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

St. Basil and Eustathius.VIII.—St. Basil and Eustathius.It was Basil’s doom to suffer through his friendships. If the fault lay with himself in thecase of Gregory, the same cannot be said of his rupture with Eustathius of Sebaste. If in thisconnexion fault can be laid to his charge at all, it was the fault of entering into intimacy withan unworthy man. In the earlier days of the retirement in Pontus the austerities of Eustathiusoutweighed in Basil’s mind any suspicions of his unorthodoxy. 207 Basil delighted in hissociety, spent days and nights in sweet converse with him, and introduced him to hismother and the happy family circle at Annesi. 208 And no doubt under the ascendency ofBasil, Eustathius, always ready to be all things to all men who might be for the time in powerand authority, would appear as a very orthodox ascetic. Basil likens him to the Ethiopianof immutable blackness, and the leopard who cannot change his spots. 209 But in truth hisskin at various periods shewed every shade which could serve his purpose, and his spotsshifted and changed colour with every change in his surroundings. 210 He is the patristicProteus. There must have been something singularly winning in his more than human attractiveness.211 But he signed almost every creed that went about for signature in his lifetime.212 He was consistent only in inconsistency. It was long ere Basil was driven to withdrawhis confidence and regard, although his constancy to Eustathius raised in not a few,and notably in Theodotus of Nicopolis, the metropolitan of Armenia, doubts as to Basil’ssoundness in the faith. When Basil was in Armenia in 373, a creed was drawn up, in consultationwith Theodotus, to be offered to Eustathius for signature. It consisted of the Niceneconfession, with certain additions relating to the Macedonian controversy. 213 Eustathiussigned, together with Fronto and Severus. But, when another meeting with other bishopswas arranged, he violated his pledge to attend. He wrote on the subject as though it wereone of only small importance. 214 Eusebius endeavoured, but endeavoured in vain, to makepeace. 215 Eustathius renounced communion with Basil, and at last, when an open attackon the archbishop seemed the paying game, he published an old letter of Basil’s to Apollinarius,written by “layman to layman,” many years before, and either introduced, or appended,207 Ep. ccxiii. § 3. He had been in early days a disciple of Arius at Alexandria.208 Id. § 5.209 Ep. cxxx. § 1.210 cf. Ep. ccxliv. § 9. Fialon, Et. Hist. 128.211 Ep. ccxii. § 2. cf. Newman, Hist. Sketches, iii. 20.212 Ep. ccxliv. § 9.213 Epp. cxxi., ccxliv.214 Ep. ccxliv.215 Ep. cxxviii.41