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| To Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria.
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Letter
LXI.2222
| 2222 Placed in 370
or 371. |
To Athanasius, Bishop of
Alexandria.2223
| 2223 This, the
first of Basil’s six extant letters to Athanasius, is placed
by the Ben. Ed. in 371. It has no certain indication of
date. Athanasius, in the few years of comparative calm which
preceded his death in May, 373, had excommunicated a vicious
governor in Libya, a native of Cappadocia, and announced his act to
Basil. The intercourse opened by this official communication
led to a more important correspondence. |
I have read the letter of
your holiness, in which you have expressed your distress at the unhappy
governor of Libya. I am grieved that my own country should have
given birth to and nurtured such vices. I am grieved too that
Libya, a neighbouring country, should suffer from our evils, and should
have been delivered to the inhumanity of a man whose life is marked at
once by cruelty and crime. This however is only in accordance
with the wisdom of the Preacher, “Woe to thee O land when thy
King is a child;”2224
(a still further
touch of trouble) and whose “Princes” do not
“eat” after night but revel at mid-day, raging after other
men’s wives with less understanding than brute beasts. This
man must surely look for the scourges of the righteous Judge, repaid
him in exact requital for those which he himself has previously
inflicted on the saints. Notice has been given to my Church in
accordance with the letter of your reverence, and he shall be held by
all as abominable, cut off from fire, water and shelter, if indeed in
the case of men so possessed there is any use in general and unanimous
condemnation. Notoriety is enough for him, and your own letter,
which has been read in all directions, for I shall not fail to show it
to all his friends and relatives. Assuredly, even if
retribution does not reach
him at once, as it did Pharaoh, certainly it will bring on him
hereafter a heavy and hard requital.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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