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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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88 Pages
Page 85
Chapter XXX.
Exposition of the present state of the Churches.
76. To what then shall I liken our present condition? It may be compared, I think, to some naval battle which has arisen out of time old quarrels, and is fought by men who cherish a deadly hate against one another, of long experience in naval warfare, and eager for the fight. Look, I beg you, at the picture thus raised before your eyes. See the rival fleets rushing in dread array to the attack. With a burst of uncontrollable fury they engage and fight it out. Fancy, if you like, the ships driven to and fro by a raging tempest, while thick darkness falls from the clouds and blackens all the scenes so that watchwords are indistinguishable in the confusion, and all distinction between friend and foe is lost. To fill up the details of the imaginary picture, suppose the sea swollen with billows and whirled up from the deep, while a vehement torrent of rain pours down from the clouds and the terrible waves rise high. From every quarter of heaven the winds beat upon one point, where both the fleets are dashed one against the other. Of the combatants some are turning traitors; some are deserting in the very thick of the fight; some have at one and the same moment to urge on their boats, all beaten by the gale, and to advance against their assailants. Jealousy of authority and the lust of individual mastery splits the sailors into parties which deal mutual death to one another. Think, besides all this, of the confused and unmeaning roar sounding over all the sea, from howling winds, from crashing vessels, from boiling surf, from the yells of the combatants as they express their varying emotions in every kind of noise, so that not a word from admiral or pilot can be heard. The disorder and confusion is tremendous, for the extremity of misfortune, when life is despaired of, gives men license for every kind of wickedness. Suppose, too, that the men are all smitten with the incurable plague of mad love of glory, so that they do not cease from their struggle each to get the better of the other, while their ship is actually settling down into the deep.
77. Turn now I beg you from this figurative description to the unhappy reality. Did it not at one time [1341] appear that the Arian schism, after its separation into a sect opposed to the Church of God, stood itself alone in hostile array? But when the attitude of our foes against us was changed from one of long standing and bitter strife to one of open warfare, then, as is well known, the war was split up in more ways than I can tell into many subdivisions, so that all men were stirred to a state of inveterate hatred alike by common party spirit and individual suspicion. [1342]
[1341] i.e. after the condemnation of Arius at Nicaea.
[1342] In Ep. ccxlii. written in 376, St. Basil says: "This is the thirteenth year since the outbreak of the war of heretics against us." 363 is the date of the Acacian Council of Antioch; 364 of the accession of Valens and Valentian, of the Semi-Arian Synod of Lampsacus, and of St. Basil's ordination to the priesthood and book against Eunomius. On the propagation by scission and innumerable subdivisions of Arianism Cannon Bright writes: The extraordinary versatility, the argumentative subtlety, and the too frequent profanity of Arianism are matters of which a few lines can give no idea. But it is necessary, in even the briefest notice of this long-lived heresy, to remark on the contrast between its changeable inventiveness and the simple steadfastness of Catholic doctrine. On the one side, some twenty different creeds (of which several, however, were rather negatively than positively heterodox) and three main sects, the Semi-Arians, with their formula of Homoiousion, i.e. the Son is like in essence to the Father; the Acacians, vaguely calling Him like (Homoion); the Aetians, boldly calling Him unlike, as much as to say He is in no sense Divine. On the other side, the Church with the Nicene Creed, confessing Him as Homoousion, of one essence with the Father,' meaning thereby, as her great champion repeatedly bore witness, to secure belief in the reality of the Divine Sonship, and therefore in the real Deity, as distinguished from the titular deity which was so freely conceded to Him by the Arians." Cannon Bright, St. Leo on the Incarnation, p. 140 Socrates (ii. 41), pausing at 360, enumerates, after Nicaea: 1. 1st of Antioch (omitted the homoousion, a.d. 341). 2. 2d of Antioch (omitted the homoousion, a.d. 341). 3. The Creed brought to Constans in Gaul by Narcissus and other Arians in 342. 4. The Creed "sent by Eudoxius of Germanicia into Italy," i.e. the "Macrostich," or "Lengthy Creed," rejected at Milan in 346. 5. The 1st Creed of Sirmium; i.e. the Macrostich with 26 additional clauses, 351. 6. The 2d Sirmian Creed. The "manifesto;" called by Athanasius (De Synod. 28) "the blasphemy," 357. 7. The 3d Sirmian, or "dated Creed," in the consulship of Flavius Eusebius and Hypatius, May 22d, 359. 8. The Acacian Creed of Seleucia, 359. 9. The Creed of Ariminum adopted at Constantinople, as revised at Nike.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/basil/holy-spirit.asp?pg=85
