On the Need for Unity in the Struggle

And what end will there be to our silence, if I, on the one hand, should claim the privileges of age and wait for you to take the initiative in offering salutations, while your Charity, on the other, should wish to persist in your sinister decision of maintaining silence? Yet, since I consider that defeat in matters of friendship has the force of victory, I admit that I am conceding to you the credit of seeming to have prevailed over my opinion. And I have been the first to start writing, knowing that love 'bears with all things, endures all things,' nowhere 'seeks her own,' and therefore 'never fails.' [Cf. I Cor. 13:5, 7, 8] For, he who submits to his neighbor through love is not humbled. Therefore, see to it that you yourself exhibit for the future, at least, the first and greatest fruit of the Spirit, which is love. [Cf. Gal. 5:22-23] Cast off the sullenness of an angry man which you are evincing by your silence, and regain joy in your heart, peace toward your like-minded brethren, and zeal and solicitude for the preservation of the churches of the Lord. In fact, be assured that, unless we resume a struggle for the churches equal to that which the opponents of sound doctrine maintain for their ruin and destruction, there will be nothing to hinder the truth from being swept away by enemies, and lost. Likewise, nothing will prevent our sharing the condemnation [with them], unless, with all zeal and eagerness, in agreement with each other and in harmony with God, we show all possible care for the unity of the churches.

Therefore, I urge, cast out of your mind the thought that you stand in need of union with no one. For, it is not the spirit of one who walks in love or fulfills the command of Christ to cut himself off from union with his brethren. At the same time, I wish that your plan of action would be to consider that the evil of war [i.e., the persecutions of Valens] going on around is ever coming nearer to us, also, and if we, along with the others, share its abuse, we shall find no one sympathizing with us, because we have not in our time of peace offered to the wronged our contribution of sympathy.

- St. Basil the Great, Letter 65 to Bishop Atarbius of Neocaesarea.