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

Troubles of the Closing Years.It is of a piece with Basil’s habitual silence on the general affairs of the empire that heshould seem to be insensible of the shock caused by the approach of the Goths in 378. Aletter to Eusebius in exile in Thrace does shew at least a consciousness of a disturbed stateof the country, and he is afraid of exposing his courier to needless danger by entrusting himwith a present for his friend. But this is all. 281 He may have written letters shewing an interestin the fortunes of the empire which have not been preserved. But his whole soul wasabsorbed in the cause of Catholic truth, and in the fate of the Church. His youth had beensteeped in culture, but the work of his ripe manhood left no time for the literary amusementof the dilettante. So it may be that the intense earnestness with which he said to himself,“This one thing I do,” of his work as a shepherd of souls, and a fighter for the truth, and hisknowledge that for the doing of this work his time was short, accounts for the absence fromhis correspondence of many a topic of more than contemporary interest. At all events, itis not difficult to descry that the turn in the stream of civil history was of vital moment tothe cause which Basil held dear. The approach of the enemy was fraught with importantconsequences to the Church. The imperial attention was diverted from persecution of theCatholics to defence of the realm. Then came the disaster of Adrianople, 282 and the terribleend of the unfortunate Valens. 283 Gratian, a sensible lad, of Catholic sympathies, restoredthe exiled bishops, and Basil, in the few months of life yet left him, may have once moreembraced his faithful friend Eusebius. The end drew rapidly near. Basil was only fifty, buthe was an old man. Work, sickness, and trouble had worn him out. His health had neverbeen good. A chronic liver complaint was a constant cause of distress and depression.In 373 he had been at death’s door. Indeed, the news of his death was actually circulated,and bishops arrived at Cæsarea with the probable object of arranging the succession. 284He had submitted to the treatment of a course of natural hot baths, but with small beneficialresult. 285 By 376, as he playfully reminds Amphilochius, he had lost all his teeth. 286 At lastthe powerful mind and the fiery enthusiasm of duty were no longer able to stimulate theenergies of the feeble frame.281 Ep. cclxviii. So Fialon, Ét. Hist. p. 149: “On n’y trouve pas un mot sur la désastreuse expédition de Julien,sur le honteux traité de Jovien, sur la révolte de Procope.” At the same time the argument from silence is alwaysdangerous. It may be unfair to charge Basil with indifference to great events, because we do not possess his lettersabout them.282 Aug. 9, 378.283 Theod. iv. 32. Amm. Marc. xxxi. 13.284 Ep. cxli.285 Ep. cxxxvii.286 Ep. ccxxxii.49