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

To Count Terentius.“especially unto them who are of the household of faith;” 2815 and therefore I congratulatethose who have received the letter from Rome. And, although it is a grand testimony intheir favour, I only hope it is true and confirmed by facts. But I shall never be able to persuademyself on these grounds to ignore Meletius, or to forget the Church which is under him, orto treat as small, and of little importance to the true religion, the questions which originatedthe division. I shall never consent to give in, merely because somebody is very much elatedat receiving a letter from men. 2816 Even if it had come down from heaven itself, but he doesnot agree with the sound doctrine of the faith, I cannot look upon him as in communionwith the saints.3. Consider well, my excellent friend, that the falsifiers of the truth, who have introducedthe Arian schism as an innovation on the sound faith of the Fathers, advance no otherreason for refusing to accept the pious opinion of the Fathers than the meaning of the homoousionwhich they hold in their wickedness, and to the slander of the whole faith, allegingour contention to be that the Son is consubstantial in hypostasis. If we give them any opportunityby our being carried away by men who propound these sentiments and their like,rather from simplicity than from malevolence, there is nothing to prevent our giving theman unanswerable ground of argument against ourselves and confirming the heresy of thosewhose one end is in all their utterances about the Church, not so much to establish theirown position as to calumniate mine. What more serious calumny could there be? Whatbetter calculated to disturb the faith of the majority than that some of us could be shewn toassert that there is one hypostasis of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? We distinctly lay downthat there is a difference of Persons; but this statement was anticipated by Sabellius, whoaffirms that God is one by hypostasis, but is described by Scripture in different Persons,according to the requirements of each individual case; sometimes under the name of Father,when there is occasion for this Person; sometimes under the name of Son when there is adescent to human interests or any of the operations of the œconomy; 2817 and sometimesunder the Person of Spirit when the occasion demands such phraseology. If, then, anyamong us are shewn to assert that Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one in substance, 2818while we maintain the three perfect Persons, how shall we escape giving clear and incontrovertibleproof of the truth of what is being asserted about us?4. The non-identity of hypostasis and ousia is, I take it, suggested even by our westernbrethren, where, from a suspicion of the inadequacy of their own language, they have giventhe word ousia in the Greek, to the end that any possible difference of meaning might be2542815 Gal. vi. 10.2816 St. Basil seems quite unaware of any paramount authority in a letter from Rome. cf. Prolegomena.2817 Vide notes, pp. 7 and 12. On Sabellius, cf. note on Letter ccxxxvi.2818 τὸ ὑποκείμενον.717