Wisdom of Saints: St Basil the Great

The Feast of Basil the Great, Doctor, Bishop of Caesarea, Cappadocia, 379

O GOD, who by thy Holy Spirit hast given unto one man a word of wisdom, and to another a word of knowledge, and to another the gift of tongues: We praise thy Name for the gifts of grace manifested in thy servant Basil, and we pray that thy Church may never be destitute of the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Third Sunday after Trinity

LORD, we beseech thee mercifully to hear us; and grant that we, to whom thou hast given an hearty desire to pray, may by thy mighty aid be defended and comforted in all dangers and adversities; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

St Basil the Great, one of the Cappadocian fathers and friend of St Gregory of Nazianzus, St Basil is one of the great Doctors of the Church and one of the foremost Christian theologians of the patristic age. St Basil came from a famous Christian family, the son of St Basil the Elder, he and two of his brothers (Peter and St Gregory of Nyssa) were raised to the episcopate alongside St Basil while in addition to St Gregory and St Basil, their sister St Macrina the Younger, was also honoured as a saint.

St Basil himself was born around 329 in Caesarea Cappadocia. He was raised in a well-known Christian household, and from a young age St Basil was instructed in the Christian faith and piety. Though his father died when he was young, the family continued and St Basil received a full education studying in Caesarea, Constantinople and Athens. It was during the course of his education that he first became acquainted with St Gregory of Nazianzus who would become his lifelong friend. After completing his education, he returned to Caesarea to teach.

Upon his return to Caesarea Cappadocia, he was baptised ordained a reader (readers were a minor ordained order in the early Church and remain so to this day in the Christian East) by the Bishop of Cappadocia, Dianius. Another influential figure in St Basil’s life at this time was his sister, St Macrina. While St Basil had travelled far and wide for his education. St Macrina had dedicated herself to founding a religious community among the family’s various holdings. Her witness helped open St Basil’s eyes to the Gospel and in particular to turn away from material concerns of wealth. To pursue Godly perfection, St Basil began exploring monasteries and monastic piety throughout the known world before returning to Pontus, where he had lived after the death of his father, and founded his own monastic community there. Due in large part to this, St Basil became known as the father of Oriental monasticism.

St Basil was convinced to be ordained a priest in 363 by the new Bishop of Caesarea, and was given a prominent position within the administration of the diocese. He was extremely well-regarded within the diocese, earning for himself a particular reputation as the saviour of the poor after supporting them during a famine. The 14th of June 370 he was consecrated Bishop of Caesarea. As Bishop of Caesarea, St Basil was Metropolitan of Cappadocia, a vast ecclesial territory, which ranked in importance behind only the five patriarchates and Ephesus.

St Basil was very active in his ministry, as the over three hundred existent letters profess plainly. His letters are a form of chronology that help illustrate the many challenges faced in his day. Along with St Athanasius the Great, St Basil was a great defender of Christian orthodoxy during a turbulent time in the Church when orthodoxy was under significant attack by Arians, and particular at times when Arian Emperors controlled the Empire.

One of his famous letters, XLVI, To a fallen virgin, helps to illustrate St Basil’s pastoral heart which was the foundation for all his ministry. It is not known exactly who the recipient of the letter was, as is the case with a number of his letters, but it seems she was a Christian who publicly professed virginity but later in some way admitted to St Basil that it was not true. St Basil quotes liberally from Scriptures, focusing largely on the Prophet Jeremiah and then from the New Testament, drawing upon comparisons of the bride of Christ and Israel as God’s bride. In quoting from these passages, St Basil begins his letter by stressing a case for the fallen virgin’s actions being of severe importance. Basil writes:

I used to describe the high dignity of virginity, and, addressing you as a temple of God, used as it were to give wings to your zeal as I strove to lift you to Jesus. Yet through fear of evil I helped you not to fall by the words “if any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.” So by my prayers I tried to make you more secure, if by any means “your body, soul, and spirit might be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Yet all my toil on your behalf has been in vain.

Mirroring Jeremiah’s lament for Israel, St Basil concludes this section by noting his own disappointment, yet it also begins to hint at his pastoral heart as he reminds the recipient that he himself had prayed for her. He uses strong words to show how sincerely he cares for the recipient because of the harm she has done herself:

You have been deceived by the serpent more bitterly than Eve; and not only your mind but also your body has been defiled. Even that last horror has come to pass which I shrink from saying, and yet cannot leave unsaid, for it is as a burning and blazing fire in my bones, and I am undone and cannot endure.

This is again a hint at his pastoral heart. While his words are harsh, he is clearly aggrieved at the sinfulness of what has happened, and laments that he had not been able to do more to prevent it from happening, for the way in which the sin has defiled her soul. Immediately, however, in Chapter 5 of his letter, he turns to the divine remedy:

“Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?” You might indeed find many remedies for evil in Scripture, many medicines to save from destruction and lead to health; the mysteries of death and resurrection, the sentences of terrible judgment and everlasting punishment; the doctrines of repentance and of remission of sins; all the countless illustrations of conversion, the piece of money, the sheep, the son who wasted his substance with harlots, who was lost and was found, who was dead and alive again. Let us not use these remedies for ill; by these means let us heal our soul.

St Basil had previously described how her sin was in effect worse than the sin of Eve, yet immediately he points to Holy Scripture, to God’s testimony of love and repentance and makes clear that there is a solution. He continues in Chapter 6, the conclusion of the letter, where he says:

While we can, let us lift ourselves from the fall: let us never despair of ourselves, if only we depart from evil. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. “O come, let us worship and fall down; let us weep before Him.” The Word Who invited us to repentance calls aloud, “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” There is, then, a way of salvation, if we will. “Death in his might has swallowed up, but again the Lord hath wiped away tears from off all faces” of them that repent. The Lord is faithful in all His words. He does not lie when He says, “Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool.” The great Physician of souls, Who is the ready liberator, not of you alone, but of all who are enslaved by sin, is ready to heal your sickness.

St Basil concludes his letter with a call to repentance available even to one who had fallen farther than Eve as he described it earlier, and finally ends his letter on a note of assurance as he alludes to the parable of the two sons:

If any of those who think they stand find fault because of your quick reception, the good Father will Himself make answer for you in the words, “It was meet that we should make merry and be glad for this” my daughter “was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found.”

Wisdom of Saints: St Gregory of Nazianzus

 The Feast of Gregory of Nazianzus, Doctor, Bishop of Constantinople, 389

O GOD, who by thy Holy Spirit hast given unto one man a word of wisdom, and to another a word of knowledge, and to another the gift of tongues: We praise thy Name for the gifts of grace manifested in thy servant Gregory, and we pray that thy Church may never be destitute of the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Octave of the Ascension

O GOD the King of Glory, who hast exalted thine only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven: We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

St Gregory of Nazianzus was one of the three Cappadocian Fathers, along with his friend St Basil the Great and Basil's brother St Gregory of Nyssa, and one of the most eminent theologians of the Patristic age. He is one of the four great doctors of the East and continues to exert a great influence on the theology of the Church.

St Gregory was born in a small village near Nazianzus in Cappadocia. His mother had converted his father to Christianity, and indeed it seems that St Gregory was born after his father had been ordained a priest and just prior to his consecration as Bishop of Nazianzus. His parents were wealthy, and he soon outgrew his original education at home by his uncle and was sent to Caesarea Cappadocia to receive the remainder of his classical education there, where he ultimately studied under the same tutor who would later educate St John Chrysostom. His education took him even further afield, as far as Athens. It was during this trip to Athens that St Gregory, already a Christian by virtue of his parents, dedicated himself to Christ. While journeying by sea there was a terrible storm. Fearing for his life, St Gregory prayed that if God would see him through the storm to safety he would dedicate the remainder of his life to serving his Lord.

St Gregory had originally met and befriended St Basil while at school in Caesarea, however it was in Athens that they reconnected and renewed their friendship which would continue for the rest of their lives. They began a collaboration in Athens to compile some of the works of Origen, who was then the greatest and most prolific Christian writer. All serious Christians knew and read Origen.

St Basil found himself drawn to the ascetic and monastic lifestyle and soon after would invite his friend St Gregory to join him in the monastic life. St Gregory's monastic life was cut short, as ultimately St Basil's would be as well, when his father, the Bishop of Nazianzus, called him home to serve in the Church. St Gregory was ordained as priest and eventually became Suffragan Bishop serving throughout Cappadocia, assisting his father in combating heresy and persecution.

St Gregory had been born into a turbulent time in the Church. While the Edict of Milan had ended official persecution against Christianity, the moment the government ceased official persecution of the Church, the Church descended into division over the need to articulate doctrinal orthodoxy over a number of issues that were now splitting the Church. First and foremost among these was Arianism. In 325, Emperor Constantine had called the Council of Nicaea, which had ultimately condemned Arianism and proclaimed the first part of what would become the Nicene Creed. When St Gregory was born, however, Arianism continued to thrive, as it would for several more centuries.

Arianism found wide purchase in Cappadocia in St Gregory's day, and to make matters worse, around the time of his ordination, St Gregory found himself also challenged by Emperor Julian the Apostate who had come to the throne. St Gregory had studied with Julian and early on, even before his declared apostasy and efforts as Emperor to return the Empire to Roman paganism, had found Emperor Julian to be troubled and described him as an evil the Roman state was nourishing.

St Gregory would begin his ministry combating both the heresy of Arianism and the threat of persecution under Julian, though ultimately Arianism would prove to be the larger threat with Julian's reign being short lived and his successor, Emperor Jovian, being an avowed Christian.

St Gregory's father died in 374 and St Gregory succeeded him as the Bishop of Nazianzus. His fame continued to grow and in 379 he was invited to go to Constantinople following the death of the Arian Emperor Valens. He did, and had significant success in reducing the Arian influence in the capitol. In 381 he presided at the Council of Constantinople, called to conclude the formation of the anti-Arian Nicene Creed first began in 325 shortly before St Gregory's birth. He continued to serve in Constantinople until 382 when he retired, returning to Nazianzus living out his final days in relative quiet before passing away in peace in 391.

St Gregory is known in many quarters as St Gregory the Theologian. This is both to distinguish him from St Gregory of Nyssa, brother to St Basil the Great and also reflects on the importance of his doctrinal statements, many of which remain in extant. He was a well-known orator, having recorded many of his writings. Earlier in his career just after his ordination he wrote an oration discussing the nature of the priestly office. This oration forms the basis of much of the theology of later writers such as St John Chrysostom and St Gregory the Great.

St Gregory begins his oration reflecting that:

But in the case of man, hard as it is for him to learn how to submit to rule, it seems far harder to know how to rule over men, and hardest of all, with this rule of ours, which leads them by the divine law, and to God, for its risk is, in the eyes of a thoughtful man, proportionate to its height and dignity.  For, first of all, he must, like silver or gold, though in general circulation in all kinds of seasons and affairs, never ring false or alloyed, or give token of any inferior matter, needing further refinement in the fire; or else, the wider his rule, the greater evil he will be.  Since the injury which extends to many is greater than that which is confined to a single individual.

In this he reflects on the gravity of the priestly office. That those who are called to it must be above reproach both because they will be examined by others, and also because, through their leadership, a small evil in their own lives may extend that sin to those under his care.

He continues by noting that simply being free of vice is not sufficient call for the office of priest due to its importance:

But granted that a man is free from vice, and has reached the greatest heights of virtue:  I do not see what knowledge or power would justify him in venturing upon this office.  For the guiding of man, the most variable and manifold of creatures, seems to me in very deed to be the art of arts and science of sciences.  Any one may recognize this, by comparing the work of the physician of souls with the treatment of the body; and noticing that, laborious as the latter is, ours is more laborious, and of more consequence, from the nature of its subject matter, the power of its science, and the object of its exercise.

In this, St Gregory begins hinting at the greater divine purpose that underlies the Priesthood. He expounds with a command of language that hints at his enduring popularity. It is also telling that while his primary purpose was an exposition of the Priesthood, St Gregory could not refrain from making a defence of Nicene orthodoxy against Arian heresy when he wrote, “It is necessary neither to be so devoted to the Father, as to rob Him of His Fatherhood, for whose Father would He be, if the Son were separated and estranged from Him, by being ranked with the creation.” He similarly cannot help but highlight the importance of the, “the aid of the Spirit, by Whom alone we are able to perceive, to expound, or to embrace, the truth in regard to God.” His reference here to the Holy Spirit is a reminder also of the second characteristic of his expositions, that of Trinitarianism, and an emphasis on all three persons of the Trinity.

St Gregory the Theologian remains an enduring and foundational father on which much of the theology of the Church today can trace its roots. His influence on several of the other great Doctors, both East and West, solidifies his continued importance, and the blessing in studying his original works.