Letters 1–7

[To Eustathius the philosopher.] I had already given up in the face of the abuse of what is called fortune, from which some obstacle has always arisen to keep me from meeting you, when you wonderfully called me back and comforted me with your letter. For I had already been turning it over in my own mind whether what most people chatter about might not be true: that there is a certain necessity and fate which drives both the smaller and the greater of our affairs, and that we human beings are masters of nothing; or, if not that, that some chance at any rate drives human life. And you will pardon these reasonings when you learn the causes by which I was led to them. I left Athens because of the report of your philosophy, scorning what was there. I ran past the city on the Hellespont more firmly than any Odysseus ran past the Sirens' songs; and though I admired Asia, I hurried on to the capital of its glories. But when I reached my homeland and looked for you there, my great gain, and did not find you, from then on the many and varied occasions of unexpected hindrances befell me. Either I had to fall ill and be left behind for that reason, or I could not set out with you as you went …; and when at last, after countless labors, I reached Syria, I could not be with the philosopher, who had set out for Egypt. So I had to go again to Egypt, “a long and grievous road,” and not even there to have what I was eager for. But so unlucky in love was I that I had either to go on toward Persia and advance as far as possible into the land of the barbarians (for you had gone there too, so great was the demon's contentiousness), or to sit here in the city of Alexander, which is what in fact happened. For it seems to me that, had I not given up, following you like some beast following a branch held out before it, you would have been led on beyond even Nysa of India, and if there is any farthest spot of our inhabited world, I too would have wandered to it. And why say more? At the last, now that you are living in our homeland, it has not been possible to meet you, since you are kept away by long illnesses; and unless these become milder from now on, I shall not be with your eloquence even this winter. Are these not the work of fate, as you yourself would say? Are these not of necessity? Do they not almost surpass the poets' myths about Tantalus? But, as I said, I have come to myself through your letter, and I am no longer of the same opinion. I say that we must be grateful to God when he gives good things, and not be vexed when he withholds them. And so, if he grants us to be with you, we shall count this both best and sweetest; and if he postpones it, we shall bear the loss gently. For he surely manages our affairs better in every way than we would choose.

Basil to Gregory. 1. I recognized your letter, as people recognize the children of their friends from the likeness to their parents that shows in them. For to say that the setting of the place was no great matter for awakening in your soul some impulse toward the life with us, before you should learn something of our way and manner of living, was truly your thought, and worthy of your soul, which counts all things here as nothing compared with the blessedness laid up for us in the promises. As for what I myself do in this remote place night and day, I am ashamed to write. For I have left the pursuits of the city as the occasions of countless evils, but myself I have not yet been able to leave. Rather, I am like those at sea who, through inexperience of sailing, are distressed and seasick: they are annoyed at the size of the ship because it makes much tossing, and so they move from it into the skiff or the small boat, and everywhere they are seasick and distressed, for their nausea and bile go with them. Ours is something like that. For we carry our indwelling passions around with us, and so everywhere we are with the same disturbances. So we have not gained much from this solitude. Yet what one ought to do, and from what we might have been able to keep to the footsteps of him who has led the way to salvation (for “If anyone,” he says, “wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me”), is this. 2. One must try to keep the mind in quiet. For just as the eye that is continually turned about, now carried round to the sides, now often turned up and down, cannot see clearly what lies before it, but the sight must be fixed on the object if it is to make its view of it clear; so too the human mind, dragged about by the world's countless cares, cannot fix its gaze clearly on the truth. The man not yet yoked in the bonds of marriage is thrown into confusion by raging desires, hard-to-restrain impulses, and certain ill-starred loves; the man already bound to a spouse takes on another tumult of cares: in childlessness, the desire for children; in having children, anxiety over their upbringing; the guarding of his wife, the care of his house, the oversight of his servants, the losses in contracts, the quarrels with neighbors, the entanglements in the courts, the risks of trade, the toils of farming. Every day comes bringing its own darkening of the soul, and the nights, taking over the cares of the day, deceive the mind with the same images. Of these things there is one escape: separation from the whole world. But withdrawal from the world is not to be bodily outside it, but to break off the soul's sympathy with the body, and to become without city, without home, without anything of one's own, without companions, without possessions, without livelihood, without business, without contracts, untaught in human teachings, ready to receive in the heart the impressions that arise from divine teaching. And the preparation of the heart is the unlearning of the teachings that have taken prior hold of it from evil habit. For one cannot write on wax without first smoothing away the letters laid on it, nor plant divine doctrines in a soul without first removing the preconceptions that come from custom. Toward this, solitude gives us the greatest help, lulling our passions and giving reason leisure to cut them out of the soul completely. For as wild beasts are easily mastered when they have been stroked, so desires, angers, fears, and griefs, the venomous evils of the soul, when lulled by quiet and not made savage by continual provocation, become easier to master by the power of reason. Let the place, then, be such as ours is, removed from human intercourse, so that the continuity of the ascetic discipline is not broken by anything from outside. The discipline of godliness nourishes the soul with divine thoughts. What then is more blessed than to imitate on earth the choir of angels: at the very beginning of the day to hasten to prayer, honoring the Creator with hymns and songs; then, when the sun shines out clearly, to turn to work, with prayer everywhere accompanying it, seasoning one's labors with hymns as with salt? For the consolations of hymns bestow on the soul a cheerful and untroubled state. Quiet, then, is the beginning of the soul's cleansing: the tongue not speaking the things of men, the eyes not gazing about at the fine complexions and proportions of bodies, the hearing not slackening the soul's tension with songs composed for pleasure or with the words of witty and joking men, which is above all what loosens the soul's tension. For the mind that is not scattered on things outside, nor poured out over the world through the senses, returns to itself, and through itself ascends to the thought of God; and illumined by that beauty, it forgets even its own nature. It is dragged down neither to concern for food nor to anxiety about clothing; but, having leisure from earthly cares, it transfers all its zeal to the acquisition of eternal goods: how self-control and courage may be achieved by it, how justice and prudence, and the other virtues, which, classed under these general ones, prompt the earnest man to fulfill duly each of the duties of life. 3. The greatest path to the discovery of duty is the study of the divinely inspired Scriptures. For in them are found both the precepts for action and the lives of blessed men, handed down in writing, set before us like living images of the life according to God for the imitation of good works. And so, in whatever respect each person perceives himself deficient, by dwelling on that, he finds, as from a common dispensary, the medicine suited to his ailment. The lover of self-control continually unrolls the story of Joseph, and from him learns the deeds of self-control, finding him not only master of himself toward pleasures but disposed toward virtue as a settled habit. He is schooled in courage by Job, who, when his life turned to its opposite and he became poor instead of rich and childless instead of the father of fine children in one turn of the moment, not only remained the same, keeping the spirit of his soul everywhere unhumbled, but was not even provoked when the friends who had come to comfort him trampled on him and increased his pains. Again, if one considers how he might be gentle and at the same time high-spirited, so as to use anger against sin and gentleness toward men, he will find David, valiant in the brave deeds of war, but gentle and unmoved in requiting his enemies. Such too was Moses, rising up with great anger against those who sinned against God, but bearing with a gentle soul the slanders against himself. And everywhere, just as painters, when they paint pictures from pictures, look often at the model and are eager to transfer its features to their own work, so he who is eager to make himself perfect in every part of virtue must look to the lives of the saints as to statues, so to speak, that move and act, and make their goodness his own by imitation. 4. Again, prayers following on reading take up the soul fresher and more vigorous, stirred by longing for God. And good prayer is that which produces a clear thought of God in the soul. And this is God's indwelling: to have God established in oneself through remembrance. So we become a temple of God, when the continuity of remembrance is not broken by earthly cares, nor the mind disturbed by unexpected passions, but the lover of God, escaping all these, withdraws to God, driving away the things that call him to intemperance, and spends his time in the pursuits that lead to virtue. 5. And first of all one must be eager not to be unskilled in the use of speech: to ask questions without contentiousness and to answer without contentiousness or love of honor, not interrupting the one he is conversing with when he says something useful, nor wanting to throw in his own word for display, setting limits to speech and to hearing; to learn without shame and to teach without grudging; and if he has learned something from another, not to hide it, as worthless women pass off bastard children, but to proclaim gratefully the father of the word. The middle tone of voice is to be preferred, so that it neither escapes the hearing by its smallness nor is burdensome by its great loudness. One should first consider in oneself what is to be said, and then bring the word out in public. Be affable in meeting people, sweet in conversation, not hunting for pleasantness through witticisms, but having kindness through gracious exhortation. Everywhere push away harshness, even if one must rebuke. For by first casting yourself down through humility, you will be well received by the one who needs the treatment. Often the prophet's way of rebuking is useful to us too: when David sinned, he did not bring the sentence of condemnation from himself, but, using an imagined person, made David himself the judge of his own sin, so that, having pronounced the judgment against himself, he could no longer blame the one who had convicted him. 6. To the humble and lowly spirit belong an eye downcast and bent toward the ground, a neglected appearance, unkempt hair, dirty clothing, so that what mourners do deliberately appears in us of its own accord. The tunic is to be fastened to the body by a belt, the belt neither above the hips, for that is womanish, nor slack, so that the tunic slips about, for that is lazy. The gait is to be neither sluggish, so as to betray a slackness of soul, nor again violent and hurried, so as to show its impulses to be frenzied. The one aim of clothing is to be a covering of the flesh, sufficient for winter and summer. Let neither brightness of color be pursued, nor fineness and softness in the making. For to look out for fine colors in clothing is like women's adornment, which they practice by dyeing their cheeks and hair with a borrowed bloom. Yet the tunic ought to be thick enough not to need another to keep its wearer warm. The shoe should be cheap in price, but meet the need adequately. And in a word, as in clothing what is needed is to be sought, so also in food bread will fill the need, water will cure the thirst of the healthy, and whatever dishes from seeds can preserve the body's strength for necessary uses. One should eat without showing a raging gluttony, but keeping everywhere steadiness, gentleness, and self-mastery toward pleasures, not even then keeping the mind idle from the thought of God, but making the very nature of the foods and the structure of the body that receives them an occasion of glorifying him: how varied kinds of food, suited to the particular nature of bodies, have been devised by him who orders all things. Let prayers before food be worthy of God's gifts, both those he gives now and those he has stored up for the future; prayers after food, holding thanksgiving for what has been given and a request for what has been promised. Let there be one hour appointed for food, the same one recurring in its turn, so that of the twenty-four hours of the night and day barely this one is spent on the body, and the ascetic occupies the rest in the activity of the mind. Let sleep be light and easily shaken off, following naturally on the lightness of the diet, and broken deliberately by cares about great things. For to be overpowered by deep drowsiness, with the limbs relaxed, so as to give room to senseless fancies, puts those who sleep so into a daily death. But what dawn is to others, midnight is to the ascetics of godliness, since the quiet of night above all gives the soul leisure, neither eyes nor ears sending harmful sounds or sights into the heart, but the mind alone by itself being with God, correcting itself by the remembrance of its sins, and seeking … from God …

To Candidianus. 1. When I took your letter into my hands, something worth telling happened to me. I was wary of it, as though it announced something official, and while I was loosening the wax I was afraid to look at it, as no Spartan under accusation ever looked at a Laconic dispatch-staff. But when I had opened it and gone through every part, I had to laugh, partly from pleasure at hearing nothing new, partly from comparing your conduct with that of Demosthenes. For he, when he paid for a few chorus-singers and flute-players, no longer thought fit to be called Demosthenes but “the chorus-master”; whereas you are the same whether you are paying or not, though you pay for more tens of thousands of soldiers than the men he furnished with supplies. You do not write to us in accordance with your rank, but in your usual way; and you do not slacken at all in your zeal for letters, but, in Plato's phrase, standing aside as under some strong wall in the winter and storm of affairs, you keep your soul free of every disturbance, or rather you do not even allow others to be disturbed, as far as it lies with you. Such are your affairs: great and wonderful to those able to see them, and yet again not wonderful to one who judges by the whole purpose of your life. Hear now ours, which are strange, and yet what one would expect to befall us. 2. A certain rustic, one of those who live near us at Annesi, after a servant of mine died, without saying he had any contract with him, without coming to me, without making any complaint, without asking to receive anything from me willingly, without threatening to use force if he did not get it, suddenly with some others like himself fell upon my house in his madness, beat and battered the women who were guarding it, broke down the doors, and carried everything off, taking some things himself and leaving the rest for anyone who wanted to plunder. So, that we may not be the last limit of weakness and seem a fit target for every attack, please now bring to bear the zeal you have shown in all our affairs. For only so would our freedom from trouble be preserved, if we are drawn up under your energy. And it would be satisfaction enough for us if, arrested through the district governor, he were shut up in prison for a short time. For we are not only indignant at what we have suffered; we also need security for the future.

To Olympius. What are you doing, my admirable friend, driving out of our remote place our dear Poverty, the nurse of philosophy? For I think you would be sued by her for ejection, if she could find a voice: “This is the man I chose to live with, now praising Zeno, who, having lost everything in a shipwreck, uttered nothing ignoble, but said, ‘Well done, Fortune: you are driving us into the philosopher's cloak’; now Cleanthes, who drew water from the well for pay, from which he both lived himself and paid his teachers. And Diogenes he never stopped admiring, who made it his ambition to be content with the bare gifts of nature, so that he even threw away his cup after he was taught by a boy to drink by stooping and using his hollowed hands.” With these and such words our housemate Poverty might reproach you, now that she has been evicted by your great generosity. And she might add a threat: “If I catch you here again, I will make your former state look like Sicilian or Italian luxury; so exactly will I repay you with what is mine.” So much for that. But I was glad to hear that you have already begun your treatment, and I pray that you may profit from it. May painless service from the body befit your holy soul.

To Nectarius, a letter of consolation. 1. It was not yet the third or fourth day since I had been struck by the report of the unbearable calamity, and I was still in doubt, both because the messenger was not able to tell us clearly what had happened and because, praying that it might not be true, I was slow to accept what was being said, when I received a letter from the bishop that reported the dreaded news exactly. How much I groaned at it, and how many tears I shed, what need is there even to say? For who is so stony of heart, or so wholly outside human nature, as to bear what has happened without feeling, or to have his soul seized by only a moderate grief? The heir of an illustrious house, the prop of a family, the hope of his homeland, the offspring of devout parents, nurtured amid countless prayers, in the very flower of his age, is gone, snatched from the midst of his father's hands. What nature of adamant would these things not be enough to melt and bring to sympathy? So it is no great wonder if the evil has touched us deeply too, who from the beginning have been wholly bound up with you and have made both your joys and your griefs our own. And yet it seemed, at least up to the present time, that the things that grieved you were few, and that in most things your affairs were going with the stream. But suddenly, by the envy of a demon, all that prosperity of the house and all that brightness of soul has vanished, and we have become a sad tale for the world. If, then, we wish to lament and weep over what has happened, the length of our life will not suffice us; and all men, groaning with us, will not be able to make their lament equal to the calamity; even if the streams of the rivers became tears, they would not be enough to fulfill the dirge for what has happened. 2. If, however, we are willing now to bring forward the gift of God that he has laid up in our hearts, I mean sober reason, which knows how to set limits to our souls in prosperity, and in more gloomy circumstances how to open a way to the remembrance of the human condition and to suggest to us what we have seen and what we have heard: that life is full of such sufferings and that there are many examples of human misfortunes; and above all, that it is God's command that those who have believed in Christ should not grieve over those who have fallen asleep, because of the hope of the resurrection; and that great crowns of glory are laid up with the Judge of the contest for great endurance; if we allow reason to sing these things over us as a charm, perhaps we may find some moderate release from the evil. So I urge you, as a noble contender, to stand firm against the greatness of the blow, and not to fall under the weight of grief, nor to let your soul be swallowed up, being convinced of this: that even if the reasons for what God orders escape us, what is ordered by him who is wise and loves us is in every way to be accepted, even if it is painful. For he himself knows how he assigns to each what is for his good, and why he sets unequal ends to our lives. For there is some cause incomprehensible to men by which some are taken away from here more quickly, and others are left to toil longer in this painful life. So in all things we ought to worship his love for mankind and not be vexed, remembering that great and celebrated saying that the great athlete Job uttered when he saw his ten children crushed at one table in a brief turn of the moment: “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it seemed good to the Lord, so it has come to pass.” Let us make that marvel our own. The reward from the just Judge is equal for those who show equal deeds of valor. We have not been robbed of the boy, but have given him back to the one who lent him; nor has his life been destroyed, but changed for the better; earth has not hidden our beloved, but heaven has received him. Let us wait a little, and we shall be with the one we long for. Nor is the time of separation long, since all of us in this life, as on a road, are hurrying toward the same lodging, where one has already put up, another has arrived, another is hurrying on, but one end will receive us all. For even if he finished the road sooner, we shall all travel the same one, and the same inn awaits us all. Only may it be granted us to be made like him in purity through virtue, so that through the guilelessness of our character we may attain the same rest as the infants in Christ.

To the wife of Nectarius, a letter of consolation. 1. I meant to keep silent toward your Decorum, reckoning that, just as even the gentlest of soothing remedies gives pain to an inflamed eye, so to a soul afflicted by heavy grief a word, even if it brings much comfort, seems somehow troublesome when offered in the midst of the anguish. But when it occurred to me that my word would be to a Christian woman, long schooled in divine things and prepared for the lot of humankind, I did not think it right to neglect what falls to me. I know what a mother's heart is like; and when I consider in particular your kindness and gentleness toward all, I reckon how great your pain must be at what has happened. You have lost a son whom, while he lived, all mothers called blessed, praying that their own might be like him; and whom, when he died, they mourned as though each had buried her own in the earth. His death was a blow to two homelands, ours and that of the Cilicians. With him the great and illustrious family has fallen, shaken down as though its prop had been removed. O encounter of an evil demon, how great an evil it has been able to work! O earth, forced to receive such a calamity! Perhaps even the sun shuddered, if it has any feeling, at that sad sight. And what could one say that matches all that the helplessness of the soul suggests? 2. But our affairs are not without providence, as we have learned in the Gospel, that not even a sparrow falls without the will of our Father. So if anything has happened, it has happened by the will of him who created us. And who has withstood the will of God? Let us accept what has happened; for by chafing at it we neither set right what has occurred and we destroy ourselves besides. Let us not accuse the just judgment of God. We are too ignorant to test his unspeakable judgments. Now the Lord is taking the proof of your love for him. Now you have the occasion, through endurance, to receive the portion of the martyrs. The mother of the Maccabees saw the death of seven sons and did not groan or shed an ignoble tear, but giving thanks to God that she saw them released from the bonds of the flesh by fire and sword and the most cruel tortures, she was judged approved by God and celebrated among men. Great is the calamity, I say; but great also are the rewards laid up by the Lord for those who endure. When you became a mother and saw your child and gave thanks to God, you surely knew that, being mortal, you had borne a mortal. What is strange, then, if the mortal has died? But the untimeliness grieves us. It is not clear whether it was not timely; for we do not know how to choose what is good for souls and to set the limits of human life. Look around the whole world in which you live, and consider that all things that are seen are mortal and all are subject to corruption. Look up to the heaven: it too will one day be dissolved. To the sun: not even it will remain. All the stars, the creatures of land and water, the beauties of the earth, the earth itself, all are corruptible, all will shortly be no more. Let the thought of these things be a consolation for what has happened. Do not measure your grief by itself, for so it will seem unbearable to you; but comparing it with all human things, you will find its consolation there. Above all, I have this strong word to say: spare your husband. Be a consolation to each other. Do not make the misfortune harder for him by wasting yourself in grief. On the whole I do not think words are enough for comfort, but I consider that there is need of prayer in the present circumstances. So I pray that the Lord himself, touching your heart with his imperishable power, may create light in your soul through good thoughts, so that you may have the sources of consolation from within.

To Gregory his companion. Even when I was writing to your Eloquence I was not unaware that every theological utterance falls short of the mind of the speaker, and short of the desire of the inquirer, because speech is by nature somewhat too weak to serve our thoughts. If, then, our understanding is weak, and the tongue is weaker still, what should we have expected from what was said, if not to be charged with poverty of words? Yet it was not possible on that account to pass over in silence what was asked. For there is danger of betrayal in not readily giving answers about God to those who love the Lord. As for what I said, whether it seems sufficient or needs some more exact addition, it requires a proper occasion for correction. But for the present we urge you, as we have urged you already, to devote yourself wholly to the defense of the truth and to the impulses toward establishing the good that God plants in your mind, being content with these and asking nothing more from us; for, falling far short of what is supposed of us, we rather harm the cause by our own weakness than add any strength to the truth by our advocacy.