2.  Mariolatry.  Even Letter CCCLX., which bears obvious marks of spuriousness, and of proceeding from a later age, does not go beyond a recognition of the Blessed Virgin as Θεοτόκος, in which the Catholic Church is agreed, and a general invocation of apostles, prophets, and martyrs, the Virgin not being set above these.  The argument of Letter CCLXI. (p. 300) that “if the Godbearing flesh was not ordained to be assumed of the lump of Adam, what need was there of the Blessed Virgin?” seems quite inconsistent with the modern doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.  Of any cultus of the Virgin, St. Basil’s writings shew no trace.