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

Basil and the Councils, to the Accession of Valens.friend. 93 In the interval between the visit to Constantinople and this death-bed reconciliation,that form of error arose which was long known by the name of Macedonianism, and whichSt. Basil was in later years to combat with such signal success in the treatise Of the Spirit.It combined disloyalty to the Spirit and to the Son. But countervailing events were the acceptanceof the Homoousion by the Council of Paris, 94 and the publication of Athanasius’letters to Serapion on the divinity of the two Persons assailed. To this period is referred thecompilation by Basil of the Moralia. 95The brief reign of Julian would affect Basil, in common with the whole Church, in twoways: in the relief he would feel at the comparative toleration shewn to Catholics, and theconsequent return of orthodox bishops to their sees; 96 in the distress with which he wouldwitness his old friend’s attempts to ridicule and undermine the Faith. Sorrow more personaland immediate must have been caused by the harsh treatment of Cæsarea 97 and the cruelimposts laid on Cappadocia. What conduct on the part of the Cæsareans may have ledGregory of Nazianzus 98 to speak of Julian as justly offended, we can only conjecture. It mayhave been the somewhat disorderly proceedings in connexion with the appointment ofEusebius to succeed Dianius. But there can be no doubt about the sufferings of Cæsareanor of the martyrdom of Eupsychius and Damas for their part in the destruction of theTemple of Fortune. 99xix93 Epp. viii. and li.94 360. Mansi, iii. 357–9.95 ἠθικά. “Capita moralia christiana, ex meris Novi Testamenti dictis contexta et regulis lxxx. comprehensa.”Fab. Closely connected with these are the Regulæ fusius tractatæ (ὅροι κατὰ πλάτος) lv., and the Regulæ breviustractatæ (ὅροι κατ᾽ ἔπιτόμην) cccxiii. (Migne, xxxi. pp. 890–1306) on which see later.96 The most important instance being that of Athanasius, who, on his return to Alexandria after his thirdexile, held a synod which condemned Macedonians as well as Arians. cf. Newman’s Arians, v. 1.97 Soz. v. 4.98 Or. iv. § 92.99 Epp. c., cclii. Soz. v. 11. cf. also Epp. xxxix., xl., and xli., with the notes on pp. 141, 142, for the argumentfor and against the genuineness of the correspondence. Two Eupsychii of Cæsarea are named in the ActaSanctorum and by the Petits Bollandistes,—one celebrated on April 9, said to have been martyred in the reignof Hadrian, the other the victim of Julian in 362, commemorated on Sept. 7. Tillemont identifies them. Baroniusthinks them distinct. J. S. Stilting (Act. Sanct. ed. 1868) is inclined to distinguish them mainly on the groundthat between 362 and the time of Basil’s describing the festival as an established yearly commemoration thereis not sufficient interval for the cultus to have arisen. This alone seems hardly convincing. The local interestin the victim of Julian’s severity would naturally be great. Becket was murdered in 1170 and canonized in 1173,Dec. 29 being fixed for his feast; Lewis VII. of France was among the pilgrims in 1179. Bernadette Soubirousannounced her vision at Lourdes in 1858; the church was begun there in 1862.22