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)
Related Letters
(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.
The divine Paul names love as the chief of all goods, and commands that the children of the faith be nourished by it.
Behold! I have sent you my speech, all streaming with sweat as I am! How should I be otherwise, when sending my speech to one who by his skill in oratory is able to show that the wisdom of Plato and the ability of Demosthenes were belauded in vain?
You have not yet ceased to be offended with me, and so I tremble as I write. If you have cared, why, my dear sir, do you not write? If you are still offended, a thing alien from any reasonable soul and from your own, why, while you are preaching to others, that they must not keep their anger till sundown, have you kept yours during many suns?
(Written about the same time, in a more serious vein.) What I wrote before about our stay in Pontus was in joke, not in earnest; what I write now is very much in earnest. O that one would place me as in the month of those former days, Job 29:2 in which I luxuriated with you in hard living; since voluntary pain is more valuable than involuntary d...