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

To Maximus the Philosopher.Letter IX. 1872To Maximus the Philosopher.1. Speech is really an image of mind: so I have learned to know you from your letters,just as the proverb tells us we may know “the lion from his claws.” 1873I am delighted to find that your strong inclinations lie in the direction of the first andgreatest of good things—love both to God and to your neighbour. Of the latter I find proofin your kindness to myself; of the former, in your zeal for knowledge. It is well known toevery disciple of Christ that in these two all is contained.2. You ask for the writings of Dionysius; 1874 they did indeed reach me, and a greatmany they were; but I have not the books with me, and so have not sent them. My opinionis, however, as follows. I do not admire everything that is written; indeed of some things Itotally disapprove. For it may be, that of the impiety of which we are now hearing so much,I mean the Anomœan, it is he, as far as I know, who first gave men the seeds. I do not tracehis so doing to any mental depravity, but only to his earnest desire to resist Sabellius. I oftencompare him to a woodman trying to straighten some ill-grown sapling, pulling so immoderatelyin the opposite direction as to exceed the mean, and so dragging the plant awry onthe other side. This is very much what we find to be the case with Dionysius. While vehemently opposing the impiety of the Libyan, 1875 he is carried away unawares by his zeal intothe opposite error. It would have been quite sufficient for him to have pointed out that theFather and the Son are not identical in substance, 1876 and thus to score against the blasphemer.But, in order to win an unmistakable and superabundant victory, he is not satisfiedwith laying down a difference of hypostases, but must needs assert also difference of sub-1231872 To be ascribed to the same period as the preceding.1873 In Lucian (Hermot. 54) the proverb is traced to a story of Pheidias, who, “after a look at a claw, couldtell how big the whole lion, formed in proportion would be.” A parallel Greek adage was ἐκτοῦ κρασπέδου τὸπᾶν ὕφασμα. Vide Leutsch., Corp. Parœmiog. Græc. I. 252.1874 i.e. of Alexandria.1875 i.e. Sabellius. Basil is the first writer who asserts his African birth. In Ep. ccvii. he is “Sabellius theLibyan.” His active life was Roman; his views popular in the Pentapolis.1876 οὐ ταυτὸν τῷ ὑποκειμένῷ. Aristotle, Metaph. vi. 3, 1, says, μάλιστα δοκεῖ εἶναι οὐσία τὸ ὑποκείμενοντὸ πρῶτον. On the distinction between ὁμοούσιος and ταυτὸν τῷ ὑποκειμένῳ, cf. Athan., Exp. Fid. ii., wherethe Sabellians are accused of holding an υἱοπατώρ, and Greg. Nyss answer to Eunomius, Second Book, p. 254in Schaff and Wace’s ed. Vide also Prolegg. to Athan., p. xxxi. in this series. Epiphanius says of Noetus,μονοτύπως τον αὐτὸν πατέρα καὶ Υἱ& 232·ν καὶ ἅγιον πνεῦμα…ἡγσάμενος (Hæres. lvii. 2) and of Sabellius,Δογματίζει οὗτος καὶ οἱ ἀπ᾽ αὐποῦ Σαβελλιανοὶ τὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι Πατέρα τὸν αὐτὸν Υἱ& 232·ν τὸν αὐτὸν εἶναιἅγιον πνεῦμα, ὡς εἶναι ἐν μιᾷ ὑποστάσει τρεῖς ὀνομασίας. (Hæres. lxii. i.)386