Letter 158: My sins have prevented me from carrying out the wish to meet you, which I have long entertained. Let me apologise by letter for my absence, and beseech you not to omit to remember me in your prayers, that, if I live, I may be permitted to enjoy your society. If not, by the aid of your prayers may I quit this world with good hope.
ST. BASIL OF CAESAREA
To Antiochus.
My sins have prevented me from carrying out the wish to meet you, which I have long entertained. Let me apologise by letter for my absence, and beseech you not to omit to remember me in your prayers, that, if I live, I may be permitted to enjoy your society. If not, by the aid of your prayers may I quit this world with good hope. I commend to you our brother the camel-master.
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Source. Translated by Blomfield Jackson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 8. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3202158.htm>.
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Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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