[1308] 1 Cor. xi. 2.
[1309] 2 Thess. ii. 15.
[1310] Deut. xix. 15.
[1311] Job viii. 9.
[1312] i.e. Dianius, bp. of the Cappadocian Cæsarea, who baptized St. Basil c. 357 on his return from Athens, and ordained him Reader. He was a waverer, and signed the creed of Ariminum in 359; Basil consequently left him, but speaks reverentially of him in Ep. 51.
[1313] c. 200.
[1314] 100.
[1315] 269.
[1316] Dionysius was Patriarch of Alexandria a.d. 247-265. Basil's "strange to say" is of a piece with the view of Dionysius' heretical tendencies expressed in Letter ix. q.v. Athanasius, however, (De Sent. Dionysii) was satisfied as to the orthodoxy of his predecessor. Bp. Westcott (Dict. C. Biog. i. 851) quotes Lumper (Hist. Pat. xii. 86) as supposing that Basil's charge against Dionysius of sowing the seeds of the Anomoean heresy was due to imperfect acquaintance with his writings. In Letter clxxxviii. Basil calls him "the Great," which implies general approval.
[1317] Clem. Rom., Ep. ad Cor. lviii. Bp. Lightfoot's Ap. Fathers, Pt. I. ii. 169.
[1318] Irenæus is near the Apostles in close connexion, as well as in time, through his personal knowledge of Polycarp. Videhis Ep. to Florinus quoted in Euseb., Ecc. Hist. v. 20. In his work On the Ogdoad, quoted in the same chapter, Irenæus says of himself that he ten proten ton 'Apostolon kateilephenai ten diadochen "had himself had the nearest succession of the Apostles."
[1319] The reference is presumably to 1 Cor. ii. 11 and iii. 1.
[1320] i.e.Eusebius of Cæsarea, the historian, so called to distinguish him from his namesake of Nicomedia. cf. Theodoret, Ecc. Hist. i. 1. The work is not extant. It may be that mentioned by Eusebius in his Præp. Evang. vii. 8, 20 under the title of peri tes ton palaion andron polupaidias.
[1321] The quotation is from the Eighth Book.
[1322] cf. 1 Pet. iii. 21.
[1323] As to Origen's unorthodoxy concerning the Holy Spirit St. Basil may have had in his mind such a passage as the following from the First Book of the De Principiis, extant in the original in Justinian, Ep. ad Mennam. Migne, Pat. Gr. xi. p. 150. hoti ho men theos kai pater sunechon ta panta phthanei eis ekaston ton onton metadidous hekasto apo tou idiou to einai; on gar estin; elatton de para ton patera ho Hui& 232;s phthanei epi mona ta logika; deuteros gar esti tou patros; eti de hetton to pneuma to hagion epi monous tous hagious diiknoumenon; hoste kata touto meizon he dunamis tou Patros para ton Hui& 232;n kai to pneuma to hagion pleion de he tou Huiou para to pneuma to hagion The work does not even exist as a whole in the translation of Rufinus, who omitted portions, and St. Jerome thought that Rufinus had misrepresented it. Photius (Biblioth. cod. viii.) says that Origen, in asserting in this work that the Son was made by the Father and the Spirit by the Son, is most blasphemous. Bp. Harold Browne, however (Exposition of the xxxix. Art. p. 113, n. 1), is of opinion that if Rufinus fairly translated the following passage, Origen cannot have been fairly charged with heresy concerning the Holy Ghost: "Ne quis sane existimet nos ex eo quod diximus Spiritum sanctum solis sanctis præstari. Patris vero et Filii beneficia vel inoperationes pervenire ad bonos et malos, justos et injustos, proetulisse per hoc Patri et Filio Spiritum Sanctum, vel majorem ejus per hoc asserere dignitatem; quod utique valde inconsequens est. Proprietatem namque gratiæ ejus operisque descripsimus. Porro autem nihil in Trinitate majus minusve dicendum est, quum unius Divinitatis Fons verbo ac ratione sua teneat universa, spiritu vero oris sui quæ digna sunt, sanctificatione sanctificet, sicut in Psalmo scriptum est verbo domini coeli firmati sunt et spiritu oris ejus omnis virtus eorum." De Princ. I. iii. 7. On the obligations of both Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus to Origen, cf. Socrates iv. 26.
[1324] Of the chief writings of Julius Africanus (called Sextus Africanus by Suidas), who wrote at Emmaus and Alexandria c. 220, only fragments remain. A Letter to Origen is complete. His principal work was a Chronicon from the Creation to a.d. 221, in Five Books. Of this Dr. Salmon (D.C.B. i. 56) thinks the doxology quoted by Basil was the conclusion.
[1325] Ps. cxli. was called ho epiluchnios psalmos (Ap. Const. viii. 35). In the Vespers of the Eastern Church an evening hymn is sung, translated in D.C.A. i. 634, "Joyful Light of the holy glory of the immortal Father, the heavenly, the holy, the blessed Jesus Christ, we having come to the setting of the sun and beholding the evening light, praise God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It is meet at all times that thou shouldest be hymned with auspicious voices, Son of God, Giver of Life: wherefore the world glorifieth thee."
[1326] Identified by some with two early hymns, Doxa en hupsistois, and phos hilaron.
[1327] The mss. vary between exiterion and alexiterion, farewell gift and amulet or charm. In Ep. cciii. 299 Basil says that our Lord gave His disciples peace as an exiterion doron, using the word, but in conjunction with doron. Greg. Naz., Orat. xiv. 223 speaks of our Lord leaving peace "hosper allo ti exiterion."
[1328] i.e. Gregory, bishop of Neocæsarea, known as Gregorius Thaumaturgus, or Gregory the Wonder-worker. To the modern reader "Gregory the Great" more naturally suggests Gregory of Nazianzus, but this he hardly was to his friend and contemporary, though the title had accrued to him by the time of the accepted Ephesine Council in 431 (vide Labbe, vol. iv. p. 1192) Gregory the Wonder-worker, c. 270.
[1329] 2 Cor. xii. 18.
[1330] Rom. i. 5.
[1331] e.g.according to the legend, the Lycus. cf. Newman, Essays on Miracles, p. 267.
[1332] The story is told by Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Greg. Thaum. Migne xlvi. 926-930.
[1333] The Neocæsareans appear to have entertained a Puritan objection to the antiphonal psalmody becoming general in the Church in the time of Basil. cf. Ep. ccvii.
[1334] Firmilian, like Gregory the Wonder-worker, a pupil of Origen, was bishop of Cæsarea from before a.d. 232 (Euseb. vi. 26) to 272 (Euseb. vii. 30). By some his death at Tarsus is placed in 264 or 5.
[1335] cf. Matt. xii. 31.
[1336] Matt. xxviii. 19.
[1337] The Benedictine version for tas timas tou kuriou is honorem quem Dominus tribuit Spiritui. The reading of one ms. is tas phonas. There is authority for either sense of the genitive with time, i.e. the honours due to the Lord or paid by the Lord.
[1338] cf. Col. iii. 15.
[1339] 2 Cor. i. 9.
[1340] Eccl. iii. 7.