Letter 2: 1. [I recognised your letter, as one recognises one's friends' children from their obvious likeness to their parents. Your saying that to describe the kind of place I live in, before letting you hear anything about how I live, would not go far towards persuading you to share my life, was just like you; it was worthy of a soul like yours, which m...

Basil to Gregory 1. I recognized your letter the way you recognize friends' children by their resemblance to their parents. Your point — that describing the place where I live, without first telling you how I live, would not go very far toward persuading you to join me — was just like you. It was worthy of a soul that considers everything in this life as nothing compared to the blessedness promised in the next. As for what I actually do here day and night in this remote spot, I am almost embarrassed to write it down. I gave up city life because I was certain it would lead to countless troubles. But I have not yet managed to get rid of myself. I am like passengers on a ship who have never been to sea before: they get seasick and miserable, they complain that the vessel is too big and rolls too much, and when they switch to a small boat, they are just as seasick and miserable. Wherever they go, the nausea follows. That is my situation. I carry my own problems with me, so every place brings the same discomfort. In the end, I have not gained much from my solitude. What I should have done — what would have kept me close to the footsteps of the One who leads us to salvation, for He says, "If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow me" (Matthew 16:24) — is this: 2. We must strive for a quiet mind. An eye that wanders restlessly up and down and sideways cannot fix on what is in front of it. In the same way, a mind distracted by a thousand worldly anxieties cannot clearly grasp the truth. The unmarried man is harassed by wild cravings, rebellious impulses, and hopeless attachments. The married man is surrounded by his own storm of worries: if childless, he longs for children; if he has children, there is anxiety about their upbringing, attention to his wife, management of his household, supervision of his workers, setbacks in business, disputes with neighbors, lawsuits, the risks of commerce, the labor of farming. Each day darkens the soul in its own way, and each night replays the day's anxieties in troubled dreams. One way to escape all this is separation from the whole world — not physical isolation of the body, but cutting the soul's attachment to the body. It means living without city, home, possessions, society, livelihood, business dealings, or secular learning, so that the heart is ready to receive every imprint of divine teaching. Preparing the heart means unlearning the habits of bad company. It is smoothing the wax tablet before trying to write on it. Solitude is enormously useful for this, because it calms our passions and gives reason the space to cut them out of the soul. Just as animals are more easily handled when they are stroked, so lust and anger, fear and sorrow — those deadly enemies of the soul — are better brought under reason's control once they have been calmed by stillness rather than constantly provoked. So let there be a place like ours, set apart from contact with the world, where the rhythm of our spiritual exercises is not interrupted from outside. Devout practice nourishes the soul with divine thoughts. What life could be more blessed than imitating the angels' worship here on earth? To begin the day with prayer, to honor our Creator with hymns and songs, and then as the day brightens to turn to our work, sweetening labor with hymns as though seasoning it with salt? The soothing effect of hymns brings the mind to a cheerful and calm state. Quiet, then, as I have said, is the first step in our growth in holiness: the tongue cleansed of worldly gossip, the eyes not excited by attractive appearances, the ear not weakened by sensual music or by the chatter of frivolous people. When the mind is saved from being scattered outward through the senses, it falls back on itself and through itself rises to the contemplation of God. When that beauty shines around it, it even forgets its own nature; it is no longer dragged down by thoughts of food or worry about clothing; it takes a holiday from earthly cares and devotes all its energy to acquiring eternal goods — asking only how self-control and courage, justice and wisdom, and all the other virtues may flourish within it and equip it for every duty of life. 3. The chief way to discover our duty is the study of inspired Scripture, for in it we find both instruction about conduct and the lives of blessed men set down in writing — living portraits of godly life for us to imitate. Whatever area a person feels deficient in, by devoting himself to the right example he finds, as if from a dispensary, the proper remedy. The one who values purity dwells on the story of Joseph and learns self-mastery from him. The one who needs endurance studies Job, who was plunged from wealth to poverty and from fatherhood to childlessness in a single moment, yet kept his spirit unbroken and did not even turn in anger against the friends who came to comfort him but only trampled on him and made things worse. The one who wants to be at once strong-spirited and gentle — fierce against sin but gentle toward people — studies David, who was noble in battle yet meek and restrained when it came to personal revenge. And just as painters working from a model constantly look at the original and do their best to transfer its features to their own canvas, so anyone who wants to become complete in every virtue must keep his eyes fixed on the lives of the saints as on living, moving statues, and make their goodness his own through imitation. 4. Prayer after reading finds the soul fresher and more vigorously stirred toward love of God. Good prayer is the kind that imprints a clear awareness of God on the soul, and having God established within us through constant remembrance — that is God's indwelling. We become God's temple when our recollection of Him is not broken by earthly concerns, when the mind is not ambushed by sudden distractions, when the worshiper withdraws from everything that tempts toward self-indulgence and gives his time to the pursuits that lead to virtue. 5. Here too is a very important point: knowing how to converse properly. Ask questions without being aggressive. Answer without showing off. Do not interrupt someone who is saying something useful or jump in just to hear your own voice. Be measured in both speaking and listening. Do not be embarrassed to learn, or reluctant to share knowledge — and do not pass off someone else's insight as your own; give honest credit. Keep your voice at a middle tone — not so low that no one can hear you, not so loud that it is rude. Think first about what you are going to say, then say it. Be courteous when spoken to. Be pleasant in social settings, not by being a comedian, but by cultivating gentleness and kind correction. Even in rebuking someone, harshness should always be set aside. The more humility and modesty you show, the more likely the person who needs your correction will accept it. There are also times when we do well to use the indirect approach the prophet used: instead of pronouncing judgment on David directly, he presented a fictional scenario and let the sinner pass sentence on his own sin, so that David could not object to the man who had convicted him. 6. From a humble and submissive spirit comes a sorrowful, downcast gaze, a neglected appearance, rough hair, plain clothing — so that what mourners deliberately put on appears to be our natural condition. The tunic should be fastened with a belt at the body, not worn high at the waist like a woman's or hanging loose like a loafer's. One's walk should be neither sluggish, which suggests laziness, nor hurried and pompous, as if driven by reckless impulse. The sole purpose of clothing is to provide adequate covering in both winter and summer. Avoid bright colors; avoid soft, delicate fabrics. Pursuing flashy clothing is like women painting their cheeks and hair in colors not their own. The tunic should be thick enough to provide warmth by itself. Shoes should be cheap but functional. In a word, practicality is the standard for dress. The same applies to food. For a healthy person, bread is sufficient, and water quenches thirst; add whatever vegetables help strengthen the body for its work. One should not eat with savage greediness but maintain moderation, calm, and self-control in everything related to pleasure — and all the while keep the mind focused on God, making even the nature of our food and the needs of the body an occasion for giving Him glory, remembering that the various kinds of food suited to our bodies are provided by the great Steward of the universe. Say grace before meals in recognition of what God gives now and what He has in store. Say grace after meals in gratitude for gifts received and hope for gifts to come. Set one fixed hour for eating, always the same, so that of the twenty-four hours in a day, barely one is given to the body. The rest the person devoted to God should spend in spiritual exercise. Keep sleep light and easily interrupted, as naturally happens after a light meal. Break it deliberately with reflection on great themes. To be overwhelmed by heavy drowsiness, limbs slack, the mind open to wild fantasies — that is a kind of daily death. What dawn is for most people, midnight is for those devoted to godliness: the silence of night gives the soul leisure; no harmful sounds or sights intrude; the mind is alone with itself and God, examining itself for its faults, giving itself guidance for avoiding evil, and asking God's help in perfecting what it longs for.

ST. BASIL OF CAESAREA Basil to Gregory. 1. [I recognised your letter, as one recognises one's friends' children from their obvious likeness to their parents. Your saying that to describe the kind of place I live in, before letting you hear anything about how I live, would not go far towards persuading you to share my life, was just like you; it was worthy of a soul like yours, which makes nothing of all that concerns this life here, in comparison with the blessedness which is promised us hereafter. What I do myself, day and night, in this remote spot, I am ashamed to write. I have abandoned my life in town, as one sure to lead to countless ills; but I have not yet been able to get quit of myself. I am like travellers at sea, who have never gone a voyage before, and are distressed and seasick, who quarrel with the ship because it is so big and makes such a tossing, and, when they get out of it into the pinnace or dingey, are everywhere and always seasick and distressed. Wherever they go their nausea and misery go with them. My state is something like this. I carry my own troubles with me, and so everywhere I am in the midst of similar discomforts. So in the end I have not got much good out of my solitude. What I ought to have done; what would have enabled me to keep close to the footprints of Him who has led the way to salvation— for He says, If any one will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow me Matthew 16:24 — is this.] 2. We must strive after a quiet mind. As well might the eye ascertain an object put before it while it is wandering restless up and down and sideways, without fixing a steady gaze upon it, as a mind, distracted by a thousand worldly cares, be able clearly to apprehend the truth. He who is not yet yoked in the bonds of matrimony is harassed by frenzied cravings, and rebellious impulses, and hopeless attachments; he who has found his mate is encompassed with his own tumult of cares; if he is childless, there is desire for children; has he children? Anxiety about their education, attention to his wife, care of his house, oversight of his servants, misfortunes in trade, quarrels with his neighbours, lawsuits, the risks of the merchant, the toil of the farmer. Each day, as it comes, darkens the soul in its own way; and night after night takes up the day's anxieties, and cheats the mind with illusions in accordance. Now one way of escaping all this is separation from the whole world; that is, not bodily separation, but the severance of the soul's sympathy with the body, and to live so without city, home, goods, society, possessions, means of life, business, engagements, human learning, that the heart may readily receive every impress of divine doctrine. Preparation of heart is the unlearning the prejudices of evil converse. It is the smoothing the waxen tablet before attempting to write on it. Now solitude is of the greatest use for this purpose, inasmuch as it stills our passions, and gives room for principle to cut them out of the soul. [For just as animals are more easily controlled when they are stroked, lust and anger, fear and sorrow, the soul's deadly foes, are better brought under the control of reason, after being calmed by inaction, and where there is no continuous stimulation.] Let there then be such a place as ours, separate from intercourse with men, that the tenour of our exercises be not interrupted from without. Pious exercises nourish the soul with divine thoughts. What state can be more blessed than to imitate on earth the choruses of angels? To begin the day with prayer, and honour our Maker with hymns and songs? As the day brightens, to betake ourselves, with prayer attending on it throughout, to our labours, and to sweeten our work with hymns, as if with salt? Soothing hymns compose the mind to a cheerful and calm state. Quiet, then, as I have said, is the first step in our sanctification; the tongue purified from the gossip of the world; the eyes unexcited by fair color or comely shape; the ear not relaxing the tone or mind by voluptuous songs, nor by that special mischief, the talk of light men and jesters. Thus the mind, saved from dissipation from without, and not through the senses thrown upon the world, falls back upon itself, and thereby ascends to the contemplation of God. [When that beauty shines about it, it even forgets its very nature; it is dragged down no more by thought of food nor anxiety concerning dress; it keeps holiday from earthly cares, and devotes all its energies to the acquisition of the good things which are eternal, and asks only how may be made to flourish in it self-control and manly courage, righteousness and wisdom, and all the other virtues, which, distributed under these heads, properly enable the good man to discharge all the duties of life.] 3. The study of inspired Scripture is the chief way of finding our duty, for in it we find both instruction about conduct and the lives of blessed men, delivered in writing, as some breathing images of godly living, for the imitation of their good works. Hence, in whatever respect each one feels himself deficient, devoting himself to this imitation, he finds, as from some dispensary, the due medicine for his ailment. He who is enamoured of chastity dwells upon the history of Joseph, and from him learns chaste actions, finding him not only possessed of self-command over pleasure, but virtuously-minded in habit. He is taught endurance by Job [who, not only when the circumstances of life began to turn against him, and in one moment he was plunged from wealth into penury, and from being the father of fair children into childlessness, remained the same, keeping the disposition of his soul all through uncrushed, but was not even stirred to anger against the friends who came to comfort him, and trampled on him, and aggravated his troubles.] Or should he be enquiring how to be at once meek and great-hearted, hearty against sin, meek towards men, he will find David noble in warlike exploits, meek and unruffled as regards revenge on enemies. Such, too, was Moses rising up with great heart upon sinners against God, but with meek soul bearing their evil-speaking against himself. [Thus, generally, as painters, when they are painting from other pictures, constantly look at the model, and do their best to transfer its lineaments to their own work, so too must he who is desirous of rendering himself perfect in all branches of excellency, keep his eyes turned to the lives of the saints as though to living and moving statues, and make their virtue his own by imitation. 4. Prayers, too, after reading, find the soul fresher, and more vigorously stirred by love towards God. And that prayer is good which imprints a clear idea of God in the soul; and the having God established in self by means of memory is God's indwelling. Thus we become God's temple, when the continuity of our recollection is not severed by earthly cares; when the mind is harassed by no sudden sensations; when the worshipper flees from all things and retreats to God, drawing away all the feelings that invite him to self-indulgence, and passes his time in the pursuits that lead to virtue.] 5. This, too, is a very important point to attend to —knowledge how to converse; to interrogate without over-earnestness; to answer without desire of display; not to interrupt a profitable speaker, or to desire ambitiously to put in a word of one's own; to be measured in speaking and hearing; not to be ashamed of receiving, or to be grudging in giving information, nor to pass another's knowledge for one's own, as depraved women their supposititious children, but to refer it candidly to the true parent. The middle tone of voice is best, neither so low as to be inaudible, nor to be ill-bred from its high pitch. One should reflect first what one is going to say, and then give it utterance: be courteous when addressed; amiable in social intercourse; not aiming to be pleasant by facetiousness, but cultivating gentleness in kind admonitions. Harshness is ever to be put aside, even in censuring. [The more you show modesty and humility yourself, the more likely are you to be acceptable to the patient who needs your treatment. There are however many occasions when we shall do well to employ the kind of rebuke used by the prophet who did not in his own person utter the sentence of condemnation on David after his sin, but by suggesting an imaginary character made the sinner judge of his own sin, so that, after passing his own sentence, he could not find fault with the seer who had convicted him. 6. From the humble and submissive spirit comes an eye sorrowful and downcast, appearance neglected, hair rough, dress dirty; so that the appearance which mourners take pains to present may appear our natural condition. The tunic should be fastened to the body by a girdle, the belt not going above the flank, like a woman's, nor left slack, so that the tunic flows loose, like an idler's. The gait ought not to be sluggish, which shows a character without energy, nor on the other hand pushing and pompous, as though our impulses were rash and wild. The one end of dress is that it should be a sufficient covering alike in winter and summer. As to color, avoid brightness; in material, the soft and delicate. To aim at bright colors in dress is like women's beautifying when they color cheeks and hair with hues other than their own. The tunic ought to be thick enough not to want other help to keep the wearer warm. The shoes should be cheap but serviceable. In a word, what one has to regard in dress is the necessary. So too as to food; for a man in good health bread will suffice, and water will quench thirst; such dishes of vegetables may be added as conduce to strengthening the body for the discharge of its functions. One ought not to eat with any exhibition of savage gluttony, but in everything that concerns our pleasures to maintain moderation, quiet, and self-control; and, all through, not to let the mind forget to think of God, but to make even the nature of our food, and the constitution of the body that takes it, a ground and means for offering Him the glory, bethinking us how the various kinds of food, suitable to the needs of our bodies, are due to the provision of the great Steward of the Universe. Before meat let grace be said, in recognition alike of the gifts which God gives now, and which He keeps in store for time to come. Say grace after meat in gratitude for gifts given and petition for gifts promised. Let there be one fixed hour for taking food, always the same in regular course, that of all the four and twenty of the day and night barely this one may be spent upon the body. The rest the ascetic ought to spend in mental exercise. Let sleep be light and easily interrupted, as naturally happens after a light diet; it should be purposely broken by thoughts about great themes. To be overcome by heavy torpor, with limbs unstrung, so that a way is readily opened to wild fancies, is to be plunged in daily death. What dawn is to some this midnight is to athletes of piety; then the silence of night gives leisure to their soul; no noxious sounds or sights obtrude upon their hearts; the mind is alone with itself and God, correcting itself by the recollection of its sins, giving itself precepts to help it to shun evil, and imploring aid from God for the perfecting of what it longs for.] 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/3202002.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.