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

To Barses, bishop of Edessa, in exile. 3196
Letter CCLXIV. 3195
To Barses the bishop, truly God-beloved and worthy of all reverence and honour, Basil
sends greeting in the Lord. As my dear brother Domninus 3197 is setting out to you, I gladly
seize the opportunity of writing, and I greet you by him, praying the holy God that we may
be so long preserved in this life as to be permitted to see you, and to enjoy the good gifts
which you possess. Only pray, I beseech you, that the Lord may not deliver us for aye to
the enemies of the Cross of Christ, but that He will keep His Churches, until the time of
that peace which the just Judge Himself knows when He will bestow. For He will bestow
it. He will not always abandon us. As He limited seventy years 3198 for the period of captivity
for the Israelites in punishment for their sins, so peradventure the Mighty One, after giving
us up for some appointed time, will recall us once again, and will restore us to the peace of
the beginning—unless indeed the apostasy is now nigh at hand, and the events that have
lately happened are the beginnings of the approach of Antichrist. If this be so, pray that the
good Lord will either take away our afflictions, or preserve us through our afflictions unvanquished.
Through you I greet all those who have been thought worthy to be associated with
you. All who are with me salute your reverence. May you, by the grace of the Holy One,
be preserved to the Church of God in good health, trusting in the Lord, and praying for me.
3195 Placed in 377.
3196 See Soz., H.E. vi. 34, who says that Barses, with Eulogius, was not consecrated to any definite see. cf.
also Theodoret H.E. iv. 16, where it is stated that his bed was preserved at Aradus.
3197 Domninus was a not uncommon name, and there are several mentioned about the same time, e.g. Nilus,
Epp. iii. 43 and 144.
3198 Jer. xxv. 12.
To Barses, bishop of Edessa, in exile.
827