19 (3). To Gregory, a Companion
SAINT BASIL
cern for you, holding out the powerful enticement of delusive advice. Oppose all of these with right reason, invoking as its ally and guide our Lord Jesus Christ, the teacher of true religion, for whom to suffer evil is sweet, 'to die is gain.'2
19. To Gregory, a Companion 1 We have just received your letter; yours in the strict sense of the word, not so much in the distinctiveness of the handwriting as in the characteristic style of the letter itself.
The words were few but thought-filled. We did not answer immediately, since we ourselves were away from home when the carrier delivered the letter to one of our friends and immediately departed. But now we salute you through Peter, paying a debt of friendly greeting and at the same time furnishing you an opportunity for a second letter. Assuredly, there is no labor involved in writing a laconic letter such as are all those which we receive from you.
20. To Leontius, the Sophist 1 Our letters to you are, it is true, infrequent, but not more so than yours to us, although people have been continually coming from your country to visit us. Now, if you were dispatching letters by all of these, one after another, we could easily imagine ourselves with you and enjoy you just as if 2 Phil. 1.21.
This brief answer to a letter of St. Cregorv of Nazianzus was probably written from Caesarea shortly after St. Basil became a presbyter.
A Leontius is referred to in Letter :S5. This letter was written in :S64.
LETTERS
we were actually in your company, so continuous has been the stream of arrivals here.
But, why do you not write? Certainly, a sophist has no other work except to write. And if you are lazy of hand, you have no need to write, for another will perform that service for you. Only a tongue is necessary. Although it may not converse with us, it assuredly will talk to one of your companions; even if no one is present, it will still talk. Since it is both sophistic and Attic, it will certainly not keep silent any more than the nightingales when stirred to song by spring. Now, in our case, the many duties presently engaging us should, perchance, justify the scarcity of our letters.
Furthermore, the fact that we are slovenly in expression, as it were, because of a deep-rooted habit of colloquial speech, reasonably causes us to hesitate in addressing you sophists, who will be displeased and impatient with anything not consonant with your own wisdom. But for you, surely it is reasonable for you to make public all your utterances on every occasion, since of all the Greeks that I myself know you are the most fit to speak. And I think I know the most famous among you. Therefore, there is no excuse for your being silent. So much, then, for these matters.
I have also sent you my work against Eunomius,2 and whether it should be called child's play or something a little more serious than child's play I leave you to decide. You are no longer, I think, in need of it for your own self, but I hope it will be no mean weapon for you against chance perverse acquaintances. We do not rely so much on the force of the treatise, but we know definitely that you are exceedingly
2 A dogmatic work in three books, 'Refutation of the Apologetic of the Impious Eunomius: composed in 363 or 364. In the year 360, Eunomius had been deprived of his episcopate in Cyzicus because of his Arian views.