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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 110
Letter CCIV. [2733]
To the Neocaesareans. [2734]
1. [There has been a long silence on both sides, revered and well-beloved brethren, just as if there were angry feelings between us. Yet who is there so sullen and implacable towards the party which has injured him, as to lengthen out the resentment which has begun in disgust through almost a whole life of man?] This [is happening in our case, no just occasion of estrangement existing, as far as I myself know, but on the contrary, there being, from the first, many strong reasons for the closest friendship and unity. The greatest and first is this, our Lord's command, pointedly saying, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another." [2735] ] Again, the apostle clearly sets before us the good of charity where he tells us that love is the fulfilling of the law; [2736] and again where he says that charity is a good thing to be preferred to all great and good things, in the words, "Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burnt and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." [2737] Not that each of the points enumerated could be performed without love, but that the Holy One wishes, as He Himself has said, to attribute to the commandment super-eminent excellency by the figure of hyperbole. [2738]
[2733] Placed in 375.
[2734] Newman introduces his extracts from the following letter with the prefatory remark: "If Basil's Semi-Arian connexions brought suspicion upon himself in the eyes of Catholic believers, much more would they be obnoxious to persons attached, as certain Neocaesareans were, to the Sabellian party, who were in the opposite extreme to the Semi-Arians and their especial enemies in those times. It is not wonderful, then, that he had to write to the church in question in a strain like the following." (Ch. of the Fathers. p. 98.) The passages in brackets are Newman's version. The prime agent in the slandering of Basil was presumably Atarbius, bishop of Neocaesarea.
[2735] John xiii. 35.
[2736] Rom. xiii. 10.
[2737] 1 Cor. xiii. 1-3.
[2738] The allusion may be to Mark xi. 23, but St. Paul would probably reply to Basil that each of the points enumerated might proceed not from love, but from vanity, ambition, or fanaticism.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/letters-2.asp?pg=110
