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

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

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

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To Petrus, bishop of Alex<strong>and</strong>ria.caused by heresy will be made to disappear by the method I adopt, <strong>and</strong> I shall escape theopprobrium of having gone over to them.2. I have also been grieved by our brother Dorotheus, because, as he has himself written,he has not gently <strong>and</strong> mildly reported everything to your excellency. I set this down to thedifficulty of the times. I seem to be deprived by my sins of all success in my undertakings,if indeed the best of my brethren are proved ill-disposed <strong>and</strong> incompetent, by their failureto perform their duties in accordance with my wishes. On his return Dorotheus reportedto me the conversation which he had had with your excellency in the presence of the veryvenerable bishop Damasus, <strong>and</strong> he caused me distress by saying that our God-belovedbrethren <strong>and</strong> fellow-ministers, Meletius <strong>and</strong> Eusebius, had been reckoned among theAriomaniacs. 3211 If their orthodoxy were established by nothing else, the attacks madeupon them by the Arians are, to the minds of all right thinking people, no small proof oftheir rectitude. Even your participation with them in sufferings endured for Christ’s sakeought to unite your reverence to them in love. Be assured of this, right honourable sir, thatthere is no word of orthodoxy which has not been proclaimed by these men with all boldness.God is my witness. I have heard them myself. I should not certainly have now admittedthem to communion, if I had caught them tripping in the faith. But, if it seem good to you,let us leave the past alone. Let us make a peaceful start for the future. For we have needone of another in the fellowship of the members, <strong>and</strong> specially now, when the Churches ofthe East are looking to us, <strong>and</strong> will take your agreement as a pledge of strength <strong>and</strong> consolidation.If, on the other h<strong>and</strong>, they perceive that you are in a state of mutual suspicion, theywill drop their h<strong>and</strong>s, <strong>and</strong> slacken in their resistance to the enemies of the faith. 32123211 The Ben. note points out that the accusation against Eusebius (of Samosata) <strong>and</strong> Meletius was monstrous,<strong>and</strong> remarks on the delicacy with which <strong>Basil</strong> approaches it, without directly charging Petrus, from whom itmust have come, with the sl<strong>and</strong>er involved.3212 One ms. contains a note to the effect that this letter was never sent. Maran (Vit. Bas. xxxvii.) thinks theinternal evidence is in favour of its having been delivered.833

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