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

It is of a piece with Basil’s habitual silence on the general affairs of the empire that he
should seem to be insensible of the shock caused by the approach of the Goths in 378. A
letter to Eusebius in exile in Thrace does shew at least a consciousness of a disturbed state
of the country, and he is afraid of exposing his courier to needless danger by entrusting him
with a present for his friend. But this is all. 281 He may have written letters shewing an interest
in the fortunes of the empire which have not been preserved. But his whole soul was
absorbed in the cause of Catholic truth, and in the fate of the Church. His youth had been
steeped in culture, but the work of his ripe manhood left no time for the literary amusement
of the dilettante. So it may be that the intense earnestness with which he said to himself,
“This one thing I do,” of his work as a shepherd of souls, and a fighter for the truth, and his
knowledge that for the doing of this work his time was short, accounts for the absence from
his correspondence of many a topic of more than contemporary interest. At all events, it
is not difficult to descry that the turn in the stream of civil history was of vital moment to
the cause which Basil held dear. The approach of the enemy was fraught with important
consequences to the Church. The imperial attention was diverted from persecution of the
Catholics to defence of the realm. Then came the disaster of Adrianople, 282 and the terrible
end of the unfortunate Valens. 283 Gratian, a sensible lad, of Catholic sympathies, restored
the exiled bishops, and Basil, in the few months of life yet left him, may have once more
embraced his faithful friend Eusebius. The end drew rapidly near. Basil was only fifty, but
he was an old man. Work, sickness, and trouble had worn him out. His health had never
been good. A chronic liver complaint was a constant cause of distress and depression.
In 373 he had been at death’s door. Indeed, the news of his death was actually circulated,
and bishops arrived at Cæsarea with the probable object of arranging the succession. 284
He had submitted to the treatment of a course of natural hot baths, but with small beneficial
result. 285 By 376, as he playfully reminds Amphilochius, he had lost all his teeth. 286 At last
the powerful mind and the fiery enthusiasm of duty were no longer able to stimulate the
energies of the feeble frame.
281 Ep. cclxviii. So Fialon, Ét. Hist. p. 149: “On n’y trouve pas un mot sur la désastreuse expédition de Julien,
sur le honteux traité de Jovien, sur la révolte de Procope.” At the same time the argument from silence is always
dangerous. It may be unfair to charge Basil with indifference to great events, because we do not possess his letters
about them.
282 Aug. 9, 378.
283 Theod. iv. 32. Amm. Marc. xxxi. 13.
284 Ep. cxli.
285 Ep. cxxxvii.
286 Ep. ccxxxii.
Troubles of the Closing Years.
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