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

To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata.Letter XXXIV. 2015To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata.How could I be silent at the present juncture? And if I cannot be silent, how am I tofind utterance adequate to the circumstances, so as to make my voice not like a mere groanbut rather a lamentation intelligibly indicating the greatness of the misfortune? Ah me!Tarsus is undone. 2016 This is a trouble grievous to be borne, but it does not come alone.It is still harder to think that a city so placed as to be united with Cilicia, Cappadocia, andAssyria, should be lightly thrown away by the madness of two or three individuals, whileyou are all the while hesitating, settling what to do, and looking at one another’s faces. Itwould have been far better to do like the doctors. (I have been so long an invalid that I haveno lack of illustrations of this kind.) When their patients’ pain becomes excessive theyproduce insensibility; so should we pray that our souls may be made insensible to the painof our troubles, that we be not put under unendurable agony. In these hard straits I do notfail to use one means of consolation. I look to your kindness; I try to make my troublesmilder by my thought and recollection of you. 2017 When the eyes have looked intently onany brilliant objects it relieves them to turn again to what is blue and green; the recollectionof your kindness and attention has just the same effect on my soul; it is a mild treatmentthat takes away my pain. I feel this the more when I reflect that you individually have doneall that man could do. You have satisfactorily shewn us, men, if we judge things fairly, thatthe catastrophe is in no way due to you personally. The reward which you have won atGod’s hand for your zeal for right is no small one. May the Lord grant you to me and toHis churches to the improvement of life and the guidance of souls, and may He once moreallow me the privilege of meeting you.1362015 Placed in 369.2016 Silvanus, Metropolitan of Tarsus, one of the best of the Semi-Arians (Ath., De synod. 41), died, accordingto Tillemont, in 373, according to Maran four years earlier, and was succeeded by an Arian; but events did notturn out so disastrously as Basil had anticipated. The majority of the presbyters were true to the Catholic cause,and Basil maintained friendship and intercourse with them. cf. Letters lxvii., cxiii., cxiv.2017 Basil is supposed to have in the meanwhile carried out his previously-expressed intention of payingEusebius a visit.422