Saint Basil of Seleucia

Basil of Seleucia was a Roman Bishop and ecclesiastical writer. He was archbishop of Seleucia ad Calycadnum by 448. He condemned Eutyches in the year 448, "acquiesced" while "rehabilitating" at the Latrocinium in 449, "but recanted and signed" the Tome of Leo in 450. His date of birth is uncertain but probably around the turn of the 5th century; he was consecrated bishop by 448, a position he held for at least a decade. Basil was a notable figure during the period when the Eastern Church was convulsed by the Eutychian controversy, and was necessarily obliged to take sides in all the attendant disputes. Those of his writings which have come down to us, though perhaps too rhetorical and involved, suggest that he was a man of great literary ability. He was appointed Bishop of Seleucia in Isauria, between the years 432 and 447, and was one of those who took part in the Synod of Constantinople, which was summoned in 448 by Patriarch Flavian of Constantinople to assess the faith of the archimandrite Eutyches. Although in Constantinople he accepted Eutyches' condemnation, he attended the Second Council of Ephesus the next year (449), where he voted for the rehabilitation of Eutyches and for the deposition of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Later, at Chalcedon, he claimed that he had felt obliged to submit to the authority of the other bishops at Ephesus, particularly Dioscurus of Alexandria. Like many who had submitted to Dioscurus at Ephesus, he went on to accept the condemnation of both Eutyches and Dioscurus at Chalcedon. Throughout the turmoil, however, his personal confession remained consistent: the one Christ is fully human and fully divine, and either 'one nature' or 'two nature' language is orthodox if rightly understood. He is particularly notable for originating the qualified Dyophysite formula promulgated in the Chalcedonian definition: 'made known in two natures'.