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| To the notables of Neocæsarea.
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Letter
CCX.2768
| 2768 Placed in 375,
the year after the composition of the De Spiritu
Sancto. It apparently synchronizes with
Letter ccxxiii., in which Basil more directly repels those
calumnies of the versatile Eustathius of Sebaste which he had borne
in silence for three years. On Annesi, from which he writes,
and the occasion of the visit, see Prolegomena. |
To the notables of Neocæsarea.
I am really under no obligation
to publish my own mind to you, or to state the reasons for my present
sojourn where I am; it is not my custom to indulge in self
advertisement, nor is the matter worth publicity. I am not, I
think, following my own inclinations; I am answering the challenge of
your leaders. I have always striven to be ignored more earnestly
than popularity hunters strive after notoriety. But, I am told,
the ears of everybody in your town are set a thrilling, while
certain tale-mongers,
creators of lies, hired for this very work, are giving you a history of
me and my doings. I therefore do not think that I ought to
overlook your being exposed to the teaching of vile intention and foul
tongue; I think that I am bound to tell you myself in what position I
am placed. From my childhood I have been familiar with this spot,
for here I was brought up by my grandmother;2769
| 2769 Macrina, at
her residence at Annesi. |
hither I have often retreated, and here I have spent many years, when
endeavouring to escape from the hubbub of public affairs, for
experience has taught me that the quiet and solitude of the spot are
favourable to serious thought. Moreover as my
brothers2770
| 2770
cf. Ep. ccxvi., where he speaks of going to the
house of his brother Peter near Neocæsarea. One of the
five brothers apparently died young, as the property of the elder
Basil was at his death, before 340, divided into nine portions,
i.e. among the five daughters and four surviving sons, the
youngest, Peter, being then an infant. (Greg. Nyss.
Vita Mac. 186.) Naucratius, the second son, was
killed by an accident while hunting, c. 357. Gregory of Nyssa
must, therefore, be referred to in the text, if by
“brothers” is meant brothers in blood. Was it to
Peter’s “cottage” or some neighbouring dwelling
that Gregory fled when he escaped from the police of the Vicar
Demosthenes, in order not to obey the summons of Valens to his synod
at Ancrya? Is the cottage of Peter “some quiet
spot” of Ep. ccxxv.? The plural
ἀδελφῶν might be used
conventionally, or understood to include Peter and a sister or
sisters. | are now living
here, I have gladly retired to this retreat, and have taken a brief
breathing time from the press of the labours that beset me, not as a
centre from which I might give trouble to others, but to indulge my
own longing.
2. Where then is the need of having recourse
to dreams and of hiring their interpreters, and making me matter for
talk over the cups at public entertainments? Had slander been
launched against me in any other quarter, I should have called you to
witness to prove what I think, and now I ask every one of you to
remember those old days when I was invited by your city to take charge
of the education of the young, and a deputation of the first men among
you came to see me.2771
| 2771 i.e.
when he was resident at Cæsarea in his earlier
manhood. If Letter ccclviii. (from Libanius to Basil
refers to this period, it would seem that for a time Basil did
undertake school work. | Afterwards,
when you all crowded round me, what were you not ready to give? what
not to promise? Nevertheless you were not able to keep me.
How then could I, who at that time would not listen when you invited
me, now attempt to thrust myself on you uninvited? How could I,
who when you complimented and admired me, avoided you, have been
intending to court you now that you calumniate me? Nothing of the
kind, sirs; I am not quite so cheap. No man in his senses would
go on board a boat without a steersman, or get alongside a Church where
the men sitting at the helm are themselves stirring up tempest and
storm. Whose fault was it that the town was all full of tumult,
when some were running away with no one after them, and others stealing
off when no invader was near, and all the wizards and dream-tellers
were flourishing their bogeys? Whose fault was it else?
Does not every child know that it was the mob-leaders’? The
reasons of their hatred to me it would be bad taste on my part to
recount; but they are quite easy for you to apprehend. When
bitterness and division have come to the last pitch of savagery, and
the explanation of the cause is altogether groundless and ridiculous,
then the mental disease is plain, dangerous indeed to other
people’s comfort, but greatly and personally calamitous to the
patient. And there is one charming point about them. Torn
and racked with inward agony as they are, they cannot yet for very
shame speak out about it. The state they are in may be known not
only from their behaviour to me, but from the rest of their
conduct. If it were unknown, it would not much matter. But
the veritable cause of their shunning communication with me may be
unperceived by the majority among you. Listen; and I will tell
you.
3. There is going on among you a movement
ruinous to the faith, disloyal to the apostolical and evangelical
dogmas, disloyal too to the tradition of Gregory the truly
great,2772
| 2772
i.e.Gregory Thaumaturgus. cf. note on p.
247. | and of his
successors up to the blessed Musonius, whose teaching is still
ringing in your ears.2773
| 2773
Musonius, bp. of Neocæsarea, who died in 368.
cf. Ep. xxviii. | For
those men, who, from fear of confutation, are forging figments
against me, are endeavouring to renew the old mischief of
Sabellius, started long ago, and extinguished by the tradition of
the great Gregory. But do you bid goodbye to those
wine-laden heads, bemuddled by the swelling fumes that mount from
their debauch, and from me who am wide awake and from fear of God
cannot keep silence, hear what plague is rife among you.
Sabellianism is Judaism2774
| 2774 cf.
De Sp. S. § 77, p. 49and Ep. clxxxix. p.
229. | imported into
the preaching of the Gospel under the guise of Christianity.
For if a man calls Father Son and Holy Ghost one thing of many
faces,2775
| 2775 ἓν
πρᾶγμα
πολύπροσωπον
. Another ms. reading is
πολυώνυμον,
“of many names.” | and makes the
hypostasis of the three one,2776
what is
this but to deny the everlasting pre-existence of the Only
begotten? He denies too the Lord’s sojourn among men
in the incarnation,2777
the going down
into hell, the resurrection, the judgment; he denies also the
proper operations of the Spirit. And I hear that even rasher innovations
than those of the foolish Sabellius are now ventured on among
you. It is said, and that on the evidence of ear witnesses,
that your clever men go to such an extreme as to say that there is
no tradition of the name of the Only-begotten, while of the name
of the adversary there is; and at this they are highly delighted
and elated, as though it were a discovery of their own. For
it is said, “I came in my Father’s name and ye
received me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye
will receive.”2778
And
because it is said, “Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost,”2779
it is obvious,
they urge, that the name is one, for it is not “in the
names,” but “in the
name.”
4. I blush so to write to you, for the men
thus guilty are of my own blood;2780
| 2780 The
allusion is supposed to be to Atarbius. cf. Letter
lxv. | and I groan
for my own soul, in that, like boxers fighting two men at once, I can
only give the truth its proper force by hitting with my proofs, and
knocking down, the errors of doctrine on the right and on the
left. On one side I am attacked by the Anomœan: on the
other by the Sabellian. Do not, I implore you, pay any attention
to these abominable and impotent sophisms. Know that the name of
Christ which is above every name is His being called Son of God, as
Peter says, “There is none other name under heaven given among
men, whereby we must be saved.”2781
And as to the words “I came in
my Father’s name,” it is to be understood that He so says
describing His Father as origin and cause of Himself.2782
| 2782 cf.
De Sp. S. § 44, p. 27. | And if it is said “Go and
baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost,” we must not suppose that here one name is delivered to
us. For just as he who said Paul and Silvanus and Timothy
mentioned three names, and coupled them one to the other by the word
“and,” so He who spoke of the name of Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, mentioned three, and united them by the conjunction, teaching
that with each name must be understood its own proper meaning; for the
names mean things. And no one gifted with even the smallest
particle of intelligence doubts that the existence belonging to the
things is peculiar and complete in itself. For of Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost there is the same nature and one Godhead; but these are
different names, setting forth to a us the circumscription and
exactitude of the meanings. For unless the meaning of the
distinctive qualities of each be unconfounded, it is impossible for the
doxology to be adequately offered to Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost.
If, however, they deny that they so say, and so teach,
my object is attained. Yet I see that this denial is no easy
matter, because of our having many witnesses who heard these things
said. But let bygones be bygones; let them only be sound
now. If they persist in the same old error I must proclaim your
calamity even to other Churches, and get letters written to you from
more bishops. In my efforts to break down this huge mass of
impiety now gradually and secretly growing, I shall either effect
something towards the object I have in view; or at least my present
testimony will clear me of guilt in the judgment day.
5. They have already inserted these
expressions in their own writings. They sent them first to the
man of God, Meletius,2783
bishop, and after
receiving from him a suitable reply, like mothers of monsters, ashamed
of their natural deformities, these men themselves brought forth and
bring up their disgusting offspring in appropriate darkness. They
made an attempt too by letter on my dear friend Anthimus, bishop of
Tyana,2784
| 2784 Tyana,
at the north of Mount Taurus, is the city which gave a distinctive
name to Apollonius the Thaumaturge. That Basil should speak in
kindly and complimentary terms of Anthimus is remarkable, for from
few contemporaries did he suffer more. It was the quarrel in
which Anthimus attacked and plundered a train of Basil’s
sumpter mules, and Gregory of Nazianzus fought stoutly for his
friend, that led to Basil’s erecting Sasima into a bishopric,
as a kind of buffer see against his rival metropolitan. (Greg.
Naz., Or. xliii. 356, Ep. xxxi. and
Carm. i. 8.) See Prolegomena. | on the ground
that Gregory had said in his exposition of the faith2785
| 2785 The ἔκθεσις τῆς
πίστεως of
Gregory Thaumaturgus. cf. Ep. cciv. and
the De Sp. Scto. § 74. On the genuineness of the
ἔκθεσις, vide
D. C. Biog. i. 733. cf.
Dorner’s Christologie i. 737. It
is given at length in the Life of Greg. Thaumat. by Gregory
of Nyssa, and is found in the Latin Psalter, written in gold,
which Charlemagne gave to Adrian I. Bp. Bull’s
translation is as follows:
“There is one God, Father of Him
who is the living Word, subsisting Wisdom and Power and Eternal
Impress, Perfect begotten of the Perfect, Father of the only begotten
Son. There is one Lord, Alone of the Alone, God of God, Impress
and Image of the Godhead, the operative Word; Wisdom comprehensive of
the system of the universe, and Power productive of the whole creation;
true Son of true Father, Invisible of Invisible and Incorruptible of
Incorruptible, and Immortal of Immortal, and Eternal of Eternal.
And there is one Holy Ghost, who hath His being of God, who hath
appeared through the Son, Image of the Son, Perfect of the Perfect;
Life, the cause of all them that live; Holy Fountain, Holiness, the
Bestower of Sanctification, in whom is manifested God the Father, who
is over all and in all, and God the Son, who is through all. A
Perfect Trinity, not divided nor alien in glory and eternity and
dominion.” | that Father and Son are in thought two,
but in hypostasis one.2786
| 2786 The Ben.
note refused to believe that so Sabellian an expression can have
been used by Gregory. Basil’s explanation is that it was
used in controversy with a heathen on another subject, loosely and
not dogmatically. The words are said not to be found in any
extant document attributed to Gregory, whether genuine or
doubtful. But they may be matched in some of the expressions
of Athanasius. cf. p. 195. Ath., Tom. ad
Af. § 4 and Hom. in Terem. viii.
96. | The men
who congratulate themselves on the subtilty of their
intelligence could not perceive that this is said not in reference
to dogmatic opinion, but in controversy with Ælian. And
in this dispute there are not a few copyists’ blunders, as,
please God, I shall shew in the case of the actual expressions
used. But in his endeavour to convince the heathen, he
deemed it needless to be nice about the words he employed; he
judged it wiser sometimes to make concessions to the character of
the subject who was being persuaded, so as not to run counter to
the opportunity given him. This explains how it is that you
may find there many expressions which now give great support to
the heretics, as for instance “creature”2787
and “thing made”2788
and the like. But those who
ignorantly criticise these writings refer to the question of the
Godhead much that is said in reference to the conjunction with
man; as is the case with this passage which they are hawking
about. For it is indispensable to have clear understanding
that, as he who fails to confess the community of the essence or
substance falls into polytheism, so he who refuses to grant the
distinction of the hypostases is carried away into Judaism.
For we must keep our mind stayed, so to say, on certain underlying
subject matter, and, by forming a clear impression of its
distinguishing lines, so arrive at the end desired. For
suppose we do not bethink us of the Fatherhood, nor bear in mind
Him of whom this distinctive quality is marked off, how can we
take in the idea of God the Father? For merely to enumerate
the differences of Persons2789
is
insufficient; we must confess each Person2790
to have a natural existence in real
hypostasis. Now Sabellius did not even deprecate the
formation of the persons without hypostasis, saying as he did that
the same God, being one in matter,2791
was metamorphosed as the need of the
moment required, and spoken of now as Father, now as Son, and now
as Holy Ghost. The inventors of this unnamed heresy are
renewing the old long extinguished error; those, I mean, who are
repudiating the hypostases, and denying the name of the Son of
God. They must give over uttering iniquity against
God,2792
or they will
have to wail with them that deny the Christ.
6. I have felt compelled to write to you in
these terms, that you may be on your guard against the mischief arising
from bad teaching. If we may indeed liken pernicious teachings to
poisonous drugs, as your dream-tellers have it, these doctrines are
hemlock and monkshood, or any other deadly to man. It is these
that destroy souls; not my words, as this shrieking drunken scum, full
of the fancies of their condition, make out. If they had any
sense they ought to know that in souls, pure and cleansed from all
defilement, the prophetic gift shines clear. In a foul mirror you
cannot see what the reflexion is, neither can a soul preoccupied with
cares of this life, and darkened with the passions of the lust of the
flesh, receive the rays of the Holy Ghost. Every dream is not a
prophecy, as says Zechariah, “The Lord shall make bright clouds,
and give them showers of rain,…for the idols have spoken vanity
and the diviners have told false dreams.”2793
Those who, as Isaiah says, dream
and love to sleep in their bed2794
forget that
an operation of error is sent to “the children of
disobedience.”2795
And there
is a lying spirit, which arose in false prophecies, and deceived
Ahab.2796
Knowing
this they ought not to have been so lifted up as to ascribe the gift
of prophecy to themselves. They are shewn to fall far short
even of the case of the seer Balaam; for Balaam when invited by the
king of Moab with mighty bribes brooked not to utter a word beyond
the will of God, nor to curse Israel whom the Lord cursed
not.2797
If then
their sleep-fancies do not tally with the commandments of the Lord,
let them be content with the Gospels. The Gospels need no
dreams to add to their credit. The Lord has sent His peace to
us, and left us a new commandment, to love one another, but dreams
bring strife and division and destruction of love. Let them
therefore not give occasion to the devil to attack their souls in
sleep; nor make their imaginations of more authority than the
instruction of salvation.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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