ON THE HOLY SPOUSES BASIL AND EMMELIA, PARENTS OF SS. BASIL THE GREAT AND GREGORY OF NYSSA, AT NEOCAESAREA IN CAPPADOCIA.
CENTURY IV.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Basil, parent of S. Basil the Great (S.)
Emmelia, parent of S. Basil the Great (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
CHAPTER I.
Praise common to both from the virtue of their ancestors, their own gifts, and the holy education of their children.
To the parent of Ecclesiastical Annals, Caesar Baronius, much do they owe, Several inscribed in the present-day Roman from this family: since other several holy Fathers, both specially Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, in that their paternal grandmother, Macrina; their parents, Eusebius and Emmelia; their brother also youngest in birth, Peter Bishop of Sebaste, inscribed hitherto in no Fasti of the Saints among the Greeks or Latins, he took care to have inserted into the tables of the present-day Roman Martyrology, since with merit (as from the writings of the sons and S. Gregory Nazianzen it is plain) by the elogium of sanctity. Of Peter and Macrina at the days IX and XIV of January treated my Masters and predecessors Bolland and Henschen: I here about Basil and Emmelia about to treat, first from the writings of Basil the Great with praises in Nazianzen, I recall to memory what he has concerning the most atrocious persecution of Maximinus, in which some of our athletes contended even unto death, others almost unto death; for this reason, namely, left behind, that as survivors of their own victory, they might be left to others for an example of virtue. For their number increased, the forefathers on his father's side. The ancestors of Basil on his father's side: who although they were so disposed in soul, that they would easily have endured all those things, on account of which the crown of martyrdom is granted, yet did not further rush into the stadium; but committing themselves to divine providence, to a certain forest of the Pontic mountains, which already once suffered exile from the year 235 to 242, with few companions both of flight and ministers of food, they fled, where for the seventh year and longer than that their exile was prolonged, they relate, and a manner of living for generous bodies straitened and unusual, except that beasts and birds of their own accord offered themselves to be slain for food, by a notable miracle, which there more fully Nazianzen pursues, as continued through all that seven-year period.
[2] This being once related in praise of Macrina the grandmother of Basil, here I would not touch upon it, had not our Henschen wished a corrected emendation, he gave a husband to the elder Macrina about the year 270 which to that place from Baronius' mind is added, as if not Maximinus there were to be understood, he who in the year CCXXXV moved a most savage persecution against the Christians; but sixty years younger Galerius Maximian. For if these things concerning S. Macrina herself and her husband, the grandparents of Basil, were to be understood, as Baronius understood, the age of S. Gregory Thaumaturgus would not agree, whose disciple Basil several times attests his grandmother to have been: but if of the paternal forefathers of Basil, as Billius renders, it be thought said, a much more fitting reckoning of Chronology will be set up. For let us suppose born of such parents the paternal grandfather of Basil, partner of the same exile with them, perhaps in boyish age; but Macrina to have been born in the profound peace of the church under the Philip Emperors, Christians, about the year CCL; let her have used before marriage the mastership of Gregory Thaumaturgus, but of Emmelia about the year 315, whose life is extended beyond the Synod of Antioch held in the year CCLXV; married however about the year CCLXX, she could after eight or ten years have borne Basil the elder: and he, now a man of confirmed age, having taken to wife Emmelia, about the year CCCXVI begot of her first S. Macrina the younger, then S. Basil the Great, and the rest thereafter in order children, of whom the tenth and last Peter, was at once born and orphaned: for at that time when he was brought into light, his father departed from the living, namely about the year CCCXXX. she having died about the year 372. But the mother (as in praise of her sister Macrina wrote one of the brothers, Gregory of Nyssa) having advanced into a sorrowful old age, into a heavy old age advanced, migrated to God, about the year CCCLXXII, and so if she be supposed at the age of eleven years to have come into a husband's hands, she numbered of her age in this our chronology about the seventy-fourth year; who by others, establishing Basil born after the Nicene Council, would scarcely have been a sexagenarian. But before we inquire into the year of death, let us draw forth her praises and her husband's, from the writings of the sons and of the familiar friend Gregory Nazianzen.
[3] First concerning his mother, what she was before marriage, let her son Gregory tell us: She, he says, was of such virtue that she governed herself in all things by the counsel of God, and a pure and entire manner of living above all loved, so that not willingly but unwilling in a manner she married. This marriage equally holy For when, bereft of both parents she was in the very flower of age, and the fame of her beauty incited many, that they desired her for a wife to themselves; and there was peril, unless willing she were placed in marriage to someone, lest through violence and something of adversity should befall (for those captured by her beauty looked toward rapine) that she might consult her safety, she chose for herself a man approved and consummate by gravity of life. Him therefore, about thirty years and more; herself, we rightly suppose at least fifteen years old, when they came together; but of both now joined Nazianzen, in the oration on the praises of Basil, thus writes: Although of that marriage, which was no less of virtue than of bodies, many also other distinctions there are; namely the zeal of nourishing the poor and receiving guests, the purgation of the soul through continence, a portion of goods to God consecrated (which thing not yet then was the zeal of many, as now from the first examples it has been increased and cultivated) and all other things, and a leaf it was, which divided between Pontus and Cappadocia would suffice to fill the ears of many; to me however the greatest and most illustrious seems to be felicity in children.
[4] on account of the rare sanctity of all the children. For those who at once both many, and upright and honorable sons have had, in fables perhaps you may find, but these the very fact has exhibited to us; as those who indeed were such themselves, that, even if of such children they had by no means been parents, to themselves nevertheless for the renown of name they could have sufficed; and again such sons they brought forth into light, that, even if they themselves had not been of so great virtue, they would yet have surpassed all by the felicity of offspring. For when one or two live with praise, that is such, that it can be ascribed to nature; but on all sides perfect and to the highest carried virtue of all, must plainly be assigned to them, by whom they were brought forth and educated. Which indeed clearly demonstrates that, to be proclaimed by the name of felicity, number of Priests and of Virgins; and of those who in marriage applied to themselves that force, that marriage brought to them no hurt, whereby the less they aspired to equal glory of virtue. That happy number, in my judgment at least, is the ternary: wherefore as I find three Bishops, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Peter of Sebaste; so also I think there ought to be reckoned three virgins, although the name of the firstborn alone Macrina is known to us, two perhaps having died early in the flower of age: other three were joined to husbands, as also of the aforenamed brothers one Gregory: for Naucratius, in number of sons the second, died a youth and unwedded.
[5] But to whom, continues Nazianzen, is Basil, the father of this our Basil the great, unknown? a man of great name among all, and to the virtue of both who of his paternal vow was made partaker, if any one ever was, not to say alone. For though he surpassed all the rest in virtue, by his son alone he is hindered from obtaining the first place. To whom is Emmelia? who was first called that which afterward she was, or was that which she had first been named; she, I say, bearing the name Emmelia, that is, of Harmoniousness. That I may say it in one word, this she was among women, which he among men. Their life, Macrina her daughter before her own death among the benefits of God to be weighed commemorating, divinely-added riches there are. not so much as illustrious and famous by wealth, but as by divine kindness increased and heaped up demonstrated; and although on account of the confession of Christ, the father's parents had been assailed and harassed, probably under Aurelian in the year CCLXXVI; but the maternal grandfather the royal indignation, of Galerius Maximian, as I think, had taken away, and all his goods to other masters had distributed; yet so through faith to have grown, that at that time no one was more famous than they. But the household property, although according to the number of children by manifold reckoning it had been divided, yet that heap the divine clemency so increased, that the parents' wealth, namely which on both sides they had brought to the marriage, afterward each child's hereditary lot exceeded. Of the father says the same Macrina, that thus far he flourished a youth, that among the citizens and in the courts his glory stood, but afterward his erudition extended itself farther; through all Pontus (as she soon adds) made known.
[6] But what kind of a mother Emmelia was in the education of her children and especially of her daughters, The chaste education of the children and singly of Macrina. from the care expended on Macrina herself it gives to be understood Nyssa's bishop, when he says, that she uniquely strove that her daughter, having passed the age of infancy, be educated: but not with that external series of disciplines, by which mostly from the reading of the Poets the first ages of learners are imbued. For base and unbecoming altogether she deemed it, with the tragic perturbations of women (whence the Poets took their beginnings and arguments of writing) or with the foulnesses of comedies, or with the shameful deeds of those who so many troubles to Ilium bore, a tender and well-formed mind to be infected, and with less weighty narrations about women in a manner to be defiled. Accordingly what from Scripture, dictated by the divine Spirit, to that first age seemed easier and more apt, she proposed to be learned: but among the first the Wisdom of Solomon, and that especially from it which to life and morals most conduced. Among these things the twelfth year of age had Macrina passed; and when to a miracle she was beautiful, and her marriage was sought by very many. The father, who indeed was prudent and in judging honorable matters experienced, a certain one both by birth and by morals honorable and approved, still among the disciplines of adolescence engaged, from present profit judging concerning the future, his daughter's spouse chose, as soon as she should have a fitting age.
CHAPTER II.
The Acts of S. Emmelia widowed of her husband, and her pious death.
[7] Of the children, as we have said, the tenth and last Peter, as soon as he was born was also bereft of his father Basil, The widow with her elder daughter lives more holily, whom I would believe to have died near the sixtieth year. From this time however with various (as is wont to happen) cares was distracted the mother Emmelia, to whom the daughter Macrina (who while the father was yet living through the death of the young man destined for her understood herself a widow before a bride, nor any mention of marriage would she further admit) to the Mother, I say, Macrina the daughter in all labors showed herself a partner; and a part of the solicitudes herself undergoing, she from the heavy burden of troubles relieved her. But at the same time both by the mother's discipline she kept her life entire from all reproof; and to her in turn she presented herself a great, to an equal aim of Philosophy, by the example of her life a leader, little by little drawing her to a purer and more perfect life. But common to both was that, that when at some time under Macrina's neck the breast had so swollen, that Emmelia judged there was need of cutting; she, afraid to lay herself bare to anyone, after prayers poured forth a whole night, answered that it was enough to expel the disease, if with her hand her mother herself should fortify the place with the holy Sign. When therefore the mother had brought her hand into her bosom, that she might sign that part; the Sign at once exerted its power, and the disease departed; but a thin and obscure mark appeared in place of the horrible swelling, and to the end of life remained.
[8] Meanwhile there supervened the lamentable case of Naucratius, he who of the four brothers after Basil was the greatest in birth, namely born in the year CCCXX: for nothing forbids to interpose the birth of one or another daughter. He when the twenty- second year of age he had completed, all things being spurned to the solitary life he had betaken himself, with one of the domestics Chrysaphius; where having found certain old men laboring with want and disease, he ministered to them food sought out by his own hunting. Consternated by the bitter death of her son Naucratius, And he indeed in these labors at the same time tamed his adolescence, nor on that account with eager soul to his mother's will did he cease to obey, if anything by her at any time was commanded. But thus philosophizing, and his mother by his life rendering blessed, only the fifth year he had spent of his solitude about the river Iris; when suddenly he is snatched from life, not by any disease or by any usual manner, by an untimely death taken away; but when he had set forth to hunting, by which industry he supplied the necessaries of food to those worn out with old age, dead he was carried back to his house, both himself and his companion Chrysaphius.
[9] Far away from the things which had happened was the mother, distant a three days' journey from that calamity (so far therefore is Neocaesarea distant from the place of the solitude beloved by Naucratius) who though in every kind of virtue she was perfect; yet when so bitter a message from someone she had received, by her she is raised up, nature as is meet prevailing, collapsed and lifeless, all but at once together with her voice gave up her spirit. Here the great Macrina's, says Nyssa's bishop (whose words thus far for the most part we use) virtue appeared, who not only kept herself unconquered and erect, but also her mother's weakness propped and sustained: for her soul, by the gravest case cast down, rousing and reviving with her own unconquered strength, to fortitude and endurance she trained. Thus therefore at length the mother resisted grief, nor anything unworthy or effeminate admitted, as either to cry out, or to rend her cloak, or to wail, or with mournful clamors to intensify her lamentation: but by reason she put off the sense of nature's onset, both her own and her daughter's counsels bringing medicine to her sickness.
[10] These things from the principle now laid down can be referred to the year CCCXLVII, a little more or less. For although by Nyssa's bishop they are related after Basil's return; yet he confesses that he interrupts the thread of the narration, that he may insert something altogether not to be passed over, namely of those things which some years before had happened, about the year 347. the elder son still being absent; concerning whom and concerning the mother by Macrina to a more sublime kind of life roused, thus to speak Nyssa's bishop had begun; When the rest of the sisters had been honorably placed by their mother, from the public gymnasia of letters, in which long he had been engaged, returns the great Basil; in the year as I once established (nor do I yet think it to be changed) CCCLVI, and so then about XLI years old, his mother he found six or seven years older than a fifty-year-old. Basil having returned about the year 356, And him indeed his sister Macrina soon induced, that, the world's renown being postponed and the glory of eloquence despised, embracing a laborious and toilsome manner of living through poverty, an expedited way to virtue he might construct for himself … But his mother she persuaded, that the wont of her former life being left and the more elated manner of living (whom by art subjected as handmaids to her own uses she had employed) with herself of the same lot and order she should wish to be.
[11] Thus far Nyssa's bishop, who the begun narration here interrupting, Emmelia with her daughter retires to a monastery, after concerning Naucratius he interposed what we above related; When therefore, he says, now both from the care of nourishing her children, and from the solicitude of education and of placing them out Emmelia was freed; and the domestic troubles for the greater part among the sons themselves, Gregory especially and Peter, were divided: the author, as was said, to her mother the virgin was, that to the study of wisdom and a pure manner of living she should betake herself. And her from all the rest of things, and the wont of her former life, to the proper moderation of a humble and abject life she led, that in the multitude of Virgins, with the same condition with them she might live, and with one table, a like little bed, with equal finally and equal reckoning of all things which pertain to life she might use, every difference of dignity from their life being taken away. Wherefore such was the order of life, and so great in the study of wisdom the excellence, and so grave a discipline of living, that by no faculty of speech can it be described. For such are the souls, which from the bonds of the body loosed and from troubles freed, have flown away from this prison of life, such was their life: inasmuch as it, from all vanity of human things alien, to the likeness of the Angels' life most nearly approached.
[12] Not anger, not envy, not hatred, not suspicion was discerned among them: all desire of honor, glory and other vain things of that kind, all pride and haughtiness, and the rest of similar vices, were thence rejected. Their delights they placed in temperance: their glory they thought to be situated in this, that they were known to no one; their riches, that they possessed nothing, and that all earthly resources as dust from their bodies they had shaken off. and at the same time leads the Angelic life, But no study they reckoned not vain, which on the care and cultivation of this life was placed. There alone of divine things flourished the care, and perpetual zeal of praying, and assiduous chanting of Psalms, which at no time ever, neither day nor night, was intermitted: so that in that matter both their work alike, and their rest consisted. What therefore human faculty of speaking could explain this manner of living? Was their life interposed between the human and the heavenly nature, partaker of each, bordering on each. For inasmuch as from human perturbations it had vindicated itself, it was more excellent than the condition of man; but inasmuch as in the body it was discerned, and was contained in the figure of man, and used the instruments of the senses, to the angelic and body-free nature it yielded; one might perhaps even contend it was not inferior: since living with the flesh, to the likeness of the powers vacant of body by the burden of the body they were not pressed, but lofty and sublime was their life: inasmuch as with high and erect soul with those heavenly powers they were conversant. In this institute of living no small time they had lived, when by assiduous accessions of goods found increasing the study of wisdom, to a greater cleanness of soul they drew near.
[13] But to attaining this so excellent aim, of great help was … Peter, under the direction of Peter, youngest of the sons; in whom the pains of bearing had ended for the mother: for he last was received of the parents a son, who at once born and orphaned was … He, the occupations of external studies having scorned, and an ingenium to all good disciplines apt for receiving having, and always looking to his sister, whom to himself as the aim of all good he had proposed; such progress in virtue made, that in the rest of his life to the great Basil in excellence of virtue he was judged to be in nothing inferior: but then to his sister and mother he was instead of all, and together with them to that angelic life he strove… Meanwhile the mother now very old, in the hands of both sons dying, migrated to God. Of which blessing what of yours it was, which toward her children she used, to commemorate will not be foreign. For when of the absent ones singly lovingly she made mention, that none might be without blessing; especially the present ones herself by her prayers offered to God. For indeed when on either side of the opposite couch they sat by her, with one hand each touching, with these last words she addressed God. To thee, Lord, and in the hands of both renders her spirit. both the first-fruits and the tithe I dedicate of the fruits of my womb. For the place of the first-fruits this my firstborn obtains for me, but of the tithe this last my tenth son: but to thee by the law both are owed, and are thy gifts. Upon this therefore my firstborn and this tenth let holiness come. Thus the clear prayer designating both daughter and son, to the blessing at once and to life an end set, when first she had charged her sons, that her into the sepulchre paternal they should bring. This they as they had been bidden when they had performed, for the rest of time to wisdom's summit always with the foregoing life striving, and their past good deeds with later ones to surpass studying, they pressed on.
CHAPTER III.
The place of death and burial: likewise the year, and the reckoning of the chronology somewhat renewed.
[14] Between the retreat of S. Macrina, where she herself in the year CCCLXXII died, Emmelia died in the suburban monastery, and the church of the Holy Martyrs the XL of Sebaste, in which because the parents' bodies rested, she herself also wished to be buried, seven or eight stadia intervene; which, according to Suidas compared with Pliny, constitute one Mile, or the third part of an hour's league. But since the church itself was within the city of Neocaesarea, ample enough, nor is it established that the same church was near the gate, through which the body was to be brought; it can happen, that scarcely a half quarter of an hour from the city's walls was distant the monastery, as it seems clinging to the very suburbs; and as Godfrey Hermant in the Life of Basil and Nazianzen believes, at the nearer bank of the same Iris flowing past there, at whose other bank the monastery of men was ruled by Peter: which both is likely enough. Likely also it seems to me, that, as to Nyssa's bishop bearing out his sister's bier, his shoulders also lent the Bishop of Neocaesarea Araxius, with two Clerics; so to the body of the mother Emmelia about to be carried by Peter the chief of the Clergy, if not he himself now named Bishop, came in aid. But Emmelia had prudently provided, that for her husband she should construct a very capacious coffin, buried, Bishop Araxius lending his shoulder, in which not only she herself could be laid by her spouse, but also her most beloved Macrina. But she since with the parents she was to be joined, and Nyssa's bishop feared, lest the collapsed and dissolved bodies to a foul and disordered deformity should have come; before, he says, they were exposed to our eyes, with a pure shroud they were covered. For when the lid had been lifted off, on either side at the top a linen was cast in; with which linen the parents' bodies being covered, I and that region's Bishop, the body from the bier lifting, near the mother laid it, in the same tomb in which the husband and afterward the daughter Macrina and thus the vow of both we fulfilled; for with one consent they had always prayed God, that to their bodies after death they might be coupled; that what among them had been the conjunction of life, not even by death itself should be dissolved.
[15] were buried with like caution, It is fair to believe a like caution was applied by the son Peter, when to Basil the father was to be laid the mother Emmelia, nor was there then less than afterward at the funeral of Macrina the crowd of the multitude meeting and accompanying, the lamentation of the Virgins, the office of the Clergy; which however here I omit, in the praises of Macrina by Nyssa's bishop described entire to be read, and to be expounded at July XIX. But into the place of the deceased mother and daughter, immediately to have succeeded seem their nieces of the same purpose and institute. For S. Gaudentius (who, at the same time at which the Bishop of Brescia was elected, and in the year according to Baronius CCCLXXXVI, in the East was engaged) thus speaks in the Sermon on the dedication of the Basilica of the XL Martyrs. What worthy thing of the Forty Martyrs shall I speak, who to my journey, when through the cities of Cappadocia I was proceeding to Jerusalem, deigned to present themselves as faithful companions? their nieces succeeding in the rule. For in that greatest city of Cappadocia, which is called Caesarea, where have those same most blessed ones a distinguished Martyrium, we found certain handmaids of God, of the monastery of the holy Virgins most worthy Mothers, altogether of Mary and Martha most like, whom deservedly may Jesus love, by nature, faith and zeal; and in the integrity of chastity sisters-german: to whom by their uncle, the Confessor and Priest Basil, once had been delivered the venerable Relics of these Martyrs, which to our desire without delay and faithfully they bestowed.
[16] But why to the dying Emmelia of the sons only Peter, not likewise Basil, not Gregory was present? Basil was absent, detained by sickness and winter, For himself a cause will Basil render, Epistle 7 to Eusebius Bishop of Samosata, the year of which Epistle when we shall have known, also will appear the cause for which Gregory ought to be excused. Basil therefore thus begins: If all in order the causes I should write, by which up to this day I have been detained, although also vehemently I have desired your piety toward God to visit, an infinite field of history I should fill. The diseases indeed some succeeding others, the hatred of winter, the continuity of business I pass over to mention, as things known to thee and already long ago indicated, through Epistle 6: but the same things prohibited me also from running out to visit the sick woman. But now he proceeds, that the one solace of life I had my mother, even her on account of my sins I lost. Nor mock me I pray, because at this age I weep my bereavement; but pardon me, not patiently bearing the departure of that soul, to which what can be compared in those things which remain I do not see. Again therefore into sickness I have fallen; and again on a bed I lie, with strength altogether scanty wavering, and every well-nigh hour the necessary end of life awaiting.
[17] and the mother's death sorrowfully suffers, If we attended only to Nyssa's bishop, in the Life of Macrina after the related death of the mother thus speaking, Meanwhile Basil was declared Prelate of the Great Caesarea, and his brother, namely Peter, in the Clergy promoted to the order of the Presbyterate; you would say that neither was a Presbyter, nor a Bishop Basil, when there died Emmelia. But the aforecited Epistle to Eusebius, more familiarly written than from a simple Presbyter it would have been fitting to be written to a Bishop, persuades otherwise; otherwise also persuades, than for an excuse he alleges the continuity of business, which not yet to a Bishop so great scarcely could be. More strongly however to the same to be believed urges us the other part of the epistle, in which when he had said the Churches, almost like his own body, to be afflicted, things into worse always slipping; he subjoins: Lately however Neocaesarea and Ancyra, into the place of the deceased Musonius and Athanasius, seem to have received successors, and thus far are at rest: but neither those who lay snares for us to do anything, of their wrath and savagery worthy, thus far have been permitted. And yet upon their death writing to the Churches epistles 67 and 62, he sufficiently indicates, himself to be a Bishop: when the Neocaesareans he wishes to be persuaded, that they are his glorying, as he theirs; now made Bishop: and that on account of the Pastor who shall be given them, it will be, that with them either more amply and more closely he be united, or altogether be disjoined; and that, although Musonius he had not on account of certain suspicions (as he asserted) joined to himself, for preserving the peace of the Churches; yet never did he cease to invoke him a companion of the contests, against the heretics undertaken. But grieving for Athanasius' death; To whom henceforth, says he, shall we impose the care of the Churches? whom in these sad matters shall we receive as partner? plainly as concerning his Coadjutor-bishop speaking, in whom much of confidence he had reposed. Finally persecutions and exiles only when now made Bishop began the Arians to contrive against him with Valens; in which however that they had no success the Saint glories, in that epistle in which he announces his mother's death.
[18] He was therefore now then a Bishop; and Nyssa's bishop, as in narrating Naucratius' death he held not the order of time, so neither in commemorating the Ordination of Basil: but the discourse which concerning his mother he had begun, in a continuous series he drew out even after her death; that, when he had said how Macrina bore it, then he subjoined how he bore the death of Basil his brother, in the eighth year after he had been made Bishop deceased. But Basil had been made Bishop in the year CCCLXX, and in the following year at the feast of the Epiphanies with Valens dealt, and to have satisfied him seemed: a little however after to be sent into exile he was, had not the Emperor compelled by several prodigies rescinded the sentence. And so not inconveniently the death of Emmelia, which at the going-out of winter happened (as it appears) in the month perhaps of February or March, is referred to the year CCCLXXII; in which year also Gregory of Nyssa, a few months before made Bishop, the Arians persecuting him expelled from his church, Gregory of Nyssa also was absent, driven out by the Arians. and among those whirlwinds to run out to his sick mother he could not. But why Baronius for commemorating the holy parents of those chose this day May XXX, I have not whence to say; nor a more certain other one which I might substitute. And so this I retain, by the example of the whole Basilian Order in our West, on such a day them now venerating, as testifies the author of the Calendar of the Saints, in particular Churches of Genoa wont to be venerated, on the occasion of the monastery which the same Order there has.
[19] These things occurred, which concerning SS. Basil and Emmelia, parents of the four holy children, I might say: now to me a reckoning is to be rendered, [Basil and Nazianzen seemed once to us to have come into light before the year 300,] why I depart from the Chronology in the Prolegomena to the Acts of S. Gregory Nazianzen established from the opinion of Suidas, asserting him to have died a ninety-year-old, and so before the year CCC to have come into light: which also concerning his companion Basil, as a contemporary, I wished to be understood. Namely even then I professed, a better way for explaining the difficulties if anyone should show, that I would not embrace it gladly. But now, the things which S. Basil's mother regarded, more closely inspecting, and that she seems not before the year CCCLVII to have entered the monastery with her daughter; I see it not to agree that she in the year CCC was a mother, otherwise about to be when she entered the monastery, more than a seventy-year-old. Hence into this thought I came, that it could have been, that by one numeral letter deceived Suidas for ο′ 70, wrote ϟ′ 90, and Basil was older than Nazianzen by a few years; which being supposed Emmelia entered the monastery at the age of LVII years, now, all things again weighed. which is not very absonant. The things however which remained in marriage to be placed, the daughters, better will be said before the coming of Basil to have been married off: lest they be believed at thirty or even greater in birth first to have been delivered to husbands. This however easily will permit the context of Nyssa's bishop, to the order of things rather than to time adhering, as above we have seen. But that more quickly born Basil I may believe, I am no more moved by Epistle 20 of Nazianzen, to Eusebius of Caesarea given in the year CCCLXVII; for that does not really praise Basil, as by hoariness most excellent of all whom Nazianzen knew, as the interpreter Billius renders: but where here he reads πολιᾷ hoariness, the Parisian edition from the Basel Codex has, πολιτείᾳ, conversation, which is far another thing, but nothing to age makes. Nor however does this hinder, whereby the less I believe Basil to his friend Nazianzen in age almost equal to have been: for although that cannot be had with the preserved age of his ninety years, which Suidas asserted; nor also the other opinion standing, which makes him born of a father a Bishop, and so after the year CCCXXVII: they seem born about the year 316 and 319. yet all things turning I found a middle way, nor from the sense of Baronius abhorrent, by which the difficulties almost all can be smoothed, and it be said Nazianzen in the year CCCXIX born, by three years only younger than Basil to have been: which matter because in few words it cannot be explained, the Reader I ask that in the Appendix, in volume VII to be placed, he consult that disputation earlier concerning Nazianzen's age, by second cares renewed.