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The Letters — Historical footnotes

Chapter uncertain; original source section: Letter 52

Complete historical editorial footnotes. These notes retain the original edition’s wording; individual note authors are unspecified.

English translation and editorial credits: Blomfield Jackson (translator and notes), Charles Hole (proof revision and suggestions), Reginald Geare (translation assistance; individual letters unallocated).

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1895 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

Canonicæ, in the early church, were women enrolled in a list in the churches, devoted to works of charity, and living apart from men, though not under vows, nor always in a cœnobium. In Soc., H.E.i. 17 they are described as the recipients of St. Helena’s hospitality. St. Basil is supposed to refuse to recognise marriage with them as legitimate in Ep. cclxxxviii. The word κανονικῶν may stand for either gender, but the marriage of Canonici was commonly allowed. Letter clxxiii. is addressed to the canonica Theodora.

Editorial footnote · The Letters, Chapter uncertain; original source section: Letter 52, editorial note cite_note-2 · Original source

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To the Canonicæ.

1895 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

i.e.the two remarkable Antiochene synods of 264 and 269, to enforce the ultimate decisions of which against Paul of Samosata appeal was made to the pagan Aurelian. On the explanation of how the Homoousion came to be condemned in one sense by the Origenist bishops at Antioch in 269, and asserted in another by the 318 at Nicæa in 325, see prolegomena to Athanasius in Schaff and Wace’s ed. p. xxxi. cf. Ath.,De Syn. § 45, Hil., De Trin. iv. 4, and Basil, Cont. Eunom. i. 19. “Wurde seiner Lehre: ‘Gott sey mit dem Logos zugleich Eine Person, ἓν πρόσωπον wie der Mensch mit seiner Vernunft Eines sey,’ entgegengehalteh, die Kirchenlehre verlange Einen Gott, aber mehrere πρόσωπα desselben, so sagte er, da auch ihm Christus eine Person (nämlich als Mensch) sey, so habe auch sein Glaube mehrere πρόσωπα, Gott und Christus stehen sich als ὁμοούσιοι, d. h. wahrscheinlich gleich persönliche gegenüber, Diese veratorische Dialektik konnte zwar nicht täuschen; wohl aber wurde das Wort ὁμοούσιος, so gebraucht und auf die Person überhaupt bezogen, dadurcheine Weile verdächtig (man fürchtete nach Athan. De Syn. Ar. et Sel. c. 45, eine menschliche Person nach Paul in die Trinität einlassen zu müssen), bis das vierte Jahrhundert jenem Wort bestimmten kirchlichen Stempel gab.” Dorner, Christologie. B. i. 513. Vide also Thomasius, Christliche Dogmengeschichte, B. 1, p. 188.

Editorial footnote · The Letters, Chapter uncertain; original source section: Letter 52, editorial note cite_note-5 · Original source

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1. I have been very much distressed by a painful report which reached my ears; but I have been equally delighted by my brother, beloved of God, bishop Bosporius, who has brought a more satisfactory account of you. He avers by God’s grace that all those stories spread abroad about you are inventions of men who are not exactly informed as to the truth about you. He added, moreover, that he found among you impious calumnies about me, of a kind likely to be uttered by those who do not expect to have to give the Judge in the day of His righteous retribution an account of even an idle word. I thank God, then, both because I am cured of my damaging opinion of you, an opinion which I have derived from the calumnies of men, and because I have heard of your abandonment of those baseless notions about me, on hearing the assurances of my brother. He, in all that he has said as coming from himself, has also completely expressed my own feeling. For in us both there is one mind about the faith, as being heirs of the same Fathers who once at Nicæa promulgated their great decree concerning the faith. Of this, some portions are universally accepted without cavil, but the homoousion, ill received in certain quarters, is still rejected by some. These objectors we may very properly blame, and yet on the contrary deem them deserving of pardon. To refuse to follow the Fathers, not holding their declaration of more authority than one’s own opinion, is conduct worthy of blame, as being brimful of self-sufficiency. On the other hand the fact that they view with suspicion a phrase which is misrepresented by an opposite party does seem to a small extent to relieve them from blame. Moreover, as a matter of fact, the members of the synods which met to discuss the case of Paul of Samosata did find fault with the term as an unfortunate one.

1895 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

Placed at the beginning of St. Basil’s episcopate, c. 370.

Editorial footnote · The Letters, Chapter uncertain; original source section: Letter 52, editorial note cite_note-1 · Original source

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Letter LII.

1895 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

κήρυγμα. On Basil’s use of this word and of dogma, vide note on p. 41.

Editorial footnote · The Letters, Chapter uncertain; original source section: Letter 52, editorial note cite_note-4 · Original source

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1. I have been very much distressed by a painful report which reached my ears; but I have been equally delighted by my brother, beloved of God, bishop Bosporius, who has brought a more satisfactory account of you. He avers by God’s grace that all those stories spread abroad about you are inventions of men who are not exactly informed as to the truth about you. He added, moreover, that he found among you impious calumnies about me, of a kind likely to be uttered by those who do not expect to have to give the Judge in the day of His righteous retribution an account of even an idle word. I thank God, then, both because I am cured of my damaging opinion of you, an opinion which I have derived from the calumnies of men, and because I have heard of your abandonment of those baseless notions about me, on hearing the assurances of my brother. He, in all that he has said as coming from himself, has also completely expressed my own feeling. For in us both there is one mind about the faith, as being heirs of the same Fathers who once at Nicæa promulgated their great decree concerning the faith. Of this, some portions are universally accepted without cavil, but the homoousion, ill received in certain quarters, is still rejected by some. These objectors we may very properly blame, and yet on the contrary deem them deserving of pardon. To refuse to follow the Fathers, not holding their declaration of more authority than one’s own opinion, is conduct worthy of blame, as being brimful of self-sufficiency. On the other hand the fact that they view with suspicion a phrase which is misrepresented by an opposite party does seem to a small extent to relieve them from blame. Moreover, as a matter of fact, the members of the synods which met to discuss the case of Paul of Samosata did find fault with the term as an unfortunate one.