NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

Enumeration of the illustrious men in the Church who in their writings have used the word“with.”ence for the Lord’s honour 1337 nor fear of His threats, what kind of defence will they havefor their blasphemy? It is for them to make up their mind about their own action or evennow to change it. For my own part I would pray most earnestly that the good God will makeHis peace rule in the hearts of all, 1338 so that these men who are swollen with pride and setin battle array against us may be calmed by the Spirit of meekness and of love; and that ifthey have become utterly savage, and are in an untamable state, He will grant to us at leastto bear with long suffering all that we have to bear at their hands. In short “to them thathave in themselves the sentence of death,” 1339 it is not suffering for the sake of the Faithwhich is painful; what is hard to bear is to fail to fight its battle. The athlete does not somuch complain of being wounded in the struggle as of not being able even to secure admissioninto the stadium. Or perhaps this was the time for silence spoken of by Solomon thewise. 1340 For, when life is buffeted by so fierce a storm that all the intelligence of those whoare instructed in the word is filled with the deceit of false reasoning and confounded, likean eye filled with dust, when men are stunned by strange and awful noises, when all theworld is shaken and everything tottering to its fall, what profits it to cry, as I am really crying,to the wind?1337 The Benedictine version for τὰς τιμὰς τοῦ κυρίου is honorem quem Dominus tribuit Spiritui. Thereading of one ms. is τὰς φωνάς. There is authority for either sense of the genitive with τιμή, i.e. the honoursdue to the Lord or paid by the Lord.1338 cf. Col. iii. 15.1339 2 Cor. i. 9.1340 Eccl. iii. 7.245