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

To Optimus the bishop.Letter CCLX. 3143To Optimus the bishop. 31441. Under any circumstances I should have gladly seen the good lads, on account of botha steadiness of character beyond their years, and their near relationship to your excellency,which might have led me to expect something remarkable in them. And, when I saw themapproaching me with your letter, my affection towards them was doubled. But now that Ihave read the letter, now that I have seen all the anxious care for the Church that there is init, and the evidence it affords of your zeal in reading the divine Scriptures, I thank the Lord.And I invoke blessings on those who brought me such a letter, and, even before them, onthe writer himself.2. You have asked for a solution of that famous passage which is everywhere interpretedin different senses, “Whosoever slayeth Cain will exact vengeance for seven sins.” 3145 Yourquestion shews that you have yourself carefully observed the charge of Paul to Timothy, 3146for you are obviously attentive to your reading. You have moreover roused me, old manthat I am, dull alike from age and bodily infirmity, and from the many afflictions whichhave been stirred up round about me and have weighed down my life. Fervent in spirit asyou are yourself, you are rousing me, now benumbed like a beast in his den, to some littlewakefulness and vital energy. The passage in question may be interpreted simply and mayalso receive an elaborate explanation. The simpler, and one that may occur to any one offhand, is this: that Cain ought to suffer sevenfold punishment for his sins.For it is not the part of a righteous judge to define requital on the principle of like forlike, but the originator of evil must pay his debt with addition, if he is to be made better bypunishment and render other men wiser by his example. Therefore, since it is ordainedthat Cain pay the penalty of his sin sevenfold, he who kills him, it is said, will discharge thesentence pronounced against him by the divine judgment. This is the sense that suggestsitself to us on our first reading the passage.3. But readers, gifted with greater curiosity, are naturally inclined to probe into thequestion further. How, they ask, can justice be satisfied seven times? And what are thevengeances? Are they for seven sins committed? Or is the sin committed once and are thereseven punishments for the one sin? Scripture continually assigns seven as the number ofthe remission of sins. “How often,” it is asked, “shall my brother sin against me and I forgive3143 Placed in 377.3144 Bishop of Antioch in Pisidia. Soc. vii. 36; Theod. v. 8.3145 Gen. iv. 15, LXX.3146 cf. 1 Tim. iv. 13.813