The verb,
ἐντρίβομαι,
appears to be used by St. Basil, if he wrote ἐντετριμμένων
in the sense of to be ἐντριβής or
versed in a thing (cf. Soph. Ant. 177)—a sense not
illustrated by classical usage. But the reading of the
Moscow ms. (μ)
ἐντεθραμμένων, “trained in,” “nurtured in,” is per se
much more probable. The idea of the country folk preserving the
good old traditions shews the change of circumstances in St.
Basil’s day from those of the 2d c., when the
“pagani” or villagers were mostly still heathen, and the
last to adopt the novelty of Christianity. cf.
Pliny’s Letter to Trajan (Ep. 96), “neque
civitates tantum sed vicos etiam atque agros superstitionis istius
contagio pervagata est.”