Letter 49: Epistle 49. To Basil. (The Praises of Quiet.) You accuse me of laziness and idleness, because I did not accept your Sasima, and because I have not bestirred myself like a Bishop, and do not arm you against each other like a bone thrown into the midst of dogs.
You accuse me of laziness and idleness because I didn't accept your Sasima, because I haven't stirred myself into action like a proper bishop, because I don't arm you against your rivals like a bone thrown among dogs.
My greatest business has always been to keep free from business.
And to give you an idea of one of my finer qualities: I value freedom from business so highly that I think I could serve as a standard for all men of this kind of heroic inactivity. If everyone would follow my example, the churches would have no troubles — and the faith, which everyone uses as a weapon in their private quarrels, would stop being torn to pieces.
Human translation - New Advent (NPNF / ANF series)
Latin / Greek Original
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- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from New Advent / NPNF.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3103b.htm
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