Writings of Basil - The Letters
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The Letters
Of Saint Basil the Great, Archbishop of Cæsaria,
Translated with Notes by
The Rev. Blomfield Jackson, M.A.
Vicar of Saint Bartholomew's, Moor Lane, and Fellow of King's College, London.
Under the editorial supervision of Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D.,
Professor of Church History in the Union Theological Semimary, New York,
and Henry Wace, D.D., Principal of King's College, London
Published in 1895 by T&T Clark,
Edinburgh
Letter CC. [2723]
To Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium.
I am attacked by sickness after sickness, and all the work given me,
not only by the affairs of the Church, but by those who are troubling
the Church, has detained me during the whole winter, and up to the
present time. It has been therefore quite impossible for me to send
any one to you or to pay you a visit. I conjecture that you are
similarly situated; not, indeed, as to sickness, God forbid; may the
Lord grant you continued health for carrying out His commandments.
But I know that the care of the Churches gives you the same distress
as it does me. I was now about to send some one to get me accurate
information about your condition. But when my well beloved son
Meletius, who is moving the newly enlisted troops, reminded me of the
opportunity of my saluting you by him, I gladly accepted the occasion
to write and had recourse to the kind services of the conveyor of my
letter. He is one who may himself serve instead of a letter, both
because of his amiable disposition, and of his being well acquainted
with all which concerns me. By him, then, I beseech your reverence
especially to pray for me, that the Lord may grant to me a riddance
from this troublesome body of mine; to His Churches, peace; and to
you, rest; and, whenever you have settled the affairs of Lycaonia in
apostolic fashion, as you have began, an opportunity to visit also
this place. Whether I be sojourning in the flesh, or shall have been
already bidden to take my departure to the Lord, I hope that you will
interest yourself in our part of the world, as your own, as indeed it
is, strengthening all that is weak, rousing all that is slothful and,
by the help of the Spirit Which abides in you, transforming everything
into a condition well pleasing to the Lord. My very honourable sons,
Meletius and Melitius, whom you have known for some time, and know to
be devoted to yourself, keep in your good care and pray for them.
This is enough to keep them in safety. Salute in my name, I beg you,
all who are with your holiness, both all the clergy, and all the laity
under your pastoral care, and my very religious brothers and fellow
ministers. Bear in mind the memory of the blessed martyr Eupsychius,
and do not wait for me to mention him again. Do not take pains to
come on the exact day, but anticipate it, and so give me joy, if I be
yet living on this earth. Till then may you, by the grace of the Holy
One, be preserved for me and for God's Churches, enjoying health and
wealth in the Lord, and praying for me.
Footnotes
[2723] Placed in 375.
Letter CCI. [2724]
To Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium.
I long to meet you for many reasons, that I may have the benefit of
your advice in the matters I had in hand, and that on beholding you
after a long interval I may have some comfort for your absence. But
since both of us are prevented by the same reasons, you by the illness
which has befallen you, and I by the malady of longer standing which
has not yet left me, let us, if you will, each forgive the other, that
both may free ourselves from blame.
Footnotes
[2724] Placed in 375.
Letter CCII. [2725]
To Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium.
Under other circumstances I should think it a special privilege to
meet with your reverence, but above all now, when the business which
brings us together is of such great importance. But so much of my
illness as still clings to me is enough to prevent my stirring ever so
short a distance. I tried to drive as far as the martyrs [2726] and
had a relapse almost into my old state. You must therefore forgive
me. If the matter can be put off for a few days, I will, by God's
grace join you, and share your anxieties. If the business presses,
do, by God's help, what has to be done; but reckon me as present with
you and as participating in your worthy deeds. May you, by the grace
of the Holy One, be preserved to God's Church, strong and joyous in
the Lord, and praying for me.
Footnotes
[2725] Placed in 375.
[2726] Tillemont conjectures that the drive was to St. Eupsychius, but
the day of St. Eupsychius fell in September, which the Ben. note
thinks too late for the date of this letter. The memorials of St.
Julitta and St. Gordius were also near Cæsarea, but their days fell in
January, which the same note thinks too early. Gregory of Nyssa
(Migne iii. p. 653) says that there were more altars in Cappadocia
than in all the world, so that we need have no difficulty in supposing
some saint whose date would synchronize with the letter. Basil,
however, may have tried to drive to the shrine of some martyr on some
other day than the anniversary of his death.
Letter CCIII. [2727]
To the bishops of the sea coast. [2728]
I have had a strong desire to meet you, but from time to time some
hindrance has supervened and prevented my fulfilling my purpose. I
have either been hindered by sickness, and you know well how, from my
early manhood to my present old age, this ailment has been my constant
companion, brought up with me, and chastising me, by the righteous
judgment of God, Who ordains all things in wisdom; or by the cares of
the Church, or by struggles with the opponents of the doctrines of
truth. [Up to this day I live in much affliction and grief, having
the feeling present before me, that you are wanting to me. For when
God tells me, who took on Him His sojourn in the flesh for the very
purpose that, by patterns of duty, He might regulate our life, and
might by His own voice announce to us the Gospel of the kingdom,--when
He says, `By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye
love one another,' and whereas the Lord left His own peace to His
disciples as a farewell gift, [2729] when about to complete the
dispensation in the flesh, saying, `Peace I leave with you, My peace I
give you,' I cannot persuade myself that without love to others, and
without, as far as rests with me, peaceableness towards all, I can be
called a worthy servant of Jesus Christ. I have waited a long while
for the chance of your love paying us a visit. For ye are not
ignorant that we, being exposed to all, as rocks running out in the
sea, sustain the fury of the heretical waves, which, in that they
break around us, do not cover the district behind. I say "we" in
order to refer it, not to human power, but to the grace of God, Who,
by the weakness of men shows His power, as says the prophet in the
person of the Lord, `Will ye not fear Me, who have placed the sand as
a boundary to the sea?' for by the weakest and most contemptible of
all things, the sand, the Mighty One has bounded the great and full
sea. Since, then, this is our position, it became your love to be
frequent in sending true brothers to visit us who labour with the
storm, and more frequently letters of love, partly to confirm our
courage, partly to correct any mistake of ours. For we confess that
we are liable to numberless mistakes, being men, and living in the
flesh.]
2. But hitherto, very honourable brethren, you have not given me my
due; and this for two reasons. Either you failed to perceive the
proper course; or else, under the influence of some of the calumnies
spread abroad about me, you did not think me deserving of being
visited by you in love. Now, therefore, I myself take the
initiative. I beg to state that I am perfectly ready to rid myself,
in your presence, of the charges urged against me, but only on
condition that my revilers are admitted to stand face to face with me
before your reverences. If I am convicted, I shall not deny my
error. You, after the conviction, will receive pardon from the Lord
for withdrawing yourselves from the communion of me a sinner. The
successful accusers, too, will have their reward in the publication of
my secret wickedness. If, however, you condemn me before you have the
evidence before you, I shall be none the worse, barring the loss I
shall sustain of a possession I hold most dear--your love: while you,
for your part, will suffer the same loss in losing me, and will seem
to be running counter to the words of the Gospel: "Doth our law judge
any man before it hear him?" [2730]The reviler, moreover, if he
adduce no proof of what he says, will be shewn to have got nothing
from his wicked language but a bad name for himself. For what name
can be properly applied to the slanderer [2731] except that which he
professes to bear by the very conduct of which he is guilty? Let the
reviler, therefore, appear not as slanderer, [2732] but as accuser;
nay, I will not call him accuser, I will rather regard him as a
brother, admonishing in love, and producing conviction for my
amendment. And you must not be hearers of calumny, but triers of
proof. Nor must I be left uncured, because my sin is not being made
manifest.
[3. Let not this consideration influence you. `We dwell on the sea,
we are exempt from the sufferings of the generality, we need no
succour from others; so what is the good to us of foreign communion?'
For the same Lord Who divided the islands from the continent by the
sea, bound the island Christians to those of the continent by love.
Nothing, brethren, separates us from each other, but deliberate
estrangement. We have one Lord, one faith, the same hope. The hands
need each other; the feet steady each other. The eyes possess their
clear apprehension from agreement. We, for our part, confess our own
weakness, and we seek your fellow feeling. For we are assured, that
though ye are not present in body, yet by the aid of prayer, ye will
do us much benefit in these most critical times. It is neither
decorous before men, nor pleasing to God, that you should make avowals
which not even the Gentiles adopt, which know not God. Even they, as
we hear, though the country they live in be sufficient for all things,
yet, on account of the uncertainty of the future, make much of
alliances with each other, and seek mutual intercourse as being
advantageous to them. Yet we, the sons of fathers who have laid down
the law that by brief notes the proofs of communion should be carried
about from one end of the earth to the other, and that all should be
citizens and familiars with all, now sever ourselves from the whole
world, and are neither ashamed at our solitariness, nor shudder that
on us is fallen the fearful prophecy of the Lord, `Because of
lawlessness abounding, the love of the many shall wax cold.']
4. Do not, most honourable brethren, do not suffer this. Rather, by
letters of peace and by salutations of love, comfort me for the past.
You have made a wound in my heart by your former neglect. Soothe its
anguish, as it were, by a tender touch. Whether you wish to come to
me, and examine for yourselves into the truth of what you hear of my
infirmities, or whether by the addition of more lies my sins are
reported to you to be yet more grievous, I must accept even this. I
am ready to welcome you with open hands and to offer myself to the
strictest test, only let love preside over the proceedings. Or if you
prefer to indicate any spot in your own district to which I may come
and pay you the visit which is due, submitting myself, as far as may
be, to examination, for the healing of the past, and the prevention of
slander for the future, I accept this. Although my flesh is weak,
yet, as long as I breathe, I am responsible for the due discharge of
every duty which may tend to the edification of the Churches of
Christ. Do not, I beseech you, make light of my entreaty. Do not
force me to disclose my distress to others. Hitherto, brethren, as
you are well aware, I have kept my grief to myself, for I blush to
speak of your alienation from me to those of our communion who are at
a distance. I shrink at once from paining them and from gratifying
those who hate me. I alone am writing this now; but I send in the
name of all the brethren in Cappadocia, who have charged me not to
employ any chance messenger, but some one who, in case I should, from
my anxiety not to be too prolix, leave out any points of importance,
might supply them with the intelligence wherewith God has gifted him.
I refer to my beloved and reverend fellow presbyter Petrus. Welcome
him in love, and send him forth to me in peace, that he may be a
messenger to me of good things.
Footnotes
[2727] Placed in 375.
[2728] On this letter Newman notes that Eustathius brought about a
separation of a portion of the coast of Pontus from the Church of
Cæsarea, which for a time caused Basil great despondency, as if he
were being left solitary in all Christendom, without communion with
other places. With the advice of the bishops of Cappadocia, he
addressed an expostulation with these separatists for not coming to
him. (Ch. of the Fathers, p. 95.) The portion of the translation of
this letter enclosed in brackets is Newman's.
[2729] hexiterion doron. cf. note on p. 46.
[2730] John vii. 51.
[2731] ton diaballonta.
[2732] diabolos.
Letter CCIV. [2733]
To the Neocæsareans. [2734]
1. [There has been a long silence on both sides, revered and
well-beloved brethren, just as if there were angry feelings between
us. Yet who is there so sullen and implacable towards the party which
has injured him, as to lengthen out the resentment which has begun in
disgust through almost a whole life of man?] This [is happening in
our case, no just occasion of estrangement existing, as far as I
myself know, but on the contrary, there being, from the first, many
strong reasons for the closest friendship and unity. The greatest and
first is this, our Lord's command, pointedly saying, "By this shall
all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another."
[2735] ] Again, the apostle clearly sets before us the good of
charity where he tells us that love is the fulfilling of the law;
[2736] and again where he says that charity is a good thing to be
preferred to all great and good things, in the words, "Though I speak
with tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as
sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of
prophecy and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I
have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not
charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the
poor and though I give my body to be burnt and have not charity, it
profiteth me nothing." [2737]Not that each of the points enumerated
could be performed without love, but that the Holy One wishes, as He
Himself has said, to attribute to the commandment super-eminent
excellency by the figure of hyperbole. [2738]
2. [Next, if it tend much towards intimacy to have the same teachers,
there are to you and to me the same teachers of God's mysteries, and
spiritual Fathers, who from the beginning were the founders of your
Church. I mean the great Gregory, and all who succeeding in order to
the throne of your episcopate, like stars rising one after another,
have tracked the same course, so as to leave the tokens of the
heavenly polity most clear to all who desire them.] And if natural
relationships are not to be despised, but are greatly conducive to
unbroken union and fellowship, these rights also exist naturally for
you and me. [Why is it, then, O venerable among cities, for through
you I address the whole city, that no civil writing comes from you, no
welcome voice, but your ears are open to those who aim at slander?] I
am therefore the more bound to groan, the more I perceive the end they
have in view. There is no doubt as to who is the originator of the
slander. [2739]He is known by many evil deeds, but is best
distinguished by this particular wickedness, and it is for this reason
that the sin is made his name. [2740]But you must put up with my
plain speaking. You have opened both ears to my slanderers. You
heartily welcome all you hear without any enquiry. Not one of you
distinguishes between lies and truth. Who ever suffered for lack of
wicked accusations when struggling all alone? Who was ever convicted
of lying in the absence of his victim? What plea does not sound
plausible to the hearers when the reviler persists that such and such
is the case, and the reviled is neither present nor hears what is
urged against him? Does not even the accepted custom of this world
teach you, in reference to these matters, that if any one is to be a
fair and impartial hearer, he must not be entirely led away by the
first speaker, but must wait for the defence of the accused, that so
truth may be demonstrated by a comparison of the arguments on both
sides? "Judge righteous judgment." [2741]This precept is one of
those most necessary for salvation.
3. When I say this I am not forgetful of the words of the Apostle,
who fled from human tribunals and reserved the defence of all his life
for the unerring judgment seat, when he said, "With me it is a very
small thing that I should be judged of you or of man's judgment."
[2742]Your ears have been preoccupied by lying slanders, slanders
that have touched my conduct, slanders that have touched my faith in
God. Nevertheless, knowing, as I do, that three persons at once are
injured by the slanderer, his victim, his hearer, and himself; as to
my own wrong, I would have held my tongue, be sure; not because I
despise your good opinion, (how could I, writing now as I do and
earnestly pleading as I do that I may not lose it?) but because I see
that of the three sufferers the one who is least injured is myself.
It is true that I shall be robbed of you, but you are being robbed of
the truth, and he who is at the bottom of all this is parting me from
you, but he is alienating himself from the Lord, inasmuch as no one
can be brought near to the Lord by doing what is forbidden. Rather
then for your sakes than for mine, rather to rescue you from
unendurable wrong am I pleading. For who could suffer a worse
calamity than the loss of the most precious of all things, the truth?
4. [What say I, brethren? Not that I am a sinless person; not that
my life is not full of numberless faults. I know myself; and indeed I
cease not my tears for my sins, if by any means I may be able to
appease my God, and to escape the punishment threatened against them.
But this I say: let him who judges me, hunt for motes in my eye, if
he can say that his own is clear.] I own, brethren, that I need the
care of the sound and healthy, and need much of it. If he cannot say
that it is clear, and the clearer it is the less will he say so--(for
it is the part of the perfect not to exalt themselves; if they do they
will certainly come under the charge of the pride of the Pharisee,
who, while justifying himself, condemned the publican) let him come
with me to the physician; let him not "judge before the time until the
Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness,
and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts." [2743]Let him
remember the words, "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged;" [2744]
and "Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned." [2745][In a word,
brethren, if my offences admit of cure, why does not such an one obey
the teacher of the Churches, "Reprove, exhort, rebuke"? [2746]If,
on the other hand, my iniquity be past cure, why does he not withstand
me to the face, and, by publishing my transgressions, deliver the
Churches from the mischief which I bring on them?] Do not put up with
the calumny uttered against me within the teeth. [2747]This is the
abuse which any slave-girl from the grindstone might utter; this is
the kind of fine shewing-off you might expect from any street
vagabond; their tongues are whetted for any slander. But [there are
bishops; let appeal be made to them. There is a clergy in each of
God's dioceses; [2748] let the most eminent be assembled. Let whoso
will, speak freely, that I may have to deal with a charge, not a
slander.] Let my secret wickedness be brought into full view; let me
no longer be hated, but admonished as a brother. It is more just that
we sinners should be pitied by the blessed and the sinless, than that
we should be treated angrily.
5. [If the fault be a point of faith, let the document be pointed out
to me. Again, let a fair and impartial inquiry be appointed. Let the
accusation be read; let it be brought to the test, whether it does not
arise from ignorance in the accuser, not from blame in the matter of
the writing. For right things often do not seem such to those who are
deficient in accurate judgment. Equal weights seem unequal when the
arms of the balance are of different sizes.] Men whose sense of taste
is destroyed by sickness, sometimes think honey sour. A diseased eye
does not see many things which do exist, and notes many things which
do not exist. The same thing frequently takes place with regard to
the force of words, when the critic is inferior to the writer. The
critic ought really to set out with much the same training and
equipment as the author. A man ignorant of agriculture is quite
incapable of criticising husbandry, and the distinctions between
harmony and discord can only be adequately judged by a trained
musician. But any one who chooses will set up for a literary critic,
though he cannot tell us where he went to school, or how much time was
spent in his education, and knows nothing about letters at all. I see
clearly that, even in the case of the words [2749] of the Holy Spirit,
the investigation of the terms is to be attempted not by every one,
but by him who has the spirit of discernment, as the Apostle has
taught us, in the differences of gifts;--"For to one is given by the
Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the
same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gift
of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to
another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits." [2750]If,
therefore, my gifts are spiritual, he who wishes to judge them must
shew proof of his own possession of the gift of "discerning of
spirits." If, on the contrary, as he calumniously contends, my gifts
are of the wisdom of this world, let him shew that he is an adept in
this world's wisdom, and I will submit myself to his verdict. And
[let no one suppose that I am making excuses to evade the charge. I
put it into your hands, dearest brethren, to investigate for
yourselves the points alleged against me. Are you so slow of
intelligence as to be wholly dependent upon advocates for the
discovery of the truth? If the points in question seem to you to be
quite plain of themselves, persuade the jesters to drop the dispute.
[If there be anything you do not understand, put questions to me,
through appointed persons who will do justice to me; or ask of me
explanations in writing. And take all kinds of pains that nothing may
be left unsifted.
6. What clearer evidence can there be of my faith, than that I was
brought up by my grandmother, blessed woman, who came from you? I
mean the celebrated Macrina who taught me the words of the blessed
Gregory; which, as far as memory had preserved down to her day, she
cherished herself, while she fashioned and formed me, while yet a
child, upon the doctrines of piety. And when I gained the capacity of
thought, my reason being matured by full age, I travelled over much
sea and land, and whomsoever I found walking in the rule of godliness
delivered, those I set down as fathers,] and made them my soul's
guides in my journey to God. And up to this day, by the grace of Him
who has called me in His holy calling to the knowledge of Himself, I
know of no doctrine opposed to the sound teaching having sunk into my
heart; nor was my soul ever polluted by the ill-famed blasphemy of
Arius. If I have ever received into communion any who have come from
that teacher, hiding their unsoundness deep within them, or speaking
words of piety, or, at any rate, not opposing what has been said by
me, it is on these terms that I have admitted them; and I have not
allowed my judgment concerning them to rest wholly with myself, but
have followed the decisions given about them by our Fathers. For
after receiving the letter of the very blessed Father Athanasius,
bishop of Alexandria, which I hold in my hand, and shew to any one who
asks, wherein he has distinctly declared that any one expressing a
wish to come over from the heresy of the Arians and accepting the
Nicene Creed, is to be received without hesitation and difficulty,
citing in support of his opinion the unanimous assent of the bishops
of Macedonia and of Asia; I, considering myself bound to follow the
high authority of such a man and of those who made the rule, and with
every desire on my own part to win the reward promised to peacemakers,
did enroll in the lists of communicants all who accepted that creed.
7. [The fair thing would be to judge of me, not from one or two who
do not walk uprightly in the truth, but from the multitude of bishops
throughout the world, connected with me by the grace of the Lord.
Make enquiries of Pisidians, Lycaonians, Isaurians, Phrygians of both
provinces, Armenians your neighbours, Macedonians, Achæans, Illyrians,
Gauls, Spaniards, the whole of Italy, Sicilians, Africans, the healthy
part of Egypt, whatever is left of Syria; all of whom send letters to
me, and in turn receive them from me.] From these letters, alike from
all which are despatched from them. and from all which go out from us
to them, you may learn that we are all of one mind, and of one
opinion. [Whoso shuns communion with me, it cannot escape your
accuracy, cuts himself off from the whole Church. Look round about,
brethren, with whom do you hold communion? If you will not receive it
from me, who remains to acknowledge you? Do not reduce me to the
necessity of counselling anything unpleasant concerning a Church so
dear to me.] There are things now which I hide in the bottom of my
heart, in secret groaning over and bewailing the evil days in which we
live, in that the greatest Churches which have long been united to one
another in brotherly love, now, without any reason, are in mutual
opposition. Do not, oh! do not, drive me to complain of these things
to all who are in communion with me. Do not force me to give
utterance to words which hitherto I have kept in check by reflection
and have hidden in my heart. Better were it for me to be removed and
the Churches to be at one, than that God's people should suffer such
evil through our childish ill-will. [Ask your fathers, and they will
tell you that though our districts were divided in position, yet in
mind they were one, and were governed by one sentiment. Intercourse
of the people was frequent; frequent the visits of the clergy; the
pastors, too, had such mutual affection, that each used the other as
teacher and guide in things pertaining to the Lord.]
Footnotes
[2733] Placed in 375.
[2734] Newman introduces his extracts from the following letter with
the prefatory remark: "If Basil's Semi-Arian connexions brought
suspicion upon himself in the eyes of Catholic believers, much more
would they be obnoxious to persons attached, as certain Neocæsareans
were, to the Sabellian party, who were in the opposite extreme to the
Semi-Arians and their especial enemies in those times. It is not
wonderful, then, that he had to write to the church in question in a
strain like the following." (Ch. of the Fathers. p. 98.) The
passages in brackets are Newman's version. The prime agent in the
slandering of Basil was presumably Atarbius, bishop of Neocæsarea.
[2735] John xiii. 35.
[2736] Rom. xiii. 10.
[2737] 1 Cor. xiii. 1-3.
[2738] The allusion may be to Mark xi. 23, but St. Paul would probably
reply to Basil that each of the points enumerated might proceed not
from love, but from vanity, ambition, or fanaticism.
[2739] tes diaboles.
[2740] i.e. ho diabolos. The little paronomasia is untranslatable.
[2741] John vii. 24.
[2742] 1 Cor. iv.
[2743] 1 Cor. iv. 5.
[2744] Matt. vii. 1.
[2745] Luke vi. 37.
[2746] 2 Tim. iv. 2.
[2747] up' odonta. Ben. Lat., intra dentes.
[2748] The Greek is paroikia which is used both for what is meant by
the modern "diocese" and by the modern "parish." Of the sense of
diocese instances are quoted among others in D.C.A. s.v. "Parish,"
from Iren. ad Florin. apud Euseb. H.E. v. 20; and Alexand. Alexandrin.
Ep. apud Theodoret, H.E. i. 3.
[2749] tois logois pneumatos hagiou, the reading of the mss. Bas. Sec.
and Paris. The commoner reading is logiois.
[2750] 1 Cor. xii. 8-10.
Letter CCV. [2751]
To Elpidius the bishop. [2752]
Once again I have started the well-beloved presbyter Meletius to carry
my greeting to you. I had positively determined to spare him, on
account of the weakness which he has voluntarily brought upon himself,
by bringing his body into subjection for the sake of the gospel of
Christ. But I have judged it fitting to salute you by the ministry of
such men as he is, able to supply of themselves all the shortcomings
of my letter, and to become, alike to writer and recipient, a kind of
living epistle. I am also carrying out the very strong wish, which he
has always had, to see your excellency, ever since he has had
experience of the high qualities you possess. So now I have besought
him to travel to you, and through him I discharge the debt of the
visit I owe you, and beseech you to pray for me and for the Church of
God, that the Lord may grant me deliverance from the injuries of the
enemies of the Gospel, and to pass my life in peace and quiet.
Nevertheless, if you in your wisdom, think it needful that we should
travel to the same spot, and meet the rest of our right honourable
brother bishops of the sea board regions, do you yourself point out a
suitable place and time where and when this meeting may take place.
Write to our brethren to the end that each and all may, at the
appointed time, leave the business they may have in hand, and may be
able to effect something for the edification of the Churches of God,
do away with the pain which we now suffer from our mutual suspicions,
and establish love, without which the Lord Himself has ordained that
obedience to every commandment must be of none effect.
Footnotes
[2751] Placed in 375.
[2752] Of what see is uncertain. He was in friendly relations with
Basil, and therefore was not in communion with Eustathius of Sebaste.
(Letter ccli.)
Letter CCVI. [2753]
To Elpidius the bishop. Consolatory.
Now, most of all, do I feel my bodily infirmity, when I see how it
stands in the way of my soul's good. Had matters gone as I hoped, I
should not now be speaking to you by letter or by messenger, but
should in my own person have been paying the debt of affection and
enjoying spiritual advantage face to face. Now, however, I am so
situated that I am only too glad if I am able even to move about in my
own country in the necessary visitation of parishes in my district.
But may the Lord grant to you both strength and a ready will, and to
me, in addition to my eager desire, ability to enjoy your society when
I am in the country of Comana. I am afraid lest your domestic trouble
may be some hindrance to you. For I have learnt of your affliction in
the loss of your little boy. To a grandfather his death cannot but be
grievous. On the other hand to a man who has attained to so high a
degree of virtue, and alike from his experience of this world and his
spiritual training knows what human nature is, it is natural that the
removal of those who are near and dear should not be wholly
intolerable. The Lord requires from us what He does not require from
every one. The common mass of mankind lives by habit, but the
Christian's rule of life is the commandment of the Lord, and the
example of holy men of old, whose greatness of soul was, above all,
exhibited in adversity. To the end, then, that you may yourself leave
to them that come after you an example of fortitude and of genuine
trust in what we hope for, show that you are not vanquished by your
grief, but are rising above your sorrows, patient in affliction, and
rejoicing in hope. Pray let none of these things be a hindrance to
our hoped for meeting. Children, indeed, are held blameless on
account of their tender age; but you and I are under the
responsibility of serving the Lord, as He commands us, and in all
things to be ready for the administration of the affairs of the
Churches. For the due discharge of that duty the Lord has reserved
great rewards for faithful and wise stewards.
Footnotes
[2753] Placed in 375.
Letter CCVII. [2754]
To the clergy of Neocæsarea.
You all concur in hating me. To a man you have followed the leader of
the war against me. [2755]I was therefore minded to say not a word
to any one. I determined that I would write no friendly letter; that
I would start no communication, but keep my sorrow in silence to
myself. Yet it is wrong to keep silence in the face of calumny; not
that by contradiction we may vindicate ourselves, but that we may not
allow a lie to travel further and its victims to be harmed. I have
therefore thought it necessary to put this matter also before you all,
and to write a letter to you, although, when I recently wrote to all
the presbyterate in common, you did not do me the honour to send me a
reply. Do not, my brethren, gratify the vanity of those who are
filling your minds with pernicious opinions. Do not consent to look
lightly on, when, to your knowledge, God's people are being subverted
by impious teaching. None but Sabellius the Libyan [2756] and
Marcellus the Galatian [2757] have dared to teach and write what the
leaders of your people are attempting to bring forward among you as
their own private discovery. They are making a great talk about it,
but they are perfectly powerless to give their sophisms and fallacies
even any colour of truth. In their harangues against me they shrink
from no wickedness, and persistently refuse to meet me. Why? Is it
not because they are afraid of being convicted for their own wicked
opinions? Yes; and in their attacks upon me they have become so lost
to all sense of shame as to invent certain dreams to my discredit
while they falsely accuse my teaching of being pernicious. Let them
take upon their own heads all the visions of the autumn months; they
can fix no blasphemy on me, for in every Church there are many to
testify to the truth.
2. When they are asked the reason for this furious and truceless war,
they allege psalms and a kind of music varying from the custom which
has obtained among you, and similar pretexts of which they ought to be
ashamed. We are, moreover, accused because we maintain men in the
practice of true religion who have renounced the world and all those
cares of this life, which the Lord likens to thorns that do not allow
the word to bring forth fruit. Men of this kind carry about in the
body the deadness of Jesus; they have taken up their own cross, and
are followers of God. I would gladly give my life if these really
were my faults, and if I had men with me owning me as teacher who had
chosen this ascetic life. I hear that virtue of this kind is to be
found now in Egypt, and there are, peradventure, some men in Palestine
whose conversation follows the precepts of the Gospel. I am told too
that some perfect and blessed men are to be found in Mesopotamia. We,
in comparison with the perfect, are children. But if women also have
chosen to live the Gospel life, preferring virginity to wedlock,
leading captive the lust of the flesh, and living in the mourning
which is called blessed, they are blessed in their profession wherever
they are to be found. We, however, have few instances of this to
show, for with us people are still in an elementary stage and are
being gradually brought. to piety. If any charges of disorder are
brought against the life of our women I do not undertake to defend
them. One thing, however, I do say and that is, that these bold
hearts, these unbridled mouths are ever fearlessly uttering what
Satan, the father of lies, has hitherto been unable to say. I wish
you to know that we rejoice to have assemblies of both men and women,
whose conversation is in heaven and who have crucified the flesh with
the affections and lusts thereof; they take no thought for food and
raiment, but remain undisturbed beside their Lord, continuing night
and day in prayer. Their lips speak not of the deeds of men: they
sing hymns to God continually, working with their own hands that they
may have to distribute to them that need.
3. Now as to the charge relating to the singing of psalms, whereby my
calumniators specially scare the simpler folk, my reply is this. The
customs which now obtain are agreeable to those of all the Churches of
God. Among us the people go at night to the house of prayer, and, in
distress, affliction, and continual tears, making confession to God,
at last rise from their prayers and begin to sing psalms. And now,
divided into two parts, they sing antiphonally with one another, thus
at once confirming their study of the Gospels, [2758] and at the same
time producing for themselves a heedful temper and a heart free from
distraction. Afterwards they again commit the prelude of the strain
to one, and the rest take it up; and so after passing the night in
various psalmody, praying at intervals as the day begins to dawn, all
together, as with one voice and one heart, raise the psalm of
confession to the Lord, each forming for himself his own expressions
of penitence. If it is for these reasons that you renounce me, you
will renounce the Egyptians; you will renounce both Libyans, Thebans,
Palestinians, Arabians, Phoenicians, Syrians, the dwellers by the
Euphrates; in a word all those among whom vigils, prayers, and common
psalmody have been held in honour.
4. But, it is alleged, these practices were not observed in the time
of the great Gregory. My rejoinder is that even the Litanies [2759]
which you now use were not used in his time. I do not say this to
find fault with you; for my prayer would be that every one of you
should live in tears and continual penitence. We, for our part, are
always offering supplication for our sins, but we propitiate our God
not as you do, in the words of mere man, but in the oracles of the
Spirit. And what evidence have you that this custom was not followed
in the time of the great Gregory? You have kept none of his customs
up to the present time. [2760]Gregory did not cover his head at
prayer. How could he? He was a true disciple of the Apostle who
says, "Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered,
dishonoureth his head." [2761]And "a man indeed ought not to cover
his head forasmuch as he is the image of God." [2762]Oaths were
shunned by Gregory, that pure soul, worthy of the fellowship of the
Holy Ghost, content with yea and nay, in accordance with the
commandment of the Lord Who said, "I say unto you swear not at all."
[2763]Gregory could not bear to call his brother a fool, [2764] for
he stood in awe of the threat of the Lord. Passion, wrath, and
bitterness never proceeded out of his mouth. Railing he hated,
because it leads not to the kingdom of heaven. Envy and arrogance had
been shut out of that guiltless soul. He would never have stood at
the altar before being reconciled to his brother. A lie, or any word
designed to slander any one, he abominated, as one who knew that lies
come from the devil, and that the Lord will destroy all that utter a
lie. [2765]If you have none of these things, and are clear of all,
then are you verily disciples of the disciple of the Lord; if not,
beware lest, in your disputes about the mode of singing psalms, you
are straining at the gnat and setting at naught the greatest of the
commandments.
I have been driven to use these expressions by the urgency of my
defence, that you may be taught to cast the beam out of your own eyes
before you try to remove other men's motes. Nevertheless, I am
conceding all, although there is nothing that is not searched into
before God. Only let great matters prevail, and do not allow
innovations in the faith to make themselves heard. Do not disregard
the hypostases. Do not deny the name of Christ. Do not put a wrong
meaning on the words of Gregory. If you do so, as long as I breathe
and have the power of utterance, I cannot keep silence, when I see
souls being thus destroyed.
Footnotes
[2754] Placed in 375.
[2755] i.e. Atarbius of Neocæsarea.
[2756] Basil is described as the earliest authority for making
Sabellius an African by birth. (D.C.B. iv. 569) There is no
contemporary authority for the statement.
[2757] i.e. of Ancyra.
[2758] ton logion. cf. note on Theodoret, p. 155.
[2759] The Ben. note observes that in this passage Litanies do not
mean processions or supplications, but penitential prayers. The
intercessory prayers which occur in the liturgy of St. Basil, as in
the introductory part of other Greek liturgies, are not confined to
quotations from Scripture.
[2760] This reproach appears to be in contradiction with the statement
in De Spiritu Sancto, § 74 (page 47), that the Church of Neocæsarea
had rigidly preserved the traditions of Gregory. The Ben. note would
remove the discrepancy by confining the rigid conservatism to matters
of importance. In these the Neocæsareans would tolerate no change,
and allowed no monasteries and no enrichment of their liturgies with
new rites. "Litanies," however, are regarded as comparatively
unimportant innovations. The note concludes: Neque enim secum ipse
pugnat Basilius, cum Neocæsarienses laudat in libro De Spiritu Sancto,
quod Gregorii instituta arctissime teneant. hic autem vituperat quod
ea omnino reliquerint. Illic enim respicit ad exteriora instituta,
hic autem ad virtutum exemplar, convicii et iracundiæ fugam, odium
juris jurandi et mendacii.
[2761] 1 Cor. xi. 4.
[2762] 1 Cor. xi. 7.
[2763] Matt. v. 34.
[2764] cf. Matt. v. 22.
[2765] Ps. v. 6, LXX.
Letter CCVIII. [2766]
To Eulancius.
You have been long silent, though you have very great power of speech,
and are well trained in the art of conversation and of exhibiting
yourself by your eloquence. Possibly it is Neocæsarea which is the
cause of your not writing to me. I suppose I must take it as a
kindness if those who are there do not remember me, for, as I am
informed by those who report what they hear, the mention made of me is
not kind. You, however, used to be one of those who were disliked for
my sake, not one of those who dislike me for the sake of others. I
hope this description will continue to fit you, that wherever you are
you will write to me, and will have kindly thoughts of me, if you care
at all for what is fair and right. It is certainly fair that those
who have been first to show affection should be paid in their own
coin.
Footnotes
[2766] Placed in 375.
Letter CCIX. [2767]
Without address.
It is your lot to share my distress, and to do battle on my behalf.
Herein is proof of your manliness. God, who ordains our lives, grants
to those who are capable of sustaining great fights greater
opportunity of winning renown. You truly have risked your own life as
a test of your valour in your friend's behalf, like gold in the
furnace. I pray God that other men may be made better; that you may
remain what you are, and that you will not cease to find fault with
me, as you do, and to charge me with not writing often to you, as a
wrong on my part which does you very great injury. This is an
accusation only made by a friend. Persist in demanding the payment of
such debts. I am not so very unreasonable in paying the claims of
affection.
Footnotes
[2767] Placed in 375.
Letter CCX. [2768]
To the notables of Neocæsarea.
I am really under no obligation to publish my own mind to you, or to
state the reasons for my present sojourn where I am; it is not my
custom to indulge in self advertisement, nor is the matter worth
publicity. I am not, I think, following my own inclinations; I am
answering the challenge of your leaders. I have always striven to be
ignored more earnestly than popularity hunters strive after
notoriety. But, I am told, the ears of everybody in your town are set
a thrilling, while certain tale-mongers, creators of lies, hired for
this very work, are giving you a history of me and my doings. I
therefore do not think that I ought to overlook your being exposed to
the teaching of vile intention and foul tongue; I think that I am
bound to tell you myself in what position I am placed. From my
childhood I have been familiar with this spot, for here I was brought
up by my grandmother; [2769] hither I have often retreated, and here I
have spent many years, when endeavouring to escape from the hubbub of
public affairs, for experience has taught me that the quiet and
solitude of the spot are favourable to serious thought. Moreover as
my brothers [2770] are now living here, I have gladly retired to this
retreat, and have taken a brief breathing time from the press of the
labours that beset me, not as a centre from which I might give trouble
to others, but to indulge my own longing.
2. Where then is the need of having recourse to dreams and of hiring
their interpreters, and making me matter for talk over the cups at
public entertainments? Had slander been launched against me in any
other quarter, I should have called you to witness to prove what I
think, and now I ask every one of you to remember those old days when
I was invited by your city to take charge of the education of the
young, and a deputation of the first men among you came to see me.
[2771]Afterwards, when you all crowded round me, what were you not
ready to give? what not to promise? Nevertheless you were not able to
keep me. How then could I, who at that time would not listen when you
invited me, now attempt to thrust myself on you uninvited? How could
I, who when you complimented and admired me, avoided you, have been
intending to court you now that you calumniate me? Nothing of the
kind, sirs; I am not quite so cheap. No man in his senses would go on
board a boat without a steersman, or get alongside a Church where the
men sitting at the helm are themselves stirring up tempest and storm.
Whose fault was it that the town was all full of tumult, when some
were running away with no one after them, and others stealing off when
no invader was near, and all the wizards and dream-tellers were
flourishing their bogeys? Whose fault was it else? Does not every
child know that it was the mob-leaders'? The reasons of their hatred
to me it would be bad taste on my part to recount; but they are quite
easy for you to apprehend. When bitterness and division have come to
the last pitch of savagery, and the explanation of the cause is
altogether groundless and ridiculous, then the mental disease is
plain, dangerous indeed to other people's comfort, but greatly and
personally calamitous to the patient. And there is one charming point
about them. Torn and racked with inward agony as they are, they
cannot yet for very shame speak out about it. The state they are in
may be known not only from their behaviour to me, but from the rest of
their conduct. If it were unknown, it would not much matter. But the
veritable cause of their shunning communication with me may be
unperceived by the majority among you. Listen; and I will tell you.
3. There is going on among you a movement ruinous to the faith,
disloyal to the apostolical and evangelical dogmas, disloyal too to
the tradition of Gregory the truly great, [2772] and of his successors
up to the blessed Musonius, whose teaching is still ringing in your
ears. [2773]For those men, who, from fear of confutation, are
forging figments against me, are endeavouring to renew the old
mischief of Sabellius, started long ago, and extinguished by the
tradition of the great Gregory. But do you bid goodbye to those
wine-laden heads, bemuddled by the swelling fumes that mount from
their debauch, and from me who am wide awake and from fear of God
cannot keep silence, hear what plague is rife among you. Sabellianism
is Judaism [2774] imported into the preaching of the Gospel under the
guise of Christianity. For if a man calls Father Son and Holy Ghost
one thing of many faces, [2775] and makes the hypostasis of the three
one, [2776] what is this but to deny the everlasting pre-existence of
the Only begotten? He denies too the Lord's sojourn among men in the
incarnation, [2777] the going down into hell, the resurrection, the
judgment; he denies also the proper operations of the Spirit. And I
hear that even rasher innovations than those of the foolish Sabellius
are now ventured on among you. It is said, and that on the evidence
of ear witnesses, that your clever men go to such an extreme as to say
that there is no tradition of the name of the Only-begotten, while of
the name of the adversary there is; and at this they are highly
delighted and elated, as though it were a discovery of their own. For
it is said, "I came in my Father's name and ye received me not; if
another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." [2778]And
because it is said, "Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," [2779]
it is obvious, they urge, that the name is one, for it is not "in the
names," but "in the name."
4. I blush so to write to you, for the men thus guilty are of my own
blood; [2780] and I groan for my own soul, in that, like boxers
fighting two men at once, I can only give the truth its proper force
by hitting with my proofs, and knocking down, the errors of doctrine
on the right and on the left. On one side I am attacked by the
Anomoean: on the other by the Sabellian. Do not, I implore you, pay
any attention to these abominable and impotent sophisms. Know that
the name of Christ which is above every name is His being called Son
of God, as Peter says, "There is none other name under heaven given
among men, whereby we must be saved." [2781]And as to the words "I
came in my Father's name," it is to be understood that He so says
describing His Father as origin and cause of Himself. [2782]And if
it is said "Go and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Ghost," we must not suppose that here one name is
delivered to us. For just as he who said Paul and Silvanus and
Timothy mentioned three names, and coupled them one to the other by
the word "and," so He who spoke of the name of Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, mentioned three, and united them by the conjunction, teaching
that with each name must be understood its own proper meaning; for the
names mean things. And no one gifted with even the smallest particle
of intelligence doubts that the existence belonging to the things is
peculiar and complete in itself. For of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
there is the same nature and one Godhead; but these are different
names, setting forth to a us the circumscription and exactitude of the
meanings. For unless the meaning of the distinctive qualities of each
be unconfounded, it is impossible for the doxology to be adequately
offered to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
If, however, they deny that they so say, and so teach, my object is
attained. Yet I see that this denial is no easy matter, because of
our having many witnesses who heard these things said. But let
bygones be bygones; let them only be sound now. If they persist in
the same old error I must proclaim your calamity even to other
Churches, and get letters written to you from more bishops. In my
efforts to break down this huge mass of impiety now gradually and
secretly growing, I shall either effect something towards the object I
have in view; or at least my present testimony will clear me of guilt
in the judgment day.
5. They have already inserted these expressions in their own
writings. They sent them first to the man of God, Meletius, [2783]
bishop, and after receiving from him a suitable reply, like mothers of
monsters, ashamed of their natural deformities, these men themselves
brought forth and bring up their disgusting offspring in appropriate
darkness. They made an attempt too by letter on my dear friend
Anthimus, bishop of Tyana, [2784] on the ground that Gregory had said
in his exposition of the faith [2785] that Father and Son are in
thought two, but in hypostasis one. [2786]The men who congratulate
themselves on the subtilty of their intelligence could not perceive
that this is said not in reference to dogmatic opinion, but in
controversy with Ælian. And in this dispute there are not a few
copyists' blunders, as, please God, I shall shew in the case of the
actual expressions used. But in his endeavour to convince the
heathen, he deemed it needless to be nice about the words he employed;
he judged it wiser sometimes to make concessions to the character of
the subject who was being persuaded, so as not to run counter to the
opportunity given him. This explains how it is that you may find
there many expressions which now give great support to the heretics,
as for instance "creature" [2787] and "thing made" [2788] and the
like. But those who ignorantly criticise these writings refer to the
question of the Godhead much that is said in reference to the
conjunction with man; as is the case with this passage which they are
hawking about. For it is indispensable to have clear understanding
that, as he who fails to confess the community of the essence or
substance falls into polytheism, so he who refuses to grant the
distinction of the hypostases is carried away into Judaism. For we
must keep our mind stayed, so to say, on certain underlying subject
matter, and, by forming a clear impression of its distinguishing
lines, so arrive at the end desired. For suppose we do not bethink us
of the Fatherhood, nor bear in mind Him of whom this distinctive
quality is marked off, how can we take in the idea of God the Father?
For merely to enumerate the differences of Persons [2789] is
insufficient; we must confess each Person [2790] to have a natural
existence in real hypostasis. Now Sabellius did not even deprecate
the formation of the persons without hypostasis, saying as he did that
the same God, being one in matter, [2791] was metamorphosed as the
need of the moment required, and spoken of now as Father, now as Son,
and now as Holy Ghost. The inventors of this unnamed heresy are
renewing the old long extinguished error; those, I mean, who are
repudiating the hypostases, and denying the name of the Son of God.
They must give over uttering iniquity against God, [2792] or they will
have to wail with them that deny the Christ.
6. I have felt compelled to write to you in these terms, that you may
be on your guard against the mischief arising from bad teaching. If
we may indeed liken pernicious teachings to poisonous drugs, as your
dream-tellers have it, these doctrines are hemlock and monkshood, or
any other deadly to man. It is these that destroy souls; not my
words, as this shrieking drunken scum, full of the fancies of their
condition, make out. If they had any sense they ought to know that in
souls, pure and cleansed from all defilement, the prophetic gift
shines clear. In a foul mirror you cannot see what the reflexion is,
neither can a soul preoccupied with cares of this life, and darkened
with the passions of the lust of the flesh, receive the rays of the
Holy Ghost. Every dream is not a prophecy, as says Zechariah, "The
Lord shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain,...for
the idols have spoken vanity and the diviners have told false dreams."
[2793]Those who, as Isaiah says, dream and love to sleep in their
bed [2794] forget that an operation of error is sent to "the children
of disobedience." [2795]And there is a lying spirit, which arose in
false prophecies, and deceived Ahab. [2796]Knowing this they ought
not to have been so lifted up as to ascribe the gift of prophecy to
themselves. They are shewn to fall far short even of the case of the
seer Balaam; for Balaam when invited by the king of Moab with mighty
bribes brooked not to utter a word beyond the will of God, nor to
curse Israel whom the Lord cursed not. [2797]If then their
sleep-fancies do not tally with the commandments of the Lord, let them
be content with the Gospels. The Gospels need no dreams to add to
their credit. The Lord has sent His peace to us, and left us a new
commandment, to love one another, but dreams bring strife and division
and destruction of love. Let them therefore not give occasion to the
devil to attack their souls in sleep; nor make their imaginations of
more authority than the instruction of salvation.
Footnotes
[2768] Placed in 375, the year after the composition of the De Spiritu
Sancto. It apparently synchronizes with Letter ccxxiii., in which
Basil more directly repels those calumnies of the versatile Eustathius
of Sebaste which he had borne in silence for three years. On Annesi,
from which he writes, and the occasion of the visit, see Prolegomena.
[2769] Macrina, at her residence at Annesi.
[2770] cf. Ep. ccxvi., where he speaks of going to the house of his
brother Peter near Neocæsarea. One of the five brothers apparently
died young, as the property of the elder Basil was at his death,
before 340, divided into nine portions, i.e. among the five daughters
and four surviving sons, the youngest, Peter, being then an infant.
(Greg. Nyss. Vita Mac. 186.) Naucratius, the second son, was killed
by an accident while hunting, c. 357. Gregory of Nyssa must,
therefore, be referred to in the text, if by "brothers" is meant
brothers in blood. Was it to Peter's "cottage" or some neighbouring
dwelling that Gregory fled when he escaped from the police of the
Vicar Demosthenes, in order not to obey the summons of Valens to his
synod at Ancrya? Is the cottage of Peter "some quiet spot" of Ep.
ccxxv.? The plural adelphon might be used conventionally, or
understood to include Peter and a sister or sisters.
[2771] i.e. when he was resident at Cæsarea in his earlier manhood.
If Letter ccclviii. (from Libanius to Basil refers to this period, it
would seem that for a time Basil did undertake school work.
[2772] i.e.Gregory Thaumaturgus. cf. note on p. 247.
[2773] Musonius, bp. of Neocæsarea, who died in 368. cf. Ep. xxviii.
[2774] cf. De Sp. S. § 77, p. 49and Ep. clxxxix. p. 229.
[2775] hen pragma poluprosopon . Another ms. reading is poluonumon,
"of many names."
[2776] cf. note on p. 195.
[2777] oikonomiken.
[2778] John v. 43. Slightly varied.
[2779] Matt. xxviii. 19.
[2780] The allusion is supposed to be to Atarbius. cf. Letter lxv.
[2781] Acts iv. 12.
[2782] cf. De Sp. S. § 44, p. 27.
[2783] Meletius of Antioch.
[2784] Tyana, at the north of Mount Taurus, is the city which gave a
distinctive name to Apollonius the Thaumaturge. That Basil should
speak in kindly and complimentary terms of Anthimus is remarkable, for
from few contemporaries did he suffer more. It was the quarrel in
which Anthimus attacked and plundered a train of Basil's sumpter
mules, and Gregory of Nazianzus fought stoutly for his friend, that
led to Basil's erecting Sasima into a bishopric, as a kind of buffer
see against his rival metropolitan. (Greg. Naz., Or. xliii. 356, Ep.
xxxi. and Carm. i. 8.) See Prolegomena.
[2785] The ekthesis tes pisteos of Gregory Thaumaturgus. cf. Ep.
cciv. and the De Sp. Scto. § 74. On the genuineness of the ekthesis,
vide D. C. Biog. i. 733. cf. Dorner's Christologie i. 737. It is
given at length in the Life of Greg. Thaumat. by Gregory of Nyssa, and
is found in the Latin Psalter, written in gold, which Charlemagne gave
to Adrian I. Bp. Bull's translation is as follows: "There is one God,
Father of Him who is the living Word, subsisting Wisdom and Power and
Eternal Impress, Perfect begotten of the Perfect, Father of the only
begotten Son. There is one Lord, Alone of the Alone, God of God,
Impress and Image of the Godhead, the operative Word; Wisdom
comprehensive of the system of the universe, and Power productive of
the whole creation; true Son of true Father, Invisible of Invisible
and Incorruptible of Incorruptible, and Immortal of Immortal, and
Eternal of Eternal. And there is one Holy Ghost, who hath His being
of God, who hath appeared through the Son, Image of the Son, Perfect
of the Perfect; Life, the cause of all them that live; Holy Fountain,
Holiness, the Bestower of Sanctification, in whom is manifested God
the Father, who is over all and in all, and God the Son, who is
through all. A Perfect Trinity, not divided nor alien in glory and
eternity and dominion."
[2786] The Ben. note refused to believe that so Sabellian an
expression can have been used by Gregory. Basil's explanation is that
it was used in controversy with a heathen on another subject, loosely
and not dogmatically. The words are said not to be found in any
extant document attributed to Gregory, whether genuine or doubtful.
But they may be matched in some of the expressions of Athanasius. cf.
p. 195. Ath., Tom. ad Af. § 4 and Hom. in Terem. viii. 96.
[2787] ktisma.
[2788] poiema.
[2789] prosopon.
[2790] prosopon.
[2791] to hupokeimeno.
[2792] Ps. lxxv. 5, LXX.
[2793] Zech. x. 1, 2.
[2794] cf. Is. lvi. 10.
[2795] Eph. ii. 2.
[2796] 1 Kings xxii. 22.
[2797] Num. xxii. 11.
Letter CCXI. [2798]
To Olympius. [2799]
Truly when I read your excellency's letter I felt unwonted pleasure
and cheerfulness; and when I met your well-beloved sons, I seemed to
behold yourself. They found me in the deepest affliction, but they so
behaved as to make me forget the hemlock, which your dreamers and
dream mongers are carrying about to my hurt, to please the people who
have hired them. Some letters I have already sent; others, if you
like, shall follow. I only hope that they may be of some advantage to
the recipients.
Footnotes
[2798] Placed in 375.
[2799] cf. Letters iv., xii., xiii., cxxxi.
Letter CCXII. [2800]
To Hilarius. [2801]
1. You can imagine what I felt, and in what state of mind I was, when
I came to Dazimon and found that you had left a few days before my
arrival. From my boyhood I have held you in admiration, and,
therefore, ever since our old school days, have placed a high value on
intercourse with you. But another reason for my doing so is that
nothing is so precious now as a soul that loves the truth, and is
gifted with a sound judgment in practical affairs. This, I think, is
to be found in you. I see most men, as in the hippodrome, divided
into factions, some for one side and some for another, and shouting
with their parties. But you are above fear, flattery, and every
ignoble sentiment, and so naturally look at truth with an unprejudiced
eye. And I see that you are deeply interested in the affairs of the
Churches, about which you have sent me a letter, as you have said in
your last. I should like to know who took charge of the conveyance of
this earlier epistle, that I may know who has wronged me by its loss.
No letter from you on this subject has yet reached me.
2. How much, then, would I not have given to meet you, that I might
tell you all my troubles? When one is in pain it is, as you know,
some alleviation, even to describe it. How gladly would I have
answered your questions, not trusting to lifeless letters, but in my
own person, narrating each particular. The persuasive force of living
words is more efficient and they are not so susceptible as letters to
attack and to misrepresentation. For now no one has left anything
untried, and the very men in whom I put the greatest confidence, men,
who when I saw them among others, I used to think something more than
human, have received documents written by some one, and have sent them
on, whatever they are, as mine, and on their account are calumniating
me to the brethren as though there is nothing now that pious and
faithful men ought to hold in greater abhorrence than my name. From
the beginning it has been my object to live unknown, to a degree not
reached by anyone who has considered human infirmity; but now, just as
though on the other hand it had been my purpose to make myself
notorious to the world, I have been talked about all over the earth,
and I may add all over the sea too. For men, who go to the last limit
of impiety, and are introducing into the Churches the godless opinion
of Unlikeness, [2802] are waging war against me. Those too who hold
the via media, [2803] as they think, and, though they start from the
same principles, do not follow out their logical consequences, because
they are so opposed to the view of the majority, are equally hostile
to me, overwhelming me to the utmost of their ability with their
reproaches, and abstaining from no insidious attacks against me. But
the Lord has made their endeavours vain.
Is not this a grievous state of things? Must it not make my life
painful? I have at all events one consolation in my troubles, my
bodily infirmity. This I am sure will not suffer me to remain much
longer in this miserable life. No more on this point. You too I
exhort, in your bodily infirmity, to bear yourself bravely and worthy
of the God Who has called us. If He sees us accepting our present
circumstances with thanksgiving, He will either put away our troubles
as He did Job's, or will requite us with the glorious crowns of
patience in the life to come.
Footnotes
[2800] Placed in 375.
[2801] An old schoolfellow of Basil's, of whom nothing seems to be
known but what is gathered from this letter.
[2802] i.e.the Anomoeans. On the use of the word dogma for an
heretical tenet, cf. note on p. 41.
[2803] The Ben. note remarks that at first sight Eustathius of
Sebasteia seems to be pointed at, for in Letter cxxviii. Basil speaks
of him as occupying a contemptible half-and-half position. But,
continues the note: Si res attentius consideretur, non Eustathium
proprie hoc loco, sed generatim eosdem hæreticos, quos contra liber De
Spiritu Sancto scriptus est, perspicuum erit notari. Nam medius ille
Eustathii status in eo positus erat, quod nec catholicus potentioribus
Arianis catholicis videri vellet. Nondum aperti cum Arianis
conjunctus, nec probare quæ ipsi a Basilio proponebantur. At quos hic
commemorat Basilius, hi catholicæ doctrinæ bellum apertum in dixerant,
et quamvis dissimilitudinis impietatem fugere viderentur, iisdem
tamen, ac Anomoei, principiis stabant. Hoc eis exprobat Basilius in
libro De Spiritu Sancto, cap. 2, ubi impias eorum de Filio ac Spiritu
sancto nugas ex principiis Aetii deductas esse demonstrat, idem
hæretici non desierunt nefaria Basillii expellendi consilia inire.
Eorum convicia in Basilium, insidias et nefarias molitiones, furorem
ac bellum inexpiabile, vide in libro De Spiritu Sancto, num. 13, 25,
34, 52, 60, 69, 75.
Letter CCXIII. [2804]
Without address.
1. May the Lord, Who has brought me prompt help in my afflictions,
grant you the help of the refreshment wherewith you have refreshed me
by writing to me, rewarding you for your consolation of my humble self
with the real and great gladness of the Spirit. For I was indeed
downcast in soul when I saw in a great multitude the almost brutish
and unreasonable insensibility of the people, and the inveterate and
ineradicable unsatisfactoriness of their leaders. But I saw your
letter; I saw the treasure of love which it contained; then I knew
that He Who ordains all our lives had made some sweet consolation
shine on me in the bitterness of my life. I therefore salute your
holiness in return, and exhort you, as is my wont, not to cease to
pray for my unhappy life, that I may never, drowned in the unrealities
of this world, forget God, "who raiseth up the poor out of the dust;"
[2805] that I may never be lifted up with pride and fall into the
condemnation of the devil; [2806] that I may never be found by the
Lord neglectful of my stewardship and asleep; never discharging it
amiss, and wounding the conscience of my fellow-servants; [2807] and,
never companying with the drunken, suffer the pains threatened in
God's just judgment against wicked stewards. I beseech you,
therefore, in all your prayers to pray God that I may be watchful in
all things; that I may be no shame or disgrace to the name of Christ,
in the revelation of the secrets of my heart, in the great day of the
appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ.
2. Know then that I am expecting to be summoned by the wickedness of
the heretics to the court, in the name of peace. Learn too that on
being so informed, this bishop [2808] wrote to me to hasten to
Mesopotamia, and, after assembling together those who in that country
are of like sentiments with us, and are strengthening the state of the
Church, to travel in their company to the emperor. But perhaps my
health will not be good enough to allow me to undertake a journey in
the winter. Indeed, hitherto I have not thought the matter pressing,
unless you advise it. I shall therefore await your counsel that my
mind may be made up. Lose no time then, I beg you, in making known to
me, by means of one of our trusty brethren, what course seems best to
the divinely guided intelligence of your excellency.
Footnotes
[2804] Placed in 375.
[2805] Ps. cxiii. 7.
[2806] cf. 1 Tim. iii. 6.
[2807] cf. 1 Cor. viii. 12.
[2808] Maran (Vit. Bas. vi) conjectures this bishop to be Meletius,
and refers to the beginning of Letter ccxvi. with an expression of
astonishment that Tillemont should refer this letter to the year 373.
Letter CCXIV. [2809]
To Count Terentius. [2810]
1. When I heard that your excellency had again been compelled to take
part in public affairs, I was straightway distressed (for the truth
must be told) at the thought of how contrary to your mind it must be
that you after once giving up the anxieties of official life, and
allowing yourself leisure for the care of your soul, should again be
forced back into your old career. But then I bethought me that
peradventure the Lord has ordained that your lordship should again
appear in public from this wish to grant the boon of one alleviation
for the countless pains which now beset the Church in our part of the
world. I am, moreover, cheered by the thought that I am about to meet
your excellency once again before I depart this life.
2. But a further rumour has reached me that you are in Antioch, and
are transacting the business in hand with the chief authorities. And,
besides this, I have heard that the brethren who are of the party of
Paulinus are entering on some discussion with your excellency on the
subject of union with us; and by "us" I mean those who are supporters
of the blessed man of God, Meletius. [2811]I hear, moreover, that
the Paulinians are carrying about a letter of the Westerns, [2812]
assigning to them the episcopate of the Church in Antioch, but
speaking under a false impression of Meletius, the admirable bishop of
the true Church of God. I am not astonished at this. They [2813] are
totally ignorant of what is going on here; the others, though they
might be supposed to know, give an account to them in which party is
put before truth; and it is only what one might expect that they
should either be ignorant of the truth, or should even endeavour to
conceal the reasons which led the blessed Bishop Athanasius to write
to Paulinus. But your excellency has on the spot those who are able
to tell you accurately what passed between the bishops in the reign of
Jovian, and from them I beseech you to get information. [2814]I
accuse no one; I pray that I may have love to all, and "especially
unto them who are of the household of faith;" [2815] and therefore I
congratulate those who have received the letter from Rome. And,
although it is a grand testimony in their favour, I only hope it is
true and confirmed by facts. But I shall never be able to persuade
myself on these grounds to ignore Meletius, or to forget the Church
which is under him, or to treat as small, and of little importance to
the true religion, the questions which originated the division. I
shall never consent to give in, merely because somebody is very much
elated at receiving a letter from men. [2816]Even if it had come
down from heaven itself, but he does not agree with the sound doctrine
of the faith, I cannot look upon him as in communion with the saints.
3. Consider well, my excellent friend, that the falsifiers of the
truth, who have introduced the Arian schism as an innovation on the
sound faith of the Fathers, advance no other reason for refusing to
accept the pious opinion of the Fathers than the meaning of the
homoousion which they hold in their wickedness, and to the slander of
the whole faith, alleging our contention to be that the Son is
consubstantial in hypostasis. If we give them any opportunity by our
being carried away by men who propound these sentiments and their
like, rather from simplicity than from malevolence, there is nothing
to prevent our giving them an unanswerable ground of argument against
ourselves and confirming the heresy of those whose one end is in all
their utterances about the Church, not so much to establish their own
position as to calumniate mine. What more serious calumny could there
be? What better calculated to disturb the faith of the majority than
that some of us could be shewn to assert that there is one hypostasis
of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? We distinctly lay down that there is
a difference of Persons; but this statement was anticipated by
Sabellius, who affirms that God is one by hypostasis, but is described
by Scripture in different Persons, according to the requirements of
each individual case; sometimes under the name of Father, when there
is occasion for this Person; sometimes under the name of Son when
there is a descent to human interests or any of the operations of the
oeconomy; [2817] and sometimes under the Person of Spirit when the
occasion demands such phraseology. If, then, any among us are shewn
to assert that Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one in substance, [2818]
while we maintain the three perfect Persons, how shall we escape
giving clear and incontrovertible proof of the truth of what is being
asserted about us?
4. The non-identity of hypostasis and ousia is, I take it, suggested
even by our western brethren, where, from a suspicion of the
inadequacy of their own language, they have given the word ousia in
the Greek, to the end that any possible difference of meaning might be
preserved in the clear and unconfounded distinction of terms. If you
ask me to state shortly my own view, I shall state that ousia has the
same relation to hypostasis as the common has to the particular.
Every one of us both shares in existence by the common term of essence
(ousia) and by his own properties is such an one and such an one. In
the same manner, in the matter in question, the term ousia is common,
like goodness, or Godhead, or any similar attribute; while hypostasis
is contemplated in the special property of Fatherhood, Sonship, or the
power to sanctify. If then they describe the Persons as being without
hypostasis, [2819] the statement is per se absurd; but if they concede
that the Persons exist in real hypostasis, as they acknowledge, let
them so reckon them that the principle of the homoousion may be
preserved in the unity of the Godhead, and that the doctrine preached
may be the recognition of true religion, of Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, in the perfect and complete hypostasis of each of the Persons
named. Nevertheless, there is one point which I should like to have
pressed on your excellency, that you and all who like you care for the
truth, and honour the combatant in the cause of true religion, ought
to wait for the lead to be taken in bringing about this union and
peace by the foremost authorities in the Church, whom I count as
pillars and foundations of the truth and of the Church, and reverence
all the more because they have been sent away for punishment, and have
been exiled far from home. Keep yourself, I implore you, clear of
prejudice, that in you, whom God has given me as a staff and support
in all things, I may be able to find rest. [2820]
Footnotes
[2809] Placed in 375.
[2810] cf. Letters xcix. and cv.
[2811] On the divisions of Antioch, cf. Theod., H.E. iii. 2. Basil
was no doubt taking the wise course in supporting Meletius, whose
personal orthodoxy was unimpeachable. But the irreconcilable
Eustathians could not forgive him his Arian nomination.
[2812] This description might apply to either of the two letters
written by Damasus to Paulinus on the subject of the admission to
communion of Vitalius, bishop of the Apollinarian schism at Antioch.
(Labbe. Conc. ii. 864 and 900, and Theod. H.E. v. ii.) The dates may
necessitate its being referred to the former.
[2813] i.e. the Westerns.
[2814] cf. Letter cclviii. and the Prolegomena to Athanasius in this
edition, p. lxi. The events referred to took place in the winter of
363, when Athanasius was at Antioch, and in the early part of 364 on
his return to Alexandria.
[2815] Gal. vi. 10.
[2816] St. Basil seems quite unaware of any paramount authority in a
letter from Rome. cf. Prolegomena.
[2817] Vide notes, pp. 7 and 12. On Sabellius, cf. note on Letter
ccxxxvi.
[2818] to hupokeimenon.
[2819] anupostata
[2820] On the point treated of in this letter, cf. note on p. 5 and
Letter xxxviii. p. 137. But in the De S.S. cap. 38 (p. 23) St. Basil
himself repudiates the assertion of three "original hypostases," when
he is apparently using hupostasis in the Nicene sense.
Letter CCXV. [2821]
To the Presbyter Dorotheus.
I took the earliest opportunity of writing to the most admirable Count
Terentius, thinking it better to write to him on the subject in hand
by means of strangers, and being anxious that our very dear brother
Acacius shall not be inconvenienced by any delay. I have therefore
given my letter to the government treasurer, who is travelling by the
imperial post, and I have charged him to shew the letter to you
first. I cannot understand how it is that no one has told you that
the road to Rome is wholly impracticable in winter, the country
between Constantinople and our own regions being full of enemies. If
the route by sea must be taken, the season will be favourable; if
indeed my God-beloved brother Gregory [2822] consents to the voyage
and to the commission concerning these matters. For my own part, I do
not know who can go with him, and am aware that he is quite
inexperienced in ecclesiastical affairs. With a man of kindly
character he may get on very well, and be treated with respect, but
what possible good could accrue to the cause by communication between
a man proud and exalted, and therefore quite unable to hear those who
preach the truth to him from a lower standpoint, and a man like my
brother, to whom anything like mean servility is unknown?
Footnotes
[2821] Placed in 375.
[2822] i.e. of Nyssa, an unsuitable envoy to Damascus.
Letter CCXVI. [2823]
To Meletius, bishop of Antioch.
Many other [2824] journeys have taken me from home. I have been as
far as Pisidia to settle the matters concerning the brethren in
Isauria in concert with the Pisidian bishops. Thence I journeyed into
Pontus, for Eustathius had caused no small disturbance at Dazimon, and
had caused there a considerable secession from our church. I even
went as far as the home of my brother Peter, [2825] and, as this is
not far from Neocæsarea, there was occasion of considerable trouble to
the Neocæsareans, and of much rudeness to myself. Some men fled when
no one was in pursuit. And I was supposed to be intruding uninvited,
simply to get compliments from the folk there. As soon as I got home,
after contracting a severe illness from the bad weather and my
anxieties, I straightway received a letter from the East to tell me
that Paulinus had had certain letters from the West addressed to him,
in acknowledgement of a sort of higher claim; and that the Antiochene
rebels were vastly elated by them, and were next preparing a form of
creed, and offering to make its terms a condition of union with our
Church. Besides all this it was reported to me that they had seduced
to their faction that most excellent man Terentius. I wrote to him at
once as forcibly as I could, to induce him to pause; and I tried to
point out their disingenuousness.
Footnotes
[2823] Placed in 375.
[2824] On this word other the Ben. note grounds the argument that
Meletius had proposed a journey which Basil had not undertaken, and
hence that the unnamed bishop of Letter ccxiii. is Meletius; and
further that the fact of the bishop not being named in ccxiii., and
the obscurity of this and of other letters, may indicate the writer's
hesitation to put particulars in his letters which might be more
discreetly left to be conveyed by word of mouth.
[2825] i.e. the settlement on the Iris, where Peter had succeeded
Basil as Head.
Letter CCXVII.
To Amphilochius, the Canons. [2826]
On my return from a long journey (for I have been into Pontus on
ecclesiastical business, and to visit my relations) with my body weak
and ill, and my spirits considerably broken, I took your reverence's
letter into my hand. No sooner did I receive the tokens of that voice
which to me is of all voices the sweetest, and of that hand that I
love so well, than I forgot all my troubles. And if I was made so
much more cheerful by the receipt of your letter, you ought to be able
to conjecture at what value I price your actual presence. May this be
granted me by the Holy One, whenever it may be convenient to you and
you yourself send me an invitation. And if you were to come to the
house at Euphemias it would indeed be pleasant for me to meet you,
escaping from my vexations here, and hastening to your unfeigned
affection. Possibly also for other reasons I may be compelled to go
as far as Nazianzus by the sudden departure of the very God-beloved
bishop Gregory. How or why this has come to pass, so far I have no
information. [2827]The man about whom I had spoken to your
excellency, and whom you expected to be ready by this time, has, you
must know, fallen ill of a lingering disease, and is moreover now
suffering from an affection of the eyes, arising from his old
complaint and from the illness which has now befallen him, and he is
quite unfit to do any work. I have no one else with me. It is
consequently better, although the matter was left by them to me, for
some one to be put forward by them. And indeed one cannot but think
that the expressions were used merely as a necessary form, and that
what they really wished was what they originally requested, that the
person selected for the leadership should be one of themselves. If
there is any one of the lately baptized, [2828] whether Macedonius
approve or not, let him be appointed. You will instruct him in his
duties, the Lord, Who in all things cooperates with you, granting you
His grace for this work also.
LI. As to the clergy, the Canons have enjoined without making any
distinction that one penalty is assigned for the lapsed,--ejection
from the ministry, whether they be in orders [2829] or remain in the
ministry which is conferred without imposition of hands.
LII. The woman who has given birth to a child and abandoned it in the
road, if she was able to save it and neglected it, or thought by this
means to hide her sin, or was moved by some brutal and inhuman motive,
is to be judged as in a case of murder. If, on the other hand, she
was unable to provide for it. and the child perish from exposure and
want of the necessities of life, the mother is to be pardoned.
LIII. The widowed slave is not guilty of a serious fall if she adopts
a second marriage under colour of rape. She is not on this ground
open to accusation. It is rather the object than the pretext which
must be taken into account, but it is clear that she is exposed to the
punishment of digamy. [2830]
LIV. I know that I have already written to your reverence, so far as
I can, on the distinctions to be observed in cases of involuntary
homicide, [2831] and on this point I can say no more. It rests with
your intelligence to increase or lessen the severity of the punishment
as each individual case may require.
LV. Assailants of robbers, if they are outside, are prohibited from
the communion of the good thing. [2832]If they are clerics they are
degraded from their orders. For, it is said, "All they that take the
sword shall perish with the sword." [2833]
LVI. The intentional homicide, who has afterwards repented, will be
excommunicated from the sacrament [2834] for twenty years. The twenty
years will be appointed for him as follows: for four he ought to
weep, standing outside the door of the house of prayer, beseeching the
faithful as they enter in to offer prayer in his behalf, and
confessing his own sin. After four years he will be admitted among
the hearers, and during five years will go out with them. During
seven years he will go out with the kneelers, [2835] praying. During
four years he will only stand with the faithful, and will not take
part in the oblation. On the completion of this period he will be
admitted to participation of the sacrament.
LVII. The unintentional homicide will be excluded for ten years from
the sacrament. The ten years will be arranged as follows: For two
years he will weep, for three years he will continue among the
hearers; for four he will be a kneeler; and for one he will only
stand. Then he will be admitted to the holy rites.
LVIII. The adulterer will be excluded from the sacrament for fifteen
years. During four he will be a weeper, and during five a hearer,
during four a kneeler, and for two a slander without communion.
LIX. The fornicator will not be admitted to participation in the
sacrament for seven years; [2836] weeping two, hearing two, kneeling
two, and standing one: in the eighth he will be received into
communion.
LX. The woman who has professed virginity and broken her promise will
complete the time appointed in the case of adultery in her continence.
[2837]The same rule will be observed in the case of men who have
professed a solitary life and who lapse.
LXI. The thief, if he have repented of his own accord and charged
himself, shall only be prohibited from partaking of the sacrament for
a year; if he be convicted, for two years. The period shall be
divided between kneeling and standing. Then let him be held worthy of
communion.
LXII. He who is guilty of unseemliness with males will be under
discipline for the same time as adulterers.
LXIII. He who confesses his iniquity in the case of brutes shall
observe the same time in penance.
LXIV. Perjurers shall be excommunicated for ten years; weeping for
two, hearing for three, kneeling for four, and standing only during
one year; then they shall be held worthy of communion.
LXV. He who confesses magic or sorcery shall do penance for the time
of murder, and shall be treated in the same manner as he who convicts
himself of this sin.
LXVI. The tomb breaker shall be excommunicated for ten years, weeping
for two, hearing for three, kneeling for four, standing for one, then
he shall be admitted.
LXVII. Incest with a sister shall incur penance for the same time as
murder.
LXVIII. The union of kindred within the prohibited degrees of
marriage, if detected as having taken place in acts of sin, shall
receive the punishment of adultery. [2838]
LXIX. The Reader who has intercourse with his betrothed before
marriage, shall be allowed to read after a year's suspension,
remaining without advancement. If he has had secret intercourse
without betrothal, he shall be deposed from his ministry. So too the
minister. [2839]
LXX. The deacon who has been polluted in lips, and has confessed his
commission of this sin, shall be removed from his ministry. But he
shall be permitted to partake of the sacrament together with the
deacons. The same holds good in the case of a priest. If any one be
detected in a more serious sin, whatever be his degree, he shall be
deposed. [2840]
LXXI. Whoever is aware of the commission of any one of the
aforementioned sins, and is convicted without having confessed, shall
be under punishment for the same space of time as the actual
perpetrator.
LXXII. He who has entrusted himself [2841] to soothsayers, or any
such persons, shall be under discipline for the same time as the
homicide.
LXXIII. He who has denied Christ, and sinned against the mystery of
salvation, ought to weep all his life long, and is bound to remain in
penitence, being deemed worthy of the sacrament in the hour of death,
through faith in the mercy of God.
LXXIV. If, however, each man who has committed the former sins is
made good, through penitence, [2842] he to whom is committed by the
loving-kindness of God the power of loosing and binding [2843] will
not be deserving of condemnation, if he become less severe, as he
beholds the exceeding greatness of the penitence of the sinner, so as
to lessen the period of punishment, for the history in the Scriptures
informs us that all who exercise penitence [2844] with greater zeal
quickly receive the loving-kindness of God. [2845]
LXXV. The man who has been polluted with his own sister, either on
the father's or the mother's side, must not be allowed to enter the
house of prayer, until he has given up his iniquitous and unlawful
conduct. And, after he has come to a sense of that fearful sin, let
him weep for three years standing at the door of the house of prayer,
and entreating the people as they go in to prayer that each and all
will mercifully offer on his behalf their prayers with earnestness to
the Lord. After this let him be received for another period of three
years to hearing alone, and while hearing the Scriptures and the
instruction, let him be expelled and not be admitted to prayer.
Afterwards, if he has asked it with tears and has fallen before the
Lord with contrition of heart and great humiliation, let kneeling be
accorded to him during other three years. Thus, when he shall have
worthily shown the fruits of repentance, let him be received in the
tenth year to the prayer of the faithful without oblation; and after
standing with the faithful in prayer for two years, then, and not till
then, let him be held worthy of the communion of the good thing.
LXXVI. The same rule applies to those who take their own daughters in
law.
LXXVII. He who abandons the wife, lawfully united to him, is subject
by the sentence of the Lord to the penalty of adultery. But it has
been laid down as a canon by our Fathers that such sinners should weep
for a year, be hearers for two years, in kneeling for three years,
stand with the faithful in the seventh; and thus be deemed worthy of
the oblation, if they have repented with tears. [2846]
LXXVIII. Let the same rule hold good in the case of those who marry
two sisters, although at different times. [2847]
LXXIX. Men who rage after their stepmothers are subject to the same
canon as those who rage after their sisters. [2848]
LXXX. On polygamy the Fathers are silent, as being brutish and
altogether inhuman. The sin seems to me worse than fornication. It
is therefore reasonable that such sinners should be subject to the
canons; namely a year's weeping, three years kneeling and then
reception. [2849]
LXXXI. During the invasion of the barbarians many men have sworn
heathen oaths, tasted things unlawfully offered them in magic temples
and so have broken their faith in God. Let regulations be made in the
case of these men in accordance with the canons laid down by our
Fathers. [2850]Those who have endured grievous tortures and have
been forced to denial, through inability to sustain the anguish, may
be excluded for three years, hearers for two, kneelers for three, and
so be received into communion. Those who have abandoned their faith
in God, laying hands on the tables of the demons and swearing heathen
oaths, without under going great violence, should be excluded for
three years, hearers for two. When they have prayed for three years
as kneelers, and have stood other three with the faithful in
supplication, then let them be received into the communion of the good
thing.
LXXXII. As to perjurers, if they have broken their oaths under
violent compulsion, they are under lighter penalties and may therefore
be received after six years. If they break their faith without
compulsion, let them be weepers for two years, hearers for three, pray
as kneelers for five, during two be received into the communion of
prayer, without oblation, and so at last, after giving proof of due
repentance, they shall be restored to the communion of the body of
Christ.
LXXXIII. Consulters of soothsayers and they who follow heathen
customs, or bring persons into their houses to discover remedies and
to effect purification, should fall under the canon of six years.
After weeping a year, hearing a year, kneeling for three years and
standing with the faithful for a year so let them be received.
LXXXIV. I write all this with a view to testing the fruits of
repentance. [2851]I do not decide such matters absolutely by time,
but I give heed to the manner of penance. If men are in a state in
which they find it hard to be weaned from their own ways and choose
rather to serve the pleasures of the flesh than to serve the Lord, and
refuse to accept the Gospel life, there is no common ground between me
and them. In the midst of a disobedient and gainsaying people I have
been taught to hear the words "Save thy own soul." [2852]Do not
then let us consent to perish together with such sinners. Let us fear
the awful judgment. Let us keep before our eyes the terrible day of
the retribution of the Lord. Let us not consent to perish in other
men's sins, for if the terrors of the Lord have not taught us, if so
great calamities have not brought us to feel that it is because of our
iniquity that the Lord has abandoned us, and given us into the hands
of barbarians, that the people have been led captive before our foes
and given over to dispersion, because the bearers of Christ's name
have dared such deeds; if they have not known nor understood that it
is for these reasons that the wrath of God has come upon us, what
common ground of argument have I with them?
But we ought to testify to them day and night, alike in public and in
private. Let us not consent to be drawn away with them in their
wickedness. Let us above all pray that we may do them good, and
rescue them from the snare of the evil one. If we cannot do this, let
us at all events do our best to save our own souls from everlasting
damnation.
Footnotes
[2826] The third canonical letter, written on Basil's return from
Pontus, in 375.
[2827] This is the sudden disappearance of Gregory from Nazianzus at
the end of 375, which was due at once to his craving for retirement
and his anxiety not to complicate the appointment of a successor to
his father (who died early in 374) in the see of Nazianzus. He found
a refuge in the monastery of Thecla at the Isaurian Seleucia. (Carm.
xi. 549.)
[2828] The Ben. note appositely points out that any astonishment, such
as expressed by Tillemont, at the consecration of a neophyte, is quite
out of place, in view of the exigencies of the times and the practice
of postponing baptism. St. Ambrose at Milan and Nectarius at
Constantinople were not even "neophytes," but were actually unbaptized
at the time of their appointment to their respective sees. "If there
is any one among the lately baptized," argues the Ben. note, is
tantamount to saying "If there is any one fit to be bishop."
[2829] eite en bathuo. This is understood by Balsamon and Zonaras to
include Presbyters, Deacons, and sub-deacons; while the ministry
conferred without imposition of hands refers to Readers, Singers,
Sacristans, and the like. Alexius Aristenus ranks Singers and Readers
with the higher orders, and understands by the lower, keepers of the
sacred vessels, candle-lighters, and chancel door keepers. The Ben.
note inclines to the latter view on the ground that the word "remain"
indicates a category where there was no advance to a higher grade, as
was the case with Readers and Singers.
[2830] cf. Can. xxx. p. 239.
[2831] i.e. in Canon viii. p. 226 and Canon xi. p. 228.
[2832] Here reading, punctuation, and sense are obscure. The Ben. Ed.
have exo men ontes, tes koinonias eirgontai, and render "Si sint
quidem laici, a boni communione arcentur." But exo ontes, standing
alone, more naturally means non-Christians. Balsamon and Zonaras in
Pandects have exo men ontes tes 'Ekklesias eirgontai tes koinonias tou
agathou.
[2833] Matt. xxvi. 52.
[2834] hagiasmasi. The Ben. Ed. render Sacramento. In the Sept.
(e.g. Amos vii. 13) the word=sanctuary. In patristic usage both S.
and P. are found for the Lord's Supper, or the consecrated elements;
e.g. hagiasma in Greg. Nyss., Ep. Canon. Can. v. The plural as in
this place "frequentius." (Suicer s.v.)
[2835] meta ton en hupoptosei. The hupopiptontes or substrati
constituted the third and chief station in the oriental system of
penance, the first and second being the prosklaiontes, flentes or
weepers, and the akroomenos, audientes, or hearers. In the Western
Church it is the substrati who are commonly referred to as being in
penitence, and the Latin versions of the Canons of Ancyra by Dionysius
Exiguus and Martin of Braga render hupopiptontes and hupoptosis by
poenitentis and poenitentia. In Basil's Canon xxii. p. 238, this
station is specially styled metanoia. cf. D.C.A. ii. 1593. "Metanoia
notat poenitentiam eorum qui ob delicta sua in ecclesia epitimiois
esophronizonto (Zonaras, Ad. Can. v. Conc. Antioch, p. 327), quique
dicebantur oi en metanoia ontes. Chrysostom, Hom. iii. in Epist. ad
Eph. in S. Coenæ communione clamabat kerux, hosoi en metanoi& 139;
apelthete pantes." Suicer s.v.
[2836] cf. Can. xxii. p. 228. The Ben. note is "Laborant Balsamon et
Zonaras in hoc canone conciliando cum vicesimo secundo, atque id causæ
afferunt, cur in vicesimo secundo quatuor anni, septem in altero
decernantur, quod Basilius in vicesimo secundo antiqua Patrum placita
sequatur, suam in altero propriam sententiam exponat. Eundem hunc
canonem Alexius Aristenus, ut clarum et perspicuum, negat explicatione
indigere. Videbat nimirum doctissimus scriptor duplicem a Basilio
distingui fornicationem, leviorem alteram, alteram graviorem levior
dicitur, quæ inter personas matrimonio solutas committitur: gravior,
cum conjugati hominis libido in mulierem solutam erumpit. Priori anni
quatuor, septem alteri imponuntur. Manifesta res est ex canone 21,
ubi conjugati peccatum cum soluta fornicationem appellat Basilius, ac
longioribus poenis coerceri, non tamen instar adulterii, testatur. In
canone autem 77 eum qui legitiman uxorem dimittit, et aliam ducit,
adulterum quidem esse ex Domini sententia testatur, sed tamen ex
canonibus Patrum annos septem decernit, non quindecim, ut in adulterio
cum aliena uxore commisso. Secum ergo non pugnat cum fornicationi
nunc annos quatuor, nunc septem, adulterio nunc septem, nunc quindecim
indicit. Eamdem in sententiam videtur accipiendus canon quartus
epistolæ Sancti Gregorii Nysseni ad Letoium. Nam cum fornicationi
novem annos, adulterio decem et octo imponit, gravior illa
intelligenda fornicatio, quam conjugatur cum soluta committit. Hinc
ilium adulterium videri fatetur his qui accuratius examinant.
[2837] cf. Can. xviii. Augustine (De Bono Viduitatis, n. 14)
represents breaches of the vows of chastity as graver offenses than
breaches of the vows of wedlock. The rendering of te oikonomi& 139;
tes kath' heauten zoes by continency is illustrated in the Ben. note
by Hermas ii. 4 as well as by Basil, Canon xiv and xliv.
[2838] This Canon is thus interpreted by Aristenus, Matrimonium cum
propinqua legibus prohibitum eadem ac adulterium poena castigatur: et
cum diversæ sint adulterorum poenoe sic etiam pro ratione
propinquitatis tota res temperabitur. Hinc duas sorores ducenti vii.
anni poenitentioe irrogantur, ut in adulterio cum muliere libera
commisso. non xv. ut in graviore adulterio, or does it mean that
incestuous fornication shall be treated as adultery?
[2839] By minister Balsamon and Zonaras understand the subdeacon.
Aristenus understands all the clergy appointed without imposition of
hands. The Ben. ed. approve the latter. cf. n. on Canon li. p. 256,
and Letter liv. p. 157.
[2840] On the earlier part of the canon the Ben. note says:
"Balsamon, Zonaras, et Aristenus varia commentantur in hunc canonem,
sed a mente Basilii multum abludentia. Liquet enim hoc labiorum
peccatum, cui remissior poena infligitur ipsa actione, quam Basilius
minime ignoscendam esse judicat, levius existimari debere. Simili
ratione sanctus Pater in cap. vi. Isaiæ n. 185, p. 516, labiorum
peccata actionibus, ut leviora, opponit, ac prophetæ delecta non ad
actionem et operationem erupisse, sed labiis tenus constitisse
observat. In eodem commentario n. 170, p. 501, impuritatis peccatum
variis gradibus constare demonstrat, inter quos enumerat rhemata
phthoropoia, verba ad corruptelam apta, homilias machras, longas
confabulationes, quibus ad stuprum pervenitur. Ex his perspici
arbitror peccatum aliquod in hoc canone designari, quod ipsa actione
levius sit: nedum ea suspicari liceat, quæ Basilii interpretibus in
mentem venerunt. Sed tamen cum dico Basilium in puniendis labiorum
peccatis leniorem esse, non quodlibet turpium sermonum genus, non
immunda colloquia (quomodo enim presbyteris hoc vitio pollutis honorem
cathedræ reliquisset?), sed ejusmodi intelligenda est peccandi
voluntas, quæ foras quidem aliquo sermone prodit, sed tamen quominus
in actum erumpat, subeunte meliori cogitatione, reprimitur.
Quemadmodum enim peccata, quæ sola cogitatione committuntur, idcirca
leviora esse pronuntiat Basilius, comment. in Isaiam n. 115, p. 459,
et n. 243, p. 564, qui repressa est actionis turpitudo; ita hoc loco
non quælibet labiorum peccata; non calumnias, non blasphemias, sed ea
tantum lenius tractat, quæ adeo gravia non erant, vel etiam ob
declinatam actionis turpitudinem, ut patet ex his verbis, seque eo
usque peccasse confessus est, aliquid indulgentiæ merere videbantur."
On the word kathairethesetai it is remarked: "In his canonibus quos
de clericorum peccatis edidit Basilius, duo videntur silentio
prætermissa. Quæri enim possit o cur suspensionis poenam soli
lectori ac ministro, sive subdiacono, imponat, diaconis autem et
presbyteris depositionem absque ulla prorsus exceptione infligat, nisi
quod eis communionem cum diaconis et presbyteris relinquit, si
peccatum non ita grave fuerit. Erat tamen suspensionis poena in ipsos
presbyteros non inusitata, ut patet ex plurimis apostolicis canonibus,
in quibus presbyteri ac etiam ipsi episcopi segregantur, ac postea, si
sese non emendaverint, deponuntur. Forte hæc reliquit Basilius
episcopo dijudicanda quemadmodum ejusdem arbitrio permittet in
canonibus 74 et 84, ut poenitentiæ tempus imminuat, si bonus evasint
is qui peccavit. o Hæc etiam possit institui quæstio, utrumne in
gravissimis quidem criminibus poenitentiam publicam depositioni
adjercerit. Adhibita ratio in Canone 3, cur aliquid discriminis
clericos inter et laicos ponendum sit, non solum ad gravia peccata,
sed etiam ad gravissima pertinet. Ait enim æquum esse ut, cum laici
post poenitentiam in eumdem locum restituantur, clerici vero non
restituantur, liberalius et mitius cum clericis agatur. Nolebat ergo
clericos lapsos quadruplicem poenitentiæ gradum percurrere. Sed
quemadmodum lapso in fornicationem diacono non statim communionem
reddit, sed ejus conversionem et morum emendationem probandam esse
censit, ut ad eumdem canonem tertium observavimus, ita dubium esse non
potest quin ad criminis magnitudinem probandi modum et tempus
accommodaverit.
[2841] The Ben. ed. suppose for the purpose of learning sorcery. cf.
Can. lxxxiii., where a lighter punishment is assigned to consulters of
wizards.
[2842] exomologoumenos. "The verb in St. Matt. xi. 25 expresses
thanksgiving and praise, and in this sense was used by many Christian
writers (Suicer, s.v.). But more generally in the early Fathers it
signifies the whole course of penitential discipline, the outward act
and performance of penance. From this it came to mean that public
acknowledgment of sin which formed so important a part of penitence.
Irenæus (c. Hær. i. 13, § 5) speaks of an adulterer who, having been
converted, passed her whole life in a state of penitence
(exomologoumene, in exomologesi); and (ib. iii. 4) of Cerdon often
coming into the church and confessing his errors (exomologoumenos)."
D.C.A. i. 644.
[2843] Here we see "binding and loosing" passing from the Scriptural
sense of declaring what acts are forbidden and committed (Matt. xvi.
19 and xxiii. 4. See note of Rev. A. Carr in Cambridge Bible for
Schools) into the later ecclesiastical sense of imposing and remitting
penalties for sin. The first regards rather moral obligation, and, as
is implied in the force of the tenses alike in the passages of St.
Matthew cited and in St. John xx. 23, the recognition and announcement
of the divine judgment already passed on sins and sinners; the later
regards the imposition of disciplinary penalties.
[2844] tous exomologmoumenous.
[2845] e.g. according to the Ben. note, Manasseh and Hezekiah.
[2846] The Ben. note points out the St. Basil refers to the
repudiation of a lawful wife from some other cause than adultery. It
remarks that though Basil does not order it to be punished as severely
as adultery there is no doubt that he would not allow communion before
the dismissal of the unlawful wife. It proceeds "illud autem
difficilius est statuere, quid de matrimonio post ejectam uxorem
adulteram contracto senserit. Ratum a Basilio habitum fuisse ejusmodi
matrimonium pronuntiat Aristentus. Atque id quidem Basilius,
conceptis verbis non declarat; sed tamen videtur hac in re a saniori
ac meliori sententia discessisse. Nam o maritum injuste dimissum ab
alio matrimonio non excludit, ut vidimus in canonibus 9 et 35. Porro
non videtur jure dimittenti denegasse, quod injuste dimisso
concedebat. o Cum jubeat uxorem adulteram ejici, vix dubium est
quin matrimonium adulterio uxoris fuisset mariti, ac multo durior,
quam uxoris conditio, si nec adulteram retinere, necaliam ducere
integrum fuisset.
[2847] cf. Letter clx. p. 212.
[2848] The Ben. note is Prima specie non omnino perspicuum est utrum
sorores ex utroque parente intelligat, an tantum ex alterutro. Nam
cum in canone 79 eos qui suas nurus accipiunt non severius puniat,
quam cui cum sorore ex matre vel ex patre rem habent, forte videri
posset idem statuere de iis qui in novercas insaniunt. Sed tamen
multo probabilius est eamdem illis poenam imponi, ac iis qui cum
sorore ex utroque parente contaminantur. Non enim distinctione utitur
Basilius ut in canone 75; nec mirum si peccatum cum noverca gravius
quam cum nuru, ob factam patri injuriam, judicavit.
[2849] i.e.probably only into the place of standers. Zonaras and
Balsamon understand by polygamy a fourth marriage; trigamy being
permitted (cf. Canon l. p. 240) though discouraged. The Ben.
annotator dissents, pointing out that in Canon iv. Basil calls
trigamy, polygamy, and quoting Gregory of Nazianzus (Orat. 31) as
calling a third marriage paranomia . Maran confirms this opinion by
the comparison of the imposition on polygamy of the same number of
years of penance as are assigned to trigamy in Canon iv. "Theodore of
Canterbury a.d. 687 imposes a penance of seven years on trigamists but
pronounces the marriages valid (Penitential, lib. 1. c. xiv. § 3).
Nicephorus of Constantinople, a.d. 814, suspends trigamists for five
years. (Hard. Concil. tom. iv. p. 1052.) Herard of Tours, a.d. 858
declares any greater number of wives than two to be unlawful (Cap cxi.
ibid. tom.v. p. 557). Leo the Wise, Emperor of Constantinople, was
allowed to marry three wives without public remonstrance, but was
suspended from communion by the patriarch Nicholas when he married a
fourth. This led to a council being held at Constantinople, a.d. 920,
which finally settled the Greek discipline on the subject of third and
fourth marriages. It ruled that the penalty for a fourth marriage was
to be excommunication and exclusion from the church; for a third
marriage, if a man were forty years old, suspension for five years,
and admission to communion thereafter only on Easter day. If he were
thirty years old, suspension for four years, and admission to
communion thereafter only three times a year." Dict. Christ. Ant. ii.
p. 1104.
[2850] The Ben. n. thinks that the Fathers of Ancyra are meant, whose
authority seems to have been great in Cappadocia and the adjacent
provinces.
[2851] metanoias. cf. note on p. 256; here the word seems to include
both repentance and penance.
[2852] Gen. xix. 17, lxx.
Letter CCXVIII. [2853]
To Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium.
Brother Ælianus has himself completed the business concerning which he
came, and has stood in need of no aid from me. I owe him, however,
double thanks, both for bringing me a letter from your reverence and
for affording me an opportunity of writing to you. By him, therefore,
I salute your true and unfeigned love, and beseech you to pray for me
more than ever now, when I stand in such need of the aid of your
prayers. My health has suffered terribly from the journey to Pontus
and my sickness is unendurable. One thing I have long been anxious to
make known to you. I do not mean to say that I have been so affected
by any other cause as to forget it, but now I wish to put you in mind
to send some good man into Lycia, to enquire who are of the right
faith, for peradventure they ought not to be neglected, if indeed the
report is true, which has been brought to me by a pious traveller from
thence, that they have become altogether alienated from the opinion of
the Asiani [2854] and wish to embrace communion with us. If any one
is to go let him enquire at Corydala [2855] for Alexander, the late
monk, the bishop; at Limyra [2856] for Diotimus, and at Myra [2857]
for Tatianus, Polemo, [2858] and Macarius presbyters; at Patara [2859]
for Eudemus, [2860] the bishop; at Telmessus [2861] for Hilarius, the
bishop; at Phelus for Lallianus, the bishop. Of these and of more
besides I have been informed that they are sound in the faith, and I
have been grateful to God that even any in the Asian region should be
clear of the heretic's pest. If, then, it be possible, let us in the
meanwhile make personal enquiry about them. When we have obtained
information I am for writing a letter, and am anxious to invite one of
them to meet me. God grant that all may go well with that Church at
Iconium, which is so dear to me. Through you I salute all the
honourable clergy and all who are associated with your reverence.
Footnotes
[2853] Placed in 375.
[2854] i.e.the inhabitants of the Roman province of Asia. cf. Acts
xx. 4. Asianoi de Tuchikos kai Trophimos.
[2855] Corydalla, now Hadginella, is on the road between Lystra and
Patara. There are ruins of a theatre. cf. Plin. v. 25.
[2856] Now Phineka.
[2857] So the Ben. ed. Other readings are en Kurois and en Nurois On
Myra cf. Acts xxvii. 5, on which Conybeare and Howson refer to
Fellows' Asia Minor, p. 194 and Spratt and Forbes's Lycia.
[2858] Afterwards bishop of Myra, and as such at Constantinople 381,
Labbe 1, 665.
[2859] cf. Acts xxi. 1.
[2860] At Constantinople in 381.
[2861] Now Macri, where the ruins are remarkable.
Letter CCXIX. [2862]
To the clergy of Samosata.
The Lord ordereth "all things in measure and weight," [2863] and
brings on us the temptations which do not exceed our power to endure
them, [2864] but tests all that fight in the cause of true religion by
affliction, not suffering them to be tempted above that they are able
to bear. [2865]He gives tears to drink in great measure [2866] to
all who ought to show whether in their affections they are preserving
their gratitude to Him. Especially in His dispensation concerning you
has He shown His loving-kindness, not suffering such a persecution to
be brought on you by your enemies as might turn some of you aside, or
cause you to swerve from the faith of Christ. He has matched you with
adversaries who are of small importance and easy to be repelled, and
has prepared the prize for your patience in your victory over them.
But the common enemy of our life, who, in his wiles, strives against
the goodness of God, because he has seen that, like a strong wall, you
are despising attack from without, has devised, as I hear, that there
should arise among yourselves mutual offences and quarrels. These
indeed, at the outset, are insignificant and easy of cure; as time
goes on, however, they are increased by contention and are wont to
result in irremediable mischief. [2867]I have, therefore,
undertaken to exhort you by this letter. Had it been possible, I
would have come myself and supplicated you in person. But this is
prevented by present circumstances, and so, in lieu of supplication, I
hold out this letter to you, that you may respect my entreaty, may put
a stop to your mutual rivalries, and may soon send me the good news
that all cause of offence among you is at an end.
2. I am very anxious that you should know that he is great before God
who humbly submits to his neighbour and submits to charges against
himself, without having cause for shame, even though they are not
true, that he may bring the great blessing of peace upon God's Church.
I hope that there will arise among you a friendly rivalry, as to who
shall first be worthy of being called God's son, after winning this
rank for himself because of his being a peacemaker. A letter has also
been written to you by your very God-beloved bishop as to the course
which you ought to pursue. He will write again what it belongs to him
to say. But I too, because of its having been already allowed me to
be near you, cannot disregard your position. So on the arrival of the
very devout brother Theodorus the sub-deacon, and his report that your
Church is in distress and disturbance, being deeply grieved and much
pained at heart, I could not endure to keep silence. I implore you to
fling away all controversy with one another, and to make peace, that
you may avoid giving pleasure to you opponents and destroying the
boast of the Church, which is now noised abroad throughout the world,
that you all, as you are ruled by one soul and heart, so live in one
body. Through your reverences I salute all the people of God, both
those in rank and office and the rest of the clergy. I exhort you to
keep your old character. I can ask for nothing more than this because
by the exhibition of your good works you have anticipated and made
impossible any improvement on them.
Footnotes
[2862] Placed in 375.
[2863] Wisd. xi. 20.
[2864] cf. Matt. vi. 13.
[2865] cf. 1 Cor. x. 13.
[2866] cf. Ps. lxxx. 5.
[2867] cf. Homer of ,'Eris, Il. iv. 442: he t' olige men prota
korussetai, autar epeita ourano esterixe kare kai epi chthoni bainei
Letter CCXX. [2868]
To the Beræans. [2869]
The Lord has given great consolation to all who are deprived of
personal intercourse in allowing them to communicate by letter. By
this means, it is true, we cannot learn the express image of the body,
but we can learn the disposition of the very soul. Thus on the
present occasion, when I had received the letter of your reverences, I
at the same moment recognised you, and took your love towards me into
my heart, and needed no long time to create intimacy with you. The
disposition shewn in your letter was quite enough to enkindle in me
affection for the beauty of your soul. And, besides your letter,
excellent as it was, I had a yet plainer proof of how things are with
you from the amiability of the brethren who have been the means of
communication between us. The well-beloved and reverend presbyter
Acacius, has told me much in addition to what you have written, and
has brought before my eyes the conflict you have to keep up day by
day, and the stoutness of the stand you are making for the true
religion. He has thus so moved my admiration, and roused in me so
earnest a desire of enjoying the good qualities in you, that I do pray
the Lord that a time may come when I may know you and yours by
personal experience. He has told me of the exactitude of those of you
who are entrusted with the ministry of the altar, and moreover of the
harmonious agreement of all the people, and the generous character and
genuine love towards God of the magistrates and chief men of your
city. I consequently congratulate the Church on consisting of such
members, and pray that spiritual peace may be given to you in yet
greater abundance, to the end that in quieter times you may derive
enjoyment from your labours in the day of affliction. For sufferings
that are painful while they are being experienced are naturally often
remembered with pleasure. For the present I beseech you not to
faint. Do not despair because your troubles follow so closely one
upon another. Your crowns are near: the help of the Lord is near.
Do not let all you have hitherto undergone go for nothing; do not
nullify a struggle which has been famous over all the world. Human
life is but of brief duration. "All flesh is grass, and all the
goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field....The grass
withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand for
ever." [2870]Let us hold fast to the commandment that abideth, and
despise the unreality that passeth away. Many Churches have been
cheered by your example. In calling new champions into the field you
have won for yourselves a great reward, though you knew it not. The
Giver of the prize is rich, and is able to reward you not unworthily
for your brave deeds.
Footnotes
[2868] Placed in 375.
[2869] The Syrian Beræa, Aleppo, or Haleb. cf. Letter clxxxv. p. 222.
[2870] Is. xl. 6, 8.
Letter CCXXI. [2871]
To the Beræans.
You were previously known to me, my dear friends, by your far-famed
piety, and by the crown won by your confession in Christ.
Peradventure one of you may ask in reply who can have carried these
tidings of us so far? The Lord Himself; for He puts His worshippers
like a lamp on a lamp-stand, and makes them shine throughout the whole
world. Are not winners in the games wont to be made famous by the
prize of victory, and craftsmen by the skilful design of their work?
Shall the memory of these and others like them abide for ever
unforgotten, and shall not Christ's worshippers concerning whom the
Lord says Himself, Them that honour me I will honour, be made famous
and glorious by Him before all? Shall He not display the brightness
of their radiant splendour as He does the beams of the sun? But I
have been moved to greater longing for you by the letter which you
have been good enough to send me, a letter in which, above and beyond
your former efforts on behalf of the truth, you have been yet more
lavish of your abounding and vigorous zeal for the true faith. In all
this I rejoice with you, and I pray with you that the God of the
universe, Whose is the struggle and the arena, and Who gives the
crown, may fill you with enthusiasm, may make your souls strong, and
make your work such as to meet with His divine approval.
Footnotes
[2871] Placed in 375.
Letter CCXXII. [2872]
To the people of Chalcis. [2873]
The letter of your reverences came upon me in an hour of affliction
like water poured into the mouths of racehorses, inhaling dust with
each eager breath at high noontide in the middle of the course. Beset
by trial after trial, I breathed again, at once cheered by your words
and invigorated by the thought of your struggles to meet that which is
before me with unflinching courage. For the conflagration which has
devoured a great part of the East is already advancing by slow degrees
into our own neighbourhood, and after burning everything round about
us is trying to reach even the Churches in Cappadocia, already moved
to tears by the smoke that rises from the ruins of our neighbours'
homes. [2874]The flames have almost reached me. May the Lord
divert them by the breath of His mouth, and stay this wicked fire.
Who is such a coward, so unmanly, so untried in the athlete's
struggles, as not to be nerved to the fight by your cheers, and pray
to be hailed victor at your side? You have been the first to step
into the arena of true religion; you have beaten off many an attack in
bouts with the heretics; you have borne the strong hot wind [2875] of
trial, both you who are leaders of the Church, to whom has been the
ministry of the altar, and every individual of the laity, including
those of higher rank. For this in you is specially admirable and
worthy of all praise, that you are all one in the Lord, some of you
leaders in the march to what is good, others willingly following. It
is for this reason that you are too strong for the attack of your
assailants, and allow no hold to your antagonists in any one of your
members, wherefore day and night I pray the King of the ages to
preserve the people in the integrity of their faith, and for them to
preserve the clergy, like a head unharmed at the top, exercising its
own watchful forethought for every portion of the body underneath.
For while the eyes discharge their functions, the hands can do their
work as they ought, the feet can move without tripping, and no part of
the body is deprived of due care. I beseech you, then, to cling to
one another, as you are doing and as you will do. I beseech you who
are entrusted with the care of souls to keep each and all together,
and to cherish them like beloved children. I beseech the people to
continue to show you the respect and honour due to fathers, that in
the goodly order of your Church you may keep your strength and the
foundation of your faith in Christ; that God's name may be glorified
and the good gift of love increase and abound. May I, as I hear of
you, rejoice in your progress in God. If I am still bidden to sojourn
in the flesh in this world, may I one day see you in the peace of
God. If I be now summoned to depart this life, may I see you in the
radiant glory of the saints, together with all them who are accounted
worthy through patience and showing forth of good works, with crowns
upon your heads.
Footnotes
[2872] Placed in 375.
[2873] The Syrian Chaecis, now Kinesrin. Maran Vit. Bas. Chap.
xxxiii. supposes this letter to have been probably carried with Letter
ccxxi. by Acacius.
[2874] Maran Vit. Bas. l. c. says that these words cannot refer to the
persecution of Valens in Cappadocia in 371, for that persecution went
on between Constantinople and Cappadocia, and did not start from the
East. There need be no surprise, he thinks, at the two preceding
letters containing no mention of this persecution, because Acacius,
who was a native of Bera, would be sure to report all that he had
observed in Cappadocia. I am not sure that the reference to a kind of
prairie fire spreading from the East does not rather imply a
prevalence of heresy than what is commonly meant by persecution.
Meletius, however, was banished from Antioch in 374 and Eusebius from
Samosata in the same year, as graphically described by Theodoret H.E.
iv. 13.
[2875] kausona. cf. Matt. xx. 12, Luke xii. 55, and James i. 11.
Letter CCXXIII. [2876]
Against Eustathius of Sebasteia. [2877]
1. There is a time to keep silence and a time to speak, [2878] is the
saying of the Preacher. Time enough has been given to silence, and
now the time has come to open my mouth for the publication of the
truth concerning matters that are, up to now, unknown. The
illustrious Job bore his calamities for a long time in silence, and
ever showed his courage by holding out under the most intolerable
sufferings, but when he had struggled long enough in silence, and had
persisted in covering his anguish in the bottom of his heart, at last
he opened his mouth and uttered his well-known words. [2879]In my
own case this is now the third year of my silence, and my boast has
become like that of the Psalmist, "I was as a man that heareth not and
in whose mouth are no reproofs." [2880]Thus I shut up in the bottom
of my heart the pangs which I suffered on account of the calumnies
directed against me, for calumny humbles a man, and calumny makes a
poor man giddy. [2881]If, therefore, the mischief of calumny is so
great as to cast down even the perfect man from his height, for this
is what Scripture indicates by the word man, and by the poor man is
meant he who lacks the great doctrines, as is the view also of the
prophet when he says, "These are poor, therefore they shall not
hear;...I will get me unto the great men," [2882] he means by poor
those who are lacking in understanding; and here, too, he plainly
means those who are not yet furnished in the inner man, and have not
even come to the full measure of their age; it is these who are said
by the proverb to be made giddy and tossed about. Nevertheless I
thought that I ought to bear my troubles in silence, waiting for some
indication to come out of them. I did not even think that what was
said against me proceeded from ill will; I thought it was the result
of ignorance of the truth. But now I see that hostility increases
with time, and that my slanderers are not sorry for what they said at
the beginning, and do not take any trouble to make amends for the
past, but go on and on and rally themselves together to attain their
original object. This was to make my life miserable and to devise
means for sullying my reputation among the brethren. I, therefore, no
longer see safety in silence. I have bethought me of the words of
Isaiah: "I have long time holden my peace, shall I always be still
and refrain myself? I have been patient like a travailing woman."
[2883]God grant that I may both receive the reward of silence, and
gain some strength to confute my opponents, and that thus, by
confuting them, I may dry up the bitter torrent of falsehood that has
gushed out against me. So might I say, "My soul has passed over the
torrent;" [2884] and, "If it had not been the Lord who was on our side
when men rose up against us,...then they had swallowed us up quick,
the water had drowned us." [2885]
2. Much time had I spent in vanity, and had wasted nearly all my
youth in the vain labour which I underwent in acquiring the wisdom
made foolish by God. Then once upon a time, like a