To the Neocæsareans.²⁷³⁴

2734 Newman introduces his extracts from the following letter with the prefatory remark:  “If Basil’s Semi-Arian connexions brought suspicion upon himself in the eyes of Catholic believers, much more would they be obnoxious to persons attached, as certain Neocæsareans were, to the Sabellian party, who were in the opposite extreme to the Semi-Arians and their especial enemies in those times.  It is not wonderful, then, that he had to write to the church in question in a strain like the following.”  (Ch. of the Fathers. p. 98.)  The passages in brackets are Newman’s version.  The prime agent in the slandering of Basil was presumably Atarbius, bishop of Neocæsarea.

1.  [There has been a long silence on both sides, revered and well-beloved brethren, just as if there were angry feelings between us.  Yet who is there so sullen and implacable towards the party which has injured him, as to lengthen out the resentment which has begun in disgust through almost a whole life of man?]  This [is happening in our case, no just occasion of estrangement existing, as far as I myself know, but on the contrary, there being, from the first, many strong reasons for the closest friendship and unity.  The greatest and first is this, our Lord’s command, pointedly saying, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another.”²⁷³⁵

2735 John xiii. 35.

2736 Rom. xiii. 10.

2737 1 Cor. xiii. 1–3.

2738 The allusion may be to Mark xi. 23, but St. Paul would probably reply to Basil that each of the points enumerated might proceed not from love, but from vanity, ambition, or fanaticism.

2.  [Next, if it tend much towards intimacy to have the same teachers, there are to you and to me the same teachers of God’s mysteries, and spiritual Fathers, who from the beginning were the founders of your Church.  I mean the great Gregory, and all who succeeding in order to the throne of your episcopate, like stars rising one after another, have tracked the same course, so as to leave the tokens of the heavenly polity most clear to all who desire them.]  And if natural relationships are not to be despised, but are greatly conducive to unbroken union and fellowship, these rights also exist naturally for you and me.  [Why is it, then, O venerable among cities, for through you I address the whole city, that no civil writing comes from you, no welcome voice, but your ears are open to those who aim at slander?]  I am therefore the more bound to groan, the more I perceive the end they have in view.  There is no doubt as to who is the originator of the slander.²⁷³⁹

2739 τῆς διαβολῆς.

2740 i.e. ὁ διαβολος.  The little paronomasia is untranslatable.

2741 John vii. 24.

3.  When I say this I am not forgetful of the words of the Apostle, who fled from human tribunals and reserved the defence of all his life for the unerring judgment seat, when he said, “With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man’s judgment.”²⁷⁴²

2742 1 Cor. iv.

4.  [What say I, brethren?  Not that I am a sinless person; not that my life is not full of numberless faults.  I know myself; and indeed I cease not my tears for my sins, if by any means I may be able to appease my God, and to escape the punishment threatened against them.  But this I say:  let him who judges me, hunt for motes in my eye, if he can say that his own is clear.]  I own, brethren, that I need the care of the sound and healthy, and need much of it.  If he cannot say that it is clear, and the clearer it is the less will he say so—(for it is the part of the perfect not to exalt themselves; if they do they will certainly come under the charge of the pride of the Pharisee, who, while justifying himself, condemned the publican) let him come with me to the physician; let him not “judge before the time until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts.”²⁷⁴³

2743 1 Cor. iv. 5.

2744 Matt. vii. 1.

2745 Luke vi. 37.

2746 2 Tim. iv. 2.

2747 υπ᾽ ὀδόντα.  Ben. Lat., intra dentes.

2748 The Greek is παροικία which is used both for what is meant by the modern “diocese” and by the modern “parish.”  Of the sense of diocese instances are quoted among others in D.C.A. s.v. “Parish,” from Iren. ad Florin. apud Euseb. H.E. v. 20; and Alexand. Alexandrin. Ep. apud Theodoret, H.E. i. 3.

5.  [If the fault be a point of faith, let the document be pointed out to me.  Again, let a fair and impartial inquiry be appointed.  Let the accusation be read; let it be brought to the test, whether it does not arise from ignorance in the accuser, not from blame in the matter of the writing.  For right things often do not seem such to those who are deficient in accurate judgment.  Equal weights seem unequal when the arms of the balance are of different sizes.]  Men whose sense of taste is destroyed by sickness, sometimes think honey sour.  A diseased eye does not see many things which do exist, and notes many things which do not exist.  The same thing frequently takes place with regard to the force of words, when the critic is inferior to the writer.  The critic ought really to set out with much the same training and equipment as the author.  A man ignorant of agriculture is quite incapable of criticising husbandry, and the distinctions between harmony and discord can only be adequately judged by a trained musician.  But any one who chooses will set up for a literary critic, though he cannot tell us where he went to school, or how much time was spent in his education, and knows nothing about letters at all.  I see clearly that, even in the case of the words²⁷⁴⁹

2749 τοῖς λόγοις πνεύματος ἁγίου, the reading of the mss. Bas. Sec. and Paris.  The commoner reading is λογίοις.

2750 1 Cor. xii. 8–10.

6.  What clearer evidence can there be of my faith, than that I was brought up by my grandmother, blessed woman, who came from you?  I mean the celebrated Macrina who taught me the words of the blessed Gregory; which, as far as memory had preserved down to her day, she cherished herself, while she fashioned and formed me, while yet a child, upon the doctrines of piety.  And when I gained the capacity of thought, my reason being matured by full age, I travelled over much sea and land, and whomsoever I found walking in the rule of godliness delivered, those I set down as fathers,] and made them my soul’s guides in my journey to God.  And up to this day, by the grace of Him who has called me in His holy calling to the knowledge of Himself, I know of no doctrine opposed to the sound teaching having sunk into my heart; nor was my soul ever polluted by the ill-famed blasphemy of Arius.  If I have ever received into communion any who have come from that teacher, hiding their unsoundness deep within them, or speaking words of piety, or, at any rate, not opposing what has been said by me, it is on these terms that I have admitted them; and I have not allowed my judgment concerning them to rest wholly with myself, but have followed the decisions given about them by our Fathers.  For after receiving the letter of the very blessed Father Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, which I hold in my hand, and shew to any one who asks, wherein he has distinctly declared that any one expressing a wish to come over from the heresy of the Arians and accepting the Nicene Creed, is to be received without hesitation and difficulty, citing in support of his opinion the unanimous assent of the bishops of Macedonia and of Asia; I, considering myself bound to follow the high authority of such a man and of those who made the rule, and with every desire on my own part to win the reward promised to peacemakers, did enroll in the lists of communicants all who accepted that creed.

7.  [The fair thing would be to judge of me, not from one or two who do not walk uprightly in the truth, but from the multitude of bishops throughout the world, connected with me by the grace of the Lord.  Make enquiries of Pisidians, Lycaonians, Isaurians, Phrygians of both provinces, Armenians your neighbours, Macedonians, Achæans, Illyrians, Gauls, Spaniards, the whole of Italy, Sicilians, Africans, the healthy part of Egypt, whatever is left of Syria; all of whom send letters to me, and in turn receive them from me.]  From these letters, alike from all which are despatched from them. and from all which go out from us to them, you may learn that we are all of one mind, and of one opinion.  [Whoso shuns communion with me, it cannot escape your accuracy, cuts himself off from the whole Church.  Look round about, brethren, with whom do you hold communion?  If you will not receive it from me, who remains to acknowledge you?  Do not reduce me to the necessity of counselling anything unpleasant concerning a Church so dear to me.]  There are things now which I hide in the bottom of my heart, in secret groaning over and bewailing the evil days in which we live, in that the greatest Churches which have long been united to one another in brotherly love, now, without any reason, are in mutual opposition.  Do not, oh! do not, drive me to complain of these things to all who are in communion with me.  Do not force me to give utterance to words which hitherto I have kept in check by reflection and have hidden in my heart.  Better were it for me to be removed and the Churches to be at one, than that God’s people should suffer such evil through our childish ill-will.  [Ask your fathers, and they will tell you that though our districts were divided in position, yet in mind they were one, and were governed by one sentiment.  Intercourse of the people was frequent; frequent the visits of the clergy; the pastors, too, had such mutual affection, that each used the other as teacher and guide in things pertaining to the Lord.]

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