Letter CLXXV.840    Written probably early in 374.

To Count Magnenianus.841    One ms. reads Magninianus.  On the identification of this officer with the recipient of cccxxv., see that letter.

Your excellency lately wrote to me, plainly charging me, besides other matters, to write concerning the Faith.  I admire your zeal in the matter, and I pray God that your choice of good things may be persistent, and that, advancing in knowledge and good works, you may be made perfect.  But I have no wish to leave behind me a treatise on the Faith, or to write various creeds, and so I have declined to send what you asked.842    But what Basil declined to do at the prompting of Magnenianus, he shortly afterwards did for Amphilochius, and wrote the De Spiritu Sancto.  You seem to me to be surrounded by the din of your men there, idle fellows, who say certain things to calumniate me, with the idea that they will improve their own position by lying disgracefully against me.843    Maran (V. Basilxxx.) thinks that the allusion is to Atarbuis of Neocæsarea and to some of his presbyters.  cf. Letter ccx.  The past shews what they are, and future experience will shew them in still plainer colours.  I, however, call on all who trust in Christ not to busy themselves in opposition to the ancient faith, but, as we believe, so to be baptized, and, as we are baptized, so to offer the doxology.844    cf.De Sp. Scto. p. 17.  It is enough for us to confess those names which we have received from Holy Scripture, and to shun all innovation about them.  Our salvation does not lie in the invention of modes of address, but in the sound confession of the Godhead in which we have professed our faith.

ΜΑΓΝΗΝΙΑΝῼ ΚΟΜΗΤΙ

[1] Πρῴην ἐπέστελλέ μοι ἡ σεμνότης σου ἄλλα τινὰ καὶ περὶ πίστεως γράψαι ἡμᾶς ἐναργῶς προστάσσουσα. Ἀλλ' ἐγὼ τὴν μὲν σὴν περὶ τὸ πρᾶγμα ἄγαμαι σπουδὴν καὶ εὔχομαι τῷ Θεῷ ἀνενδότως σοι τῶν ἀγαθῶν τὴν αἵρεσιν ἐνυπάρχειν καὶ ἀεί σε προκόπτοντα καὶ γνώσει καὶ ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς τελειοῦσθαι. Διὰ δὲ τὸ μὴ βούλεσθαι περὶ πίστεως σύνταγμα καταλιμπάνειν μηδὲ γράφειν διαφόρους πίστεις, παρετηρησάμην ἀποστεῖλαι ἃ ἐπεζητήσατε. Πλὴν δοκεῖτέ μοι περιηχεῖσθαι παρὰ τῶν αὐτόθι, τῶν μηδὲν ἐργαζομένων, οἳ ἐπὶ διαβολῇ ἡμετέρᾳ λέγουσί τινα, ὡς ἐκ τούτου ἑαυτοὺς συστήσοντες, ἐὰν ἡμῶν τὰ αἴσχιστα καταψεύσωνται. Ἐκείνους μὲν γὰρ φανεροῖ ὁ παρελθὼν χρόνος καὶ προϊοῦσα ἡ πεῖρα φανερωτέρους ποιήσει. Ἡμεῖς δὲ παρακαλοῦμεν τοὺς ἠλπικότας εἰς Χριστὸν μηδὲν παρὰ τὴν ἀρχαίαν περιεργάζεσθαι πίστιν, ἀλλ' ὡς πιστεύομεν, οὕτω καὶ βαπτίζεσθαι, ὡς δὲ βαπτιζόμεθα, οὕτω καὶ δοξολογεῖν, ὀνόματα δὲ ἀρκεῖν ἡμῖν ἐκεῖνα ὁμολογεῖν ἃ παρελάβομεν παρὰ τῆς Ἁγίας Γραφῆς καὶ τὴν ἐπὶ τούτοις καινοτομίαν διαφεύγειν. Οὐ γὰρ ἐν τῇ ἐφευρέσει τῶν προσηγοριῶν ἡ σωτηρία ἡμῶν, ἀλλ' ἐν τῇ ὑγιεῖ περὶ τῆς Θεότητος εἰς ἣν πεπιστεύκαμεν ὁμολογίᾳ.