164 (338). To Ascholius, Bishop of Thessalonica
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text which falls in your way to write and to grant us the favor of conversing with you from a distance, since the weakness of our body now causes us to despair of a personal meeting.
How great that weakness is Bishop Amphilochius,2 dearly beloved of God, will tell you, for he knows it through being with us much and is able to describe what he has beheld.
Now, I wish my difficulties to be known for no other reason than to obtain pardon for the future, so that we may not suffer the condemnation of laziness if we should fail to pay you a visit. Yet, for this loss we need not so much a defense as consolation. For, if it were possible for us to be with your
Dignity, I would consider this opportunity much more precious to me than those things for which others eagerly strive.
164. To Ascholius, Bishop of Thessalonica1 The greatness of the joy with which the letter of your Holiness filled us we cannot easily describe, for speech is but a weak tool for vivid portrayal, but you yourself ought to infer it, basing your judgment on the beauty of what you have written. For, what did your letter not contain? Did it not contain love for the Lord? Admiration for the martyrs, describing so clearly the manner of the combat that it brings their deeds before our very eyes? Honor and affection toward us? Did it not have whatever qualities one might mention as 2 The visit of Amphilochius in 374 was probably the first of a series of frequent visits. St. Basil was his spiritual father. Amphilochius preferred to make his visits to St. Basil in the autumn, because the anniver· sary of St. Basil's hospital was celebrated at that time. This hospital had a special interest for him, because it was here that he and Hera. cleidas had passed a solemn crisis in their lives. Cf. Letter 150.
1 For this Ascholius. d. Letter 154. The following letter is also addressed to him. This letter was written in 374.
SAINT BASIL
most noble? Consequently, when we tuok your letter into our hands and read it over and over and percc:ved the glace of the Spirit abounding in it, we thought that we were .living in the olden times when the churches of God flourished, rooted in the faith, made one in love, since there existed a union of various members as in one body; when the persecutors were apparent and also those persecuted; when the people, though warred upon, became more numerous, and the blood of martyrs watering the churches raised up many more champions of religion, those coming after stripping themselves for the combat in emulation of the former. At that time, we Christians had peace with one another, that peace which the Lord left us, of which now there is no longer a trace remaining, so cruelly have we driven it from one another. But, our souls have returned to that pristine happiness since your letter came from afar blossoming with the beauty of love. Furthermore, a martyr has come to us from the barbarians beyond the Ister. 2 proclaiming through himself the exactness of the faith practiced there. Who could describe the joy of our souls at this? What power of speech could be devised capable of clearly expressing the feelings in the innermost depths of our heart? Truly, when we saw the athlete we congratulated his trainer,3 who will also receive for himself the crown of justice at the hand of the most just Judge, because he has strengthened many for the contest in defense of religion.
Since you have brought to us the remembrance of the blessed man Eutyches,4 and have exalted our fatherland as one which has supplied the seeds of piety, you have gladdened
2 St. Basil regularly calls the Danube by the name of Ister;. cf. Letter 40.
3 St. Basil calls Ascholius the trainer of the martyr Sabas; cf. the title of Letter 155.
4 A Christian of Cappadocia who was taken prisoner by the Goths in 260. and who later with some of his fellow captives became a martyr. but only after he had sowed the seeds of the faith in the land of his captivity. Cf. Philost .. H.E. 2.5.
LETTERS
us by the recollection of former times, but you have saddened us by the account of what is now seen. For, no one of us resembles Eutyches in virtue, we who are so far from taming the barbarians by the power of the Spirit and by the action of His graces, that we have even, by the greatness of our sins, made savage those who were gentle. In fact, we ascribe to ourselves and our sins the blame for such extensive spreading of the power of the heretics. For, almost no part of the world has escaped the conflagration of heresy. Now, this is your report-contests of the athletes,5 bodies torn in shreds in defense of religion, the wrath of the barbarian despised by those undaunted in heart, the various tortures of the persecutors, the constancy of the wrestlers through it all, the beam, the water,6 the instruments that completed the martyrdom.
But, what are our conditions? Charity has grown cold. The doctrine of the Fathers is being destroyed; shipwreck in the faith is frequent; the mouths of the pious are silent; people, driven from the houses of prayer, out in the open fields lift up their hands to the Lord in heaven. Truly, the afflictions are heavy, but nowhere is there martyrdom, because those who inflict the evils upon us have the same name as we do.
F or these reasons do you yourself beseech the Lord and join with you in prayer in behalf of the churches all the noble athletes of Christ, in order that, if some time still remains for the existence of the world, and all things are not being driven
5 I.e., the gladiatorial contests in which the Chri&tians were made to fight.
6 The following words from the Benedictine note illustrating this mode of martyrdom are from a letter of the Gothic Church, which was supposed to have been sent to the Church of Caesarea along with the body of the martyr 5abas: 'Then they bring him down to the water as he gives thanks and glorifies God, ... and having thrown him down and placed a beam of wood upon his neck, they cast him into the deep.
And, so, having met his end by beam and water, he kept the symbol of salvation undefiled at the age of thirty·eight years.' 5t. 5abas suffered martyrdom under Athanaricus, King of the Goths, toward the end of the fourth century.