Letter CCLXX. [3221]
Without Address. Concerning Raptus. [3222]
I am distressed to find that you are by no means indignant at the sins forbidden, and that you seem incapable of understanding, how this raptus, which has been committed, is an act of unlawfulness and tyranny against society and human nature, and an outrage on free men. I am sure that if you had all been of one mind in this matter, there would have been nothing to prevent this bad custom from being long ago driven out of your country. Do thou at the present time shew the zeal of a Christian man, and be moved as the wrong deserves. Wherever you find the girl, insist on taking her away, and restore her to her parents, shut out the man from the prayers, and make him excommunicate. His accomplices, according to the canon [3223] which I have already put forth, cut off, with all their household, from the prayers. The village which received the girl after the abduction, and kept her, or even fought against her restitution, shut out with all its inhabitants from the prayers; to the end that all may know that we regard the ravisher as a common foe, like a snake or any other wild beast, and so hunt him out, and help those whom he has wronged.
[3221] Placed after 374.
[3222] On this subject see before Letters cxcix. and ccxvii. pp. 238 and 256. See Preb. Meyrick in D.C.A. ii. 1102: "It means not exactly the same as our word ravishment, but the violent removal of a woman to a place where her actions are no longer free, for the sake of inducing her or compelling her to marry....By some raptus is distinguished into the two classes of raptus seductionis and raptus violentiæ." cf. Cod. Theod. ix. tit. xxiv. legg. 1, 2, and Cod. Justin. ix.-xiii. leg. 1 Corp. Juris. ii. 832.
[3223] kerugua. The Ben. note is no doubt right in understanding the word not to refer to any decree on this particular case, but to Basil's general rule in Canon xxx. cf. p. 239. On the use of kerugma by Basil, see note on p. 41.
Letter CCLXXI. [3224]
To Eusebius, [3225] my comrade, to recommend Cyriacus the presbyter.
At once and in haste, after your departure, I came to the town. Why need I tell a man not needing to be told, because he knows by experience, how distressed I was not to find you? How delightful it would have been to me to see once more the excellent Eusebius, to embrace him, to travel once again in memory to our young days, and to be reminded of old times when for both of us there was one home, one hearth, the same schoolmaster, the same leisure, the same work, the same treats, the same hardships, and everything shared in common! What do you think I would not have given to recall all this by actually meeting you, to rid me of the heavy weight of my old age, and to seem to be turned from an old man into a lad again? But I have lost this pleasure. At least of the privilege of meeting your excellency in correspondence, and of consoling myself by the best means at my disposal, I am not deprived. I am so fortunate as to meet the very reverend presbyter Cyriacus. I am ashamed to recommend him to you, and to make him, through me, your own, lest I seem to be performing a superfluous task in offering to you what you already possess and value as your own. But it is my duty to witness to the truth, and to give the best boons I have to those who are spiritually united to me. I think that the man's blamelessness in his sacred position is well known to you; but I confirm it, for I do not know that any charge is brought against him by those who do not fear the Lord and are laying their hands upon all. Even if they had done anything of the kind, the man would not have been unworthy, for the enemies of the Lord rather vindicate the orders of those whom they attack than deprive them of any of the grace given them by the Spirit. However, as I said, nothing has even been thought of against the man. Be so good then as to look upon him as a blameless presbyter, in union with me, and worthy of all reverence. Thus will you benefit yourself and gratify me.
[3224] Placed at the end of Basil's life.
[3225] Apparently a schoolfellow of Basil, not to be identified with any of the others of the name.