Day 115 - Psalms 86, 102, 109, 139-141, 143

But what especially strengthens us in our desire for union with you is the account of your reverences’ [The reference is to three Egyptian bishops who had been exiled to Palestine during the Apollinarian controversy, namely, Eulogius, Alexander and Harpocration.] zeal for orthodoxy—the fact that neither by a vast number of treatises nor by subtlety of sophisms was your firmness of heart overcome, but that you recognized those who were making innovations contrary to the teachings of the apostles and did not consent to cover over in silence the harm done by them. Truly, we have found great grief among all those who are clinging to the peace of the Lord because of the manifold innovations of Apollinaris of Laodicea, [He introduced the first of the christological heresies. He denied that Christ’s human nature possessed a rational human soul. He was condemned for his views at the second ecumenical council (Constantinople I) in 381.] who has grieved us so much more in that he seemed to belong to our party in the beginning. In fact, any suffering from an evident enemy, even if the pain is excessive, can somehow be borne by the one afflicted, as it is written: “For if my enemy had reviled me, I would verily have borne with it.” But, to experience some hurt from one who is of like spirit and an intimate friend, this is most certainly hard to bear and holds no consolation. For, him whom we had expected to have as a fellow defender of the truth, him, I say, we have now found hindering in many places those who are being saved by perverting their minds and drawing them away from the right doctrine—St Basil the Great