|
HOME | GREEK LANGUAGE |
LIBRARIES |
BLOG | HELP | SEARCH | BOOKSTORE | FREEWARE |
|
|
Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
|
This Part: 129 Pages
Page 23
2. Nevertheless before a fair judge the facts themselves are a sufficient demonstration of the truth. Wherefore, even if I be silent, you can look at events. The very men who are now indicting me for heterodoxy have been seen openly numbered with the heretical faction. The very accusers who condemn me for other men's writings, are plainly contravening their own confessions, given to me by them in writing. Look at the conduct of the exhibitors of this audacity. It is their invariable custom to go over to the party in power, to trample on their weaker friends, and to court the strong. The writers of those famous letters against Eudoxius and all his faction, the senders of them to all the brotherhood, the protesters that they shun their communion as fatal to souls, and would not accept the votes given for their deposition, because they were given by heretics, as they persuaded me then,--these very men, completely forgetful of all this, have joined their faction. [2916] No room for denial is left them. They laid their mind bare when they embraced private communion with them at Ancyra, when they had not yet been publicly received by them. Ask them, then, if Basilides, who gave communion to Ecdicius, is now orthodox, why when returning from Dardania, did they overthrow his altars in the territory of Gangra, and set up their own tables? [2917] Why have they comparatively recently [2918] attacked the churches of Amasea and Zela and appointed presbyters and deacons there themselves? If they communicate with them as orthodox, why do they attack them as heretical? If they hold them to be heretical, how is it that they do not shun communion with them? Is it not, my honourable brethren, plain even to the intelligence of a child, that it is always with a view to some personal advantage that they endeavour to calumniate or to give support? So they have stood off from me, not because I did not write in reply (which is alleged to be the main ground of offence), nor because I did not receive the chorepiscopi whom they assert they sent. Those who are trumping up the tale will render an account to the Lord. One man, Eustathius, [2919] was sent and gave a letter to the court of the vicar, and spent three days in the city. When he was on the point of going home, it is said that he came to my house late in the evening, when I was asleep. On hearing that I was asleep, he went away; he did not come near me on the next day, and after thus going through the mere form of discharging his duty to me, departed. This is the charge under which I am guilty. This is the sin against which these long-suffering people have neglected to weigh the previous service wherein I served them in love. For this error they have made their wrath against me so severe that they have caused me to be denounced in all the Churches throughout the world--at least, that is, wherever they could.
[2916] The events referred to happened ten years before the date assigned for this letter, when the Semi-Arians summoned Eudoxius to Lampsacus, and sentenced him to deprivation in his absence. (Soc. H.E. iv. 2-4; Soz. H.E. vi. 7.) On the refusal of Valens to ratify the deposition and ultimate banishment of the Anti-Eudoxians, Eustathius went to Rome to seek communion with Liberius, subscribed the Nicene Confession, and received commendatory letters from Liberius to the Easterns. Soc. H.E. iv. 12. Eudoxius died in 370.
[2917] On the action of Eustathius on this occasion, cf. Letter ccli. Basilides is described as a Paphlagonian. On Ecdicius, intruded by Demosthenes into the see of Paranassus, cf. Letter ccxxxvii.
[2918] So the Ben. ed. for mechri nun, with the idea that the action of Eusthathius in currying favour with the Catholics of Amasea and Zela by opposing the Arian bishops occupying those sees, must have taken place before he had quite broken with Basil. Tillemont (ix. 236) takes nun to mean 375. Amasea and Zela (in Migne erroneously Zeli. On the name, see Ramsay's Hist. Geog. Asia M. 260) are both on the Iris.
[2919] A chorepiscopus; not of course to be confounded with Eustathius of Sebaste.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/letters-3.asp?pg=23
