Church Fathers: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 08: 28.02.03 Letter X-XX

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

Church Fathers: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 08: 28.02.03 Letter X-XX



TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 08 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 28.02.03 Letter X-XX

Other Subjects in this Topic:

Letter Xhyperlink

To a widow.hyperlink

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. Then the scent of that sweet oil makes the free flock the possession of the owner of the tame bird, for all the rest are attracted by the fragrance, and settle in the house. But why do I begin my letter thus? Because I have taken your son Dionysius, once Diomedes,hyperlink and anointed the wings of his soul with the sweet all of God, and sent him to you that you may take flight with him, and make for the nest which he has built under my roof. If I live to see this, and you, my honoured friend, translated to our lofty life, I shall require many persons worthy of God to pay Him all the honour that is His due.



Footnotes



1 Placed during the retreat.



2 pro\j e'lenqe/ran. The Benedictine note, after giving reasons why the name Julitta should not be introduced into the address, continues: "neque etiam in hac et pluribus aliis Basilii epistolis e'lenqe/ra nomen proprium est, sed viduam matronam designat. Sic Gregorius Naz. in Epist. cxlvii., e'lenqe/pan Alypii, id est viduam, apellat Simpliciam quam ipsius quondam conjugem fuisse dixerat in Epist. clxvi." The usage may be traceable to Rom. vii. 3.



3 A second name was given at baptism, or assumed with some religious motive. In the first three centuries considerations of prudence would prevent an advertisement of Christianity through a name of peculiar meaning, and even baptismal names were not biblical or of pious meaning and association. Later the early indifference of Christians as to the character of their names ceased, and after the fourth century heathen names were discouraged. cf. D.C.A. ii. 1368. "Dionysius," though of pagan origin, is biblical; but "martyrs often encountered death bearing the names of these very divinities to whom they refuse to offer sacrifice." So we have Apollinarius, Hermias, Demetrius, Origenes (sprung from Horus), Arius, Athenodorus, Aphrodisius, and many more.



Letter XIhyperlink

Without address. To some friends.hyperlink

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 tranquillity, to the end that wherever your lot may be cast, I to the end of my days, whenever I hear news of you, may be gladdened to think of you as serving and giving thanks to the Lord. If God should grant you to be quickly freed from these cares I beg you to let nothing stand in the way of your coming to stay with me. I think you will find none to love you so well, or to make more of your friendship. So long, then, as the Holy One ordains this separation, be sure that you never lose an opportunity of comforting me by a letter.



Footnotes



1 Of the same period as X.



2 Possibly to Olympius, the recipient of XII. cf. Letter ccxi.



Letter XIIhyperlink

To Olympius.hyperlink

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. But I shall be glad even of a little letter in token of your great love. Only write to me.



Footnotes



1 Of the same date as the preceding.



2 Olympius was an influential friend f Basil's, and sympathized with him in his later troubles, and under the attacks of Eustathius. cf. Letters ccxi., lxiii., lxiv.



Letter XIIIhyperlink

To Olympius.

As all the fruits of the season come to us in their proper time, flowers in spring, corn in summer, and appleshyperlink in autumn, so the fruit for winter is talk.



Footnotes



1 Placed with the preceding.



2 mh=lon. But, like the Latin malum, this word served for more than we mean by "apple." So the malum Cydonium was quince, the malum Persicum, peach, etc.



Letter XIVhyperlink

To Gregory his friend.

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, I may make an end of wandering. After renouncing, with trouble, the idle hopes which I once had, [about you]hyperlink or rather the dreams, (for it is well said that hopes are waking dreams), I departed into Pontus in quest of a place to live in. There God has opened on me a spot exactly answering to my taste, so that I actually see before my eyes what I have often pictured to my mind in idle fancy. There is a lofty mountain covered with thick woods, watered towards the north with cool and transparent streams. A plain lies beneath, enriched by the waters which are ever draining off from it; and skirted by a spontaneous profusion of trees almost thick enough to be a fence; so as even to surpass Calypso's Island, which Homer seems to have considered the most beautiful spot on the earth. Indeed it is like an island, enclosed as it is on all sides; for deep hollows cut off two sides of it; the river, which has lately fallen down a precipice, runs all along the front and is impassable as a wall; while the mountain extending itself behind, and meeting the hollows in a crescent, stops up the path at its roots. There is but one pass, and I am master of it. Behind my abode there is another gorge, rising into a ledge up above, so as to command the extent of the plains and the stream which bounds it, which is not less beautiful,to my taste, than the Strymon as seen from Amphipolis.hyperlink For while the latter flows leisurely, and swells into a lake almost, and is too still to be a river, the former is the most rapid stream I know, and somewhat turbid, too, from the rocks just above; from which, shooting down, and eddying in a deep pool, it forms a most pleasant scene for myself or any one else; and is an inexhaustible resource to the country people, in the countless fish which its depths contain. What need to tell of the exhalations from the earth, or the breezes from the river? Another might admire the multitude of flowers, and singing birds; but leisure I have none for such thoughts. However, the chief praise of the place is, that being happily disposed for produce of every kind, it nurtures what to me is the sweetest produce of all, quietness; indeed, it is not only rid of the bustle of the city, but is even unfrequented by travellers, except a chance hunter. It abounds indeed in game, as well as other things, but not, I am glad to say, in bears or wolves, such as you have, but in deer, and wild goats, and hares, and the like. Does it not strike you what a foolish mistake I was near making when I was eager to change this spot for your Tiberina,hyperlink the very pit of the whole earth?

Pardon me, then, if I am now set upon it; for not Alcmaeon himself, I suppose, could endure to wander further when lie had found the Echinades.hyperlink



Footnotes



1 Placed after Basil's choice of his Pontic retreat. Translated by Newman, whose version is here given (Church of the Fathers, 126). On the topography, cf. Letters iii., x., ccxxiii., and remarks in the Prolegomena.



2 Omitted by Newman.



3 The hill of which the western half is covered by the ruins of Amphipolis, is insulated by the Strymon on the north-west and south, and a valley on the east. To the north-west the Strymon widens inot a lake, compared by Dr. Arnold to that formed by the Mincio at Mantua. cf. Thucyd. iv. 108 and v. 7.



4 Tiberina was a district in the neighbourhood of Gregory's home at Arianzus. cf. Greg. Naz., Ep. vi. and vii.



5 Alcamaeon slew his mother; but the awful Erinnys, the avenger of matricide, inflicted on him a long and terrible punishment, depriving him of his reason, and chasing him about from place to place without the possibility of repose or peace of mind. He craved protection and cure from the god at Delphi, who required him to dedicate at the temple, as an offering, the precious necklace of Kadmus, that irresistible bribe which had originally corrupted Eriphyle. He further intimated to the unhappy sufferer that, though the whole earth was tainted with his crime and had become uninhabitable for him, yet there was a spot of ground whihc was not under the eye of the sun at the time when the matricide was committed, and where, therefore, Alcmaeon might yet find a tranquil shelter. The promise was realised at the mouth of the river Achelous, whose turbid stream was perpetually depositing new earth and forming additional islands. Upon one of these Alcmaeon settled permanently and in peace." Grote, Hist. Gr.. I. 381.



Letter XVhyperlink

To Arcadius, Imperial Treasurer.hyperlink

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 land inborn courtesy to all. But I have considered it a very great advantage to have the opportunity of addressing your excellency,praying to the holy God that I may, continue to rejoice, and share in the pleasure of the recipients of your bounty, while yon please Him more and more, and while the splendour of your high place continues to increase. I pray that in due time I may with joy once more welcome those who are delivering this my letter into your hands,hyperlink and send them forth praising, as do many, your considerate treatment of them, and I trust that they will have found my. recommendation of them not without use in approaching your exalted excellency.



Footnotes



1 Written from the Pontic retreat.



2 Comes rei privatae, "who managed the enormous revenues of the fiscus and kept account of the privileges granted by the Emperor (liber beneficiorum. Hyginus. De Const. Limit. p. 203, ed. Lachm. and Du Cange s.v.)." D.C.B. I. 634.



3 There is confusion here in the text, and the Benedictines think it unmanageable as it stands. But the matte is of no importance.





Letter XVIhyperlink

Against Eunomius the heretic.hyperlink

HE who maintains that it is possible to arrive at the discovery of things actually existing, has no doubt by some orderlymethod advanced his intelligence by meansof 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 faculty to bear on what is beyond all intelligence. He makes his boast that he has really arrived at the comprehension of actual existences; let him then explain to us the nature of the least of visible beings; let him tell us all about the ant. Does its life depend on breath andbreathing? Has it a skeleton? Is its body connected by sinews and ligaments? Are its sinews surrounded with muscles and glands? Does its marrow go with dorsal vertebrae from brow to tail? Does it give impulse to its moving members by the enveloping nervous membrane? Has it a liver, with a gall bladder near the liver? Has it kidneys, heart, arteries, veins, membranes, cartilages? Is it hairy or hairless? Has it an uncloven hoof, or are its feet divided? How long does it live? What is its mode of reproduction? What is its period of gestation? How is it that ants neither all walk nor all fly, but some belong to creeping things, and some travel through the air? The man who glories in his knowledge of the really-existing ought to tell us in the meanwhile about the nature of the ant. Next let him give us a similar physiological account of the power that transcends all human intelligence. But if your knowledge has not yet been able to apprehend the nature of the insignificant ant, how can you boast yourself able to form a conception of the power of the incomprehensible God?hyperlink



Footnotes



1 Placed by the Ben. Ed. in the reign of Julian 361-363.



2 Eunomius the Anomoean, bp. of Cyzicus, against whose Liber Apologeticus Basil wrote his counter-work. The first appearance of the ai/retiko\j a!nqrwpoj, the "chooser" of his own way rather than the common sense of the Church, is in Tit. iii. 10. ai/reti/zein is a common word in the LXX., but does not occur in Is. xlii. 1, though it is introduced into the quotation in Matt. xii. 18. a$iresij is used six times by St. Luke for "sect;" twice by St. Paul and once by St. Peter for "heresy." Augustine, C. Manich. writes: "Qui in ecclesia Christi morbidum aliquid pravumque quid sapiunt, si, correcti ut sanum rectumque sapiant, resistunt contumaciter suaque pestifera et mortifera dogmata emendare nolunt, sed defensare persistunt hoeretici sunt."



3 As an argument against Eunomius this Letter has no particular force, inasmuch as a man may be a good divine though a very poor entomologist, and might tell us all about the ant without being better able to decide between Basil and Eunomius. It is interesting, however, as shewing how far Basil was abreast of the physiology of his time, and how far that physiology was correct.



Letter XVIIhyperlink

To Origenes.hyperlink

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 defence of the doctrine of true religion full and satisfactory. Like hemlock, monkshood, and other poisonous herbs, after they have bloomed for a little while, they will quickly wither away. But the reward which the Lord will give you in requital of all that you have said in defence of His name blooms afresh for ever. Wherefore I pray God grant you all happiness in your home, and make His blessing descend to your sons. I was delighted to see and embrace those noble boys, express images of your excellent goodness, and my prayers for them ask all that their father can ask.



Footnotes



1 Placed during the reign of Julian.



2 Nothing is known of this Origen beyond what is suggested in this letter. He is conjectured to have been a layman, who, alike as a rhetorician and a writer, was popularly known as a Christian apologist.



Letter XVIIIhyperlink

To Macariushyperlink and John.

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 proper labour of their callings, not chosen for its own sake, but for the sake of the enjoyment of the good things to which they look forward. What in each of these cases acts as a consolation in trouble is that which really forms the bond and link of all human life,-hope. Now of them that labour for the fruits of the earth, or for earthly things, some enjoy only in imagination what they have looked for, and are altogether disappointed; and even in the case of others, where the issue has answered expectation, another hope is soon needed, so quickly has the first fled and faded out of sight. Only of them that labour for holiness and truth are the hopes destroyed by no deception; no issue can destroy their labours, for the kingdom of the heavens that awaits them is firm and sure. So long then as the word of truth is on our side, never be in any wise distressed at the calumny of a lie; let no imperial threats scare you; do not be grieved at the laughter and mockery of your intimates, nor at the condemnation of those who pretend to care for you, and who put forward, as their most attractive bait to deceive, a pretence of giving good advice. Against them all let sound reason do battle, invoking the championship and succour of our Lord Jesus Christ, the teacher of true religion, for Whom to suffer is sweet, and "to die is gain."hyperlink



Footnotes



1 Placed in the reign of Julian.



2 Ms. variations are Macrinus and Machrinus.



3 Phil. i. 21.



Letter XIXhyperlink

To Gregory my friend.hyperlink

I Received a letter from You the day before yesterday. It is shewn to be yours not so much by the handwriting as by the peculiar style. Much meaning is expressed in few words. I did not reply on the spot, because I was away from home, and the letter-carrier, after he had delivered the packet to one of my friends, went away. Now, however, I am able to address you through Peter, and at the same time both to return your greeting, and give you an opportunity for another letter. There is certainly no trouble in writing a laconic dispatch like those which reach me from you.



Footnotes



1 Placed by the Ben. Ed. shortly after Basil's ordination as priest.



2 i.e. Gregory of Nazianzus, and so Letter xiv.



Letter XXhyperlink

To Leontius the Sophist.hyperlink

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 uninterrupted has been the stream of arrivals. But why do you not write? is no trouble to a Sophist to write. Nay, if your hand is tired, you need not even write another will do that for you. Only your tongue is needed. And though it does not speak to me, it may assuredly speak to one of your companions. If nobody is with you, it will talk by itself. Certainly the tongue of a Sophist and of an Athenian is as little likely to be quiet as the nightingales when the spring stirs them to song. In my own case, the mass of business in which I am now engaged may perhaps afford some excuse for my lack of letters. And peradventure the fact of my style having been spoilt by constant familiarity with common speech may make me somewhat hesitate to address Sophists like you, who are certain to be annoyed and unmerciful, unless you hear something worthy of your wisdom. You, on the other hand, ought assuredly to use every opportunity of making your voice heard abroad, for you are the best speaker of all the Hellenes that I know; and I think I know the most renowned among you; so that there really is no excuse for your silence. But enough on this point.

I have sent you my writings against Eunomius. Whether they are to be called child's play, or something a little more serious, I leave you to judge. So far as concerns yourself, I do not think you stand any longer in need of them; but I hope they will be no unworthy weapon against any perverse men with whom you may fall in. I do not say this so much because I have confidence in the force of my treatise, as because I know well that you are a man likely to make a little go a long way. If anything strikes you as weaker than it ought to be, pray have no hesitation in showing me the error. The chief difference between a friend and a flatterer is this; the flatterer speaks to please, the friend will not leave out even what is disagreeable.



Footnotes



1 Placed in 364.



2 cf. Letter xxxv.