Letter 74 (375)
Priests and Hierarchs: The Arian Persecution
reassuring flotes: "A storm indeed! The best is to let it pass!"
(Leiters 72 and 74).
GREGORY OF NAZlANZUS TO GREGORY OF NYSSA:
LETTER 72 (375)
Do not fear too much the bite of affliction. If we feel less afflicted, it is because it should affect us Jess. It is not amazing that the heretics would have warmed themselves up and, now that spring is coming, dare to crawl out of their holes, as you write. They will hiss a little, I know, then they will burrow again under the pressure of truth and time, all the more if we put everything in God's hand.
GREGORY OF NAZlANZUS TO GREGORY OF NySSA:
LETTER 74 (375)
While staying here, I accompany you in love, for affection makes everything common between us. And I have good hope, trusting in God's love for men and in your prayers, that all things will turn out according to your desire, that the tempest will abate into a soft breeze, and that the God of orthodoxy will give you, as a reward, to prevail against the calumniators. Above all, may we see you back soon and meet with you again, as we wish! But if you are delayed, should circumstances so determine. do not refuse to inform us by letters of your actual condition, and pray for us, as you used to do. May the good God grant you health and prosperity in all things, you who art the common support of the Church!
THE FATHERS SPEAK
These letters of Gregory of NazianZllS had been over. pptimistic. Basil was less confident. It was obvious that Demosthenes aimed at eliminating the partisans of the arch. bishop oj Caesaraea from the eparchy of the south, and Basil wrote (Letter 237) to a fellow bishop, Eusebius of Samosala, how he felt about Demosthenes' machinations. A couple of years later, Eusebius himself would be exiled by order of Demosthenes (Basi/'s letter 268),
BASIL TO E ,USEBIUS. BISHOP OF SAMQSATA
(SYRIA), LETTER 237 (376)
.. , An imperial vicar [~lK6:plOC;, viz. Demosthenes] has arrived here; it was the first and greatest of our calamities! Whether the man has heretical feelings I do not know.
It seems to me that he is totally ignorant of the doctrine, and has no zeal whatever or interest about such problems; I see him utterly concerned, soul and body, day and night, with other things. Anyway, he is the friend of heretics and has as much Jove for them as hatred for us. He has gathered a synod of lawless people in Galatia in the midst of winter ... .
He has ordered my brother Gregory to be arrested as guilty, by a man-a low-class fellow at that-and after busying himself with some army matters for a short time, he came back to us, breathing anger and violence, and with one single word he delivered to the senate [the ~OUA.~] all the clerics of the Church at Caesaraea.
Here follows a series of letters addressed by Basil to Orthodox bishops who had been deported by order of Valens.
The persecution had not been restricted to the sole provinces
Priests and Hierarchs: The Arian Persecution
of Anatolia, but had spread to Syria and to Egypt, where the imperial administration had to deal with populations of a different ethnic background, Syrians and Copts superficially
Hellenized, but intent upon retaining their rites and customs, together with the Nicene bishops to whom Basil is now writing.
BASIL TO BARSAs, BISHOP OF EDESSA (URFA),
WHO WAS IN EXILE, LETTER 264 (ca. 377)
To Barsas, truly beloved of God, bishop worthy of all respect and esteem, from Basil, greetings in the Lord! Since the trusted brothers of Domninos are going to Your Piety. we welcome with joy the occasion of sending you these letters and greeting you through these brethren. We pray
Holy God to keep us stili in this life until we are deemed worthy to see you and to enjoy the gifts [xap(0tlaTa] which are in you. Only pray that the Lord not deliver us forever to enemies of the cross of Christ, but guard his Churches until the day of peace; this peace the Just Judge knows when he will give back. But as he had fixed a duration of seventy years of exile to the Israelites for their sins, perhaps the Almighty, after handing us over to our enemies for a term, will remember us and re-establish us in the peace that was at the origin, unless the great apostasy be near and the actual events be the prelude of the coming of the Antichrist. If this is it, pray that the good God avert the calamity from us or help us pass through it without stumbling. We greet through you all the worthy company that surrounds Your Piety. All who are with us greet Your Piety. Be well and rejoice in the Lord, pray for me, and may you be conserved to the Church of God, by the Grace of the Holy One!