Letter 244

244. To Patrophilus, bishop of the church at Aegae.

I read your letter, which you sent through our brother Strategius the fellow-presbyter, and I read it with pleasure. For how could I not, when it was written both by a man of understanding and from a heart taught, by the commandment of the Lord, to perfect love toward all? And I came near to recognizing the cause of your silence in the time past. For you seemed to be at a loss and astounded, that the Basil who from boyhood had served so-and-so in such a way, who had done this in such circumstances and that, who had taken up the war against the many for the sake of serving the one—that this man had now become another out of another, and had taken up war in place of love; and all the other things you wrote, sufficiently showing the bewilderment of your soul at the unexpected change of affairs. And if you also rebuked us in anything, I did not take this with displeasure. For I am not so beyond admonition as to be offended at the loving rebukes of the brethren. So far am I from being vexed at what you wrote, that I almost laughed at it—that, when so many and so great were the things which seemed to confirm our friendship for one another before, you yourself, over small matters that had reached you, wrote that you had suffered so great a bewilderment. Have you, then, suffered what the many suffer, who, leaving aside the examination of the nature of things, attend to the men whom the discussions concern, and become not examiners of the truth but assayers of the difference of persons, forgetting the exhortation that 'To recognize a person in judgement is not good'?

But since God does not accept the person of a man in judgement, the defence that I have prepared for the great tribunal, this I will not refuse to make known to you also. That nothing on our part, from the beginning, neither small nor great, became the cause of the separation; but men who hate us, for reasons which they themselves know (for it is not for me to say anything about them), made continual slanders, and once and twice we put these off; but as the thing was endless, and there was no use in continual defence—we being settled far away, while the false speakers had near at hand a heart easy to overcome and not taught to keep the other of its ears pure for the absent one, when it was wounded by their slanders against us—when the Nicopolitans demanded some assurance of faith, which surely you yourselves did not fail to know, it seemed good to us to undertake the service of the letter. For we reckoned to accomplish two things at once: both to persuade the Nicopolitans not to think ill of the man, and to stop the mouths of those who slandered us, since the agreement in the faith would shut out the calumnies from both sides. And indeed the creed was composed, and it was offered by us; and it was subscribed as it was subscribed, and a place for a second synod was indicated, and another time, in order that our brothers throughout the parish too, coming together, might be united with one another, and that the communion might be genuine and guileless for the future.

We, then, met at the appointed time, and the brothers with us, some were present and others kept flowing in, all of them bright and eager, as men running to peace; and there were letters from us, and day-runners signalling that we were present; for the place appointed for the reception of those who hastened together was ours. But when from the other side there was no one, neither running ahead nor announcing the coming of those expected, and those sent by us came back relating much dejection and grumbling on the part of those there, as though a new creed had been proclaimed by us; and they were said to be declaring firmly that they would by no means permit their bishop to cross over to us; and someone came bringing us also a letter, a perfunctory one, having no mention of the things agreed upon from the beginning. And the brother Theophilus, worthy of all my reverence and honour, sending one of those with him, made known certain things which he thought it fitting for him to say and proper for us to hear. For he did not see fit to write—not so much suspecting the proof from letters as taking care not to come into the necessity of addressing us as bishops; except indeed that the words were vehement, and brought forth from a heart heated. At these things we broke up, put to shame and fallen in spirit, having nothing to answer to those who asked. And not much time was in between, and a journey as far as Cilicia, and from there a return. And letters at once, holding a renunciation of communion with us.

And the cause of the rupture: that 'You wrote to Apollinaris,' he says, 'and you have our fellow-presbyter Diodorus in communion.' But I never considered Apollinaris an enemy, and there are matters in which I even respect the man; yet I did not so join myself to the man as to take his charges upon myself; since I myself have something to charge against him, having met with some of his writings. But concerning the Holy Spirit I do not know of any book that I either asked him for or received when sent. But I hear that he has become the most prolific of all writers, while I have met with few of his writings; for I have no leisure to search out such things, and at the same time I am somewhat reluctant toward the reception of newer authors, I whose body does not even allow me to persevere diligently, and in the manner one ought, in the reading of the divinely inspired Scriptures. What, then, is this to me, if someone has written something that does not please so-and-so? And yet, if one man must give account for another, let him who charges me on Apollinaris' behalf make his defence to us on behalf of Arius, his own teacher, and on behalf of Aetius, his own disciple. But we have neither been taught anything by, nor were disciples of, the man whose charges they turn upon us.

Diodorus, as a nursling of the blessed Silvanus, we received from the beginning; and now we both love and honour him for the grace of speech that belongs to him, through which many of those who meet him become better.

Disposed by this letter as was likely, and astounded at so unreasonable and sudden a change, I was unable even to make a reply. For my heart was bound fast, my tongue was paralysed, my hand was numbed; and I suffered the suffering of an ignoble soul (for the truth shall be told, though it deserves pardon): I almost fell into misanthropy, and every character seemed to me suspect, and the beauty of love seemed not to be in human nature, but to be a fine-faced word furnishing a kind of adornment to those who use it, while in truth this disposition does not exist in the heart of man. For if one who seemed from boyhood to deep old age to have made care of himself was so easily made savage from such pretexts, taking no account of any of our doings, nor setting the experience of the past as more authoritative than so worthless a slander, but, like some uncolted, untamed foal not yet taught to bear its rider well, from a small suspicion reared up and shook off and threw to the ground those in whom he formerly gloried—what must one suspect concerning others, toward whom we have neither so many pledges of friendship nor such a display of care for their conduct on their part? Unrolling these things by myself in my soul, and continually turning them over in my heart—or rather being turned over in heart by them, so did they bite and prick me through memory—I made no reply to that letter, having kept silent not out of disdain (do not think this, brother; for we make our defence not to men, but we speak before God in Christ), but out of bewilderment and helplessness and having nothing to say worthy of the grief.

While we were in this state, there overtook us another letter, written ostensibly to a certain Dazizas, but in truth sent to all men, as their so swift distribution shows—so that in a few days it was scattered over all Pontus and overran Galatia. And some say that the messengers of these good tidings, passing through Bithynia, reached as far as the Hellespont itself. What the things sent against us to Dazizas were, surely you know. For they do not place you so far from their friendship as to leave you alone unrewarded with that honour. But if the letter did not reach you, I am sending it to you. In it you will find us accused of deceit and trickery, of corruption of churches and destruction of souls, and—what they consider the truest of all—that we made that offering of the creed as a put-up job, not serving the Nicopolitans, but having ourselves guilefully contrived to obtain a confession. Of these things the Lord is judge; for what clear proof could there be of the reckonings in the heart? But this I marvelled at in them: that, whereas over the book offered by us they have made use of so great a divergence as to mix together both what is and what is not for the assurance of those who accuse them, yet they do not consider that in Rome a written confession of theirs of the faith of Nicaea is laid up; nor that with their own hand they delivered to the synod at Tyana the book from Rome, which is laid up with us, holding this same faith. And they have forgotten their own public speech, which, standing forth then in the midst, they made—lamenting the deception by which they were led to consent to the tome composed by the company of Eudoxius; because they devised this defence of that error: that, having gone to Rome, they received from there the faith of the fathers, so that the harm they did to the churches by their agreement with the evil they might set right by the introduction of the better. But those who undertook the longest journeys for the faith, and made these wise speeches, now revile us as going deceitfully, and as doing the deeds of plotters under the appearance of love. And the things now being circulated show that they have condemned the faith of Nicaea. For they saw Cyzicus, and came back with another faith.

And why do I speak of the changeableness in their words, when I have far greater proofs, from the very facts, of their turning to the opposite? For those who would not yield to a decree of five hundred bishops brought forth against them, nor consent to withdraw from the administration of the churches, when so many agreed in the judgement of their deposition—because, they say, those bishops were not partakers of the Holy Spirit, nor administering the churches by the grace of God, but had snatched the offices of presidency by human power and desire of empty glory—these same men now receive as bishops those ordained by them. Ask them in my stead: if they despise all men also, as having neither eyes, nor ears, nor a perceiving heart, at least enough to be able to see the inconsistency of what has been done—what thought do they have in their own heart? How can there be two bishops, both the one deposed by Euippius and the one ordained by him? For both are the work of the same hand. And if he did not have the grace given to Jeremiah, to pull down and to build up, to root out and to plant, he would neither have rooted out the one nor planted the other. But if you grant him the one, you will concede to him the other also. But there is one aim, it seems: to seek their own everywhere, and to consider a friend the one who works together with their desires, but to judge an enemy, and to spare no slander against him, the one who resists their desires.

For such, too, are their present administrations against the Church. Fearful, because of the easy-going temper of those who do them; pitiable, because of the insensibility of those who suffer them. Children of Euippius and grandchildren of Euippius, summoned back from exile through a trustworthy embassy to Sebasteia, were entrusted with the people. They took over the altar; they became a leaven to the church there. By these men we are persecuted as consubstantialists. But Eustathius, who carried in the papyrus from Rome as far as Tyana the term 'consubstantial,' he is now mingled with them—even though he could not be received into their much-desired communion, either because they feared the multitude of those who had agreed against him, or because they were ashamed of the trustworthiness of those witnesses. For who those gathered were, and how each was ordained, and from what kind of former life he came now to this power, may I never have so much leisure as to recount their deeds. For I have learned to pray: 'That my mouth may not speak the works of men.' But you, searching it out, will learn; and even if it escapes you, it will surely not escape the Judge. The suffering I suffered, however, I will not refuse to tell to your love as well: that last year, falling sick with a most violent fever, and coming as far as the very gates of death, then recalled by the loving-kindness of God, I was reluctant to return, reckoning into what evils I was coming again; and I pondered within myself what at last it could be that was laid up in the depth of the wisdom of God, on account of which days of life in the flesh were granted me again. But when I considered these things, I reckoned that the Lord wished us to see the churches ceasing from the storm which they had suffered before this, at the separation of those who were trusted in everything because of their assumed dignity. Or perhaps the Lord wished to brace my soul and make it more watchful for what lay ahead, so as not to attend to men, but to be perfected through the evangelical commandments, which change neither with the seasons nor with the circumstances of human affairs, but remain the same, as they were brought forth from the truthful and blessed mouth, so abiding forever.

But men are like the clouds, borne now to one part of the air, now to another, according to the changes of the winds. And these especially, of whom is our discourse, have appeared the most shifty of all who have come within our experience. Whether also in the other affairs of life those who lived with them might have something to say, what at any rate appeared to me, the changeableness about their faith, I do not know to this day whether I have ever in others either myself observed or heard from others. They followed Arius from the beginning; they went over to Hermogenes, who was diametrically the enemy of the false doctrine of Arius, as the very creed of Nicaea shows, which was uttered by that man at the beginning. Hermogenes fell asleep, and again they went over to Eusebius, a leading man of the Arian circle, as those who tried them say. Falling away from there for whatever reasons, again they ran back to their homeland, and again they hid the Arian opinion. Having come to the episcopate—to pass over the things in between—how many creeds they set forth: at Ancyra one, another at Seleucia, another at Constantinople, the much-talked-of one, another at Lampsacus, after that the one at Nice in Thrace, now again the one at Cyzicus; of which I do not know the rest, but I hear this much, that, having silenced the term 'consubstantial,' they now bring forward 'like in substance,' and compose, together with Eunomius, blasphemies against the Holy Spirit. And of these creeds which I have enumerated, even if they are not all contrary to one another, yet they likewise establish the changeableness of their character, because they have never stood by the same words. These things are true, while countless others are left unsaid.

But since they have now crossed over to you as well, we ask you to write back through the same man (I mean our fellow-presbyter Strategius), whether you have remained the same toward us, or whether you too have been altered by the meeting. For neither was it likely that those men would keep silent, nor that you yourself, who wrote such things to us, would not use your freedom of speech toward them as well. If, then, you should remain in communion with us, this is best and worthy of the highest prayer; but if they have transferred you to themselves, this is grievous. For how is it not the separation of such a brother? Yet, if nothing else, at any rate we have been sufficiently trained, by those very men, to bear such losses.