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

caused by heresy will be made to disappear by the method I adopt, and I shall escape the
opprobrium of having gone over to them.
2. I have also been grieved by our brother Dorotheus, because, as he has himself written,
he has not gently and mildly reported everything to your excellency. I set this down to the
difficulty of the times. I seem to be deprived by my sins of all success in my undertakings,
if indeed the best of my brethren are proved ill-disposed and incompetent, by their failure
to perform their duties in accordance with my wishes. On his return Dorotheus reported
to me the conversation which he had had with your excellency in the presence of the very
venerable bishop Damasus, and he caused me distress by saying that our God-beloved
brethren and fellow-ministers, Meletius and Eusebius, had been reckoned among the
Ariomaniacs. 3211 If their orthodoxy were established by nothing else, the attacks made
upon them by the Arians are, to the minds of all right thinking people, no small proof of
their rectitude. Even your participation with them in sufferings endured for Christ’s sake
ought to unite your reverence to them in love. Be assured of this, right honourable sir, that
there is no word of orthodoxy which has not been proclaimed by these men with all boldness.
God is my witness. I have heard them myself. I should not certainly have now admitted
them to communion, if I had caught them tripping in the faith. But, if it seem good to you,
let us leave the past alone. Let us make a peaceful start for the future. For we have need
one of another in the fellowship of the members, and specially now, when the Churches of
the East are looking to us, and will take your agreement as a pledge of strength and consolidation.
If, on the other hand, they perceive that you are in a state of mutual suspicion, they
will drop their hands, and slacken in their resistance to the enemies of the faith. 3212
3211 The Ben. note points out that the accusation against Eusebius (of Samosata) and Meletius was monstrous,
and remarks on the delicacy with which Basil approaches it, without directly charging Petrus, from whom it
must have come, with the slander involved.
3212 One ms. contains a note to the effect that this letter was never sent. Maran (Vit. Bas. xxxvii.) thinks the
internal evidence is in favour of its having been delivered.
To Petrus, bishop of Alexandria.
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