with the Roman Church. The three bishops, who were selected for this duty, were Eustathius of Sebaste, Theophilus of Castabala, and Silvanus of Tarsus. They probably arrived in Rome towards the end of 365. Their written profession of faith has been preserved by Socrates. It included the Nicene Creed and also an express condemnation of various heresies, of which that of the Marcellians was one.1 The same historian has also preserved Liberius' reply, which was written by him in his own name and in the name of the bishops of Italy and of all the West, and was addressed to sixty-four Eastern bishops who are mentioned nominatim, and also generally "to all the orthodox bishops in the East." The pope received the sixty-four named bishops into communion with himself. It is to be observed that the first name, which heads the list, is the name of the Bishop Evethius. Dom Maran suggests that in lieu of the name Evethius, should be read Meletius.2 But there seems to be no manuscript authority for this substitution; and as the named bishops belonged for the most part, if not altogether, to the three vicariates of Asia, Pontus, and Thrace, and as there was an Evethius who was at that time Bishop of Ephesus, an apostolic see and the metropolis of the vicariate of Asia, there was good reason for the name Evethius being found at the head of the list. S. Meletius never belonged to the Semi-Arian group, and his name nowhere occurs in Liberius' letter. Moreover, it is doubtful whether, in 364, he would have been willing to communicate with the Western bishops, who had not yet condemned Marcellus by name.

3

Liberius' reply was carried back by the three Eastern envoys to Asia Minor, and its contents were no doubt communicated to the sixty-four bishops to whom it was addressed. In the spring of 367 a synod was held at Tyana in Cappadocia, consisting, as it would seem, of bishops in communion with S. Meletius, who for the most part had not hitherto held communion with the sixty-four Semi-Arians.1 The letters of Liberius and the Western bishops were read at this council, and afforded to the assembled Fathers high satisfaction. We know from a letter of S. Basil,5 addressed to the Westerns, that the leading Semi-Arian envoy, Eustathius of Sebaste, was present on this occasion, and that it was he, in

1 Cf. Socrat. H. E., iv. 12.

2 Vit. S. Basil., cap. x. § 5, S. Basil. Opp., ed. Ben., tom. iii. p. lxxii.

3 Cf. Phot. Biblioth., cod. 257 (P. G., civ. 130), et Acta SS., tom. vii. Mai.,

p. 254. See also Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, tom. i. col. 675.

Cf. Sozom. H. E., vi. 12; and see Dom Touttée's Dissertat. de Vita S.

Cyrill., cap. xii. § 69 (S. Cyrill. Opp., ed. Ben., coll. lxxiii., lxxiv.).

Cf. S. Basil. Ep. cclxiii. § 3, Opp., ed. Ben., iii. 406.

fact, who brought to the council the reply of Liberius, to which a copy of the envoys' confession had been appended.1 The Fathers of Tyana were able to see that Eustathius had accepted the Nicene Creed, had repudiated the Marcellians, and had been received into communion, as Bishop of Sebaste, by Liberius and the West; they therefore also admitted him to communion, and restored him to his see of Sebaste, or in other words, recognized that, notwithstanding his various depositions-namely, at Melitene in 357, at Constantinople in 360, and again recently by Eudoxius and his Arianizing colleagues, he might be accepted henceforth as the canonical occupant of the see. They also took measures to prepare the way for a general reunion of all the Eastern bishops who were ready to accept the Nicene Creed. But the holding of a large council, which was to meet at Tarsus for the furtherance of this end, was prevented by the Emperor Valens.

8

The Eastern envoys had brought back more than one letter from the West. They had certainly brought a letter from the bishops of Sicily, and apparently others from Africa and Gaul.5 It is possible also that Liberius may have entrusted more than one letter to their care. S. Basil, in a communication addressed to S. Athanasius in 371, appeals to a letter "brought to us by the blessed Silvanus" of Tarsus, as showing that the line of action in regard to the pacification of the Church of Antioch, which he was pressing on S. Athanasius, was agreeable to the views of that saint's friends and allies, the Westerns. We do not know with certainty what was contained in the letter from the West brought to Cappadocia by Silvanus, nor do we know by whom it was written. It is enough to say here that it can hardly have been the great letter of Liberius addressed to the sixty-four Eastern bishops. Nor do I think that it can have mentioned S. Meletius by name, and have admitted him to the communion of the Roman or of any other Western church. It probably recommended some general rules of

1 Cf. Socrat. H. E., iv. 12.

This is what is implied by S. Basil's use of the expression awоKADIOTŵOAV autóv (S. Basil., u.s.). Compare p. 321, note I.

3 Cf. Sozom. H. E., vi. 7.

4 Cf. Socrat. H. E., iv. 12.

7

5 Cf. Sozom. H. E., vi. 12.

S. Basil. Ep. lxvii., Opp., ed. Ben., iii. 160.

Nothing in Liberius' great letter seems to have any bearing on S. Basil's letter to S. Athanasius. Moreover, S. Basil, in two different epistles (Ep. ccxliv. § 7, et Ep. cclxiii. § 3, Opp., iii. 380, 406), speaks of that letter having been brought to the Council of Tyana by Eustathius of Sebaste; whereas in Ep. lxvii. he is speaking of a letter brought by Silvanus of Tarsus.

• Compare pp. 293-295.

action, which were in harmony with S. Basil's suggestions in his letter to S. Athanasius.1

On the first of October, 366, Damasus was consecrated to the see of Rome in the Lateran basilica. And it is admitted that, whatever may have been the case with Liberius, his predecessor, Damasus, for the first nine years of his pontificate, refrained from communicating with either S. Meletius or Paulinus. During the later portion of that period of nine years several attempts were made to reestablish intercommunion between the two churches of Rome and Antioch. It was the great S. Basil who was mainly responsible for initiating and carrying out these attempts. He occupied a unique position, which marked him out as the man who ought to undertake this work of pacification. For on the one side he was bound by closest ties of communion and friendship with S. Meletius, and on the other side he was admired and trusted by S. Athanasius, and from the year 372 onwards, through the friendly offices of that great personage, he also enjoyed the advantages which flowed from communion with the Roman see. As far as I can make out, he was for three years and a half, that is to say, from the spring of 372 to the autumn of 375, the only Eastern bishop, certainly the only Eastern bishop in the occupation of a great see, who did enjoy the communion of the Roman Church.3 It should be added that S. Basil's efforts to bring about the pacification of the Church of Antioch and to re-establish friendly relations between it and the West, formed part of a still wider plan which he was trying to carry out, for the extrication of the whole Eastern Church from its miserable condition. That miserable condition was the result of its intestine divisions and of its persecution by the Arian Emperor, Valens.

It would be interesting to narrate in detail the whole story of the negotiations. But I cannot afford the space. I must

1 For a discussion of the possible purport of these rules, see the Additional Note 72, p. 498.

2 Merenda (De Gestis et Opusculis S. Damasi, cap. viii. § 2, P. L., xiii. 160), speaking of the year 373, says, "It may be inferred that up to this time Damasus had in no way granted his communion either to Meletius or to Paulinus, but had chosen to keep the matter open, lest by giving the preference to one of the parties in the Church of Antioch, he should offend the other, and should in that way shut out all hope of a reconciliation." It was not, in fact, until 375 that Damasus at last decided to give the preference to Paulinus (cf. Merend., De Gestis, cap. x. § 2, P. L., xiii. 168, 169).

3 However, it must be remembered that Liberius had granted his communion to sixty-four Eastern bishops of the Semi-Arian group, whom he mentioned by name. I know of no traces of any results of this act of Liberius continuing after his death. Some of the sixty-four developed, as time went on, markedly heretical views about the Holy Ghost, and such a lapse into heresy on the part of some may have raised suspicions in the mind of Damasus about the rest.

be content with giving for the most part only a summary, reserving, however, full liberty to go into details whenever such a course should appear to be for any special reason desirable.

It was probably about the month of September in the year 371 that S. Basil took the first definite step in his peacemaking enterprise.' He determined that, with S. Meletius' consent, he would send Dorotheus, one of the deacons of the great church at Antioch, first to Alexandria to obtain_commendatory letters from S. Athanasius, and then to Rome "to move some of the Italians to undertake a voyage by sea to visit" the Eastern Church.2 Dorotheus started from the Cappadocian Caesarea, taking with him letters from S. Basil, one to S. Meletius at Antioch, and another to S. Athanasius, and a third to Damasus. Speaking about Dorotheus, S. Basil writes in his letter to Athanasius, "You will welcome him, I am sure, and will look upon him with friendly eyes; you will strengthen him with the help of your prayers; you will furnish him with a letter for his journey; you will grant him as companions some of the good men and true that you have about you; so you will speed him on the way to what is before him." 3

Whether S. Athanasius sent any of his clergy to Rome as companions for Dorotheus, I do not know; but he must have sent a letter commending both S. Basil and Dorotheus to Damasus; for later on Damasus, in sending to the East the reply of the Western bishops, arranged that it should be taken to S. Athanasius, and that S. Athanasius should send on a copy to S. Basil.

So Dorotheus set sail from Alexandria on his way to Rome, carrying with him S. Athanasius' letters of commendation and S. Basil's letter to Damasus. In that letter Basil begs Damasus to come to the help of the East, and "to send some of those who are like-minded with us, either to conciliate the dissentients and bring back the churches of God into friendly union, or at all events to let you see more plainly who are responsible for the unsettled state in which we are, that it may be obvious to you for the future with whom it befits you to be in communion."4 No doubt when S. Basil penned these last words, his underlying thought was that, if only good representatives of the West could come to the

1 S. Basil had been consecrated to the see of Caesarea as successor to Eusebius, in September, 370. About Easter, 371, he sent two preliminary letters to S. Athanasius (Epp. lxvi., lxvii.), setting forth his plan for a mission to the West.

S. Basil. Ep. lxviii. ad Meletium, Opp., ed. Ben., iii. 161. 3 Ibid., Ep. Ixix. ad Athanasium, Opp., iii. 162.

Ibid., Ep. lxx., Opp., ed. Ben., iii. 164.

East, they would soon see that the communion of the West ought to be given to S. Meletius, and withheld from Paulinus, unless the latter were willing to bring himself and his followers under the gentle rule of the legitimate Bishop of Antioch.

It will be noticed that S. Basil asks Damasus to send envoys. In his letter to S. Athanasius he had implied that he would have preferred, if it had been possible, that legates should be sent to the East, commissioned by the whole synod of the West. He imagined, however, that there would be difficulties in the way of such a proceeding, and he therefore fell back on the next best alternative, which was that Damasus should exercise his own personal authority in the matter,1 as occupying the primatial see of the West, and as being consequently competent in such a case as this to act on its behalf.

As it turned out, Dorotheus appears to have arrived in Rome during the session of a numerously attended council of Italian and Gallican bishops. The council had been convoked by Valentinian, and must have been holding its meetings during the month of December, 371. We may gather from what followed that Damasus, having received from Dorotheus the letters addressed to him by S. Basil and S. Athanasius, communicated their contents to the council. The proceedings of that body may be summarized as follows: The assembled Fathers condemned Auxentius, the Arian Bishop of Milan; they repudiated the Council of Ariminum; they expressed their adherence to the Nicene definition and to the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, and pronounced all who held otherwise to be separate from their communion.

1 Cf. S. Basil. Ep. Ixix. ad Athanasium, Opp., iii. 162. "It has seemed to me to be desirable to send a letter to the Bishop of Rome, begging him to examine our condition, and, since there are difficulties in the way of representatives being sent from the West by a general synodical decree, advising him to exercise his own personal authority in the matter by choosing suitable persons to sustain the labours of a journey," etc. The thoughtful Romanist, Monsieur Eugène Fialon (Étude Littéraire sur Saint Basile, 1861, p. 79), speaking of this letter of S. Basil's, says, "Le ton de sa lettre laisse assez voir que c'est un égal qui demande l'assistance d'un égal, non un inférieur qui implore celle d'un supérieur. Ce n'est pas un sujet, c'est un allié en détresse, qui appelle un puissant allié. Il attache un grand prix aux décisions de l'Évêque de Rome; mais il reconnaît si bien la supériorité du concile sur lui, qu'il ne s'adresse à Damase qu'en désespoir d'obtenir des évêques d'Occident un décret commun et synodique. Encore lui demande-t-il moins une décision que des envoyés pour casser les actes de Rimini de concert avec les Orientaux.'

2 Cf. Theodoret. H. E., ii. 17.

3 "Ex rescripto imperiali" (P. L., xiii. 347).

* Dr. Robertson (Âthanasius, p. 488) says, “The name of Sabinus at the end of the Latin copy sent to the East seems to fix the date of this synod (D.C.B., i. 294) to 372." As Sabinus, after going to Illyricum and Alexandria, was back in Caesarea before the end of March, 372, I prefer December, 371, as the date of the synod.