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

To Patrophilus, bishop of Ægæ.of their Churches although the number of bishops assenting to the decree for their depositionwas so many, on the alleged ground that they were not partakers of the Holy Ghost, andwere not governing their Churches by the grace of God, but had clutched their dignity bythe aid of human power, and through lust of vain glory. Now they are for receiving the menconsecrated by these same persons as bishops. I should like you to ask them in my stead,(although they despise all mankind, as bereft of eyes, ears, and common sense), to perceivethe inconsistency of their conduct, what sentiments they do really entertain in their ownhearts. How can there be two bishops, one deposed by Euippius, 3067 and the other consecratedby him? Both are the actions of the same man. Had he not been endowed with thegrace bestowed upon Jeremiah to pull down and build again, to root out and to plant, 3068he certainly would not have rooted the one out and planted the other. Grant him the oneand you must grant him the other. Their one object, as it seems, is everywhere to look totheir own advantage, and to regard every one who acts in accordance with their own wishesas a friend, while they treat any one who opposes them as an enemy, and spare no calumnyto run him down. 30697. What measures are they now taking against the Church? For the shiftiness of theiroriginators, shocking; for the apathy of all who are affected by them, pitiable. By a respectablecommission the children and grandchildren of Euippius have been summoned from distantregions to Sebasteia, and to them the people have been entrusted. 3070 They have takenpossession of the altar. They have been made the leaven of that Church. I am persecutedby them as a Homoousiast. Eustathius, who brought the Homoousion in the script fromRome to Tyana, although he was not able to get admitted into their much to be covetedcommunion, either because they feared, or respected the authority of, the large number ofpersons who had agreed in condemning him, is now in intimate alliance with them. I onlyhope that I may never have time enough on my hands to tell of all their doings—who weregathered together, how each one had been ordained, and from what kind of earlier life eacharrived at his present dignity. I have been taught to pray “that my mouth may not utter the2883067 cf. Letter ccxxviii.3068 cf. Jer. i. 10.3069 The Ben. note on this passage suggests that the reference to Jeremiah is an argument supposed to be putforward by Eustathius, and immediately answered by Basil, but there seems no necessity of this. Basil saysnothing for or against the powers of the bishops who condemned Eustathius; he only points out the inconsistencyof Eustathius in accepting their powers to ordain when it suited his purpose, while he refused to admit theirauthority to depose. It is enough for Basil’s argument that Eustathius treated him as having authority. On Basil’sown views as to the validity of heretical ordination, cf. Canon i., Letter clxxxviii.3070 i.e. bishops and presbyters whose spiritual descent is to be traced to Euippius, viz.: Eustathius and hisclergy. Over what see Euippius presided is unknown.791