1 Tim. vi. 20. The intellectual championship
of Basil was chiefly asserted in the vindication of the
consubstantiality of the Spirit, against the Arians and Semi-Arians,
of whom Euonomius and Macedonius were leaders, the latter giving his
name to the party who were unsound on the third Person of the
Trinity, and were Macedonians as well as Pneumatomachi. But
even among the maintainers of the Nicene confession there was much
less clear apprehension of the nature and work of the Spirit than of
the Son. Even so late as 380, the year after St. Basil’s
death, Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat. xxxi. de Spiritu
Sancto, Cap. 5, wrote “of the wise on our side some
held it to be an energy, some a creature, some God. Others,
from respect, they say, to Holy Scripture, which lays down no law on
the subject, neither worship nor dishonour the Holy
Spirit.” cf. Schaff’s Hist. of Christian
Ch. III. Period, Sec. 128. In Letter cxxv. of St. Basil
will be found a summary of the heresies with which he credited the
Arians, submitted to Eusthathius of Sebaste in 373, shortly before
the composition of the present treatise for
Amphilochius.