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

The Breach with Gregory of Nazianzus.place. 195 Gregory resigned the distasteful post, 196 and with very bitter feelings. The utmostthat can be said for Basil is that just possibly he was consulting for the interest of the Church,and meaning to honour his friend, by placing Gregory in an outpost of peril and difficulty.In the kingdom of heaven the place of trial is the place of trust. 197 But, unfortunately forthe reputation of the archbishop, the war in this case was hardly the Holy War of truthagainst error and of right against wrong. It was a rivalry between official and official, andit seemed hard to sacrifice Gregory to a dispute between the claims of the metropolitans ofTyana and Cæsarea. 198Gregory the elder joined in persuading his son. Basil had his way. He won a convenientsuffragan for the moment. But he lost his friend. The sore was never healed, and even inthe great funeral oration in which Basil’s virtues and abilities are extolled, Gregory traces195 It is curious that a place which had so important a connexion with Gregory the divine should have passedso completely into oblivion. From it he derived his episcopal rank. His consecration to Sasima was the mainground of the objection of his opponents at Constantinople in 381 to his occupying the see of the imperial city.He was bishop of Sasima, and, by the fifteenth Canon of Nicæa, could not be transferred to Constantinople.He never was bishop of Nazianzus, though he did administer that diocese before the appointment of Eulaliusin 383. But while the name “Gregory of Nazianzus” has obscured the very existence of his father, who was reallyGregory of Nazianzus, and is known even to the typical schoolboy, Gregory has never been described as “Gregoryof Sasima.” “The great plain which extends from Sasima nearly to Soandos is full of underground houses andchurches, which are said to be of immense extent. The inhabitants are described by Leo Diaconus (p. 35) ashaving been originally named Troglodytes.…Every house in Hassa Keni has an underground story cut out ofthe rock; long narrow passages connect the underground rooms belonging to each house, and also run fromhouse to house. A big solid disc of stone stands in a niche outside each underground house door, ready to bepulled in front of the door on any alarm.…Sasima was on the road between Nazianzus and Tyana. The distancespoint certainly to Hassa Keni.…An absolutely unhistorical legend about St. Makrina is related at Hassa Keni.Recently a good-sized church has been built in the village, evidently on the site of an ancient church; it is dedicatedto St. Makrina, who, as the village priest relates, fled hither from Kaisari to escape marriage, and to dedicateherself to a saintly life. The underground cell in which she lived is below the church.” Ramsay, Hist. Geog. ofAsia Minor, pp. 293, 294. Paul Lucas identified Sasima with Inschesu.196 cf. Greg. Naz. Ep. l.197 cf. De Joinville’s happy illustration of this in Histoire du roi Saint Louis, p. 18. Ed. 1617. The King ofFrance would shew more confidence in the captain whom he might choose to defend La Rochelle, close to theEnglish pale, than in the keeper of Monthléry, in the heart of the realm.198 At the same time it is disappointing to find Gregory mixing up with expressions of reluctance to assumeawful responsibilities, objections on the score of the disagreeable position of Sasima. Perhaps something of thesentiments of Basil on this occasion may be inferred from what he says in Letter cii. on the postponement ofprivate to public considerations in the case of the appointment of Pœmenius to Satala.38