Correspondence with Saint Basil the Great, Archbishop of Cæsarea.
Letter VIII.
Ep. VIII.
(Written to S. Basil shortly after his Ordination as Priest, probably toward the end of a.d. 362.)
I approve the beginning of your letter; but what is there of yours that I do not approve? And you are convicted of having written just like me; for I, too, was forced into the rank of the Priesthood, for indeed I never was eager for it. We are to one another, if ever any men were, trustworthy witnesses of our love for a humble and lowly philosophy. But perhaps it would have been better that this had not happened, or I know not what to say, as long as I am in ignorance of the purpose of the Holy Ghost. But since it has come about, we must bear it, at least so it seems clear to me; and especially when we take the times into consideration, which are bringing in upon us so many heretical tongues, and must not put to shame either the hopes of those who have trusted us thus, or our own lives.
Edition and rights
NPNF2-07. Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen. Historical English edition; series volume first published 1894.
Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, translators
Ancient work and historical English translation: public domain in the United States (published before 1931). Copyright rules vary by country. This is a historical source transcription, not an official Church edition. Modern website material is not reproduced.
Historical footnotes and publisher introductions are omitted. Author-written openings are retained. Paragraph whitespace is normalized. Transcriptions can contain errors; this is not a critical edition. Attribution follows the historical edition, not universal scholarly agreement.
Digitization provenance (not an external reading link): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/s/schaff/npnf207.xml
Source section: iv.iii.vi · Text SHA-256: c49ed450df234368a678234292b4bb46ce0b3a015f583217d54c9ba686d78587