“Now solitude is of the greatest use for this purpose, inasmuch as it stills our…”

Now solitude is of the greatest use for this purpose, inasmuch as it stills our passions, and gives room for principle to cut them out of the soul.

Basil of Caesarea · The Letters · NPNF2 VIII, Letters, Letter II, 2

Written to Gregory of Nazianzus from the retreat in Pontus, and the nearest thing the Greek East has to a rule’s prologue. The whole letter is a programme: separation not of the body but of the soul’s sympathy with the body, the day begun with prayer, work sweetened with hymns as if with salt.

How this is known

These words were matched, word for word, against this project’s own copy of the volume cited.

Quoted from the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers translation this project holds in full, and checked against those bytes at every rebuild — the words, the work and the place in it.

Read in Jackson, NPNF series 2 vol. 8 (1895) · Blomfield Jackson

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Basil of Caesarea every saying recorded of this person, and their page