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| To Count Terentius.
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Letter CCXIV.2809
To Count Terentius.2810
| 2810 cf.
Letters xcix. and cv. |
1. When I heard that your
excellency had again been compelled to take part in public affairs, I
was straightway distressed (for the truth must be told) at the thought
of how contrary to your mind it must be that you after once giving up
the anxieties of official life, and allowing yourself leisure for the
care of your soul, should again be forced back into your old
career. But then I bethought me that peradventure the Lord has
ordained that your lordship should again appear in public from this
wish to grant the boon of one alleviation for the countless pains which
now beset the Church in our part of the world. I am, moreover,
cheered by the thought that I am about to meet your excellency once
again before I depart this life.
2. But a further rumour has reached me that
you are in Antioch, and are transacting the business in hand with the
chief authorities. And, besides this, I have heard that the
brethren who are of the party of Paulinus are entering on some
discussion with your excellency on the subject of union with us; and by
“us” I mean those who are supporters of the blessed man of
God, Meletius.2811
| 2811 On the
divisions of Antioch, cf. Theod., H.E. iii.
2. Basil was no doubt taking the wise course in supporting
Meletius, whose personal orthodoxy was unimpeachable. But the
irreconcilable Eustathians could not forgive him his Arian
nomination. | I hear,
moreover, that the Paulinians are carrying about a letter of the
Westerns,2812
| 2812 This
description might apply to either of the two letters written by
Damasus to Paulinus on the subject of the admission to communion of
Vitalius, bishop of the Apollinarian schism at Antioch.
(Labbe. Conc. ii. 864 and 900, and Theod. H.E. v.
ii.) The dates may necessitate its being referred to the
former. | assigning to them
the episcopate of the Church in Antioch, but speaking under a false
impression of Meletius, the admirable bishop of the true Church of
God. I am not astonished at this. They2813
are totally ignorant of what is going on
here; the others, though they might be supposed to know, give an
account to them in which party is put before truth; and it is only what
one might expect that they should either be ignorant of the truth, or
should even endeavour to conceal the reasons which led the blessed
Bishop Athanasius to write to Paulinus. But your excellency has
on the spot those who are able to tell you accurately what passed
between the bishops in the reign of Jovian, and from them I beseech you
to get information.2814
| 2814 cf.
Letter cclviii. and the Prolegomena to Athanasius in this
edition, p. lxi. The events referred to took place in the
winter of 363, when Athanasius was at Antioch, and in the early part
of 364 on his return to Alexandria. | I accuse no
one; I pray that I may have love to all, and “especially unto
them who are of the household of faith;”2815
and therefore I congratulate those who
have received the letter from Rome. And, although it is a
grand testimony in their favour, I only hope it is true and
confirmed by facts. But I shall never be able to persuade
myself on these grounds to ignore Meletius, or to forget the Church
which is under him, or to treat as small, and of little importance
to the true religion, the questions which originated the
division. I shall never consent to give in, merely because
somebody is very much elated at receiving a letter from
men.2816
| 2816 St.
Basil seems quite unaware of any paramount authority in a letter
from Rome. cf. Prolegomena. | Even if it had come down from
heaven itself, but he does not agree with the sound doctrine of the
faith, I cannot look upon him as in communion with the
saints.
3. Consider well, my excellent friend, that
the falsifiers of the truth, who have introduced the Arian schism as an
innovation on the sound faith of the Fathers, advance no other reason
for refusing to accept the pious opinion of the Fathers than the
meaning of the homoousion which they hold in their wickedness, and to
the slander of the whole faith, alleging our contention to be that the
Son is consubstantial in hypostasis. If we give them any
opportunity by our being carried away by men who propound these
sentiments and their like, rather from simplicity than from
malevolence, there is nothing to prevent our giving them an
unanswerable ground of argument against ourselves and confirming the
heresy of those whose one end is in all their utterances about the
Church, not so much to establish their own position as to calumniate
mine. What more serious calumny could there be? What better
calculated to disturb the faith of the majority than that some of us
could be shewn to assert that there is one hypostasis of Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost? We distinctly lay down that there is a difference
of Persons; but this statement was anticipated by Sabellius, who
affirms that God is one by hypostasis, but is described by Scripture in
different Persons, according to the requirements of each individual
case; sometimes under the name of Father, when there is occasion for
this Person; sometimes under the name of Son when there is a descent to
human interests or any of the operations of the
œconomy;2817
| 2817 Vide
notes, pp. 7 and 12. On Sabellius, cf. note on
Letter ccxxxvi. | and sometimes
under the Person of Spirit when the occasion demands such
phraseology. If, then, any among us are shewn to assert that
Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one in substance,2818
while we maintain the three perfect
Persons, how shall we escape giving clear and incontrovertible proof
of the truth of what is being asserted about us?
4. The non-identity of hypostasis and ousia is, I take it, suggested even by our western
brethren, where, from a suspicion of the inadequacy of their own
language, they have given the word ousia in the Greek, to the end that any possible
difference of meaning might be preserved in the clear and
unconfounded distinction of terms. If you ask me to state
shortly my own view, I shall state that ousia has the same relation to hypostasis as
the common has to the particular. Every one of us both
shares in existence by the common term of essence
(ousia) and by his own
properties is such an one and such an one. In the same
manner, in the matter in question, the term ousia is common, like goodness, or
Godhead, or any similar attribute; while hypostasis is
contemplated in the special property of Fatherhood, Sonship, or
the power to sanctify. If then they describe the Persons as
being without hypostasis,2819
the statement
is per se absurd; but if they concede that the Persons
exist in real hypostasis, as they acknowledge, let them so reckon
them that the principle of the homoousion may be preserved in the unity of
the Godhead, and that the doctrine preached may be the
recognition of true religion, of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in
the perfect and complete hypostasis of each of the Persons
named. Nevertheless, there is one point which I should like
to have pressed on your excellency, that you and all who like you
care for the truth, and honour the combatant in the cause of true
religion, ought to wait for the lead to be taken in bringing
about this union and peace by the foremost authorities in the
Church, whom I count as pillars and foundations of the truth and
of the Church, and reverence all the more because they have been
sent away for punishment, and have been exiled far from
home. Keep yourself, I implore you, clear of prejudice,
that in you, whom God has given me as a staff and support in all
things, I may be able to find rest.2820
| 2820 On the
point treated of in this letter, cf. note on p. 5 and
Letter xxxviii. p. 137. But in the De S.S.
cap. 38 (p. 23) St. Basil himself repudiates the assertion
of three “original hypostases,” when he is
apparently using ὑπόστασις in
the Nicene sense. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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