[191] Ep. xcviii., but see note, p. 182, on the doubt as to this allusion.
[192] Greg. Naz., with grim humour, objects to be sent to Sasima to fight for Basil's supply of sucking pigs and poultry from St. Orestes. Ep. xlviii.
[193] "Nyssa was more clearly than either Sasima or Doara a part of Cappadocia Secunda; it always retained its ecclesiastical dependence on Cæsarea, but politically it must have been subject to Tyana from 372 to 536, and afterwards to Mokissos. All three were apparently places to which Basil consecrated bishops during his contest with Anthimus and the civil power. His bishop of Nyssa, his own brother Gregory, was ejected by the dominant Arians, but the eminence and vigour of Gregory secured his reinstatement and triumphant return. Basil's appointment was thus successful, and the connexion always continued. His appointment at Sasima was unsuccessful. Gregory of Nazianzus would not maintain the contest, and Sasima passed under the metropolitan of Tyana. At Doara, in like fashion, Basil's nominee was expelled, and apparently never reinstated. Ep. ccxxxix. Greg. Naz. Or. xiii." Ramsay, Hist. Geog. of A.M. 305.
[194] As in Carm. De Vita Sua: Stathmos tis estin en mese leophoro Tes Kappadokon hos schizet' eis trissen hodon. Anudros, achlous, oud' holos eleutheros, Deinos epeukton kai stenon komudrion, Konis ta panta, kai psophoi, sun harmasi, Threnoi, stenagmoi, praktores, streblai, pedai; Laos d' hosoi xenoi te kai planomenoi, Haute Sasimon ton emon ekklesia. [N.B.--The last line marks the quantity.] "A post town on the king's high road, Where three ways meet, is my abode; No brooklet, not a blade of grass, Enlivens the dull hole, alas! Dust, din, all day; the creak of wheels; Groans, yells, the exciseman at one's heels With screw and chain; the population A shifting horde from every nation. A viler spot you long may search, Than this Sasima, now my church!"
[195] It is curious that a place which had so important a connexion with Gregory the divine should have passed so completely into oblivion. From it he derived his episcopal rank. His consecration to Sasima was the main ground of the objection of his opponents at Constantinople in 381 to his occupying the see of the imperial city. He was bishop of Sasima, and, by the fifteenth Canon of Nicæa, could not be transferred to Constantinople. He never was bishop of Nazianzus, though he did administer that diocese before the appointment of Eulalius in 383. But while the name "Gregory of Nazianzus" has obscured the very existence of his father, who was really Gregory of Nazianzus, and is known even to the typical schoolboy, Gregory has never been described as "Gregory of Sasima." "The great plain which extends from Sasima nearly to Soandos is full of underground houses and churches, which are said to be of immense extent. The inhabitants are described by Leo Diaconus (p. 35) as having been originally named Troglodytes....Every house in Hassa Keni has an underground story cut out of the rock; long narrow passages connect the underground rooms belonging to each house, and also run from house to house. A big solid disc of stone stands in a niche outside each underground house door, ready to be pulled in front of the door on any alarm....Sasima was on the road between Nazianzus and Tyana. The distances point certainly to Hassa Keni....An absolutely unhistorical legend about St. Makrina is related at Hassa Keni. Recently a good-sized church has been built in the village, evidently on the site of an ancient church; it is dedicated to St. Makrina, who, as the village priest relates, fled hither from Kaisari to escape marriage, and to dedicate herself to a saintly life. The underground cell in which she lived is below the church." Ramsay, Hist. Geog. of Asia Minor, pp. 293, 294. Paul Lucas identified Sasima with Inschesu.
[196] cf. Greg. Naz. Ep. l.
[197] cf. De Joinville's happy illustration of this in Histoire du roi Saint Louis, p. 18. Ed. 1617. The King of France would shew more confidence in the captain whom he might choose to defend La Rochelle, close to the English pale, than in the keeper of Monthléry, in the heart of the realm.
[198] At the same time it is disappointing to find Gregory mixing up with expressions of reluctance to assume awful responsibilities, objections on the score of the disagreeable position of Sasima. Perhaps something of the sentiments of Basil on this occasion may be inferred from what he says in Letter cii. on the postponement of private to public considerations in the case of the appointment of Poemenius to Satala.
[199] Or. xliii. cf. Newman, The Church of the Fathers, p. 142, where the breach is impartially commented on: "An ascetic, like Gregory, ought not to have complained of the country as deficient in beauty and interest, even though he might be allowed to feel the responsibility of a situation which made him a neighbor of Anthimus. Yet such was his infirmity; and he repelled the accusations of his mind against himself by charging Basil with unkindness in placing him at Sasima. On the other hand, it is possible that Basil, in his eagerness for the settlement of his exarchate, too little consulted the character and taste of Gregory; and, above all, the feelings of duty which bound him to Nazianzus....Henceforth no letters, which are preserved, passed between the two friends; nor are any acts of intercourse discoverable in their history. Anthimus appointed a rival bishop to Sasima; and Gregory, refusing to contest the see with him, returned to Nazianzus. Basil laboured by himself. Gregory retained his feelings of Basil's unkindness even after his death....This lamentable occurrence took place eight or nine years before Basil's death; he had, before and after it, many trials, many sorrows; but this probably was the greatest of all." The statement that no letters which are preserved passed between the two friends henceforth will have to be modified, if we suppose Letter clxix. to be addressed to Gregory the Divine. But Professor Ramsay's arguments (Hist. Geog. of Asia Minor, p. 293) in favour of Gregory of Nazianzus the elder seem irresistible. On Letter clxix. he writes: "For topographical purposes it is necessary to discover who was the Gregory into whose diocese Glycerius fled. Tillemont considers that either Gregory of Nyssa or Gregory of Nazianzus is meant. But the tone of the letter is not what we might expect if Basil were writing to either of them. It is not conceived in the spirit of authority in which Basil wrote to his brother or to his friend. It appears to me to show a certain deference which, considering the resolute, imperious, and uncompromising character of Basil (seen especially in his behaviour to Gregory Nazianzen in the matter of the bishopric of Sasima), I can explain only on the supposition that he is writing to the aged and venerable Gregory, bishop of Nazianzos. Then the whole situation is clear. Venasa was in the district of Malakopaia, or Suvermez, towards the limits of the diocese of Cæsareia. The adjoining bishopric was that of Nazianzos. Venasa being so far from Cæsareia was administered by one of the fifty chorepiscopi whom Basil had under him (Tillemont, Mem. p. servir, etc., ix. p. 120), and the authority of Basil was appealed to only in the final resort. Glycerius, when Basil decided against him, naturally fled over the border into the diocese of Nazianzos." (There is, however, not much reverence in Letter clxxi.) "Comment l'homme qui avait tant souffert de l'injustice des autres, put-il être injuste envers son meilleur ami? L'amitié est de tous les pays. Partout, on voit des hommes qui semblent nés l'un pour l'autre, se rapprocher par une estime mutuelle, par la conformité de leurs gouts et de leurs caractères partager les peines et les joies de la vie, et donner le spectacle du plus beau sentiment que nous avons reçu de la divinité. Mais la Grèce avait singulièrement ennobli ce sentiment dejà si pur et si saint, en lui donnant pour but l'amour de la patrie. Les amis, destines a se servir l'un à l'autre de modèle et de soutien, s'aiment moins pour eux-mêmes, que pour rivaliser de vertu, se dévouer ensemble, s'immoler s'il le faut, au bien public....C'est cette amitié de dévouement et de sacrifice, qu'au milieu de la mollesse du IVme siècle, Basil conçoit pour Grégoire de Nazianze. Formée dans les écoles, entretenne par l'amour des lettres, elle avait pour but unique, non plus la patrie, mais Dieu. L'amitié de Grégoire et plus tendre et plus humaine....Il a voué sa vie à son ami, mais il en attend la même condescendance, le même denouement à ses propres désirs. Basile au contraire, semble prendre à la lettre ce qu'il a lu dans Plutarque et dans Xénophon de l'amitié antique." E. Fialon, Et. Hist. In other words, Gregory's idea of friendship was to sacrifice one's self: Basil's to sacrifice one's friend. This is an interesting vindication of Basil, but the cause of God was hardly identical with the humiliation of Anthimus.
[200] Ep. xcvii.
[201] Ep. xcviii.
[202] Greg. Naz., Ep. clii.
[203] Ep. xcix.
[204] Epp. cii., ciii.
[205] Epp. cxx., cxxi., cxxii.
[206] Ep. ccx.
VIII.--St. Basil and Eustathius.
It was Basil's doom to suffer through his friendships. If the fault lay with himself in the case of Gregory, the same cannot be said of his rupture with Eustathius of Sebaste. If in this connexion fault can be laid to his charge at all, it was the fault of entering into intimacy with an unworthy man. In the earlier days of the retirement in Pontus the austerities of Eustathius outweighed in Basil's mind any suspicions of his unorthodoxy. [207] Basil delighted in his society, spent days and nights in sweet converse with him, and introduced him to his mother and the happy family circle at Annesi. [208] And no doubt under the ascendency of Basil, Eustathius, always ready to be all things to all men who might be for the time in power and authority, would appear as a very orthodox ascetic. Basil likens him to the Ethiopian of immutable blackness, and the leopard who cannot change his spots. [209] But in truth his skin at various periods shewed every shade which could serve his purpose, and his spots shifted and changed colour with every change in his surroundings. [210] He is the patristic Proteus. There must have been something singularly winning in his more than human attractiveness. [211] But he signed almost every creed that went about for signature in his lifetime. [212] He was consistent only in inconsistency. It was long ere Basil was driven to withdraw his confidence and regard, although his constancy to Eustathius raised in not a few, and notably in Theodotus of Nicopolis, the metropolitan of Armenia, doubts as to Basil's soundness in the faith. When Basil was in Armenia in 373, a creed was drawn up, in consultation with Theodotus, to be offered to Eustathius for signature. It consisted of the Nicene confession, with certain additions relating to the Macedonian controversy. [213] Eustathius signed, together with Fronto and Severus. But, when another meeting with other bishops was arranged, he violated his pledge to attend. He wrote on the subject as though it were one of only small importance. [214] Eusebius endeavoured, but endeavoured in vain, to make peace. [215] Eustathius renounced communion with Basil, and at last, when an open attack on the archbishop seemed the paying game, he published an old letter of Basil's to Apollinarius, written by "layman to layman," many years before, and either introduced, or appended, heretical expressions of Apollinarius, which were made to pass as Basil's. In his virulent hostility he was aided, if not instigated, by Demosthenes the prefect's vicar, probably Basil's old opponent at Cæsarea in 372. [216] His duplicity and slanders roused Basil's indignant denunciation. [217] Unhappily they were not everywhere recognized as calumnies. Among the bitterest of Basil's trials was the failure to credit him with honour and orthodoxy on the part of those from whom he might have expected sympathy and support. An earlier instance of this is the feeling shewn at the banquet at Nazianzus already referred to. [218] In later days he was cruelly troubled by the unfriendliness of his old neighbours at Neocæsarea, [219] and this alienation would be the more distressing inasmuch as Atarbius, the bishop of that see, appears to have been Basil's kinsman. [220] He was under the suspicion of Sabellian unsoundness. He slighted and slandered Basil on several apparently trivial pretexts, and on one occasion hastened from Nicopolis for fear of meeting him. [221] He expressed objection to supposed novelties introduced into the Church of Cæsarea, to the mode of psalmody practiced there, and to the encouragement of ascetic life. [222] Basil did his utmost to win back the Neocæsareans from their heretical tendencies and to their old kindly sentiments towards himself.
The clergy of Pisidia and Pontus, where Eustathius had been specially successful in alienating the district of Dazimon, were personally visited and won back to communion. [223] But Atarbius and the Neocæsareans were deaf to all appeal, and remained persistently irreconcilable. [224] On his visiting the old home at Annesi, where his youngest brother Petrus was now residing, in 375, the Neocæsareans were thrown into a state of almost ludicrous panic. They fled as from a pursuing enemy. [225] They accused Basil of seeking to win their regard and support from motives of the pettiest ambition, and twitted him with travelling into their neighbourhood uninvited. [226]