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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 105
Letter LXXIV. [2260]
To Martinianus. [2261]
1. How high do you suppose one to prize the pleasure of our meeting one another once again? How delightful to spend longer time with you so as to enjoy all your good qualities! If powerful proof is given of culture in seeing many men's cities and knowing many men's ways, [2262] such I am sure is quickly given in your society. For what is the difference between seeing many men singly or one who has gained experience of all together? I should say that there is an immense superiority in that which gives us the knowledge of good and beautiful things without trouble, and puts within our reach instruction in virtue, pure from all admixture of evil. Is there question of noble deed; of words worth handing down; of institutions of men of superhuman excellence? All are treasured in the store house of your mind. Not then, would I pray, that I might listen to you, like Alcinous to Ulysses, only for a year, but throughout all my life; and to this end I would pray that my life might be long, even though my state were no easy one. Why, then, am I now writing when I ought to be coming to see you? Because my country in her troubles calls me irresistibly to her side. You know, my friend, how she suffers. She is torn in pieces like Pentheus by veritable Maenads, daemons. They are dividing her, and dividing her again, like bad surgeons who, in their ignorance, make wounds worse. Suffering as she is from this dissection, it remains for me to tend her like a sick patient. So the Caesareans have urgently appealed to me by letter, and I must go, not as though I could be of any help, but to avoid any blame of neglect. You know how ready men in difficulties are to hope; and ready too, I ween, to find fault, always charging their troubles on what has been left undone.
[2260] About the same date as the preceding.
[2261] A dignitary of Cappadocia otherwise unknown, whom Basil asks to intercede with the Emperor Valens to prevent that division of Cappadocia which afterward led to so much trouble. Basil had left Caesarea in the autumn of 371, on a tour of visitation, or to consecrate his brother bishop of Nyssa (Maran, Vit. Bas. Cap. xix.), and returned to Caesarea at the appeal of his people there.
[2262] cf. the opening of the Odyssey, and the imitation of Horace, De Arte Poet. 142: "Qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes."
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/letters.asp?pg=105
