Newman introduces his extracts from the following letter with the prefatory remark:  “If Basil’s Semi-Arian connexions brought suspicion upon himself in the eyes of Catholic believers, much more would they be obnoxious to persons attached, as certain Neocæsareans were, to the Sabellian party, who were in the opposite extreme to the Semi-Arians and their especial enemies in those times.  It is not wonderful, then, that he had to write to the church in question in a strain like the following.”  (Ch. of the Fathers. p. 98.)  The passages in brackets are Newman’s version.  The prime agent in the slandering of Basil was presumably Atarbius, bishop of Neocæsarea.