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

To the notables of Neocæsarea.actitude of the meanings. For unless the meaning of the distinctive qualities of each be unconfounded,it is impossible for the doxology to be adequately offered to Father, Son, andHoly Ghost.If, however, they deny that they so say, and so teach, my object is attained. Yet I seethat this denial is no easy matter, because of our having many witnesses who heard thesethings said. But let bygones be bygones; let them only be sound now. If they persist in thesame old error I must proclaim your calamity even to other Churches, and get letters writtento you from more bishops. In my efforts to break down this huge mass of impiety nowgradually and secretly growing, I shall either effect something towards the object I have inview; or at least my present testimony will clear me of guilt in the judgment day.5. They have already inserted these expressions in their own writings. They sent themfirst to the man of God, Meletius, 2783 bishop, and after receiving from him a suitable reply,like mothers of monsters, ashamed of their natural deformities, these men themselvesbrought forth and bring up their disgusting offspring in appropriate darkness. They madean attempt too by letter on my dear friend Anthimus, bishop of Tyana, 2784 on the groundthat Gregory had said in his exposition of the faith 2785 that Father and Son are in thought2783 Meletius of Antioch.2784 Tyana, at the north of Mount Taurus, is the city which gave a distinctive name to Apollonius the Thaumaturge.That Basil should speak in kindly and complimentary terms of Anthimus is remarkable, for from fewcontemporaries did he suffer more. It was the quarrel in which Anthimus attacked and plundered a train ofBasil’s sumpter mules, and Gregory of Nazianzus fought stoutly for his friend, that led to Basil’s erecting Sasimainto a bishopric, as a kind of buffer see against his rival metropolitan. (Greg. Naz., Or. xliii. 356, Ep. xxxi. andCarm. i. 8.) See Prolegomena.2785 The ἔκθεσις τῆς πίστεως of Gregory Thaumaturgus. cf. Ep. cciv. and the De Sp. Scto. § 74. On thegenuineness of the ἔκθεσις, vide D. C. Biog. i. 733. cf. Dorner’s Christologie i. 737. It is given at length in theLife of Greg. Thaumat. by Gregory of Nyssa, and is found in the Latin Psalter, written in gold, which Charlemagnegave to Adrian I. Bp. Bull’s translation is as follows: “There is one God, Father of Him who is the living Word,subsisting Wisdom and Power and Eternal Impress, Perfect begotten of the Perfect, Father of the only begottenSon. There is one Lord, Alone of the Alone, God of God, Impress and Image of the Godhead, the operativeWord; Wisdom comprehensive of the system of the universe, and Power productive of the whole creation; trueSon of true Father, Invisible of Invisible and Incorruptible of Incorruptible, and Immortal of Immortal, andEternal of Eternal. And there is one Holy Ghost, who hath His being of God, who hath appeared through theSon, Image of the Son, Perfect of the Perfect; Life, the cause of all them that live; Holy Fountain, Holiness, theBestower of Sanctification, in whom is manifested God the Father, who is over all and in all, and God the Son,who is through all. A Perfect Trinity, not divided nor alien in glory and eternity and dominion.”709