29. What then did our noble friend, the
disciple of the Peaceable One? It was not his habit to resist his
traducers or partisans, nor was it his part to fight, or rend the body
of the Church, which was from other reasons the subject of attack, and
hardly bestead, from the great power of the heretics. With my
advice and earnest encouragement on the point, he set out from the
place with me into Pontus, and presided over the abodes of
contemplation there. He himself too founded one One, a
monastery. The rule of S. Basil is widely observed to this day in
Eastern monasteries. Cf. § 34. worthy of mention, as he welcomed the desert
together with Elijah and John, John, Saint
John Baptist. those professors of
austerity; thinking this to be more profitable for him than to form any
design in reference to the present juncture unworthy of his philosophy,
and to ruin in a time of storm the straight course which he was making,
where the surges of disputation were lulled to a calm. Yet
wonderfully philosophic though his retirement was, we shall find his
return still more wonderful. For thus it was.