Letters 1 part 2/11

For how could I have done otherwise, knowing both you and the laws of the Spirit? But now, even if I were exceedingly mean-spirited and ignoble, still the present crisis does not allow this to happen, nor do the wild beasts that have rushed upon the church, nor your nobility and manliness, fighting so purely and genuinely on behalf of the church.

We will come, then, if it seems good, aiding you with our prayers, contending together with you, and serving you, and, like the boy-heralds who anoint an excellent athlete with their shouts of encouragement, encouraging you with our exhortations.

To Basil. It is a time for good counsel and endurance, and for no one to prove more manly than we, nor for our many sweats and labors to be undone in a moment.

But why and from what occasion do I write these things? Our most God-beloved bishop Eusebius (for so we must henceforth both think and write concerning him) is disposed toward us very amicably and in a conciliatory manner, and, like iron by fire, he is softened by time.

And I think a letter of exhortation and invitation will also come to you, as he has indicated to me, and as many who clearly know his mind assure us.

Let us anticipate him, either by being present, or by writing beforehand — or rather, by writing beforehand and then being present — lest we be ashamed later by being outdone, when it is possible to win by being nobly and philosophically 'defeated,' which is what most people demand of us.

Come, then, persuaded by me, both for this reason and because of the present crisis;

since a confederacy of heretics is overrunning the church, some already present and causing disturbance, others, as report has it, soon to arrive.

And there is fear that the word of truth may be swept away, unless the spirit of Bezalel be stirred up with all speed — the wise master-builder of such words and doctrines.

But if it seems good that I myself also should be present, journeying and traveling together with you, I will not shrink from this either.

To Caesarius. Not even fears are useless to those who think rightly;

but as I myself would say, they are even exceedingly good and salutary.

For even if we pray that they not happen, yet when they do happen, we are instructed by them.

'For a suffering soul draws near to God,' says Peter somewhere, speaking most admirably, 'and for everyone who has escaped danger, there is a greater kinship with him who has preserved him.'

Let us not, then, be vexed because we have had a share in the evil;

but rather let us give thanks because we have escaped.

Nor let us appear as one kind of people to God at the time of dangers, and another kind after the dangers;

but let us be willing, whether at home or abroad, whether living privately or engaged in public affairs (for so it must be said, and not omitted), to follow closely him who has saved us, and to become of his portion, having but little regard for the small and lowly things that creep along the ground.

And let us give some account to those who come after, great indeed for our glory, and great for the profit of the soul;

and the same thing is also a most useful lesson for the many, that danger is better than security, and misfortune more to be chosen than prosperity;

if indeed before the fears we belonged to the world, but after the fears we have become God's.

Perhaps we seem burdensome to you, writing to you often about the same things, and you think our words are not exhortation but display.

But know that we are eager and praying, most of all, to come as far as you, to rejoice together with you in your salvation and to discourse more fully with you about these things;

but if not, then at least to receive you here as soon as possible, to celebrate together the thank-offerings.

TO SOPHRONIUS. Gold is refashioned and shaped now one way, now another, being molded into many ornaments and led by art to many uses;

yet it remains what it is, gold, and it is not the material but the form that undergoes change.

So too, believing that your nobility of character remains the same toward your friends, even though you continually advance to higher things, we have taken courage to bring forward this petition, having regarded your worth with reverence no more than we have trusted in your character.

Toward our most reverend son Nicobulus, who stands in every way fittingly disposed toward us both through kinship and through intimacy and, greater than these, through character, show yourself gracious.

In what matters, and to what extent? In whatever he himself shall ask of you, and to the extent that you deem fitting for your magnanimity.

And we in turn will give back the fairest of what we possess.

We possess our words and the office of being heralds of your virtue, even if not close to your worth, yet at least according to our own ability.

TO THE SAME. It ought to be that, just as we recognize gold and precious stones by sight, so also good and not-good men should be discerned at once, and should not require a longer trial.

For then we would not have needed many words on behalf of our most honored son Amphilochius, in pleading with your magnanimity.

I would sooner have hoped for one of the incredible and paradoxical things, than that this man would do, or even conceive, anything ignoble for the sake of money;

so much has been conceded to him by all for his nobility of character, and for possessing a wisdom older than his years.

But what is one to suffer? Nothing escapes envy, since even upon this man some slander has laid hold, a man who has fallen into accusations through simplicity rather than through wickedness of character.

But let it not seem tolerable to you to look on while he is swept away by false accusations.

No — I beg you by your sacred and great soul — but rather, honor also our fatherland, and come to the aid of virtue, and have regard for us who have been glorified by you and through you, and become all things to this man, adding the power to your willingness, since I know that all things yield to your virtue.

TO CAESARIUS. If what we ask is great, marvel not at all, since it is also from a great man, and the request must be proportioned to the one asked.

For it is equally absurd to seek great things from a small man, and small things from a great one;

the one is untimely, the other petty.

I myself bring to you, by my own hand, our most honored son Amphilochius, a man so well known for nobility of character, and beyond what would be expected of his age, that I myself, old man and priest and your friend, would have been glad to be so regarded.

But if, overcome by friendship for a man, he did not suspect the slander, what is there to wonder at? For because he himself is not wicked, he did not suspect wickedness, thinking that a correction of word rather than of character was fitting for him.

What is there terrible in this to men of good judgment? Do not, then, allow vice to have more power than virtue, nor dishonor our gray hairs;

but respect our testimony, and set your kindness beneath our blessings, of which perhaps there is some account before God, before whom we stand.

TO THEMISTIUS. Words are what is at stake;

and the occasion is yours, if indeed you are king of words.

And moreover, my Amphilochius is your friend by inheritance from his father;

I will add that he is also of such a character as neither to disgrace the lineage of his fathers, nor our friendship, unless I am a poor judge of such things.

And the greatest thing — most fitting for a man such as yourself, a philosopher — is that, though doing no wrong, he is beset with troubles.

This is a very light matter for him, but for us in turn a very heavy one, should we appear to overlook it.

I, then, do the only thing I am able to do;

and I am able to intercede with those who are able to do good;

for nothing else is possible for me, situated as I now am.

But do you confirm the saying of your Plato, who said that cities would not cease from evils until power should be united with philosophy.

For there is nothing about which you could philosophize better than by now contending on the side of justice, besides also doing good to us, your admirers — and, if you permit me to say so, your friends.

TO AMPHILOCHIUS. We did not ask you for bread, just as one does not ask water from those who dwell at Ostracine.

But if we ask vegetables from a man of Ozizala, of which there is abundance with you, but great scarcity with us, it is nothing to wonder at, nor outside of custom.

Deign, then, to send us vegetables in the greatest abundance and of the finest quality, or as many as possible (since even small things are great to the poor), since we are, moreover, receiving the great Basil as our guest;

of whom you would surely not wish, having experienced him philosophizing when well-fed, likewise to experience him hungry and displeased.

TO THE SAME. How stingily the vegetables have come to us from you!

For what else could they be but golden vegetables? And yet your whole wealth consists in gardens and rivers and groves and parks, and your country is vegetable-bearing for you, just as for others it is gold-bearing, and you pasture on meadow leaves.

And your grain is the legendary land of the blessed;

and your bread, so it is said, is the bread of angels — so hard to obtain and so incredible.

Either, then, share these things with us more generously, or — we will threaten nothing else;

but we will withhold the grain, and we shall find out whether cicadas really do live on dew alone.

And I know the danger of a man of Ozizala going hungry, precisely when you are busiest with farming.

Of these this alone is praiseworthy, that even if they perish of famine, they are fragrant and obtain a splendid burial.

How so? They are strewn with many and varied flowers.

TO THE SAME. Having visited the mountain cities that border on Pamphylia, we there caught a sea-Glaucus in the mountains — not by drawing the fish up out of the deep with nets of flax, but by netting our catch with the love of friends.

And now that Glaucus has once learned to walk on land, we have further sent him as a letter-carrier to your goodness; let him receive him hospitably, and deign to entertain him with the hospitality commended in the Scriptures, together with vegetables.

TO SOPHRONIUS. You see what our affairs are like, and how a certain cycle runs round through human affairs;

now some things, now others flourishing and fading, and neither our prosperity remaining fixed for us, nor, as they say, our misfortune — but each shifting and changing most swiftly, so that one may trust the winds and letters written on water more than the good fortune of human beings.

For what reason? As it seems to me, so that, beholding the instability and irregularity in these things, we might run all the more to God and to the age to come, and might take some care for our own selves, giving but little thought to shadows and dreams.

But whence has this discourse come upon us? For I do not philosophize about these things at random, nor do I adorn my speech in vain.

Your Caesarius too was once among those not obscure — indeed, unless I am deceived as a brother would be, among those quite illustrious — well known for his education, surpassing the many in nobility of character, and resplendent for the abundance of his friends, among whom, first and foremost, he himself considered you and your noble family to stand, and he persuaded us of it as well.

These, then, are the old things; and you yourself will add still more, honoring him with funeral tributes, granting a little extra favor — as by nature we all human beings do — to the one who has departed.

But as for the present — and see that you do not race past my words without tears, or rather, that you weep for something good and profitable — he lies dead, friendless, deserted, an object of pity, deemed worthy of but a little myrrh (if even that), and of scant final garments (a great deal, indeed, if even that much).

And enemies, as I learn, have fallen upon him, and one from one side, another from another, with great license, some plunder his goods, and others intend to.

Oh, what callousness! Oh, what cruelty!

And there is no one to prevent it, but the most humane response grants only this: it invokes the laws;

and, to speak briefly, we have become a spectacle, we who were once accounted fortunate.

Let not these things seem tolerable to you;

but rather share in our grief and share in our indignation, and grant a favor to the dead Caesarius.

Yes, by friendship itself, yes, by your dearest ones and your hopes — which do make favorable to yourself by showing yourself faithful and true to the one who has departed;

so that you may grant this favor also to the living, and make them hopeful.

Do you suppose that it is about money that we grieve? What is more unbearable to us is the shame, if it should appear that Caesarius alone of all men had no friends — he who indeed supposed himself to have many.

Such, then, is our plea, and from such persons as we are, since our situation is perhaps not a matter of indifference to you.

But as to how you will help, and by what means, and in what way, the circumstances themselves will suggest, and your own understanding will determine.

To Philagrius. I no longer have Caesarius.

For I will say it, even though the feeling is not a philosophical one:

I cherish whatever belongs to Caesarius, and whatever token of Caesarius I chance to see, I embrace and greet, and I seem, as it were, to see him himself, and to be with him, and to converse with him.

Such was my experience even now, upon reading your letter.

For as soon as I read the heading of the letter—that name and thing so sweet to me, 'Philagrius'—there rushed upon me all at once all the delights of former days: the cities, the lecture-halls, our common table, our poverty, the things of 'lovely youthful companionship,' as Homer calls it, whether our sports or our earnest studies, the toil and sweat over eloquence, our common teachers, the loftiness of our hopes—in short, all that one might call the fair things of that time, in which I take particular delight even now in remembering them.

That we may then dwell on these things still more, through you as well, set your pen in motion and grant us the favor of writing.

Surely this too is no small thing for us, even though envy has snatched away from us the greatest thing—our companionship—having arranged our affairs so painfully.

To the Same. Whatever is painful to you is surely painful to us as well.

For we make everything belonging to our friends common, whether it fares well or otherwise, which is indeed the very definition of friendship.

And yet, if on these matters too one must philosophize somewhat and say to you what is fitting (as indeed the law of friendship prescribes), I do not wish—nor do I think it right—that you, being Philagrius, and one instructed beyond others in divine things, should suffer the same as the many, nor collapse together with your body, nor lament your affliction as incurable, but rather that you should philosophize amid your suffering, and now especially purify your mind, and show yourself superior to your bonds, and consider your illness a discipline toward what is profitable—that is, despising the body and bodily things and everything that flows, is turbulent, and perishes, to become wholly of the portion above, and to live for the future instead of the present, making this present life, as Plato says, 'a practice for death,' and releasing the soul, as far as possible, from the body—or, to speak in his terms, the 'tomb.'

If you philosophize thus, most excellent friend, and are so disposed, you yourself will profit the most, and you will make us more at ease concerning you, and you will teach many to philosophize amid their sufferings.

And besides, you will gain no small thing—if this too matters to you—to be admired by all.

I do not have such a copy of the Iliad as you need.

Do not disbelieve me when I say that I consider myself to enjoy, and rightly to possess, only those things of which you yourself might partake, and which you might use as your own.

To the Same. It is well that you philosophize amid your sufferings, and become for many an example of endurance in painful things;

and just as you made the best use of your body when you were in health, so now too you make good use of it, since, though you are weak and idle, you are idle in no idle way, if I may put it so.

you let it suffer what belongs to it, since in any case it is bound to be dissolved, sooner or later, by the law of nature (for it will perish either worn out by disease or by time);

while you keep the soul itself on high, and set your thoughts in order to stand with God, and know this also, that it is absurd for us to philosophize when free from dangers, yet to appear unphilosophical in times of need and to belie our profession.

You have plainly surveyed in your mind all that is ours and all that is foreign to us, as a man trained in both and a teacher of others, and from all of these you have gathered for yourself the remedy fit for our human lot.

But that I too may philosophize with you a little, if you bid me, I do not approve the pettiness of Aristotle, who, in defining happiness for us, advanced rightly up to a point, declaring it to be an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, and adding—in a complete life, and this most wisely—because of the mutability and instability of our nature;

but in this he was no longer noble, but indeed quite mean, that he also added outward prosperity, as though, should one happen to be poor, or sickly, or of low birth, or exiled from his homeland, happiness were thereby hindered for him.

But I praise the vigor and high-mindedness of the Stoics, who say that outward things hinder happiness not at all, but that the good man is blessed even if the bull of Phalaris holds him burning within it.

And for this reason I admire, on the one hand, those among us who have braved danger for what is noble, or borne misfortune with vigor;

and I admire also, among those outside, those like them—such as that Anaxarchus, Epictetus, Socrates—not to mention many others.

Of these, the one—Anaxarchus—while his hands were being pounded in a mortar, the tyrant so commanding, kept bidding his tormentors to go on pounding 'the sack of Anaxarchus.'

What did he mean by saying this? Our wretched little flesh—since it was not Anaxarchus, that is, his philosophic soul, that was being pounded;

which is what we call the outer man and the inner man.

And the other—Epictetus—while his leg was being stretched and wrenched, philosophized as though he were in a body not his own, and it seemed that his leg was broken sooner than he perceived the violence.

And Socrates, condemned to death by the Athenians and dwelling, as you know, in prison, for a time discoursed with his disciples as though concerning another prison, the body, and though it was possible for him to flee, he disdained to do so;

and when the hemlock was brought to him, he received it most gladly, as though he were receiving it not unto death, but as a pledge of friendship being drunk to him.

I would have added to these our own Job as well, had I not known you to be far removed from his sufferings, both now and hereafter, being with God.

To the Same. Some, I perceive, find fault with you for cherishing the one possession that is yours and for laboring diligently even in such a bodily condition,

since indeed it is easier to philosophize about others' affairs than about one's own.

Now, if I saw you doing this beyond measure, or attached to philosophy either greedily or violently, I too would find fault (for the truth shall be spoken), with no regard whatsoever for our friendship or your learning.

But since you labor diligently, yet not beyond measure, and put to good use what you labor over, and since also your affliction occupies you with these concerns and persuades you that the things of the body matter to you more than the body itself, I cannot but find fault with those who blame you, and thereby absolve you of the charge.

And moreover I persuade myself of this: that no one is better than you at reasoning about practical matters—you, whom all men alike employ as teacher and counselor in their own affairs, both privately and publicly—nor is anyone more skilled in philosophy at caring for the soul,

nor at medicine—who is so bold and untaught as to lay down rules for you on these matters? So then, let the many go their way, and be jackdaws presuming to judge the flight of eagles;

but be your own counselor, and God's, concerning both your affliction and all that pertains to it, and you will not fail to do what is fitting.

To the Same. I remember our meeting, when we lately came together in my own Mataza (for I call and reckon what is yours as my own), and the philosophic discourse you delivered on that occasion, which even now, remembering it still, fills me with awe.

then, sending one's reasonings on to the tribunals of that place, and to the recompense laid up for our lives, thus the disturbance is stayed, and what causes grief is healed.

And, as far as I was able, I drew my exposition toward your affliction, philosophizing on these things both from our own [Scriptures] and from those outside, speaking as to a man so learned, and at the same time as the Spirit so moved me and suffering itself sharpened my thought—for nothing is more inventive than suffering.

But you, rising up in the midst of my discourse, as though sprung from the starting-gate, and stretching your hands toward heaven, and looking, as it were, toward the east (for you did not have the power of sight)—

'I thank you, Father,' you cried, 'O maker and instructor of your own people, that you do us good even against our will, and cleanse the inner man by means of the outer, and lead us through contrary things to our blessed end, by ways which you yourself know.' And why should I recount all the things with which you had already philosophized before me and philosophized together with me, as though you rejoiced in your very illness? And the teacher had in me his disciple.

But to what end have I recalled these things? To this: that through you I might cry out and proclaim to all, that the wicked ought to be mourned by us for their inward disease more than we by them for our outward one, if indeed we are so disposed; and that a philosophic illness is better than unbridled prosperity.

To the Same. Formerly it was I who wrote you letters of consolation for your affliction;

but now you seem to me capable of consoling us yourself, since we are suffering almost the same things.

For it was fitting that we, being friends, should not be divided even in this.

Rather, you have already consoled us, by teaching endurance through your own endurance.

To the Same. I suffer from my illness, and I rejoice;

not because I suffer, but because I am a teacher of endurance to others.

For since it is not in my power not to suffer, I gain this profit besides from my suffering: to bear it and to give thanks, just as in times of good cheer, so also in painful ones, since I am persuaded that, in the reckoning of what concerns us, nothing is without reason, even though it may appear otherwise to us.

To Sophronius. To honor one's mother is among the things that are holy.

Her you have honored with the whole splendor of your life;

and you will honor her now too, by showing us deference in the matter for which we intercede.

But what is this intercession? You surely know the most learned man of his generation, Eudoxius the rhetor.

His son—to put it briefly—another Eudoxius, alike in character and in eloquence, now comes to you through us.

That you may make yourself all the more renowned, then, show yourself favorable to the man in whatever he may need of your patronage.

For it would be shameful that you, the common patron of our homeland, who have done good to many—and I shall add, will continue to do so—should not honor above all others the man most excellent in eloquence, whom, if for no other reason, it is right to respect on this account: that they are the eulogists of your own excellences.

To Themistius. The spear marks out the Spartans, the shoulder the sons of Pelops, [and] eloquence marks out the great Themistius.

For even though you excel all men in all things, I know this to be the most distinguished of your qualities.

This is also what joined us to one another from the beginning—if indeed there is anything at all worth mentioning in what concerns us in the realm of letters—and this is what has now persuaded me to be bold.

And if you should come to know the man on whose behalf we intercede, perhaps you will even approve our boldness;

for he is to us a friend in the highest degree, no less on account of his own virtue than on account of the friendship we had with his father.

As one, then, who will both do good to us in whatever good you do this man, and honor your own eloquence, be willing to advance him.

Who this man is, and how he is to be advanced, he himself will make known to you; your own eloquence and discernment will judge the matter.

To Sophronius. I wish all good things for my friends.

And when I say 'friends,' I mean those who are noble and good, and who are joined to us by virtue, since we ourselves too lay some claim to this.

For this reason, then, having now sought what greatest favor I might grant our most reverend brother Amazonius (for indeed I was exceedingly delighted with the man, from the meeting I lately had with him), I judged that I ought to grant him one thing in place of all others: your friendship and patronage.

For in a brief space he displayed great learning—both that which we once pursued zealously, when our sight was still dim, and that which is now pursued in its place, now that we have looked toward the height of virtue.

But as for us, whether we appeared to him as being something in respect of virtue, he himself would know;

the fairest of what we have, at any rate, we display in return: to a friend, friends.

We consider you to be the first and genuine among these, and we wish you to appear to him such as our common fatherland demands and our own affection and reasoning desire, promising him your care in place of all things.

TO BASIL. Do not be surprised if I seem to say something paradoxical and not previously said by anyone.

To me you seem to have the reputation of a man steadfast and secure and firm in mind, yet in many things to deliberate and act more simply than securely.

For being free from wickedness makes one also slower to suspect wickedness in others;

You summoned us to the metropolis, when deliberation concerning a bishop was proposed;

and the pretext was as seemly and plausible as this;

you seemed to be ill and drawing your last breath, and longing to see us and to utter your final words—I do not know to what end, or what we, being present, would have contributed to the matter.

I, for my part, set out, being deeply grieved by the matter;

for what is more exalted to me than your life, or more grievous than your departure? And I released fountains of tears and lamented aloud, and perceived myself now for the first time to be disposed unphilosophically;

and indeed what rite of the funeral offices did I not fulfill? But when I perceived that bishops were converging upon the city, I was checked in my impulse, and I marveled, first, that you had not considered what was seemly, nor guarded against the tongues of the many, which very quickly slander the more guileless;

second, that you do not suppose the same things to be fitting for you and for us, to whom both word and life and all things are common, joined together from the first by God in this way;

third (for let this too be said), that you considered such nominations to belong to the more cautious, rather than to the more powerful and to those more familiar with the multitudes.

For these reasons, then, I have backed water and am drawing back.

But if it seems good to you yourself as well, let this be resolved: to flee the tumults in the midst and the wicked suspicions.

But I shall see your Reverence at such time as affairs are settled and it is opportune, and I shall indeed reproach you with more and heavier things.

TO THE CHURCH OF THE CAESAREANS. I am a shepherd of little account, presiding over a small flock, and one among many in the servants of the Spirit.

But grace is not narrow, nor circumscribed by places.

You are deliberating not about small matters nor about ordinary things, but about matters such that, whether they stand well or ill, the common good must also stand accordingly, this way or that.

For your discourse concerns the Church, on behalf of which Christ suffered, and concerns him who is to present and offer her to God.

The lamp of the body is the eye, as we have heard—not only this eye which sees and is seen bodily, but also the one which beholds and is beheld spiritually;

and the lamp of the Church is the bishop, which is evident to you even if we ourselves do not write it.

It is necessary, therefore, just as when that eye is in a pure condition the body also is guided rightly, but when it happens not to be pure, it is guided not rightly;

so also, according to whichever condition the one presiding over it is in, the Church must altogether either share the danger with him or be saved together with him.

Care must be taken, then, for every Church, as being the body of Christ, but especially for yours, which was from the beginning, and is now, and is considered to be, the mother of almost all the Churches, and toward which the whole community looks, as a circle is described around its center—not only on account of the orthodoxy proclaimed to all from of old, but also on account of the grace of concord manifestly given to her by God.

Since, then, you have called us also to the deliberation concerning this matter, acting rightly and canonically, and we are held fast by old age and infirmity: if we ourselves should also be present, the Spirit strengthening us (for nothing is incredible to the faithful), this would be far better in every way and more pleasing to us, so that we too might contribute something to you and ourselves share in the blessing;

but if the effects of infirmity should prevail, we contribute as much as is possible for us while absent;

I am persuaded that there are also others among you worthy of the presidency, inasmuch as you come from so great a city, and one raised up from of old in such a way and by such men;

yet I am unable to prefer any single one of those honored among you above our most God-beloved son Basil the presbyter (I speak with God as witness), a man purified both in life and in word, and alone of all, or most of all, able in both respects to withstand the present crisis and the prevailing loquacity of the heretics.