Letter 232 TO AMPHILOCHIUS ON HIS ENQUIRIES, excerpt
prelude 1: the letters of basil Letter 232 TO AMPHILOCHIUS ON HIS ENQUIRIES, excerpt49
The date of this letter depends on when the Nativity was celebrated, 25 December or 6 January. The latter seems preferable since in the 370s the Nativity appears still to have been celebrated in the East on January 6.
Compare Gregory of Nyssa, letter 4 and notes, a letter written in the late 380s, after Cappadocia had adopted the celebration of the Nativity on 25
December. The letter therefore may be dated to mid to late January 376.50
Here is another valuable hint about Gregory's exile from his see of Nyssa.
Every day that brings a letter from your Piety is for us a feast-day and the greatest of feast-days. And when tokens51 of the feast-day are sent in addition, what else ought we to call it but a feast-day of feast-days, the way the Old Law used to speak of a Sabbath of Sabbaths? We therefore give thanks to the Lord, having learned that you are well of body and that you have celebrated for your church now at peace the commemoration of the saving Dispensation.52
Certain upheavals have disturbed us. We have not lived without sorrow because our most God-beloved brother has been forced to flee.53 But do pray for him, that God may grant that he may some day behold his church healed of the wounds of the heretics' bites . . .
Letter 237 To Eusebius bishop of Samosata, excerpt54 This letter was written early in 37655 in the Spring of that year to one of Basil's closest confidants, Eusebius of Samosata.56 Here we find the fullest account of the politics surrounding Gregory of Nyssa's exile from his see.
Here is established, par excellence, the reason for Gregory's later damnatio memoriae of Eustathius of Sebasteia in the family history. Eustathius had became the leader of a recrudescent Homoiousian party soon identified as 49 Mss.: V, LC, ed.: Courtonne III, 38–39, Def 3.358–363, tr.: NPNF 2nd ser.
8.272–273.
50 Loofs, op. cit. p. 8, n. 3, Fedwick op. cit. p. 17.
51 sÊmbola, i.e. Christmas presents.
52 t∞w svtÆriou ofikonom¤aw, i.e. the Incarnation.
53 pefugadeum°non e‰nai, perhaps 'living in exile/banishment'.
54 Mss.: VPBM, LC, ed.: Courtonne III, 55–57 at 56–57, Def 3.406–411, tr.:
NPNF 2nd ser. 8.279.
55 Fedwick, op. cit., p. 17.
56 Loofs, op. cit., p. 11.
prelude 1: the letters of basil
the Pneumatomachoi, and now found it convenient to disown his former friends and collaborate with Valens' arianizing policies instead.
Versification is supplied here in the absence of any, except a division into two parts, in Courtonne.
. . . 6. The vicar paid us a visit—the first and the greatest of our misfortunes. Whether he is really of heretical mind I am not sure— for I think he is quite ignorant of discourse57 and has no interest or experience in such things, whereas I see him devoted to other matters night and day in soul and body—and yet he is a friend of heretics, though no more friendly to them than hostile towards us.
For he assembled a synod of the impious58 in mid-winter in Galatia,59 and he deposed Hypsis and set up Ecdicius in his place.60 7. And he ordered my brother removed on the accusation of one man, an insignificant fellow.61
8. Having then busied himself a short while with the army, again he returned to us, breathing rage and slaughter (Acts 9.1), and in a single pronouncement made over all the clergy of the church in Caesarea to the Senate. 9. And he took his seat at Sebasteia for many days, making fine distinctions, giving the name of senators to those in communion with us and so condemning them to civil service, while favouring the adherents of Eustathius with the greatest honours.
10. Again, he gave orders that a synod of Galatians and Pontics be assembled at Nyssa.62 They obeyed, and when they met, they sent someone to the churches63 of whose character I would prefer not to speak, but your Prudence is able to judge what he is likely to be who serves such policies of men.
57 toË logoË, i.e. rhetorical training and critical reasoning whether philosophical or theological.
58 éyetoÊntvn, rejecters of the homoousion of Nicea, i.e. episcopal Arianizers and court toadies, not the followers of Marcellus of Ancyra, who were doctrinally of the opposite pole.
59 I.e. at Ancyra.
60 at Parnassus in the Halys valley, on the border of Galatia and Cappadocia.
61 Courtonne punctuates otherwise and translates accordingly: He ordered my brother removed by a man, and him without a name, as one accused.
62 I.e. the second synod to deal with Gregory, which declared him deposed and banished, and replaced him with a heretical bishop.
63 Tillemont supposed this was a (heretical) bishop sent on a visitation of the churches; the Benedictine note preferred to identify him with the intruder into the see of Nyssa, on whom Basil comments in letter 239 below.