133 (320). To Peter, Bishop of Alexandria
SAINT BASIL
wherever you may be, to be mindful first of all of God, and then of us, whom from the beginning you chose to love and to hold numbered among your most intimate friends.
133. To Peter, Bishop of Alexandrial Eyes are the promoters of sensuous friendship, and the intimacy engendered through a long stretch of time strengthens it. But, the gift of the Spirit brings about true love, joining together things separated by long distances and making known the beloved ones to each other not through physical characteristics but through the peculiar qualities of the soul. This, indeed, the grace of the Lord has accomplished in our case, allowing us to see you with the eyes of our soul and to embrace you with true charity, and, as it were, to be joined with you and to come into one union through the communion of our faith. For, we are convinced that you, being the disciple of such a man 2 and having enjoyed long association with him, walk in the same spirit and agree with the same doctrines of piety.
Therefore, we salute your Honor and we exhort you to succeed the great man in his affection for us among other things, to write regularly to us news of yourself, and to give heed to the brotherhood everywhere with the same kindness and the same zeal which that most blessed one employed toward all those who in truth loved God.
1 This Peter, at the request of St. Athanasius, succeeded him on his death in May, 373. This letter was written in that same year.
2 St. Athanasius.