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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 129 Pages
Page 47
Letter CCXLI. [3029]
To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata.
It is not to increase your distress that I am so lavish of painful topics in my letters to your excellency. My object is to get some comfort for myself in the lamentations which are a kind of natural means of dispersing deep-seated pain whenever they are produced, and further to rouse you, my great-hearted friend, to more earnest prayer on behalf of the Churches. We know that Moses prayed continually for the people; yet, when his battle with Amalek had begun, he did not let down his hands from morning to evening, and the uplifting of the hands of the saint only ended with the end of the fight.
Letter CCXLII. [3030]
To the Westerns. [3031]
1. The Holy God has promised a happy of issue out of all their infirmities to those that trust in Him. We, therefore, though we have been cut off in a mid-ocean of troubles, though we are tossed by the great waves raised up against us by the spirits of wickedness, nevertheless hold out in Christ Who strengthens us. We have not slackened the strength of our zeal for the Churches, nor, as though despairing of our salvation, while the billows in the tempest rise above our heads, do we look to be destroyed. On the contrary, we are still holding out with all possible earnestness, remembering how even he who was swallowed by the sea monster, because he did not despair of his life, but cried to the Lord, was saved. Thus too we, though we have reached the last pitch of peril, do not give up our hope in God. On every side we see His succour round about us. For these reasons now we turn our eyes to you, right honourable brethren. In many an hour of our affliction we have expected that you would be at our side; and disappointed in that hope we have said to ourselves, "I looked for some to take pity and there was none; and for comforters but I found none." [3032] Our sufferings are such as to have reached the confines of the empire; and since, when one member suffers, all the members suffer, [3033] it is doubtless right that your pity should be shown to us who have been so long in trouble. For that sympathy, which we have hoped you of your charity feel for us, is caused less by nearness of place than by union of spirit.
[3029] Placed in 376.
[3030] Placed in 376.
[3031] This and the following letter refer to the earlier of two missions of Dorotheus to the West. In the latter he carried Letter cclxiii. The earlier was successful at least to the extent of winning sympathy. Maran (Vit. Bas. cap. xxxv.) places it not earlier than the Easter of 376, and objects to the earlier date assigned by Tillemont.
[3032] Ps. lxix. 20.
[3033] 1 Cor. xii. 26.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/letters-3.asp?pg=47
