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St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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130 Pages
Page 38
It is of a piece with Basil's habitual silence on the general affairs of the empire that he should seem to be insensible of the shock caused by the approach of the Goths in 378. A letter to Eusebius in exile in Thrace does shew at least a consciousness of a disturbed state of the country, and he is afraid of exposing his courier to needless danger by entrusting him with a present for his friend. But this is all. [281] He may have written letters shewing an interest in the fortunes of the empire which have not been preserved. But his whole soul was absorbed in the cause of Catholic truth, and in the fate of the Church. His youth had been steeped in culture, but the work of his ripe manhood left no time for the literary amusement of the dilettante. So it may be that the intense earnestness with which he said to himself, "This one thing I do," of his work as a shepherd of souls, and a fighter for the truth, and his knowledge that for the doing of this work his time was short, accounts for the absence from his correspondence of many a topic of more than contemporary interest. At all events, it is not difficult to descry that the turn in the stream of civil history was of vital moment to the cause which Basil held dear. The approach of the enemy was fraught with important consequences to the Church. The imperial attention was diverted from persecution of the Catholics to defence of the realm. Then came the disaster of Adrianople, [282] and the terrible end of the unfortunate Valens. [283] Gratian, a sensible lad, of Catholic sympathies, restored the exiled bishops, and Basil, in the few months of life yet left him, may have once more embraced his faithful friend Eusebius. The end drew rapidly near. Basil was only fifty, but he was an old man. Work, sickness, and trouble had worn him out. His health had never been good. A chronic liver complaint was a constant cause of distress and depression.
In 373 he had been at death's door. Indeed, the news of his death was actually circulated, and bishops arrived at Caesarea with the probable object of arranging the succession. [284] He had submitted to the treatment of a course of natural hot baths, but with small beneficial result. [285] By 376, as he playfully reminds Amphilochius, he had lost all his teeth. [286] At last the powerful mind and the fiery enthusiasm of duty were no longer able to stimulate the energies of the feeble frame.
[281] Ep. cclxviii. So Fialon, Et. Hist. p. 149: "On n'y trouve pas un mot sur la desastreuse expedition de Julien, sur le honteux traite de Jovien, sur la revolte de Procope." At the same time the argument from silence is always dangerous. It may be unfair to charge Basil with indifference to great events, because we do not possess his letters about them.
[282] Aug. 9, 378.
[283] Theod. iv. 32. Amm. Marc. xxxi. 13.
[284] Ep. cxli.
[285] Ep. cxxxvii.
[286] Ep. ccxxxii.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/life-works.asp?pg=38
