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

To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata.To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata. 2344Letter XCVIII. 23431. After receiving the letter of your holiness, in which you said you would not come, Iwas most anxious to set out for Nicopolis, but I have grown weaker in my wish and haveremembered all my infirmity. I bethought me, too, of the lack of seriousness in the conductof those who invited me. They gave me a casual invitation by the hands of our reverendbrother Hellenius, the surveyor of customs at Nazianzus, but they never took the trouble tosend a messenger to remind me, or any one to escort me. As, for my sins, I was an objectof suspicion to them, I shrank from sullying the brightness of their meeting by my presence.In company with your excellency I do not shrink from stripping for even serious trials ofstrength; but apart from you I feel myself hardly equal even to looking at every day troubles.Since, then, my meeting with them was intended to be about Church affairs, I let the timeof the festival go by, and put off the meeting to a period of rest and freedom from distraction,and have decided to go to Nicopolis to discuss the needs of the Churches with the godlybishop Meletius, in case he should decline to go to Samosata. If he agrees, I shall hasten tomeet him, provided this is made clear to me by both of you, by him in reply to me (for Ihave written), and by your reverence.2. We were to have met the bishops of Cappadocia Secunda, who, directly they wereranked under another prefecture, suddenly got the idea that they were made foreigners andstrangers to me. They ignored me, as though they had never been under my jurisdiction,and had nothing to do with me. I was expecting too a second meeting with the reverendbishop Eustathius, which actually took place. For on account of the cry raised by manyagainst him that he was injuring the faith, I met him, and found, by God’s grace, that hewas heartily following all orthodoxy. By the fault of the very men who ought to have conveyedmy letter, that of the bishop was not transmitted to your excellency, and, harassed asI was by a multitude of cares, it escaped my memory.I, too, was anxious that our brother Gregory 2345 should have the government of a Churchcommensurate with his abilities; and that would have been the whole Church under the sun2343 Placed in 372.2344 On a proposed meeting of bishops, with an allusion to the consecration of the younger Gregory.2345 Tillemont supposes the reference to be to Gregory of Nyssa. Maran, however (Vit. Bas. xxiv.), regardsthis as an error, partly caused by the introduction into the text of the word ἐμόν, which he has eliminated; andhe points out the Gregory of Nyssa, however unwilling to accept consecration, never objected after it had takenplace, and was indeed sent to Nazianzus to console the younger Gregory of that place in his distress under likecircumstances. Moreover, Gregory of Nyssa was consecrated in the ordinary manner on the demand of the532