Letter 49: Epistle 49. To Basil. (The Praises of Quiet.) You accuse me of laziness and idleness, because I did not accept your Sasima, and because I have not bestirred myself like a Bishop, and do not arm you against each other like a bone thrown into the midst of dogs.
Epistle 49. To Basil. (The Praises of Quiet.)
You accuse me of laziness and idleness, because I did not accept your Sasima, and because I have not bestirred myself like a Bishop, and do not arm you against each other like a bone thrown into the midst of dogs. My greatest business always is to keep free from business. And to give you an idea of one of my good points, so much do I value freedom from business, that I think I might even be a standard to all men of this kind of magnanimity, and if only all men would imitate me the Churches would have no troubles; nor would the faith, which every one uses as a weapon in his private quarrels, be pulled in pieces.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
Related Letters
1. I have read, and read with pleasure, the letter which you have sent by Strategius the presbyter. How should I not so read it, written as it is by a wise man, and dictated by a heart which has learned to observe the universal love taught by the commandment of the Lord?
I owe my homeland to you, and I may soon add that I owe my health to you as well.
(The new Archbishop seems not to have been satisfied with the reasons given in Gregory's last letter; so the latter writes again.) How can any affairs of yours be mere grape-gleanings to me, O dear and sacred friend? What a word has escaped the fence of your teeth, or how could you dare to say such a thing, if I too may be somewhat daring? How c...
Under any ordinary circumstances I should have lacked courage to intrude upon your excellency, for I know how to gauge my own importance and to recognise dignities. But now that I have seen a friend in a distressing position at having been summoned before you, I have ventured to give him this letter. I hope that by using it, as a kind of propiti...
You know that our silence is an equal offense on both sides, and so the blame is unfairly placed on me alone for...