From Caesarea Basil went to Constantinople, and there studied rhetoric and philosophy with success. Socrates [35] and Sozomen [36] say that he worked at Antioch under Libanius. It may be that both these writers have confounded Basil of Caesarea with the Basil to whom Chrysostom dedicated his De Sacerdotio, and who was perhaps the bishop of Raphanea, who signed the creed of Constantinople. [37]
There is no corroboration of a sojourn of Basil of Caesarea at Antioch. Libanius was at Constantinople in 347, [38] and there Basil may have attended his lectures. [39]
[35] Ecc. Hist. iv. 26.
[36] Ecc. Hist. vi. 17.
[37] Maran, Vit. Bas. ii., Fabricius, Ed. Harles. vol. ix.
[38] He does not seem to have been at Antioch until 353, D.C.B. iii. 710, when Basil was at Athens.
[39] cf. the correspondence with Libanius, of which the genuineness has been questioned, in Letters cccxxxv.-ccclix. Letter cccxxxix. suggests a possibility of some study of Hebrew. But Basil always uses the LXX.
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