Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| To Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Letter
LXXXII.2281
| 2281 Placed at the
end of 371 or the beginning of 372. |
To Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria.
When I turn my gaze upon
the world, and perceive the difficulties by which every effort after
good is obstructed, like those of a man walking in fetters, I am
brought to despair of myself. But then I direct my gaze in the
direction of your reverence; I remember that our Lord has appointed you
to be physician of the diseases in the Churches; and I recover my
spirits, and rise from the depression of despair to the hope of better
things. As your wisdom well knows, the whole Church is
undone. And you see everything in all directions in your
mind’s eye like a man looking from some tall watch
tower,2282
| 2282 The fitness of
this figure in a letter to the bishop of Alexandria will not escape
notice. At the eastern extremity of the island of Pharos still
stood the marble lighthouse erected more than 600 years before by
Ptolemy II., and not destroyed till after the thirteenth
century. | as when at sea
many ships sailing together are all dashed one against the other by
the violence of the waves, and shipwreck arises in some cases from
the sea being furiously agitated from without, in others from the
disorder of the sailors hindering and crowding one another. It
is enough to present this picture, and to say no more.2283
| 2283 On
Basil’s use of this nautical metaphor, cf. De
Spirtu Sancto, chap. xxx. It is of course a literary
commonplace, but Basil’s associations all lay
inland. | Your wisdom requires nothing
farther, and the present state of affairs does not allow me freedom
of speech. What capable pilot can be found in such a
storm? Who is worthy to rouse the Lord to rebuke the wind and
the sea? Who but he who from his boyhood2284
| 2284 The story of
“the boy bishop” will be remembered, whose serious game
of baptism attracted the notice of Alexander and led to the
education of Athanasius in the Episcopal palace. Soc., Ecc.
Hist. i. 15. Rufinus i. 14. cf.
Keble, Lyra Innocentium, “Enacting holy
rites.” | fought a good fight on behalf of true
religion? Since now truly all that is sound among us is moving
in the direction of fellowship and unity with those who are of the
same opinion, we have come confidently to implore you to send us a
single letter, advising us what is to be done. In this way
they wish that they may have a beginning of communication which may
promote unity. They may, peradventure, be suspected by you,
when you remember the past, and therefore, most God-beloved Father,
do as follows; send me the letters to the bishops, either by the
hand of some one in whom you place trust in Alexandria, or by the
hand of our brother Dorotheus the deacon: when I have received
these letters I will not deliver them till I have got the
bishops’ answers; if not, let me “bear the blame for
ever.”2285
Truly this
ought not to have struck more awe into him who first uttered it to
his father, than into me who now say it to my spiritual
father. If however you altogether renounce this hope, at least
free me from all blame in acting as I have, for I have undertaken
this message and mediation in all sincerity and simplicity, from
desire for peace and the mutual intercourse of all who think alike
about the Lord.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
