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

heresy? Were not your most faithful disciples there too? When I was visiting the brotherhood,
and passing the night with them in their prayers, continually speaking and hearing
of the things pertaining to God without dispute, was not the evidence which I gave of my
sentiments exact and definite? How came you then to reckon this rotten and slender suspicion
as of more importance than the experience of such a length of time?
What evidence of my frame of mind ought you to have preferred to your own? Has
there been the slightest want of harmony in my utterances about the faith at Chalcedon,
again and again at Heraclea, and at an earlier period in the suburb of Cæsarea? Are they
not all mutually consistent? I only except the increase in force of which I spoke just now,
resulting from advance, and which is not to be regarded as a change from worse to better,
but rather as a filling up of what was wanting in the addition of knowledge. How can you
fail to bear in mind that the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son, nor the son bear
the iniquity of the father, but each shall die in his own sin? 2897 I have neither father nor
son slandered by you; I have had neither teacher nor disciple. But if the sins of the parents
must be made charges against their children, it is far fairer for the sins of Arius to be charged
against his disciples; and, whoever begat the heretic Aetius, 2898 for the charges against the
son to be applied to the father. If on the other hand it is unjust for any one to be accused
for their sakes, it is far more unjust that I should be held responsible for the sake of men
with whom I have nothing to do, even if they were in every respect sinners, and something
worthy of condemnation has been written by them. I must be pardoned if I do not believe
all that is urged against them. since my own experience shows me how very easy it is for
accusers to slip into slander.
6. Even if they did come forward to accuse me, because they had been deceived, and
thought that I was associated with the writers of those words of Sabellius which they are
carrying about, they were guilty of unpardonable conduct in straightway attacking and
wounding me, when I had done them no wrong, before they had obtained plain proof. I
do not like to speak of myself as bound to them in the closest intimacy; or of them as being
evidently not led by the Holy Spirit, because of their cherishing false suspicions. Much
anxious thought must be taken, and many sleepless nights must be passed, and with many
tears must the truth be sought from God, by him who is on the point of cutting himself off
from a brother’s friendship. Even the rulers of this world, when they are on the point of
sentencing some evil doer to death, draw the veil aside, 2899 and call in experts for the exam-
2897 cf. Ezek. xviii. 20.
2898 cf. p. 3, n.
Against Eustathius of Sebasteia.
2899 ἀφέλκονται . So the Harl. ms. for ἐφέλκονται. On the sense which may be applied to either verb cf.
Valesius on Am. Marcellinus xviii. 2, whom the Ben. Ed. point out to be in error in thinking that Basil’s idea is
of drawing a curtain or veil over the proceedings, and Chrysostom Hom. liv. in Matt. ᾽Επὶ τοῖς δικασταῖς, ὅταν
δημοσί& 139· κρινωσι, τὰ παραπετάσματα συνελκύσαντες οἱ παρεστῶτες πᾶσιν ἀυτοὺς δεικνύουσι. This
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