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# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 175

Letter CLXXV.
To Count Magnenianus.
Your excellency lately wrote to me, plainly charging me, besides other matters, to write concerning the Faith. I admire your zeal in the matter, and I pray God that your choice of good things may be persistent, and that, advancing in knowledge and good works, you may be made perfect. But I have no wish to leave behind me a treatise on the Faith, or to write various creeds, and so I have declined to send what you asked. You seem to me to be surrounded by the din of your men there, idle fellows, who say certain things to calumniate me, with the idea that they will improve their own position by lying disgracefully against me. The past shews what they are, and future experience will shew them in still plainer colours. I, however, call on all who trust in Christ not to busy themselves in opposition to the ancient faith, but, as we believe, so to be baptized, and, as we are baptized, so to offer the doxology. It is enough for us to confess those names which we have received from Holy Scripture, and to shun all innovation about them. Our salvation does not lie in the invention of modes of address, but in the sound confession of the Godhead in which we have professed our faith.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Written probably early in 374.
* ↑ One ms. reads Magninianus. On the identification of this officer with the recipient of cccxxv., see that letter.
* ↑ But what Basil declined to do at the prompting of Magnenianus, he shortly afterwards did for Amphilochius, and wrote the De Spiritu Sancto.
* ↑ Maran (V. Basilxxx.) thinks that the allusion is to Atarbuis of Neocæsarea and to some of his presbyters. cf. Letter ccx.
* ↑ cf. De Sp. Scto. p. 17.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 177

Letter CLXXVII.
To Saphronius the Master.
To reckon up all those who have received kindness at your excellency’s hand, for my sake, is no easy task; so many are there whom I feel that I have benefited through your kind aid, a boon which the Lord has given me to help me in these very serious times. Worthiest of all is he who is now introduced to you by my letter, the reverend brother Eusebius, attacked by a ridiculous calumny which it depends upon you alone in your uprightness, to destroy. I beseech you, therefore, both as respecting the right and as being humanely disposed, to grant me your accustomed favours, by adopting the cause of Eusebius as your own, and championing him, and, at the same time, truth. It is no small thing that he has the right on his side; and this, if he be not stricken down by the present crisis, he will have no difficulty in proving plainly and without possibility of contradiction.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in 374.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 182

Letter CLXXXII.
To the presbyters of Samosata.
Grieved as I am at the desolation of the Church, I none the less congratulate you on having been brought so soon to this extreme limit of your hard struggle. God grant that you may pass through it with patience, to the end that in return for your faithful stewardship, and the noble constancy which you have shewn in Christ’s cause, you may receive the great reward.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in 374.
* ↑ Specially the exile of Eusebius.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 180

Letter CLXXX.
To the Master Sophronius, on behalf of Eunathius.
I have been much distressed on meeting a worthy man involved in very great trouble. Being human, how could I fail to sympathise with a man of high character afflicted beyond his deserts? On thinking in what way I could be useful to him, I did find one means of helping him out of his difficulties, and that is by making him known to your excellency. It is now for you to extend also to him the same good offices which, as I can testify, you have shown to many. You will learn all the facts of the case from the petition presented by him to the emperors. This document I beg you to take into your hands, and implore you to help him to the utmost of your power. You will be helping a Christian, a gentleman, and one whose deep learning ought to win respect. If I add that in helping him you will confer a great kindness upon me, though, indeed, my interests are matters of small moment, yet, since you are always so good as to make them of importance, your boon to me will be no small one.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Of the same date.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 181

Letter CLXXXI.
To Otreius, bishop of Melitene.
Your reverence is, I know, no less distressed than myself at the removal of the very God-beloved bishop Eusebius. We both of us need comfort. Let us try to give it to one another. Do you write to me what you hear from Samosata, and I will report to you anything that I may learn from Thrace.
It is to me no slight alleviation of our present distress to know the constancy of the people. It will be the same to you to have news of our common father. Of course I cannot now tell you this by letter, but I commend to you one who is fully informed, and will report to you in what condition he left him, and how he bears his troubles. Pray, then, for him and for me that the Lord will grant him speedy release from his distress.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed in 374.
* ↑ In Armenia Minor, now Malatia. Basil asks him for and offers sympathy in the exile of Eusebius. Otreius was at Tyana in 367, and at Constantinople in 381 (Labbe ii. 99 and 955).
* ↑ Where Eusebius was in exile.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 183

Letter CLXXXIII.
To the Senate of Samosata.
Seeing, as I do, that temptation is now spread all over the world, and that the greater cities of Syria have been tried by the same sufferings as yourselves, (though, indeed, nowhere is the Senate so approved and renowned for good works, as your own, noted as you are for your righteous zeal,) I all but thank the troubles which have befallen you.
For had not this affliction come to pass, your proof under trial would never have been known. To all that earnestly strive for any good, the affliction they endure for the sake of their hope in God is like a furnace to gold.
Rouse ye, then, most excellent sirs, that the labours you are about to undertake may not be unworthy of those which you have already sustained, and that on a firm foundation you may be seen putting a yet worthier finish. Rouse ye, that ye may stand round about the shepherd of the Church, when the Lord grants him to be seen on his own throne, telling each of you in his turn. some good deed done for the sake of the Church of God. On the great day of the Lord, each, according to the proportion of his labours, shall receive his recompense from the munificent Lord. By remembering me and writing to me as often as you can, you will be doing justice in sending me a reply, and will moreover give me very great pleasure, by sending me in writing a plain token of a voice which it is delightful to me to hear.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Of the same date.
* ↑ χάριν ἔχειν τοῖς οικονομηθεῖσιν. The Ben. note points out that this expression of gratitude to the troubles themselves is of a piece with the expression of gratitude to enemies in the De. Sp. S. vi. § 13. (p. 8), and concludes: “Sic etiam Machabæorum mater apud Gregorium Nazianzenum orat. xxii. ait se tyranno pene gratias agere.
* ↑ cf. Prov. xvii. 3 and xxvii. 21.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume X/Selections from Letters

Note on the Letters of St. Ambrose.
Of the 91 Epistles considered genuine by the Benedictine Editors, sixty-three are referred by them to fairly certain dates, and a large number of these would well be worth translation, throwing as they do so clear a light on the events of St. Ambrose’s life, and in many cases on the history of the period. Only a few are here presented to the reader.
Perhaps some others might have been better selected, but if they were to be so few, it seemed as if these would give the best general impression of the indomitable energy and fearless constancy of the great Bishop.

## Contents

* Memorial of Symmachus
* Epistle XVII
* Memorial of Symmachus 2
* Epistle XVIII
* Epistle XX
* Letter XXI
* Sermon Against Auxentius
* Letter XXII
* Letter XL
* Letter XLI
* Letter LI
* Letter LVII
* Letter LXI
* Letter LXII
* Epistle LXIII

## Footnotes

* ↑ This is really in excess of the number which are now to be considered as fixed in date.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 40

Letter XL.
Julian to Basil.
While showing up to the present time the gentleness and benevolence which have been natural to me from my boyhood, I have reduced all who dwell beneath the sun to obedience. For lo! every tribe of barbarians to the shores of ocean has come to lay its gifts before my feet. So too the Sagadares who dwell beyond the Danube, wondrous with their bright tattooing, and hardly like human beings, so wild and strange are they, now grovel at my feet, and pledge themselves to obey all the behests my sovereignty imposes on them. I have a further object. I must as soon as possible march to Persia and rout and make a tributary of that Sapor, descendant of Darius. I mean too to devastate the country of the Indians and the Saracens until they all acknowledge my superiority and become my tributaries. You, however, profess a wisdom above and beyond these things; you call yourself clad with piety, but your clothing is really impudence and everywhere you slander me as one unworthy of the imperial dignity. Do you not know that I am the grandson of the illustrious Constantius? I know this of you, and yet I do not change the old feelings which I had to you, and you to me in the days when we were both young. But of my merciful will I command that a thousand pounds of gold be sent me from you, when I pass by Cæsarea; for I am still on the march, and with all possible dispatch am hurrying to the Persian campaign. If you refuse I am prepared to destroy Cæsarea, to overthrow the buildings that have long adorned it; to erect in their place temples and statues; and so to induce all men to submit to the Emperor of the Romans and not exalt themselves. Wherefore I charge you to send me without fail by the hands of some trusty messenger the stipulated gold, after duly counting and weighing it, and sealing it with your ring. In this way I may show mercy to you for your errors, if you acknowledge, however late, that no excuses will avail. I have learned to know, and to condemn, what once I read.

## Footnotes

* ↑ If genuine, which is exceedingly doubtful, this letter would be placed in the June or July of 362.
* ↑ i.e. of Constantius Chlorus. Vide pedigree prefixed to Theodoret in this edition, p. 32. Julian was the youngest son of Julius Constantius, half-brother of Constantine the Great.
* ↑ The fact of the early acquaintance of Basil and Julian does not rest wholly on the authority of this doubtful letter. cf. Greg. Naz., Orat. iv.
* ↑ A strong argument against the genuineness of this letter is the silence of Gregory of Nazianzus as to this demand on Basil (Or. v. 39). For Julian’s treatment of Cæsarea, vide Sozomen v. 4. Maran (Vita S. Bas. viii.) remarks that when Julian approached Cæsarea Basil was in his Pontic retreat. On the punning conclusion, vide note on Letter xli. (ἃ ἀνέγνων ἔγνων καὶ κατέγνων.)
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 43

Letter XLIII.
Admonition to the Young.
O faithful man of solitary life, and practiser of true religion, learn the lessons of the evangelic conversation, of mastery over the body, of a meek spirit, of purity of mind, of destruction of pride. Pressed into the service, add to your gifts, for the Lord’s sake; robbed, never go to law; hated, love; persecuted, endure; slandered, entreat. Be dead to sin; be crucified to God. Cast all your care upon the Lord, that you may be found where are tens of thousands of angels, assemblies of the first-born, the thrones of prophets, sceptres of patriarchs, crowns of martyrs, praises of righteous men. Earnestly desire to be numbered with those righteous men in Christ Jesus our Lord. To Him be glory for ever. Amen.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Ranked with the preceding, and of dubious genuineness.
* ↑ ἀγγαρευόμενος. cf. Matt. v. 41.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 37

Letter XXXVII.
Without address.
I look with suspicion on the multiplication of letters. Against my will, and because I cannot resist the importunity of petitioners, I am compelled to speak. I write because I can think of no other means of relieving myself than by assenting to the supplications of those who are always asking letters from me. I am really afraid lest, since many are carrying letters off, one of the many be reckoned to be that brother. I have, I own, many friends and relatives in my own country, and I am placed in loco parentis by the position which the Lord has given me. Among them is this my foster brother, son of my nurse, and I pray that the house in which I was brought up may remain at its old assessment, so that the sojourn among us of your excellency, so beneficial to us all, may turn out no occasion of trouble to him. Now too I am supported from the same house, because I have nothing of my own, but depend upon those who love me. I do then entreat you to spare the house in which I was nursed as though you were keeping up the supply of support for me. May God in return grant you His everlasting rest. One thing however, and it is most true, I think your excellency ought to know, and that is that the greater number of the slaves were given him from the outset by us, as an equivalent for my sustenance, by the gift of my father and mother. At the same time this was not to be regarded as an absolute gift; he was only to have the use for life, so that, if anything serious happen to him on their account, he is at liberty to send them back to me, and I shall thus in another way be responsible for rates and to collectors.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Of the same time as the preceding.
* ↑ By some supposed to be that of a bishop; but Maran, who dates the letter before the episcopate, thinks the use of the phrase is justified by our understanding the presbyterate to be meant. Vide Prolegomena.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 39

Letter XXXIX.
Julian to Basil.
The proverb says “You are not proclaiming war,” and, let me add, out of the comedy, “O messenger of golden words.” Come then; prove this in act, and hasten to me. You will come as friend to friend. Conspicuous and unremitting devotion to business seems, to those that treat it as of secondary importance, a heavy burden; yet the diligent are modest, as I persuade myself, sensible, and ready for any emergency. I allow myself relaxations so that even rest may be permitted to one who neglects nothing. Our mode of life is not marked by the court hypocrisy, of which I think you have had some experience, and in accordance with which compliments mean deadlier hatred than is felt to our worst foes; but, with becoming freedom, while we blame and rebuke where blame is due, we love with the love of the dearest friends. I may therefore, let me say, with all sincerity, both be diligent in relaxation and, when at work, not get worn out, and sleep secure; since when awake I do not wake more for myself, than, as is fit, for every one else. I am afraid this is rather silly and trifling, as I feel rather lazy, (I praise myself like Astydamas) but I am writing to prove to you that to have the pleasure of seeing you, wise man as you are, will be more likely to do me good than to cause any difficulty. Therefore, as I have said, lose no time: travel post haste. After you have paid me as long a visit as you like, you shall go on your journey, whithersoever you will, with my best wishes.

## Footnotes

* ↑ To be placed probably in 362, if genuine.
* ↑ These Letters are placed in this order by the Ben. Editors as being written, if genuine, before Basil’s episcopate. Maran (Vita S. Bas. Cap. ii.) is puzzled at Basil’s assertion in xli. that he learned the Bible with Julian, and points out that at Athens they devoted themselves to profane literature. But this may have allowed intervals for other work. In 344, when Basil was at Cæsarea, Julian was relegated by Constantius to the neighbouring fortress of Macellum, and there, with his elder half-brother Gallus, spent six years in compulsory retirement. Sozomen tells us that the brothers studied the Scripture and became Readers (Soz. v. 2; Amm. Marc. xv. 2, 7). Their seclusion, in which they were reduced to the society of their own household (Greg. Naz., Or. iii., Julian, Ad. Ath. 271 c.), may not have been so complete as to prevent all intercourse with a harmless schoolboy like Basil. “Malgré l’authorité de dom Maran, nous croyons avec Tillemont, Dupont et M. Albert de Broglie, que cette lettre a été réellement adressée par Julien, non a un homonyme de St. Basile mais à St. Basile lui-même.” Étude historique et littéraire sur St. Basile. Fialon.
* ↑ i.e.“your words are friendly.” cf. Plat., Legg. 702 D. οὐ πόλεμόν γε ἐπαγγέλλεις, ὦ Κλεινία.
* ↑ ὦ χρυσὸν ἀγγείλας ἐπῶν. Aristoph., Plut. 268.
* ↑ A playwright of Athens, who put a boastful epigram on his own statue, and became a byword for self-praise. Vide Suidas s.v., σαυτὸν ἐπαινεῖς.
# Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VIII/The Letters/Letter 4

Letter IV.
To Olympius.
What do you mean, my dear Sir, by evicting from our retreat my dear friend and nurse of philosophy, Poverty? Were she but gifted with speech, I take it you would have to appear as defendant in an action for unlawful ejectment. She might plead “I chose to live with this man Basil, an admirer of Zeno, who, when he had lost everything in a shipwreck, cried, with great fortitude, ‘well done, Fortune! you are reducing me to the old cloak;’ a great admirer of Cleanthes, who by drawing water from the well got enough to live on and pay his tutors’ fees as well; an immense admirer of Diogenes, who prided himself on requiring no more than was absolutely necessary, and flung away his bowl after he had learned from some lad to stoop down and drink from the hollow of his hand.” In some such terms as these you might be chidden by my dear mate Poverty, whom your presents have driven from house and home. She might too add a threat; “if I catch you here again, I shall shew that what went before was Sicilian or Italian luxury: so I shall exactly requite you out of my own store.”
But enough of this. I am very glad that you have already begun a course of medicine, and pray that you may be benefited by it. A condition of body fit for painless activity would well become so pious a soul.

## Footnotes

* ↑ Placed about 358. Olympius sends Basil a present in his retreat, and he playfully remonstrates.
* ↑ cf. Letters xii., xiii., lxiii., lxiv., and ccxi.
* ↑ The founder of the Stoic school.
* ↑ The τρίβων, dim. τριβώνιον, or worn cloak, was emblematic of the philosopher and later of the monk, as now the cowl. cf. Lucian, Pereg. 15, and Synesius, Ep. 147.
* ↑ Cleanthes, the Lydian Stoic, was hence called φρέαντλος, or well drawer. On him vide Val. Max. viii. 7 and Sen., Ep. 44.
# On the Sublime and Beautiful/Part IV/Chapter 23

ANOTHER principal property of beautiful objects is, that the line of their parts is continually varying its direction; but it varies it by a very insensible deviation; it never varies it so quickly as to surprise, or by the sharpness of its angle to cause any twitching or convulsion of the optic nerve. Nothing long continued in the same manner, nothing very suddenly varied, can be beautiful; because both are opposite to that agreeable relaxation which is the characteristic effect of beauty. It is thus in all the senses. A motion in a right line is that manner of moving, next to a very gentle descent, in which we meet the least resistance; yet it is not that manner of moving which, next to a descent, wearies us the least. Rest certainly tends to relax; yet there is a species of motion which relaxes more than rest; a gentle oscillatory motion, a rising and falling. Rocking sets children to sleep better than absolute rest; there is indeed scarce anything at that age which gives more pleasure than to be gently lifted up and down; the manner of playing which their nurses use with children, and the weighing and swinging used afterwards by themselves as a favourite amusement, evince this very sufficiently. Most people must have observed the sort of sense they have had on being swiftly drawn in an easy coach on a smooth turf, with gradual ascents and declivities. This will give a better idea of the beautiful, and point out its probable course better, than almost anything else. On the contrary, when one is hurried over a rough, rocky, broken road, the pain felt by these sudden inequalities shows why similar sights, feelings, and sounds are so contrary to beauty: and with regard to the feeling, it is exactly the same in its effect, or very nearly the same, whether, for instance, I move my hand along the surface of a body of a certain shape, or whether such a body is moved along my hand. But to bring this analogy of the senses home to the eye: if a body presented to that sense has such a waving surface, that the rays of light reflected from it are in a continual insensible deviation from the strongest to the weakest (which is always the case in a surface gradually unequal,) it must be exactly similar in its effects on the eye and touch; upon the one of which it operates directly, on the other, indirectly. And this body will be beautiful, if the lines which compose its surface are not continued, even so varied, in a manner that may weary or dissipate the attention. The variation itself must be continually varied.
# On the Sublime and Beautiful/Part IV/Chapter 5

HAVING considered terror as producing an unnatural tension and certain violent emotions of the nerves; it easily follows, from what we have just said, that whatever is fitted to produce such a tension must be productive of a passion similar to terror, and consequently must be a source of the sublime, though it should have no idea of danger connected with it. So that little remains towards showing the cause of the sublime, but to show that the instances we have given of it in the second part relate to such things as are fitted by nature to produce this sort of tension, either by the primary operation of the mind or the body. With regard to such things as effect by the associated idea of danger, there can be no doubt but that they produce terror, and act by some modification of that passion; and that terror, when sufficiently violent, raises the emotions of the body just mentioned, can as little be doubted. But if the sublime is built on terror, or some passion like it, which has pain for its object, it is previously proper to inquire how any species of delight can be derived from a cause so apparently contrary to it. I say delight, because, as I have often remarked, it is very evidently different in its cause, and in its own nature, from actual and positive pleasure.

## Notes

* ↑ Part II. sect. 2.