Letters 334–363

To a calligrapher. Write straight, and keep your lines straight; and let your hand neither float up into the heights nor be carried down the cliffs. Do not force the pen to go sideways, like the crab in Aesop; but go straight ahead, as though walking along the carpenter's rule, which keeps everything even and removes every irregularity. For what is slanting is unbecoming, but what is straight is pleasant to those who see it, not making the eyes of the readers nod up and down like swing-beams; which is what happened to me when I read your writing. For since the lines lay ladderwise, when I had to pass from one to another, I had to straighten myself up toward the end of the next; and since the sequence appeared nowhere, I had to run back again and look for the order, retracing my steps and following the furrow, as they say Theseus followed Ariadne's thread. So write straight, and do not lead our mind astray by the sidelong slant of what you write.

Basil to Libanius. I am ashamed to send you the Cappadocians one by one, instead of persuading all who are of age to lay claim to letters and education and to use you as their teacher in the training. But since it is not possible to get hold of all of them at once, as they choose what suits themselves, I send you those who are persuaded from time to time, doing them as great a favor as those who lead the thirsty to the springs. The one who now comes to you will shortly be valued for his own sake, once he has been with you. For now he is known through his father, who has gained a great name among us for uprightness of life and civic authority, and who is joined to me in the closest friendship. In repaying him, I give his son this favor, making him known to you: a thing worthy of the highest prayer for those who know how to judge a man's virtue.

Libanius to Basil. 1. After some time a young Cappadocian has come to us. That is one gain, that he is a Cappadocian. But this Cappadocian is also of the first rank: a second gain. And he brings us a letter from the admirable Basil: and what could one call greater than this? For I, whom you think to have forgotten you, respected you long ago when you were young, seeing you vie with the old in self-restraint, and that in that city which teems with pleasures, and already in possession of a great share of learning. And when you thought you ought to see Athens too, and persuaded Celsus to go, I rejoiced with Celsus, who was so attached to your soul. And when you had returned and were living in your homeland, I said to myself: What is Basil doing now, and to what life has he set out? Is he turning to the law courts, emulating the ancient orators? Or is he making orators of the sons of fortunate fathers? But when some came reporting that you were going by far better roads than these, and considering how you might become more a friend of God rather than how you might collect gold, I counted both you and the Cappadocians blessed: you, for wishing to be such a man; them, for being able to show such a citizen. 2. That Firmus has continually won everywhere I know well; for from here comes his power of speech. But though he has enjoyed many praises, I do not know that he ever received such as I have now heard in your letter. For that you should be the one who says that no one could surpass his fame, how great a thing must one think that? You seem to me to have sent these young men before seeing Firminus; for otherwise the letter would surely have mentioned him. And what is Firminus doing now, or intending to do? Is he still in the longings of marriage, or are these long since over, while the council is heavy on him and it is quite necessary to stay? Or what hopes are there that he will again share in our studies? Let him answer us something; and may it be good. But even if it grieves us, at least it will free us from watching the gates for him. And if Firminus were now at Athens, what would your councillors have done? Would they have sent the Salaminia after him? You see that it is only by your fellow citizens that I am wronged. Yet I shall not cease to love and praise the Cappadocians; I pray that they may become better toward me, but if they remain as they are, I shall bear it. Firminus was with us four months, and was not idle a single day. How much he has gathered you yourself will know, and perhaps you will not find fault. And to enable him to come here again, what ally must I call in besides? For if your councillors are sensible (as befits educated men), they will honor me in the second case, since they grieved me in the first. [Letter 338] … "In beauty of letters," I said, "I have been defeated; Basil has won. But the man is dear to me, and so I am glad." When I said this, they wanted to learn the victory from the letter itself. Alypius read it, and those present listened. The vote was given that I had not been deceived at all. And the reader went out holding the letter, to show it, I suppose, to others too, and returned it with difficulty. So write similar letters, and win; for this is for me to win. You also judge rightly that our services are not measured by money; it is enough for one who cannot give that he wishes to receive. For if I perceive anyone in poverty who loves learning, he comes before the rich. And yet such were not the teachers we experienced; but nothing will prevent us from being better than they in this respect at least. So let no poor man hesitate to come here, if he possesses that one thing only, knowing how to work hard.

Basil to Libanius. What could a sophist not say, and such a sophist, whose art is admitted to have this peculiar power, to make great things small when he wishes, and to clothe small things with greatness? Which is just what you have shown in our case. For that grubby letter of mine, as you who live in the luxury of eloquence would call it, in no way more tolerable than this one now in your hands, you have so exalted in your speech as to be, forsooth, defeated by it, and to yield me the first prize in writing; doing like fathers in their games with their children, when they let the children pride themselves on victories that they themselves give up, neither losing anything themselves and nourishing their children's ambition. Truly your speech must have held indescribable delight in its play with us; as though some Polydamas or Milo were declining a contest in the pancration or wrestling with me myself. For after looking round a great deal, I have found no example of weakness to match; so that those who look for extravagance in speech admire your power more in this, that you could so stoop to play with us, than if you had led the barbarian sailing over Athos. But we, admirable friend, spend our time with Moses and Elijah and such blessed men, who tell us their thoughts in a barbarous tongue, and we utter what we have from them, true in sense but unlearned in diction, as these very words show. For if we did learn anything from you, we have forgotten it with time. But do you write to us, taking up other subjects for letters, which will both show you off and not expose us. I have already introduced the son of Anysius to you as my own son. And if he is my son, the child is his father's: poor, from a poor man. What is meant is well known to a man who is both wise and a sophist.

Libanius to Basil. If you had considered for a very long time how best to reply to my letter about your letter, you could not, I think, have done it better than by writing such things as you have now written. For you call me a sophist; and you say it is characteristic of such a man to be able to make small things great and great things small. And you say that my letter aimed to show that your letter was good, when it was not good, and that it was no better than the one you have now sent; and in short that you have no power of speech, the books now in your hands not producing it, and the eloquence you had before having flowed away. And in trying to persuade me of this you have made this letter too, which you call bad, so fine that those who were with us could not keep from leaping up as it was read. I was surprised, then, that in trying to pull down the former letter with this one, by saying that the former resembled this one, you have adorned the former by this one. If you wished this, you ought to have made this one worse, to slander the former. But it was not like you, I think, to do injustice to the truth. And it would have been wronged, if you had written worse on purpose and not used the powers you have. It would be like you, then, neither to blame what is right to praise, lest the business carry you off among the sophists, as you try to make great things lowly. Keep, then, to the books which you say are worse in diction but better in thought; no one prevents you. But the roots of our studies, which are ever ours and once were yours, remain and will remain as long as you live; and no length of time could ever cut them out, even if you water them very little. [Letter 341] … to tremble as I write. But if you have let go your anger, why do you not write, excellent friend? And if you still hold it, which is foreign to a rational soul and to yours, why, while preaching to others that one must not keep anger until the sun sets, have you kept it yourself through many suns? Or perhaps you have chosen to punish me by depriving me of your voice? Do not, excellent friend; be gentle, and let me enjoy your all-golden tongue.

Basil to Libanius. Those who are fond of the rose, as is natural for lovers of the beautiful, are not vexed even at the thorns out of which the flower grows. And I heard someone say something of this kind about them, perhaps in jest, or perhaps in earnest: that nature grew those slender thorns on the flower like love's pricks for lovers, provoking those who pluck it to greater longing by the well-aimed stings. Why do I bring the rose into my letter? You surely need no teaching, if you remember your own letter, which had the bloom of the rose and opened out the whole spring to us by its fair speech, but was set with thorns of certain complaints and charges against us. But to me even the thorn of your words is a pleasure, kindling me to greater longing for your friendship.

Libanius to Basil. If these come from a sluggish tongue, what would you be if you sharpened it? For on your lips dwell fountains better than the flow of streams; but we, unless we are watered every day, fall silent.

Basil to Libanius. That I do not write constantly to your learning, timidity and ignorance persuade me; but your enduring silence so steadfastly, what will free it from blame? If anyone considers that you, who live among words, are slow to write, he will condemn you for forgetting us. For one to whom speaking is ready is not unprepared for writing. And one who possesses these and then keeps silent clearly does so out of contempt or forgetfulness. But I will repay your silence with a greeting. Farewell, then, most honored friend; and write if you wish, and do not write, if that is dearer to you.

Libanius to Basil. I think I need a defense rather for not having begun to write to you long ago than an excuse now for having begun to do so. For I am that man who used to run up whenever you appeared, and most gladly lent my ears to the stream of your tongue, delighting in you as you spoke, and tearing myself away with difficulty, and saying to my friends: "This man is so much better than the daughters of Achelous, in that he charms as they did, but does not harm as they did." And not harming is a small thing; but this man's songs are a gain to the one who receives them. That I, then, who have this opinion, and think that I am loved, and seem to be able to speak, should not dare to write, would be a mark of extreme idleness, and at the same time of one who punishes himself. For it is clear that you will repay my small and poor letter with a fine and great one, and will surely take care not to wrong me a second time. For I think many will cry out at the word and crowd round the matter, shouting: "Has Basil done any wrong, even a small one? Then so have Aeacus and Minos and his brother too." I grant that you have won in everything else; who, seeing you, does not envy you? But if I remind you of one thing in which you have sinned against us, persuade those who are indignant not to shout. No one who came to you and asked a favor that was very easy to give went away unsuccessful. Yet I am one of those who asked a favor but did not receive it. What, then, did I ask? Often, when I was with you in the camp, I wished to enter, through your wisdom, into the depth of Homer's frenzy. "If the whole is not possible," I said, "at least bring us into some part of the inheritance." And I desired the part in which, when the Greeks had fared badly, Agamemnon courted with gifts the man he had insulted. When I said this, you laughed, unable to deny that you could if you wished, but unwilling to give. Do I seem to you and to those who are indignant to be wronged, because I said that you were wronging me? … [Letter 346] Libanius to Basil. Whether we have added anything in learning to the young men, you yourself will judge. But I hope that this, even if it is small, will gain the reputation of something great, because of your friendship toward us. But what you praise above learning, self-control and not giving over their souls to dishonorable pleasures, they have taken great care of, and have lived, as was fitting, mindful of the one who sent them. So receive what is your own, and praise those who have adorned both you and me. To urge you to help them would be like urging a father to help his children. [Letter 348] … the old man to leap and frisk? But to you, who pride yourself so on your declamations, I have ordered rafters to be supplied equal in number to the soldiers who fought at Thermopylae, all of good length and, as your Homer says, "long-shadowing," which the holy Alphaeus has promised to restore.

Libanius to Basil. Will you not stop, Basil, filling this sacred precinct of the Muses with Cappadocians, and these smelling of frost and snow and all the good things of that place? They have almost made me a Cappadocian too, always chanting to me their "I salute you." But I must bear it, since Basil commands. Know, then, that I am studying exactly the manners of the country, but I will clothe the men in the nobility and harmony of my Calliope, so that they may appear to you doves instead of wood pigeons.

Basil to Libanius. Your ill humor is over; let this be the opening of my letter. But go on mocking and pulling our affairs to pieces, whether laughing or in earnest. Why did you mention snow or frost, when you might revel in jokes at our expense? And I, Libanius, to raise a broad laugh in you, have written this letter covered with a curtain of snow; and when you receive it and touch it with your hands, you will know how cold it is, and how it portrays its sender, burrowed in and unable to peep out of his rooms. For we have our houses as tombs, until spring takes over and brings us back to life from being dead, granting us existence again, as to plants.

Basil to Libanius. Many people from your parts who have met us have admired your excellence in speaking. For they said that there was a very great contest, as they put it, so that everyone ran together and no one else was to be seen in the city but Libanius alone contending, and every age listening. For no one thought fit to stay away from the contests, neither one who held the dignity of rank, nor one distinguished in the military rolls, nor one occupied in the mechanical arts. Even women were hurrying to be present at the contests. What, then, was the contest? What was the speech that gathered this festival of the whole people? And they told me that the speech portrayed the character of a peevish man. Do not hesitate to send me what was so admired, so that I too may become a praiser of your words. For if I praise Libanius even apart from his works, what shall I become now that I have found a subject for praise?

Libanius to Basil. See, I have sent the speech, streaming with sweat. How could I not, when sending my speech to such a man, who by his learning in speech is able to show that the wisdom of Plato and the eloquence of Demosthenes are talked of in vain? Mine is like a gnat jumping beside an elephant. So I shudder and tremble, reckoning up the day on which you will examine the speech; and I have almost lost my wits.

Basil to Libanius. I have read the speech, most wise friend, and admired it exceedingly. O Muses and letters and Athens, what you give your lovers! What fruits they gather who spend even a short time with you! O fountain of copious stream, how great you have shown those who draw from you! For I thought I saw the man himself in the speech, living with a chattering wife. Libanius has written a living speech on the earth, he who alone has given a soul to words.

Libanius to Basil. Now I know that I am what I am said to be; for since Basil has praised me, I hold the prize of victory over all. And having received your vote, I may walk with a proud gait, like some braggart despising everyone. Since, then, a speech against drunkenness has been composed by you too, we wish to come upon it. But I do not wish to say anything clever; the speech, once seen, will teach me the art of speaking.

Libanius to Basil. Are you living at Athens, Basil, and have you forgotten yourself? For the children of the Caesareans could not bear to hear these things. My tongue was not used to them; but, as though traveling along a cliff, struck by the novelty of the words, it said to me, its father: "Father, you did not teach me this: Homer, this man; but Plato, but Aristotle, but Susarion, who knows everything." So much for the tongue. But may you, Basil, praise us in this way. [Letter 356] Basil to Libanius. When we receive what you write, it is a joy; when we are asked to write back to what you write, it is a contest. For what could we say to so Attic a tongue, except that I am a disciple of fishermen, I confess it, and I love it? [Letter 357] Libanius to Basil. What has happened to Basil, that he took offence at the letter, the token of philosophy? We were taught to jest by you; yet your jests are dignified, and, as it were, befitting grey hair. But by friendship itself and our common studies, free me from the dejection that your letter has produced in me … differing in nothing. [Letter 358] Libanius to Basil. O those times in which we were all in all to one another! Now we are bitterly separated: you having one another, I having no one in your place like you. I hear that Alcimus is daring the deeds of the young in his old age, and flying off to Rome, laying on you the labor of being with the boys. But you, gentle as you are in other things, will bear this too without difficulty, since you were not displeased with us either about writing first … [Letter 359] Basil to Libanius. You, who have shut up the whole art of the ancients in your own mind, are so silent that you do not give us any gain even in letters. If the teacher's art had been safe, I would have come to you, making myself a wing like Icarus. But since one cannot trust wax to the sun, instead of the wings of Icarus I send you words, showing our friendship. The nature of words is to reveal the loves of the soul. So much for words. You lead them wherever you wish; and, possessing so great a power, you keep silent. But turn toward us too the springs of words that flow from your mouth.

From his letter to Julian the Apostate. According to the blameless faith of the Christians allotted to us by God, I confess and agree that I believe in one God, the Father Almighty: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit; one God, the three, I worship and glorify. I confess also the dispensation of the Son in the flesh, and holy Mary, who bore him according to the flesh, as Theotokos. I receive also the holy apostles, prophets, and martyrs, and I call upon them for supplication to God, so that through them, that is, through their mediation, the God who loves humankind may be propitious to me, and a ransom for my faults may be granted me. Hence I also honor and venerate the features of their images, especially since these have been handed down from the holy apostles, and are not forbidden, but are depicted in all our churches.

To Apollinarius. To my most venerable master Apollinarius, Basil. Formerly we wrote to you about obscure passages in the Scriptures, and we were delighted both with what you sent and with what you promised. But now a greater anxiety about greater matters has come upon us, for which we have no one else among men today to call upon as so great a partner and protector as God has given us in you, exact and at the same time approachable both in knowledge and in speech. Since, then, those who throw everything into confusion and have filled the world with arguments and questions have cast out the word "essence" as foreign to the divine oracles, deign to show us how the fathers used it, and whether you have found it nowhere set down in Scripture. For they spit at the "daily bread" and the "peculiar people" and anything of the kind as having nothing in common with it. Then also about the homoousios itself (for whose sake I think they contrive these things, slandering "essence" deeply so as to leave no room for the homoousios), be willing to discuss more broadly for us what meaning it has, and how it could soundly be said of things in which neither a common genus is seen above them, nor a material substrate existing before them, nor a division of the first into the second. How, then, one should call the Son homoousios with the Father without falling into any of the notions mentioned, be willing to set out for us more fully. For we have supposed that whatever the essence of the Father is taken to be, by hypothesis, this the essence of the Son must also necessarily be taken to be. So that if someone were to call the essence of the Father intelligible light, eternal, unbegotten, he will call the essence of the Only-begotten also intelligible light, eternal, begotten. And for such a notion the expression "invariably like" seems to me to fit better than "homoousios." For light that has no difference from light in degree, more or less, I think may rightly be said to be not the same (since each is in its own circumscription of essence), but like in essence, exactly and invariably. Whether, then, these notions should be discussed, or other greater ones taken up instead, as a wise physician (for we have laid bare to you what is in our heart), heal what is sick and support what is unsound; in every way confirm us. I greet the brothers who are with your reverence, and I ask you to pray with them for us, that we may be saved. My friend Gregory, having chosen life with his parents, is with them. In health may you be kept for us as long as possible, benefiting us both by your prayers and by your knowledge.

Apollinarius to Basil. You believe as a lover of God and inquire as a lover of learning; and eagerness is owed by us out of love, even if adequacy of argument does not follow, both because of our deficiency and because of the transcendence of the matter. "One essence" is said not only of what is one in number, as you say, and of what is in one circumscription, but also, properly, of two men and of any other things unified by genus; so that in this way two or more are the same in essence, just as all of us men are Adam, being one, and the son of David is David, as being the same as he; just as you rightly say that the Son is in essence what the Father is. For otherwise the Son would not be God, since the Father is confessed to be the one and only God; as there is one Adam, the founder of the race of men, and one David, the founder of the royal race. In this way too the suspicion that there is one genus lying above, or one matter lying beneath, in the case of the Father and the Son will be removed, when we take the property of founder of a race as belonging to the highest principle, and compare the races that come from their founders with the only-begotten offspring from the one principle; for such things come into likeness only in a measure. For neither does one genus lie above Adam, as formed by God, and us, as born of men; but he himself is the principle of men; nor is there a matter common to him and us, but he himself is the foundation of all men. Nor is anything conceived before David and the race from David, insofar as he is David; since the property of David begins from David, and he himself is the foundation of all who come from him. But since these comparisons fall short, inasmuch as there are other things all men have in common with one another, such as belong to brothers, while with the Father and the Son there is nothing of the kind, but the Father is wholly principle and the Son is from the principle; so neither is there a division of the first into the second, as with bodies, but a begetting. For it is not that the property of the Father has been, as it were, divided off into the Son, but that the property of the Son has appeared from that of the Father: the same in otherness, and other in sameness; according as the Father is said to be in the Son and the Son in the Father. For neither will otherness alone preserve the truth of the sonship, nor sameness alone the indivisibility of the hypostasis; but each is interwoven and of one form: the same in another way, and other in the same way … the Lord confirming the notion for us, by presenting the Father in a greater equality, and the Son as having equality in subordination; which he taught us to understand by conceiving the Son in a light of the same form but lessened, not altering the essence, but beholding the same in excess and in lessening. For those who accept the essence in no sameness bring in likeness from outside and attach it to the Son; which indeed extends even to men, who are likened to God. But those who know that likeness befits things made join the Son to the Father in sameness, but a lessened sameness; so that he is neither the Father himself nor a part of the Father, but … another, the Son; thus God, not as he is, but as from him; not the archetype, but the image. This one is homoousios exceptionally above all and peculiarly: not as things of the same genus, not as things divided, but as the one and only offspring from the one genus and form of the Godhead, by an indivisible and incorporeal procession, according to which alone the begetter, in its begetting property, went forth into the begotten property.

To Apollinarius. To my master, my most venerable brother Apollinarius, Basil. We have missed the occasions by which we could have addressed your reverence, although we would gladly have written about that letter of yours. For we perceived that you kept your pleasure at it in silence. For truly you seemed to us "alone to have understanding, while the shadows of the interpreters flit about," so securely do you lead the explanation of the meaning. And now the love of the knowledge of the divine oracles grips my soul still more. I hesitate to put any of my difficulties to you, lest I seem to take my fill beyond the measure of freedom of speech. But again I cannot bear to keep silent, being in travail and longing to learn still more. So it seemed best to me to ask you whether you permit us, admirable friend, to ask about any of our difficulties, or whether I must keep quiet. Whichever you answer, we shall keep to from now on. May we have you always in health and good spirits, praying for us.