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

To Patrophilus, bishop of Ægæ.Letter CCL. 3093To Patrophilus, bishop of Ægæ.There has been some delay in my receiving your answer to my former letter; but it hasreached me through the well-beloved Strategius, and I have given thanks to the Lord foryour continuance in your love to me. What you have now been kind enough to write onthe same subject proves your good intentions, for you think as you ought, and you counselme to my gain. But I see that my words will be extending too far, if I am to reply to everythingwritten to me by your excellency. I therefore say no more than this, that, if the blessing ofpeace goes no further than the mere name of peace, it is ridiculous to go on picking out hereone and there another, and allow them alone a share in the boon, while others beyondnumber are excluded from it. But if agreement with mischievous men, under the appearanceof peace, really does the harm an enemy might do to all who consent to it, then only considerwho those men are who have been admitted to their companionship, who have conceivedan unrighteous hatred against me; who but men of the faction not in communion with me.There is no need now for me to mention them by name. They have been invited by themto Sebasteia; they have assumed the charge of the Church; they have performed service atthe altar: they have given of their own bread to all the people, being proclaimed bishops bythe clergy there, and escorted through all the district as saints and in communion. If onemust adopt the faction of these men, it is absurd to begin at the extremities, and not ratherto hold intercourse with those that are their heads. 3094 If then we are to count heretic andshun no one at all, why, tell me, do you separate yourself from the communion of certainpersons? But if any are to be shunned, let me be told by these people who are so logicallyconsistent in everything, to what party those belong whom they have invited over fromGalatia to join them? If such things seem grievous to you, charge the separation on thosewho are responsible for it. If you judge them to be of no importance, forgive me for decliningto be of the leaven of the teachers of wrong doctrine. 3095 Wherefore, if you will, have nomore to do with those specious arguments, but with all openness confute them that do notwalk aright in the truth of the Gospel.2913093 Placed in 376.3094 i.e. with Euzoius, Eudoxius, and the more pronounced Arians.3095 τῶν ἑτεροδιδασκαλούντων. cf. 1 Tim. i. 3. The Ben. note compares Greg., Orat. xii. 203.799