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

To Candidianus.Letter III. 1757To Candidianus. 17581. When I took your letter into my hand, I underwent an experience worth telling. Ilooked at it with the awe due to a document making some state announcement, and as Iwas breaking the wax, I felt a dread greater than ever guilty Spartan felt at sight of the Laconianscytale. 1759When, however, I had opened the letter, and read it through, I could not help laughing,partly for joy at finding nothing alarming in it; partly because I likened your state of affairsto that of Demosthenes. Demosthenes, you remember, when he was providing for a certainlittle company of chorus dancers and musicians, requested to be styled no longer Demosthenes,but “choragus.” 1760 You are always the same, whether playing the “choragus” ornot. “Choragus” you are indeed to soldiers myriads more in number than the individualsto whom Demosthenes supplied necessaries; and yet you do not when you write to me standon your dignity, but keep up the old style. You do not give up the study of literature, but,as Plato 1761 has it, in the midst of the storm and tempest of affairs, you stand aloof, as itwere, under some strong wall, and keep your mind clear of all disturbance; nay, more, asfar as in you lies, you do not even let others be disturbed. Such is your life; great and wonderfulto all who have eyes to see; and yet not wonderful to any one who judges by the wholepurpose of your life.Now let me tell my own story, extraordinary indeed, but only what might have beenexpected.2. One of the hinds who live with us here at Annesi, 1762 on the death of my servant,without alleging any breach of contract with him, without approaching me, without makingany complaint, without asking me to make him any voluntary payment, without any threatof violence should he fail to get it, all on a sudden, with certain mad fellows like himself,attacked my house, brutally assaulted the women who were in charge of it, broke in the1131757 Placed at the beginning of the retreat in Pontus.1758 A governor of Cappadocia, friendly to Basil and to Gregory of Nazianzus. (cf. Greg., Ep. cxciv.)1759 i.e. the staff or baton used at Sparta for dispatches. The strip of leather on which the communicationwas to be made is said to have been rolled slantwise round it, and the message was then written lengthwise. Thecorrespondent was said to have a staff of a size exactly corresponding, and so by rewinding the strip could readwhat was written. Vide Aulus Gellius xvii. 9.1760 Plutarch πολ. παραγγ xxii. ἢ τὸ τοῦ Δημοσθένους ὅτι νῦν οὐκ ἔστι Δημοσθένης ἀλλὰ καὶ θεσμοθέτηςἢ χορηγὸς ἢ στεφανηφόρος.1761 Rep. vi. 10. οἷον ἐν χειμῶνι κονιορτοῦ καὶ ζάλὴς ὑπὸ πνεύματος φερομένου ὑπὸ τειχίον ἀποστάς.1762 Vide Prolegomena.364