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

To Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria.
Letter LXXXII. 2281
When I turn my gaze upon the world, and perceive the difficulties by which every effort
after good is obstructed, like those of a man walking in fetters, I am brought to despair of
myself. But then I direct my gaze in the direction of your reverence; I remember that our
Lord has appointed you to be physician of the diseases in the Churches; and I recover my
spirits, and rise from the depression of despair to the hope of better things. As your wisdom
well knows, the whole Church is undone. And you see everything in all directions in your
mind’s eye like a man looking from some tall watch tower, 2282 as when at sea many ships
sailing together are all dashed one against the other by the violence of the waves, and shipwreck
arises in some cases from the sea being furiously agitated from without, in others
from the disorder of the sailors hindering and crowding one another. It is enough to present
this picture, and to say no more. 2283 Your wisdom requires nothing farther, and the present
state of affairs does not allow me freedom of speech. What capable pilot can be found in
such a storm? Who is worthy to rouse the Lord to rebuke the wind and the sea? Who but
he who from his boyhood 2284 fought a good fight on behalf of true religion? Since now
truly all that is sound among us is moving in the direction of fellowship and unity with those
who are of the same opinion, we have come confidently to implore you to send us a single
letter, advising us what is to be done. In this way they wish that they may have a beginning
of communication which may promote unity. They may, peradventure, be suspected by
you, when you remember the past, and therefore, most God-beloved Father, do as follows;
send me the letters to the bishops, either by the hand of some one in whom you place trust
in Alexandria, or by the hand of our brother Dorotheus the deacon: when I have received
these letters I will not deliver them till I have got the bishops’ answers; if not, let me “bear
the blame for ever.” 2285 Truly this ought not to have struck more awe into him who first
uttered it to his father, than into me who now say it to my spiritual father. If however you
2281 Placed at the end of 371 or the beginning of 372.
2282 The fitness of this figure in a letter to the bishop of Alexandria will not escape notice. At the eastern
extremity of the island of Pharos still stood the marble lighthouse erected more than 600 years before by Ptolemy
II., and not destroyed till after the thirteenth century.
2283 On Basil’s use of this nautical metaphor, cf. De Spirtu Sancto, chap. xxx. It is of course a literary com-
monplace, but Basil’s associations all lay inland.
2284 The story of “the boy bishop” will be remembered, whose serious game of baptism attracted the notice
of Alexander and led to the education of Athanasius in the Episcopal palace. Soc., Ecc. Hist. i. 15. Rufinus i.
14. cf. Keble, Lyra Innocentium, “Enacting holy rites.”
2285 Gen. xliii. 9.
To Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria.
510
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