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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 129 Pages
Page 76
Letter CCLXI. [3167]
To the Sozopolitans. [3168]
I have received the letter which you, right honourable brethren, have sent me concerning the circumstances in which you are placed. I thank the Lord that you have let me share in the anxiety you feel as to your attention to things needful and deserving of serious heed. But I was distressed to hear that over and above the disturbance brought on the Churches by the Arians, and the confusion caused by them in the definition of the faith, there has appeared among you yet another innovation, throwing the brotherhood into great dejection, because, as you have informed me, certain persons are uttering, in the hearing of the faithful, novel and unfamiliar doctrines which they allege to be deduced from the teaching of Scripture. You write that there are men among you who are trying to destroy the saving incarnation [3169] of our Lord Jesus Christ, and, so far as they can, are overthrowing the grace of the great mystery unrevealed from everlasting, but manifested in His own times, when the Lord, when He had gone through [3170] all things pertaining to the cure of the human race, bestowed on all of us the boon of His own sojourn among us. For He helped His own creation, first through the patriarchs, whose lives were set forth as examples and rules to all willing to follow the footsteps of the saints, and with zeal like theirs to reach the perfection of good works. Next for succour He gave the Law, ordaining it by angels in the hand of Moses; [3171] then the prophets, foretelling the salvation to come; judges, kings, and righteous men, doing great works, with a mighty [3172] hand. After all these in the last days He was Himself manifested ill the flesh, "made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." [3173]
[3167] This letter is placed in 377. Fessler styles it "celeberrima." The Benedictine heading is "Cum scripsissent Basilio Sozopolitani nonnullos carnem coelestem Christo affingere et affectus humanos in ipsam divinitatem conferre; breviter hunc errorem refellit; ac demonstrat nihil nobis prodesse passiones Christi si non eandem ac nos carnem habuit. Quod spectat ad affectus humanos, probat naturales a Christo assumptos fuisse, vitiosos vero nequaquam."
[3168] Sozopolis, or Suzupolis, in Pisidia (cf. Evagrius, Hist. Ecc. iii. 33), has been supposed to be the ancient name of Souzon, S. of Aglasoun, where ruins still exist. On its connexion with Apollonia, cf. Hist. Geog. A.M. p. 400.
[3169] oikonomian.
[3170] Here the Ben. Ed. call attention to the fact that S. Basil may by this word indicate the appearance of the Son to the patriarchs before the Birth from the Virgin, and compares a similar statement in his Book Cont. Eunom. II., as well as the words of Clemens Alex. in the work Quis Dives Salvandus, n. 8, in which the Son is described as apo geneseos mechri tou semeiou ten anthropoteta diatrechon.
[3171] cf. Gal. iii. 19.
[3172] krataia with the ed. Par. seems to make better sense than kruphai& 139;, which has better authority.
[3173] Gal. iv. 4, 5.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/basil/letters-3.asp?pg=76
