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

Glycerius should have desired to deal leniently with the offender individually does not
convict them of accepting the unseemly proceedings of Glycerius and his troupe as a pardonable,
if not desirable, survival of a picturesque national custom. 241
Among other bishops of the period with whom Basil communicated by letter are Abramius,
or Abraham, of Batnæ in Oshoene, 242 the illustrious Athanasius, 243 and Ambrose, 244
Athanasius of Ancyra; 245 Barses of Edessa, 246 who died in exile in Egypt; Elpidius, 247 of
some unknown see on the Levantine seaboard, who supported Basil in the controversy with
Eustathius; the learned Epiphanius of Salamis; 248 Meletius, 249 the exiled bishop of Antioch;
241 In the chapter in which Professor Ramsay discusses the story of Glycerius he asks how it was that, while
Phrygia was heretical, Cappadocia, in the fourth century, was orthodox: “Can any reason be suggested why this
great Cappadocian leader followed the Roman Church, whereas all the most striking figures in Phrygian eccle-
siastical history opposed it?” In Phrygia was the great centre of Montanism, a form of religionism not unfavour-
able to excesses such as those of Glycerius. But in Letter cciv., placed in 375, Basil claims both the Phrygias, i.e.
Pacatiana and Salutaris, as being in communion with him. By the “Roman Church,” followed by Cappadocia
and opposed by Phrygia, must be meant either the ecclesiastical system of the Roman Empire, or the Church at
Rome regarded as holding a kind of hegemony of Churches. If the former, it will be remembered that Cappadocia
boldly withstood the creed patronized and pressed by imperial authority, when the influence of Valens made
Arianism the official religion of Rome. If the latter, the phrase seems a misleading anachronism. In the fourth
century there was no following or opposing the Church of Rome as we understand the phrase. To the bishop
of Rome was conceded a certain personal precedence, as bishop of the capital, and he was beginning to claim
more. In the West there was the dignity of the only western apostolic see, and the Church of Rome, as a society,
was eminently orthodox and respectable. But, as important ecclesiastical centres, Antioch and Alexandria were
far ahead of Rome, and the pope of Alexandria occupied a greater place than the pope of Rome. What Basil was
eager to follow was not any local church, but the Faith which he understood to be the true and Catholic Faith,
i.e., the Faith of Nicæa. There was no church of Rome in the sense of one organized œcumenical society governed
by a central Italian authority. Basil has no idea of any such thing as a Roman supremacy. cf. Letter ccxiv. and
note.
242 Ep. cxxxii.
243 Epp. lxi., lxvi., lxvii., lxix., lxxx., lxxxii.
244 Ep. cxcvii.
245 Ep. xxiv.
246 Epp. cclxiv., cclxvii.
247 Epp. ccli., ccv., ccvi.
248 Ep. cclviii.
249 Epp. lvii., lxviii., lxxxix., cxx., cxxix., ccxvi.
Unbroken Friendships.
45