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

To Paregorius, the presbyter.Letter LV. 2203To Paregorius, the presbyter.I have given patient attention to your letter, and I am astonished that when you areperfectly well able to furnish me with a short and easy defence by taking action at once, youshould choose to persist in what is my ground of complaint, and endeavour to cure the incurableby writing a long story about it. I am not the first, Paregorius, nor the only man, tolay down the law that women are not to live with men. Read the canon put forth by ourholy Fathers at the Council of Nicæa, which distinctly forbids subintroducts. Unmarriedlife is honourably distinguished by its being cut off from all female society. If, then, anyone, who is known by the outward profession, in reality follows the example of those wholive with wives, it is obvious that he only affects the distinction of virginity in name, anddoes not hold aloof from unbecoming indulgence. You ought to have been all the moreready to submit yourself without difficulty to my demands, in that you allege that you arefree from all bodily appetite. I do not suppose that a man of three score years and ten liveswith a woman from any such feelings, and I have not decided, as I have decided, on theground of any crime having been committed. But we have learnt from the Apostle, not toput a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in a brother’s way;” 2204 and I know that whatis done very properly by some, naturally becomes to others an occasion for sin. I havetherefore given my order, in obedience to the injunction of the holy Fathers, that you areto separate from the woman. Why then, do you find fault with the Chorepiscopus? Whatis the good of mentioning ancient ill-will? Why do you blame me for lending an easy earto slander? Why do you not rather lay the blame on yourself, for not consenting to breakoff your connexion with the woman? Expel her from your house, and establish her in amonastery. Let her live with virgins, and do you be served by men, that the name of Godbe not blasphemed in you. Till you have so done, the innumerable arguments, which youuse in your letters, will not do you the slightest service. You will die useless, and you willhave to give an account to God for your uselessness. If you persist in clinging to your clericalposition without correcting your ways, you will be accursed before all the people, andall, who receive you, will be excommunicate throughout the Church. 22052203 Placed at the beginning of the Episcopate.2204 Rom. xiv. 13.2205 On the subject of the subintroductæ or συνείσακτοι, one of the greatest difficulties and scandals of theearly church, vide the article of Can. Venables in D.C.A. ii. 1937. The earliest prohibitive canon against thecustom is that of the Council of Elvira, a.d. 305. (Labbe i. 973.) The Canon of Nicæa, to which Basil refers, onlyallowed the introduction of a mother, sister, or aunt. The still more extraordinary and perilous custom of ladiesof professed celibacy entertaining male συνεισακτοι, referred to by Gregory of Nazianzus in his advice to virgins,471