Letter 76: The greatness of the calamities, which have befallen our native city, did seem likely to compel me to travel in person to the court, and there to relate, both to your excellency and to all those who are most influential in affairs, the dejected state in which Cæsarea is lying. But I am kept here alike by ill-health and by the care of the Churche...
Basil of Caesarea→Sophronius Master|c. 361 AD|basil caesarea
To Sophronius, [a senior imperial official — "Master" (magister) was a high-ranking title in the Roman bureaucracy]
The disasters that have struck Caesarea [capital of Cappadocia, in modern central Turkey] are severe enough that I considered traveling to the court myself to describe the situation to you and the other officials in person. But poor health and my responsibilities to the churches keep me here. So I'm writing instead.
I won't exaggerate: no ship swallowed by a storm at sea, no city leveled by an earthquake or swept away by a flood, has ever vanished as completely as Caesarea has under this new provincial reorganization [Emperor Valens had recently subdivided Cappadocia into two provinces, stripping Caesarea of its status as sole metropolitan capital — devastating its economy and political importance].
Our misfortunes already sound like something out of a history book rather than current events. Our civic institutions have collapsed. Every person of standing, despairing at the humiliation of our magistrates, has abandoned the city and scattered into the countryside. The normal business of government has ground to a halt. A city that once took pride in its scholars and the prosperity you'd expect of a major urban center has become a pitiful sight.
The only consolation left to us is to lay our troubles before you and beg for help. Caesarea is on her knees. I honestly can't tell you what form that help should take — but I'm confident that someone of your intelligence can figure out what needs to be done, and that God has given you the influence to act on it.
ST. BASIL OF CAESAREA
To Sophronius the Master.
The greatness of the calamities, which have befallen our native city, did seem likely to compel me to travel in person to the court, and there to relate, both to your excellency and to all those who are most influential in affairs, the dejected state in which Cæsarea is lying. But I am kept here alike by ill-health and by the care of the Churches. In the meantime, therefore, I hasten to tell your lordship our troubles by letter, and to acquaint you that never ship, drowned in sea by furious winds, so suddenly disappeared, never city shattered by earthquake or overwhelmed by flood, so swiftly vanished out of sight, as our city, engulfed by this new constitution, has gone utterly to ruin. Our misfortunes have passed into a tale. Our institutions are a thing of the past; and all our men of high civil rank, in despair at what has happened to our magistrates, have left their homes in the city and are wandering about the country. There is a break therefore in the necessary conduct of affairs, and the city, which ere now gloried both in men of learning and in others who abound in opulent towns, has become a most unseemly spectacle. One only consolation have we left in our troubles, and that is to groan over our misfortunes to your excellency and to implore you, if you can, to reach out the helping hand to Cæsarea who falls on her knees before you. How indeed you may be able to aid us I am not myself able to explain; but I am sure that to you, with all your intelligence, it will be easy to discover the means, and not difficult, through the power given you by God, to use them when they are found.
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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/3202076.htm>.
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To Sophronius, [a senior imperial official — "Master" (magister) was a high-ranking title in the Roman bureaucracy]
The disasters that have struck Caesarea [capital of Cappadocia, in modern central Turkey] are severe enough that I considered traveling to the court myself to describe the situation to you and the other officials in person. But poor health and my responsibilities to the churches keep me here. So I'm writing instead.
I won't exaggerate: no ship swallowed by a storm at sea, no city leveled by an earthquake or swept away by a flood, has ever vanished as completely as Caesarea has under this new provincial reorganization [Emperor Valens had recently subdivided Cappadocia into two provinces, stripping Caesarea of its status as sole metropolitan capital — devastating its economy and political importance].
Our misfortunes already sound like something out of a history book rather than current events. Our civic institutions have collapsed. Every person of standing, despairing at the humiliation of our magistrates, has abandoned the city and scattered into the countryside. The normal business of government has ground to a halt. A city that once took pride in its scholars and the prosperity you'd expect of a major urban center has become a pitiful sight.
The only consolation left to us is to lay our troubles before you and beg for help. Caesarea is on her knees. I honestly can't tell you what form that help should take — but I'm confident that someone of your intelligence can figure out what needs to be done, and that God has given you the influence to act on it.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.