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

To the Sozopolitans. 3168
Letter CCLXI. 3167
I have received the letter which you, right honourable brethren, have sent me concerning
the circumstances in which you are placed. I thank the Lord that you have let me share in
the anxiety you feel as to your attention to things needful and deserving of serious heed.
But I was distressed to hear that over and above the disturbance brought on the Churches
by the Arians, and the confusion caused by them in the definition of the faith, there has
appeared among you yet another innovation, throwing the brotherhood into great dejection,
because, as you have informed me, certain persons are uttering, in the hearing of the faithful,
novel and unfamiliar doctrines which they allege to be deduced from the teaching of Scripture.
You write that there are men among you who are trying to destroy the saving incarnation
3169 of our Lord Jesus Christ, and, so far as they can, are overthrowing the grace of the
great mystery unrevealed from everlasting, but manifested in His own times, when the Lord,
when He had gone through 3170 all things pertaining to the cure of the human race, bestowed
on all of us the boon of His own sojourn among us. For He helped His own creation, first
through the patriarchs, whose lives were set forth as examples and rules to all willing to
follow the footsteps of the saints, and with zeal like theirs to reach the perfection of good
works. Next for succour He gave the Law, ordaining it by angels in the hand of Moses; 3171
then the prophets, foretelling the salvation to come; judges, kings, and righteous men, doing
great works, with a mighty 3172 hand. After all these in the last days He was Himself mani-
3167 This letter is placed in 377. Fessler styles it “celeberrima.” The Benedictine heading is “Cum scripsissent
Basilio Sozopolitani nonnullos carnem cœlestem Christo affingere et affectus humanos in ipsam divinitatem conferre;
breviter hunc errorem refellit; ac demonstrat nihil nobis prodesse passiones Christi si non eandem ac nos carnem
habuit. Quod spectat ad affectus humanos, probat naturales a Christo assumptos fuisse, vitiosos vero nequaquam.”
3168 Sozopolis, or Suzupolis, in Pisidia (cf. Evagrius, Hist. Ecc. iii. 33), has been supposed to be the ancient
name of Souzon, S. of Aglasoun, where ruins still exist. On its connexion with Apollonia, cf. Hist. Geog. A.M.
p. 400.
3169 οἰκονομίαν.
3170 Here the Ben. Ed. call attention to the fact that S. Basil may by this word indicate the appearance of the
Son to the patriarchs before the Birth from the Virgin, and compares a similar statement in his Book Cont. Eu-
nom. II., as well as the words of Clemens Alex. in the work Quis Dives Salvandus, n. 8, in which the Son is described
as ἀπὸ γενέσεως μέχρι τοῦ σημείου τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα διατρέχων.
3171 cf. Gal. iii. 19.
To the Sozopolitans.
3172 κραταιᾷ with the ed. Par. seems to make better sense than κρυφαί& 139·, which has better authority.
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