Letter LXV. [2232]
To Atarbius. [2233]
If I continue to insist on the privileges to which my superior age entitles me, and wait for you to take the initiative in communication , and if you, my friend, wish to adhere more persistently to your evil counsel of inaction, what end will there be to our silence? However, where friendship is involved, to be defeated is in my opinion to win, and so I am quite ready to gave you precedence, and retire from the contest as to which should maintain his own opinion. I have been the first to betake myself to writing, because I know that "charity beareth all things...endureth all things...seeketh not her own" and so "never faileth." [2234] He who subjects himself to his neighbour in love can never be humiliated. I do beg you, then, at all events for the future, show the first and greatest fruit of the Spirit, Love; [2235] away with the angry man's sullenness which you are showing me by your silence, and recover joy in your heart, peace with the brothers who are of one mind with you, and zeal and anxiety for the continued safety of the Churches of the Lord. If I were not to make as strenuous efforts on behalf of the Churches as the opponents of sound doctrine make to subvert and utterly destroy them, you may be quite sure that there is nothing to prevent the truth from being swept away and destroyed by its enemies, and my being involved in the condemnation, for not shewing all possible anxiety for the unity of the Churches, with all zeal and eagerness in mutual unanimity and godly agreement. I exhort you then, drive out of your mind the idea that you need communion with no one else. To cut one's self off from connexion with the brethren is not the mark of one who is walking by love, nor yet the fulfilling of the commandment of Christ. At the same time I do wish you, with all your good intentions, to take into account that the calamities of the war which are now all round about us [2236] may one day be at our own doors, and if we too, like all the rest, have our share of outrage, we shall not find any even to sympathise with us, because in the hour of our prosperity we refused to give our share of sympathy to the wronged.
[2232] Placed about 371, or, at all events, according to Maran, before the year 373, when the ill will of Atarbius towards Basil was violently manifested.
[2233] Atarbius is recognised as bishop of Neocæsarea, partly on the evidence of the Codices Coislinanus and Medicæus, which describe him as of Neocæsarea, partly on a comparison of Letters lxv. and cxxvi., addressed to him, with the circumstances of the unnamed bishop of Neocæsarea referred to in Letter ccx. Moreover (cf. Bp. Lightfoot, D.C.B. i. 179) at the Council of Constantinople he represented the province of Pontus Polemoniacus, of which Neocæsarea was metropolis. On the authority of an allusion in Letter ccx. sec. 4, Atarbius is supposed to be a kinsman of Basil.
[2234] 1 Cor. xiii. 7 and 8.
[2235] cf. Gal. v. 22.
[2236] i.e. the attacks of Valens on the Church.
Letter LXVI. [2237]
To Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria.
No one, I feel sure, is more distressed at the present condition, or, rather to speak more truly, ill condition of the Churches than your excellency; for you compare the present with the past, and take into account how great a change has come about. You are well aware that if no check is put to the swift deterioration which we are witnessing, there will soon be nothing to prevent the complete transformation of the Churches. And if the decay of the Churches seems so pitiful to me, what must--so I have often in my lonely musings reflected--be the feelings of one who has known, by experience, the old tranquillity of the Churches of the Lord, and their one mind about the faith? But as your excellency feels most deeply this distress, it seems to me only becoming that your wisdom should be more strongly moved to interest itself in the Church's behalf. I for my part have long been aware, so far as my moderate intelligence has been able to judge of current events, that the one way of safety for the Churches of the East lies in their having the sympathy of the bishops of the West. For if only those bishops liked to show the same energy on behalf of the Christians sojourning in our part of the world [2238] which they have shewn in the case of one or two of the men convicted of breaches of orthodoxy in the West, our common interests would probably reap no small benefit, our sovereigns treating the authority of the people with respect, and the laity in all quarters unhesitatingly following them. [2239] But, to carry out these objects, who has more capacity than yourself, with your intelligence and prudence? Who is keener to see the needful course to be taken? Who has more practical experience in working a profitable policy? Who feels more deeply the troubles of the brethren? What through all the West is more honoured than your venerable gray hairs? [2240] O most honoured father, leave behind you some memorial worthy of your life and character. By this one act crown your innumerable efforts on behalf of true religion. Despatch from the holy Church placed under your care men of ability in sound doctrine to the bishops in the West. Recount to them the troubles whereby we are beset. Suggest some mode of relief. Be a Samuel to the Churches. Share the grief of the beleaguered people. Offer prayers for peace. Ask favour from the Lord, that He will send some memorial of peace to the Churches. I know how weak letters are to move men in matters of such importance; but you yourself no more need exhortation from others than the noblest athletes need the children's cheers. It is not as though I were instructing one in ignorance; I am only giving a new impulse to one whose energies are already roused. For the rest of the affairs of the East perhaps you may need the aid of more, and we must wait for the Westerns. But plainly the discipline of the Church of Antioch depends upon your reverence's being able to control some, to reduce others to silence, and to restore strength to the Church by concord. [2241] No one knows better than you do, that, like all wise physicians, you ought to begin your treatment in the most vital parts, and what part is more vital to the Churches throughout the world than Antioch? Only let Antioch be restored to harmony, and nothing will stand in the way of her supplying, as a healthy head, soundness to all the body. Truly the diseases of that city, which has not only been cut asunder by heretics, but is torn in pieces by men who say that they are of one mind with one another, stand in need of your wisdom and evangelic sympathy. To unite the sundered parts again, and bring about the harmony of one body, belongs to Him alone Who by His ineffable power grants even to the dry bones to come back again to sinews and flesh. But the Lord always works His mighty works by means of them that are worthy of Him. Once again, in this case too, we trust that the ministry of matters so important may beseem your excellency, with the result that you will lay the tempest of the people, do away with the party superiorities, and subject all to one another in love, and give back to the Church her ancient strength.
[2237] Placed in 371. cf. Letter lxii.
[2238] huper tes paroikias ton kath' hemas meron. On the use of paroikia in this sense, cf. Bp. Lightfoot, Ap. Fathers I. ii. 5. So Apollon. in Eus., H.E. v. 18. he hidia paroikia, of the Christian society. Thus the meaning passes to parochia and parish.
[2239] "Them" is referred by the Ben. Ed. not to the sovereigns (ton kratounton they understand to mean Valens) but to the Western bishops.
[2240] A various reading ("Tres mss. et secunda manu Medicoeus," Ben. Ed.) for polias reads politeias "the life and conversation of your Holiness."--Athanasius was now about 75. His death is placed in 373.
[2241] To end the schism caused by the refusal of the Eustathian or old Catholic party to recognise Meletius as bishop of the whole orthodox body. The churches of the West and Egypt, on the whole, supported Paulinus, who had been ordained by Lucifer of Cagliari, bishop of the old Catholics. The Ben. Ed. supposes the word oikonomesai, which I have rendered "control," to refer to Paulinus. The East supported Meletius, and if the oikonomia in Basil's mind does refer to Paulinus, the "management" meant may be management to get rid of him.