Letter 71: 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.

Basil to Gregory. **1.** I got your letter — Brother Helenius delivered it — and he filled in the details you only hinted at. You can imagine how I felt hearing all this. But I've decided that my love for you matters more than whatever pain this causes. So I've accepted it. I pray to God that however much time I have left, I'll conduct myself toward you as I always have. My conscience is clear: I've never failed you in anything, large or small. As for this man who brags about just now taking his first look at the Christian life, and thinks associating with me will boost his reputation — it's no surprise he'd invent stories he never heard and report experiences he never had. What *is* surprising is that he's gotten my closest friends among the brothers at Nazianzus [Gregory's hometown in Cappadocia, modern central Turkey] to actually listen to him — and apparently believe him. You'd think it would be shocking that someone like *that* could slander someone like *me*, but these difficult times have taught me patience. Worse insults than this have become routine for me, thanks to my sins. I've never given this man's circle any statement of my views on God, and I'm not going to start now. If years of knowing me haven't convinced people, a short letter won't either. If my track record speaks for itself, let the slander be treated as gossip. But if I keep giving a platform to loose tongues and ignorant hearts — always listening to what others say about me — well, eventually they'll have to hear what *I* have to say about *them*. **2.** I know what caused all this: we haven't spent enough time together. I've said it a hundred times. If we'd kept our old promise to each other — if we'd honored what the Churches need from us — we'd have spent most of the year side by side, and these slanderers would never have found an opening. Please — ignore them. Let me convince you to come here and help me, especially in my struggle against this person who's attacking me now. Just showing up would stop him. The moment these troublemakers see that you're standing with me, by God's blessing, their conspiracy falls apart. Every unjust mouth speaking against God gets shut. Then the facts will make clear who genuinely follows the good, and who are the cowards and traitors of the truth. If the Church ends up betrayed despite all this, then I won't bother defending my reputation with words — not to people who judge me the way people naturally do when they haven't yet learned to take an honest look at themselves. Maybe soon, by God's grace, I'll answer their slander with actions, because it looks like I'm about to suffer for the truth more than usual. The best I can hope for is exile. If not that — well, Christ's judgment seat isn't far off. [Basil was facing pressure from the Emperor Valens, who supported Arianism — the theological position that Christ was not co-equal with God the Father — and was pressuring orthodox bishops to conform or face removal.] So if you want to meet for the sake of the Churches, I'm ready — just name the place. But if it's only about answering these slanders, honestly, I don't have time.

ST. BASIL OF CAESAREA Basil to Gregory. 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. However, since I have determined that my affection for you shall outweigh my pain, whatever it is, I have accepted it as I ought to do, and I pray the holy God, that my remaining days or hours may be as carefully conducted in their disposition towards you as they have been in past time, during which, my conscience tells me, I have been wanting to you in nothing small or great. [But that the man who boasts that he is now just beginning to take a look at the life of Christians, and thinks he will get some credit by having something to do with me, should invent what he has not heard, and narrate what he has never experienced, is not at all surprising. What is surprising and extraordinary is that he has got my best friends among the brethren at Nazianzus to listen to him; and not only to listen to him, but as it seems, to take in what he says. On most grounds it might be surprising that the slanderer is of such a character, and that I am the victim, but these troublous times have taught us to bear everything with patience. Slights greater than this have, for my sins, long been things of common occurrence with me. I have never yet given this man's brethren any evidence of my sentiments about God, and I have no answer to make now. Men who are not convinced by long experience are not likely to be convinced by a short letter. If the former is enough let the charges of the slanderers be counted as idle tales. But if I give license to unbridled mouths, and uninstructed hearts, to talk about whom they will, all the while keeping my ears ready to listen, I shall not be alone in hearing what is said by other people; they will have to hear what I have to say.] 2. I know what has led to all this, and have urged every topic to hinder it; but now I am sick of the subject, and will say no more about it, I mean our little intercourse. For had we kept our old promise to each other, and had due regard to the claims which the Churches have on us, we should have been the greater part of the year together; and then there would have been no opening for these calumniators. Pray have nothing to say to them; let me persuade you to come here and assist me in my labours, particularly in my contest with the individual who is now assailing me. Your very appearance will have the effect of stopping him; directly you show these disturbers of our home that you will, by God's blessing, place yourself at the head of our party, you will break up their cabal, and you will shut every unjust mouth that speaks unrighteousness against God. And thus facts will show who are your followers in good, and who are the halters and cowardly betrayers of the word of truth. If, however, the Church be betrayed, why then I shall care little to set men right about myself, by means of words, who account of me as men would naturally account who have not yet learned to measure themselves. Perhaps, in a short time, by God's grace, I shall be able to refute their slanders by very deed, for it seems likely that I shall have soon to suffer somewhat for the truth's sake more than usual; the best I can expect is banishment, or, if this hope fails, after all Christ's judgment-seat is not far distant. [If then you ask for a meeting for the Churches' sake, I am ready to betake myself wherever you invite me. But if it is only a question of refuting these slanders, I really have no time to reply to them.] About this page 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/3202071.htm>. Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.