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| To the Bishop Basil.
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LXXXV. To the Bishop
Basil.1784
| 1784 There appears to be nothing in this letter or in Letter CII. also
addressed to bishop Basil to identify the recipient. Basil bishop of
Seleucia in Isauria was at the Latrocinium and at Chalcedon. Basil,
bishop of Trajanopolis was also present at the same councils. Garnerius
is in favour of the former, and notes the date as 448. |
The chief good is said by the
divine Paul to be love,1785
and by love he
ordered the nurslings of the faith to be fed. Of this love your piety
possesses great wealth, and so has told me what was befitting and given
me pleasant news. For to them that fear the Lord what can be pleasanter
than the health and harmony of the doctrines of the truth? Be well
assured, most godly sir, that we were much delighted to hear the
intelligence of our common friend; and in proportion to our previous
distress at hearing that he described the nature of flesh and of
Godhead as one, and openly attributed the passion of salvation to the
impassible Godhead, so were all rejoiced to read the letters of your
holiness, and to learn that he maintains in their integrity the
properties of the natures and denies both the change of God the Word
into flesh, and the mutation of the flesh into the nature of Godhead,
maintaining on the contrary that in the one Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
God the Word made man, the properties of either nature abide
unconfounded. We praise the God of all for the harmony of divine faith.
We have however written to either Cilicia,1786
although our intelligence is
imperfect, as to whether there are really any opponents of the truth,
and have charged the godly bishops to search and examine if there are
any who divide the one Lord Jesus Christ into two sons, and either to
bring them to their senses by admonition, or cut them off from the roll
of the brethren. For in fact we equally repudiate both those who dare
to assert one nature of flesh and Godhead, and those who divide the one
Lord Jesus Christ into two sons and strive to go beyond the definitions
of the Apostles.
But let your holiness be well
assured that we are disposed to peace. For if the prophet says,
“With them that hate peace I was peaceful,”1787
much more readily do we welcome the
peace of God.
Some of those men who have been
fed on lies have hurried to Alexandria and patched up calumnies against
me, with the result that the godly bishop of that city, led away by
their statements, although he had been fully informed by my letters,
has sent a pious bishop to the imperial city. I beg you therefore to
shew your accustomed kindness to him, and to confront falsehood with
the truth. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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