Letter 201: 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...
I've been wanting to see you for a number of reasons — both to get your counsel on some matters I've been dealing with, and simply because it's been too long, and seeing you would ease the ache of your absence. But it seems we're both stuck in place for the same basic reason: you're down with your illness, and I'm still not free of my own longstanding health problems [Basil suffered chronic liver and digestive illness throughout his life]. So let's agree to forgive each other the delay, and spare ourselves any guilt over it.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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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...
Ep. CLXXI. To Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium.
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.
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 ...
What a very small quantity of vegetables you have sent me! They must surely be golden vegetables! And yet your whole wealth consists of orchards and rivers and groves and gardens, and your country is productive of vegetables as other lands are of gold, and You dwell among meadowy leafage.