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

To the Italians and Gauls.
prayers in the open air, putting up with all the inconvenience of the weather with great patience,
and waiting for help from the Lord.
3. What lamentation can match these woes? What springs of tears are sufficient for
them? While, then, some men do seem to stand, while yet a trace of the old state of things
is left, before utter shipwreck comes upon the Churches, hasten to us, hasten to us now,
true brothers, we implore you; on our knees we implore you, hold out a helping hand. May
your brotherly bowels be moved toward us; may tears of sympathy flow; do not see, unmoved,
half the empire swallowed up by error; do not let the light of the faith be put out in the place
where it shone first.
By what action you can then help matters, and how you are to show sympathy for the
afflicted, you do not want to be told by us; the Holy Ghost will suggest to you. But unquestionably,
if the survivors are to be saved, there is need of prompt action, and of the arrival
of a considerable number of brethren, that those who visit us may complete the number of
the synod, in order that they may have weight in effecting a reform, not merely from the
dignity of those whose emissaries they are, but also from their own number: thus they will
restore the creed drawn up by our fathers at Nicæa, proscribe the heresy, and, by bringing
into agreement all who are of one mind, speak peace to the Churches. For the saddest thing
about it all is that the sound part is divided against itself, and the troubles we are suffering
are like those which once befel Jerusalem when Vespasian was besieging it. The Jews of that
time were at once beset by foes without and consumed by the internal sedition of their own
people. In our case, too, in addition to the open attack of the heretics, the Churches are reduced
to utter helplessness by the war raging among those who are supposed to be orthodox.
For all these reasons we do indeed desire your help, that, for the future all who confess the
apostolic faith may put an end to the schisms which they have unhappily devised, and be
reduced for the future to the authority of the Church; that so, once more, the body of Christ
may be complete, restored to integrity with all its members. Thus we shall not only praise
the blessings of others, which is all we can do now, but see our own Churches once more
restored to their pristine boast of orthodoxy. For, truly, the boon given you by the Lord is
fit subject for the highest congratulation, your power of discernment between the spurious
and the genuine and pure, and your preaching the faith of the Fathers without any dissimulation.
That faith we have received; that faith we know is stamped with the marks of the
Apostles; to that faith we assent, as well as to all that was canonically and lawfully promulgated
in the Synodical Letter. 2327
2327 After noting that the Synodical Letter is to be found in Theodoret and in Sozomen (i.e. is in Theodoret
I. viii. and in Socrates I. ix.) the Ben. Ed. express surprise that Basil should indicate concurrence with the Synod-
ical Letter, which defines the Son to be τῆς αὐτῆςὑποστασεως καὶ οὐσίας, while he is known to have taught the
distinction between ὑπόστασις and οὐσία. As a matter of fact, it is not in the Synodical Letter, but in the ana-
themas originally appended to the creed, that it is, not asserted that the Son is of the same, but, denied that He
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