Basil of Caesarea & Gregory of Nazianzus

(Perhaps about a.d. 357 or 358; in answer to a letter which is not now extant.) I have failed, I confess, to keep my promise. I had engaged even at Athens, at the time of our friendship and intimate connection there (for I can find no better word for it), to join you in a life of philosophy.

(Written about the same time, in reply to another letter now lost.) I do not like being joked about Tiberina and its mud and its winters, O my friend, who are so free from mud, and who walk on tiptoe, and trample on the plains. You who have wings and are borne aloft, and fly like the arrows of Abaris, in order that, Cappadocian though you are, y...

(In answer to Ep. XIV., of Basil, about 361.) You may mock and pull to pieces my affairs, whether in jest or in earnest. This is a matter of no consequence; only laugh, and take your fill of culture, and enjoy my friendship.

Since you do take my jokes kindly, I send you the rest. My prelude is from Homer. Come now and change your theme, And sing of the inner adornment.

(Written about the same time, in a more serious vein.) What I wrote before about our stay in Pontus was in joke, not in earnest; what I write now is very much in earnest. O that one would place me as in the month of those former days, Job 29:2 in which I luxuriated with you in hard living; since voluntary pain is more valuable than involuntary d...

(Written to S. Basil shortly after his Ordination as Priest, probably toward the end of a.d. 362.) I approve the beginning of your letter; but what is there of yours that I do not approve?

(After the Consecration every one thought that Gregory would at once join his friend; and Basil himself much wished for his assistance. But Gregory thought it better to restrain his desire to see his friend until jealousies had time to calm down. So he wrote the following letter to explain the reasons for his staying away at this juncture.) When...

(The new Archbishop seems not to have been satisfied with the reasons given in Gregory's last letter; so the latter writes again.) How can any affairs of yours be mere grape-gleanings to me, O dear and sacred friend? What a word has escaped the fence of your teeth, or how could you dare to say such a thing, if I too may be somewhat daring? How c...

(The division of the civil Province of Cappadocia into two Provinces in the year 372 was followed by ecclesiastical troubles. Anthimus, the Bishop of Tyana, the civil metropolis of the new division of Cappadocia Secunda, maintained that the Ecclesiastical divisions must necessarily follow the civil, and by consequence claimed for himself that th...

(Shortly after the events described above, Basil determined to strengthen his own hands by creating a number of new Bishoprics in the disputed Province, to one of which, Sasima, he consecrated Gregory, very much against the will of the latter, who felt that he had been hardly used, and did not attempt to disguise his reluctance. See Gen. Prolegg.

(At the request of Anthimus it would appear that S. Gregory wrote to S. Basil a letter, not now extant, proposing a conference between the rival Metropolitans.

(An attack had been made in Gregory's presence on the orthodoxy of Basil in respect of the Deity of God the Holy Ghost; and in this letter he gives his friend an account of the way in which he had defended him. Unfortunately Basil was not pleased with the letter, taking it as intended to convey reproach under the guise of friendly sympathy.) Fro...

(The reply to Basil's somewhat angry answer to the last.) This was a case which any wiser man would have foreseen; but I who am very simple and foolish did not fear it in writing to you. My letter grieved you; but in my opinion neither rightly nor justly, but quite unreasonably. And while you did not acknowledge that you were hurt, neither did y...

(Gregory was not able, owing to the serious illness of his Mother, to carry out the promise at the end of Ep. LIX.; so he writes to explain and excuse himself.) The Carrying Out of your bidding depends partly on me; but partly, and I venture to think principally, on your Reverence. What depends on me is the good will and eagerness, for I never y...