Letter 340: 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 ...
Basil of Caesarea→Basil of Caesarea|c. 377 AD|basil caesarea
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[From Libanius to Basil]
If you had spent a long time thinking about how best to reply to my letter about yours, you could not in my judgment have done better than what you have actually written. You call me a sophist and allege that it is a sophist's business to make small things great and great things small. You insist that the purpose of my letter was to prove yours good when it was not, that it was no better than the one you have just sent, and that in general you have no power of expression -- your current reading having done nothing for your style, and whatever eloquence you once possessed having long since vanished.
Now, in trying to prove all this, you have made this latest letter so magnificent that my visitors could not restrain themselves from jumping up in admiration as it was read aloud.
I was struck by the irony: you tried to discredit the former letter by comparing it to this one -- but in doing so, you have actually complimented the former, since this one is superb. To carry out your plan properly, you should have made this letter worse, so that the comparison would damage the earlier one. But deliberately writing badly is not like you. It would be an offense against truth -- and it would mean intentionally suppressing the powers you possess. It is more characteristic of you not to criticize what deserves praise, lest in your attempt to diminish great things, you end up making yourself absurd.
ST. BASIL OF CAESAREA
Libanius to Basil.
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 of my letter was to prove yours a good one, when it was not a good one, and that it was no better than the one which you have sent last, and, in a word that you have no power of expression, the books which you have now in hand producing no such effect, and the eloquence which you once possessed having all disappeared. Now, in the endeavour to prove this, you have made this epistle too, which you are reviling, so admirable, that my visitors could not refrain from leaping with admiration as it was being read. I was astonished that after your trying to run down the former one by this, by saying that the former one was like it, you have really complimented the former by it. To carry out your object, you ought to have made this one worse, that you might slander the former. But it is not like you, I think, to do despite to the truth. It would have been done despite to, if you had purposely written badly, and not put out the powers you have. It would be characteristic of you not to find fault with what is worthy of praise, lest in your attempt to make great things insignificant, your proceedings reduce you to the rank of the sophists. Keep to the books which you say are inferior in style, though better in sense. No one hinders you. But of the principles which are ever mine, and once were yours, the roots both remain and will remain, as long as you exist. Though you water them ever so little, no length of time will ever completely destroy them.
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Source. Translated by Blomfield Jackson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 8. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3202340.htm>.
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[From Libanius to Basil]
If you had spent a long time thinking about how best to reply to my letter about yours, you could not in my judgment have done better than what you have actually written. You call me a sophist and allege that it is a sophist's business to make small things great and great things small. You insist that the purpose of my letter was to prove yours good when it was not, that it was no better than the one you have just sent, and that in general you have no power of expression -- your current reading having done nothing for your style, and whatever eloquence you once possessed having long since vanished.
Now, in trying to prove all this, you have made this latest letter so magnificent that my visitors could not restrain themselves from jumping up in admiration as it was read aloud.
I was struck by the irony: you tried to discredit the former letter by comparing it to this one -- but in doing so, you have actually complimented the former, since this one is superb. To carry out your plan properly, you should have made this letter worse, so that the comparison would damage the earlier one. But deliberately writing badly is not like you. It would be an offense against truth -- and it would mean intentionally suppressing the powers you possess. It is more characteristic of you not to criticize what deserves praise, lest in your attempt to diminish great things, you end up making yourself absurd.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.