Letter 175: 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,...

From: Basil, Bishop of Caesarea To: Count Magnenianus Date: ~367 AD Context: Basil refuses a request to write a formal treatise on the faith, suspecting it would only be used as ammunition by his detractors, and insists the ancient creed is sufficient. Your excellency wrote to me recently, charging me among other things to write a statement on the faith. I admire your zeal, and I pray God that your commitment to what is good will hold firm, and that as you grow in knowledge and good works you may be brought to perfection. But I have no wish to leave behind me yet another treatise on the faith, or to draft alternative creeds, and so I have declined your request. You seem to me to be surrounded by the noise of your associates there -- idle men who say things to slander me, imagining they can improve their own standing by telling disgraceful lies about mine. What they are, the past has already shown. Future experience will make it even plainer. I call on everyone who trusts in Christ: do not busy yourselves inventing alternatives to the ancient faith. As we believe, so let us be baptized. As we are baptized, so let us offer our praise. It is enough for us to confess the names we have received from Holy Scripture and to resist all innovation concerning them. Our salvation does not depend on inventing new forms of address. It depends on a sound confession of the Godhead in which we have placed our faith.

ST. BASIL OF CAESAREA To Count Magnenianus. 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. 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. The past shows what they are, and future experience will show them in still plainer colors. 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. 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. About this page Source. Translated by Blomfield Jackson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 8. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3202175.htm>. Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.