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

To Leontius the Sophist.Letter XXI. 1912To Leontius the Sophist.The excellent Julianus 1913 seems to get some good for his private affairs out of thegeneral condition of things. Everything nowadays is full of taxes demanded and called in,and he too is vehemently dunned and indicted. Only it is a question not of arrears of ratesand taxes, but of letters. But how he comes to be a defaulter I do not know. He has alwayspaid a letter, and received a letter—as he has this. But possibly you have a preference forthe famous “four-times-as-much.” 1914 For even the Pythagoreans were not so fond of theirTetractys, 1915 as these modern tax-collectors of their “four-times-as-much.” Yet perhapsthe fairer thing would have been just the opposite, that a Sophist like you, so very well furnishedwith words, should be bound in pledge to me for “four-times-as-much.” But do notsuppose for a moment that I am writing all this out of ill-humour. I am only too pleased toget even a scolding from you. The good and beautiful do everything, it is said, with the additionof goodness and beauty. 1916 Even grief and anger in them are becoming. At all eventsany one would rather see his friend angry with him than any one else flattering him. Donot then cease preferring charges like the last! The very charge will mean a letter; andnothing can be more precious or delightful to me.1912 Of about the same date as the preceding.1913 cf. Ep. ccxciii.1914 The Ben. note quotes Ammianus Marcellinus xxvi. 6, where it is said of Petronius, father-in-law ofValens: “ad nudandos sine discretione cunctos immaniter flagrans nocentes pariter et insontes post exquisitatormenta quadrupli nexibus vinciebat, debita jam inde a temporibus principio Aureliani perscrutans, et impendiomærens si quemquam absolvisset indemnem;” and adds: “Est ergo quadruplum hoc loco non quadrimenstruapensio, non superexactio, sed debitorum, quæ soluta non fuerant, crudelis inquisitio et quadrupli pœna his quinon solverant imposita.”1915 τετρακτύς was the Pythagorean name for the sum of the first four numbers (1+2+3+4=10), held by themto be the root of all creation. cf. the Pythagorean oath: Ναὶ μὰ τὸν ἁμετέρᾳ ψύχᾳ παραδόντα τετρακτύν, Παγὰνἀενάου φύσεως ῥιζώματ᾽ ἔχουσαν cf. my note on Theodoret, Ep. cxxx. for the use of τετρακτύς for the FourGospels.1916 Τοῖς καλοῖς πάντα μετὰ τῆς τοῦ καλοῦ προσθήκης γίνεσθαι. The pregnant sense of καλός makestranslation difficult.401