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

Without address. Concerning an afflicted woman.Letter CCLXXXIX. 3251Without address. Concerning an afflicted woman.I consider it an equal mistake, to let the guilty go unpunished, and to exceed the properlimits of punishment. I accordingly passed upon this man the sentence I considered it incumbenton me to pass—excommunication from the Church. The sufferer I exhorted notto avenge herself; but to leave to God the redressing of her wrongs. Thus if my admonitionshad possessed any weight, I should then have been obeyed, for the language I employed wasfar more likely to ensure credit, than any letter to enforce compliance.So, even after listening to her statements that contained matter sufficiently grave, I stillheld my peace; and even now I am not sure that it becomes me to treat again of this samequestion.For, she says, I have foregone husband, children, all the enjoyments of life, for the attainmentof this single object, the favour of God, and good repute amongst men. Yet one daythe offender, an adept from boyhood in corrupting families, with the impudence habitualto him, forced an entrance into my house; and thus within the bare limits of an interviewan acquaintanceship was formed. It was only owing to my ignorance of the man, and tothat timidity which comes from inexperience, that I hesitated openly to turn him out ofdoors. Yet to such a pitch of impiety and insolence did he come, that he filled the wholecity with slanders, and publicly inveighed against me by affixing to the church doors libellousplacards. For this conduct, it is true, he incurred the displeasure of the law: but, nevertheless,he returned to his slanderous attacks on me. Once more the market-place was filled withhis abuse, as well as the gymnasia, theatres, and houses whose congeniality of habits gainedhim an admittance. Nor did his very extravagance lead men to recognise those virtueswherein I was conspicuous, so universally had I been represented as being of an incontinentdisposition. In these calumnies, she goes on to say, some find a delight—such is the pleasuremen naturally feel in the disparagement of others; some profess to be pained, but shew nosympathy; others believe the truth of these slanders; others again, having regard to the persistencyof his oaths, are undecided. But sympathy I have none. And now indeed I beginto realise my loneliness, and bewail myself. I have no brother, friend, relation, no servant,bond or free, in a word, no one whatever to share my grief. And yet, I think, I am morethan any one else an object of pity, in a city where the haters of wickedness are so few. Theybandy violence; but violence, though they fail to see it, moves in a circle, and in time willovertake each one of them.In such and still more appealing terms she told her tale, with countless tears, and sodeparted. Nor did she altogether acquit me of blame; thinking that, when I ought to sym-3251 Placed in the episcopate.858