Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

To Maximus the Philosopher.
Letter IX. 1872
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
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 vehe
mently opposing the impiety of the Libyan, 1875 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 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 sub-
1872 To be ascribed to the same period as the preceding.
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.
1874 i.e. of Alexandria.
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.
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.)
To Maximus the Philosopher.
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