Letter 264

264. To Barses, Bishop of Edessa, in Exile

To the truly most beloved of God, and worthy of all reverence and honour, Bishop Barses, Basil sends greeting in the Lord. As our most genuine brethren, the company of Domninus, were coming to your reverence, we gladly took the occasion for a letter, and we greet you through it, praying to the holy God that you may be kept in this life until such time as we are counted worthy to see you and to enjoy the graces that are in you. Only pray, I beseech you, that the Lord may not deliver us up utterly to the enemies of the cross of Christ, but may keep His own Churches until the time of peace, which the just Judge Himself knows when He will grant. For He will grant it, and will not forsake us altogether. But as He fixed for the Israelites the seventy years for their sins as the sentence of captivity, so perhaps the Mighty One, having delivered us up for some appointed time, will at length call us back and restore us to the peace we had from the beginning — unless, indeed, the apostasy is somewhere near, and the things now happening are the prelude to the entrance of the Antichrist. But if that be so, pray that the Good One may either turn aside the afflictions or preserve us unfallen through the afflictions. We greet, through you, all the company counted worthy to be with your reverence. All who are with us greet your reverence. May you, strong and of good cheer in the Lord, and praying earnestly for me, be kept for the Church of God by the grace of the Holy One.