Letters 1 part 1/11

To Basil. I have broken my promise, I confess, to be with you and to philosophize together, a promise I made from the time we were still in Athens, on account of the friendship and kinship of soul formed there;

for I have nothing to call more truly my own than these.

But I broke my promise not willingly, but because one law overcame another law: the law commanding us to honor our parents overcame that of comradeship and intimacy.

Yet I shall not be altogether false to my word, if you yourself will accept this:

for in part we shall be with you, and in part be willing yourself to be with us, so that all things may be shared in common and the equal honor of friendship preserved.

For thus it will be possible both not to grieve them and to have you.

To the same. I cannot bear being reproached with the Tiberine mire, and the mud and storms of this place, O you who are all too free of mud, light of foot, pattering over the pavements — or rather, winged and soaring aloft, swept along like the arrow of Abaris — so that, Cappadocian though you are, you flee the very things of Cappadocia.

Or do we do you wrong, in that you grow pale and breathe with constricted breath and have your sunlight measured out to you,

while we grow sleek and are well filled and are not hemmed in? But this is not your case.

No, you live in luxury, and are rich, and go to market;

Therefore, either cease reproaching us with our mud (for you did not build the city, nor did we make the storms);

or else we too shall bring against you, instead of mud (pelous), the hucksters (kapelous), and whatever other evils cities produce.

To Evagrius. I was pleased to be praised.

For that our son Evagrius should be well esteemed is for us to be well esteemed;

for the virtue of children is the glory of their fathers.

As for eloquence, we are conscious of having contributed to your son little or nothing, for our skill in eloquence is not great;

but one thing, instead of all else, and the greatest, we did contribute to him — I will not deny it — the fear of God, and the persuasion to despise present things.

For him, then, we have prayed and continue to pray for all that is best, that the beginnings he received from us may bear complete fruit, and that we may reap some fruit of our labor.

To your honored self all thanks are due, because you deign both to remember us and to honor our friendship with your letters;

which, being no small things, we have received with all the greater welcome.

To Basil. As for you, mock and deride what is ours, whether in jest or in earnest — it makes no difference;

only smile, and take your fill of learning, and enjoy our friendship;

everything from you is good to us, whatever it may be and however it stands.

For indeed you seem to me, in mocking these matters here, to do so not in order to mock, but in order to draw me to yourself — if I understand you at all — like those who dam up streams in order to divert them elsewhere.

But I shall marvel at your Pontus, and the Pontic aridity, and the dwelling worthy of exile, the hills above your heads and the wild beasts that test your faith, and the remote wilderness lying beneath them, or rather the dormouse's den, with its solemn names of 'Retreat,' 'Monastery,' and 'School'; the thickets of wild growth and the crown of deep-cliffed mountains by which you are not crowned but shut in; the rationed air and the longed-for sun which you glimpse as though through smoke — O you Cimmerians of Pontus, sunless, condemned not merely to a six-month night, as some are said to be, but having no part of your life free of shadow, one long night for your whole life, and truly 'the shadow of death,' to use the words of Scripture.

I praise also the narrow and afflicted way — I know not whether it leads to the Kingdom or to Hades; but for your sake let it lead to the Kingdom — and the way in between, which, if you wish, shall I falsely call Eden, and the spring divided into four heads from which the inhabited world is watered, or the dry and waterless desert, which some Moses will tame by striking the rock with his staff to bring forth a spring? For as much of it as has escaped the rocks is a ravine;

and as much as is above the thorns is a precipice;

and the path above this is sheer and swaying on both sides, concentrating the mind of travelers and training it to caution.

And below roars a river — this is your 'Strymon of Amphipolis,' and a quiet one at that;

and it is not so much fish-bearing as stone-bearing, nor does it spread out into a lake, but is swept down into the depths — O you who speak so loftily and coin new names!

For it is great and terrible, and drowns out with its roar the psalm-singing from above.

The Cataracts and the Catadupa are nothing compared to it;

so loudly does it roar against you night and day.

Rough it is, yet impassable;

and turbid it is, yet undrinkable;

of which this alone is kindly, that it does not sweep away your dwelling, when the torrents and storms drive it to madness.

These, then, are the things we say concerning these Isles of the Blessed, or rather of you blessed ones.

But you, for your part, marvel at the crescent-shaped ridges that strangle rather than wall off the passable parts of your foothills, and the ridge towering above the summit, which makes your life a torment of Tantalus, and the breezes that flow through and the exhalations of the earth which revive you when you are fainting; and the songbirds, singing indeed — but of famine, and flying overhead — but over desolation.

And no one, you say, visits you except for the sake of hunting;

add, too, so as to visit you as dead men.

This is perhaps too long for a letter, yet too short for a comedy.

But if you bear this jesting with moderation, you will do rightly;

but if not, we shall add even more.

To the same. Since you bear the jesting with moderation, we shall add what follows.

And the prelude is from Homer:

But come now, turn your song and sing of the world within — the roofless, doorless shelter, the fireless and smokeless hearth, the walls dried out by fire, lest we be pelted with the drops of mud, a kind of Tantalus, condemned and thirsting amid waters — that pitiable, foodless banquet to which we were summoned from Cappadocia, not as to the poverty of the Lotus-eaters but as to the table of Alcinous, we, the new shipwrecked and long-suffering ones.

For I remember those loaves of bread and those broths (for so they were called), and I shall remember too the teeth that kept slipping around the morsels, and then getting stuck fast and being drawn out again as if from a bog.

You yourself will render this in tragic style, more loftily, having the grand tone from your own sufferings;

from which, had not the great and truly poor-nurturing woman quickly rescued us — I mean your mother — appearing like a harbor in due season to those tossed by the storm, we should long ago have been dead, objects to be pitied rather than praised for our Pontic endurance.

How shall I pass over those gardenless gardens and herbless herb-plots, and the Augean dung cleared out from the house, with which we filled them, when we hauled the earth-carrying wagon — I, the 'grape-gatherer,' and you, the greedy one — with these necks and these hands, which still bear the traces of that labor — O Earth and Sun and Air and Virtue, for I shall play the tragedian a little — not that we might yoke the Hellespont, but that we might level the cliff.

If you will not be at all vexed at these things being said, certainly neither shall we;

but if you will be vexed, how much more should we be, who experienced them?

and we shall pass over the greater part, out of respect for the other things, of which we enjoyed many.

To the same. What I wrote before concerning our sojourn in Pontus was the writing of one jesting, not of one being serious;

but what I now write is the writing of one very much in earnest.

Who could restore me, month by month, to those former days, in which I delighted with you in hardship? For the voluntary painful thing is more precious than the involuntary pleasant one.

... of the Spirit? Or, to mention smaller and more trivial things, who recalls the daily tasks and manual labor? Who the wood-gathering and stone-cutting? Who the tending of plants and channel-digging? Who the plane tree, the golden one, more precious than that of Xerxes, under which sat not a king enervated by luxury, but a monk worn out with toil, which I planted, and your Reverence, like Apollos, watered, but God gave the increase, to our honor, that a memorial of our diligence might be preserved among you, just as the rod of Aaron that budded is said and believed to have been kept in the Ark.

These things are most easy to pray for, but not easy to obtain.

But be present with me, and breathe together with me, and labor together with me for virtue, and preserve through your prayers the benefit we once gathered together, lest we be dissolved little by little like a shadow, as the day declines.

For indeed I breathe you more than I breathe the air;

and this alone is my life, to be with you, whether present in body, or absent yet present in imagination.

To Caesarius. We have blushed enough on your account;

for as to the fact that we were grieved also, what need is there to write this to one who is more convinced of it than anyone? For, not to speak of our own feelings, nor of how much despondency the report about you filled us with — allow me to say also, of fear — I wished, if it were somehow possible, that you might be present at the words of others, both those close to us and strangers alike, of all who are in any way acquainted with us, but Christians nonetheless, to hear what they say concerning both you and us — not that some say one thing and others another, but all alike, one after another; since men are more ready to philosophize about the affairs of others than about their own.

For these words have become, as it were, some new exercise for them.

Now, that the son of a bishop should serve as a soldier; now, that he should reach after external power and glory; now, that he should be overcome by wealth (at a time when a common fire has been kindled and men are running the race for their very souls);

but that he does not consider it the one true glory, safety, and prosperity, to stand nobly against the present crisis and to keep himself as far as possible from every pollution and defilement.

And how could a bishop admonish another not to be swept along by the crisis and not to be mixed up with idols, when he himself has no freedom of speech at his own hearth? And how could he rebuke others who err in some other matter? Hearing these things every day, and even more and harsher things than these — some spoken perhaps out of friendship, others inflicted also out of ill will — how do you suppose we are disposed, and what kind of souls do you think men have, who have set themselves to serve God and who judge the only good to be looking toward the hopes to come? As for our lord father, then, who is greatly distressed at the report and even renounces life itself because of it, I myself in some way comfort and console him, pledging your good sense and persuading him that you will not endure to grieve us any longer.

As for our lady mother, should she learn anything of your affairs (for up until now we have concealed it by many devices), consider that she will be utterly inconsolable in her suffering, being a woman of faint heart, and also, on account of her excessive piety, unable to be moderate in such matters.

If, then, you have any regard both for yourself and for us, deliberate on something better and safer.

For surely, even our circumstances here are sufficient for a life of freedom, to one who is not excessively insatiable nor immoderate in the desire for more; moreover, as for your attaining a settled position, I do not see what other opportunity we should wait for, if we let the present one pass.

But if you hold the same opinion, and everything seems petty to you in view of your own ambition, I do not wish to say anything else unpleasant;

yet this much I foretell and solemnly declare: of two things one is necessary—either, remaining a genuine Christian, to hold its most dishonored rank and to act unworthily both of yourself and of your hopes;

or, in aspiring after honor, to suffer harm in the more essential things, partaking of the smoke, even if not of the fire.

TO BASIL. I praise the preface of your letter.

But what of yours is not praiseworthy? You too have been caught writing, just as we have, since indeed we have been compelled into the rank of presbyter.

And yet this was not what we were eager for;

if indeed any others may be, we are trustworthy witnesses to the love of that pedestrian philosophy which remains in a lowly state.

But perhaps it would have been better for this not to have happened;

or else I do not know what to say, so long as I remain ignorant of the dispensation of the Spirit.

But since it has happened, it is necessary to bear it, as at least appears to me, especially because of the present time, which brings upon us many tongues of heretics, and not to bring shame either upon our own life or upon the hopes of those who have believed.

TO AMPHILOCHIUS. ‘Set up golden pillars for the well-walled chamber,’ as Pindar says, and show yourself to us auspiciously from the very outset of your rule in your present charge, so that you may build a hall worthy of admiration, proving yourself renowned within it.

But how will you make yourself known? By honoring God and things divine;

than which what is greater and loftier for you? But how, and by what means, will you honor them? By this one thing alone: by caring for those who stand beside God and minister at His altar.

One of these is also our fellow-deacon Euthalius, whom—I know not how—though he has passed into a higher rank, those of the governing order are attempting to assess for the gold tax.

Let this not seem tolerable to you;

but extend your hand to the deacon and to all the clergy, and above the others, to us, for whom you care;

otherwise he alone of all men would suffer the most terrible things, not obtaining the humane treatment of the times nor the honor granted by the emperors to priestly persons, but being insulted and fined, perhaps because of our own insignificance.

It is well for you not to permit this, even if others wish it otherwise, wrongly.

And if I had not brought my words to rest before their time (for indeed, even now, this very moment, I perceive it), and had resolved—as someone said—‘more hastily than wisely’—neither to hold public panegyrics nor to go about philosophizing among the crowds, I might perhaps even have outshouted the Tyrrhenian trumpets (for I will speak, fearing not at all the harsh stone of Momus, as Pindar says), had I not passed sentence upon myself of an untimely silence.

But now, what I have experienced in regard to you—what sort of thing my case is—you might perhaps understand from a certain image:

I paw the ground with my feet, like the most spirited of horses, and gnaw at the bit, and prick up my ear, and breathe fury from my nostrils, and glare fiercely, and am covered with foam, yet I remain within the barrier, since the law does not permit me the course.

What then? Since this seems best, what shall we do? Shall we cast down our words entirely, and admire your deeds in silence, leaving the praise to others? By no means.

But let others praise the rest of your deeds, whatever each is willing and able [to praise];

In any case you will supply matter enough for many discourses and festal orations, if each one takes his share of your deeds and extols it;

some praising your administration of public affairs, and the intelligence combined with diligence you show in these matters (for who is more resourceful in discovering what is needed, or more effective in accomplishing what has been discovered?);

others, the scales of justice, and how, as it were under a brilliant light, you discern disputes, lofty as you are, marching loftily in the train of Justice.

Your sword is indeed terrible, as one ready to strike;

but insofar as it does not strike, it is [merely] a dedicated offering.

For you rule not by punishing wrongdoers, but by taking care that they shall not sin even at the outset, and by having all men more overcome by your understanding than by the power of others, for whom audacity passes as law.

Let others admire the power of your eloquence;

or, if you prefer, every kind of discourse—both as it concerns the judging of what is spoken, and as it concerns the power of speaking itself.

For the same man is both capable of judging discourse and more powerful in delivering it;

…to be like snowflakes—being now alike the judge presiding over the contest, as formerly he was the contestant [in it].

Let others praise that firmness tempered with gentleness, and that quality which, amid mildness, has not collapsed—such as are the leapings of lions.

Let others praise the far-mighty and precious gold, dishonored together with the venerable titles, and yielding headlong before your justice;

a thing alone, of all things, loftier than both hearing and belief.

And let some poetic man, unrestrained and self-governing in his art, sing to you a rustic melody, having gathered a chorus of farmers, and, having reaped the ripe ear of grain, weave a most delightful crown, and let him raise about his head cultivated vines interwoven with ivy and clusters of grapes.

These are the harvest-offerings of agriculture, which through you has once again returned to mankind;

and let rocks flow with milk, and springs with honey, and let every plant, cultivated and wild alike, put forth gentle fruits together, such as are the fictions of poets, whenever they portray the earth as showing favor to someone.

These things, as I said, let others say and fashion;

for everything that is one's own does not merely weigh one down, as is thought concerning the lyre, but by its very nature is also especially apt to bring gladness.

But I will say this, which I especially admire and embrace among your qualities:

that you show yourself superior to the difficulty of the present time.

Though a Greek in religion, you serve the present power in the affairs of that power;

yet you serve it not as the flatterers of the moment do, but as the friends of what is good and the high-minded do;

shunning, as a matter of religious scruple, service of the former sort, while preserving good will toward your homeland, and reaping an immortal glory amid a mortal affair.

And this too is among your praiseworthy qualities: that even amid so great a weight of office, you grant something of reverence to friendship;

and amid so many affairs which you conduct, you find leisure not only to remember your friends, but also to honor them through letters, and to confess your longing, and to draw the absent toward yourself.

In return for all this I pray for you—nothing greater as concerns worldly fame (for even should your office receive further increase, it cannot thereby acquire virtue), but one thing instead of all, and the greatest: that you may one day become one with us and with God, and belong to the portion of those who are persecuted, not of those who persecute;

since the former is swept away by the current of time, while the latter possesses salvation that is immortal.

TO GREGORY. I possess a certain good quality by nature (for I too will boast a little of one thing among many);

I am equally displeased with myself when I deliberate badly, and with my friends [when they do the same].

Since, then, all who live according to God and conform to the same Gospel are friends and kinsmen of one another, why should you not hear from us, with frankness, what everyone is murmuring? They do not praise your inglorious glory-seeking—if I too may speak in your own manner—nor your gradual inclination toward the worse, nor that most evil of demons, as Euripides calls it, love of honor.

For what has come over you, O wisest of men, or what have you found in yourself to condemn, that you have cast away the sacred and life-giving books, which you once read aloud to the people (do not be ashamed to hear this), or laid them aside for the sake of smoke, as rudders are set aside in winter, and mattocks, and have taken up instead the salty and undrinkable [waters], and have wished to be called a rhetorician rather than a Christian? But we prefer the latter to the former, and all thanks be to God.

Do not, O best of men, suffer this for long, but sober up, late though it be, and return to yourself, and make your defense to the faithful, and make your defense to God and to the altars and to the mysteries, from which you have distanced yourself.

And do not give me these clever and rhetorical words;

‘What then? Was I not acting as a Christian even while practicing rhetoric? Was I not faithful even while occupied among the young men?’ And perhaps you call God to witness this.

By no means, admirable sir—not so far as would be reasonable [to claim], even if we should grant some part of it.

But where lies the harm to others from what you now do—men who, by nature, are more ready toward evil—both in giving worse reports about you, and in suspecting, and in saying such things? Let it be a lie;

yet what necessity is there for this? For no one lives for himself alone, but also for his neighbor;

nor is it enough to persuade oneself, if one does not also persuade others.

Or, while boxing in public, or being struck upon the cheek and striking others in the theaters, or twisting and contorting yourself in shameful postures, would you say that in soul you were exercising self-control? That is not the reasoning of one who is temperate;

‘If, then, you should change, I shall rejoice even now’—so said one of the Pythagorean philosophers, lamenting a companion who had fallen away—‘but if not,’ he wrote, ‘you are dead to me’;

but I, for your sake, will not yet say this;

‘a friend has become an enemy, but nevertheless still a friend,’ as tragedy says.

But I shall be grieved—for this is a moderate way to put it—if you yourself neither perceive what is fitting, which belongs to the first and most praiseworthy portion, nor will follow another who counsels well, which belongs to the second.

So much for my exhortation.

And forgive me, grieving as I do out of friendship, and burning likewise on behalf of both you and the entire priestly order—and I will add, on behalf of all Christians as well.

But if it is also necessary to pray together with you, or on your behalf, may God help your weakness—He who also gives life to the dead.

TO NICOBULUS. You mock our ‘Alypiane’ to us, as being too small and unworthy of your magnificence, O you who are gigantic, immense, and monstrous both in stature and in strength.

For now I have learned that the soul is measured, and virtue is weighed in the balance, and stones are more precious than pearls, and crows more venerable than nightingales.

You, then, enjoy your stature and your cubits, and fall short in nothing of those famous Aloadae.

For you drive a horse and brandish a spear, and wild beasts are your concern.

But for her, it is no task, nor does it require much strength, to carry the shuttle and handle the distaff and sit at the loom;

for this is the prerogative of women.

But if you should add this also, that she cleaves to the earth through prayer, and is ever united with God by the great movements of her mind, what use to you here is stature, or the measurements of the body? Observe her timely silence, listen when she speaks, take note of her lack of adornment, her manliness fitting for a woman, her care for the household, her love for her husband;

and then you will say the saying of the Laconian:

Indeed the soul is not measured, and one who is outside must look to the inner man.

If you consider these things thus, you will cease to jest and mock her as small, and you will count your marriage blessed.

To Amphilochius. I praise the saying of Theognis, who, not praising friendship that extends only to drinking-parties and to pleasure, praises that which is tested in real affairs;

What does he write? 'Many become companions and friends beside the mixing-bowl, but in a serious matter, fewer.'

We, then, have not shared cups with one another, for we have not been much together with one another (although it was needful above all things, both for our own sakes, and because of the friendship inherited from our fathers), but we demand goodwill that is proved in deeds.

Near at hand is a contest, and the greatest of contests;

for our son Nicobulus is in unexpected troubles, from a quarter where one would least suppose him to have difficulties.

But at any rate, we ask that you not be won over first by the opposing side, selling for a small gain that freedom which we know has ever been attested to you by all.

To Caesarius. Do some good both to yourself and to us, such good as you will not often do, because occasions for such benefaction do not often present themselves.

Give my lord cousins the most just protection — they are suffering considerably over an estate which they purchased as suitable for retreat and able to provide them some sustenance for life;

but since they bought it, they have fallen into many difficulties, on the one hand experiencing the unfairness of the sellers, and on the other being cut down and plundered by the neighbors, so that it would be a gain for them, having recovered the price which they gave, along with what they have additionally spent (which is no small amount), to be rid of the property.

If you would arrange a transaction, this indeed would be more pleasing both to them and to us.

But if not, then secondly, set yourself against the meddlesomeness and unfairness of the man, so that he may not by all means gain some advantage on account of their inexperience in such affairs, either wronging them while they hold the property, or wronging them as they are trying to be freed from losses.

I, then, even blushed in writing to you about these matters.

Since we are equally obligated to them, both by kinship and by our shared choice of life (for whom would one care for more than such persons? or in what would one be more ashamed than in not being eager to do such people good?) — but do you, whether for your own sake, or for ours, or for the men themselves, or for all these together, at any rate benefit them.

To Lollianus. It is good that you have returned to us, after a long time indeed, but nonetheless (and what is better than this), that you are faring according to your heart's desire, and you have freed us from the anxieties we had concerning you.

For we make all things common with you, both griefs and joys;

But since you have returned, 'share with your friends your good fortune,' as the one who said it says;

and you will share it, if you would be eager to regard my lord cousins Helladius and Eulalius as family in other respects too (I say 'family' — unless you consider us as other than yourself, for I do not know what greater thing I could say), and if you would allow that they have no need of other patrons.

But show yourself to be everything: a good friend, a favorable neighbor, a noble supporter — that I need not name each thing separately — the noble Lollianus, known for his goodness and nobility of character.

And I promise, if you should converse with them more, and perceive the loftiness of their philosophy, that you will intercede with others on their behalf.

So much do I trust in your character, and so great a hope do I have that I shall not be disappointed concerning what I myself have interceded for with you.

To Eusebius of Caesarea. Since I direct my words to a man who neither loves falsehood, and who is the shrewdest of all at detecting it in another, even if it be woven with the most cunning and elaborate labyrinths;

and besides, artfulness is not to my own liking either (for I will say this, even if it sounds rather blunt), being by nature so disposed and shaped by reason — for this reason I write what occurs to me.

And accept my frankness of speech;

otherwise you will indeed wrong the truth, depriving me of freedom of speech and compelling me to hold within myself the birth-pang of grief, like some insidious and malignant disease.

I rejoice indeed to be honored by you (if I am indeed a man, according to the saying of him who spoke it before), and to be called to synods and spiritual assemblies;

But I cannot bear the outrage that has been done, and is still being done, by your Reverence to my most honored brother Basil, whom I chose from the beginning as a partner in life and in learning and in the loftiest philosophy, and whom I still hold as such;

and I find no fault in myself for my judgment concerning him.

For it is more modest to speak thus, lest I seem to be praising myself, while admiring the things that are his.

But you seem to me to do something similar, dishonoring him while honoring us, just as if someone were to stroke a man's head with one hand while striking his cheek with the other;

or as if one, while undermining the foundations of a house, were to paint the walls and adorn the exterior.

If then you would be persuaded by me at all, you will do this (and I deem it worthy that you be persuaded):

if you will treat him fittingly, you will also be treated well by him.

And what concerns us will follow, just as shadows follow bodies, since we are small and more ready for peace.

For we are not faring so wretchedly that, while wishing to philosophize in other respects and to belong to the better portion, we should disregard the matter which is the very sum of our own teaching — love;

especially toward a man who is a priest, and so great a one, whom we know to be the best in life, in learning, and in conduct, of all whom we know.

For being grieved will not overshadow the truth.

To the same. I did not write in an insulting manner (which is what you found fault with in my letter), but rather spiritually and philosophically, and as was fitting — unless this too grieves the most eloquent Gregory.

And therefore be kinder to us.

Yet if you should judge the letter as written by a household servant, one who ought not even to look his master in the eye, then indeed we shall even receive blows and not even weep;

Or shall we even be accused of this too? A thing which anyone rather than your Reverence deserves to suffer.

For it belongs to a great-souled man to accept the frankness of friends rather than the flattery of enemies.

To the same. I did not otherwise hold a mean-spirited disposition toward your Reverence — do not condemn me of this;

but having spoken with a little freedom and boldness, only so much as to cool and heal what was causing grief, I immediately yielded and gave way, and submitted myself to the rule.