Primary source · Koine Greek
The Letters of Basil
Basil the Great · AD 357–379
What this text is
Three hundred and sixty-eight letters — famine relief, canon law, friendship with Gregory, the aching break with Eustathius, and the memory of his grandmother Macrina's teaching.
Profile of Eustathius of Sebaste →
Public-domain translations
Blomfield Jackson (NPNF, 1895)
What clearer proof can there be of my faith than that I was brought up by my grandmother, a blessed woman — Macrina I mean, that famous one — from whom I learned the words of the most blessed Gregory? (Letter 204, to the Neocaesareans.)
Manuscript witnesses
Byzantine letter-collections
10th c. onwardThe corpus assembled early, Gregory of Nazianzus himself its first collector.
Patrologia Graeca, vol. 32 (Migne)
1857Standard pre-critical text of the corpus.
Provenance
Caesarea of Cappadocia, AD 357–378 — 368 letters of the master administrator
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- Saint Basile: Lettres (Budé, 3 vols.)Yves Courtonne, 1957–1966The critical edition with French translation.
- Basil: Letters (Loeb 190, 215, 243, 270)Roy J. Deferrari, 1926–1934Greek text with facing English.
Figures named in this text (17)
- Sabellius
- Gregory Thaumaturgus
- Macrina the Elder
- Eupsychius of Caesarea
- Sabbas the Goth
- Marcellus of Ancyra
- Eustathius of Sebaste
- Eusebius of Samosata
- Peter II of Alexandria
- Meletius of Antioch
- Ascholius (Acholius) of Thessalonica
- Paulinus of Antioch
- Apollinaris of Laodicea
- Diodore of Tarsus
- Gregory of Nazianzus
- Amphilochius of Iconium
- Gregory of Nyssa