Letter 83: 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 ...

To a Magistrate We haven't known each other long, but I've heard a great deal about you from people whose judgment I trust. Whether you've heard anything worthwhile about me, you'd have to say — but your reputation, at least, speaks well. God has placed you in a position where you can do real good, and you have the power to help rebuild my city [Caesarea: capital of Cappadocia, in modern central Turkey], which is practically in ruins. So I want to remind you: the kindness you show now will be repaid by God. This is your chance to leave a legacy that lasts — by easing the suffering of people who are struggling. Here is my specific request. I have a friend who owns property at Chamanene [a rural estate in Cappadocia]. I'm asking you to look after it as if it were your own — and don't be surprised that I call my friend's property mine. I was taught long ago that a friend is another self. The household there has been through real hardship. They need relief for what they've already endured, and they need a lighter burden going forward. The property has been abandoned because the tax assessments are simply too heavy to bear. I hope to meet with you soon to discuss the details in person.

ST. BASIL OF CAESAREA To a Magistrate. 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 with me is such as I have said. But since God has called you to an occupation which gives you opportunity of showing kindness, and in the exercise of which it lies in your power to bring about the restoration of my own city, now level with the ground, it is, I think, only my duty to remind your excellency that in the hope of the requital God will give, you should show yourself of such a character as to win a memory that cannot die, and be made an inheritor of everlasting rest, in consequence of your making the afflictions of the distressed hard to bear. I have a property at Chamanene, and I beg you to look after its interests as though they were your own. And pray do not be surprised at my calling my friend's property my own, for among other virtues I have been taught that of friendship, and I remember the author of the wise saying a friend is another self. I therefore commend to your excellency this property belonging to my friend, as though it were my own. I beg you to consider the misfortunes of the house, and both to grant them consolation for the past, and for the future to make the place more comfortable for them; for it is now left and abandoned on account of the weight of the rates imposed upon it. I will do my best to meet your excellency and converse with you on points of detail. 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/3202083.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.