Letter 60: (Gregory was not able, owing to the serious illness of his Mother, to carry out the promise at the end of Ep. LIX.; so he writes to explain and excuse himself.) The Carrying Out of your bidding depends partly on me; but partly, and I venture to think principally, on your Reverence. What depends on me is the good will and eagerness, for I never y...
Gregory to Basil.
Carrying out your wishes depends partly on me, but partly -- and I would say mainly -- on you. What depends on me is the goodwill and the eagerness. I have never avoided meeting you. I have always sought your company as the greatest blessing of my life.
But my mother is gravely ill, and I cannot leave her. This is not an excuse -- it is the plainest and most painful of facts. She who bore me and raised me and gave me to God lies suffering, and I cannot abandon her bedside even to come to you.
Pray for her, and pray for me. And when God either heals her or takes her to Himself, I will come to you without delay. Until then, bear with my absence, and know that only the most sacred of duties keeps me from your side.
Human translation - New Advent (NPNF / ANF series)
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- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from New Advent / NPNF.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3103b.htm
Related Letters
To Basil [this letter is widely considered spurious — a later forgery attributed to Julian].
Oh, for the old days in which we were all in all to one another! Now we are sadly separated! You have one another, I have no one like you to replace you.
1. After some little time a young Cappadocian has reached me. One gain to me is that he is a Cappadocian.
Will you not give over, Basil, packing this sacred haunt of the Muses with Cappadocians, and these redolent of the frost and snow and all Cappadocia's good things? They have almost made me a Cappadocian too, always chanting their I salute you. I must endure, since it is Basil who commands.
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.