St. Basil the Great

The accounts of Basil's life differ on some years and on the order of events, among them his ordinations and the dates of his withdrawals from Caesarea. Where they differ, the text names who gives which.

For Inquirers

Basil grew up in a family so devout that five of the ten children are remembered as saints. His grandmother taught him the sayings of a holy bishop of the generation before, and his older sister Macrina, who never married and gave her life to prayer, left a strong mark on him. He was clever, rich, and very well educated, and he had the kind of mind that could have made him a famous lawyer or teacher. Instead he went looking for people who took the Gospel literally: he travelled to the monks of Egypt and Syria, gave away what he owned, and settled in a wild valley by a river to pray, to study the Bible, and to work with his hands.

The Church then called him back to the city of Caesarea, and he became its bishop. What he did there is what people remember most warmly. In a famine he persuaded the rich to open their storehouses, and the starving were fed with soup served by his own household. Outside the city he built a great complex where the poor could be fed, the sick tended, and travellers given a bed. When the emperor's officials threatened to take his property, exile him, and have him killed, he answered that he had almost nothing to confiscate, no home to be banished from, and a body so worn out that the first blow would end it. The official who had threatened him left amazed.

He was also a thinker, and the thing he thought hardest about is why Christians pray as they do. When he ended his prayers with praise to the Father and the Son "with" the Holy Spirit, other Christians complained that the little word was an invention, and he spent a long book showing that the Spirit stands with the Father and the Son in everything the Church does from baptism onward. He was often ill, short on friends who stayed friends, and worn down by church quarrels, and he died at forty-nine. Greek families still bake a New Year's bread in his honor, and children are told that Basil visits their homes on his feast.

Overview

• Who: St. Basil, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia (now central Turkey), called "the Great"; older brother of St. Gregory of Nyssa, friend of St. Gregory the Theologian, and with them one of the Cappadocians.
• Dates: born about 330 by the OCA and OrthodoxWiki; died on January 1, 379, at the age of forty-nine by the OCA's count.[^oca-life][^ow-basil] Jerome says only that he died in the reign of Gratian.[^jerome]
• Offices: reader, deacon, presbyter, then bishop of Caesarea from 370, with oversight, as OrthodoxWiki says, of the whole region of Pontus.[^oca-life][^ow-basil]
• Known for: On the Holy Spirit, the Hexaemeron on the six days of creation, a body of letters that includes his penitential canons, his monastic teaching, the care of the poor at Caesarea, and the Liturgy that bears his name.
• Days: January 1, the day of his death, and January 30 with the other two Hierarchs.[^oca-life][^oca-three]

Summary

Basil was born to a Cappadocian family of wealth and martyrs, studied at Caesarea, Constantinople and Athens, and then, as he tells it himself, woke as from a deep sleep to the Gospel, visited the ascetics of Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia, and began a monastic life in Pontus on the family land beside the river Iris.[^ep223][^oca-life] He was made a presbyter at Caesarea and, in 370, its bishop. In his years as bishop the emperor Valens and his prefect tried to bend him to the Arian party, and failed; the poor of the city gained a great house of charity at its gates; Eastern monks gained a rule of life that mingled the common life with the solitary; the Church gained a long treatise on the Holy Spirit, a set of penitential canons that later councils cite, and the language of one essence in three hypostases in the form that his letters give it.[^or43-63][^trullo-2][^ep236] He lost a long friendship with Eustathius of Sebaste to a bitter quarrel, made enemies among bishops who resented his election and his renown,[^or43-58] and wore out his body by forty-nine. Gregory the Theologian, who loved him, delivered his funeral oration;[^or43] Gregory of Nyssa supplied what Basil's work on the six days lacked, an account of man, and took up his quarrel with Eunomius;[^mom][^ae1] and councils from Chalcedon to Nicaea II name him among the Fathers they follow or cite him as an authority.[^chal-1][^c2][^nic2-19]

A House of Saints and Martyrs

Basil's mother Emmelia was the daughter of a martyr, and his father, also named Basil, was a lawyer and teacher of rhetoric at Caesarea; the OCA says ten children were born to them, five sons and five daughters, of whom five are counted among the saints: Basil, Macrina, Gregory of Nyssa, Peter of Sebaste, and the deaconess Theosebia.[^oca-lit-emilia][^oca-life] On his father's side, the OCA adds, his grandparents had hidden in the forests of Pontus for seven years during the persecution under Diocletian.[^oca-life] Gregory the Theologian tells the same story of the flight at greater length and with a wonder in it: the hunted family prayed for relief from their plain food, he says, and stags came down out of the hills to them. He gives the persecution as that of Maximinus and remarks that the family's distinction on both sides was piety.[^or43-5]

Defending himself against a charge of unsound teaching, Basil tells the Neocaesareans that he was raised by his grandmother Macrina, who came from their country, and who "taught me the words of the blessed Gregory," the Wonderworker, as far as memory had preserved them to her day. Letters (St. Basil of Caesarea) — Letter 204 6.2[^ep204] To the bishop Eustathius he adds that the doctrine of God he received "as a boy from my blessed mother and my grandmother Macrina" he has held ever since with increased conviction, as a seed that grows keeps its identity while it grows.[^ep223] The women of the house are the first teachers in his own telling, and the OCA gives his older sister Macrina a large share in forming him.[^oca-life]

OrthodoxWiki lists Peter of Sebaste as the youngest child, born about 340, ordained presbyter by his brother Basil, and later bishop of Sebaste.[^ow-peter] The household, Macrina's death, and the dialogue that grew out of it are told at length in St. Gregory of Nyssa.

Schools, a Friendship, and a Change of Course

The OCA says Basil studied first under his father and then under the best teachers in Caesarea, where he met Gregory of Nazianzus, went on to Constantinople, and finally to Athens, where he stayed four or five years.[^oca-life] Gregory himself says that Basil had been "versed in many languages" before reaching Athens, that Gregory arrived first, and that he shielded his friend from the hazing which Athenian students inflicted on newcomers.[^or43-15] The friendship that followed is the subject of the finest pages of Gregory's oration and is told in St. Gregory the Theologian; for Basil the important part is where it led. Socrates the church historian, who mentions teachers at Athens and at Antioch, says that both friends were urged by their friends to teach rhetoric or practise law, refused both, and embraced the monastic life.[^soc-4-26] The OCA places Basil's return to Caesarea about 357, where he taught rhetoric for a time before turning down offers to educate the city's sons.[^oca-life]

Basil describes the turn himself, in a letter addressed to Eustathius of Sebaste. He had spent nearly all his youth, he says, on the vain labor of acquiring the wisdom God has made foolish, and then he woke: "I wept many tears over my miserable life and I prayed that guidance might be vouchsafed me to admit me to the doctrines of true religion." Letters (St. Basil of Caesarea) — Letter 223 2.3[^ep223] What he read in the Gospel was the sale of one's goods for the poor and the giving up of care for this life, and he went looking for men who had done it. He names Alexandria and the rest of Egypt, Palestine, Coele-Syria and Mesopotamia, and writes that he admired their endurance in toil, their persistence in prayer, and their victory over sleep.[^ep223] The OCA agrees that he went to Egypt, Syria and Palestine "to meet the great Christian ascetics," and an early letter of his to a philosopher friend gives an account of his journey from Athens through Asia to Syria and Egypt, where he lingered at Alexandria.[^oca-life][^ep1]

The Retreat in Pontus

On returning home he gave away his wealth, the OCA says, and settled across the river from his mother and sister at the family estate on the Iris, gathering monks who lived in common.[^oca-life] He wrote to a friend about the place he chose. There was a lofty wooded mountain, cool streams to the north, a plain below, a river rushing past in front, and what pleased him most was that the land produced "what to me is the sweetest produce of all, quietness." Letters (St. Basil of Caesarea) — Letter 14 0.15[^ep14] The OCA gives a harsher picture of the same years, in which Basil and Gregory labored in a dwelling with no roof or fireplace, cleared stones, planted trees, carried loads, and lived on very humble food.[^oca-life]

Basil is not romantic about solitude. In another letter to a friend he confesses that he has left his life in town "but I have not yet been able to get quit of myself," like a seasick traveller who moves from the large ship to the small boat and carries the nausea with him.[^ep2] What the letter recommends is not escape but a trained quiet: "We must strive after a quiet mind," he says, and goes on to describe a day that begins with prayer and hymns, turns to labor with prayer attending it, and gives the middle of the night to the mind alone with itself and God. Letters (St. Basil of Caesarea) — Letter 2 2.1[^ep2] The OCA and OrthodoxWiki both say that in these years he and Gregory drew an anthology from Origen, the Philokalia, which is not the later compilation of the same name,[^oca-life][^ow-basil] and Socrates says the pair took from Origen their reading of Scripture and used it against the Arians.[^soc-4-26] See Origen of Alexandria.

In Gregory the Theologian's account the withdrawal followed a disagreement between Basil and his predecessor in the see; Gregory chooses to pass over its cause in silence, says the monks were angry at the treatment of their leader and threatened to break away, and says Basil, instead of resisting, left with Gregory's encouragement for Pontus.[^or43-28] The OCA names the predecessor and the cause: Eusebius, it says, grew jealous of Basil's reputation, the monks rose in Basil's defense, and Basil withdrew to avoid discord.[^oca-life] Basil's own letter "to the Caesareans," written in defense of his absence, treats the same withdrawal with a joke at his own expense: he is a runaway and confesses it, and he asks for a little time. He has found a deep well in Gregory, who is to be his guide out of Esau's reach, and he is not, he says, embracing city life.[^ep8] When the Arian emperor's pressure grew, Gregory writes, Basil came back with him to defend the Church, on the principle, as Gregory states it, that exactness is for times of peace and forbearance for the hour of need.[^or43-31]

From Presbyter to Bishop of Caesarea

The OCA says Basil was ordained a deacon in 362 by Meletius of Antioch and a presbyter in 364 by Eusebius of Caesarea; OrthodoxWiki says he was made presbyter at Caesarea in 365.[^oca-life][^ow-basil] Socrates tells it more briefly and in a different order: Basil, he says, having been ordained deacon, was by Meletius promoted from that rank to the bishopric of Caesarea.[^soc-4-26] Gregory the Theologian says only that he was raised "in the due order of spiritual advancement," first a reader reading the sacred books to the people while already able to expound them, then to the seat of the presbyters, and then to the see of the bishops.[^or43-27] Both the OCA and OrthodoxWiki give 370 for the episcopate, the year Eusebius died.[^oca-life][^ow-basil]

In Gregory's account of the election, the prelate before Basil had "sweetly breathed his last in Basil's arms," and Basil was raised to the throne, not without difficulty, against the envious struggles of the prelates of his native land. On the other side stood Gregory's own father, the aged bishop of Nazianzus, who made the journey ill and was carried on a litter as if a corpse in its tomb, to cast his vote, and who came back, Gregory says, strengthened by the imposition of hands.[^or43-37] The OCA adds that Athanasius received the news of the appointment with joy, and that the new bishop was the newest of fifty bishops in eleven provinces.[^oca-life]

His first work in the see was the Church's own peace. Gregory says he reconciled the opposition by a mixture of consideration and firmness.[^or43-40] When the province of Cappadocia was divided into two, he adds, a rival metropolitan claimed the new region and seized revenues, and on one occasion Basil's mules were stopped on the road by a band of men. Basil answered by multiplying the bishops of the country, making of the dissension, in Gregory's words, "a cause of increase to the Church," which Gregory approves in general and laments in one particular, the way it touched himself. See the account of the Sasima appointment in St. Gregory the Theologian.[^or43-58]

The Poor of Caesarea

The famine came before Basil's election, among the works that Gregory lists as leading up to it, and OrthodoxWiki dates a homily on the famine to 368. Gregory says the city was inland and could neither export its surplus nor import grain, and that the worst of the distress was the greed of those who held supplies. Basil gathered the victims, "men and women, infants, old men," set out basins of soup and what meat could be found, and, in Gregory's picture, imitated Christ who girded himself with a towel, using his own servants to serve them.[^or43-34][^or43-35] The sermon I Will Tear Down My Barns, as OrthodoxWiki quotes it, asks of the wealthy what Gregory shows Basil doing for the hungry: "The bread you are holding back is for the hungry, the clothes you keep put away are for the naked." The OCA's article on almsgiving repeats the saying that a man with two coats while his neighbor has none is a thief.[^ow-basil][^oca-alms]

The great monument of his care for the poor was outside the walls. Gregory tells the reader to go a little way out of the city and behold the new city, the storehouse of piety, where disease was looked on in a religious light and sympathy put to the test, and where, he says, Basil did not disdain to greet the lepers as brothers and to kiss them. Select Orations — Oration 43 63.3[^or43-63] Basil's own letter to the governor Elias, who had been told that his building did harm, defends it as "a place of entertainment for strangers," for travellers and for the sick, with physicians, means of conveyance and escort; the buildings also give work to those who learn trades. Letters (St. Basil of Caesarea) — Letter 94 0.12[^ep94] OrthodoxWiki calls the project the Basiliad and describes it as a combination of poorhouse, hospital, and hostel for the homeless; the OCA says that he built a poor-house in every center of his diocese and, at Caesarea, a home for wanderers and the homeless.[^ow-basil][^oca-life] The English editors of the Council of Chalcedon, annotating its canon on hospices, say the Basiliad at Caesarea was a guest-house as well as a poorhouse and refer to this letter.[^chal-10]

The same man, the OCA says, built a men's and a women's monastery at Caesarea and a church for the Forty Martyrs, and obtained exemption from taxes for his clergy.[^oca-life]

Valens, Modestus and the Prefect's Court

Four early writers tell of the emperor Valens's attempt to bring Basil into the Arian party's communion, and each frames the story differently. Gregory the Theologian gives the fullest account of the interview. Called before the prefect Modestus, Basil was asked how he dared to resist so great a potentate, and answered that it was "because this is not the will of my real Sovereign," for he was himself a creature of God, bidden to be God, and could not submit to worship any creature. Select Orations — Oration 43 48.8[^or43-48] Asked what he feared, he went through the prefect's threats one by one. Confiscation would take only tattered rags and a few books; exile could not touch a man confined by no place; the body could take only one blow; and "Death is my benefactor, for it will send me the sooner to God." Select Orations — Oration 43 49.13[^or43-49] Modestus, amazed, said that no one had ever spoken to him so, and Basil replied that perhaps he had never met a bishop; Modestus went to the emperor and said the Church had been beaten by its prelate.[^or43-50]

The OCA's life repeats this speech in nearly Gregory's words.[^oca-life] Gregory of Nyssa, in the twelfth section of the first book of his reply to Eunomius, tells it with attention to what was at stake. The prefect himself, he says, after threats had failed, turned to the gentlest language and urged that the emperor wished for peace if only the one little word Homoousios were erased from the written Creed, and Basil's answer was that he would not, in Gregory's words, change "even the order of the written words." Against Eunomius — Book I 0.293[^ae1-293] The result in his telling is that Cappadocia alone was spared the afflictions that fell on the churches around it. Against Eunomius — Book I 0.306[^ae1-306] The same section names Demosthenes, "comptroller of his kitchen," whom the emperor set on Basil after Modestus failed.[^ae1-demo]

The other two accounts differ from Gregory the Theologian's on where, and how it ended. Socrates puts the trial at Antioch before the prefect and records that Basil said he was the same today as he would be tomorrow, "but I wish that you had not changed yourself." In his version the emperor's infant son Galates fell ill, the empress Dominica was frightened by dreams, and Basil said that if the emperor believed as he did and the Church were united the child would live; the emperor would not agree, and the child died.[^soc-4-26] Theodoret has it in Caesarea. In his telling Modestus first tried courtesy and promises of the emperor's friendship; Basil called such talk fit for little boys; the emperor's son fell ill, Basil promised recovery if he were baptized by orthodox hands, Valens had Arians baptize the boy, and the child died. Later, Theodoret says, Valens heard Basil, gave land for the poor, and, tempted by counsellors into exiling him, found that three pens broke as he tried to sign the decree.[^theod-4-16] Gregory the Theologian tells of the signed decree as well, undone by the sickness of the emperor's son, and says Basil came and the illness relaxed, but that the child would have lived if the emperor had not mixed salt water with fresh by summoning the heterodox too.[^or43-54] The OCA adds a service at Epiphany in which Valens, entering the church among the crowd, stood stunned by the psalmody while Basil stood erect before the altar and made no sign that anything else was happening, which Gregory the Theologian reports in nearly the same terms.[^oca-life][^or43-52]

The accounts agree that the emperor was frightened off and that the prefect admired the bishop. They do not agree on the city, the manner of the child's death, or whether Valens came out of it reconciled. The common core is Basil's refusal and the failure of the emperor's pressure; the rest differs from teller to teller. The OCA's synaxarion for January 19 adds a tradition that Basil, sent by Valens to judge a dispute over the cathedral of Nicaea, had the Arians and the Orthodox seal the doors and pray in turn, and that the doors opened to the Orthodox.[^oca-jan19]

On the Holy Spirit

The treatise on the Holy Spirit was written to Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium, who is named in the OCA's life and calendar as Basil's friend and disciple.[^oca-life][^oca-amph] It begins in a petty-seeming dispute. Basil had been praying with the people, ending the doxology to the Father in two forms, "with the Son together with the Holy Ghost" and "through the Son in the Holy Ghost," and was attacked by some of those present "on the ground that I was introducing novel and at the same time mutually contradictory terms." De Spiritu Sancto 1.32[^dss-1] He says that people who are exact about syllables are not as simple as they look. The party of Aetius, he says, held that things unlike in name are unlike in nature, and set "of whom" for the Father, "through whom" for the Son, and "in whom" for the Spirit, so that the Creator would be no higher than an instrument and the Spirit would add nothing but a place or a time.[^dss-2] Basil answers in two stages. He first takes the little words apart, showing from Scripture that "through whom" and "of whom" are said of all three; and then he goes to the Spirit himself.[^dss-4]

His account of what the Spirit is begins from the titles Scripture gives him: Spirit of God, Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, Holy Spirit. These are the names of the incorporeal, and the hearer of them is forced upward to "an intelligent essence, in power infinite, in magnitude unlimited," shared like a sunbeam that seems given to each who receives it alone and yet falls on land and sea alike. In the same chapter Basil lists what the Spirit gives, from foreknowledge of the future and understanding of mysteries to a place in the chorus of angels and the being made like to God, and at the summit of the list, "highest of all," stands "the being made God." De Spiritu Sancto 9.20[^dss-9] For the doctrine of human divinization and its Eastern vocabulary see Theosis; for the longer doctrinal treatment of the Spirit see The Holy Spirit.

Against those who would not rank the Spirit with the Father and the Son, Basil's starting-point is baptism. The Lord commanded baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; the confession of faith must match the baptism, and the doxology must match the confession. In the order Basil gives in chapter 12, first comes the confession, introducing us to salvation, and baptism follows, setting the seal upon our assent; to alter the doxology, then, is to alter the confession that baptism seals.[^dss-10] The worst opponents deny this, he says, and the denial has a name: "pneumatomachi," fighters against the Spirit.[^dss-11] The people who held that the Spirit was created or ministering are called, in the modern guides, Macedonians after Macedonius of Constantinople, and Pomazansky lists Basil with Gregory the Theologian, Athanasius and Gregory of Nyssa among their accusers.[^pom-spirit]

The treatise then answers the objections one by one. If the Spirit were merely ranked "under" the Son, as the opponents say with their word "subnumeration," then things which are numbered would lose their own nature by being counted, and Basil says that nothing ever does.[^dss-17] When the opponents place the Spirit in a middle rank, neither slave nor master but free, Basil answers that they are carrying human gradations of rank over to the nature of God: if the Spirit is a creature he serves with the rest, but if he is above creation, then, Basil says, "He shares in royalty," and Paul says that the Lord is the Spirit.[^dss-21] Like the Father and the Son, the Spirit is beyond human conception and fills all things.[^dss-9][^dss-22] "There is not even one single gift which reaches creation without the Holy Ghost," he says, and asks where else the Spirit could be ranked: with the creature? But all the creature is in bondage, and the Spirit makes free. De Spiritu Sancto 24.14[^dss-24]

For the Spirit's part in creation he gives a pattern: "the original cause of all things that are made, the Father; of the creative cause, the Son; of the perfecting cause, the Spirit." De Spiritu Sancto 16.19[^dss-16] The chapter adds at once that he is not affirming three original hypostases, since the first principle of existing things is one, so that the three causes are not three rival sources. For the unity of that first principle he uses the word monarchia. Having said that the Father and the Son are two in person and one in nature, he writes that in "worshipping as we do God of God, we both confess the distinction of the Persons, and at the same time abide by the Monarchy." De Spiritu Sancto 18.19[^dss-18] See Monarchy of the Father and Triadology.

The two prepositions get a chapter apiece. "In" the Spirit states the truth with reference to ourselves, he says, and "with" the Spirit proclaims the Spirit's fellowship with God; the Church uses both, and Basil will not let either be turned against the Spirit's dignity.[^dss-26] The word "with" has an ancient pedigree. Basil lists witnesses, including Irenaeus, Clement of Rome, the two Dionysii, Origen in his commentaries, Africanus, the Wonderworker Gregory, and Firmilian, and he says that one of the Wonderworker's institutions is the very form of the doxology now objected to.[^dss-29] On the question of authority, chapter 27 lists customs that have no written command, among them the sign of the cross, turning east to pray, standing on the Lord's day, the blessing of water and oil, the three immersions and the renunciation of Satan, and it draws the distinction between dogma and kerygma; Sacred Tradition treats it in full. Basil's own judgment opens the proof from antiquity: "I hold it apostolic to abide also by the unwritten traditions." De Spiritu Sancto 29.5[^dss-29b]

The last chapter turns from argument to lament. He compares the Church to a sea-battle in the dark, in which no one can tell friend from foe, and says "every landmark of the Fathers has been moved" and the hatred between brothers is fiercer than any hatred of the enemy. De Spiritu Sancto 30.21[^dss-30] He ends by saying that he ought to have kept silence but was drawn on by love and by the example of the three children at Babylon, who sang in the furnace though no one stood with them, and he invites Amphilochius to ask about whatever remains unclear.[^dss-30b]

Did Basil Call the Spirit God?

Gregory the Theologian explains in the funeral oration why the treatise is so careful with its words. The enemy, he says, were watching for the unqualified statement "the Spirit is God," true as it is, in order to banish Basil from his city and seize the church. Basil, therefore, "postponed for the time the use of the exact term," and by other words and arguments leading necessarily to the same conclusion so overpowered his opponents that they could not answer. Select Orations — Oration 43 68.11[^or43-68] Gregory adds that Basil confessed the truth often in public preaching and privately, and that in their conversations he called down on himself separation from the Spirit if he did not adore the Spirit as consubstantial and coequal with the Father and the Son; Gregory says that Basil undertook the economy while he, Gregory, whom nobody was likely to drag to trial, kept freedom of speech.[^or43-69]

OrthodoxWiki puts the matter in different terms: Basil taught the Spirit consubstantial with the Father and the Son, but, in keeping with Eastern tradition, would not allow the Spirit the predicate homoousios, was reproached for this by zealous monks as early as 371, and was defended by Athanasius.[^ow-basil] Basil's letters speak of the Spirit's divinity in plainer words. In the letter to the Caesareans he says that those who are taught by the divine words ought to confess the Father God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God;[^ep8-2] in the letter to Eupaterius, "We glorify the Holy Ghost together with the Father and the Son, from the conviction that He is not separated from the Divine Nature;"[^ep159] and in the creed he dictated for Eustathius, those who call the Spirit a creature are to be anathematized, and the Spirit is to be confessed holy by nature as the Father and the Son are holy by nature.[^ep125] Gregory's reading and OrthodoxWiki's rest on the same facts, the careful vocabulary of the treatise and the plainer vocabulary of the letters. Gregory presents Basil's caution as a deliberate economy and not as doubt about what he believed.[^or43-69]

One Essence, Three Hypostases

Basil's contribution to the Church's vocabulary of the Trinity is set out in Ousia, Hypostasis and Cappadocians, and only a short account is needed here. In Letter 236, to Amphilochius, Basil says that the difference between ousia and hypostasis is that between the general and the particular, and in Letter 234 he says that God is known from his operations and not from his essence.[^ep236][^ep234] The longer treatment of the distinction is Letter 38, headed as Basil's and addressed "to his Brother Gregory," which lays out the idea at length, with the example of the common nature "man" and the particular Peter or Paul, and with the rainbow as a figure of one light shown in distinct colors.[^ep38]

His working use of the doctrine can be seen in the treatise's discussion of the monarchia above, and in Letter 125, the creed he dictated for Eustathius to sign, which explains why the Nicene creed does not mean that hypostasis and ousia are the same.[^ep125] Two years after Basil's death the Second Ecumenical Council met, and the OCA's article on it names his brother Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory the Theologian among its leaders.[^oca-second] See Constantinople I and Homoousios.

The Quarrel with Eustathius

One of the most painful events of Basil's life was the break with Eustathius, bishop of Sebasteia in Armenia, to whom the OCA says Basil had been connected by ties of close friendship.[^oca-life] OrthodoxWiki's life of Eustathius, which is not friendly to him, describes a man who began as a pupil of Arius, was an early promoter of ascetic communities in Armenia, wavered through the parties of the century, belonged to the semi-Arians called Macedonians for denying the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and kept a relationship with Basil until about 372.[^ow-eust] It adds that Eustathius at first expressed great joy at Basil's election and then, by the report of spies, turned on him and had him charged with Apollinarian and other heretical views.[^ow-eust] OrthodoxWiki's life of Basil says only that the connection "was maintained in spite of dogmatic differences and caused suspicion," and the OCA counts Eustathius's departure to the Arian side among Basil's trials.[^ow-basil][^oca-life]

Eustathius is not wholly without a voice of his own. Socrates preserves the profession that he and two colleagues carried to Pope Liberius, which ends with his statement that he has "voluntarily subscribed this confession of faith" with his own hands,[^soc-4-12] and Letter 125 closes with his signature. Seen from outside, Socrates reports that a synod at Gangra condemned him for forbidding marriage and related teachings,[^soc-2-43] and Theodoret names him with Basil of Ancyra among the bishops who wrote to the emperor Constantius against Eudoxius.[^theod-2-20]

Basil's side is in his letters, and they cut against the unfriendly summaries. In Letter 223 he says that Eustathius had been his friend: Eustathius visited him at the monastery on the Iris when Gregory was with him, they went together to visit Silvanus, and they talked about the faith at Eusinoe. Basil says the real cause of the separation was the creed he had proposed that Eustathius's party sign, and not an old letter.[^ep223-5] In Letter 125 he sets out that creed. It is the Nicene creed, with the sense of its words defended against Marcellus and Sabellius, and with an added article anathematizing those who call the Spirit a creature; it ends with the words "I, Eustathius, bishop, have read to you, Basil, and understood; and I assent to what is written above."[^ep125] In Letter 244 he says Eustathius's party first complained when a second meeting between their bishops did not take place, then broke off communion over the charge that Basil had written to Apollinarius and was in communion with Diodorus, and then circulated letters against him: "I am persecuted by them as a Homoousiast." Letters (St. Basil of Caesarea) — Letter 244 7.6[^ep244]

The accounts differ in tone. OrthodoxWiki describes a man who wavered through every party; the OCA sets a close friendship against his departure to the Arian side; Basil describes a friend who signed the creed and then, with his party, broke communion and circulated letters against him. None of the three is a disinterested witness. Eustathius's own surviving words, the profession to Liberius and his signature to Letter 125, show him willing to put his name to a Nicene confession, which fits Basil's account without settling who broke first.

Basil and Athanasius, and the Appeals to the West

Basil wrote to Athanasius of Alexandria several times, and the letters show a younger bishop asking an older to use his weight. In Letter 66 he asks Athanasius to send men to the bishops of the West; in Letter 69 he proposes a letter to the bishop of Rome and presses the question of Marcellus, whose heresy, in Basil's view, was the opposite of Arius's and yet had never been named by those who anathematized Arius.[^ep69] In Letter 80 he writes, "The worse the diseases of the Churches grow, the more do we all turn to your excellency, in the belief that your championship is the one consolation left to us in our troubles." Letters (St. Basil of Caesarea) — Letter 80 0.3[^ep80] St. Athanasius cites letters 66 and 82 in a fuller account of this relation.

OrthodoxWiki says Basil "sided with those who overcame the aversion to the homoousios," thus drawing nearer to Athanasius, and that Athanasius defended him when zealots reproached him; the OCA says Athanasius welcomed Basil's appointment.[^ow-basil][^oca-life] The letters show deference and a joint effort for the Church at Antioch, and also Basil's willingness to differ from Athanasius's circle: Letter 266 to Peter, Athanasius's successor, defends Meletius and Eusebius against the charge that they were "Ariomaniacs."[^ep266] The relation, then, was one of admiration and shared cause, with room for disagreement.

The same appeal went wider. In Letter 92, signed in the names of Meletius, Eusebius, Basil and some thirty other Eastern bishops, he writes to the bishops of Italy and Gaul to ask for a synod's worth of visitors who will "restore the creed drawn up by our fathers at Nicæa," and describes a heresy spreading from the borders of Illyricum to the Thebaid. Letters (St. Basil of Caesarea) — Letter 92 3.6[^ep92] Letter 197, to the new bishop Ambrose of Milan, is a letter of welcome that speaks of the relics of the blessed bishop Dionysius and urges Ambrose to heal any among his people infected by Arian madness.[^ep197]

The Hexaemeron

The nine homilies on the six days of creation, which Jerome counts among his works,[^jerome] take the first chapter of Genesis a day at a time. Basil insists on the literal sense. "For me grass is grass; plant, fish, wild beast, domestic animal, I take all in the literal sense," he says in the ninth, setting himself against interpreters who change water into some other nature and make every plant a symbol. Hexaemeron — Homily IX 1.9[^hex9] In the first he begins from the beginning of the world to refute the philosophers who made it eternal, and in the second he argues that matter itself was created, since an uncreated matter would claim equal honors with God.[^hex1][^hex2]

Gregory the Theologian says of the book: "Whenever I handle his Hexaemeron, and take its words on my lips, I am brought into the presence of the Creator." Select Orations — Oration 43 67.2[^or43-67] Socrates says that Gregory of Nyssa completed, after Basil's death, the treatise on the six days that had been left unfinished,[^soc-4-26] and Gregory's own introduction to On the Making of Man says he means to supply what the Hexaemeron lacked, the consideration of man.[^mom] For the book of Genesis see Book of Genesis.

Letters, Canons and the Care of Souls

OrthodoxWiki speaks of his three hundred letters, which reveal, despite ill-health and church quarrels, a nature "optimistic, tender and even playful."[^ow-basil] Letter 93, to a patrician woman, says it is good and beneficial to communicate every day and that Basil himself communicates four times a week, on the Lord's Day, Wednesday, Friday and the Sabbath, and on other days if there is a commemoration of a saint. Letters (St. Basil of Caesarea) — Letter 93 0.3[^ep93] Letter 207 answers a charge by the clergy of Neocaesarea against his new practices of psalmody. He describes how his people go by night to the house of prayer, confess with tears, and then, divided into two parts, "sing antiphonally with one another" until dawn, and he says that the whole East, from Egypt to the Euphrates, does the same. Letters (St. Basil of Caesarea) — Letter 207 3.4[^ep207]

Three of the letters to Amphilochius, numbered 188, 199 and 217, are the canonical epistles, in which Basil sets out penances for sins. Later councils speak of his canons. The Council in Trullo (692), in its second canon, confirms along with the canons of earlier councils those of Dionysius, Peter and Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory the Wonderworker, Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Theologus, Amphilochius, and others, and in canon 40 refers to what the great Basil decreed in his holy canons about the age at which a woman might enter the order of virgins.[^trullo-2][^trullo-40] The Seventh Council, Nicaea II, in canon 19 cites Basil for the rule that a profession obtained for money is void, and in canon 20, which forbids monks and nuns to live together, orders the double monasteries already in existence to follow "the rule of our holy Father Basil."[^nic2-19]

The woman who destroys her unborn child, he says in the second, is guilty of murder, and with us, he says, there is no nice inquiry as to whether the child was formed or unformed; the penance is ten years, to be measured by the character of her repentance.[^ep188-2] Of killing in war he writes that his fathers did not reckon it as homicide, which he presumes was out of a wish to make concession to men fighting for chastity and true religion; perhaps, however, it is well to counsel those whose hands are not clean to abstain from communion for three years; a taker of usury who gives his gain to the poor may be received to the ministry.[^ep188-13] The long list of penances in Letter 217 is divided into years of weeping outside the door, hearing, kneeling and standing, and Basil closes it by saying that he measures repentance by its fruit and not by the clock.[^ep217] Letter 160 shows him answering a man who cited Leviticus 18:18 to allow marriage to a deceased wife's sister: Basil's first reply is that whatever the law says it says to those who are under the law, and he rests the matter chiefly on the custom of the Church. See Book of Leviticus.[^ep160]

The Monastic Life

Letter 2 is a short manual on solitude: the quiet mind, psalmody and prayer, the study of Scripture as a pharmacy for each defect, restrained speech, plain dress, one fixed hour for food, and a light, easily broken sleep. Letter 22 gives a similar list of what binds every Christian, and Letter 207 defends the ascetics who live with his support.[^ep2][^ep22][^ep207] OrthodoxWiki names the Moralia and the Regulae as ethical manuals for the world and the cloister and says that of the monastic rules the shorter is the one most probably his work; Jerome lists "a work On asceticism."[^ow-basil][^jerome]

Gregory the Theologian describes the shape of what Basil built: "he reconciled most excellently and united the solitary and the community life," with cells for ascetics near the communities, so that the contemplative would not be cut off from society nor the active life lose the contemplative. Select Orations — Oration 43 62.4[^or43-62] The OCA says the same of Basil's monasteries: he sought to combine the common life with the life of the solitary.[^oca-life] By the eighth century the Second Council of Nicaea could order existing double monasteries to follow his rule.

Homilies and the Liturgy

John of Damascus, defending the icons, quotes from Basil's panegyrics on the Forty Martyrs and on Gordius, a passage from a commentary on Isaiah that is given in Basil's name, and a line from the treatise on the Spirit. He says that Basil taught that "the honour given to the image is referred to the original." Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Icons — PART III 0.608[^dam-icon] The line is from the treatise on the Spirit, where Basil uses the king's image to explain how the Son and the Father are not two kings.[^dss-18] See Icons and St. John of Damascus. OrthodoxWiki quotes passages from sermons it names To the Rich and I Will Tear Down My Barns, and names others, among them one against usury, one on the famine in 368, an exposition of the Psalter, and an address to young men on the study of classical literature.[^ow-basil]

OrthodoxWiki says that Basil's reform of an existing liturgy is beyond doubt on the evidence of the tradition and of early witnesses, among them a letter of about 520 which quotes a prayer of Basil, and the Council in Trullo, whose thirty-second canon cites "Basil, the Archbishop of the Church of Cæsarea, whose glory has spread through all the world" for the mixing of water with the wine.[^ow-lit][^trullo-32] Both accounts place Basil behind the liturgy and differ over how much of its present text is his. The OCA is more cautious: the two liturgies probably received their present form after the ninth century, "it is not the case that they were written exactly as they now stand by the saints whose names they carry," but the eucharistic prayers were formulated in the fourth and fifth centuries when those saints lived.[^oca-dl] Today it is served ten times a year: on the five Sundays of Great Lent, on Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday, on the eves of Nativity and Theophany, and on his own feast.[^ow-lit] In its epiclesis, the OCA notes, it says that the bread and wine are shown to be the Body and Blood.[^oca-epik] See Divine Liturgy.

Death and Memory

Gregory the Theologian says that Basil, nearly breathless, grew stronger in his last words, ordained the best of his attendants so his disciples should not lose the priesthood, and died commending his spirit into the hands of God. The city poured around him, and at the funeral "tens of thousands of every race and age" crowded the streets, Jews, Greeks and foreigners among them, so that people were crushed to death in the press. Select Orations — Oration 43 80.2[^or43-79] The OCA gives the date, January 1, 379, and says that shortly before his death he blessed Gregory the Theologian to accept the see of Constantinople.[^oca-life]

The Church began to keep his memory at once. The OCA preserves a sentence of Amphilochius, Basil's friend, who observed that Basil died on the day of the Circumcision of Christ, between the Nativity and the Baptism, and proposed that his memory be kept on the same day each year.[^oca-life] The troparion sung to him says that "Your proclamation has gone out into all the earth," which expounded the nature of creatures and ennobled the manners of men.[^oca-trop] Gregory's panegyric also answers critics who charged Basil with pride, arguing that a man who kissed lepers could not be haughty and that what they called pride was the firmness and steadfastness of his character.[^or43-64]

Gregory of Nyssa's reply to Eunomius opens by saying that after Basil fell asleep he inherited the quarrel, and that Eunomius had spent the chief part of his energy on abuse of Basil;[^ae1-pref] a few sections later Gregory reports that Eunomius dares to call Basil "a malicious rascal and a liar."[^ae1-8] OrthodoxWiki lists among Basil's principal writings a Refutation of the Apology of the Impious Eunomius, written in 363 or 364, in three books.[^ow-basil]

One of the Three Hierarchs

The OCA's synaxarion for January 30 says that in the eleventh century disputes arose in Constantinople over which of the three, Basil, Gregory the Theologian or John Chrysostom, was greatest. Some people called themselves Basilians, others Gregorians, others Johnites. In 1084, it says, the three appeared to John, bishop of Euchaita, and said they were equal before God, and he chose January 30 as their common feast.[^oca-three] OrthodoxWiki gives the bishop's name as John Mauropous.[^ow-three] See St. Gregory the Theologian and St. John Chrysostom. Greek custom, OrthodoxWiki says, has Basil visit children on January 1 and give presents, and bakes a sweet Vasilopita with a coin hidden inside; the OCA says the coin is believed to bring Basil's blessing for the year to whoever gets it.[^ow-basil][^oca-life]

At Chalcedon the imperial judges told the bishops that the emperor believed according to the creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople and "the Canonical epistles and ectheses of the holy fathers Gregory, Basil, Athanasius, Hilary, Ambrose."[^chal-1] The Fifth Council, Constantinople II, named him among the Fathers and declared that it followed "the holy Fathers, Athanasius, Hilary, Basil, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose" and the others.[^c2]

What a Christian today can take from him is a bishop who spent his own wealth and his church's income on the destitute,[^oca-life][^ow-basil] who held that the faith of baptism fixes the way a Church prays,[^dss-10] and who wrote to a friend that what a mind most needs is quiet.[^ep2] His teaching on the Spirit is carried in the doxology that glorifies him together with the Father and the Son, his penitential canons were confirmed by the Council in Trullo, and his name is on the Liturgy that the Church serves in Lent. These threads meet in the doctrine of The Holy Spirit and the vocabulary of Ousia, and they run on into Sacred Tradition and the work of the Cappadocians.

Sources

[^oca-life]: Orthodox Church in America, "Saint Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia" (Lives of the Saints, January 1). [^ow-basil]: OrthodoxWiki, "Basil the Great." [^jerome]: Jerome, De Viris Illustribus 116. [^oca-three]: Orthodox Church in America, "Synaxis of the Ecumenical Teachers and Hierarchs Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom" (January 30). [^ow-three]: OrthodoxWiki, "Three Holy Hierarchs." [^ep223]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 223 (against Eustathius of Sebasteia), §§2–3. [^ep223-5]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 223, §§5, 7. [^or43-63]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43 (Funeral Oration on Basil), §63. [^trullo-2]: Council in Trullo (Quinisext), canon 2. [^trullo-40]: Council in Trullo (Quinisext), canon 40. [^trullo-32]: Council in Trullo (Quinisext), canon 32. [^ep236]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 236. [^ep234]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 234. [^or43]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43. [^ae1]: Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, Book I, preface. [^chal-1]: Council of Chalcedon, first session. [^c2]: Second Council of Constantinople (553), confession of the fathers. [^oca-lit-emilia]: Orthodox Church in America, "Saint Emilia, Mother of Saint Basil the Great" (January 1). [^or43-5]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §§3–8. [^ep204]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 204, §6. [^ow-peter]: OrthodoxWiki, "Peter of Sebaste." [^or43-15]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §§15–16. [^soc-4-26]: Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History 4.26. [^ep1]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 1. [^ep14]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 14. [^ep2]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 2. [^or43-28]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §§28–29. [^ep8]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 8, §1. [^or43-31]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §31. [^or43-27]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §§25–27. [^or43-37]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §37. [^or43-40]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §40. [^or43-58]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §§58–59. [^or43-34]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §34. [^or43-35]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §35. [^oca-alms]: Orthodox Church in America, "Almsgiving." [^ep94]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 94. [^chal-10]: Council of Chalcedon, canon 10, with the English editors' note. [^or43-48]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §48. [^or43-49]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §49. [^or43-50]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §§50–51. [^ae1-293]: Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, Book I, §12. [^ae1-306]: Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, Book I, §12. [^ae1-demo]: Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, Book I, §12. [^theod-4-16]: Theodoret of Cyrus, Ecclesiastical History 4.16. [^or43-54]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §54. [^or43-52]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §52. [^oca-jan19]: Orthodox Church in America, "Commemoration of the Miracle of Saint Basil the Great at Nicaea" (January 19). [^oca-amph]: Orthodox Church in America, "Saint Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium" (November 23). [^dss-1]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 1. [^dss-2]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 2. [^dss-4]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 4–5. [^dss-9]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 9. [^dss-10]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 10, 12, 27. [^dss-11]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 11. [^pom-spirit]: Michael Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, "The equality of honor and the Divinity of the Holy Spirit." [^dss-17]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 17. [^dss-21]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 20–21. [^dss-22]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 22. [^dss-24]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 24. [^dss-16]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 16. [^dss-18]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 18. [^dss-26]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 26–27. [^dss-29]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 29. [^dss-29b]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 27, 29. [^dss-30]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 30. [^dss-30b]: Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 30. [^or43-68]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §68. [^or43-69]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §69. [^ep8-2]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 8, §2. [^ep159]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 159. [^ep125]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 125. [^ep38]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 38. [^oca-second]: Orthodox Church in America, "The Second Ecumenical Council." [^ow-eust]: OrthodoxWiki, "Eustathius of Sebaste." [^ep244]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 244, §§2–7. [^ep69]: Basil of Caesarea, Letters 66 and 69. [^ep80]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 80. [^ep266]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 266. [^ep92]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 92. [^hex9]: Basil of Caesarea, Hexaemeron, Homily 9. [^hex1]: Basil of Caesarea, Hexaemeron, Homily 1. [^hex2]: Basil of Caesarea, Hexaemeron, Homily 2. [^or43-67]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §67. [^ep93]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 93. [^ep207]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 207, §§2–3. [^nic2-19]: Second Council of Nicaea (787), canons 19 and 20. [^ep188-2]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 188 (first canonical letter), canon 2. [^ep188-13]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 188, canons 13–14. [^ep217]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 217, canons 56 and 84. [^ep160]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 160. [^ep22]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 22. [^or43-62]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §62. [^dam-icon]: John of Damascus, Apologia Against Those Who Decry Holy Icons, Part 3. [^ow-lit]: OrthodoxWiki, "Liturgy of St. Basil." [^oca-dl]: Orthodox Church in America, "The Divine Liturgy." [^oca-epik]: Orthodox Church in America, "Epiklesis." [^or43-79]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §§78–80. [^oca-trop]: Orthodox Church in America, troparion for January 1. [^or43-64]: Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43, §64. [^ae1-pref]: Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, Book I, prefatory letters. [^ae1-8]: Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, Book I, §8. [^mom]: Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, introduction. [^soc-4-12]: Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History 4.12. [^soc-2-43]: Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History 2.43. [^theod-2-20]: Theodoret of Cyrus, Ecclesiastical History 2.20. [^ep197]: Basil of Caesarea, Letter 197.