to monimon ...epitolmwnta. This is the correction of Oehler for ton monon ...epitolmwn which the text presents. The Venetian ms. has epitolmwnti.
2 his refutation of titis heresy. This is Basil's 'Anatreptikoj tou apologhtikou tou duosebouj Eunomiou. `Basil,0' says Photius, `with difficulty got hold of Eunomius' book,0' perhaps because it was written originally for a small circle of readers, and wasin a highly scientific form. What happened next may be told in the words of Claudius Morellius (Prolegomena to Paris Edition of 1615): `When Basil's first essay against the foetus of Eunomius had been published, he raised his bruised head like a trodden worm, seized his pen, and began to rave more poisonously still as well against Basil as the orthodox faith.0' This was Eunomius' `Apologia Apologiae:0' of it Photius says, `His reply to Bash was composed for many Olympiads while shut up in his cell. This, like another Saturn, he concealed from the eyes of Basil till it had grown up, i.e. he concealed its by devouring its as long as Basil lived.0' He then goes on to say that after Basil's death, Theodore (of Mopsuestia), Gregory of Nyssa, and Sophronius found it and dealt with it, though even then Eunomius had only ventured to show it to some of his friends. Philostorgius, the ardent admirer of Eunomius, makes the amazing statement that Basil died of despair after reading it.
4 `He asks for the intercession of Saint Paul0' (Paris Edit. in marg.).
5 apoklhrwqeisan. This is probably the meaning, after the analogy of apoklhrwsij, in the sense (most frequent in Origen), of `favour,0' `partiality,0' passing into that of `caprice,0' `arbitrariness,0' cf. below, cap. 9, tij h apoklhrwsij,k.t.l. `How arbitrarily he praises himself.0'
6 Photius reports very much the same as to his style, i.e. he shows a `prodigious ostentation:0' uses `words difficult to pronounce, and abounding in many consonants, and that in a poetic, or rather a dithyrambic style:0' he has `periods inordinately long:0' he is `obscure,0' and seeks `to hide by this very obscurity whatever is weak in his perceptions and conceptions, which indeed is often.0' He `attacks others for their logic, and is very fond of using logic himself:0' but `as he had taken up this science late in life, and had not gone very deeply into it, he is often found making mistakes.0'
The book of Eunomius which Photius had read is still extant: it is his `Apologeticus0' in 28 sections, and has been published by Canisius (Lectiones Antiquoe, I. 172 ff.). His ekqeoij thj tistewj, presented to the emperor Theodosius in the year 383, is also extant. This last is found in the Codex Theodosius and in the mss. which Livineius of Ghent used for his Greek and Latin edition of Gregory, 1574: it follows the Books against Eunomius. His `Apologia Apologiae,0' which he wrote in answer to Basil's 5 (or 3) books against him, is not extant: nor the deuteroj logoj which Gregory answered in his second 12th Book.
Most of the quotations, then, from Eunomius, in these books of Gregory cannot be verified, in the case of a doubtful reading, &c.
8 that heretical book, i.e. the first `Apology0' of Etmomius in 28 parts: a translation of it is given in Whistoh's Eunomianismus Redivivus.
10 tacin. We have no context to explain these allusions, the treatise of Eunomins being lost, which Gregory is now answering, i.e. the Apologia Apologiae.
12 This must be the `caricature0' of the (Greek) Summary above. Eustathius of Sebasteia, the capital of Armenia, and the Galatian Basil, of Ancyra (Angora), are certainly mentioned, e. 6 (end). Twice did these two, once Semi-Arians, oppose Aetius and Eunomius, before Constantius, at Byzantium. On the second occasion, however (Sozomen, H.E. iv. 23, Ursacius and Valens arrived with the proscription of the Homoousion from Ariminum: it was then that "the world groaned to find itself Arian" (Jerome). The `accursed saint0' `pale with fast,0' i.e. Eustathius, in his Armenian monastery, gave Basil the Great a model for his own.
14 Oltiseris was probably the district, as Corniaspa was the village, in which Eunomius was born. It is a Celtic word: and probably suggests his half-Galatian extraction.
15 This can be no other than the district Chammanene, on the east bank of the Halys, where Galatia and Cappadocia join.
16 Probably the `Indian0' Theophilus, who afterwards helped to organize the Anomoean schism in the reign of Jovian.
17 Gallus, Caesar 350-354, brother of Julian, not a little influenced by Aetius, executed by Constantius at Flanon in Dalmatia. During his short reign at Antioch, Domitian, who was sent to bring him to Italy, and his questor Montius were dragged to death through the streets by the guards of the young Caesar.
18 The same phrase occurs again: Refutation of Eunomius' Second Essay, p. 844: oi th prounikou sofia eggumnasqentej: ec ekeinhj gap dokei moi thj paraskeuhj ta eirhmena proenhnocenai: In the last word there is evidently a pun on prounikou; proferhj, in the secondary sense of `precocious,0' is used by Iamblichus and Porphyry, and prounikoj; appears to have had the same meaning. We might venture, therefore, to translate `that knowing trick0' of short-hand: but why Prunicus is personified, if it is personified, as in the Gnostic Prunicos Sophia, does not appear. See Epiphanius Haeres. 253 for the feminine Proper name.
The other possible explanation is that given in the margin of the Paris Edition, and is based on Suidas, i.e. Prunici sunt cursores celeres; hic pro celer scriba. Hesychius also says of the word; oi misqou komizontej ta wnia apo thj agoraj, ouj tinej paidariwnaj kalousin, dromeij, traxeij, oceij, eukinhtoi, gorgoi, misqwtoi. Here such `porter's0' skill, easy going and superficial, is opposed to the more laborious task of tilling the soil.
19 For the baptisms of Eunomius, compare Ephiphanius Haer. 765. Even Arians who were not Anomoeans he rebaptized. The `helps of nature0' may possibly refer to the `miracles0' which Philostorgius ascribes both to Aetius and Eunomius.
Sozomen (vi. 26) says, "Eunomius introduced, it is said, a mode of discipline contrary to that of the Church, and endeavoured to disguise the innovation under the cloak of a grave and severe deportment." ...His followers "do not applaud a virtuous course of life ...so much as skill in disputation and the power of triumphing in debates."
21 The mh is redundant and owing to ouk.
22 Eisfrhsantwn. A word used in Aristophanes of `letting into court,0' probably a technical word: it is a manifest derivation from eisforein. What the solecism is, is not clear; Gretser thinks that Eunomius meant it for eisphdan.
24 sunekrotei. The word has this meaning in Origen. In Philo (de Vita Mosis, p. 476, 1. 48, quoted by Viger.), it has another meaning, sunekrotoun alloj allon, mh apokamnein, i.e. `cheered.0'
25 kaqufhsousin. This is the reading of the Venetian ms. The word hears the same forensic sense as the Latin praevaricari. The common reading is kaqubrisousin.
27 pareggrapton: for the vox nihili paragrapton. Oehler again has adopted the reading of the Ven. ms.
29 Sozomen (vi. 26): "After his (Eunomius) elevation to the bishopric of Cyzicus he was accused by his own clergy of introducing innovations. Eudoxius obliged him to undergo a public trial and give an account of his doctrines to the people: finding, however, no fault in him, Eudoxius exhorted him to return to Cyzicus. He replied he could not remain with people who regarded him with suspicion, and it is said seized this opportunity to secede from communion."
30 upografh; or else `on the subject of Basil's charge.0'
31 tij h apoklhrwsij: this is a favourite word with Origen and Gregory.
34 eti tw=| en klhrw twn presbuterwn ierateuwn.
36 According to Ruffinus (Hist. Eccl.), his constitution was poisoned with jaundice within and without
37 en anwnumw tini Korniaspinhj esxatia. Cf. mega crhma uoj (Herod.) for the use of this genitive. In the next sentence ei anti, though it gives the sense translated in the text, is not so good as h anti (i.e. escatia), which Oehler suggests, but does not adopt.
With regard to Eunomius' birthplace, Sozomen and Philostorgius give Dacora (which the former describes as on the slopes of Mt Argaeus: but that it must have been on the borders of Galatia and Cappadocia is certain from what Gregory says here): `Probably Dacora was his paternal estate: Oltiseris the village to which it belonged0' (Dict. Christ. Biog.; unless indeed Corniaspa, marked on the maps as a town where Cappadocia, Galatia and Pontus join, was the spot, and Oltiseris the district. Eunomius died at Dacora.