Letter 65: If I continue to insist on the privileges to which my superior age entitles me, and wait for you to take the initiative in communication , and if you, my friend, wish to adhere more persistently to your evil counsel of inaction, what end will there be to our silence? However, where friendship is involved, to be defeated is in my opinion to win,...

Dear Atarbius, If I keep standing on my rights as the older man and wait for you to write first — and you keep stubbornly refusing to break the silence — where does that leave us? Nowhere. So I'm giving in. When it comes to friendship, losing the argument is winning. I'm writing first because I know that love "bears all things, endures all things, seeks not its own, and never fails." [A quote from 1 Corinthians 13:7–8, Paul's famous passage on love.] Anyone who humbles himself before a friend out of love is never really humbled. So please — at the very least going forward — show the first and greatest fruit of the Spirit: love. Drop this sullen silence. Find your joy again. Make peace with the brothers who share your faith. And turn your energy toward what matters: the safety of the Lord's churches. Because here is the reality. The enemies of sound doctrine [likely Arian Christians, who denied the full divinity of Christ] are working hard to tear the churches apart. If I don't fight just as hard to hold them together, nothing will stop the truth from being destroyed — and I'll share the blame for not doing everything I could to preserve unity. So I'm urging you: stop thinking you don't need communion with anyone else. Cutting yourself off from your fellow Christians is not love. It does not fulfill Christ's commandment. And consider this practically: the disasters of this war that surround us on every side [likely referring to the theological and political conflicts tearing apart the Eastern church in the early 360s] may reach our doors too. If we suffer as others have suffered, we'll find no one willing to sympathize with us — because when we were safe, we refused to sympathize with them.

ST. BASIL OF CAESAREA To Atarbius. If I continue to insist on the privileges to which my superior age entitles me, and wait for you to take the initiative in communication , and if you, my friend, wish to adhere more persistently to your evil counsel of inaction, what end will there be to our silence? However, where friendship is involved, to be defeated is in my opinion to win, and so I am quite ready to gave you precedence, and retire from the contest as to which should maintain his own opinion. I have been the first to betake myself to writing, because I know that charity bears all things...endures all things...seeks not her own and so never fails. He who subjects himself to his neighbour in love can never be humiliated. I do beg you, then, at all events for the future, show the first and greatest fruit of the Spirit, Love; away with the angry man's sullenness which you are showing me by your silence, and recover joy in your heart, peace with the brothers who are of one mind with you, and zeal and anxiety for the continued safety of the Churches of the Lord. If I were not to make as strenuous efforts on behalf of the Churches as the opponents of sound doctrine make to subvert and utterly destroy them, you may be quite sure that there is nothing to prevent the truth from being swept away and destroyed by its enemies, and my being involved in the condemnation, for not showing all possible anxiety for the unity of the Churches, with all zeal and eagerness in mutual unanimity and godly agreement. I exhort you then, drive out of your mind the idea that you need communion with no one else. To cut one's self off from connection with the brethren is not the mark of one who is walking by love, nor yet the fulfilling of the commandment of Christ. At the same time I do wish you, with all your good intentions, to take into account that the calamities of the war which are now all round about us may one day be at our own doors, and if we too, like all the rest, have our share of outrage, we shall not find any even to sympathise with us, because in the hour of our prosperity we refused to give our share of sympathy to the wronged.

[Πρός: Ἀταρβίῳ] Καὶ τί πέρας ἔσται τῆς σιωπῆς, εἰ ἐγὼ μέν, τὰ ἐκ τῆς ἡλικίας πρεσβεῖα ἀπαιτῶν, ἀναμένοιμι παρὰ σοῦ γενέσθαι τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς προσφωνήσεως, ἡ δὲ σὴ ἀγάπη ἐπὶ πλεῖον βούλοιτο τῇ βλαβερᾷ κρίσει τῆς ἡσυχίας ἐγκαρτερεῖν; ἀλλʼ ὅμως ἐγώ, τὴν ἐν τοῖς φιλικοῖς ἧτταν νίκης ἔχειν δύναμιν ἡγησάμενος, ὁμολογῶ σοι μὲν παραχωρεῖν τῆς ἐπὶ τῷ δοκεῖν περιγεγενῆσθαι τῆς οἰκείας κρίσεως φιλοτιμίας. αὐτὸς δὲ πρῶτος ἐπὶ τὸ γράφειν ἦλθον, εἰδὼς ὅτι ἡ ἀγάπη πάντα στέγει, πάντα ὑπομένει, οὐδαμοῦ ζητεῖ τὸ ἑαυτῆς· διόπερ οὔτε ἐκπίπτει ποτέ. ἀταπείνωτος γὰρ ὁ κατὰ ἀγάπην τῷ πλησίον ὑποτασσόμενος. ὅπως οὖν καὶ αὐτὸς πρὸς γοῦν τὸ ἑξῆς τὸν πρῶτον καὶ μέγιστον καρπὸν τοῦ Πνεύματος ἐπιδεικνύμενος, τὴν ἀγάπην, ἀπορρίψῃς μὲν τὸ τῶν ὀργιζομένων σκυθρωπόν, ὅπερ ἡμῖν διὰ τῆς σιωπῆς ὑποφαίνεις, ἀναλάβῃς δὲ χαρὰν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ, εἰρήνην πρὸς τοὺς ὁμοψύχους τῶν ἀδελφῶν, σπουδὴν καὶ μέριμναν ὑπὲρ τῆς τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν τοῦ Κυρίου διαμονῆς. γίνωσκε γάρ, ὅτι, εἰ μὴ τὸν ἴσον ἡμεῖς ἀγῶνα ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν ἀναλάβοιμεν, ὁπόσον ἔχουσιν οἱ ἀντικείμενοι τῇ ὑγιαινούσῃ διδασκαλίᾳ εἰς καθαίρεσιν αὐτῶν καὶ παντελῆ ἀφανισμόν, οὐδὲν τὸ κωλῦον οἴχεσθαι μὲν παρασυρεῖσαν ὑπὸ τῶν ἐχθρῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν, παραπολαῦσαι δέ τι καὶ ἡμᾶς τοῦ κρίματος, μὴ πάσῃ σπουδῇ καὶ προθυμίᾳ ἐν ὁμονοίᾳ τῇ πρὸς ἀλλήλους καὶ συμπνοίᾳ τῇ κατὰ τὸν Θεὸν τὴν ἐνδεχομένην μέριμναν ὑπὲρ τῆς ἑνώσεως τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν ἐπιδειξαμένους. Παρακαλῶ οὖν, ἔκβαλε τῆς σεαυτοῦ ψυχῆς τὸ οἴεσθαι μηδενὸς ἑτέρου εἰς κοινωνίαν προσδεῖσθαι. οὐ γὰρ κατὰ ἀγάπην περιπατοῦντος οὐδὲ πληροῦντός ἐστι τὴν ἐντολὴν τοῦ Χριστοῦ τῆς πρὸς τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς συναφείας ἑαυτὸν ἀποτέμνειν. ἅμα δὲ κἀκεῖνο λογίζεσθαι τὴν ἀγαθήν σου προαίρεσιν βούλομαι, ὅτι τὸ τοῦ πολέμου κακὸν κύκλῳ περιιὸν καὶ πρὸς ἡμᾶς εἰσέλθοι ποτέ, κἂν μετὰ τῶν ἄλλων καὶ ἡμεῖς τῆς ἐπηρείας παραπολαύσωμεν, οὐδὲ τοῦς συναλγοῦντας εὑρήσομεν, διὰ τὸ ἐν καιρῷ τῆς εὐθυμίας ἡμῶν μὴ προκαταβαλέσθαι τοῖς ἠδικημένοις τὸν τῆς συμπαθείας ἔρανον.