Letter 246: I am filled with distress at seeing evil on the high road to success, while you, my reverend friends, are faint and failing under continuous calamity. But when again I bethink me of the mighty hand of God, and reflect that He knows how to raise up them that are broken down, to love the just, to crush the proud and to put down the mighty from the...
ST. BASIL OF CAESAREA
To the Nicopolitans.
I am filled with distress at seeing evil on the high road to success, while you, my reverend friends, are faint and failing under continuous calamity. But when again I bethink me of the mighty hand of God, and reflect that He knows how to raise up them that are broken down, to love the just, to crush the proud and to put down the mighty from their seats, then again my heart grows lighter by hope, and I know that through your prayers the calm that the Lord will show us will come soon. Only grow not weary in prayer, but in the present emergency strive to give to all a plain example by deed of whatever you teach by word.
About this page
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/3202246.htm>.
Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) Regrettably, I can't reply to e
very letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
Related Letters
When I had read the letter of your holinesses, how did I not groan and lament that I had heard of these further troubles, of blows and insults inflicted on yourselves, of destruction of homes, devastation of the city, ruin of your whole country, persecution of the Church, banishment; of priests, invasion of wolves, and scattering of flocks. But ...
Under other circumstances I should think it a special privilege to meet with your reverence, but above all now, when the business which brings us together is of such great importance. But so much of my illness as still clings to me is enough to prevent my stirring ever so short a distance. I tried to drive as far as the martyrs and had a relaps...
After we sent the boy off, a persistent rumor spread that you are to be summoned by an imperial letter.
(On the death of the Emperor Constantius the undisputed succession devolved on his cousin Julian the Apostate, who at once began to employ all the power of the Empire to discourage, while not absolutely persecuting, Christianity, and to restore the supremacy of the ancient Paganism. One of his first acts was to dismiss all the men who had held h...
Even a short letter gives great pleasure when the writer's affection can be measured by the greatness of his soul...