Letter 58 TO HIS BROTHER GREGORY
prelude 1: the letters of basil
to be in the presence of others or by ourselves, we shall answer the summons, for we are resolved once and for all to serve you in love (cf.
Gal 5.13) and in every way do whatever your Piety writes that we should do, to the glory of God.
As to our most venerable brother, we have not obliged him to tell us anything by word of mouth, because his words on a former occasion were not born out by the reality.
Letter 58 TO HIS BROTHER GREGORY 8 This is the only surviving letter we have from Basil to his brother Gregory.
Alas, it is not exactly a monument to brotherly accord, though the signs of Basil's esteem for his brother are still here. The letter was written early in 371, at some interval after the preceding letter. Basil's appeal to his brother at 58.9 is a precious window on his wish to win Gregory for the service of the church at this time. The mention of Gregory's servants in this letter indicates that he is still maintaining a household and a secular career in Caesarea.
Basil famously uses two terms, more or less synonymous, to describe his brother's political behaviour: xrhstÒthw (kindness, soft-heartedness, good nature to the point of silliness, fatuousness, naïvité) and èplÒthtow (simplicity, open-heartedness, guilelessness in a negative sense, childishness, naïvité).
1. Would that I could contend with you by letter! Would that I could confront your utter naïvité as it deserves!9 Who, tell me, ever falls into the same net a third time? Who ever falls into the same snare a third time? Scarcely even irrational animals succumb to this!
2. You forged a letter and brought it to me as if from our common uncle, the most reverend bishop, deceiving me, I know not for what reason. I received it as sent by the bishop through you. Why should I not have done so? Overjoyed, I showed it to many of my friends. I gave thanks to God.
3. The fraud was exposed, the bishop himself disowning it with his own lips. We were thoroughly put to shame by it. We prayed that the earth might open up for us, overwhelmed as we were by the reproach for unscrupulousness, falsehood and deceit.
8 Mss.: VPBM, LC, ed.: Courtonne I, 145–147 , Def 1.356–361, tr.: NPNF 2nd ser. 8.159.
9 p«w dÉ én éj¤vw sou kayaca¤mhn t∞w per‹ pãnta xrhstÒthtow.
prelude 1: the letters of basil 4. Again they delivered me a second letter as sent to me by the bishop himself through your servant10 Asterius. But it was not genuine, as the bishop himself protested before our most reverend brother
Anthimus,11 who told us.
5. And now there comes Adamantius12 bringing us a third letter.
How could I possibly accept any letters brought by you or yours? I might have prayed for a heart of stone so as not to have any memory of past events or be aware of present ones, but endure every blow as the cattle do, my head bowed to the ground. But what is become of my reason when, after a first and a second experience,
I can admit nothing without investigation!
6. I write these words to confront your simplicity,13 which in other circumstances I consider fitting to Christians but which ill accords in the present situation, in order that you may at least guard yourself for the future and spare me; because—for I must speak frankly with you—you are no trustworthy minister in such affairs. 7. Well then, whoever the authors may be, we have sent them a suitable answer. Whether, therefore, you were trying me out each time you sent the letter, or whether you really received it from the bishops, you have my answer.
8. But as for you, in the present situation you ought to have been mindful that you are my brother, and not yet have forgotten the ties of nature, still less regarded us in the part of an enemy, for we have come to a life that is not only wearing out our body, but even ruining our soul as well, so far does it exceed our strength. 9. Yet for all this, since you entered the fray,14 you ought for this very reason to be beside me now, sharing my troubles. For it is said Brothers are a help in time of necessity (Wis 40.24).
10. If the most reverend bishops are in fact willing to meet us, let them indicate a definite time and place, and let them send for us through their own agents. For, though I myself do not refuse to face my own uncle, yet, unless the invitation comes in the due and proper form, I shall not support it.
10 toË ofik°tou sou, household/domestic slave.
11 Bishop of Tyana, soon to be at loggerheads with Basil after Valens' division of Cappadocia. See Basil, Letters 120, 121, 122, 210.
12 He is evidently another domestic of Gregory of Nyssa's household.
13 t∞w s∞w èplÒthtow, fatuity.
14 §kpepol°mvsai, i.e. drawn into the ecclesiastical politics surrounding Basil's election, while trying only to be a peacemaker.