NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

Of the origin of the word “with,” and what force it has. Also concerning the unwrittenlaws of the church.66. 1268 Of the beliefs and practices whether generally accepted or publicly enjoinedwhich are preserved in the Church 1269 some we possess derived from written teaching;411268 The genuineness of this latter portion of the Treatise was objected to by Erasmus on the ground thatthe style is unlike that of Basil’s soberer writings. Bp. Jeremy Taylor follows Erasmus (Vol. vi. ed. 1852, p. 427).It was vindicated by Casaubon, who recalls St. John Damascene’s quotation of the Thirty Chapters to Amphilochius.Mr. C.F.H. Johnston remarks, “The later discovery of the Syriac Paraphrases of the whole book pushes backthis argument to about one hundred years from the date of St. Basil’s writing. The peculiar care taken by St.Basil for the writing out of the treatise, and for its safe arrival in Amphilochius’ hands, and the value set uponit by the friends of both, make the forgery of half the present book, and the substitution of it for the originalwithin that period, almost incredible.” Section 66 is quoted as an authoritative statement on the right use ofTradition “as a guide to the right understanding of Holy Scripture, for the right ministration of the Sacraments,and the preservation of sacred rights and ceremonies in the purity of their original institution,” in Philaret’sLonger Catechism of the Eastern Church. St. Basil is, however, strong on the supremacy of Holy Scripture, as inthe passages quoted in Bp. H. Browne, On the xxxix Articles: “Believe those things which are written; the thingswhich are not written seek not.” (Hom. xxix. adv. Calum. S. Trin.) “It is a manifest defection from the faith,and a proof of arrogance, either to reject anything of what is written, or to introduce anything that is not.” (DeFide. i.) cf. also Letters CV. and CLIX. On the right use of Tradition cf. Hooker, Ecc. Pol. lxv. 2, “Lest, therefore,the name of tradition should be offensive to any, considering how far by some it hath been and is abused, wemean by traditions ordinances made in the prime of Christian Religion, established with that authority whichChrist hath left to His Church for matters indifferent, and in that consideration requisite to be observed, till likeauthority see just and reasonable causes to alter them. So that traditions ecclesiastical are not rudely and ingross to be shaken off, because the inventors of them were men.” cf. Tert., De Præsc. 36, 20, 21, “Constat omnemdoctrinam quæ cum illis ecclesiis apostolicis matricibus et originalibus fidei conspiret veritati deputandam, id sinedubio tenentem quod ecclesiæ ab apostolis, apostoli a Christo, Christus a Deo accepit.” VideThomasius, Christ.Dogm. i. 105.1269 “τῶς ἐν τῇ Εκκλησί& 139· πεφυλαγμένων δογμάτων καὶ κηρυγμάτων.” To give the apparent meaningof the original seems impossible except by some such paraphrase as the above. In Scripture δόγμα, which occursfive times (Luke ii. 1, Acts xvi. 4, xvii. 7, Eph. ii. 15, and Col. ii. 14), always has its proper sense of decree or ordinances.cf. Bp. Lightfoot, on Col. ii. 14, and his contention that the Greek Fathers generally have mistakenthe force of the passage in understanding δόγματα in both Col. and Eph. to mean the doctrines and precepts ofthe Gospel. Κήρυγμα occurs eight times (Matt. xii. 41, Luke xi. 32, Rom. xvi. 25, 1 Cor. i. 21, ii. 4, xv. 14, 2 Timiv. 17, and Tit. i. 3), always in the sense of preaching or proclamation. “The later Christian sense of δόγμα,meaning doctrine, came from its secondary classical use, where it was applied to the authoritative and categorical‘sentences’ of the philosophers: cf. Just. Mart., Apol. i. 7. οἰ ἐν ῞Ελλησι τὰ αὐτοῖς ἀρεστὰ δογματίσαντες ἐκπαντὸς τῷ ενὶ ὀνόματι φιλοσοφίας προσαγορεύοντα, καίπερ τῶν δογμάτων ἐναντίων ὄντων.” [All the sectsin general among the Greeks are known by the common name of philosophy, though their doctrines are different.]230