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Genealogical Tables · Letter CLXVI. To Eusebius, bishop of Samosata

Letter CLXX

Page 235 of 394

To Glycerius.

How far will your mad folly go? How long will you counsel mischief against yourself? How long will you go on rousing me to wrath, and bringing shame on the common order of solitaries? Return. Put confidence in God, and in me, who imitate God's loving-kindness. If I rebuked you like a father, like a father I will forgive you. This is the treatment you shall receive from me, for many others are making supplication in your behalf, and before all the rest your own presbyter, for whose grey hairs and compassionate disposition I feel much respect. Continue longer to hold aloof from me and you have quite fallen from your degree.2565 You will also fall away from God, for with your songs and your garb2566 you are leading the young women not to God, but to the pit.

Notes

  1. 2564

    Placed with the preceding.

  2. 2565

    tou bathmou. cf. . hoi kalos diakonesantes bathmon heautois kalon peripoiountai. There seems an evident allusion to this passage, but not such as to enable Basil to be positively ranked with Chrysostom in his apparent interpretation of bathmos objectively of preferment, or with Theodoret in his subjective idea of honour with God. Apparently the "degree" is the Diaconate.

  3. 2566

    stole. The technical use of this word for a "stole" is not earlier than the ninth century. It was indeed used for a sacred vestment, e.g. the sacred robe which Constantine presented to Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem. (Theodoret ii. 27.) In Latin "stola" designated the distinctive dress of the matron, and it seems to be used with a suggestion of effeminacy.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Volume 8, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (1890–1900). Public domain. Text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.