three years before the death of athanasius,
basil became archbishop of caesarea (the capital of cappacodia)
and ex arch of pontus, athanasius congratulating the caesareans
on having found so glorious a bishop.
his episcopal work only extended over nine years;
but during that time he was the most prominent figure in the eastern,
if not in the whole, church.
some difficulty, however, in hes relations with the west prevented his influence
from being felt there as fully as it ought to have been,
so that possibly in the west ambrose was the recognized leader.
but the cloak of athanasius fell on basil;
and like A, basil maintained the authority of the church against the state,
and with a like courage and pertinacity.
only after his death did the result of his work appear, in the pacification of the east;
during his life he met with nothing but troubles and disappointments,
which were aggravated by wretched health
and shortly before his death he cried,
'for my sins i seem to succeed in nothing'.
his letters are full of his bodily troubles.
'it is the scourge of the Lord that goes on increasing my pains according to my deserts
i have had illness upon illness, so that now even a child may see
that this shell of mine must certainly fail, unless perhaps God's mercy
vouchsafe me in His long suffering time for repentance
and now, as often before, extricate me from ills beyond all human cure'.
and in the following letter,
'for a whole moth i have been treated by hot natural springs;
but as the saying is, 'warmth is no good to the dead'.
in the next he has had fever for 50 days, and his old plaque, the liver,
has held him on the confines of life and death.
for nine years, in this deplorable state of health,
with enemies besetting him on all sides both in church and state,
he defied successfully the imperial government;
carried out immense practical reforms;
wrote theological treatises of great excellence;
and paved the way for the reunion of the east.
and only when he was gone was his true greatness discovered.
after generations have known him as basil the Great,
while theodoret called him 'the light not only of cappacocia, but of the world.
and the council of chalcedon (450) called him 'the greatest of the Fathers'.
the map of asia minor shows that cappacocia was its most eastern central province;
and basil was ,to start with, essentially an eastern, grave, proud, ascetic.
but his orientalism was modified by an athenian education.
the gravity of the eastern was tempered by the politeness of the greek.
his eastern pride in his bearing towards the world was also tempered by a
true christian humility, amounting to self abasement.
he cried out for love and affection'
yet there was something austere about him, which seems to have wounded his friends
and made him difficult to get on with.
he was profoundly sensitive, yet his practical disposition could not sympathize with
the same quality in others.
he had also, in spite of his gravity, a keen sense of humour.
'who, said his friend gregory, could tell a story with more wit?
who could jest so playfully?'
fialon points out that in his athenian education he had acquired the greek love of his own city.
the affairs of the empire were of little importance to him,
compared with the welfare and interests of caesarea.
somewhat analogous to this was his attitude towards the west.
as an eastern by birth, he was full of zeal for the peace of the east.
'hitherto, he writes, i have been unable to give any adequate practical proof
of my earnest desire to pacify the churches of the Lord.
but from my heart i affirm that i have so great a longing,
that i would gladly give even my life, if thereby the flame of hatred,
kindled by the evil one, could be assuaged'.
and to this end, he always counsels patience and toleration.
'not that i think it is our absolute duty to cut ourselves off from those who do not accept the faith,
but rather to regard them with the old law of love
and to write to them with one consent,
giving them all exhortation with pity
and to propose to them the faith of the fathers,
and to invite them to union...
if they obey you this will be best;
if no, recognize the real author of the war and write me no more letters of reconciliation'.
yet when the west, and especially rome, would not do his bidding,
notably in the question of the schism of antioch,
he showed very little toleration.
his athenian education gave him very little consideration for the latins;
for while the latins looked on all the world as barbarians, except the greeks and themselves,
the greeks excepted only themselves.
basil apparently knew no latin; it is doubtful also whether he knew hebrew.
but in greek literature and philosophy he was thoroughly at home.
his letters abound with apt quotations, especially from homer;
he never, however, alludes to pagan deities in the conventional literary fashion of later times-
the Muses for instance;
he seemed to think it was too near pagan days to do so without danger.
basil, gregory or nazianzus, his most intimate friend and ardent admirer,
and gregory of nyssa, his own brother, are known as the three cappacocians,
forming together the cappadocian school, and their lives are much intertwined.
the birthplace of basil is a little uncertain.
his father, also a basil, a christian and rhetorician, had property near neo caesarea, the capital cappadocia.
but when basil was ready to go out into the world,
he was sent first to caesarea as being his birthplace.
probably, therefore, his father had property there as well.
his early education he received form his grandmother, macrina,
who taught him the faith as she had received it from gregory thaumaturgus,
at first the disciple of origen and afterwards bishop of neo caesarea.
as a young man he first studied at caesarea, then at constantinople
and finally in 350, when he was twenty one, he proceeded to the university of athens.
basil remained there for seven years-till357,
when he returned to caesarea to practice at the bar.
at caesarea and athens gregory of nazianzus was his constant companion,
and at athens gregory protected him as a freshman.
but another companion of both, and presumably friend,
though gregory from the first cordially distrusted him,
was julian, afterwards known as 'the apostate'.
it is recorded of the two future Fathers that at athens
the only public places they frequented were the lecture room and the church.
on basil's return, however, to caesarea, he seems to have caused anxiety to his sister,
who was called macrina after her grandmother,
on account of his worldliness and vanity.
becoming ashamed of himself, he carefully studied the gospel,
found an attraction in the monastic life
and in consequence retired to pontus.
'i awoke, he writes, as from deep sleep, and cast my eyes
on that admirable light of the truth, the Gospel.
then i saw the vanity of the wisdom of the princes of this world, who toil without result.
long i wept over the misery of my life,
and prayed that a hand should come and lead me.
and teach me the lessons of piety.
then when i had read the Gospel,
and learned that the best way of arriving at piety
was to sell my goods and give them to the poor
and to be no longer anxious about this life,
nor allow my soul to be distracted by any sympathy for earthly things,
i wanted to find a brother who had chosen that path,
that we might pass through the short agitations of life together'.
(note: this last my desire also. i wonder if he found a true friend and brother? i have not, but this is not all
bad, for it conduces in me a greater tendency to intimacy with the best brother a man can have, my elder
Brother, my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Firstborn of the brethren! oh Jesus if only i can abandon
all for You alone, that is pure Joy, that is satisfaction, may You ALONE become enough!)
by this time monasticism had spread very widely through the east.
in the district of nitria in the deserts of egypt alone, the monks numbered 5000
and in the whole of egypt there were computed to be 76,000 monks and 27,700 nuns.
in asia minor also communities were to be found in most provinces.
their influence was on the whole a good one,
and their chief utility lay in keeping up a supply of clergy
and in acting as missionary centers in the outlying country districts.
'the spread, says milman, a gradually increasing belt of christian worship
and were a quiet by successful aggression on the lurking paganism'.
for paganism (as the word implies) lingered on in the country
long after it had been formally ejected from the great cities.
besides this, the monastic system was constantly reorganizing itself
by the establishment of off shoots in which
'the bond of aggregation was the common religious fervour',
so that 'the system was continually being remodelled and reverting to its original purity'.
and again, from the earliest times, a certain influence was exercised by monks on literature.
basil and gregory, for instance, during their retreat in pontus,
applied themselves to producing that selection from the works of origen,
which they called the philocalia.
at the root, however, of monasticism lay a certain infection from gnosticism;
a feeling that there was inherent evil in matter,
and that christians must try to rid themselves of this
and elevate the soul into an abstract state of close communion with God
and isolation from the world.
the general celibacy of the clergy was probably a result of monasticism,
though neither basil nor even augustine insisted on it.
the life of seclusion and contemplation practised by many communities
had a tendency towards morbidity, ferocity sometimes and strange heresies,
such as anthropomorphism.
but basil's conception of it was free from these tendencies,
for with him PRAYER AND WORK went hand in hand.
when he fixed his retreat at annesi, near the family property in pontus,
he described to gregory his delight in the lovely scenery,
and begged him to come out and join him,
while he conceived and carried out grand projects for improving the country.
the monastic life for him consisted on the one side
of psalmodies, vigils, bible reading;
on the other, stone heaving, wood drawing, planting and draining.
gregory, unable to join him at first through family ties, came later,
and planted a tree to commemorate his visit.
the attitude of gregory towards basil at this time is amusing.
awe and admiration of his friend,
coupled with a mild protest against being expected to live up to his exalted standard.
his letters after his return recall the labour of pushing carts uphill
and how he would have had no dinner, if basil's mother had not fed him occasionally.
gregory was entirely human; basil a little above the ordinary level of humanity.
in 362 basil returned to caesaria to attend the death bed of the bishop, dianius,
who had ordained him deacon and whom basil loved
but from whom he had regretfully with drawn, owing to his heresy;
although dianius confessed the Homo-ousion at the end.
before leaving this subject it must be noted that basil was opposed to the solitary life
and though he founded man monasteries in pontus, he never encouraged it.
'how can one be last, he said, if he is alone? whose feet can he wash?'
also though he is said to have sold all his goods to feed the poor
and to have done so again, when he inherited property at his mother's death,
it is probable that he retained the administration of the funds in his own hands.
for he was essentially practical.
indeed he was especially so in regard to his monasteries.
life vows, once entered into, were binding,
but they were not to be taken too young or without the most careful preparation.
and although he approved under certain circumstances of education by monks,
he encouraged secular learning and the training of the universities in most cases.
and so did the gregories.
eusebius, at the time only a catechumen, was elected to succeed dianius at caesares,
and conscious of his inexperience, asked basil to help him.
he in consequence remained some time at caesarea
and became at once the leading personality of that church.
during this period he wrote the hexameron;
and every day he preached sermons suitable alike for the simple and the wise,
with workpeople crowding in the early morning to church to hear him.
the jealousy of eusebius caused him again to retire to pontus,
whereupon the bishops troubles recommenced.
after many year's interval among his monks, during three of which gregory was his companion,
the intervention of the latter brought about a reconciliation with eusebius,
and again (in 368) basil resumed his work in caesarea,
2where he exercised an immense influence over christians, jews and pagans alike,
by all or whom he was beloved.
during a famine he displayed his great practical ability,
by preventing a corner
(a monopoly-exclusive control- of the available supply of a commodity to a point permitting control of price)
in wheat, and by his skill in organizing the distribution of provisions.
in 370, on the death of eusebius, basil was his obvious successor.
but he did not succeed without strong opposition from the laxer among the clergy,
the worldly among the laity and from some who, on account of his tolerant spirit,
suspected his orthodoxy.
..the constructive work of basil during his episcopate,
and in spite of ill health and opposition, was splendid.
the Church he found full of scandals;
laxity in ordinations and simony were the worst.
any one could be a priest;
in one case he found a slave bishop;
in another a bishop without a flock.
yet before his death the clergy of caesarea were of such a high standard,
that other bishops used to send for them to assist in the work of their own dioceses.
in the state B was confronted with all the evils resulting fro extremes of wealth and poverty;
gambling and usury on one side, distress on the other.
to relieve distress he founded hospitals, even a leper hospital;
and his christian humility is said to have shown itself in kissing the lepers.
but his great achievement was the ptocho-tropheion, called sometimes the New Town,
and after his death the basileiad, which was a sort of combination of HOSPITAL AND WORKHOUSE!,
providing not only treatment for all diseases,
BUT WORK FOR THE UNEMPLOYED, WITH A CHURCH AND A CLERGY HOUSE.
in basil's contest with the arian emperor, valens and also with his emissary, the prefect modestus,
are the most vivid dramatic scenes in his life.
valens was determined to reduce cappadocia to the arian level,
and demanded from B the admission of arians to communion.
to enforce this he sent modestus, who summoned B before his tribunal,
first tried to bribe , and then proceeded to threaten him
with confiscation, torture, death.
as for confiscation, B replied that he owned nothing but a cloak and a few books;
as for torture, modestus had threatened to tear out his liver
and B said there was nothing gave him more trouble;
as for death, he would gladly welcome it.
when modestus complained that he was not used to such replies,
B retorted that perhaps he had never met a real bishop before.
so modestus reported him to valens as hopeless:
'we have been worsted, sir, by the prelate of this church.
he is superior to threats,
invincible in argument,
uninfluenced by persuasion. (note; the embodiment of I corinthians 16.13..BRAVO!)
we must make trial on some feebler character'.
he conceived a great respect for him and ultimately became his friend and correspondent.
then valens came himself, having first sent an advance guard of arian bishops;
to whom basil refused communion.
on epiphany, valens came to the church.
the sea of worshippers, the weird chanting, 'the unearthly majesty of the scene,
B, erect as a column,
celebrating (he would be behind the altar and facing the people),
the white robed ministers in the sanctuary, overawed the emperor'.
when he approached the altar with his offering and nobody came forward to receive it,
valens fainted.
B himself stretched out his hand and accepted the offering,
but of course communion was refused.
valens, however, like modestus, conceived a great respect for B;
was received by him to a theological discussion 'behind the veil';
but under bad advice decreed his exile.
however, the emperor's child fell ill;
B prayed over it, and it recovered.
B had made it a condition that he should baptize the child,
but an arian was allowed to do so instead,
and the child died.
again valens was on the point of exiling B;
but the pen he was suing to sign the warrant split,
and valens, taking it as an omen, reversed his decision,
and decided to let B alone.
already, previous to this, basil had withstood another emperor, julian.
remembering their old acquaintanceship at athens, this emperor invited B to visit him.
upon his deferring his visit from time to time and finally declining it,
julian became incensed and ordered him to contribute
a thousand pounds of gold towards one of his expeditions.
this is a specimen of the way B dared to address the Caesar:
'your serene highness did not find out for the first time yesterday
that i do not live in the midst of superabundant wealth.
my property amounts to so much,
that i shall really not have enough to eat as much as i should like today.
under my roof the art of cookery is dead.
my servant's knife never touches blood.
our most important viands are leaves of herbs, with very course bread
and sour wine...
it is a serious thing for a private person like me to speak to an emperor.
it will be more serious for you to speak to God'.
the attitude of B to julian, modestus and valens, show the enormous progress
that the church had made in the 60 years since the edict of milan.
bishop could now say these things to the ruling powers with impunity.
great annoyance was caused to basil by the ill will of many of the neighbouring bishops...
the people of caesarea, however, were from the first devoted to him
and when he resisted the vicar of pontus
in an attempt to force an undesirable marriage on a caesarean lady,
and the vicar tried to arrest him,
the whole population rose,
and only by B's mediation was this imperial officer rescued from the mob.
another sore trial to basil was the partition of cappadocia into two provinces.
the result, whether intended by valens or not, was that the bishop of the new capital
claimed to be metropolitan of the new province,
so that not only all the bishops on that side of the frontier
were exempted from B's influence,
but a bad influence was set up on ground which B had sown...
the chief remaining feature of basil's episcopate
was his appeal for help to rome and the western bishops..
after nine years of most arduous and disheartening work
and thoroughly broken health,
he died in 379 at the age of 50,
the whole population, christians, jews and pagans alike, following him to the grave.
'no author's writings makes a stronger impression than basil's.
he describes things so vividly,
he explains his arguments with so much force,
he pushes them so vigorously,
he draws such horrible pictures of vice
and exhorts so persuasively to virtue,
his instruction is so ample and profitable,
that it is impossible to read his works,
without conceiving a love of virtue and a hatred of vice...
his expressions are sublime,
his style is elegant, neat and convincing.
his discourse seems always natural and unaffected.
he persuades so pleasantly,
he explains things so clearly,
he seems to present things in so reasonable a light,
that he may be considered as a model to approach
demosthenes and the best orators of antiqity'.
yet it can hardly be said that his writings mark any new point of departure from christian thought.
...fialon says that 'the originality of B's theology lies
in a firm alliance between greek philosophy and christian theology.
he invented nothing.
he used all the philosophers and doctors who preceded him;
yet he resembled none.
his doctrine comes entirely from plato, aristotle, plotinus, origen, athanasius;
yet it is entirely personal.
he belongs to no school: rather he founds a school of his own.
he is in fact an eclectic, who knows how to combine a wise independence of thought
with an intelligent respect for tradition.
he is at once a philosopher and a theologian.'
..beyond all..are basil's wonderful letters, in all about 350,
from which may be gathered his life, his character and his opinions.
..these letters were evidently intended, according to the fashion of the day, for publicity and general reading.
they are on all sorts of subjects.
the following extracts are from some of the most interesting: (they are noted by number)
25 gives an example of the gentle way in which B reasoned with his slanderers.
'they all agree that you, a man very dear to me do not mention me in very pleasant terms
and yet in such as your character would lead me to expect...
you would relieve me from my difficulty,
if you would tell me plainly what has stirred you to be thus offended with me'.
90 is his appeal to the western bishops to come to the aid of the catholic east,
and gives a graphic picture of the distracted state of the eastern church.
'the doctrines of the fathers are despised;
apostolic traditions are set at nought;
the devices of innovators are in vogue.
men are rather contrivers of cunning systems than theologians.
the wisdom of this world wins the highest prizes, and has rejected the glory of the cross..
houses of prayer have none to assemble in them.
desert places are full of lamenting crowds'.
when no help came from them, or even from pope damsus of rome,
whom he had reminded of the former charities of rome to distant christians,
his wrath found expression in 239-
'what hep can come to us from the frown (footnote: superciliousness...haughtily disdainful or contemptuous)
of the west? men who don't know the truth, nor wish to learn it,
but are prejudiced by false impressions,
are doing now as they did in the case of marcelus,
when they quarrelled with men who told them the truth
and by their own action strengthened the cause of heresy.
i would like to have written to their coryphaeus (the leader of a chorus in ancient greek drama)
, etc.
the coryphaeus is the bishop of rome!...
93 encourages frequent communion, basil's own habit being to communicate 4 times a week and on saints' days.
in case of need he allows the communion to be taken by any one privately from the reserved elements.
105 to two deaconesses occurs a definition of the trinity
'do not abandon this deposit;
the Father, the origin of all,
the Son only begotten, begotten of Him; very God; perfect of perfect; living image, showing the Father
as Himself:
the Holy Ghost having His subsistence of God, the fount of holiness, power that gives life,
grace that makes perfect, through whom man is adopted and the mortal made immortal,
conjoined with Father and Son in all things, in glory and eternity, in power and kingdom,
in sovereignty and Godhead, as is testified by the tradition of the baptism of salvation.
but all who maintain that either Son or Spirit is a creature,
or absolutely reduce the Spirit to ministerial or servile rank,
are far from the truth'.
..in spite of his familiarity with heathen philosophy and the free way in which he made use of it,
attributing, for example, much of the wisdom of moses and daniel
to their egyptian and chaldec learning
and advising young men not to be content with monkish teaching,
but to attend also one of the universities,
scripture was with him always paramount.
if science contradicted scripture, then science erred.
revelation came first;
reason was given us to help us to understand revelation.
yet apart from scripture, he distinctly recognized tradition
in the de spiritu 27 he says:
'of the beliefs and practices, whether generally accepted or universally enjoined,
which are preserved in the church,
some we possess derived from written teaching.
others we have received delivered to us 'in a mystery' by the traditions of the apostles;
and both of these in relation to true religion have equal force'. (?!)...
when he comes to deal with the great mystery of the trinity there is the usual reluctance to define
which is common to all the Fathers.
'if i laid down that all things were capable of being grasped by our knowledge,
i might be ashamed to confess my ignorance..
the peace of God passes all understanding,
yet eunomius will not allow that the very substance of God
is beyond all understanding and knowledge of me.
it is not in the invention of new names that our salvation lies,
but in the same confession of the divinity in whom we believed.'
theology with basil, as science had been with plato
was an aspiration towards God
and the first thing requisite was the purification of the soul.
the soul, when purified, will see God within itself in the conscience;
the soul is, in fact, a miniature world ruled over, as the universe is, by God.
but the soul will also see God in the visible world.
no one better understood the beauties of both animal and inanimate nature than basil
or delighted more in the works of creation.
gregory of nazianzus said of the hexameron,
'whenever i take his Hex in hand and quote its words,
i am brought face to face with my creator;
i begin to understand the method of creation;
i feel more awe than ever before, when i looked at God's work with my own eyes.'
the instruments of the soul's aspiration are reason and faith.
reason must be educated, yet by itself it can never find God.
it is a great undertaking, according to basil, to venture to speak of God,
because the subject is far beyond our intelligence,
and we have not even words in which to express our thoughts.
but revelation comes to the aid of reason in the scripture,
which is in its entirety inspired by God and composed by the Holy Spirit.
revelation thus illuminates the reason.
the functions of the three persons of the trinity are thus conceived by B:
the Father wills; the Son conceives and executes; the Holy Ghost vivifies.
in the books against eunomius he argues the whole arian question as regards the Son,
and finally discusses separately the various texts on which his opponents relied.
it may be useful to recall them.
*'then shall the Son also be made subject unto Him that put all things under Him,
that God may be all in all'. I corinthians 15.28
*'My Father is greater than I'. john 14.28
*'of that day and hour knoweth none, not even the Son'. mark 13.32
*'let this cup pass from Me'. matthew 26.39
*"I live by the Father'. john 6.57
*'the Son can do nothing by Himself'. john 5.19
*'I am the true vine, My Father is the husbandman.' john 15.1
*'why callest Thou me good? there is none good save One, that is God.' mark 10.18
*'Father, glorify Thy Son'. john 17.1
*'the first born (ie. Jesus) of every CREATURE' colossians 1.15
*'the Lord CREATED Me' proverbs 8.22, septuagint
*'that they may know Thee, the only true God' john 18.3
*'is not Mine to give' matthew 20.23
the subject of the Holy Spirit was one which basil wished to refrain from discussing.
it was only now becoming a prominent subject of controversy,
though it was the natural outcome of the arian position.
B seemed to think it would be better, in the prominent position which he held,
to steer clear of this new polemic
and he therefore made an arrangement with gregory to deal with it,
while he concentrated his own energy on teaching the eternity of the Son.
macedonius, a brutal persecutor of the catholics, had been deposed from the see of constantinople
by the extreme party for his supposed moderate views
(the ostensible cause was his removal of constantine's remains from a church which was falling,
without constantius' leave)
yet he taught plainly that the Holy Ghost was a creature.
this heresy was therefore known as the macedonian,
though the sect that sprang out of it was
generally known as the marathonian, after marathonius of nicomedia.
...B's reticence in public, though he defined his view carefully in his correspondence,
caused a suspicion of his orthodoxy
...his protege, amphilochius, entreated him to clear up any doubt,
by publishing his views in a treatise, and he accordingly did so in 374....
the schism at antioch was an important event in church history in B's time,
owing to the unusual features which it introduced,
and also to the effect it had of emphasizing the difference between the eastern and western churches.
some account of it falls naturally into a chapter on B,
owing to the strong support he gave to the side least popular at rome and the independent attitude that he took up against the pope.
B had apparently no knowledge of any DOCTRINAL claim on rome's part to rule the church at large.
'he desired, as fialon puts it, the same independent union for spiritual matters between east and west,
which since constantine had existed in politics.
the west and east were in his eyes two brothers, whose rights were equal,
neither owning supremacy nor the rights of an elder.
B recognized no necessity for a great central power to hold the church together,
though the western churches all did.
the greeks indeed have never completely consented to this sacrifice or renounced their autonomy.
they recognized nothing as paramount except a general council.
the decrees of nicaea bound B absolutely.'
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