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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 129 Pages
Page 68
Letter CCLVIII. [3131]
To Epiphanius the bishop. [3132]
1. It has long been expected that, in accordance with the prediction of our Lord, because of iniquity abounding, the love of the majority would wax cold. [3133] Now experience has confirmed this expectation. But though this condition of things has already obtained among us here, it seems to be contradicted by the letter brought from your holiness. For verily it is no mere ordinary proof of love, first that you should remember an unworthy and insignificant person like myself; and secondly, that you should send to visit me brethren who are fit and proper ministers of a correspondence of peace. For now, when every man is viewing every one else with suspicion, no spectacle is rarer than that which you are presenting. Nowhere is pity to be seen; nowhere sympathy; nowhere a brotherly tear for a brother in distress. Not persecutions for the truth's sake, not Churches with all their people in tears; not this great tale of troubles closing round us, are enough to stir us to anxiety for the welfare of one another. We jump on them that are fallen; we scratch and tear at wounded places; we who are supposed to agree with one another launch the curses that are uttered by the heretics; men who are in agreement on the most important matters are wholly severed from one another on some one single point. How, then, can I do otherwise than admire him who in such circumstances shews that his love to his neighbour is pure and guileless, and, though separated from me by so great a distance of sea and land, gives my soul all the care he can?
2. I have been specially struck with admiration at your having been distressed even by the dispute of the monks on the Mount of Olives, and at your expressing a wish that some means might be found of reconciling them to one another. I have further been glad to hear that you have not been unaware of the unfortunate steps, taken by certain persons, which have caused disturbance among the brethren, and that you have keenly interested yourself even in these matters. But I have deemed it hardly worthy of your wisdom that you should entrust the rectification of matters of such importance to me: for I am not guided by the grace of God, because of my living in sin; I have no power of eloquence, because I have cheerfully withdrawn from vain studies; and I am not yet sufficiently versed in the doctrines of the truth. I have therefore already written to my beloved brethren at the Mount of Olives, our own Palladius, [3134] and Innocent the Italian, in answer to their letters to me, that it is impossible for me to make even the slightest addition to the Nicene Creed, except the ascription of Glory to the Holy Ghost, because our Fathers treated this point cursorily, no question having at that time arisen concerning the Spirit. As to the additions it is proposed to make to that Creed, concerning the incarnation of our Lord, I have neither tested nor accepted them, as being beyond my comprehension. [3135] I know well that, if once we begin to interfere with the simplicity of the Creed, we shall embark on interminable discussion, contradiction ever leading us on and on, and shall but disturb the souls of simpler folk by the introduction of new phrases. [3136]
[3131] Placed in 377.
[3132] The learned and saintly bishop of Salamis in Cyprus. About this time he published his great work against heresy, the Panarion, and also travelled to Antioch to reconcile the Apollinarian Vitalis to Paulinus. On the failure of his efforts, and the complicated state of parties at Antioch at this time, cf. Epiphan., lxxvii. 20-23; Jerome, Epp. 57, 58, and Soz., H.E. vi. 25.
[3133] cf. Matt. xxiv. 12.
[3134] This Palladius may possibly be identified with the Palladius of Caesarea of Athanasius, Ep. ad Pall. Migne, Pat. xxvi. 1167, and in the Ath. of this series, p. 580.
[3135] The Ben. note remarks "Cum nonnulli formulae Nicenae aliquid de Incarnatione adderent ad comprimendos Apollinaristas, id Basilius nec examinaverat," etc. I rather understand the present prosuphainomena to refer to the proposals of Innocent to Palladius.
[3136] Yet Basil will admit an addition which he holds warranted, in the case of the glorification of the Spirit, and would doubtless have acquiesced in the necessity of the additions finally victorious in 451.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/letters-3.asp?pg=68
