2. How much, then, would I not have given to
meet you, that I might tell you all my troubles? When one is in
pain it is, as you know, some alleviation, even to describe it.
How gladly would I have answered your questions, not trusting to
lifeless letters, but in my own person, narrating each
particular. The persuasive force of living words is more
efficient and they are not so susceptible as letters to attack and to
misrepresentation. For now no one has left anything untried, and
the very men in whom I put the greatest confidence, men, who when I saw
them among others, I used to think something more than human, have
received documents written by some one, and have sent them on, whatever
they are, as mine, and on their account are calumniating me to the
brethren as though there is nothing now that pious and faithful men
ought to hold in greater abhorrence than my name. From the
beginning it has been my object to live unknown, to a degree not
reached by anyone who has considered human infirmity; but now, just as
though on the other hand it had been my purpose to make myself
notorious to the world, I have been talked about all over the earth,
and I may add all over the sea too. For men, who go to the last
limit of impiety, and are introducing into the Churches the godless
opinion of Unlikeness,
i.e.the Anomœans. On the use of the word
dogma for an heretical tenet, cf. note on p.
41. are waging war
against me. Those too who hold the via media, The Ben.
note remarks that at first sight Eustathius of Sebasteia seems to be
pointed at, for in Letter cxxviii. Basil speaks of him as
occupying a contemptible half-and-half position. But,
continues the note: Si res attentius consideretur,
non Eustathium proprie hoc loco, sed generatim eosdem
hæreticos, quos contra liber De Spiritu Sancto scriptus est,
perspicuum erit notari. Nam medius ille Eustathii status in eo
positus erat, quod nec catholicus potentioribus Arianis catholicis
videri vellet. Nondum aperti cum Arianis conjunctus, nec
probare quæ ipsi a Basilio proponebantur. At quos hic
commemorat Basilius, hi catholicæ doctrinæ bellum apertum
in dixerant, et quamvis dissimilitudinis impietatem fugere
viderentur, iisdem tamen, ac Anomœi, principiis stabant.
Hoc eis exprobat Basilius in libro De Spiritu Sancto, cap. 2, ubi
impias eorum de Filio ac Spiritu sancto nugas ex principiis Aetii
deductas esse demonstrat, idem hæretici non desierunt nefaria
Basillii expellendi consilia inire. Eorum convicia in
Basilium, insidias et nefarias molitiones, furorem ac bellum
inexpiabile, vide in libro De Spiritu Sancto, num. 13, 25, 34, 52,
60, 69, 75. as they think, and, though they start from
the same principles, do not follow out their logical consequences,
because they are so opposed to the view of the majority, are equally
hostile to me, overwhelming me to the utmost of their ability with
their reproaches, and abstaining from no insidious attacks against
me. But the Lord has made their endeavours vain.