Letter 47: (The division of the civil Province of Cappadocia into two Provinces in the year 372 was followed by ecclesiastical troubles. Anthimus, the Bishop of Tyana, the civil metropolis of the new division of Cappadocia Secunda, maintained that the Ecclesiastical divisions must necessarily follow the civil, and by consequence claimed for himself that th...
I hear you're being troubled by this latest innovation — harassed by the same old sophisticated scheming from those in power. I'm not surprised. I was never blind to their envy, or to the fact that many of the people around you are using you to further their own interests, fanning the spark of pettiness.
But I have no fear of seeing you respond to this in any way unworthy of yourself — or of me. On the contrary, I think this is exactly the moment when my Basil will be revealed, when the philosophy you've spent your whole life cultivating will show itself and rise above the abuse like a great wave, and you'll stand unmoved while everyone around you is shaken.
If you think it would help, I'll come in person. Perhaps I can offer some useful counsel — though suggesting the sea needs more water is absurd. But at the very least, I'll benefit from the visit: I'll learn philosophy by sharing in the trouble.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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Are you living at Athens, Basil? Have you forgotten yourself? The sons of the Cæsareans could not endure to hear these things.
What has made Basil object to the letter, the proof of philosophy? I have learned to make fun from you, but nevertheless your fun is venerable and, so to say, hoary with age. But, by our very friendship, by our common pastimes, do away, I charge you, with the distress caused by your letter...in nothing differing.
(In answer to Ep. XIV., of Basil, about 361.) You may mock and pull to pieces my affairs, whether in jest or in earnest. This is a matter of no consequence; only laugh, and take your fill of culture, and enjoy my friendship.
(After the Consecration every one thought that Gregory would at once join his friend; and Basil himself much wished for his assistance. But Gregory thought it better to restrain his desire to see his friend until jealousies had time to calm down. So he wrote the following letter to explain the reasons for his staying away at this juncture.) When...
Had you been for a long time considering how best you could reply to my letter about yours, you could not in my judgment have acquitted yourself better than by writing as you have written now. You call me a sophist, and you allege that it is a sophist's business to make small things great and great things small. And you maintain that the object ...