Letter 84: 1. You will hardly believe what I am about to write, but it must be written for truth's sake. I have been very anxious to communicate as often as possible with your excellency, but when I got this opportunity of writing a letter I did not at once seize the lucky chance.

Dear Governor, I know this will sound strange, but I have to be honest with you. I've been wanting to write for a while, and yet when the chance finally came, I hesitated. The reason? I'm embarrassed that every time I write to you, it's to ask for something rather than just to say hello. But then I thought about it more fairly — and I hope you'll agree — there's a difference between writing to a government official and writing to a private citizen. You go to a doctor for healing; you go to a magistrate for help. That's not mercenary, it's just how it works. Walk in the sun and your shadow follows whether you like it or not. In the same way, friendship with someone in power naturally brings with it the chance to help people in trouble. So first: greetings. I hope you continue to serve in office after office, using your authority to help one person after another. Everyone who's experienced your good governance would say the same. Now, my actual request. There's a poor old man in our community whom an imperial decree [a formal order from the Emperor] already exempted from all public service — though honestly, old age had already retired him before any decree did. You yourself honored that exemption, both out of respect for his frailty and, I imagine, out of practical sense — what good does it do the state to draft someone going senile? But here's what's happened: you've unknowingly dragged him back into public life by enrolling his grandson — a child not even four years old — on the rolls of the local senate [in the late Roman Empire, membership in a city's senate (curia) was hereditary and carried heavy financial obligations, including tax collection and paying for public works out of personal funds]. Putting the boy on the senate roll effectively forces the grandfather back into civic duties on the child's behalf. I'm asking you to have mercy on both of them. The boy never knew his father or mother. He was orphaned from the cradle and raised by strangers. The old man has lived long enough to suffer every kind of grief — he buried his own son before his time, watched his family line nearly die out, and now the one small consolation of his loss, this grandchild, is about to become a source of endless trouble. Obviously a toddler can't serve as a senator, collect taxes, or pay troops. So once again it will fall on the old man's weary shoulders. Grant them both what the law allows and nature demands: let the boy wait until he's actually grown, and let the old man die in peace. Others in your position might cite the pressures of office and say their hands are tied. But even under pressure, I know you — you wouldn't ignore the distressed, disregard the law, or turn down a friend's plea.

ST. BASIL OF CAESAREA To the President. 1. You will hardly believe what I am about to write, but it must be written for truth's sake. I have been very anxious to communicate as often as possible with your excellency, but when I got this opportunity of writing a letter I did not at once seize the lucky chance. I hesitated and hung back. What is astonishing is, that when I got what I had been praying for, I did not take it. The reason of this is that I am really ashamed to write to you every time, not out of pure friendship, but with the object of getting something. But then I bethought me (and when you consider it, I do hope you will not think that I communicate with you more for the sake of a bargain than of friendship) that there must be a difference between the way in which one approaches a magistrate and a private man. We do not accost a physician as we do any mere nobody; nor a magistrate as we do a private individual. We try to get some advantage from the skill of the one and the position of the other. Walk in the sun, and your shadow will follow you, whether you will or not. Just so intercourse with the great is followed by an inevitable gain, the succour of the distressed. The first object of my letter is fulfilled in my being able to greet your excellency. Really, if I had no other cause for writing at all, this must be regarded as an excellent topic. Be greeted then, my dear Sir; may you be preserved by all the world while you fill office after office, and succour now some now others by your authority. Such greeting I am wont to make; such greeting is only due to you from all who have had the least experience of your goodness in your administration. 2. Now, after this prayer, hear my supplication on behalf of the poor old man whom the imperial order had exempted from serving in any public capacity; though really I might say that old age anticipated the Emperor in giving him his discharge. You have yourself satisfied the boon conferred on him by the higher authority, at once from respect to natural infirmity, and, I think, from regard to the public interest, lest any harm should come to the state from a man growing imbecile through age. But how, my dear Sir, have you unwittingly dragged him into public life, by ordering his grandson, a child not yet four years old, to be on the roll of the senate? You have done the very same thing as to drag the old man, through his descendant, again into public business. But now, I do implore you, have mercy on both ages, and free both on the ground of what in each case is pitiable. The one never saw father or mother, never knew them, but from his very cradle was deprived of both, and has entered into life by the help of strangers: the other has been preserved so long as to have suffered every kind of calamity. He saw a son's untimely death; he saw a house without successors; now, unless you devise some remedy commensurate with your kindness, he will see the very consolation of his bereavement made an occasion of innumerable troubles, for, I suppose, the little lad will never act as senator, collect tribute, or pay troops; but once again the old man's white hairs must be shamed. Concede a favour in accordance with the law and agreeable to nature; order the boy to be allowed to wait till he come to man's estate, and the old man to await death quietly on his bed. Let others, if they will, urge the pretext of press of business and inevitable necessity. But, even if you are under a press of business, it would not be like you to despise the distressed, to slight the law, or to refuse to yield to the prayers of your friends. 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/3202084.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.