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

they shun their communion as fatal to souls, and would not accept the votes given for their
deposition, because they were given by heretics, as they persuaded me then,—these very
men, completely forgetful of all this, have joined their faction. 2916 No room for denial is
left them. They laid their mind bare when they embraced private communion with them
at Ancyra, when they had not yet been publicly received by them. Ask them, then, if Basilides,
who gave communion to Ecdicius, is now orthodox, why when returning from Dardania,
did they overthrow his altars in the territory of Gangra, and set up their own tables? 2917
Why have they comparatively recently 2918 attacked the churches of Amasea and Zela and
appointed presbyters and deacons there themselves? If they communicate with them as
orthodox, why do they attack them as heretical? If they hold them to be heretical, how is it
that they do not shun communion with them? Is it not, my honourable brethren, plain even
to the intelligence of a child, that it is always with a view to some personal advantage that
they endeavour to calumniate or to give support? So they have stood off from me, not because
I did not write in reply (which is alleged to be the main ground of offence), nor because I
did not receive the chorepiscopi whom they assert they sent. Those who are trumping up
the tale will render an account to the Lord. One man, Eustathius, 2919 was sent and gave a
letter to the court of the vicar, and spent three days in the city. When he was on the point
of going home, it is said that he came to my house late in the evening, when I was asleep.
On hearing that I was asleep, he went away; he did not come near me on the next day, and
after thus going through the mere form of discharging his duty to me, departed. This is the
charge under which I am guilty. This is the sin against which these long-suffering people
have neglected to weigh the previous service wherein I served them in love. For this error
they have made their wrath against me so severe that they have caused me to be denounced
in all the Churches throughout the world—at least, that is, wherever they could.
2916 The events referred to happened ten years before the date assigned for this letter, when the Semi-Arians
summoned Eudoxius to Lampsacus, and sentenced him to deprivation in his absence. (Soc. H.E. iv. 2–4; Soz.
H.E. vi. 7.) On the refusal of Valens to ratify the deposition and ultimate banishment of the Anti-Eudoxians,
Eustathius went to Rome to seek communion with Liberius, subscribed the Nicene Confession, and received
commendatory letters from Liberius to the Easterns. Soc. H.E. iv. 12. Eudoxius died in 370.
2917 On the action of Eustathius on this occasion, cf. Letter ccli. Basilides is described as a Paphlagonian.
On Ecdicius, intruded by Demosthenes into the see of Paranassus, cf. Letter ccxxxvii.
2918 So the Ben. ed. for μέχρι νῦν, with the idea that the action of Eusthathius in currying favour with the
Catholics of Amasea and Zela by opposing the Arian bishops occupying those sees, must have taken place before
he had quite broken with Basil. Tillemont (ix. 236) takes νῦν to mean 375. Amasea and Zela (in Migne erro-
neously Zeli. On the name, see Ramsay’s Hist. Geog. Asia M. 260) are both on the Iris.
2919 A chorepiscopus; not of course to be confounded with Eustathius of Sebaste.
To the ascetics under him.
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