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

To the Patrician Cæsaria, concerning Communion.Letter XCIII. 2328To the Patrician Cæsaria, 2329 concerning Communion.It is good and beneficial to communicate every day, and to partake of the holy body andblood of Christ. For He distinctly says, “He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloodhath eternal life.” 2330 And who doubts that to share frequently in life, is the same thing asto have manifold life. I, indeed, communicate four times a week, on the Lord’s day, onWednesday, on Friday, and on the Sabbath, and on the other days if there is a commemorationof any Saint. 2331 It is needless to point out that for anyone in times of persecution tobe compelled to take the communion in his own hand without the presence of a priest orminister is not a serious offence, as long custom sanctions this practice from the factsthemselves. All the solitaries in the desert, where there is no priest, take the communionthemselves, keeping communion at home. And at Alexandria and in Egypt, each one of thelaity, for the most part, keeps the communion, at his own house, and participates in it whenhe likes. For when once the priest has completed the offering, and given it, the recipient,participating in it each time as entire, is bound to believe that he properly takes and receivesit from the giver. And even in the church, when the priest gives the portion, the recipienttakes it with complete power over it, and so lifts it to his lips with his own hand. It has thesame validity whether one portion or several portions are received from the priest at thesame time. 2332is of a different οὐσία or ὑπόστασις. On the distinction between οὐσία and ὑπόστασις see Letters xxxviii., cxxv.,and ccxxxvi. and the De Sp. Sancto. § 7. On the difficulty of expressing the terms in Latin, cf. Letter ccxiv. Asὑπόστασις was in 325 understood to be equivalent to οὐσία, and in 370 had acquired a different connotation, itwould be no more difficult for Basil than for the Church now, to assent to what is called the Nicene position,while confessing three hypostases. In Letter cxxv. Basil does indeed try to shew, but apparently without success,that to condemn the statement that He is of a different hypostasis is not equivalent to asserting Him to be of thesame hypostasis.2328 Placed in 372.2329 Two mss. read Cæsarius.2330 John vi. 54.2331 A various reading is “martyr.” In Letter cxcvii. to S. Ambrose, S. Basil, states that the same honour waspaid to S. Dionysius of Milan in his place of sepulture as to a martyr. So Gregory Thaumaturgus was honouredat Neocæsarea, and Athanasius and Basil received like distinction soon after their death.2332 The custom of the reservation of the Sacrament is, as is well known, of great antiquity. cf. Justin Martyr,Apol. i. 85; Tertull., De Orat. xix. and Ad Ux. ii. 5; S. Cyprian, De Lapsis cxxxii.; Jerome, Ep. cxxv. Abuses of thepractice soon led to prohibition. So an Armenian Canon of the fourth century (Canones Isaaci, in Mai, Script.Vet. Nov. Coll. x. 280) and the Council of Saragossa, 380; though in these cases there seems an idea of surreptitious526