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| To Maximus the Philosopher.
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Letter
IX.1872
| 1872 To be ascribed
to the same period as the preceding. |
To Maximus the Philosopher.
1. Speech is really
an image of mind: so I have learned to know you from your
letters, just as the proverb tells us we may know “the lion from
his claws.”1873
| 1873 In Lucian
(Hermot. 54) the proverb is traced to a story of Pheidias,
who, “after a look at a claw, could tell how big the whole
lion, formed in proportion would be.” A parallel Greek
adage was ἐκτοῦ
κρασπέδου
τὸ πᾶν
ὕφασμα. Vide
Leutsch., Corp. Parœmiog. Græc. I. 252. |
I am delighted to find that your strong inclinations lie
in the direction of the first and greatest of good things—love
both to God and to your neighbour. Of the latter I find proof in
your kindness to myself; of the former, in your zeal for
knowledge. It is well known to every disciple of Christ that in
these two all is contained.
2. You ask for the writings of
Dionysius;1874
they did indeed
reach me, and a great many they were; but I have not the books with me,
and so have not sent them. My opinion is, however, as
follows. I do not admire everything that is written; indeed of
some things I totally disapprove. For it may be, that of the
impiety of which we are now hearing so much, I mean the Anomœan,
it is he, as far as I know, who first gave men the seeds. I do
not trace his so doing to any mental depravity, but only to his earnest
desire to resist Sabellius. I often compare him to a woodman
trying to straighten some ill-grown sapling, pulling so immoderately in
the opposite direction as to exceed the mean, and so dragging the plant
awry on the other side. This is very much what we find to be the
case with Dionysius. While vehemently opposing the impiety of the
Libyan,1875
| 1875 i.e.
Sabellius. Basil is the first writer who asserts his African
birth. In Ep. ccvii. he is “Sabellius the
Libyan.” His active life was Roman; his views popular in
the Pentapolis. | he is carried away
unawares by his zeal into the opposite error. It would have been
quite sufficient for him to have pointed out that the Father and the
Son are not identical in substance,1876
| 1876 οὐ ταυτὸν
τῷ
ὑποκειμένῷ.
Aristotle, Metaph. vi. 3, 1, says, μάλιστα
δοκεῖ εἶναι
οὐσία τὸ
ὑποκείμενον
τὸ πρῶτον. On
the distinction between ὁμοούσιος and
ταυτὸν
τῷ
ὑποκειμένῳ, cf. Athan., Exp. Fid. ii., where the Sabellians
are accused of holding an υἱοπατώρ,
and Greg. Nyss answer to Eunomius, Second Book, p. 254 in Schaff
and Wace’s ed. Vide also Prolegg. to
Athan., p. xxxi. in this series. Epiphanius says of Noetus,
μονοτύπως
τον αὐτὸν
πατέρα καὶ
Υἱ& 232·ν καὶ
ἅγιον
πνεῦμα…ἡγσάμενος
(Hæres. lvii. 2) and of Sabellius, Δογματίζει
οὗτος καὶ οἱ
ἀπ᾽ αὐποῦ
Σαβελλιανοὶ
τὸν αὐτὸν
εἶναι
Πατέρα τὸν
αὐτὸν Υἱ&
232·ν τὸν
αὐτὸν εἶναι
ἅγιον
πνεῦμα, ὡς
εἶναι ἐν μιᾷ
ὑποστάσει
τρεῖς
ὀνομασίας.
(Hæres. lxii. i.) | and thus to
score against the blasphemer. But, in order to win an
unmistakable and superabundant victory, he is not satisfied with laying
down a difference of hypostases, but must needs assert also difference
of substance, diminution of power, and variableness of glory. So
he exchanges one mischief for another, and diverges from the right line
of doctrine. In his writings he exhibits a miscellaneous
inconsistency, and is at one time to be found disloyal to the
homoousion, because of his opponent1877
who made a bad
use of it to the destruction of the hypostases, and at another
admitting it in his Apology to his namesake.1878
Besides this he uttered very
unbecoming words about the Spirit, separating Him from the Godhead, the
object of worship, and assigning Him an inferior rank with created and
subordinate nature. Such is the man’s character.
3. If I must give my own view, it is
this. The phrase “like in essence,”1879
if it be read with the addition
“without any difference,”1880
I
accept as conveying the same sense as the homoousion, in accordance
with the sound meaning of the homoousion. Being of this mind the
Fathers at Nicæa spoke of the Only-begotten as “Light of
Light,” “Very God of very God,” and so on, and then
consistently added the homoousion. It is impossible for any one
to entertain the idea of variableness of light in relation to light, of
truth in relation to truth, nor of the essence of the Only begotten in
relation to that of the Father. If, then, the phrase be accepted
in this sense, I have no objection to it. But if any one cuts off
the qualification “without any difference” from the word
“like,” as was done at Constantinople,1881
| 1881 i.e. at
the Acacian council of Constantinople in 360, at which fifty bishops
accepted the creed of Arminum as revised at Nike, proscribing
οὐσια
and ὑπόστασις, and pronounced the Son to be “like the Father, as say the Holy
Scriptures.” cf. Theod. II. xvi. and Soc. II.
xli. In 366 Semiarian deputies from the council of Lampsacus
represented to Liberius at Rome that κατὰ
πάντα
ὅμοιος and ὁμοούσιος
were equivalent. | then I regard the phrase with suspicion, as
derogatory to the dignity of the Only-begotten. We are frequently
accustomed to entertain the idea of “likeness” in the case
of indistinct resemblances, coming anything but close to the
originals. I am myself for the homoousion, as being less open to
improper interpretation. But why, my dear sir, should you not pay
me a visit, that we may talk of these high topics face to face, instead
of committing them to lifeless letters,—especially when I have
determined not to publish my views? And pray do not adopt, to me,
the words of Diogenes to Alexander, that “it is as far from you
to me as from me to you.” I am almost obliged by ill-health
to remain like the plants, in one place; moreover I hold “the
living unknown”1882
| 1882 λάθε
βιώσας is quoted by
Theodoret in Ep. lxii. as a saying of “one of the men
once called wise.” It is attributed to Epicurus.
Horace imitates it in Ep. I. xvii. 10: “Nec
vixit male qui natus moriensque fefellit.” So
Ovid, Tristia III. iv. 25: “crede mihi; bene
qui latuit, bene vixit,” and Eurip., Iph. in Aul.
17:
Ζηλῶ
σὲ, γέρον,
Ζηλῶ
δ᾽ ἀνδρῶν ὃς
ἀκινδυνον
Βίον
ἐξεπέρασ᾽
ἀγνὼς
ἀκλεής.
Plutarch has an essay on the question,
εἰ
καλῶς ἐ&
176·ρηται τὸ
λάθε
βιώσας. | to be one of the
chief goods. You, I am told, are in good health; you have made
yourself a citizen of the world, and you might consider in coming to
see me that you are coming home. It is quite right for you, a man
of action, to have crowds and towns in which to show your good
deeds. For me, quiet is the best aid for the contemplation and
mental exercise whereby I cling to God. This quiet I cultivate in
abundance in my retreat, with the aid of its giver, God. Yet if
you cannot but court the great, and despise me who lie low upon the
ground, then write, and in this way make my life a happier
one.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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