Letter 223 TO EUSTATHIUS OF SEBASTEIA, excerpt
prelude 1: the letters of basil
dreams—I departed for Pontus in search of a place of abode. There indeed God showed me a spot exactly suited to my purpose, so that I see in truth before my eyes what I have often pictured to my mind in my idle fancies . . .
Letter 223 TO EUSTATHIUS OF SEBASTEIA, excerpt5 This letter, addressed to Eustathius of Sebasteia was written in mid 375.
It marks the climax of Basil's rupture with Eustathius and is the most autobiographical of all Basil's writings. He gives his mature account of his religious upbringing as a child and his motives in undertaking the ascetic life nearly twenty years earlier. By the term monÆ, the ascetic retreat on the Iris is meant, not the villa where Emmelia, Macrina and the young Peter lived.
Hence the period to which the excerpt below refers is 358–362, the first period of Basil's ascetic life in Pontus.
By the time of Basil's second sojourn in Pontus, 363–365, the earlier experiment for male ascetics by the River Iris had been superseded, because by that time the community at Annisa under Macrina's direction had found a way of constituting itself as an integral monastic community, incorporating a house for male ascetics, of whom the first was Peter. This was the very period Gregory of Nyssa left to take up the profession of rhetoric in Caesarea (see G. Nazianzen letter 11).
This letter proves that Gregory of Nyssa, during his twenties, spent time pursuing the ascetic life with Basil in the retreat on the Iris. He was certainly baptized, was set on the path to priesthood, and in the context of the ascetic life, had possibly not taken an express vow of virginity, but was understood to be committed to it implicitly.
Basil reminds Eustathius of his familiarity with his brother because at the time of writing (375), Gregory is the target of a sustained attack by Eustathius and his circle, who have allied themselves with Valens' Arian agenda in order to thwart Basil and his circle.
5. Ask yourself, how often did you visit us in the monastery6 on the river Iris, when, moreover, our most God-beloved brother Gregory was present with me, accomplishing the same goal of life as myself ? . . . And how many days did we spend in the villa on the other side, at my mother's, living there as a friend with a friend, with conversation astir among us day and night?
5 Mss.: VPBM, LC, ed.: Courtonne III, 8–17 at 14, Def 3.286–313 at 302–303, tr.: NPNF 2nd ser. 8.262–265 at 264.
6 §p‹ t∞w mon∞w, lit. 'abode', frequently with the sense of hermitage or monastery.