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

To a lapsed Monk.the long hours of the night in pouring out confession to God, and made your beard wetwith channels of tears. Why particularize? Remember how many mouths of saints you salutedwith a kiss, how many bodies you embraced, how many held your hands as undefiled,how many servants God, as though in worship, ran and clasped you by the knees.2. And what is the end of all this? My ears are wounded by a charge of adultery, flyingswifter than an arrow, and piercing my heart with a sharper sting. What crafty wiliness ofwizard has driven you into so deadly a trap? What many-meshed devil’s nets have entangledyou and disabled all the powers of your virtue? What has become of the story of your labours?Or must we disbelieve them? How can we avoid giving credit to what has long beenhid when we see what is plain? What shall we say of your having by tremendous oathsbound souls which fled for refuge to God, when what is more than yea and nay is carefullyattributed to the devil? 2104 You have made yourself security for fatal perjury; and, by settingthe ascetic character at nought, you have cast blame even upon the Apostles and the veryLord Himself. You have shamed the boast of purity. You have disgraced the promise ofchastity; we have been made a tragedy of captives, and our story is made a play of beforeJews and Greeks. You have made a split in the solitaries’ spirit, driving those of exacterdiscipline into fear and cowardice, while they still wonder at the power of the devil, and seducingthe careless into imitation of your incontinence. So far as you have been able, youhave destroyed the boast of Christ, Who said, “Be of good cheer I have overcome theworld,” 2105 and its Prince. You have mixed for your country a bowl of ill repute. Verilyyou have proved the truth of the proverb, “Like a hart stricken through the liver.” 2106But what now? The tower of strength has not fallen, my brother. The remedies of correctionare not mocked; the city of refuge is not shut. Do not abide in the depths of evil.Do not deliver yourself to the slayer of souls. The Lord knows how to set up them that aredashed down. Do not try to flee afar off, but hasten to me. Resume once more the laboursof your youth, and by a fresh course of good deeds destroy the indulgence that creeps foullyalong the ground. Look to the end, that has come so near to our life. See how now the sonsof Jews and Greeks are being driven to the worship of God, and do not altogether deny theSaviour of the World. Never let that most awful sentence apply to you, “Depart from me,I never knew you.” 21071492104 cf. Matt. v. 37.2105 John xvi. 33.2106 cf. Prov. vii. 22, 23, LXX.2107 Luke xiii. 27.448