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

To Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria.To Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria. 2223Letter LXI. 2222I have read the letter of your holiness, in which you have expressed your distress at theunhappy governor of Libya. I am grieved that my own country should have given birth toand nurtured such vices. I am grieved too that Libya, a neighbouring country, should sufferfrom our evils, and should have been delivered to the inhumanity of a man whose life ismarked at once by cruelty and crime. This however is only in accordance with the wisdomof the Preacher, “Woe to thee O land when thy King is a child;” 2224 (a still further touch oftrouble) and whose “Princes” do not “eat” after night but revel at mid-day, raging afterother men’s wives with less understanding than brute beasts. This man must surely lookfor the scourges of the righteous Judge, repaid him in exact requital for those which hehimself has previously inflicted on the saints. Notice has been given to my Church in accordancewith the letter of your reverence, and he shall be held by all as abominable, cut offfrom fire, water and shelter, if indeed in the case of men so possessed there is any use ingeneral and unanimous condemnation. Notoriety is enough for him, and your own letter,which has been read in all directions, for I shall not fail to show it to all his friends and relatives.Assuredly, even if retribution does not reach him at once, as it did Pharaoh, certainlyit will bring on him hereafter a heavy and hard requital.1622222 Placed in 370 or 371.2223 This, the first of Basil’s six extant letters to Athanasius, is placed by the Ben. Ed. in 371. It has no certainindication of date. Athanasius, in the few years of comparative calm which preceded his death in May, 373, hadexcommunicated a vicious governor in Libya, a native of Cappadocia, and announced his act to Basil. The intercourseopened by this official communication led to a more important correspondence.2224 Eccles. x. 16.479