176 (394). To Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium
SAINT BASIL
of the good, and that, always advancing in knowledge and good works, you may attain perfection. But, because I do not wish to leave behind me a treatise on the faith nor to compose different creeds, I have refused to write what you requested.2
Only, you seem to me to be surrounded by the din of men there3 engaged in no labor, who speak slanderously against us, as if by this means to brace their own position, telling most shameful lies against us. For, the past reveals them and the future will make them more obvious. Moreover, we urge those who have hoped in Christ to busy themselves about nothing except the faith of old; but, as we believe, so to be baptized; and as we are baptized, so to give glory! And, as for names, it is enough for us to admit those which we have received from the Holy Scripture and to avoid innovations in these matters.
For, not in the invention of names is our salvation, but in the sound confession of the Divinity in which we believe.
176. To Amphilochius, Bishop of [conium l May the holy God grant that this letter of ours come into your hands when you are in good health of body, free of all business, and faring in all things according to your will, in order that our invitation may not be unavailing. For, we are inviting you now to visit our city in order that the festival,
2 A short time later, St. Basil did this vet:y thing for Amphilochius of Iconium. and wrote the treatise De Spiritu Sancta.
S The Benedictine edition (Vita Basilii xxx) thinks the allusion is to Atarbius of Neo.Caesarea and some of his presbyters.
4 Cf. 51. Basil, De Spiritu Sancta 26.
1 St. Basil invites Amphilochius to a festival in honor of St. Eupsychius.
This letter was written in 374.