Padres Nicenos y Post-Nicenos, Ser. II, Vol. VIII: Basilio: Cartas y obras selectas, texto completo

LI. gives directions for monastic discipline.  “Let the superintendent exert discipline after the manner of a physician treating his patients.  He is not angry with the sick, but fights with the disease, and sets himself to combat their bad symptoms.  If need be, he must heal the sickness of the soul by severer treatment; for example, love of vain glory by the imposition of lowly tasks; foolish talking, by silence; immoderate sleep, by watching and prayer; idleness, by toil; gluttony, by fasting; murmuring, by seclusion, so that no brothers may work with the offender, nor admit him to participation in their works, till by his penitence that needeth not to be ashamed he appear to be rid of his complaint.”

LV. expounds at some length the doctrine of original sin, to which disease and death are traced.

The 313 Regulæ brevius tractatæ are, like the Regulæ fusius tractatæ, in the form of questions and answers.  Fessler singles out as a striking specimen XXXIV.

Q.  “How is any one to avoid the sin of man-pleasing, and looking to the praises of men?”

A.  “There must be a full conviction of the presence of God, an earnest intention to p. liv please Him, and a burning desire for the blessings promised by the Lord.  No one before his Master’s very eyes is excited into dishonouring his Master and bringing condemnation on himself, to please a fellow servant.”

XLVII. points out that it is a grave error to be silent when a brother sins.

XLIX. tells us that vain gloriousness (τὸ περπερεύεσθαι.  Cf. 1 Cor. xiii. 4) consists in taking things not for use, but for ostentation; and L. illustrates this principle in the case of dress.

Q.  “When a man has abandoned all more expensive clothing, does he sin, and, if so, how, if he wishes his cheap upper garment or shoes to be becoming to him?”

A.  “If he so wishes in order to gratify men, he is obviously guilty of the sin of man-pleasing.  He is alienated from God, and is guilty of vain glory even in these cheap belongings.”

LXIV. is a somewhat lengthy comment on Matt. xvii. 6.  To “make to offend,” or “to scandalize,” is to induce another to break the law, as the serpent Eve, and Eve Adam.

LXXXIII. is pithy.

Q.  “If a man is generally in the right, and falls into one sin, how are we to treat him?

A.  “As the Lord treated Peter.”

CXXVIII. is on fasting.

Q.  “Ought any one to be allowed to exercise abstinence beyond his strength, so that he is hindered in the performance of his duty?”

A.  “This question does not seem to me to be properly worded.  Temperance 562 does not consist in abstinence from earthly food, 563 wherein lies the ‘neglecting of the body’ 564 condemned by the Apostles, but in complete departure from one’s own wishes.  And how great is the danger of our falling away from the Lord’s commandment on account of our own wishes is clear from the words of the Apostle, ‘fulfilling the desires of the flesh, and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath.’” 565   The numbers in the Cœnobium are not to fall below ten, the number of the eaters of the Paschal supper. 566   Nothing is to be considered individual and personal property. 567   Even a man’s thoughts are not his own. 568   Private friendships are harmful to the general interests of the community. 569   At meals there is to be a reading, which is to be thought more of than mere material food. 570   The cultivation of the ground is the most suitable occupation for the ascetic life. 571   No fees are to be taken for the charge of children entrusted to the monks. 572   Such children are not to be pledged to join the community till they are old enough to understand what they are about. 573

Footnotes

li:530

De Jud. Dei. § 8.

li:531

cf. Ceillier VI. viii. 3.

li:532

οὕτως φρονοδμεν καὶ οὕτως Βαπτίζομεν εἰς Τοιάδα ὁμοούσιον, κατὰ τὴν ἐντολὴν αὐτοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν ᾽Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰπόντος πορευθέντες μαθητεύσατε κ.τ.λ. §; the co-essential Trinity being described as involved in the baptismal formula.

li:533

§ 1.

li:534

§ 1.

li:535

συγκατάθεσις ἀδιάκριτος τῶν ἀκουσθεντων ἐν πληροφορία τῆς ἀληθείας τῶν κηρυχθέντων Θεοῦ χάριτι.  § 1.

li:536

§ 2.

li:537

The rest of the clause seems to be rather in the way of explanation and assertion, and here he explains, as cited before, that the baptismal formula involves the homoousion.

li:538

Ath., De Syn. § 31, in this series, p. 467.

li:539

Reg. i.

li:540

Reg. ix.

li:541

Reg. xi.

lii:542

Reg. xxxv.

lii:543

Reg. xxviii.

lii:544

Reg. lxxx. § 22.  Fessler (De Pat. Sæc. iv. p. 514) notes the similarity of a Homily, De perfectione vitæ Monachorum, published under the name of St. Basil in a book published by C. F. Matthæi at Moscow in 1775, entitled Joannis Xiphilini et Basilii M. aliquot orationes.  He describes it as quite unworthy in style of St. Basil.

lii:545

Combefis, however, refused to accept them.

lii:546

In this series, p. 448.

lii:547

With this may be compared the uncompromising denunciation in Letter cclxxxviii., and what is said in the first of the three Tractatus Prævii.  It has been represented that St. Basil introduced the practice of irrevocable vows.  cf. Dr. Travers Smith, St. Basil, p. 223.  De Broglie, L’Eglise et l’empire, v. 180:  “Avant lui, c’était, aux yeux de beaucoup de ceux même qui s’y destinaient, une vocation libre, affaire de goût et de zèle, pouvant être dilaissée à volonté, comme elle avait été embrassée par chois.  Le sceau de la perpetiuté obligatoire, ce fut Basile qui l’imprima; c’est à lui réellement que remonte, comme règlé commune, et comme habitude générale, l’institution des vœux perpétuels.  Helyot, Hist. des ordres monastiques, i. § 3, Bultean, Hist. des moines d’orient, p. 402, Montalembert, Hist. des moines d’occident, i. 105, s’accordent à reconnaitre que l’usage général des vœux perpétuels remonte à St. Basil.”  To St. Basil’s posthumous influence the system may be due.  But it seems questionable whether St. Basil’s Rule included formal vows of perpetual obligation in the more modern sense.  I am not quite sure that the passages cited fully bear this out.  Is the earnest exhortation not to quit the holier life consistent with a binding pledge?  Would not a more distinctly authoritative tone be adopted?  cf. Letters xlv. and xlvi.  It is plain that a reminder was needed, and that the plea was possible that the profession had not the binding force of matrimony.  The line taken is rather that a monk or nun ought to remain in his or her profession, and that it is a grievous sin to abandon it, than that there is an irrevocable contract.  So in the Sermo asceticus (it is not universally accepted), printed by Garnier between the Moralia and the Regulæ, it is said:  “Before the profession of the religious life, any one is at liberty to get the good of this life, in accordance with law and custom, and to give himself to the yoke of wedlock.  But when he has been enlisted, of his own consent, it is fitting (προσήκει) that he keep himself for God, as one of the sacred offerings, so that he may not risk incurring the damnation of sacrilege, by defiling in the service of this world the body consecrated by promise to God.”  This προσήκει is repeated in the Regulæ.  Basil’s monk, says Fialon (Et. Hist., p. 49) was irrevocably bound by the laws of the Church, by public opinion, and, still more, by his conscience.  It is to the last that the founder of the organisation seems to appeal.  In Letter xlvi. the reproach is not addressed merely to a “religieuse échappé de son cloitre,” as De Broglie has it, but to a nun guilty of unchastity.  Vows of virginity were among the earliest of religious obligations.  (cf. J. Martyr, Apol. i. 15, Athenvaras, Legat. 32, Origen, C. Celsum. vii. 48.)

Basil (Can. xviii.) punishes a breach of the vow of virginity as he does adultery, but it was not till the Benedictine rule was established in Europe that it was generally regarded as absolutely irrevocable.  (cf. D.C.A. s.v. “Nun,” ii. p. 1411, and H. C. Lea’s History of Celibacy, Philadelphia, 1867.)  As a matter of fact, Basil’s cœnobitic monasticism, in comparison with the “wilder and more dreamy asceticism which prevailed in Egypt and Syria” (Milman, Hist. Christ. iii. 109), was “far more moderate and practical.”  It was a community of self-denying practical beneficence.  Work and worship were to aid one another.  This was the highest life, and to quit it was desertion of and disloyalty to neighbour and God.  To Basil, is it not rather the violation of holiness than the technical breach of a formal vow which is sacrilege?  Lea (p. 101) quotes Epiphanius (Panar. 61) as saying that it was better for a lapsed monk to take a lawful wife and be reconciled to the church through Penance.  Basil in Can. lx. (p. 256) contemplates a similar reconciliation.

lii:548

Supported by א, B, C, and L.

lii:549

Gen. 3.21.

liii:550

τῷ προεστῶτι.  cf. Just. Mart. Apol. i. § 87.

liii:551

2 Thess. iii. 10.

liii:552

Ps. lxxvii. 3, LXX.

liii:553

Ps. v. 3.

liii:554

Ps. lv. 17.

liii:555

Ps. xci. 6, LXX.  δαιμόνιον μεσημβρινόν.  cf. Jer. Taylor, Serm. ii. pt. 2:  “Suidas” (Col. 1227) “tells of certain empusæ that used to appear at noon, at such times as the Greeks did celebrate the funerals of the dead; and at this time some of the Russians do fear the noon-day devil, which appeareth like a mourning widow to reapers of hay and corn, and uses to break their arms and legs unless they worship her.”

liii:556

Acts iii. 1.

liii:557

cf. Pythag. Aur. Carm. 40 (quoted by Jer. Taylor in Holy Living and Holy Dying):  μηδ᾽ ὕπνον μαλακοῖσιν ἐπ᾽ ὄμμασι προσδέξασθαι, πριν τῶν ἡμερινῶν ἔργων τρὶς ἕκαστον ἐπελθεῖν, πῆ παρέβην; τί δ᾽ ἔρεξα; τί μοι δέον οὐκ ἐτελέσθη.

liii:558

Acts xvi. 25.

liii:559

Ps. cxix. 62.

liii:560

Ps. cxix. 148.

liii:561

cf. Letterclxix. and notes on this case in the Prolegomena.  It is curious to notice in the Oriental church a survival of something akin to the irreverence deprecated by St. Basil.  A modern traveller in Russia has told me that on visiting a great cemetery on the day which the Greek church observes, like November 2 in the Latin, in memory of the dead, he found a vast and cheerful picnic going on.

liv:562

ἐγκράτεια. Gal. v. 23.

liv:563

ἄλογα βρώματα.  Combefis translates “terreni cibi.”  Garnier “nihil ad rem pertinentium.”

liv:564

Col. ii. 23.

liv:565

Eph. ii. 3.

liv:566

Sermo Asceticus, 3.

liv:567

Reg. brev. tract. lxxxv., but see note on p.

liv:568

Proœm. in Reg. fus. tract.

liv:569

Sermo Asceticus. 5.  The sacrifice of Gregory of Nazianzus may have been due to the idea that all private interests must be subordinated to those of the Church.

liv:570

Reg. brev. tract. clxxx.

liv:571

Reg. fus. tract. xxxviii.

liv:572

Reg. brev. tract. ccciv.

liv:573

Reg. fus. tract. xv.  After the Regulæ are printed, in Garnier’s Ed. 34, Constitutiones Monasticæ, with the note that their genuineness is more suspicious than that of any of the ascetic writings.  They treat of the details of monastic life, of the virtues to be cultivated in it and the vices to be avoided.  Sozomen (H.E. iii. 14) has been supposed to refer to them.  All later criticism has been unfavourable to them.  cf. Maran, Vit. Bas. xliii. 7; Ceillier VI. viii. 3; Fessler, p. 524.  It may be remarked generally that the asceticism of St. Basil is eminently practical.  He has no notion of mortification for mortification’s sake,—no praise for the self-advertising and vain-glorious rigour of the Stylites.  Neglecting the body, or “not sparing the body” by exaggerated mortification, in is cclviii. condemned as Manichæism.  It is of course always an objection to exclusive exaltation of the ascetic life that it is a kind of moral docetism, and ignores the fact that Christianity has not repudiated all concern with the body, but is designed to elevate and to purify it.  (cf. Böhringer vii. p. 150.)  Basil may be not unjustly criticised from this point of view, and accused of the very Manichæism which he distinctly condemns.  But it will be remembered that he recognises the holiness of marriage and family life, and if he thinks virginity and cœnobitism a higher life, has no mercy for the dilettante asceticism of a morbid or indolent “incivisme.”  Valens, from the point of view of a master of legions, might deplore monastic celibacy, and press Egyptian monks by thousands into the ranks of his army.  (cf. Milman, Hist. Christ. iii. 47.)  Basil from his point of view was equally positive that he was making useful citizens, and that his industrious associates, of clean and frugal lives, were doing good service.

“En effet, le moine basilien, n’est pas, comme le cénobite d’Égypte, séparé du monde par un mur infranchissable  ‘Les poissons meurent,’ disait Saint Antoine, ‘quand on les tire de l’eau, et les moines s’énervent dans les villes; rentrons vîte dans les montagnes, comme les poissons dans l‘eau.’  (Montalembert, Moines d’Occident, i. 61.)  Les moines basiliens vivent aussi dans la solitude pour gagner le ciel, mais ils ne veulent pas le gagner seuls.…Les principaux, au moins, doivent se mêler à la société pour l’instruire.  Cet homme à la chevelure négligée, à la demarche posie, dont l’œil nes s’égare jamais, ouvre son monastère à ses sembables, ou va les trouver, du moment qu’il s’agit de leur edification.  Son contact fortifie le clergé; il entre lui-même dans les ordres, et devient collaborateur de l’évêque.  Il va aux fètes des martyrs et prêche dans les églises.  Il entre dans les maisons, prend part aux conversations, aux repas, et, tout en evitant les longs entretiens et les liaisons aux les femmes, et le directeur et le compagnon de piété des âmes.…Le moine ne doit pas seulement soulager les mœux de l’âme.  Les maisons des pauvres, dont se couvrait une parlie de l’Asie Mineure, étatent des asiles ouverts toutes les souffrances physiques.…Pour Basile, ces deux institutions, le monastère et la maisons des pauvres, quoique séparées et distinctes, n’en formaient qu’une.  A ses yeux, les secours corporels n’etaient qu’un moyen d’arriver à l’âme.  Pendant que la main du moine servait les voyageurs, nourissait les pauvres, pausait les malades, ses lèvres leur distribuatent une aumône plus précieuse, celle de la parole de Dieu.”  Fialon, Ét Historique, pp. 51–53.  A high ideal!  Perhaps never more nearly realized than in the Cappadocian cœnobia of the fourth century.

Footnotes

p. lv IV.—Homiletical.

Twenty-four homilies on miscellaneous subjects, published under St. Basil’s name, are generally accepted as genuine.  They are conveniently classified as (i) Dogmatic and Exegetic, (ii) Moral, and (iii) Panegyric.  To Class (i) will be referred

III.  In Illud, Attende tibi ipsi.

VI.  In Illud, Destruam horrea, etc.

IX.  In Illud, Quod Deus non est auctor malorum.

XII.  In principium Proverbiorum.

XV.  De Fide.

XVI.  In Illud, In principio erat Verbum.

XXIV.  Contra Sabellianos et Arium et Anomœos.

Class (ii) will include

I. and II.  De Jejunio.

IV.  De gratiarum actione.

VII.  In Divites.

VIII.  In famem et siccitatem.

X.  Adversus beatos.

XI.  De invidia.

XIII.  In Sanctum Baptismum.

XIV.  In Ebriosos.

XX.  De humilitate.

XXI.  Quod rebus mundanis adhærendum non sit, et de incendio extra ecclesiam facto.

XXII.  Ad adolescentes, de legendis libris Gentilium.

The Panegyric (iii) are

V.  In martyrem Julittam.

XVII.  In Barlaam martyrem.

XVIII.  In Gordium martyrem.

XIX.  In sanctos quadraginta martyres.

XXIII.  In Mamantem martyrem.

Homily III. on Deut. xv. 9, 574 is one of the eight translated by Rufinus.  Section 2 begins:

“‘Take heed,’ it is written, ‘to thyself.’  Every living creature possesses within himself, by the gift of God, the Ordainer of all things, certain resources for self protection.  Investigate nature with attention, and you will find that the majority of brutes have an instinctive aversion from what is injurious; while, on the other hand, by a kind of natural attraction, they are impelled to the enjoyment of what is beneficial to them.  Wherefore also God our Teacher has given us this grand injunction, in order that what brutes possess by nature may accrue to us by the aid of reason, and that what is performed by brutes unwittingly may be done by us through careful attention and constant exercise of our reasoning faculty.  We are to be diligent guardians of the resources given to us by God, ever shunning sin as brutes shun poisons, and ever hunting after righteousness, as they seek for the herbage that is good for food.  Take heed to thyself, that thou mayest be able to discern between the noxious and the wholesome.  This taking heed is to be understood in a twofold sense.  Gaze with the eyes of the body at visible objects.  Contemplate incorporeal objects with the intellectual faculty of the soul.  If we say that obedience to the charge of the text lies in the action of our eyes, we shall see at once that this is impossible.  How can there be apprehension of the whole self through the eye?  The eye cannot turn its sight upon itself; the head is beyond it; it is ignorant of the back, the countenance, the disposition of the intestines.  Yet it were impious to argue that the charge of the Spirit cannot be obeyed.  It follows then that it must be understood of intellectual action.  ‘Take heed to thyself.’  Look at thyself round about from every point of view.  p. lvi Keep thy soul’s eye sleepless 575 in ceaseless watch over thyself.  ‘Thou goest in the midst of snares.’ 576   Hidden nets are set for thee in all directions by the enemy.  Look well around thee, that thou mayest be delivered ‘as a gazelle from the net and a bird from the snare.’ 577   It is because of her keen sight that the gazelle cannot be caught in the net.  It is her keen sight that gives her her name. 578   And the bird, if only she take heed, mounts on her light wing far above the wiles of the hunter.

“Beware lest in self protection thou prove inferior to brutes, lest haply thou be caught in the gins and be made the devil’s prey, and be taken alive by him to do with thee as he will.”

A striking passage from the same Homily is thus rendered by Rufinus:  “Considera ergo primo omnium quod homo es, id est solum in terres animal ipsis divinis manibus formatum.  Nonne sufficeret hoc solum recte atque integre sapienti ad magnum summumque solutium, quod ipsius Dei manibus qui omnia reliqua præcepti solius fecit auctoritate subsistere, homo fictus es et formatus?  Tum deinde quod cum ad imaginem Creatoris et similitudinem sis, potes sponte etiam ad angelorum dignitatem culmenque remeare.  Animam namque accepisti intellectualem, et rationalem, per quam Deum possis agnoscere, et naturam rerum conspicabili rationis intelligentia contemplari:  sapientiæ dulcissimis fructibus perfrui præsto est.  Tibi omnium cedit animantium genus, quæ per connexa montium vel prærupta rupium aut opaca silvarum feruntur; omne quod vel aquis tegitur, vel præpetibus pennis in aere suspenditur.  Omne, inquam, quod hujus mundi est, servitis et subjectioni tuæ liberalis munificentia conditoris indulsit.  Nonne tu, sensu tibi rationabili suggerente, diversitates artium reperisti?  Nonne tu urbes condere, omnemque earum reliquum usum pernecessarium viventibus invenisti?  Nonne tibi per rationem quæ in te est mare pervium fit?  Terra, flumina, fontesque tuis vel usibus vel voluptatibus famulantur.  Nonne aer hic et cœlum ipsum atque omnes stellarum chori vitæ mortalium ministerio cursus suos atque ordines servant?  Quid ergo deficis animo, et deesse tibi aliquid putas, si non tibi equus producitur phaleris exornatus et spumanti ore frena mandens argentea?  Sed sol tibi producitur, veloci rapidoque cursu ardentes tibi faces caloris simul ac luminis portans.  Non habes aureos et argenteos discos:  sed habes lunæ discum purissimo et blandissimo splendore radiantem.  Non ascendis currum, nec rotarum lupsibus veheris, sed habes pedum tuorum vehiculum tecum natum.  Quid ergo beatos censes eos qui aurum quidem possisent, alienis autem pedibus indigent, ad necessarios commeatus?  Non recubas eburneis thoris, sed adjacent fecundi cespites viridantes et herbidi thori, florum varietate melius quam fucatis coloribus Tyrii muricis picti, in quibus dulces et salubres somni nullis curarum morsibus effugantur.  Non te contegunt aurata laquearia; sed cœlum te contegit ineffabili fulgore stellarum depictum.  Hæc quidem quantum ad communem humanitatis attinet vitam.  Accipe vero majora.  Propter te Deus in hominibus, Spiritus sancti distributio, mortis ablatio, resurrectionis spes.  Propter te divina præcepta hominibus delata, quæ te perfectam doceant vitam, et iter tuum ad Deum per mandatorum tramitem dirigant.  Tibi panduntur regna cœlorum, tibi coronæ justitiæ præparantur; si tamen labores et ærumnas pro justitia ferre non refugis.” 579

Homily VI., on Luke xii. 18, is on selfish wealth and greed.

Beware, says the preacher, 580 lest the fate of the fool of the text be thine.  “These things are written that we may shun their imitation.  Imitate the earth, O man.  Bear fruit, as she does, lest thou prove inferior to that which is without life.  She produces her fruits, not that she may enjoy them, but for thy service.  Thou dost gather for thyself whatever fruit of good works thou hast strewn, because the grace of good works returns to the giver.  Thou hast given to the poor, and the gift becomes thine own, and comes back with increase.  Just as grain that has fallen on the earth becomes a gain to the sower, so the loaf thrown to the hungry man renders abundant fruit thereafter.  Be the end of thy husbandry the beginning of the heavenly sowing.  ‘Sow,’ it is written, ‘to yourselves in righteousness.’ 581   Why then art thou distressed?  Why dost thou harass thyself in thy efforts to shut up thy riches in clay and bricks?  ‘A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.’ 582   If thou admire riches because of the honour that comes from them, bethink thee how very much more it tends to thine honour that thou shouldst be called the father of p. lvii innumerable children than that thou shouldst possess innumerable staters in a purse.  Thy wealth thou wilt leave behind thee here, even though thou like it not.  The honour won by thy good deeds thou shalt convey with thee to the Master.  Then all people standing round about thee in the presence of the universal Judge shall hail thee as feeder and benefactor, and give thee all the names that tell of loving kindness.  Dost thou not see theatre-goers flinging away their wealth on boxers and buffoons and beast-fighters, fellows whom it is disgusting even to see, for the sake of the honour of a moment, and the cheers and clapping of the crowd?  And art thou a niggard in thy expenses, when thou art destined to attain glory so great?  God will welcome thee, angels will laud thee, mankind from the very beginning will call thee blessed.  For thy stewardship of these corruptible things thy reward shall be glory everlasting, a crown of righteousness, the heavenly kingdom.  Thou thinkest nothing of all this.  Thy heart is so fixed on the present that thou despisest what is waited for in hope.  Come then; dispose of thy wealth in various directions.  ‘Be generous and liberal in thy expenditure on the poor.  Let it be said of thee, ‘He hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor; his righteousness endureth for ever.’ 583   Do not press heavily on necessity and sell for great prices.  Do not wait for a famine before thou openest thy barns.  ‘He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him.’ 584   Watch not for a time of want for gold’s sake—for public scarcity to promote thy private profit.  Drive not a huckster’s bargains out of the troubles of mankind.  Make not God’s wrathful visitation an opportunity for abundance.  Wound not the sores of men smitten by the scourge.  Thou keepest thine eye on thy gold, and wilt not look at thy brother.  Thou knowest the marks on the money, and canst distinguish good from bad.  Thou canst not tell who is thy brother in the day of distress.”

The conclusion is 585 “‘Ah!’—it is said—‘words are all very fine:  gold is finer.’  I make the same impression as I do when I am preaching to libertines against their unchastity.  Their mistress is blamed, and the mere mention of her serves but to enkindle their passions.  How can I bring before your eyes the poor man’s sufferings that thou mayest know out of what creep groanings thou art accumulating thy treasures, and of what high value will seem to thee in the day of judgment the famous words, ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:  for I was an hungred and ye gave me meat:  I was thirsty and ye gave me drink:…I was naked and ye clothed me.’ 586   What shuddering, what sweat, what darkness will be shed round thee, as thou hearest the words of condemnation!—‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into outer darkness prepared for the devil and his angels:  for I was an hungred and ye gave me no meat:  I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink:…I was naked and ye clothed me not.’ 587   I have told thee what I have thought profitable.  To thee now it is clear and plain what are the good things promised for thee if thou obey.  If thou disobey, for thee the threat is written.  I pray that thou mayest change to a better mind and thus escape its peril.  In this way thy own wealth will be thy redemption.  Thus thou mayest advance to the heavenly blessings prepared for thee by the grave of Him who hath called us all into His own kingdom, to Whom be glory and might for ever and ever.  Amen.”

Homily IX. is a demonstration that God is not the Author of Evil.  It has been conjectured that it was delivered shortly after some such public calamity as the destruction of Nicæa in 368.  St. Basil naturally touches on passages which have from time to time caused some perplexity on this subject.  He asks 588 if God is not the Author of evil, how is it said “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil,” 589 and again, “The evil came down from the Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem,” 590 and again, “Shall there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it,” 591 and in the great song of Moses, “See now that I, even I, am he and there is no god with me:  I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal”? 592   But to any one who understands the meaning of Scripture no one of these passages accuses God of being the Cause and Creator of evil.  He who uses the words, “I form the light and create darkness,” describes Himself not as Creator of any evil, but as Demiurge of creation.  “It is lest thou shouldst suppose that there is one cause of light and another of darkness that He described Himself as being Creator and Artificer of parts of creation which seem to be mutually opposed.  It is to prevent thy seeking one Demiurge of fire, another of water, one of air and another of earth, these seeming to have a kind of mutual opposition and contrariety of qualities.  By adopting these views many p. lviii have ere now fallen into polytheism, but He makes peace and creates evil.  Unquestionably He makes peace in thee when He brings peace into thy mind by His good teaching, and calms the rebel passions of thy soul.  And He creates evil, that is to say, He reduces those evil passions to order, and brings them to a better state so that they may cease to be evil and may adopt the nature of good.  ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God.’ 593   This does not mean Make now for the first time; 594 it means Renew the heart that had become old from wickedness.  The object is that He may make both one. 595   The word create is used not to imply the bringing out of nothing, but the bringing into order those which already existed.  So it is said, ‘If any man be in Christ he is a new creature.’ 596   Again, Moses says, ‘Is not He thy Father that hath bought thee?  Hath He not made thee and created thee?’ 597   Now, the creation put in order after the making evidently teaches us that the word creation, as is commonly the case, is used with the idea of improvement.  And so it is thus that He makes peace, out of creating evil; that is, by transforming and bringing to improvement.  Furthermore, even if you understand peace to be freedom from war, and evil to mean the troubles which are the lot of those who make war; marches into far regions, labours, vigils, terrors, sweatings, wounds, slaughters, taking of towns, slavery, exile, piteous spectacles of captives; and, in a word, all the evils that follow upon war, all these things, I say, happen by the just judgment of God, Who brings vengeance through war on those who deserve punishment.  Should you have wished that Sodom had not been burnt after her notorious wickedness?  Or that Jerusalem had not been overturned, nor her temple made desolate after the horrible wickedness of the Jews against the Lord?  How otherwise was it right for these things to come to pass than by the hands of the Romans to whom our Lord had been delivered by the enemies of His life, the Jews?  Wherefore it does sometimes come to pass that the calamities of war are righteously inflicted on those who deserve them—if you like to understand the words ‘I kill and I make alive’ in their obvious sense.  Fear edifies the simple.  ‘I wound and I heal’ is at once perceived to be salutary.  The blow strikes terror; the cure attracts to love.  But it is permissible to thee to find a higher meaning in the words, ‘I kill’—by sin; ‘I make alive’—by righteousness.  ‘Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.’ 598   He does not kill one and make another alive, but He makes the same man alive by the very means by which He kills him; He heals him by the blows which He inflicts upon him.  As the proverb has it, ‘Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell.’ 599   The flesh is smitten that the soul may be healed; sin is put to death that righteousness may live.  In another passage 600 it is argued that death is not an evil.  Deaths come from God.  Yet death is not absolutely an evil, except in the case of the death of the sinner, in which case departure from this world is a beginning of the punishments of hell.  On the other hand, of the evils of hell the cause is not God, but ourselves.  The origin and root of sin is what is in our own control and our free will.”

Homily XII. is “on the beginning of the proverbs.”  “The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel.” 601

“The name proverbs (παροιμίαι) has been by heathen writers used of common expressions, and of those which are generally used in the streets.  Among them a way is called οἰμος, whence they define a παροιμία to be a common expression, which has become trite through vulgar usage, and which it is possible to transfer from a limited number of subjects to many analogous subjects. 602   With Christians the παροιμία is a serviceable utterance, conveyed with a certain amount of obscurity, containing an obvious meaning of much utility, and at the same time involving a depth of meaning in its inner sense.  Whence the Lord says:  ‘These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs, but the time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father.’” 603

On the “wisdom and instruction” of verse 2, it is said:  Wisdom is the science of things both human and divine, and of their causes.  He, therefore, who is an effective theologian 604 knows wisdom.  The quotation of 1 Cor. ii. 6, follows.

On general education it is said, 605 “The acquisition of sciences is termed education, 606 as it is written of Moses, that he was learned 607 in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. 608   But it is of no small importance, with a view to man’s sound condition, 609 that he should not p. lix devote himself to any sciences whatsoever, but should become acquainted with the education which is most profitable.  It has ere now happened that men who have spent their time in the study of geometry, the discovery of the Egyptians, or of astrology, the favourite pursuit of the Chaldæans, or have been addicted to the loftier natural philosophy 610 which is concerned with figures and shadows, have looked with contempt on the education which is based upon the divine oracles.  Numbers of students have been occupied with paltry rhetoric, and the solution of sophisms, the subject matter of all of which is the false and unreal.  Even poetry is dependent for its existence on its myths. 611   Rhetoric would not be but for craft in speech.  Sophistics must have their fallacies.  Many men for the sake of these pursuits have disregarded the knowledge of God, and have grown old in the search for the unreal.  It is therefore necessary that we should have a full knowledge of education, in order to choose the profitable, and to reject the unintelligent and the injurious.  Words of wisdom will be discerned by the attentive reader of the Proverbs, who thence patiently extracts what is for his good.”

The Homily concludes with an exhortation to rule life by the highest standard.

“Hold fast, then, to the rudder of life.  Guide thine eye, lest haply at any time through thine eyes there beat upon thee the vehement wave of lust.  Guide ear and tongue, lest the one receive aught harmful, or the other speak forbidden words.  Let not the tempest of passion overwhelm thee.  Let no blows of despondency beat thee down; no weight of sorrow drown thee in its depths.  Our feelings are waves.  Rise above them, and thou wilt be a safe steersman of life.  Fail to avoid each and all of them skilfully and steadily, and, like some untrimmed boat, with life’s dangers all round about thee, thou wilt be sunk in the deep sea of sin.  Hear then how thou mayest acquire the steersman’s skill.  Men at sea are wont to lift up their eyes to heaven.  It is from heaven that they get guidance for their cruise; by day from the sun, and by night from the Bear, or from some of the ever-shining stars.  By these they reckon their right course.  Do thou too keep thine eye fixed on heaven, as the Psalmist did who said, ‘Unto thee lift I up mine eye, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.’ 612   Keep thine eyes on the Sun of righteousness.  Directed by the commandments of the Lord, as by some bright constellations, keep thine eye ever sleepless.  Give not sleep to thine eyes or slumber to thine eyelids, 613 that the guidance of the commandments may be unceasing.  ‘Thy word,’ it is said, ‘is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my paths.’ 614   Never slumber at the tiller, so long as thou livest here, amid the unstable circumstances of this world, and thou shalt receive the help of the Spirit.  He shall conduct thee ever onward.  He shall waft thee securely by gentle winds of peace, till thou come one day safe and sound to yon calm and waveless haven of the will of God, to Whom be glory and majesty for ever and ever, Amen.”

Homilies XV. and XVI. are more distinctly dogmatic.  They do not present the doctrines of which they treat in any special way.  XV., De Fide, is concerned rather with the frame of mind of the holder and expounder of the Faith than with any dogmatic formula.

XVI., on John i. 1, begins by asserting that every utterance of the gospels is grander than the rest of the lessons of the Spirit, inasmuch as, while in the latter He has spoken to us through His servants the prophets, in the gospels the Master has conversed with us face to face.  “The most mighty voiced herald of the actual gospel proclamation, who uttered words loud beyond all hearing and lofty beyond all understanding, is John, the son of thunder, the prelude of whose gospel is the text.”  After repeating the words the preacher goes on to say that he has known many who are not within the limits of the word of truth, many of the heathen, that is, “who have prided themselves upon the wisdom of this world, who in their admiration for these words have ventured to insert them among their own writings.  For the devil is a thief, and carries off our property for the use of his own prophets.” 615

p. lx “If the wisdom of the flesh has been so smitten with admiration for the force of the words, what are we to do, who are disciples of the Spirit?…Hold fast to the text, and you will suffer no harm from men of evil arts.  Suppose your opponent to argue, ‘If He was begotten, He was not,’ do you retort, ‘In the beginning He was.’  But, he will go on, ‘Before He was begotten, in what way was He?’  Do not give up the words ‘He was.’  Do not abandon the words ‘In the beginning.’  The highest point of beginning is beyond comprehension; what is outside beginning is beyond discovery.  Do not let any one deceive you by the fact that the phrase has more than one meaning.  There are in this world many beginnings of many things, yet there is one beginning which is beyond them all.  ‘Beginning of good way,’ says the Proverb.  But the beginning of a way is the first movement whereby we begin the journey of which the earlier part can be discovered.  And, ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.’ 616   To this beginning is prefixed something else, for elementary instruction is the beginning of the comprehension of arts.  The fear of the Lord is then a primary element of wisdom, but there is something anterior to this beginning—the condition of the soul, before it has been taught wisdom and apprehended the fear of the Lord.…The point is the beginning of the line, and the line is the beginning of the surface, and the surface is the beginning of the body, and the parts of speech are the beginnings of grammatical utterance.  But the beginning in the text is like none of these.…In the beginning was the Word!  Marvellous utterance!  How all the words are found to be combined in mutual equality of force!  ‘Was’ has the same force as ‘In the beginning.’  Where is the blasphemer?  Where is the tongue that fights against Christ?  Where is the tongue that said, ‘There was when He was not’?  Hear the gospel:  ‘In the beginning was. ’  If He was in the beginning, when was He not?  Shall I bewail their impiety or execrate their want of instruction?  But, it is argued, before He was begotten, He was not.  Do you know when He was begotten, that you may introduce the idea of priority to the time?  For the word ‘before’ is a word of time, placing one thing before another in antiquity.  In what way is it reasonable that the Creator of time should have a generation subjected to terms of time?  ‘In the beginning was—’  Never give up the was, and you never give any room for the vile blasphemy to slip in.  Mariners laugh at the storm, when they are riding upon two anchors.  So will you laugh to scorn this vile agitation which is being driven on the world by the blasts of wickedness, and tosses the faith of many to and fro, if only you will keep your soul moored safely in the security of these words.”