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15 u/p0 o'do/nta. Ben. Lat., intra dentes.
16 The Greek is paroiki/a which is used both for what is meant by the modern "diocese" and by the modern "parish." Of the sense of diocese instances are quoted among others in D.C.A. s.v. "Parish," form Iren. ad Florin. apud Euseb. H.E. v. 20; and Alexan, Alexandrin. Ep. apud Theodoret, H.E. i. 3.
17 toi=j lo/goij pneu/matoj a 9gi/on, the reading of the mss. Bas. Sec. and Paris. The commoner reading is logi/oij.
2 Of what see is uncertain. He was in friendly relations with Basil, and therefore was not in communion with Eustathius of Sebaste. (Letter ccli.)
2 i.e. Atarbius ofNeocaesarea.
3 Basil is described as the earliest authority for making Sabellius an African birth. (D. C. B. iv. 569) There is no contemporary authority for the statement.
5 tw=n logi/wn. cf. note on Theodoret, p. 155.
6 The Ben. note observes that in this passage Litanies do not mean processions or supplications, but penitential prayers. The intercessory prayers which occur in the liturgy of St. Basil, as in the introductory part of other Greek liturgies, are not confined to quotations form Scripture.
7 This reproach appears to be in contradiction with the statement in De Spiritu Sancto, § 74 (page 47), that the Church of Neocaesarea had rigidly preserved the traditions of Gregory. The Ben. note would remove the discrepancy by confining the rigid conservatism to matters of importance. In these the Neocaesareans would tolerate no change, and allowed no monasteries and no enrichment of their liturgies with new rites. "Litanies," however, are regarded as comparatively unimportant innovations. The note concludes: Neque enim secum ipse pugnat Basilius, cum Neocaesarienses iaudat in libro De Spiritu Sancto, quod Gregorii instituta arctissime teneant. hic autem vituperat quod ea omnino reliquerint. Illic enim respicit ad exteriora instituta, hic autem ad virtutum exemplar, convicii et iracundiae fugam, odium juris jurandi et mendacii.
1 Placed in 375, the year after the composition of the De Spiritu Sancto. It apparently synchronizes with Letter ccxxiii., in which Basil more directly repels those calumnies of the versatile Eustathius of Sebaste which he had borne in silence for three years. On Annesi, from which he writes, and the occasion of the visit, see Prolegomena.
2 Macrina, at her residence at Annesi.
3 cf. Ep. ccxvi., where he speaks of going to the house of his brother Peter near Neocaesarea. One of the five brothers apparently died young, as the property of the elder Basil was at his death, before 340, divided into nine portions, i.e. among the five daughters and four surviving sons, the youngest, Peter, being then an infant. (Greg. Nyss. Vita Mac. 186) Naucratius, the second son, was killed by an accident while hunting, c. 357. Gregory of Nyssa must, therefore, be referred to in the text, if by "brothers" is meant brothers in blood. Was it to Peter's "cottage" or some neighbouring dwelling that Gregory fled when he escaped from the police of the Vicar Demosthenes, in order not to obey the summons of Valens to his synod at Ancrya? Is the cottage of Peter "some quiet spot" of Ep. ccxxv.? The plural a'delgw=n might be used conventionally, or understood to include Peter and a sister or sisters.
4 i.e.when he was resident at Caesarea n his earlier manhood. If Letter ccclviii. (from Libanius to Basil refers to this period, it would seem that for a time Basil did undertake school work.
5 i.e. Gregory Thaumaturgus. cf. note on p. 247.
6 Musonius, bp. of Neocaesarea, who died in 368. cf. ep. xxviii.
7 cf. De Sp. S. § 77, p. 49 and Ep. clxxxix. p. 229.
8 e$n pra=gma polu/proswpon. Another ms. reading is poluw/noumon, "ofmany names."
11 John v. 43. Slightly varied.
13 The allusion is supposed to be to Atarbius.cf. Letter lxv.
17 Tyana, at the north of Mount Taurus, is the city which gave a distinctive name to Apollonius the Thaumaturge. That Basil should speak in kindly and complimentary terms of Anthimus is remarkable, for from few contemporaries did he suffer more. It was the quarrel in which Anthimus attacked and plundered a train of Basil's sumpter mules, and Gregory of Nazianzus fought stoutly for his friend, that led to Basil's erecting Sasima into a bishopiric, as a kind of buffer see against his rival metropolitan. (Greg. Naz., Or. xliii. 356, Ep. xxxi. and Carm. i. 8.) See Prolegomena.
18 The e!kqesij th=j pi/stewj of Gregory Thaumaturgus. cf. Ep. cciv. and the De Sp. Scto. § 74. On the genuineness of the e!kqesij, vide iD. C. Biog. i. 733. cf. Dorner's Christologie I. 737. It is given at length in the Life of Greg. Thaumat. by Gregory of Nyssa, and is found in the Latin Psalter, written in gold, which Charlemagne gave to Adrian I. Bp. Bull's translation is as follows:
"There is one Lord, Alone of the Alone, God of God, Impress and Image of the Godhead, the operative Word; Wisdom comprehensive of the system of the universe, and Power productive of the whole creation; true Son of true Father, Invisible of Invisible and Incorruptible of Incorruptible, and Immortal of Immortal, and Eternal of Eternal. And there is one Holy Ghost, who hath His being of God, who hath appeared through the Son,, Image of the Son, Perfect of the Perfect; Life, the cause of all them that live; Holy Fountain, Holiness, the Bestower of Sanctification, in whom is manifested God the Father, who is over all and in all, and God the Son, who is through all. A Perfect Trinity, not divided nor alien in glory and eternity and dominion."
19 The Ben. note refused to believe that so Sabellian an expression can have been used by Gregory. Basil's explanation is that it was used in controversy with a heathen on another subject, loosely and not dogmatically. The words are said not to be found in any extant document attributed to Gregory, whether genuine or doubtful. But they may be matched in some of the expressions of Athanasius. cf. p. 195 Ath., Tom. ad Af. § 4 and Hom. in Terem. viii. 96.