140 (60). To the Church at Antioch
SAINT BASIL
son, I would have desired nothing more than a meeting with you, so that I might both see and embrace the athletes of Christ and have part in your prayers and spiritual graces.
But, since my body is now wasted by a long sickness, so that I am not even able to leave my bed, and since there are many lying in wait for us, like ravenous wolves, watching for an opportunity when they may be able to plunder the sheep of Christ, I have been compelled to visit you by letter. I urge you, in the first place, to make earnest entreaties for me in order that I may be deemed worthy, at least for the remaining days or hours, to serve the Lord according to the Gospel of His Kingdom, and, in the second place, to pardon my absence and the tardiness of this letter. For, it was with difficulty that I found a man who was able to comply with our desire. We mean our son, Eugenius, the monk, through whom
I urge you to pray for us and for the whole Church and to write back to us about your affairs, so that, when we have some information, we may' feel more cheerful.
140. To the Church at Antioch!
'Who will give me wings like a dove? And I will fiy' to you 'and be at rest'2 from my longing desire for a conference with your Charity. At present, however, I am in want not only of wings, but of a body itself, since mine has for some time past been laboring under a long-continued weakness, and now has been completely crushed by uninterrupted afflictions. For, who is so hard of heart, who so absolutely without sympathy and kindliness that, when he hears the groans which strike upon our ears from all sides as if from some sorrowful choir
I This letter was written in 373.
2 Cf. Ps. 54.7.
LETTERS
sounding forth in harmony a sort of universal dirge, he is not afflicted in spirit and bowed down to the earth and wholly prostrated by these desperate troubles? But, the holy God is able to give some release from these difficulties, and to bestow upon us some respite from the prolonged sufferings. Therefore, I pray you to have the same consolation and, rejoicing in the hope of solace, to endure the present pain of your afflictions. For, if we are paying the penalty of our sins, our scourgings are sufficient to turn aside hereafter the wrath which God directs against us, or, if we are called upon to struggle in behalf of religion by these trials, the Judge is just, so that He will not permit us to be tempted beyond what we are able to bear,3 but He will give to us, for what we have previously suffered, the crown of our patient endurance and of our hope in Him. Let us, then, not grow weary of contending in the struggles for religion, and let us not abandon in despair the fruits of our labors. For, not one act of courage nor one brief labor proves the staunchness of the soul, but He who makes trial of our hearts wishes us through a long and protracted test to be shown forth as victors of righteousness.
Only, let our spirit be kept unyielding, let the foundation of our faith in Christ be maintained unshaken, and He who will be our Helper will come speedily. He will come and will not delay. In fact, expect tribulation upon tribulation, hope upon hope, for yet a little while, yet a little while. Thus the Holy Spirit knows how to attract His disciples by the promise of the future. At any rate, after the tribulations comes hope, and near at hand is that for which we have hoped. For, even if one would speak of the whole life of man, very short is the span from first to last in comparison with that endless age which lies beyond in our hopes.
3 Cf. 1 Cor. 10.13.
SAIKT BASIL
Now, as to a creed, we neither receive a more recent one written for us by others nor do we ourselves dare to hand over the fruits of our own mind, lest we make the words of religion mere human words, but, whatever we have been taught by the holy Fathers, that do we announce to those who ask us..
Therefore, there has been introduced in our church from the times of the Fathers the Creed written by the holy Fathers assembled at Nicaea. And we think that this is also in use among you. However, we do not refuse, lest we take upon ourselves the charge of indolence, to reproduce the words themselves in our letter. Here they are:
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father; Light of Light; true God of true God; begotten, not made; consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made both in heaven and on earth; who for us men and for our salvation came down; and was incarnate and was made man; suffered, and rose again on the third day; He ascended into heaven, and is coming to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy
Spirit. But as for those who say, 'There was once a time when He was not,' and 'Before He was begotten He was not,' and that 'He was made from what was not,' or affirm that the Son of God is of another person or substance, or that He is capable of change or variation, the Catholic and Apostolic
Church excommunicates them. 4
4 The Benedictine editors tell us that St. Leontius, who was present at the Council, brought the Nicene Creed to Caesarea, and both he and his successor Hermogenes bravely defended it, as can be seen in Letter
81. However, Dianius, who succeeded Hermogenes, did not follow in their footsteps but signed several Arian formulae. Still. he supported the Nicene Creed. as is testified in Letter 51.