you. I am apprehensive lest, as this indifference grows, the affairs of the Church should, little by little, fall into confusion. According to the ancient custom observed in the Churches of God, minist...

I have given patient attention to your letter, and I am astonished that when you are perfectly well able to furnish me with a short and easy defense by taking action at once, you should choose to persist in what is my ground of complaint, and endeavour to cure the incurable by writing a long story about it. I am not the first, Paregorius, nor th...

I naturally forget very easily, and I have had lately many things to do, and so my natural infirmity is increased. I have no doubt, therefore, that you have written to me, although I have no recollection of having received any letter from your excellency; for I am sure you would not state what is not the case. But for there having been no reply,...

If your holiness only knew the greatness of the happiness you cause me whenever you write to me, I know that you would never have let slip any opportunity of sending me a letter; nay, you would have written me many letters on each occasion, knowing the reward that is kept in store by our loving Lord for the consolation of the afflicted. Everythi...

How am I to dispute with you in writing? How can I lay hold of you satisfactorily, with all your simplicity? Tell me; who ever falls a third time into the same nets?

1. I have long time holden my peace. Am I to hold my peace for ever?

Formerly I was glad to see my brother. Why not, since he is my brother and such a brother? Now I have received him on his coming to visit me with the same feelings, and have lost none of my affection.

I have read the letter of your holiness, in which you have expressed your distress at the unhappy governor of Libya. I am grieved that my own country should have given birth to and nurtured such vices. I am grieved too that Libya, a neighbouring country, should suffer from our evils, and should have been delivered to the inhumanity of a man whos...

Following an ancient custom, which has obtained for many years, and at the same time showing you love in God, which is the fruit of the Spirit, I now, my pious friends, address this letter to you. I feel with you at once in your grief at the event which has befallen you, and in your anxiety at the matter which you have in hand. Concerning all th...

The wise man, even if he dwells far away, even if I never set eyes on him, I count a friend. So says the tragedian Euripides. And so, if, though I have never had the pleasure of meeting your excellency in person, I speak of myself as a familiar friend, pray do not set this down to mere empty compliment.

Source. Translated by Blomfield Jackson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol.

If I continue to insist on the privileges to which my superior age entitles me, and wait for you to take the initiative in communication , and if you, my friend, wish to adhere more persistently to your evil counsel of inaction, what end will there be to our silence? However, where friendship is involved, to be defeated is in my opinion to win,...

No one, I feel sure, is more distressed at the present condition, or, rather to speak more truly, ill condition of the Churches than your excellency; for you compare the present with the past, and take into account how great a change has come about. You are well aware that if no check is put to the swift deterioration which we are witnessing, th...

In my former letter it seemed to me sufficient to point out to your excellency, that all that portion of the people of the holy Church of Antioch who are sound in the faith, ought to be brought to concord and unity. My object was to make it plain that the sections, now divided into several parts, ought to be united under the God-beloved bishop M...

I wished to detain the reverend brother Dorotheus, the deacon, so long at my side, with the object of keeping him until the end of the negociations, and so by him acquainting your excellency with every detail. But day after day went by; the delay was becoming protracted; now, the moment that some plan, so far as is possible in my difficulties, h...

1. As time moves on, it continually confirms the opinion which I have long held of your holiness; or rather that opinion is strengthened by the daily course of events. Most men are indeed satisfied with observing, each one, what lies especially within his own province; not thus is it with you, but your anxiety for all the Churches is no less tha...

Source. Translated by Blomfield Jackson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol.

1. I have received the letter of your holiness, by the most reverend brother Helenius, and what you have intimated he has told me in plain terms. How I felt on hearing it, you cannot doubt at all.

I know your affection for me, and your zeal for all that is good. I am exceedingly anxious to pacify my very dear son Callisthenes, and I thought that if I could associate you with me in this I might more easily achieve my object. Callisthenes is very much annoyed at the conduct of Eustochius, and he has very good ground for being so.

1. When I had read your letter I thanked God; first, that I been greeted by a man desirous of doing me honour, for truly I highly estimate any intercourse with persons of high merit; secondly, with pleasure at the thought of being remembered. For a letter is a sign of remembrance; and when I had received yours and learned its contents I was asto...

1. How high do you suppose one to prize the pleasure of our meeting one another once again? How delightful to spend longer time with you so as to enjoy all your good qualities!

You have many qualities which raise you above the common run of men, but nothing is more distinctly characteristic of you than your zeal for your country. Thus you, who have risen to such a height as to become illustrious throughout all the world, pay a righteous recompense to the land that gave you birth. Yet she, your mother city, who bore you...

The greatness of the calamities, which have befallen our native city, did seem likely to compel me to travel in person to the court, and there to relate, both to your excellency and to all those who are most influential in affairs, the dejected state in which Cæsarea is lying. But I am kept here alike by ill-health and by the care of the Churche...

One good thing we have certainly gained from the government of the great Therasius and that is that you have frequently paid us a visit. Now, alas! We have lost our governor, and we are deprived of this good thing too.

Without inscription, on behalf of Elpidius. I have not failed to observe the interest you have shown in our venerable friend Elpidius; and how with your usual intelligence you have given the prefect an opportunity of showing his kindness. What I am now writing to ask you is to make this favour complete and suggest to the prefect that he should b...

Even before receiving your letter I knew what trouble you are ready to undergo for every one, and specially for my humble self because I am exposed in this struggle. So when I received your letter from the reverend Eleusinius, and saw him actually before my face, I praised God for bestowing on me such a champion and comrade, in my struggles on b...

The worse the diseases of the Churches grow, the more do we all turn to your excellency, in the belief that your championship is the one consolation left to us in our troubles. By the power of your prayers, and your knowledge of what is the best course to suggest in the emergency, you are believed to be able to save us from this terrible tempest...

I was delighted to receive the letter your affection sent me; but I am equally grieved at your having laid on me the load of a responsibility which is more than I can carry. How can I, so far removed as I am, undertake so great a charge? As long as the Church possesses you, it rests as it were on its proper buttress.

When I turn my gaze upon the world, and perceive the difficulties by which every effort after good is obstructed, like those of a man walking in fetters, I am brought to despair of myself. But then I direct my gaze in the direction of your reverence; I remember that our Lord has appointed you to be physician of the diseases in the Churches; and ...

I have had only a short acquaintance and intercourse with your lordship, but I have no small or contemptible knowledge of you from the reports through which I am brought into communication with many men of position and importance. You yourself are better able to say whether I, by report, am of any account with you. At all events your reputation ...

1. You will hardly believe what I am about to write, but it must be written for truth's sake. I have been very anxious to communicate as often as possible with your excellency, but when I got this opportunity of writing a letter I did not at once seize the lucky chance.

It is my invariable custom to protest at every synod and to urge privately in conversation, that oaths about the taxes ought not to be imposed on husbandmen by the collectors. It remains for me to bear witness, on the same matters, in writing, before God and men, that it behooves you to cease from inflicting death upon men's souls, and to devise...

I know that a first and foremost object of your excellency is in every way to support the right; and after that to benefit your friends, and to exert yourself in behalf of those who have fled to your lordship's protection. Both these pleas are combined in the matter before us. The cause is right for which we are pleading; it is dear to me who am...

I am astonished that, with you to appeal to, so grave an offense should have been committed against the presbyter as that he should have been deprived of his only means of livelihood. The most serious part of the business is that the perpetrators transfer the guilt of their proceedings to you; while all the while it was your duty not only not to...

Without address on the subject of the exaction of taxes. Your excellency knows better than any one else the difficulty of getting together the gold furnished by contribution. We have no better witness to our poverty than yourself, for with your great kindness you have felt for us, and, up to the present time, so far as has lain within your power...

1. The eagerness of my longing is soothed by the opportunities which the merciful God gives me of saluting your reverence. He Himself is witness of the earnest desire which I have to see your face, and to enjoy your good and soul-refreshing instruction.

1. The good God Who ever mixes consolation with affliction has, even now in the midst of my pangs, granted me a certain amount of comfort in the letters which our right honourable father bishop Athanasius has received from you and sent on to me. For they contain evidence of sound faith and proof of your inviolable agreement and concord, showing ...

Thanks be to the Lord, Who has permitted me to see in your unstained life the fruit of primitive love. Far apart as you are in body, you have united yourself to me by writing; you have embraced me with spiritual and holy longing; you have implanted unspeakable affection in my soul. Now I have realized the force of the proverb, As cold water is t...

1. To our right godly and holy brethren who are ministering in Italy and Gaul, bishops of like mind with us, we, Meletius, Eusebius, Basil, Bassus, Gregory, Pelagius, Paul, Anthimus, Theodotus, Bithus, Abraamius, Jobinus, Zeno, Theodoretus, Marcianus, Barachus, Abraamius, Libanius, Thalassius, Joseph, Boethus, Iatrius, Theodotus, Eu...

It is good and beneficial to communicate every day, and to partake of the holy body and blood of Christ. For He distinctly says, He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. John 6:54 And who doubts that to share frequently in life, is the same thing as to have manifold life.

I too have been very anxious to meet your excellency, lest by my failure to do so I might come off worse than my accusers; but bodily sickness has prevented me, attacking me even more seriously than usual, and so I am perforce reduced to address you by letter. When, not long ago, most excellent sir, I had the pleasure of meeting your excellency,...

I had written some while since to your reverence about our meeting one another and other subjects, but I was disappointed at my letter not reaching your excellency, for after the blessed deacon Theophrastus had taken charge of the letter, on my setting out on an unavoidable journey, he did not convey it to your reverence, because he was seized b...

Who ever loved his city, honouring with filial love the place which gave him birth and nurture, as you do; praying for the whole city together, and for every one in it individually, and not merely praying but confirming your prayers by your own means? For this you are able to effect by God's help, and long, good man that you are, may you be able...

The Lord, Who reveals hidden things, and makes manifest the counsels of men's hearts, has given even to the lowly knowledge of devices apparently hard to be understood. Nothing has escaped my notice, nor has any single action been unknown. Nevertheless I neither see nor hear anything but the peace of God and all that pertains to it.

1. After receiving the letter of your holiness, in which you said you would not come, I was most anxious to set out for Nicopolis, but I have grown weaker in my wish and have remembered all my infirmity. I bethought me, too, of the lack of seriousness in the conduct of those who invited me.

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.

When I saw your affectionate letter, in the country bordering on Armenia, it was like a lighted torch held up at a distance to mariners at sea, especially if the sea happen to be agitated by the wind. Your reverence's letter was of itself a pleasant one, and full of comfort; but its natural charm was very much enhanced by the time of its arrival...

This is my first letter to you, and I could have prayed that its subject were a brighter one. Had it been so, things would have fallen out as I desire, for it is my wish that the life of all those who are purposed to live in true religion should be happily spent. But the Lord, Who ordains our course in accordance with His ineffable wisdom, has a...

Moved by your importunity and that of all your people, I have undertaken the charge of your Church, and have promised before the Lord that I will be wanting to you in nothing which is within my power. So I have been compelled, as it is written, to touch as it were the apple of my eye. Thus the high honour in which I hold you has suffered me to r...

The Lord has answered the prayer of His people and has given them, by my humble instrumentality, a shepherd worthy of the name; not one making traffic of the word, as many do, but competent to give full satisfaction to you, who love orthodoxy of doctrine, and have accepted a life agreeable to the Lord's commands, in the name of the Lord, Who has...

Merely to write to so great a man, even though there be no other reason, must be esteemed a great honour. For communication with personages of high distinction confers glory upon all to whom it is permitted. My supplication, however, is one which I am driven by necessity to make to your excellency, in my great distress at the condition of my who...

On coming to Samosata I expected to have the pleasure of meeting your excellencies, and when I was disappointed I could not easily bear it. When, I said, will it be possible for me to be in your neighbourhood again? When will it be agreeable to you to come into mine?

I have many reasons for thanking God for mercies vouchsafed to me in my journey, but I count no blessing greater than the knowledge of your excellency, which has been permitted me by our good Lord's mercy. I have learned to know one who proves that even in a soldier's life it is possible to preserve the perfection of love to God, and that we mu...

I was grieved to find on reading your ladyship's letter that you are involved in the same difficulties. What is to be done to men who show such a shifty character, saying now one thing now another and never abiding in the same pledges? If, after the promises made in my presence, and in that of the ex-prefect, he now tries to shorten the time of ...

I am very much astonished to hear that, after the kind promises which you made and which were only such as might be expected from your generous character, you have now forgotten them and are putting violent and stern pressure on our sister. What to think, under the circumstances, I really do not know. I know from many who have experienced your l...

I shrink from troubling your good nature, on account of the greatness of your influence, for fear of seeming to make an unwarrantable use of your friendship; however, the necessity of the case prevents my holding my peace. Our sister, who is a relative of mine, and now in the sorrowful position of a widow, has to look after the affairs of her or...

In kindly condescending to come down to me you give me great honour and allow me great freedom; and these in like, aye and in greater, measure, I pray that your lordship may receive from our good Master during the whole of your life. I have long wanted to write to you and to receive honour at your hands, but respect for your great dignity has re...

Under any ordinary circumstances I should have lacked courage to intrude upon your excellency, for I know how to gauge my own importance and to recognise dignities. But now that I have seen a friend in a distressing position at having been summoned before you, I have ventured to give him this letter. I hope that by using it, as a kind of propiti...

1. Did but my health allow of my being able to undertake a journey without difficulty, and of putting up with the inclemency of the winter, I should, instead of writing, have travelled to your excellency in person, and this for two reasons. First to pay my old debt, for I know that I promised to come to Sebastia and to have the pleasure of seein...

On meeting this man, I heartily thanked God that by means of his visit He had comforted me in many afflictions and had through him shown me clearly your love. I seem to see in one man's disposition the zeal of all of you for the truth. He will tell you of our discourses with one another.

I need hardly tell the sons of peace how great is the blessing of peace. But now this blessing, great, marvellous, and worthy as it is of being most strenuously sought by all that love the Lord, is in peril of being reduced to the bare name, because iniquity abounds, and the love of most men has waxed cold. I think then that the one great end of...

We often ill advisedly hate our superiors and love our inferiors. So I, for my part, hold my tongue, and keep silence about the disgrace of the insults offered me. I wait for the Judge above, Who knows how to punish all wickedness in the end, even though a man pour out gold like sand; let him trample on the right, he does but hurt his own soul.

You write seldom, and your letters are short, either because you shrink from writing or from avoiding the satiety that comes from excess; or perhaps to train yourself to curt speech. I, indeed, am never satisfied and however abundant be your communication, it is less than my desire, because I wish to know every detail about you. How are you as t...

For many reasons I know that I am a debtor to your reverence, and now the anxiety in which I find myself necessarily puts me in the way of services of this kind, although my advisers are mere chance comers, and not like yourself joined to me by many and different ties. There is no need to bring the past under review. I may say that I was the cau...

You owe me a good turn. For I lent you a kindness, which I ought to get back with interest;— a kind of interest, this, which our Lord does not refuse. Pay me, then, my friend, by paying me a visit.

I address you by the very honourable and reverend brother Petrus, beseeching you now and ever to pray for me, that I may be changed from ways dangerous and to be shunned, and may be made one day worthy of the name of Christ. Though I say nothing, you will converse together about my affairs, and he will give you an exact account of what has taken...

I have received a letter from the very God-beloved bishop Eusebius, in which he enjoins that a second letter be written to the Westerns about certain Church matters. He has expressed a wish that the letter should be drawn up by me, and signed by all those who are in communion. Having no means of writing a letter about these wishes of his, I have...

The winter is severe and protracted, so that it is difficult for me even to have the solace of letters. For this reason I have written seldom to your reverence and seldom heard from you, but now my beloved brother Sanctissimus, the co-presbyter, has undertaken a journey as far as your city. By him I salute your lordship, and ask you to pray for ...

When the Armenians returned by your way you no doubt asked for a letter from them, and you learned why I had not given the letter to them. If they spoke as truth lovers should, you forgave me on the spot; if they kept anything back (which I do not suppose), at all events hear it from me. The most illustrious Anthimus, who long ago made peace wit...

You were to have come to see me (and the blessing was drawing near) to cool me, aflame in my temptations, with the tip of your finger. What then? My sins stood in the way and hindered your start, so that I am sick without a remedy.

It is sometimes said that slaves to the passion of love, when by some inevitable necessity they are separated from the object of their desire, are able to stay the violence of their passion by indulging the sense of sight, if haply they can look at the picture of the beloved object. Whether this be true or not I cannot say; but what has befallen...

A transcript of the faith as dictated by Saint Basil, and subscribed by Eustathius, bishop of Sebasteia. 1. Both men whose minds have been preoccupied by a heterodox creed and now wish to change over to the congregation of the orthodox, and also those who are now for the first time desirous of being instructed in the doctrine of truth, must be t...

On arriving at Nicopolis in the double hope of settling the disturbances which had arisen, and applying a remedy, as far as possible, to measures taken in a disorderly manner and in violation of the law of the Church, I was exceedingly disappointed at failing to meet you. I heard that you had hurriedly withdrawn, and actually from the very synod...

Our merciful God, Who makes comfort match trouble, and consoles the lowly, lest they be drowned unawares in exceeding grief, has sent a consolation, equivalent to the troubles I have suffered in Nicopolis, in seasonably bringing me the God-beloved bishop Jobinus. He must tell you himself how very opportune his visit was. I shrink from a long let...

1. Hitherto I have been unable to give any adequate and practical proof of my earnest desire to pacify the Churches of the Lord. But in my heart I affirm that I have so great a longing, that I would gladly give up even my life, if thereby the flame of hatred, kindled by the evil one, could be put out.

1. I knew that the charge which had lately sprung up against the loquacious Apollinarius would sound strange in the ears of your excellency. I did not know myself, till now, that he was accused; at the present time, however, the Sebastenes, after search in some quarter or another, have brought these things forward, and they are carrying about a ...

1. You have very rightly and properly blamed me, right honourable and well beloved brother, in that ever since I departed from your reverence, conveying to Eustathius those propositions about the faith, I have told you neither much nor little about his business. This neglect is really not due to any contempt on my part for the way in which he ha...

1. Truly unexpected tidings make both ears tingle. This is my case.

Ever since the autumn I have been quite ignorant of the whereabouts of your reverence; for I kept hearing uncertain rumours, some saying that you were stopping at Samosata, and some in the country, while others maintained that they had seen you at Batnæ. This is the reason of my not writing frequently. Now, on hearing that you are staying at Ant...

The sight of the eyes brings about bodily friendship, and long companionship strengthens it, but genuine regard is the gift of the Spirit, Who unites what is separated by long distances, and makes friends known to one another, not by bodily qualities, but by the characteristics of the soul. The grace of the Lord has granted me this favour, by pe...

You may conjecture from what it contains, what pleasure you have given me by your letter. The pureness of heart, from which such expressions sprang, was plainly signified by what you wrote. A streamlet tells of its own spring, and so the manner of speech marks the heart from which it came.

1. I have read the books sent me by your excellency. With the second I was delighted, not only with its brevity, as was likely to be the case with a reader out of health and inclined to indolence, but, because it is at once full of thought, and so arranged that the objections of opponents, and the answers to them, stand out distinctly.

1. In what state the good Isaaces has found me, he himself will best explain to you; though his tongue cannot be tragic enough to describe my sufferings, so great was my illness. However, any one who knows me ever so little, will be able to conjecture what it was.

I do now really feel the loss which I suffer from being ill; so that, when such a man succeeds to the government of my country, my having to nurse myself compels me to be absent. For a whole month I have been undergoing the treatment of natural hot springs, in the hope of drawing some benefit from them. But I seem to be troubling myself to no pu...

1. What was my state of mind, think you, when I received your piety's letter? When I thought of the feelings which its language expressed, I was eager to fly straight to Syria; but when I thought of the bodily illness, under which I lay bound, I saw myself unequal, not only to flying, but even to turning on my bed.

1. I have already heard of the persecution in Alexandria and the rest of Egypt, and, as might be expected, I am deeply affected. I have observed the ingenuity of the devil's mode of warfare.

1. Oh that I had wings like a dove for then would I fly away to you, and satisfy my longing to meet you. But now it is not only wings that I want, but a whole body, for mine has suffered from long sickness, and now is quite worn away with continuous affliction.

1. I have now received two letters from your divine and most excellent wisdom, whereof the one told me clearly how I had been expected by the laity under the jurisdiction of your holiness, and what disappointment I had caused by failing to attend the sacred synod. The other, which from the writing I conjecture to be of the earlier date, though i...

I assembled all my brethren the chorepiscopi at the synod of the blessed martyr Eupsychius to introduce them to your excellency. On account of your absence they must be brought before you by letter. Know, therefore, this brother as being worthy to be trusted by your intelligence, because he fears the Lord.

Had it been possible for me to meet your excellency I would have in person brought before you the points about which I am anxious, and would have pleaded the cause of the afflicted, but I am prevented by illness and by press of business. I have therefore sent to you in my stead this chorepiscopus, my brother, begging you to give him your aid and...

You know the bearer from meeting him in the town. Nevertheless I write to commend him to you, that he may be useful to you in many matters in which you are interested, from his being able to give pious and sensible advice. Now is the time to carry out what you have said to me in private; I mean when this my brother has told you the state of the ...

I know the countless labours which you have undergone for the Churches of God; I know your press of occupation, while you discharge your responsibilities, not as though they were of mere secondary importance, but in accordance with God's will. I know the man who is, as it were, laying close siege to you and by whom you are forced, like birds cr...

I cannot accuse you of carelessness and inattention, because, when an opportunity of writing occurred, you said nothing. For I count the greeting which you have sent me in your own honoured hand worth many letters. In return I salute you, and beg you earnestly to give heed to the salvation of your soul, disciplining all the lusts of the flesh by...

Up to this time I used to think Homer a fable, when I read the second part of his poem, in which he narrates the adventures of Ulysses. But the calamity which has befallen the most excellent Maximus has led me to look on what I used to think fabulous and incredible, as exceedingly probable. Maximus was governor of no insignificant people, just a...

Even the ability to bewail their own calamities brings much comfort to the distressed; and this is specially the case when they meet with others capable, from their lofty character, of sympathizing with their sorrows. So my right honourable brother Maximus, after being prefect of my country, and then suffering what no other man ever yet suffered...

You yourself have seen with your own eyes the distressing condition of Maximus, once a man of high reputation, but now most of all to be pitied, formerly prefect of my country. Would that he had never been so! Many, I think, would be likely to shun provincial governorships, if their dignities are likely to issue in such an end.

1. I remember our old conversations with one another, and am forgetful neither of what I said, nor of what you said. And now public life has no hold upon me.

If my letters are of any good, lose no time in writing to me and in rousing me to write. We are unquestionably made more cheerful when we read the letters of wise men who love the Lord. It is for you to say, who read it, whether you find anything worth attention in what I write.

If I were to fail to write to any one else I might possibly with justice incur the charge of carelessness or forgetfulness. But it is not possible to forget you, when your name is in all men's mouths. But I cannot be careless about one who is perhaps more distinguished than any one else in the empire.

As often as it falls to my lot to read your lordship's letters, so often do I thank God that you continue to remember me, and that you are not moved by any calumny to lessen the love which once you consented to entertain for me, either from your wise judgment or your kindly intercourse. I pray then the holy God that you may remain in this mind t...

You have done well, and in accordance with the law of spiritual love, in writing to me first, and by your good example challenging me to like energy. The friendship of the world, indeed, stands in need of actual sight and intercourse, that thence intimacy may begin. All, however, who know how to love in the spirit do not need the flesh to promot...

Without address. In the case of a trainer. I am at a loss how to defend myself against all the complaints contained in the first and only letter which your lordship has been so good as to send me.

1. So far from being impatient at the length of your letter, I assure you I thought it even short, from the pleasure it gave me when reading it. For is there anything more pleasing than the idea of peace?

You may well imagine how disappointed I was not to meet you in the summer; not that our meeting in former years was enough to satisfy me, but even to see loved objects in a dream brings those who love some comfort. But you do not even write, so sluggish are you, and I think your absence can be referred to no other cause than that you are slow to...

My sins have prevented me from carrying out the wish to meet you, which I have long entertained. Let me apologise by letter for my absence, and beseech you not to omit to remember me in your prayers, that, if I live, I may be permitted to enjoy your society. If not, by the aid of your prayers may I quit this world with good hope.

1. You may well imagine what pleasure the letter of your excellencies gave me, if only from its very contents. What, indeed, could give greater gratification to one who prays ever to be in communication with them who fear the Lord, and to share their blessings, than a letter of this kind, wherein questions are asked about the knowledge of God?

1. I have received the letter which has reached me under the name of Diodorus, but in what it contains creditable to any one rather than to Diodorus. Some ingenious person seems to have assumed your name, with the intention of getting credit with his hearers.

1. Blessed be God Who from age to age chooses them that please Him, distinguishes vessels of election, and uses them for the ministry of the Saints. Though you were trying to flee, as you confess, not from me, but from the calling you expected through me, He has netted you in the sure meshes of grace, and has brought you into the midst of Pisidi...

The same cause seems to make me hesitate to write, and to prove that I must write. When I think of the visit which I owe, and reckon up the gain at meeting you, I cannot help despising letters, as being not even shadows in comparison with the reality. Then, again, when I reckon that my only consolation, deprived as I am of all that is best and m...

One can see your soul in your letter, for in reality no painter can so exactly catch an outward likeness, as uttered thoughts can image the secrets of the soul. As I read your letter, your words exactly characterized your steadfastness, your real dignity, your unfailing sincerity; in all those things it comforted me greatly though I could not se...

1. It would not be easy for me to say how very much delighted I am with your holiness's letter. My words are too weak to express all that I feel; you, however, ought to be able to conjecture it, from the beauty of what you have written.

God has fulfilled my old prayer in deigning to allow me to receive the letter of your veritable holiness. What I most of all desire is to see you and to be seen by you, and to enjoy in actual intercourse all the graces of the Spirit with which you are endowed. This, however, is impossible, both on account of the distance which separates us, and ...

I am delighted at your remembering me and writing, and, what is yet more important, at your sending me your blessing in your letter. Had I been but worthy of your labours and of your struggles in Christ's cause, I should have been permitted to come to you and embrace you, and to take you as a model of patience. But since I am not worthy of this,...

I mourn for the Church that is deprived of the guidance of such a shepherd. But I have so much the more ground for congratulating you on being worthy of the privilege of enjoying, at such a moment, the society of one who is fighting such a good fight in the cause of the truth, and I am sure that you, who nobly support and stimulate his zeal, wil...

You have undertaken a kindly and charitable task in getting together the captive troop of the insolent Glycerius (at present I must so write), and, so far as in you lay, covering our common shame. It is only right that your reverence should undo this dishonour with a full knowledge of the facts about him. This grave and venerable Glycerius of yo...

How far will your mad folly go? How long will you counsel mischief against yourself? How long will you go on rousing me to wrath, and bringing shame on the common order of solitaries?

I wrote to you, not long ago, about Glycerius and the virgins. Even now they have not returned, but are still hesitating, how and why I know not. I should be sorry to charge this against you, as though you were acting thus to bring discredit on me, either because you have some ground of complaint against me, or to gratify others.

There is no need for me to say how much I was delighted by your letter. Your own words will enable you to conjecture what I felt on receiving it. You have exhibited to me in your letter, the first fruits of the Spirit, love.

I should be more diligent in writing to you but for my belief that my letters do not always, my friend, reach your own hands. I am afraid that through the naughtiness of those on whose service I depend, especially at a time like this when the whole world is in a state of confusion, a great many other people get hold of them. So I wait to be foun...

I have been most wishful to write constantly to your excellency, but I have from time to time denied myself, for fear of causing any temptation to beset you, because of those who are ill disposed toward me. As I am told, their hatred has even gone so far that they make a fuss if any one happens to receive a letter from me. But now that you have ...

Your excellency lately wrote to me, plainly charging me, besides other matters, to write concerning the Faith. I admire your zeal in the matter, and I pray God that your choice of good things may be persistent, and that, advancing in knowledge and good works, you may be made perfect. But I have no wish to leave behind me a treatise on the Faith,...

God grant that when this letter is put into your hands, it may find you in good health, quite at leisure, and as you would wish to be. For then it will not be in vain that I send you this invitation to be present at our city, to add greater dignity to the annual festival which it is the custom of our Church to hold in honour of the martyrs. For ...

Source. Translated by Blomfield Jackson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol.

I know that I have often recommended many persons to your excellency, and so in serious emergencies have been very useful to friends in distress. But I do not think that I have ever sent to you one whom I regard with greater respect, or one engaged in contests of greater importance, than my very dear son Eusebius, who now places this letter in y...

Your natural nobility of character and your general accessibility have taught me to regard you as a friend of freedom and of men. I have, therefore, no hesitation in approaching you in behalf of one who is rendered illustrious by a long line of ancestry, but is worthy of greater esteem and honour on his own account, because of his innate goodnes...

I have been much distressed on meeting a worthy man involved in very great trouble. Being human, how could I fail to sympathise with a man of high character afflicted beyond his deserts? On thinking in what way I could be useful to him, I did find one means of helping him out of his difficulties, and that is by making him known to your excellency.

Your reverence is, I know, no less distressed than myself at the removal of the very God-beloved bishop Eusebius. We both of us need comfort. Let us try to give it to one another.

Grieved as I am at the desolation of the Church, I none the less congratulate you on having been brought so soon to this extreme limit of your hard struggle. God grant that you may pass through it with patience, to the end that in return for your faithful stewardship, and the noble constancy which you have shown in Christ's cause, you may recei...

Seeing, as I do, that temptation is now spread all over the world, and that the greater cities of Syria have been tried by the same sufferings as yourselves, (though, indeed, nowhere is the Senate so approved and renowned for good works, as your own, noted as you are for your righteous zeal,) I all but thank the troubles which have befallen you....

Orphanhood is, I know, very dismal, and entails a great deal of work, because it deprives us of those who are set over us. Whence I conclude that you do not write to me, because you are depressed at what has happened to you, and at the same time are now very much occupied in visiting the folds of Christ, because they are attacked on every side b...

Although you do not write to me, I know that there is recollection of me in your heart; and this I infer, not because I am worthy of any favourable recollection, but because your soul is rich in abundance of love. Yet, as far as in you lies, use whatever opportunities you have of writing to me, to the end that I may both be cheered by hearing ne...

Philosophy is an excellent thing, if only for this, that it even heals its disciples at small cost; for, in philosophy, the same thing is both dainty and healthy fare. I am told that you have recovered your failing appetite by pickled cabbage. Formerly I used to dislike it, both on account of the proverb, and because it reminded me of the pover...

Twice cabbage is death, says the unkind proverb. I, however, though I have called for it often, shall die once. Yes: even though I had never called for it at all!

Even a fool, it is said, when he asks questions, is counted wise. But when a wise man asks questions, he makes even a fool wise. And this, thank God, is my case, as often as I receive a letter from your industrious self.

Humanity is the regular business of all you who practise as physicians. And, in my opinion, to put your science at the head and front of life's pursuits is to decide reasonably and rightly. This at all events seems to be the case if man's most precious possession, life, is painful and not worth living, unless it be lived in health, and if for he...

1. The interest which you have shown in the affairs of the Isaurian Church is only what might have been expected from that zeal and propriety of conduct which so continually rouses my admiration of you. The most careless observer must at once perceive that it is in all respects more advantageous for care and anxiety to be divided among several b...

On reading the letter of your reverence I heartily thanked God. I did so because I found in your expressions traces of ancient affection. You are not like the majority.

With your extraordinary zeal in good deeds you have written to me to say that you yourself owe me double thanks; first, for getting a letter from me, and secondly, for doing me a service. What thanks, then, must not I owe you, both for reading your most delightful words, and for finding what I hoped for so quickly accomplished! The message was e...

I am not able to flee from the discomforts of winter so well as cranes are, although for foreseeing the future I am quite as clever as a crane. But as to liberty of life the birds are almost as far ahead of me as they are in the being able to fly. In the first place I have been detained by certain worldly business; then I have been so wasted by ...

What are you about, most excellent sir, in anticipating me in humility? Educated as you are, and able to write such a letter as you have sent, you nevertheless ask for forgiveness at my hands, as though you were engaged in some undertaking rash and beyond your position. But a truce to mockery.

Colonia, which the Lord has placed under your authority, is far out of the way of ordinary routes. The consequence is that, although I am frequently writing to the rest of the brethren in Armenia Minor, I hesitate to write to your reverence, because I have no expectation of finding any one to convey my letter. Now, however, that I am hoping eith...

Rumour, messenger of good news, is continually reporting how you dart across, like the stars, appearing now here, now there, in the barbarian regions; now supplying the troops with provisions, now appearing in gorgeous array before the emperor. I pray God that your doings may prosper as they deserve, and that you may achieve eminent success. I p...

1. The gifts of the Lord are ever great and many; in greatness beyond measure, in number incalculable. To those who are not insensible of His mercy one of the greatest of these gifts is that of which I am now availing myself, the opportunity allowed us, far apart in place though we be, of addressing one another by letter.

After the letter conveyed to me by the officiales I have received one other dispatched to me later. I have not sent many myself, for I have not found any one travelling in your direction. But I have sent more than the four, among which also were those conveyed to me from Samosata after the first epistle of your holiness.

I wrote some time ago in reply to the questions of your reverence, but I did not send the letter, partly because from my long and dangerous illness I had not time to do so; partly because I had no one to send with it. I have but few men with me who are experienced in travelling and fit for service of this kind. When you thus learn the causes of ...

I am attacked by sickness after sickness, and all the work given me, not only by the affairs of the Church, but by those who are troubling the Church, has detained me during the whole winter, and up to the present time. It has been therefore quite impossible for me to send any one to you or to pay you a visit. I conjecture that you are similarly...

I long to meet you for many reasons, that I may have the benefit of your advice in the matters I had in hand, and that on beholding you after a long interval I may have some comfort for your absence. But since both of us are prevented by the same reasons, you by the illness which has befallen you, and I by the malady of longer standing which has...

Under other circumstances I should think it a special privilege to meet with your reverence, but above all now, when the business which brings us together is of such great importance. But so much of my illness as still clings to me is enough to prevent my stirring ever so short a distance. I tried to drive as far as the martyrs and had a relaps...

I have had a strong desire to meet you, but from time to time some hindrance has supervened and prevented my fulfilling my purpose. I have either been hindered by sickness, and you know well how, from my early manhood to my present old age, this ailment has been my constant companion, brought up with me, and chastising me, by the righteous judgm...

1. [There has been a long silence on both sides, revered and well-beloved brethren, just as if there were angry feelings between us. Yet who is there so sullen and implacable towards the party which has injured him, as to lengthen out the resentment which has begun in disgust through almost a whole life of man?] This [is happening in our case, n...

Once again I have started the well-beloved presbyter Meletius to carry my greeting to you. I had positively determined to spare him, on account of the weakness which he has voluntarily brought upon himself, by bringing his body into subjection for the sake of the gospel of Christ. But I have judged it fitting to salute you by the ministry of suc...

Now, most of all, do I feel my bodily infirmity, when I see how it stands in the way of my soul's good. Had matters gone as I hoped, I should not now be speaking to you by letter or by messenger, but should in my own person have been paying the debt of affection and enjoying spiritual advantage face to face. Now, however, I am so situated that I...

You all concur in hating me. To a man you have followed the leader of the war against me. I was therefore minded to say not a word to any one.

You have been long silent, though you have very great power of speech, and are well trained in the art of conversation and of exhibiting yourself by your eloquence. Possibly it is Neocæsarea which is the cause of your not writing to me. I suppose I must take it as a kindness if those who are there do not remember me, for, as I am informed by tho...

It is your lot to share my distress, and to do battle on my behalf. Herein is proof of your manliness. God, who ordains our lives, grants to those who are capable of sustaining great fights greater opportunity of winning renown.

I am really under no obligation to publish my own mind to you, or to state the reasons for my present sojourn where I am; it is not my custom to indulge in self advertisement, nor is the matter worth publicity. I am not, I think, following my own inclinations; I am answering the challenge of your leaders. I have always striven to be ignored more...

Truly when I read your excellency's letter I felt unwonted pleasure and cheerfulness; and when I met your well-beloved sons, I seemed to behold yourself. They found me in the deepest affliction, but they so behaved as to make me forget the hemlock, which your dreamers and dream mongers are carrying about to my hurt, to please the people who have...

1. You can imagine what I felt, and in what state of mind I was, when I came to Dazimon and found that you had left a few days before my arrival. From my boyhood I have held you in admiration, and, therefore, ever since our old school days, have placed a high value on intercourse with you.

1. May the Lord, Who has brought me prompt help in my afflictions, grant you the help of the refreshment wherewith you have refreshed me by writing to me, rewarding you for your consolation of my humble self with the real and great gladness of the Spirit. For I was indeed downcast in soul when I saw in a great multitude the almost brutish and un...

1. When I heard that your excellency had again been compelled to take part in public affairs, I was straightway distressed (for the truth must be told) at the thought of how contrary to your mind it must be that you after once giving up the anxieties of official life, and allowing yourself leisure for the care of your soul, should again be force...

I took the earliest opportunity of writing to the most admirable Count Terentius, thinking it better to write to him on the subject in hand by means of strangers, and being anxious that our very dear brother Acacius shall not be inconvenienced by any delay. I have therefore given my letter to the government treasurer, who is travelling by the im...

Many other journeys have taken me from home. I have been as far as Pisidia to settle the matters concerning the brethren in Isauria in concert with the Pisidian bishops. Thence I journeyed into Pontus, for Eustathius had caused no small disturbance at Dazimon, and had caused there a considerable secession from our church.

On my return from a long journey (for I have been into Pontus on ecclesiastical business, and to visit my relations) with my body weak and ill, and my spirits considerably broken, I took your reverence's letter into my hand. No sooner did I receive the tokens of that voice which to me is of all voices the sweetest, and of that hand that I love s...

Brother Ælianus has himself completed the business concerning which he came, and has stood in need of no aid from me. I owe him, however, double thanks, both for bringing me a letter from your reverence and for affording me an opportunity of writing to you. By him, therefore, I salute your true and unfeigned love, and beseech you to pray for me ...

The Lord orders all things in measure and weight, Wisdom 11:20 and brings on us the temptations which do not exceed our power to endure them, but tests all that fight in the cause of true religion by affliction, not suffering them to be tempted above that they are able to bear. He gives tears to drink in great measure to all who ought to show ...

The Lord has given great consolation to all who are deprived of personal intercourse in allowing them to communicate by letter. By this means, it is true, we cannot learn the express image of the body, but we can learn the disposition of the very soul. Thus on the present occasion, when I had received the letter of your reverences, I at the same...

You were previously known to me, my dear friends, by your far-famed piety, and by the crown won by your confession in Christ. Peradventure one of you may ask in reply who can have carried these tidings of us so far? The Lord Himself; for He puts His worshippers like a lamp on a lamp-stand, and makes them shine throughout the whole world.

The letter of your reverences came upon me in an hour of affliction like water poured into the mouths of racehorses, inhaling dust with each eager breath at high noontide in the middle of the course. Beset by trial after trial, I breathed again, at once cheered by your words and invigorated by the thought of your struggles to meet that which is ...

1. There is a time to keep silence and a time to speak, Ecclesiastes 3:7 is the saying of the Preacher. Time enough has been given to silence, and now the time has come to open my mouth for the publication of the truth concerning matters that are, up to now, unknown.

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. Matthew 19:7 What defense the writers will be able to make before the tribunal of Christ, where no excuse will avail, I am quite unable to conceive.

I am always very thankful to God and to the emperor, under whose rule we live, when I see the government of my country put into the hands of one who is not only a Christian, but is moreover correct in life and a careful guardian of the laws according to which our life in this world is ordered. I have had special reason for offering this gratitud...

It may be that the holy God will grant me the joy of a meeting with you, for I am ever longing to see you and hear about you, because in no other thing do I find rest for my soul than in your progress and perfection in the commandments of Christ. But so long as this hope remains unrealized I feel bound to visit you through the instrumentality of...

What is so goodly and honourable before God and men as perfect love, which, as we are told by the wise teacher, is the fulfilling of the law? Romans 13:10 I therefore approve of your warm affection for your bishop, for, as to an affectionate son the loss of a good father is unendurable, so Christ's Church cannot bear the departure of a pastor an...

I have received your lordships' letter, and offered thanks to God most holy, that you, occupied as you are with affairs of state, should not put those of the Church in the second place. I am grateful to think that every one of you has shown anxiety as though he were acting in his own private interest, nay, in defense of his own life, and that yo...

I am sure that a work done by one or two pious men is not done without the cooperation of the Holy Spirit. For when nothing merely human is put before us, when holy men are moved to action with no thought of their own personal gratification, and with the sole object of pleasing God, it is plain that it is the Lord Who is directing their hearts. ...

The government of the Churches is carried on by those to whom the chief offices in them have been entrusted, but their hands are strengthened by the laity. The measures which lay with the God-beloved bishops have been taken. The rest concerns you, if you deign to accord a hearty reception to the bishop who has been given you, and to make a vigor...

I find few opportunities of writing to your reverence, and this causes me no little trouble. It is just the same as if, when it was in my power to see you and enjoy your society very often, I did so but seldom. But it is impossible for me to write to you because so few travel hence to you, otherwise there is no reason why my letter should not be...

Every day that brings me a letter from you is a feast day, the very greatest of feast days. And when symbols of the feast are brought, what can I call it but a feast of feasts, as the old law used to speak of Sabbath of Sabbaths? I thank the Lord that you are quite well, and that you have celebrated the commemoration of the economy of salvation ...

2. Let them dismiss, therefore, these questions of dialectics and examine the truth, not with mischievous exactness but with reverence. The judgment of our mind is given us for the understanding of the truth.

Do you worship what you know or what you do not know? If I answer, I worship what I know, they immediately reply, What is the essence of the object of worship? Then, if I confess that I am ignorant of the essence, they turn on me again and say, So you worship you know not what.

1. Which is first in order, knowledge or faith? I reply that generally, in the case of disciples, faith precedes knowledge.

1. Enquiry has already frequently been made concerning the saying of the gospels as to our Lord Jesus Christ's ignorance of the day and of the hour of the end; Mark 13:32 an objection constantly put forward by the Anomœans to the destruction of the glory of the Only-Begotten, in order to show Him to be unlike in essence and subordinate in dignit...

1. I both wrote to your reverence by the vicar of Thrace, and sent other letters by one of the officers of the treasury of Philippopolis, who was starting from our country into Thrace, and begged him to take them on his departure. But the vicar never received my letter, for while I was visiting my diocese, he came into town in the evening and s...

I have received your letter, my reverend brethren, but it told me nothing that I did not already know, for the whole country round about was already full of the report announcing the disgrace of that one among you who has fallen, and through lust of vain glory has brought on himself very shameful dishonour, and has through his self-love lost the...

1. The Lord has granted me the privilege of now saluting your holiness by our beloved and very reverend brother, the presbyter Antiochus, of exhorting you to pray for me as you are wont, and offering in our communication by letter some consolation for our long separation. And, when you pray, I ask you to beg from the Lord this as the first and g...

1. You have done quite right in sending me a letter, and in sending it by the hands of one who, even if you had not written, would have been perfectly competent to give me considerable comfort in all my anxieties, and an authentic report as to the position of affairs. Many vague rumours were continually reaching me, and therefore I was desirous ...

It is not to increase your distress that I am so lavish of painful topics in my letters to your excellency. My object is to get some comfort for myself in the lamentations which are a kind of natural means of dispersing deep-seated pain whenever they are produced, and further to rouse you, my great-hearted friend, to more earnest prayer on behal...

1. The Holy God has promised a happy of issue out of all their infirmities to those that trust in Him. We, therefore, though we have been cut off in a mid-ocean of troubles, though we are tossed by the great waves raised up against us by the spirits of wickedness, nevertheless hold out in Christ Who strengthens us.

1. To his brethren truly God-beloved and very dear, and fellow ministers of like mind, the bishops of Gaul and Italy, Basil, bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia. Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has deigned to style the universal Church of God His body, and has made us individually members one of another, has moreover granted to all of us to live in intim...

1. I have read, and read with pleasure, the letter which you have sent by Strategius the presbyter. How should I not so read it, written as it is by a wise man, and dictated by a heart which has learned to observe the universal love taught by the commandment of the Lord?

It is some time since I received your letter, but I waited to be able to reply by some fit person; that so the bearer of my answer might supply whatever might be wanting in it. Now there has arrived our much beloved and very reverend brother Strategius, and I have judged it well to make use of his services, both as knowing my mind and able to co...

I am filled with distress at seeing evil on the high road to success, while you, my reverend friends, are faint and failing under continuous calamity. But when again I bethink me of the mighty hand of God, and reflect that He knows how to raise up them that are broken down, to love the just, to crush the proud and to put down the mighty from the...

When I had read the letter of your holinesses, how did I not groan and lament that I had heard of these further troubles, of blows and insults inflicted on yourselves, of destruction of homes, devastation of the city, ruin of your whole country, persecution of the Church, banishment; of priests, invasion of wolves, and scattering of flocks. But ...

So far as my own wishes are concerned I am grieved at living at such a distance from your reverence. But, as regards the peace of your own life, I thank the Lord Who has kept you out of this conflagration which has specially ravaged my diocese. For the just Judge has sent me, in accordance with my works, a messenger of Satan, who is buffeting m...

I congratulate this my brother, in being delivered from our troubles here and in approaching your reverence. In choosing a good life with them that fear the Lord he has chosen a good provision for the life to come. I commend him to your excellency and by him I beseech you to pray for my wretched life, to the end that I may be delivered from thes...

There has been some delay in my receiving your answer to my former letter; but it has reached me through the well-beloved Strategius, and I have given thanks to the Lord for your continuance in your love to me. What you have now been kind enough to write on the same subject proves your good intentions, for you think as you ought, and you counsel...

1. My occupations are very numerous, and my mind is full of many anxious cares, but I have never forgotten you, my dear friends, ever praying my God for your constancy in the faith, wherein ye stand and have your boasting in the hope of the glory of God. Truly nowadays it is hard to find, and extraordinary to see, a Church pure, unharmed by the ...

The honours of martyrs ought to be very eagerly coveted by all who rest their hopes on the Lord, and more especially by you who seek after virtue. By your disposition towards the great and good among your fellow servants you are showing your affection to our common Lord. Moreover, a special reason for this is to be found in the tie, as it were, ...

The anxious care which you have for the Churches of God will to some extent be assuaged by our very dear and very reverend brother Sanctissimus the presbyter, when he has told you of the love and kindness felt for us by all the West. But, on the other hand, it will be roused afresh and made yet keener, when he has told you in person what zeal is...

May the Lord grant me once again in person to behold your true piety and to supply in actual intercourse all that is wanting in my letter. I am behindhand in beginning to write and must needs make many excuses. But we have with us the well beloved and reverend brother Sanctissimus, the presbyter.

Would that it were possible for me to write to your reverence every day! For ever since I have had experience of your affection I have had great desire to converse with you, or, if this be impossible, at least to communicate with you by letter, that I may tell you my own news and learn in what state you are. Yet we have not what we wish but what...

News has reached me of the severe persecution carried on against you, and how directly after Easter the men who fast for strife and debate Isaiah 58:4 attacked your homes, and gave your labours to the flames, preparing for you indeed a house in the heavens, not made with hands, 2 Corinthians 5:1 but for themselves laying up in store the fire whi...

1. I have thought it only right to announce to you by letter how I said to myself, when I heard of the trials brought upon you by the enemies of God, that in a time reckoned a time of peace you have won for yourselves the blessings promised to all who suffer persecution for the sake of the name of Christ. In my judgment the war that is waged aga...

1. It has long been expected that, in accordance with the prediction of our Lord, because of iniquity abounding, the love of the majority would wax cold. Now experience has confirmed this expectation.

Source. Translated by Blomfield Jackson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol.

1. Under any circumstances I should have gladly seen the good lads, on account of both a steadiness of character beyond their years, and their near relationship to your excellency, which might have led me to expect something remarkable in them. And, when I saw them approaching me with your letter, my affection towards them was doubled.

I have received the letter which you, right honourable brethren, have sent me concerning the circumstances in which you are placed. I thank the Lord that you have let me share in the anxiety you feel as to your attention to things needful and deserving of serious heed. But I was distressed to hear that over and above the disturbance brought on t...

1. You have done well to write to me. You have shown how great is the fruit of charity.

1. May the Lord God, in Whom we have put our trust, give to each of you grace sufficient to enable you to realize your hope, in proportion to the joy wherewith you have filled my heart, both by the letter which you have sent me by the hands of the well-beloved fellow presbyters, and by the sympathy which you have felt for me in my distress, like...

Source. Translated by Blomfield Jackson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol.

1. In all things we find that the providence exercised by our good God over His Churches is mighty, and that thus the very things which seem to be gloomy, and do not turn out as we should like, are ordained for the advantage of most, in the hidden wisdom of God, and in the unsearchable judgments of His righteousness. Now the Lord has removed you...

1. You have very properly rebuked me, and in a manner becoming a spiritual brother who has been taught genuine love by the Lord, because I am not giving you exact and detailed information of all that is going on here, for it is both your part to be interested in what concerns me, and mine to tell you all that concerns myself. But I must tell you...

For the sake of the affection which I entertain for you, I long to be with you, to embrace you, my dear friend, in person, and to glorify the Lord Who is magnified in you, and has made your honourable old age renowned among all them that fear Him throughout the world. But severe sickness afflicts me, and to a greater degree than I can express in...

Even in our time the Lord has taught us, by protecting with His great and powerful hand the life of your holiness, that He does not abandon His holy ones. I reckon your case to be almost like that of the saint remaining unhurt in the belly of the monster of the deep, or that of the men who feared the Lord, living unscathed in the fierce fire. Fo...

1. It had been only proper, and due to your affection, that I should have been on the spot, and have taken part in the present occurrences. Thus I might have at once assuaged my own sorrow, and given some consolation to your excellency.

I am distressed to find that you are by no means indignant at the sins forbidden, and that you seem incapable of understanding, how this raptus, which has been committed, is an act of unlawfulness and tyranny against society and human nature, and an outrage on free men. I am sure that if you had all been of one mind in this matter, there would h...

At once and in haste, after your departure, I came to the town. Why need I tell a man not needing to be told, because he knows by experience, how distressed I was not to find you? How delightful it would have been to me to see once more the excellent Eusebius, to embrace him, to travel once again in memory to our young days, and to be reminded o...

1. It has been reported to me by Actiacus the deacon, that certain men have moved you to anger against me, by falsely stating me to be ill-disposed towards your excellency. I cannot be astonished at a man in your position being followed by certain sycophants.

I am sure that your excellency loves me well enough to regard all that concerns me as concerning you. Therefore I commend to your great kindness and high consideration my very reverend brother Hera, whom I do not merely call brother by any conventional phrase, but because of his boundless affection. I beseech you to regard him as though he were ...

That my friendship and affection for the very reverend brother Hera began when I was quite a boy, and has, by God's grace, continued up to my old age, no one knows better than yourself. For the Lord granted me the affection of your excellency at about the same time that He allowed me to become acquainted with Hera. He now needs your patronage, a...

You have anticipated my entreaties in your affection for my very reverend brother Hera, and you have been better to him than I could have prayed for you to be in the abundant honour which you have shown him, and the protection which you have extended to him on every occasion. But I cannot allow his affairs to go unnoticed by a word, and I must b...

The common law of human nature makes elders fathers to youngsters, and the special peculiar law of us Christians puts us old men in the place of parents to the younger. Do not, then, think that I am impertinent or show myself indefensibly meddlesome, if I plead with you on behalf of your son. In other respects I think it only right that you shou...

The excellent Theotecnus has given mean account of your highness, whereby he has inspired me with a longing for your acquaintance, so clearly do his words delineate the character of your mind. He has enkindled in me so ardent an affection for you, that were it not that I am weighed down with age, that I am the victim of a congenital ailment, tha...

I desired, when in Orphanene, to see your excellency; I had also hoped that while you were living at Corsagæna, there would have been nothing to hinder your coming to me at a synod which I had expected to hold at Attagæna; since, however, I failed to hold it, my desire was to see you in the hill-country; for here again Evesus, being in that ne...

Although so numerous are my letters, conveyed to your excellency by as many bearers, yet, having regard to the special honour you have shown me, I cannot think that their large number causes you any annoyance. I do not hesitate therefore to entrust to this brother the accompanying letter: I know that he will meet with all that he wishes, and tha...

I feel my boldness in pressing my suit by letter upon a man in your position; still the honour that you have paid me in the past has banished all my scruples. Accordingly I write with confidence. My plea is for a relative of mine, a man worthy of respect for his integrity.

I am mindful of the great honour I received in the encouragement you gave me, along with others, to address your excellency. I avail myself of the privilege and the enjoyment of your gracious favour. I congratulate myself upon having such a correspondent, as also upon the opportunity afforded your excellency of conferring an honour on me by your...

You blame me for not inviting you; and, when invited, you do not attend. That your former excuse was an empty one is clear from your conduct on the second occasion. For had you been invited before, in all probability you would never have come.

I hope to find a suitable day for the conference, after those which I intend to fix for the hill-country. I see no opportunity for our meeting (unless the Lord so order it beyond my expectation), other than at a public conference. You may imagine my position from your own experience.

Concerning the monks, your excellency has, I believe, already rules in force, so that I need ask for no special favour on their behalf. It is enough that they share with others the enjoyment of your general beneficence; still I feel it incumbent upon me too to interest myself in their case. I therefore submit it to your more perfect judgment, th...

The hearer of this letter is one on whom rests the care of our Church and the management of its property — our beloved son. Deign to grant him freedom of speech on those points that are referred to your holiness, and attention to the expression of his own views; so shall our Church at length recover herself, and henceforth be released from this ...

Whereas certain vagabonds have been arrested in the church for stealing, in defiance of God's commandment, some poor men's clothing, of little value otherwise, yet such as they had rather have on than off their backs; and whereas you consider that in virtue of your office you yourself should have the custody of the offenders:— I hereby declare, ...

IT is difficult to deal with this man. I scarcely know how to treat so shifty, and, to judge from the evidence, so desperate a character. When summoned before the court, he fails to appear; and if he does attend, he is gifted with such volubility of words and oaths, that I think myself well off to be quickly rid of him.

When public punishment fails to bring a man to his senses, or exclusion from the prayers of the Church to drive him to repentance, it only remains to treat him in accordance with our Lord's directions — as it is written, If your brother shall trespass against you....tell him his fault between you and him;...if he will not hear you, take with you...

Without address. Concerning an afflicted woman. I consider it an equal mistake, to let the guilty go unpunished, and to exceed the proper limits of punishment.

May many blessings rest on those who encourage your excellency in maintaining a constant correspondence with me! And regard not such a wish as conventional merely, but as expressing my sincere conviction of the value of your utterances. Whom could I honour above Nectarius — known to me from his earliest days as a child of fairest promise, who no...

The due limits of a letter, and that mode of addressing you, render it inconvenient for me to write all I think; at the same time to pass over my thoughts in silence, when my heart is burning with righteous indignation against you, is nearly impossible. I will adopt the midway course: I will write some things; others I will omit. For I wish to c...

The one-half of my desire has God fulfilled in the interview He granted me with our fair sister, your wife. The other half He is able to accomplish; and so with the sight of your excellency I shall render my full thanks to God. And I am the more desirous of seeing you, now that I hear you have been adorned with that great ornament, the clothing ...

How fare you this long while? Have you altogether recovered the use of your hand? And how do other things prosper?

It is doubtless a father's duty to make provision for his children; a husbandman's to tend his plants and crops; a teacher's to bestow care upon his pupils, especially when, innate goodness shows signs of promise for them. The husbandman finds toil a pleasure when he sees the ears ripen or the plants increase; the teacher is gladdened at his pup...

I do not think that I need further commend you to God's grace, after the words that I addressed to you in person. I then bade you adopt the life in common, after the manner of living of the Apostles. This you accepted as wholesome instruction, and gave God thanks for it.

I was aware, before you told me, that you do not like your employment in public affairs. It is an old saying that those who are anxious to lead a pious life do not throw themselves with pleasure into office. The case of magistrates seems to me like that of physicians.

You have, I think, been led to impose a contribution of mares on these people by false information on the part of the inhabitants. What is going on is quite unfair. It cannot but be displeasing to your excellency, and is distressing to me on account of my intimate connection with the victims of the wrong.

I am aware that your excellency is favourably receiving my letters, and I understand why. You love all that is good; you are ready in doing kindnesses. So whenever I give you the opportunity of showing your magnanimity, you are eager for my letters, because you know that they furnish an occasion for good deeds.

Write straight, and make the lines straight. Do not let your hand go too high or too low. Avoid forcing the pen to travel slantwise, like Æsop's crab.

I am really ashamed of sending you the Cappadocians one by one. I should prefer to induce all our youths to devote themselves to letters and learning, and to avail themselves of your instruction in their training. But it is impracticable to get hold of them all at once, while they choose what suits themselves.

1. After some little time a young Cappadocian has reached me. One gain to me is that he is a Cappadocian.

Lo and behold, yet another Cappadocian has come to you; a son of my own! Yet my present position makes all men my sons. On this ground he may be regarded as a brother of the former one, and worthy of the same attention alike from me his father, and from you his instructor — if really it is possible for these young men, who come from me, to obtai...

I know you will often write, Here is another Cappadocian for you! I expect that you will send me many. I am sure that you are everywhere putting pressure on both fathers and sons by all your complimentary expressions about me.

What could not a sophist say? And such a sophist! One whose peculiar art is, whenever he likes, to make great things small, and to give greatness to small things!

Had you been for a long time considering how best you could reply to my letter about yours, you could not in my judgment have acquitted yourself better than by writing as you have written now. You call me a sophist, and you allege that it is a sophist's business to make small things great and great things small. And you maintain that the object ...

You have not yet ceased to be offended with me, and so I tremble as I write. If you have cared, why, my dear sir, do you not write? If you are still offended, a thing alien from any reasonable soul and from your own, why, while you are preaching to others, that they must not keep their anger till sundown, have you kept yours during many suns?

All who are attached to the rose, as might be expected in the case of lovers of the beautiful, are not displeased even at the thorns from out of which the flower blows. I have even heard it said about roses by some one, perhaps in jest, or, it may be, even in earnest, that nature has furnished the bloom with those delicate thorns, like stings of...

IF these are the words of an untrained tongue, what would you be if you would polish them? On your lips live fountains of words better than the flowing of springs. I, on the contrary, if I am not daily watered, am silent.

I am dissuaded from writing often to you, learned as you are, by my timidity and my ignorance. But your persistent silence is different. What excuse can be offered for it?

It is, I think, more needful for me to defend myself for not having begun to write to you long ago, than to offer any excuse for beginning now. I am that same man who always used to run up whenever you put in an appearance, and who listened with the greatest delight to the stream of your eloquence; rejoicing to hear you; with difficulty tearing ...

You yourself will judge whether I have added anything in the way of learning to the young men whom you have sent. I hope that this addition, however little it be, will get the credit of being great, for the sake of your friendship towards me. But inasmuch as you give less praise to learning than to temperance and to a refusal to abandon our soul...

Every bishop is a thing out of which it is very hard to get anything. The further you have advanced beyond other people in learning, the more you make me afraid that you will refuse what I ask. I want some rafters.

If γριπίζειν is the same thing as to gain, and this is the meaning of the phrase which your sophistic ingenuity has got from the depths of Plato, consider, my dear sir, who is the more hard to be got from, I who am thus impaled by your epistolary skill, or the tribe of Sophists, whose craft is to make money out of their words. What bishop ever ...

Will you not give over, Basil, packing this sacred haunt of the Muses with Cappadocians, and these redolent of the frost and snow and all Cappadocia's good things? They have almost made me a Cappadocian too, always chanting their I salute you. I must endure, since it is Basil who commands.

Your annoyance is over. Let this be the beginning of my letter. Go on mocking and abusing me and mine, whether laughing or in earnest.

Many, who have come to me from where you are, have admired your oratorical power. They were remarking that there has been a very brilliant specimen of this, and a very great contest, as they alleged, with the result that all crowded together, and no one appeared in the whole city but Libanius alone in the lists, and everybody, young and old, lis...

Behold! I have sent you my speech, all streaming with sweat as I am! How should I be otherwise, when sending my speech to one who by his skill in oratory is able to show that the wisdom of Plato and the ability of Demosthenes were belauded in vain?

I have read your speech, and have immensely admired it. O muses; O learning; O Athens; what do you not give to those who love you! What fruits do not they gather who spend even a short time with you!

Now I recognise men's description of me! Basil has praised me, and I am hailed victor over all! Now that I have received your vote, I am entitled to walk with the proud gait of a man who haughtily looks down on all the world.

Are you living at Athens, Basil? Have you forgotten yourself? The sons of the Cæsareans could not endure to hear these things.

I am delighted at receiving what you write, but when you ask me to reply, I am in a difficulty. What could I say in answer to so Attic a tongue, except that I confess, and confess with joy, that I am a pupil of fishermen? About this page Source.

What has made Basil object to the letter, the proof of philosophy? I have learned to make fun from you, but nevertheless your fun is venerable and, so to say, hoary with age. But, by our very friendship, by our common pastimes, do away, I charge you, with the distress caused by your letter...in nothing differing.

Oh, for the old days in which we were all in all to one another! Now we are sadly separated! You have one another, I have no one like you to replace you.

You, who have included all the art of the ancients in your own mind, are so silent, that you do not even let me get any gain in a letter. I, if the art of Dædalus had only been safe, would have made me Icarus' wings and come to you. But wax cannot be entrusted to the sun, and so, instead of Icarus' wings, I send you words to prove my affection.

Of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the invocation of Saints, and their Images. According to the blameless faith of the Christians which we have obtained from God, I confess and agree that I believe in one God the Father Almighty; God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost; I adore and worship one God, the Three. I confess to the œconomy ...

Basil to Urbicius the monk, concerning continency You do well in making exact definitions for us, so that we may recognise not only continency, but its fruit. Now its fruit is the companionship of God. For not to be corrupted, is to have part with God; just as to be corrupted is the companionship of the world.