St Basil the Great LETTERS, Third Part

Translated by Bl. Jackson.

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This Part: 129 Pages

Page 123

Letter CCCXLVI.

Libanius to Basil.

You yourself will judge whether I have added anything in the way of learning to the young men whom you have sent. I hope that this addition, however little it be, will get the credit of being great, for the sake of your friendship towards me. But inasmuch as you give less praise to learning than to temperance and to a refusal to abandon our souls to dishonourable pleasures, they have devoted their main attention to this, and have lived, as indeed they ought, with due recollection of the friend who sent them hither.

So welcome what is your own, and give praise to men who by their mode of life have done credit both to you and to me. But to ask you to be serviceable to them is like asking a father to be serviceable to his children.

Letter CCCXLVII.

Libanius to Basil.

Every bishop is a thing out of which it is very hard to get anything. [3279] The further you have advanced beyond other people in learning, the more you make me afraid that you will refuse what I ask. I want some rafters. [3280] Any other sophist would have called them stakes, or poles, not because he wanted stakes or poles, but rather for shewing off his wordlets than out of any real need. If you do not supply them, I shall have to winter in the open air.

[3279] pragma dusgripiston. gripizo=I catch fish, from griphos, a creel.

[3280] stroter.

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