could now endeavour to carry out his plan.
Homoean malcontents formed the nucleus of the league, but
conservatives began to join it, and Athanasius gave his patriarchal
blessing to the scheme. The difficulties, however, were very great. The
league was full of jealousies. Athanasius indeed might frankly recognise
the soundness of Meletius, though he was committed to Paulinus, but
others were less liberal, and Lucifer of Calaris was forming a schism on
the question. Some, again, were lukewarm in the cause and many sunk in
worldliness, while others were easily diverted from their purpose. The
sorest trial of all was the selfish coldness of the West. Basil might
find here and there a kindred spirit like Ambrose of Milan after 374;
but the confessors of 355 were mostly gathered to their rest, and the
church of Rome paid no regard to sufferings which were not likely to
reach herself.

Nor was Basil quite the man for such a task as this. His courage indeed
was indomitable. He ruled Cappadocia from a sick-bed, and bore down
opposition by sheer strength of his inflexible determination. The very
pride with which his enemies reproached him was often no more than a
strong man's consciousness of power; and to this unwearied energy he
joined an ascetic fervour which secured the devotion of his friends, a
knowledge of the world which often turned aside the fury of his enemies,
and a flow of warm-hearted rhetoric which never failed to command the
admiration of outsiders. Yet after all we miss the lofty self-respect
which marks the later years of Athanasius. Basil was involved in
constant difficulties by his own pride and suspicion. We cannot, for
example, imagine Athanasius turning two presbyters out of doors as
'spies.' But the ascetic is usually too full of his own plans to feel
sympathy with others, too much in earnest to feign it like a
diplomatist. Basil had enough worldly prudence to keep in the background
his belief in the Holy Spirit, but not enough to protect even his
closest friends from the outbreaks of his imperious temper. Small wonder
if the great scheme met with many difficulties.

[Sidenote: Disputes with: (1.) Anthimus.]

A specimen or two may be given, from which it will be seen that the
difficulties were not all of Basil's making. When Valens divided
Cappadocia in 372, the capital of the new province was fixed at Tyana.
Thereupon Bishop Anthimus argued that ecclesiastical arrangements
necessarily follow civil, and