Letters 57–93

[Letter 22. To the same] We ought to be able, just as we recognize gold and precious stones by sight, to discern good and honourable men at once, without needing longer testing. Then we would not have needed many words pleading with your magnanimity for our most honoured son Amphilochius. I would sooner have expected one of the incredible and impossible things to happen than that he should do or even think anything ignoble for money; so fully has everyone granted him his nobility of character, and a prudence older than his years. But what is one to do? Nothing escapes envy, since some fault-finding has touched even this man, who fell into accusations through simplicity rather than wickedness of character. But do not think it tolerable to look on while he is swept away by slanders. No, I beg your holy and great soul; but honour your homeland too, come to the help of virtue, respect us who have been glorified by you and through you, and be everything to the man, adding the will to the power, since I know that everything yields to your virtue. [Letter 23. To Caesarius] If what we ask is great, do not be surprised, since we ask it of a great man, and the request must be measured to the one asked. For it is equally absurd to ask great things of a small man and small things of a great one: the one is untimely, the other petty. I myself bring to you with my own hand our most honoured son Amphilochius, a man so well known for nobility of character, beyond what is usual at his age, that I myself, an old man, a priest, and your friend, would be glad to be so regarded. And if, overcome by friendship for a man, he did not suspect the slander, what is surprising in that? Because he was not wicked, he did not suspect wickedness either, thinking it his business to correct the man's speech rather than his character; and so he agreed to share his work. What is so terrible in this to fair-minded people? Do not

then allow vice to get the better of virtue, nor dishonour our grey hair; but respect our testimony too, and add kindness to the blessings we give, of which perhaps some account is kept before God, before whom we stand. [Letter 24. To Themistius] It is eloquence that is at stake, and the moment is yours, if indeed you are the king of eloquence. And besides, my Amphilochius is a friend of yours from his father's time. I will add that he is such a man as to disgrace neither his father's family nor our friendship, unless I am a poor judge of such things. And, what weighs most with a man as much a philosopher as you, he is in trouble though he has done no wrong. This is the lightest thing for him, but again the heaviest for us, if we should be seen to overlook it. I, then, do the one thing I can: I can intercede with those who are able to do good. For nothing else is possible for me in my present condition. But do you now confirm the saying of your Plato, who said that cities would not be rid of evils until power was joined to philosophy; for you are capable of both. Give a hand to him who asks, advising what is fitting and …; for there is no way you could play the philosopher better than by now contending on the side of justice; and besides, you will do good to us, your admirers, and, if you allow me to say it, your friends. [Letter 25. To Amphilochius] Bread we did not ask of you, since we would not ask

water of those who live at Ostracine. But if we were to ask vegetables of a man of Ozizala, which you have in abundance while we have a great shortage, that is nothing surprising, nor out of the ordinary. Be so good, then, as to send us vegetables, very many and very fine, or as many as you can (since even small things are great to the poor), since we are about to entertain the great Basil; and you would not wish, having experienced him philosophizing on a full stomach, to experience him hungry and cross. [Letter 26. To the same] How stingily the vegetables have come to us from you! What else are they but golden vegetables? And yet your whole wealth is gardens and rivers and groves and parks, and your land bears vegetables as others' lands bear gold, and you graze on meadow leaves. But grain is for you the blessedness of myth, and bread, as the saying goes, the bread of angels, as welcome as it is unbelievable. Either, then, share these with us more generously, or we will threaten nothing else, but we will hold back our grain, and we will find out whether cicadas really live on dew alone.

… honour him with the hospitality approved in the Scriptures, with vegetables. [Letter 29. To Sophronius] You see what our affairs are like, and how there is a cycle of things flourishing and fading; neither good fortune nor, as they say, ill fortune stays fixed for us, but it shifts and changes very quickly, so that one may trust the breezes, or letters written on water, rather than human prosperity. Why is this? It seems to me, so that, seeing the instability and unevenness in these things, we may run rather to God and to the future, and take some care of ourselves, caring little for shadows and dreams. But what prompts my words? For I am not philosophizing at random, nor decking myself out with rhetorical display. Your Caesarius too was once among the men of note, and, unless as a brother I am deceived, among the very distinguished: known for his learning, above most for nobility of character, brilliant in his wealth of friends, among whom he himself thought, and persuaded us, that you and your nobility held first place among the first. These things are of the past, and you will add more from your own knowledge, honouring him with funeral praises and, what all of us humans have by nature, granting something more to the departed. But now (and see that you do not run past this account without tears, or rather, may you weep to good and useful purpose): he lies dead, friendless, deserted, pitied, granted a little myrrh (if even that) and a few last garments; it is much that he is pitied even for these. And his enemies have fallen upon his estate, as I learn, …

… O the insensibility, O the cruelty! And there is no one to stop it; but even the most humane of them grants only this: he invokes the laws. In short, we have become a stage play, we who were once thought fortunate. Do not think this tolerable, but share our pain and our indignation, and grant a favour to the dead Caesarius. Yes, by friendship itself; yes, by those dearest to you and by your hopes, which you will make favourable for yourself by showing yourself faithful and true to the departed, so that you may grant this favour to the living too and make them hopeful. Do you think we are grieving over money? The shame is more unbearable to us, if Caesarius alone of all should seem to have gained nothing from such an intercession, and from such men; since perhaps our affairs are no side-issue for you either. How you will help, and through whom, and in what way, the facts will suggest and your understanding will consider.

[Letter 30. To Philagrius] What grieves you surely grieves us too. For we hold all the affairs of friends in common, whether they go well or otherwise, as is indeed the very definition of friendship. And yet, if I must philosophize somewhat on these things and say to you what is fitting (as the law of friendship also suggests), I do not wish you, nor do I think it right, being Philagrius and exceptionally educated in divine things, to suffer the same as the many, or to collapse along with the body, or to lament your affliction as incurable; but rather to philosophize in your suffering, and now above all to cleanse your mind, to show yourself stronger than your bonds, and to consider your illness a schooling toward what is profitable, that is, despising the body and bodily things and all that flows and is turbulent and perishing, to belong wholly to the portion above, to live for the future instead of the present, making the life here a practice of death, as Plato says, and freeing the soul from the body (or the tomb, to speak as he does) as far as possible. If you philosophize in this way, my excellent friend, and are so disposed, you will yourself profit greatly, you will make us easier on your account, and you will teach many to philosophize in their sufferings. And besides, you will gain no small thing (if you care at all for this),

… you asked for: the one I found and sent you gladly, I mean the Demosthenes; the other I have lost, and I do not have the one you want, the Iliad. Do not distrust me; for I think I enjoy only those things, and possess well only those, in which you share and which you use as your own. [Letter 32. To the same] Well done that you are a philosopher in your sufferings, and that … ; and that, just as you used the body for every best thing when you were in health, so now too you use it well, since you are weak, and are idle not idly, if I may put it so. For you are a philosopher, and what they say Diogenes once said when he was in a fever and holding out against it, you too let us see: a wrestling of soul and body. This befitted my Philagrius: not to grow soft or bend before sufferings, but to despise the clay, and to let the body suffer what belongs to it, since it will certainly be dissolved by the law of nature now or later (for it will go, worn out either by disease or by time); but to keep the soul itself on high, ranked with God in its thoughts, and to know this too, that it is absurd for us to be found unphilosophical outside and to belie our profession.

… low-born or an exile, his happiness being hindered on that account. But I praise the youthful spirit and greatness of mind of the men of the Stoa, who say that external things are no hindrance to happiness, but that the good man is blessed even if the bull of Phalaris holds him burning. And for this reason I admire those of our own who have run risks for what is good, or have borne misfortune nobly; and I admire too those outside who are like them, such as the famous Anaxarchus, Epictetus, and Socrates, not to name many. The first, while his hands were being pounded in a mortar at the tyrant's command, urged the torturers on: “Pound the bag of Anaxarchus.” Meaning what? Our wretched bit of flesh; as though Anaxarchus himself, the philosophic soul, were not being pounded, which is what we call the inner man, while the other is named the outer. The second, while his leg was being stretched and twisted, philosophized as though in someone else's body, and seemed to have his leg broken sooner than to feel the violence. And Socrates, condemned to death by the Athenians and dwelling, as you know, in the prison, for a while discussed with his disciples as though about another prison, the body, and though he could have escaped he would not; and when the hemlock was brought, he took it very gladly, as though he received it not for death but as a toast drunk in friendship. I would have added to these our own Job too, if I did not know that you are far from his sufferings, and are, and will be, with God. Sing these things as a charm over yourself, divine and holy head, and so, healing yourself, you would both be easier yourself and gladden us, your admirers and lovers, being in no way bent by the illness, and in no way, as the divine David says, cut short by the peace of sinners and their prosperity in this life; but rather being purified, if it is right to say this of you, and making your weakness material for virtue.

[A further letter to Philagrius; its opening is lost] … taking good care of your only possession, and working hard in such a condition of body. And this is no wonder, since it is easier to be a philosopher in other people's affairs than in one's own. If I saw you doing this beyond measure, or devoting yourself to your labours greedily or violently, I would even have blamed you (the truth shall be told), without respect for our friendship or your learning. But if you love work, yet not beyond measure, and use what you work for as you should, and there is also your illness, which occupies you with cares and persuades you that what concerns the body is for the body's sake, I do not see how I can avoid blaming those who blame you, and acquitting you of the charge. And besides, I persuade myself of this: that no one could reason better about practical affairs than you, whom everyone uses as teacher and adviser in their own affairs alike, in private and in public, nor take care of the soul more like a philosopher. And if keeping health in the body, or restoring it, belongs to medicine alone, who is so bold and uneducated as to lay down laws for you about these things? So let the many go their way, jackdaws passing judgment on the flight of eagles; but take yourself as your counsellor, and God, about your illness and all that concerns it, and you will not miss what is needful.

[A further letter to Philagrius; heading lost] I remember your company, when we were together lately at my Mataza (for I regard what is yours as mine too), and the philosophy you then practised, at which I still shudder … still moved. I was expounding to you the psalm (for you asked me, and there was no refusing) in which David grows dizzy and frets at the wicked who prosper. Then, sending his thoughts to the courts of judgment there and the recompense laid up for each life, he is stayed from his trouble in this way, and … what grieves him is healed. And as far as I could I drew the exposition toward your suffering, philosophizing on these things from our own writers and from those outside, as one speaking with an educated man and so great a one, while the Spirit at the same time led me so, and the pain sharpened me; for suffering makes one more inventive. And my words were running on somehow; but you rose up in the middle of them, as if from the starting line, and stretching out your hands to heaven and turning as if to look toward the east (for you did not have the power of sight …), said: “I thank you, Father, … maker and educator of your human beings, that you do us good even against our will, and through the outer man you purify the inner, and lead us through contraries to the blessed end, by reasons you yourself know.” And what should I say of all the words in which you philosophized before us and with us, as though rejoicing in the illness, so that the disciple became the teacher? But to what end have I recalled these things? To cry and proclaim this to all through you: that the wicked are more to be lamented by us for their inner disease than we by them for our outer one, if we are so disposed; that a philosophic illness is better than unbridled prosperity.

[A further letter to Philagrius] Before, I myself used to write you words of encouragement in your suffering, for you had fallen ill first …; but now you seem to me to be the one who should encourage us, who suffer almost the same evils. For we, being …, ought not to be separated even in this. … rather you have already encouraged us by your endurance. I am pained by the illness, and I rejoice; not because I am pained, but … because I am a teacher of endurance to others. For since I cannot avoid suffering, this at least I gain from suffering: to bear it and to give thanks, in painful things just as in cheerful ones, since I am convinced that nothing of ours is without reason before the Word, even if it seems so to us. [Letter 37] To honour a mother is a religious duty. One's own mother is … ; but the common mother of all is the fatherland. This you honour … in all the splendour of your life; honour it now too, out of respect for us, in the matter for which we intercede. And what is the intercession? The most learned of those in it, Eudoxius the rhetor, you surely know. His son, to speak briefly, another … in life and in eloquence … now comes to you through us. So that you may make yourself more renowned …, be favourable to the man in whatever he needs of your patronage. For it is shameful, when you are the patron of the fatherland and have made many … (I will add, and will make), not above all to honour the best in eloquence … eloquence, which, if for nothing else, it is just to respect for this: that they are the praisers of your fine deeds. …

[Letter 38. To Themistius] Spartans are known by the spear, the Pelopids by the shoulder, the great Themistius by eloquence. For though you surpass everyone in everything, I know this to be the most distinguished of your qualities. This it was that joined us to one another from the beginning (if indeed we count for anything in eloquence), and that has now persuaded us to be bold. And if you come to know the man for whom we intercede, perhaps you will even approve of our boldness. I present to you this son of the excellent Eudoxius, our most worthy son …, in life and in eloquence such as you will find for yourself (“the stone to the line,” as … ; but your rule is more just), and most dear to us, no less for his virtue than for his father's friendship. As one, then, who will do us good in whatever good you do the man, and will honour your own eloquence, … be willing to … what lies before him. For he needs to be made known by eloquence, and to provide himself a living from eloquence. Who he is and how, he will show you himself; your learning and understanding will judge.

… we looked up to the height of … . As for us, whether we have shown ourselves to him to have anything by way of virtue, he himself would know; but at any rate we show him in return the finest of what we have, giving our friend friends, of whom we count you the first and most genuine; and we wish you to appear to him such as both our common fatherland demands and our longing and our word would have it, for I promised him your care in return for everything. [Letter 40. To Basil the Great]

… insult; second, that you do not think that the same things befit you and us, who share life and studies and everything, having been joined together by God in this way from the first; third (for let this too be said), whether you considered that such appointments belong to the more devout rather than to the more powerful and those more popular with the crowds. For these reasons I have backed water and am drawing back. And if it seems good to you too, let this be resolved: to flee the turmoil in the midst of things and evil suspicions. I shall see your Reverence when affairs are settled and the time is right, and I shall reproach you with more and heavier things. [Letter 41. To the people of Caesarea] I am a little shepherd, set over a small flock, and the least among the servants of the Spirit. But grace is not narrow, nor bounded by places. Therefore let freedom of speech be granted to the small too, especially since the matter concerns things common and so great, and since you are deliberating with such grey hairs, which perhaps have something wiser than the many. You are deliberating about nothing small or ordinary, but about a matter on whose being well or ill the common good too must stand well or ill. For our discussion concerns the Church, for which Christ died, and the one who is to present and bring her to God. “The lamp of the body is the eye,” as we have heard, not only this eye that sees and is seen bodily, but the one that contemplates and is contemplated spiritually. And the lamp of the Church is the bishop, as is clear to you even if we do not write it. Necessarily, then, just as when that eye is clear the body too is guided rightly, and when it is not clear, not rightly; so too with the head of the Church: however he is, the Church must either share his danger or share his safety. Care must be taken of every Church, as

the body of Christ, but most of all of yours, which from the beginning was, and now is, and is considered, the mother of almost all the Churches, and to which the whole looks, as a circle drawn about its centre, not only because of its orthodoxy, proclaimed to all from of old, but also because of the grace of concord plainly given to it by God. Since, then, you have invited us too to the deliberation on this matter, acting rightly and according to the canons, but we are held back by old age and sickness: if we could be present ourselves, the Spirit giving us strength (for nothing is incredible to the faithful), that would be best of all and most pleasing to us, so that we might contribute something to you and ourselves share in the blessing; but if I am left behind, my weakness prevailing, we contribute what the absent can. I am persuaded that there are others among you worthy of the presidency, as is natural in so great a city, so governed, and by such men from of old; but I cannot prefer anyone of those honoured among you to one man, our most God-beloved son Basil the presbyter (I say it as before God as witness), a man purified in life and word, and alone of all, or more than any, able on both counts to stand against the present times and the prevailing loquacity of the heretics. I write this to the priestly order and the monastic, and to those of the dignified and the council order, and to the whole people. If, then, this is agreed, and our vote prevails, being so sound and right, since it is cast with God, I am present in spirit and shall be present; or rather, I have already laid my hand on him, and I take courage in the Spirit. But if something else is decided and not this, and such things are judged by factions and kinships, and the hand of the mob again sweeps away exactness, do what pleases you among yourselves; we shall keep to ourselves.

[Letter 42. To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata] Who will give me wings like a dove? Or how might my old age be renewed, so that I could cross over to your love, and satisfy the longing I have for you, and tell the griefs of my soul, and through you find some consolation for my afflictions? For at the falling asleep of the blessed bishop Eusebius no small fear seized us, lest those who once lay in wait for the Church of our metropolis, wishing to fill it with heretical tares, should now seize their opportunity and uproot by their own wicked teachings the piety sown with much labour in the souls of men, and cut its unity in pieces, as they have done in many Churches. And since a letter from the clergy also reached us, urging us not to overlook them at such a time, looking round about me I remembered your love, your right faith, and the zeal you always have for the Churches of God; and for this reason I have sent our beloved fellow minister Eustathius to beseech your Dignity and to entreat you to add the present labour to all your labours for the Churches, to refresh my old age by meeting me, and to set right for the orthodox Church its renowned piety, giving it with us (if indeed we are counted worthy to share with you in the good work) a shepherd according to the will of the Lord, able to guide his people. For we have before our eyes a man whom you yourselves also know; if we are counted worthy to obtain him, I know that we shall gain great boldness with God,

… we shall lay up … . But I beg you again and many times to lay aside all hesitation and come, and to forestall the difficulties of winter. [Letter 43. To the bishops] How pleasant and kind you are, and how overflowing in love! You have summoned us to the metropolis, I suppose to deliberate about a bishop. For that is what I gather from you, who, without announcing beforehand that we must be present, or for what, or when, have suddenly made it known that you have set out, as men who have decided not to honour us, nor are eager to have us as partners, but are eager that we should not be present, so that you may not run into us even against your will. Your part, then, is such, and we will bear the insult; but ours, how it stands, we will set out. Others, no doubt, will put forward others, each according to his own character or interest, as tends to happen in such matters. But we cannot prefer anyone (nor would it be holy) to our most honoured son Basil, our fellow presbyter. For whom of those we know do we find either more approved in life, or more powerful in word, or trained on every side for the beauty of virtue? And if his weakness is an excuse, you are not calling in an athlete but a teacher. And besides, this too is possible through the One who strengthens and upholds the weak, if indeed they are such. If you accept this vote, we will both be present and help, either in spirit or in body. But if you proceed on terms fixed beforehand, and factions are going to prevail against what is right,

… we are glad to be overlooked. Let the work be yours … [Letter 44. To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata] Where shall I begin your praises? And by what name might I properly call you? Pillar and ground of the Church, or light in the world, using the same words as the Apostle, or crown of boasting for the part of Christians that is being saved, or gift of God, or support of the fatherland, or rule of faith, or ambassador of the divine …, or all these together and more than these, confirming the excess of praise by what is seen? What rain ever came so timely to a thirsty land? What water from a rock so overflowing for those in the desert? … did man eat such bread of angels? … did Jesus, our common Lord, come so timely to his disciples when they were being swamped, to calm the sea and save those in danger, as you appeared to us when we were weary and distressed and already, as it were, shipwrecked? Why must I speak of the rest: with what cheer and pleasure you filled souls, and how many … despair? But our mother the Church, I mean that of Caesarea, now truly puts off the garments of widowhood at the sight of you, and takes up the robe of gladness, and she will shine still more when she obtains a shepherd worthy of herself and of those who held her before, and of your hands. Our own affairs you see for yourself, what they are like, and what wonders … .

… what wonders your zeal has worked, and your sweat, and your boldness of speech before God! Old age is renewed, sickness is conquered, those who were in bed leap up, and the weak are girded with power. From this I guess that our affairs too will turn out as we wish. You have my father in place of himself and of us, about to set a fine end to his whole life and his venerable grey hairs: the present contest for the Church. And we shall receive him back, I well know, stronger and more youthful through your prayers, to which one must confidently entrust everything. And if he should even end his life in this anxiety, it is no loss to meet such an end, and for such a cause. But forgive me, I beg you, if I give way a little to the tongues of the wicked, and run to you a little later, and embrace you, and render in person what is now left out of your praises. [Letter 45. To Basil] When I learned that you had been set on the lofty throne, and that the Spirit had prevailed in setting the lamp on its stand …, a lamp that did not shine dimly even before, I was glad, I confess. And why should I not be, seeing the state of the Church in a bad way and in need of such guidance? But I did not run to you at once, nor will I run …; nor indeed should you ask this yourself. First, to preserve your dignity, so that you may not seem to be gathering your partisans out of some want of taste and hot-headedness, as those who like to make trouble would say; second, to secure for myself steadiness and freedom from envy. “When, then, will you come,” you will perhaps say, “and how long …?” Until God bids, and the shadows of those who now attack and … pass away. For the lepers will not hold out much longer, I know clearly, in shutting David out of Jerusalem.