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St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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130 Pages
Page 25
But the reconciliation between the sovereign and the primate was only on the surface. Basil would not admit the Arians to communion, and Valens could not brook the refusal. The decree of exile was to be enforced, though the pens had refused to form the letters of the imperial signature. [181] Valens, however, was in distress at the dangerous illness of Galates, his infant son. and, on the very night of the threatened expatriation, summoned Basil to pray over him. A brief rally was followed by relapse and death, which were afterwards thought to have been caused by the young prince's Arian baptism. [182] Rudeness was from time to time shewn to the archbishop by discourteous and unsympathetic magistrates, as in the case of the Pontic Vicar, who tried to force an unwelcome marriage on a noble widow. The lady took refuge at the altar, and appealed to Basil for protection. The magistrate descended to contemptible insinuation, and subjected the archbishop to gross rudeness. His ragged upper garment was dragged from his shoulder, and his emaciated frame was threatened with torture. He remarked that to remove his liver would relieve him of a great inconvenience. [183]
Nevertheless, so far as the civil power was concerned, Basil, after the famous visit of Valens, was left at peace. [184] He had triumphed. Was it a triumph for the nobler principles of the Gospel? Had he exhibited a pride and an irritation unworthy of the Christian name? Jerome, in a passage of doubtful genuineness and application, is reported to have regarded his good qualities as marred by the one bane of pride, [185] a "leaven" of which sin is admitted by Milman [186] to have been exhibited by Basil, as well as uncompromising firmness. The temper of Basil in the encounter with Valens would probably have been somewhat differently regarded had it not been for the reputation of a hard and overbearing spirit which he has won from his part in transactions to be shortly touched on. His attitude before Valens seems to have been dignified without personal haughtiness, and to have shewn sparks of that quiet humour which is rarely exhibited in great emergencies except by men who are conscious of right and careless of consequences to self.
[181] Theod. iv. 16.
[182] Theod. iv. 16. Soz. vi. 17. Soc. iv. 26. Greg. Naz., Or. xliii. Ruf. xi. 9.
[183] Greg. Naz., Or. xliii.
[184] "The archbishop, who asserted, with inflexible pride, the truth of his opinions and the dignity of his rank, was left in the free possession of his conscience and his throne." Gibbon, Chap. xxv. "Une sorte d'inviolabilite de fait demeurait acquise a Basile a Cesaree comme a Athanase a Alexandrie." De Broglie.
[185] Quoted by Gibbon l.c. from Jerome's Chron. A.D. 380, and acknowledged by him to be not in Scaliger's edition. The Benedictine editors of Jerome admit it, but refer it to Photinus. cf. D.C.B. i. 288.
[186] Hist. Christ. iii. 45.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/life-works.asp?pg=25
