Basil, Saint

BASILIO, saint. — Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, born there around 330 and died in 379, Doctor of the Church.

SUMMARY:

I. Life

II. Works

III. Theological Thought

IV. Pedagogy.

The sources for knowledge of the life and work of St. B., exceptionally abundant, are first and foremost his writings, especially his letters; in addition, the funeral oration composed in his praise by St. Gregory Nazianzen (PG 36, 496–606), as well as other writings by the same author; St. Ephrem also left a eulogy of him (Assemani, Opp. S. Ephr., II, 289–90); as did St. Gregory of Nyssa, B.’s brother (PG 46, 787–818), who also speaks of him in various other places. St. Jerome lists some of his works in De viris illustribus, 116; and since B. played such an important role in the history of the Church, he is mentioned by the ecclesiastical historians Philostorgius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Rufinus.

I. LIFE

He was born to Basilio, a wealthy landowner, rhetorician, and lawyer, of a family in which the Christian faith was deeply rooted and a glorious tradition, and to the virtuous Emmelia. His paternal grandmother, Macrina, gladly recalled s. Gregory Thaumaturgus, of whom she had been a fervent disciple. He had five brothers, among them Gregory, later bishop of Nyssa, and Peter, bishop of Sebaste, and five sisters, of whom only the eldest, Macrina, is known to us. Having completed his first studies under the guidance of his father, who meanwhile seems to have moved to the vicinity of Neocaesarea in Pontus, he continued them in Caesarea, Constantinople, and finally for four or five years in Athens, which was still the cultural capital of the Hellenic and pagan world, where, among others, the celebrated rhetoricians Himerius and Proaeresius taught. There he met s. Gregory Nazianzen, with whom he formed an intimate friendship. On returning to his homeland, around 356, he accepted a position teaching rhetoric and for some time cultivated dreams of glory; then, chiefly as a result of the exhortations of his sister Macrina, he decided to devote himself to an ascetic life. He probably received Baptism only at that time, delayed in accordance with a widespread custom of the period, and in 357–58 undertook a journey through Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, intending to study the life of the monks there; then he too withdrew into solitude on the banks of the Iris, near Neocaesarea, where his friend Gregory of Nazianzus soon joined him and a community was formed. After five years he was persuaded by Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, to receive priestly ordination and assist him in the ministry; but when disagreements arose, perhaps because of jealousy on the latter’s part, he, having been elected bishop while still a catechumen, without theological or practical preparation, preferred to return to the solitary life in order to avoid divisions among the clergy. When, under Valens, orthodoxy seemed to be in danger, the good offices of Gregory Nazianzen secured his friend’s return to Caesarea, where he resumed working alongside Eusebius himself for the preservation of the true faith and the regulation of the liturgy, devoting himself to alleviating the calamities of a terrible famine that afflicted Cappadocia in 368.

When Eusebius died in 370, B. was elected, not without opposition, to succeed him in that metropolitan see, which apparently then included about fifty suffragan sees. Meanwhile the Arian persecution was raging; Valens, who had made a brief appearance in Caesarea in 365, returned there in 371 or 372 and made repeated attempts to induce B. to make concessions; nevertheless, he did not dare resort to violence against him. B. encountered further opposition from the claims of Anthimus, bishop of Tyana, who, when Valens divided Cappadocia into two provinces, usurped the rights of metropolitan over the dioceses of Cappadocia Secunda, whose administrative capital his see became; he also came into conflict with his intimate friend Gregory Nazianzen, whom he had made bishop of the small city of Sasima, disputed by Anthimus. Alongside his work of vigilance, instruction, and struggle for Nicene orthodoxy, B. gave extraordinary development to charitable activity, organizing hospices to assist the various categories of needy persons in the individual local districts administered by a chorepiscopus, and especially in the diocesan capital, where through his efforts there arose almost a second Caesarea, a city of charity, which the people called the Basiliad. B.’s work also extended beyond the territory of his jurisdiction, as when in 372, commissioned by Valens, he went to Armenia to provide for the episcopal sees there that had fallen vacant.

He played a role of primary importance in relations between the episcopate of the East and that of the West concerning the struggle against Arianism and the particular questions connected with it, such as the schism of Antioch. In 371 he sent the deacon Dorotheus to Rome with a memorandum in which he set forth to Pope Damasus the pitiable condition of the Eastern Churches, requesting the dispatch of envoys to restore unity there; later B. and several of his colleagues called for a visit from those same Western bishops and asked them to secure the intervention of the emperor Valentinian, who was well disposed toward the Catholics, with his brother Valens. The action of the Western bishops, especially Damasus, seemed too slow and ineffective to B., and he complained bitterly about it; in the matter of Antioch, moreover, he was displeased by the Westerners’ support for Bishop Paulinus, whereas the East supported Meletius. Later relations became cordial again. B. died on 1 January 379, comforted by having seen the victory of orthodoxy beginning to emerge with the accession of Theodosius, after having devoted, during a not long life worn down by penances and troubled by painful illnesses, the magnificent resources of his intellect, heart, and practical wisdom to a multifaceted activity for his diocese and the universal Church, as defender of the faith and Catholic unity, as preacher and pastor, and as legislator of mona-

...as a legislator of monastic life, as an instigator and organizer of charity, earning from contemporaries and posterity the title of “the Great.” Feast day: 14 June.

II. WORKS

A man nourished by long study and assiduous contemplation, called by Providence to an unceasing activity of governance for which nature had wonderfully endowed him, B. left in his writings sober records of his learning, but above all of his inner life and intense pastoral activity. All his works are occasional, composed to meet immediate practical needs.

In collaboration with s. Gregorio Nazianzeno he composed, in the solitude of Pontus (358–59), the Philocalia, an anthology of Origenian passages, which has not come down to us. Of the Orations we have two groups of exegetical subject matter: the 9 homilies on the Hexaemeron and the 13 on the Psalms. In the former (PG 29, 3–208), delivered during a week of Lent, he comments on the work of creation up to and including the fifth day. We do not know why B. did not also explain the creation of man. The orator bases himself on the literal sense of Scripture, without neglecting allegory, displaying a ready sensitivity to the needs and tastes of his audience; examples and comparisons drawn from nature and directed toward moral instruction, which is the dominant purpose, abound, suggested by the subject itself. B. commented on Psalms 1, 7, 14, 28, 29, 32, 33, 44, 45, 48, 49, 59, 61, 114 (PG 29, 209–494), devoting a homily to each, always with a predominantly moral purpose. There are a further 24 homilies (PG 31, 163–618), not all certainly authentic; they are exegetical in subject (the 12th on the beginning of Proverbs and the 16th on the words « In principio erat Verbum »); dogmatic-apologetic (the 9th, God is not the author of evils; the 35th on faith; the 24th against the Sabellians, Arius, and the Anomoeans); and encomiastic (the 5th in honor of s. Iulitta, the 17th on s. Barlaam, considered spurious, the 18th on s. Gordius, the 19th on the Forty of Sebaste, the 23rd on s. Mamante). But the moral purpose predominates, whether he exhorts to fasting (1st, 2nd [contested]), to self-knowledge (3rd), to thanksgiving (4th), or calls upon the rich to consider the vanity of riches and the duty of almsgiving (6th, 7th, 8th, 21st), or censures anger (10th), envy (11th), drunkenness (14th), or the abuse of postponing Baptism (13th), or recommends humility (20th). Particularly successful is the 22nd homily, actually a short treatise, in which young people are taught how they may read pagan books profitably. B. may be called the founder of Christian preaching also as a literary form. He knew how to profit from his broad culture and careful rhetorical training; but from his discourses there always emerges in the foreground the figure of the pastor who never loses sight of the needs of souls and, with profound insight into the psychology of the crowd, presents Christian doctrine and morality in the most suitable form.

B.’s properly theological output is not extensive, although he was one of the most illustrious champions of orthodoxy against Arianism: either he lacked the time, absorbed as he was by practical activity, or he felt little attraction to it and lacked confidence in the usefulness of controversy. Between 363 and 365 he wrote the Refutatio Apologetici impii Ekonomii, in three books (PG 29, 497–670), against the bishop of Cizycus, who had carried Arianism to the extreme consequences of a pure rationalism. B. quotes the most important passages of his adversary and refutes them with dialectical vigor and the zeal of an apostle, expounding in the first book above all the concept of « essere ingenito: ἀγεννησία », demonstrating in the second the consubstantiality of the Son and in the third that of the Holy Spirit. The book De Spiritu Sancto (PG 32, 67–218), written in 374, is a response to the accusations made against him of hesitating concerning the divinity of the third Person. The treatise therefore has the character of a dogmatic exposition and a personal apology.

Under the title of Ascetic Works there has come down to us a collection of writings (PG 31, 619–1428), not all certainly Basilian. Its central part consists of the Moralia, 80 moral rules, each divided into several chapters and demonstrated with passages from the New Testament, and two works connected with B.’s activity as a reformer of monasticism. They are collections of instructions on religious life, in the form of answers to questions, arranged without logical order. The first, Regulae fusus tractatae, was composed in the solitude of Pontus and comprises 55 sections dealing with the general duties of the monk; the second, written later, consists of 313 Regulae brevius tractatae, developing a kind of casuistry of monastic life. Rules of ascetic life are also scattered throughout the orations and many letters. The Epistolary comprises 366 letters (PG 32, 219–1112), including some spurious or doubtful ones and others addressed to him, which the Maurist editors divided into three classes according to chronological order: letters written before the episcopate, during the episcopate, and of uncertain date. They deal with dogma and ecclesiastical discipline, with particular needs and interests of the Church, or contain exhortations to repentance or counsels on the spiritual life; others belong to the genre of the consolatio for the death of loved ones, or express the sentiments of friendship, recommending to various persons the needs of those who appealed to the bishop.

As regards form, it naturally varies according to the character, purpose, and addressee of the writing; but in the letters even more than in the speeches, B. displays his qualities as an experienced and careful writer. He uses an elegant and pure language, governed by the norms of the prevailing Atticism, and never belies the rhetorical training to which he had devoted himself with serious commitment and whose influence on Christian writers of the fourth century proved so effective. It was during this period that the Second Sophistic entered Christian literature with all its resources. Yet, while observing the precepts learned at school in the arrangement of the material, the choice of subjects, the use of figures, and the pursuit of sound effects, B. never sacrifices thought to form and constantly pursues his practical aim with candor and vigor. More sober than his friend and fellow student Gregorio di Nazianzo, while knowing how to vary his tone according to circumstances, he adheres to a language simple and accessible to the people, enlivening his exposition with a variety of scenes, a wealth of anecdotes, lively descriptions, and the vibrations of sincere feeling.

Alongside the works mentioned above, whose authenticity, apart from certain reservations already expressed, is guaranteed by the testimonies and internal evidence, other works have come down to us under B.’s name that are either spurious or of doubtful authenticity. The fourth and fifth books of Adversus Eunomium (PG 20, 671–774) were written by Didymus the Blind. The book De virginitate (PG 30, 669–810) is today attributed to Basil of Ancyra. Some letters are not by B., including the correspondence with Apollinaris (nos. 361–64; PG 32, 1101–1108). The three sermons prefixed to the Moralia and the two preceding the Regulae are disputed, since they were unknown to Photius; the Poenae and the Constitutiones asceticae, which conclude the group of ascetic works, are generally regarded as apocryphal. In the Enaratio in prophetam Isaiam (PG 30, 117–668), some see the notes of a series of conferences delivered by B. in 374–75, while others attribute it to an unknown author who was nearly contemporary; for still others, there is only a small Basilian nucleus over which compositions by other writers were superimposed. The correspondence with Libanius (nos. 335–59; PG 32, 1077–1100), already regarded as spurious by the Maurists, is considered authentic by others. As for the Liturgy (PG 31, 1629–56), which bears the name of s. B. and is still used for ten days of the year in the Greek Church, it is difficult to distinguish what is due to B. from what was added later.

III. THEOLOGICAL THOUGHT

It was above all Trinitarian doctrine that attracted the attention of B., owing to the need to confront the spreading Arianism. While maintaining against the rationalism of Eunomius that God is incomprehensible to every creature (Adv. Eun., I, 14), and that one must above all adhere to the tradition of the Fathers (ibid., I, 1 ff.; Hom., 24, 6), he attempts to elucidate the dogma through the distinction between οὐσία and ὑπόστασις (also πρόσωπον, if this term is properly understood), which had previously been used interchangeably; and, deriving the meaning of these terms from Platonic philosophy, he conceives the former as the common essence and the latter as individual subsistence (Ep., 38, 2, 3; 236, 6). He wishes the property of the

persons to be affirmed and unity (μοναρχία; De Sp. S., 18, 45) to be maintained; the properties of the persons do not divide the identity of the essence (Adv. Eun., II, 28). The distinguishing marks of the three persons are: in the Father, being Father and subsisting, he alone, without any cause (ἐκ μοδεμίας αἰτίνας); in the Son, shining forth as the sole only-begotten from the unbegotten light and making known, through and with himself, the Spirit who proceeds from the Father; in the Holy Spirit, being manifested after the Son and with the Son, and having subsistence from the Father (Ep., 38, 4). Thus, in substance, the divine persons are distinguished from one another by virtue of their mutual relations (σχέσεις). The Son proceeds from the Father as his perfectly equal image, by a generation that is ineffable, indivisible, and eternal, like a ray from light, like a word that perfectly expresses thought (Adv. Eun., II, 12, 16, 28; Hom., 16, 3). While upholding the Nicene ὁμοούσιος, “consubstantial” (Ep., 8, 3), B. is nevertheless prepared to accept the formula “ὁμοιος κατ' οὐσίαν” (“similar in essence”), provided that ἀπαραλλάκτως (“without any difference”) be added to it, whereby one has the equivalent of ὁμοούσιος (Ep., 9, 3). Throughout the treatise De Spiritu Sancto and elsewhere, he defends the divinity of the third Person and its consubstantiality with the Father and the Son (cf., for example, De Sp. S., 18, 45 ff.; Adv. Eun., II, 34), although, so as not to offend his opponents too greatly, he avoids calling it God. As to its mode of procession, while acknowledging the difficulty of understanding it, he affirms not only that there is an intimate union of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son (Hom., 24, 6-7), but also that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son (διὰ τὸν μονογενῆ), not by generation but as “spiritus oris eius” (De Sp. S., 18, 45; Ep., 38, 4).

In Christology, he affirms that the Word assumed a true human body and only thus was able to redeem us (Ep., 261, 2); Christ, therefore, is not merely man, but God-man (In ps., 48, 4). As to the manner of redemption, B. appears uncertain: in the same passage in which he seems to accept the explanation of the price paid to the devil, he also asserts that God had to be appeased by the holy and precious blood of Jesus Christ, so that man might obtain the remission of sin (ibid., 3-4). Man, like the angel, received from God sanctification and likeness to him. The effects of sanctifying grace are described as return to the image of God, elevation, illumination, spiritualization, in addition to charismatic gifts (De Sp. S., 9, 23; 16, 38). Adam, deceived by the devil, ate the forbidden fruit and thus fell from his natural state, lost his highest good, which was adherence to God, plunged into every kind of evil, and transmitted sin to humanity (Hom., 1, 3; 8, 7; 9, 6-7). The necessity of actual grace, repeatedly declared, seems also to be asserted for the beginning of faith and justification, when it is said that our free will is prepared by the Lord (De Sp. S., 8, 18), that we do not lay hold of Christ by our own power but are upheld by Christ through his coming (Hom., 20, 4); and that the Lord has forestalled and raised us up, as a child unable to swim is lifted above the waters (In ps., 29, 2).

Faith is “the full (ἀδιάκριτος) assent to what is heard, in the complete certainty of the truth of those things which, by the gift of God, are preached” (De fide, 1), and it is preceded by rational knowledge of God's existence through creatures (Ep., 235). The truths to be believed are drawn from Scripture and from unwritten traditions (De Sp. S., 7, 16; 9, 22; 10, 25;

27, 66 ff.; 29, 71; 30, 77; Ep. 140, 2; 243, 2). The efficacy of Baptism, necessary for salvation like faith (De Sp. S., 12, 28), derives not from water but from the presence of the Holy Spirit (ibid., 15, 35); Baptism restores us to paradise, makes us ascend to the kingdom of heaven and return to adoption as children, gives us confidence to call God our Father, makes us sharers in the grace of Christ, children of light, participants in eternal glory, and gives us the fullness of every blessing; it may be supplied by martyrdom (ibid., 15, 36). The presence of the body and blood of the Lord in the Eucharist is mentioned by citing the biblical texts (Reg. brev., 172, 309; Mor., 8, 1); daily communion is good and beneficial; in order to facilitate its frequency, it is permitted, not only in times of persecution but also to solitaries and, in certain places such as Alexandria and Egypt, to all, to keep the Eucharist with them after the priest has performed the sacrifice (Ep., 93). Confession of sins to those who can heal them is necessary, that is, to those entrusted with the administration of the mysteries of God (Reg. brev., 229, 288; cf. In ps., 32, 3). As regards eschatology, B. resolutely condemns the opinion that denies the eternity of the pains of hell (De Sp. S., 16, 40; Reg. brev., 267).

In morals, B. draws extensively upon Cynic-Stoic doctrine, which had become a common heritage, particularly in the form of the diatribe, a kind of popular moralizing preaching that exerted considerable influence upon Christian preaching. He combats in particular drunkenness, envy, pride, greed, and the hard-heartedness of the rich, in terms that might seem to deny the right of property (Hom., 8, 7), whereas they are rather forceful affirmations of the duty of charity. In the ascetical sphere, he presents monastic life as the state of perfection (Serm. de renunt. asec., 2, whose authenticity is disputed), understood by him in its cenobitic form; he extols its advantages over the eremitic life, for the correction of one’s own faults and the exercise of charity and all the virtues (Reg. fus., 7; Serm. de renunt. asec., 2). The Basilian cenobium comprises a modest number of monks in comparison with the cenobium of s. Pacomio, and is not connected, like the latter, in a true organization with other monasteries. Of the greatest importance is docile obedience to the spiritual director (ibid., 3-4). The monk must perform manual labor, according to the directions of the superior, in order to mortify himself, exercise charity toward his neighbor, and fulfill the will of God (Reg. fus., 37-43); he must study Scripture, and the Regulae breves are precisely ascetical explanations of biblical passages; in community, he must devote himself to prayer and psalmody, distributed among the various hours of the day (Reg. fus., 37, 2-5). While likewise insisting on the necessity of mortifying the body (Reg. fus., 17, 2; Hom., 3, 3), he wishes this to be done with moderation, taking account of bodily needs and of the preeminence of spiritual mortification (Reg. fus., 19, 20, 22; Reg. brev., 126, 128, 139, 196). In this way the soul will attain union with God, the source of every delight (In ps., 32, 1, 4; 44, 6; 45, 2; Hom., 4, 2). Even today Eastern monasticism follows the path traced by s. B., although he did not intend to found what is now called a religious order.