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Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

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To Athanasius, Bishop of Alex<strong>and</strong>ria. 2223<br />

Letter LXI. 2222<br />

I have read the letter of your holiness, in which you have expressed your distress at the<br />

unhappy governor of Libya. I am grieved that my own country should have given birth to<br />

<strong>and</strong> nurtured such vices. I am grieved too that Libya, a neighbouring country, should suffer<br />

from our evils, <strong>and</strong> should have been delivered to the inhumanity of a man whose life is<br />

marked at once by cruelty <strong>and</strong> crime. This however is only in accordance with the wisdom<br />

of the Preacher, “Woe to thee O l<strong>and</strong> when thy King is a child;” 2224 (a still further touch of<br />

trouble) <strong>and</strong> whose “Princes” do not “eat” after night but revel at mid-day, raging after<br />

other men’s wives with less underst<strong>and</strong>ing than brute beasts. This man must surely look<br />

for the scourges of the righteous Judge, repaid him in exact requital for those which he<br />

himself has previously inflicted on the saints. Notice has been given to my <strong>Church</strong> in accordance<br />

with the letter of your reverence, <strong>and</strong> he shall be held by all as abominable, cut off<br />

from fire, water <strong>and</strong> shelter, if indeed in the case of men so possessed there is any use in<br />

general <strong>and</strong> unanimous condemnation. Notoriety is enough for him, <strong>and</strong> your own letter,<br />

which has been read in all directions, for I shall not fail to show it to all his friends <strong>and</strong> relatives.<br />

Assuredly, even if retribution does not reach him at once, as it did Pharaoh, certainly<br />

it will bring on him hereafter a heavy <strong>and</strong> hard requital.<br />

2222 Placed in 370 or 371.<br />

2223 This, the first of Basil’s six extant letters to Athanasius, is placed by the Ben. Ed. in 371. It has no certain<br />

indication of date. Athanasius, in the few years of comparative calm which preceded his death in May, 373, had<br />

excommunicated a vicious governor in Libya, a native of Cappadocia, <strong>and</strong> announced his act to Basil. <strong>The</strong> in-<br />

tercourse opened by this official communication led to a more important correspondence.<br />

2224 Eccles. x. 16.<br />

To Athanasius, Bishop of Alex<strong>and</strong>ria.<br />

479<br />

162

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