15 "0Aqe/smw ga/mw."Illicitas nuptias.
20 The Ben. Ed. point out that in Canon xxii. four years is the allotted period, as in the case of fornicators.
21 St. Basil on Isaiah iv. calls sins wilfully committed after full knowledge "sins unto death." But in the same commentary he applies the same designation to shins which lead to hell. The sense to be applied to the phrase in Canon xxxii. is to be learnt, according to the Ben. note, form Canons lxix. and lxx., where a less punishment is assigned to mere wilful sins unto death than in Canon xxxii.
23 Or, according to another reading, in every way.
25 This is Can. xciii. of the Council in Trullo.
26 Generally reckoned rather as Manichaeans than as here by Basil as Marcionites, but dualism was common both systems.
27 A Manichaean sect, who led a solitary life. Death is threatened against them in a law of Theodosius dated a.d. 322 (Cod. Theod. lib. xvi. tit. 5, leg. 9), identified by the Ben. Ed. with the Hydroparastatae.
28 A Manichaean sect. cf. Epiphanius ii. 18. In the work of Macarius Magnes, published in Paris 1876, they are identified with the Encratites.
31 cf. however Canon iv., where trigamy is called polygamy or at best a limited fornication, and those guilty of it subjected to exclusion from the Eucharist.
2 Tillemont conjectures that the drive was to St.Eupsychius, but the day of St. Eupsychius fell in September, which the Ben. note thinks too late for the date of this letter. The memorials of St. Julitta and St. Gordius were also near Caesarea, but their days fell in January, which the same note thinks too early. Gregory of Nyssa (Migne iii. p. 653) says that there were more altars in Cappadocia than in all the world, so that we need have no difficulty in supposing some saint whose date would synchronize with the letter. Basil, however, may have tried to drive to the shrine of some martyr on some other day than the anniversary of his death.
2 On this letter Newman notes the Eustathius brought about a separation of a portion of the coast of Pontus from the Church of Caesarea, which for a time caused Basil great despondency, as if he were being left solitary in all Christendom, without communion with other places. With the advice of the bishops of Cappadocia, he addressed an expostulation with these separatists for not coming to him. (Ch. of the Fathers, p. 95) The portion of the translation of this letter enclosed in brackets is Newman's.
3 e 9cith/rion dw=ron. cf. note on p. 46.
2 Newman introduces his extracts form the following letter with the prefatory remark: "If Basil's Semi-Arian connexions brought suspicion upon himself in the eyes of Catholic believers, much more would they be obnoxious to persons attached, as certain Neocaesareans were, to the Sabellian party, who were in the opposite extreme to the Semi-Arians and their especial enemies in those times. It is not wonderful, then, that he had to write to the church in question in a strain like to following." (Ch. of the Fathers. p. 98) The passages in brackets are Newman's version. The prime agent in the slandering of Basil was presumably Atarbius, bishop of Neocaesarea.
6 The allusion may be to Mark xi. 23, but St. Paul would probably reply to Basil that each of the points enumerated might proceed not from love, but from vanity, ambition, or fanaticism.
8 i.e. o\ diaboloj. The little paronomasia is untranslatable.