61 (47). To Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria
SAINT BASIL
and by all means to do what is enjoined on us by your Reverence for the glory of God.
We have not required our most revered brother to tell us anything by word of mouth, because, formerly, his words could not be attested by the facts.
61. To Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria1 I have read the letter of your Holiness in which you expressed your sorrow at the actions of the disreputable governor of Libya, and we have truly mourned for our country2 because she is the mother and nurse of such evils. We have grieved, too, for Libya, our neighbor, since she shares in these evils and has been delivered up to the brutal practices of a man who spends his life in cruelty and in licentiousness. For such reasons, it would seem, the wise words of Ecclesiastes3 were spoken: 'Woe to thee, 0 land, when thy king is a child'
(and here is something even more stern), 'and when the princes eat' not at night, but they wanton at midday, lusting after unnatural unions more senselessly than beasts! Therefore, lashes from the just Judge await that man and they will be meted out in measure equal to that which he himself first inflicted upon God's saints.
As he has been made known to our Church by your Reverence's letter, all will, furthermore, consider him as one to be avoided, sharing neither fire nor water nor shelter with him, hoping, indeed, that there is some help for men who have thus won for themselves a common and unanimous
1 This, the first of St. Basil's six extant letters to the great St. Athanasius, is an answer to his letter announcing the excommunication of the governor of Libya, a native of Cappadocia. It was written in 371.
2 Cf. Homer, Od. 13.219.
3 Eccle. 10.16.