This
important letter was written a.d. 360, when
Basil, shocked at the discovery that Dianius, the bishop who had
baptized him, had subscribed the Arian creed of Ariminum, as revised
at Nike (Theod., Hist. Ecc. II. xvi.), left
Cæsarea, and withdrew to his friend Gregory at Nazianzus.
The Benedictine note considers the traditional title an error, and
concludes the letter to have been really addressed to the monks of
the Cœnobium over which Basil had presided. But it may
have been written to monks in or near Cæsarea, so that title
and sense will agree.