Letter 110: In kindly condescending to come down to me you give me great honour and allow me great freedom; and these in like, aye and in greater, measure, I pray that your lordship may receive from our good Master during the whole of your life. I have long wanted to write to you and to receive honour at your hands, but respect for your great dignity has re...

To Modestus, Prefect [of the Praetorian Guard — one of the most powerful officials in the Roman Empire] Your willingness to visit me personally was a great honor, and it gave me the confidence to speak freely. I pray that God grants you the same generosity — and more — throughout your life. I've wanted to write to you for some time, but your high office made me hesitant. I didn't want to seem like I was taking advantage of your openness. Now, though, two things push me to speak: your kind permission to write, and the desperate situation of people who need help. So here is my request. The people living in the iron-producing region of Taurus [a mountain range in southeastern Asia Minor, modern Turkey] are being crushed by their iron tax. If you have any regard for the appeals of someone like me, please intervene. Adjust the tax to something these villagers can actually pay. If you don't, they'll be destroyed entirely — and then they'll be of no use to the state at all. I'm confident your good judgment will see this done.

ST. BASIL OF CAESAREA To the prefect Modestus. In kindly condescending to come down to me you give me great honour and allow me great freedom; and these in like, aye and in greater, measure, I pray that your lordship may receive from our good Master during the whole of your life. I have long wanted to write to you and to receive honour at your hands, but respect for your great dignity has restrained me, and I have been careful lest I should ever seem to abuse the liberty conceded to me. Now, however, I am forced to take courage, not only by the fact of my having received permission from your incomparable excellency to write, but also by the necessity of the distressed. If, then, prayers of even the small are of any avail with the great, be moved, most excellent sir, of your good will to grant relief to a rural population now in pitiable case, and give orders that the tax of iron, paid by the inhabitants of iron-producing Taurus, may be made such as it is possible to pay. Grant this, lest they be crushed once for all, instead of being of lasting service to the state. I am sure that your admirable benevolence will see that this is done. About this page Source. Translated by Blomfield Jackson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 8. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3202110.htm>. Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.