Letter 2

2. Basil to Gregory

I recognized your letter, as men recognize the children of their friends by the likeness that appears in them to those who begot them. For your saying that the situation of the place is not enough to instil in your soul any impulse toward the life we lead, until you have learned something of our way and manner of living—this was indeed a thought truly your own and worthy of your soul, which reckons all things here as nothing in comparison with the blessedness laid up for us in the promises. As for myself, I am ashamed to write what I do here in this remote retreat, night and day. For I have left the busy life of the city as the source of countless evils, but I have not yet been able to leave myself behind. Rather, I am like those who, from inexperience of sailing, are at a loss and seasick upon the sea: they are distressed by the size of the ship as causing them much tossing, and crossing over from it to the skiff or the boat, they are seasick and at a loss everywhere, for their nausea and bile go along with them. Such, then, is our case too. For carrying our indwelling passions about with us, we are everywhere amid the same disturbances, so that we have gained nothing very great from this solitude. But what we ought to do, and the way by which we might keep close to the footsteps of Him who has led us toward salvation—for He says, "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me"—is this.

We must try to keep the mind in stillness. For just as the eye, when it is continually shifted about—now turned to the sides, now repeatedly turned up and down—cannot clearly see what lies before it, but the sight must be fixed firmly upon the object seen if it is to make its view of it distinct; so too the mind of man, when it is dragged about by the countless cares of the world, cannot clearly fix its gaze upon the truth. The man not yet yoked in the bonds of marriage is shaken by raging desires, by impulses hard to restrain, and by certain ill-starred loves; while he who is already bound to a wife is beset by another tumult of cares: when childless, the longing for children; when in possession of children, anxiety over their rearing, the keeping of a wife, the management of a household, the oversight of servants, losses in contracts, quarrels with neighbours, entanglements in the law-courts, the hazards of trade, the toils of farming. Every day comes bringing its own darkening of the soul; and the nights, taking up the cares of the day, deceive the mind with the same imaginings.

From these there is one escape: separation from the whole world. But withdrawal from the world is not to be outside it in body, but to tear the soul away from sympathy with the body, and to become without city, without home, without property, without society, without possessions, without livelihood, free of business, free of dealings, unschooled in the teachings of men, ready to receive in the heart the impressions engraved upon it by divine teaching. And the preparation of the heart is the unlearning of the teachings that have taken prior hold of it through evil habit. For one cannot write on wax without first smoothing away the characters already there; nor can one set divine doctrines in a soul without first removing the prejudices it has acquired from custom. To this end solitude offers us the greatest benefit, lulling our passions and giving reason leisure to cut them away from the soul altogether. For just as wild beasts are easily mastered when they have been stroked into calm, so desires, angers, fears, and griefs, the venomous evils of the soul, when they have been lulled by stillness and not made savage by continual provocation, become more easily mastered by the power of reason. Let the place, then, be such as ours is, free from the company of men, so that the continuity of our discipline may be broken by nothing from outside.

The discipline of godliness nourishes the soul with divine thoughts. What, then, is more blessed than to imitate on earth the choir of the angels? At the very beginning of the day, to hasten to prayer, and to honour the Creator with hymns and songs; then, when the sun shines clearly forth, to turn to work, prayer accompanying it everywhere, and to season one's labours with hymns as with salt? For the consolations of hymns bestow upon the soul a cheerful and untroubled state.

Stillness, then, is the beginning of the soul's purification, when the tongue does not speak the things of men, nor the eyes scan the good complexion and proportion of bodies, nor the hearing slacken the soul's tone in songs composed for pleasure, nor in the words of witty and jesting men—which above all are apt to loosen the soul's tone. For the mind, when not scattered upon outward things nor diffused by the senses into the world, returns to itself, and through itself ascends to the thought of God; and shone round and illumined by that beauty, it forgets even its own nature. Drawn down neither to anxiety over food nor to concern for clothing, but keeping leisure from earthly cares, it transfers its whole zeal to the acquisition of eternal goods—how temperance and courage may be rightly achieved in it, how justice and prudence, and the other virtues which, ranged as subdivisions under these general ones, prompt the earnest man to perform fittingly each of the duties of life.

A very great road toward the discovery of one's duty is also the study of the inspired Scriptures. For in these are found both the precepts for action and the lives of blessed men, recorded and handed down, set before us like living images of life lived according to God, for the imitation of their good works. And so, in whatever each man perceives himself to be deficient, by attending to that and as it were from a common dispensary, he finds the medicine suited to his ailment. The lover of temperance continually unrolls the story of Joseph, and learns from him the deeds of temperance, finding him not only self-controlled against pleasures but settled in a fixed disposition toward virtue. He is schooled in courage by Job, who not only, when his life turned to its opposite—becoming poor from rich and childless from a father of fine children in a single moment of time—remained the same, preserving everywhere the unbowed spirit of his soul; but neither was he provoked when his friends, who had come to comfort him, trampled upon him and added to his pains. Again, one who considers how a man might at the same time be gentle and high-spirited—so as to use his anger against sin, and his gentleness toward men—will find David noble in deeds of war, yet gentle and unmoved in requiting his enemies. Such too was Moses, rising up with great wrath against those who sinned against God, yet bearing with a gentle soul the slanders against himself. And everywhere, just as painters, when they paint images from images, look frequently at the model and strive to transfer its character to their own work of art, so too the man who is earnest to perfect himself in every part of virtue must look to the lives of the saints as to certain living and active statues, and make their goodness his own by imitation.

Prayers, again, succeeding the readings, take up the soul fresher and more vigorous, stirred by longing for God. And good prayer is that which produces in the soul a clear thought of God. And this is the indwelling of God: to have God established within oneself through memory. Thus we become a temple of God, when the continuity of memory is not broken by earthly cares, nor the mind disturbed by unexpected passions, but the lover of God, having fled all these, withdraws to God, driving out the passions that summon him to incontinence, and dwells among the pursuits that lead to virtue.

And first of all it is fitting to take care not to be unschooled in the use of speech, but to ask without contentiousness and to answer without ambition, not interrupting the one conversing when he says something useful, nor desiring to insert one's own argument for display, setting limits to speaking and to listening; to learn without shame and to teach without grudging; and if one has been taught by another, not to hide it, like worthless women who pass off illegitimate children as their own, but graciously to proclaim the father of the word. The middle pitch of voice is to be preferred, so that it neither escape the hearing by smallness nor be oppressive by the greatness of its strain. One should first examine within oneself what is to be said, and so make the word public. Be courteous in encounters, sweet in conversation, not hunting pleasantness through buffoonery, but having graciousness through kindly encouragement. Everywhere put away harshness, even when there is need to rebuke. For having first cast yourself down through humility, you will so be the more readily accepted by the one who needs the cure. Often, too, the prophet's manner of reproof is useful to us, who, when David had sinned, did not bring down the sentence of condemnation from himself, but, using the device of an assumed character, set the man himself as judge of his own sin, so that, having pronounced the verdict against himself, he could no longer blame the one who convicted him.

To the humble and lowly spirit there follows a grave eye bent toward the ground, a neglected appearance, unkempt hair, soiled clothing; so that what mourners do by design appears in us of its own accord. Let the tunic be drawn close to the body by a belt; yet let the girding be neither above the loins, for that is womanish, nor loose, so that the tunic flows about, for that is effeminate. And let the gait be neither sluggish, so as to accuse the soul of slackness, nor again vehement and hurried, so as to betray its impulses as unbalanced. The aim of clothing is one: to be a covering of the flesh sufficient against winter and summer. Let no brightness be sought in colour, nor fineness and softness in the making; for to scan the good colours in clothing is the same as the adornment of women, which they practise, dyeing their cheeks and their hair with a borrowed bloom. The tunic, moreover, ought to be of such thickness that the wearer needs no other to keep him warm. The sandal should be cheap as to its worth, yet fully serving its use.

And in a word, just as in clothing one ought to put first what is needful, so too in food bread will fill the need, and water will treat the thirst of the healthy man, and whatever side-dishes made from seeds are able to preserve the body's strength for its necessary uses. One should eat without displaying raging gluttony, but everywhere preserving steadiness, gentleness, and self-control regarding pleasures; nor even then keeping the mind idle in its thought of God, but making the very nature of the foods and the constitution of the body that receives them an occasion for glorifying God—how varied kinds of foods, suited to the particular nature of bodies, have been devised by Him who orders all things. Let prayers before food be made worthy of God's gifts, both those He gives now and those He has stored up for the future. Let prayers after food contain thanksgiving for what has been given and a request for what has been promised. Let one hour be appointed for food, the same recurring in its cycle, so that out of the twenty-four hours of the day and night this is scarcely the one expended on the body, while the rest the ascetic spends busy in the activity of the mind.

Let sleep be light and easily shaken off, naturally following upon a measured diet, and by design broken by cares for great things. For to be mastered by deep stupor, with the limbs relaxed so as to give leisure to irrational fancies, makes those who sleep so to be in a daily death. But what dawn is to others, midnight is to the ascetics of godliness, since the stillness of night especially grants the soul leisure, when neither eyes nor ears convey harmful sounds or sights to the heart, but the mind alone, by itself, is with God, correcting itself by the memory of its sins, setting itself limits for the avoidance of evil, and seeking from God His co-working toward the completion of what it pursues.