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Updated: May 24, 2025
Basil of Cæsarea was a disciple of the schools of Athens, and a master of heathen eloquence and learning. He was also man of the world enough to keep on friendly terms with men of all sorts. Amongst his friends we find Athanasius and Gregory of Nazianzus, Libanius the heathen rhetorician, the barbarian generals Arinthæus and Victor, the renegade Modestus, and the Arian bishop Euippius.
This Basil was an extraordinary man. His ancestors were honorable and wealthy. He moved in the highest circle of social life, like Chrysostom. He was educated in the most famous schools. He travelled extensively like other young men of rank. His tutor was the celebrated Libanius, the greatest rhetorician of the day.
Look at the schools of this wisdom four centuries before the Christian era and four centuries after that era. Compare the men whom those schools formed at those two periods. Compare Plato and Libanius. Compare Pericles and Julian. This philosophy confessed, nay boasted, that for every end but one it was useless. Had it attained that one end?
Life at Louvain was expensive and he had no regular earnings. He wrote some prefaces and dedicated to the Bishop of Arras, Chancellor of the University, the first translation from the Greek: some Declamationes by Libanius.
The friend of Julian was an indignant spectator of the triumph of Christianity; and his bigotry, which darkened the prospect of the visible world, did not inspire Libanius with any lively hopes of celestial glory and happiness. Part II.
Theodosius distinguished his liberal regard for virtue and genius by the consular dignity, which he bestowed on Symmachus; and by the personal friendship which he expressed to Libanius; and the two eloquent apologists of Paganism were never required either to change or to dissemble their religious opinions.
"Everything is in preparation, but nothing is ready. Alexandria, Athens, Antioch, and Neapolis are to be the centres of the outbreak. The great Libanius is not a man of action, and even he approves of our scheme. No less a man than Florentin has undertaken to recruit for our cause among the heathen officers in the army.
The clock pointed to the hour, but the bell did not strike. At last Hermas refused to see them any more. One day John the Presbyter stood in the atrium. Hermas was entertaining Libanius and Athenais in the banquet-hall. When the visit of the Presbyter was announced, the young master loosed a collar of gold and jewels from his neck, and gave it to his scribe.
"There are not wanting," says the candid Libanius, "those who arraign the prudence of the emperor, or who impute the public misfortune to the want of courage and discipline in the troops.
According to the duty of his office, the governor of the province despatched a faithful narrative of the whole transaction: while the trembling citizens intrusted the confession of their crime, and the assurances of their repentance, to the zeal of Flavian, their bishop, and to the eloquence of the senator Hilarius, the friend, and most probably the disciple, of Libanius; whose genius, on this melancholy occasion, was not useless to his country.
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