A SELECT LIBRARY
OF THE
NICENE AND
POST-NICENE FATHERS
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
SECOND SERIES
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH PROLEGOMENA AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.
Edited by
AND
HENRY WACE, D.D.,
PRINCIPAL OF KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON.
VOLUME VIII
BASIL: LETTERS AND SELECT WORKS
T&T CLARK
EDINBURGH
WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY
GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN
Translated with Notes
The Rev. Blomfield Jackson, M.A.
Vicar of Saint Bartholomew's, Moor Lane, and Fellow of King's College, London.
Preface.
This translation of a portion of the works of St. Basil was originally begun under the editorial supervision of Dr. Wace. It was first announced that the translation would comprise the De Spiritu Sancto and Select Letters, but it was ultimately arranged with Dr. Wace that a volume of the series should be devoted to St. Basil, containing, as well as the De Spiritu Sancto, the whole of the Letters, and the Hexaemeron. The De Spiritu Sancto has already appeared in an English form, as have portions of the Letters, but I am not aware of an English translation of the Hexaemeron, or of all the Letters. The De Spiritu Sancto was presumably selected for publication as being at once the most famous, as it is among the most valuable, of the extant works of this Father. The Letters comprise short theological treatises and contain passages of historical and varied biographical interest, as well as valuable specimens of spiritual and consolatory exhortation. The Hexaemeron was added as being the most noted and popular of St. Basil's compositions in older days, and as illustrating his exegetic method and skill, and his power as an extempore preacher.
The edition used has been that of the Benedictine editors as issued by Migne, with the aid, in the case of the De Spiritu Sancto, of that published by Rev. C. F. H. Johnston.
The editorship of Dr. Wace terminated during the progress of the work, but I am indebted to him, and very gratefully acknowledge the obligation, for valuable counsel and suggestions. I also desire to record my thanks to the Rev. C. Hole, Lecturer in Ecclesiastical History at King's College, London, and to Mr. Reginald Geare, Head Master of the Grammar School, Bishop's Stortford, to the former for help in the revision of proof-sheets and important suggestions, and to the latter for aid in the translation of several of the Letters.
The works consulted in the process of translation and attempted illustration are sufficiently indicated in the notes.
London, December, 1894.
Genealogical Tables
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
TO ACCOMPANY THE LIFE OF ST. BASIL.
329 or 330. St. Basil born.
335. Council of Tyre.
336. Death of Arius.
337. Death of Constantine.
340. Death of Constantine II.
341. Dedication creed at Antioch.
343. Julian and Gallus relegated to Macellum.
Basil probably sent from Annen to school at Caesarea.
344. Macrostich, and Council of Sardica.
346. Basil goes to constantinople.
350. Death of Constans.
351. Basil goes to constantinople.
1st Creed of Sirmium.
353. Death of Magnentius.
355. Julian goes to Athens (latter part of year).
356. Basil returns to Caesarea.
357. The 2d Creed of Sirmium, or Blasphemy, subscribed by Hosius and Liberius.
Basil baptized, and shortly afterwards ordained reader.
358. Basil visits monastic establishments in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, and retires to the monastery on the Iris.
359. The 3d Creed of Sirmium. Dated May 22. Councils of Seleucia and Ariminum.
360. Acacian synod of Constantinople.
Basil, now ordained Deacon, disputes with Aetius.
Dianius subscribes the Creed of Ariminum, and
Basil in consequence leaves Caesarea.
He visits Gregory at Nazianzus.
361. Death of Constantius and accession of Julian.
Basil writes the "Moralia."
362. Basil returns to Caesarea.
Dianius dies. Eusebius baptized, elected, and consecrated bishop.
Lucifer consecrates Paulinus at Antioch.
Julian at Caesarea. Martyrdom of Eupsychius.
363. Julian dies (June 27). Accession of Jovian.
364. Jovian dies. Accession of Valentinian and Valens.
Basil ordained priest by Eusebius.
Basil writes against Eunomius.
Semiarian council of Lampsacus.
365. Revolt of Procopius.
Valens at Caesarea.
366. Semiarian deputation to Rome satisfy Liberius of their orthodoxy.
Death of Liberius. Damasus bp. of Rome.
Procopius defeated.
367. Gratian Augustus.
Valens favours the Arians.
Council of Tyana.
368. Semiarian Council in Caria. Famine in Cappadocia
369. Death of Emmelia. Basil visits Samosata.
370. Death of Eusebius of Caesarea
Election and consecration of Basil to the see of Caesarea.
Basil makes visitation tour.
371. Basil threatened by arian bishops and by modestus.
Valens, travelling slowly from Nicomedia to Caesarea, arrives at the end of the year.
372. Valens attends great service at Caesarea on the Epiphany, Jan. 6.
Interviews between Basil and Valens.
Death of Galates.
Valens endows Ptochotrophium and quits Caesarea.
Basil visits Eusebius at Samosata.
Claim of Anthimus to metropolitan dignity at Tyana.
Basil resists Anthimus.
Basil Forces Gregory of Nazianzus to be consecrated bishop of Sasima, and consecrates his brother Gregory to Nyssa. Consequent estrangement of Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus.
Basil in Armenia. Creed signed by Eustathius.
373. St. Epiphanius writes the "Ancoratus."
Death of Athanasius.
Basil visited by Jovinus of Perrha, and by Sanctissimus of Antioch.
374. Death of Auxentius and consecration of Ambrose at Milan.
Basil writes the "De Spiritu Sancto."
Eusebius of Samosata banished to Thrace.
Death of Gregory, bp. of Nazianzus, the elder.
375. Death of Valentinian. Gratian and Valentinian II. emperors.
Synod of Illyria, and Letter to the Orientals.
Semiarian Council of Cyzicus.
Demosthenes harasses the Catholics.
Gregory of Nyssa deposed.
376. Synod of Iconium.
Open denunciation of Eustathius by Basil.
378. Death of Valens, Aug. 9.
Eusebius of Samosata and Meletius return from exile.
379. Death of Basil, Jan. 1.
Theodosius Augustus.
Prolegomena.
Sketch of the Life and Works of Saint Basil.
I. Life.
I.--Parentage and Birth.
Under the persecution of the second Maximinus, a Christian gentleman of good position and fair estate in Pontus and Macrina his wife, suffered severe hardships. They escaped with their lives, and appear to have retained, or recovered, some of their property. Of their children the names of two only have survived: Gregory and Basil. The former became bishop of one of the sees of Cappadocia. The latter acquired a high reputation in Pontus and the neighboring districts as an advocate of eminence, and as a teacher of rhetoric. His character in the Church for probity and piety stood very high. He married an orphaned gentlewoman named Emmelia, whose father had suffered impoverishment and death for Christ's sake, and who was herself a conspicuous example of high-minded and gentle Christian womanhood. Of this happy union were born ten children, five boys and five girls. One of the boys appears to have died in infancy, for on the death of the elder Basil four sons and five daughters were left to share the considerable wealth which he left behind him. Of the nine survivors the eldest was a daughter, named, after her grandmother, Macrina. The eldest of the sons was Basil, the second Naucratius, and the third Gregory. Peter, the youngest of the whole family, was born shortly before his father's death. Of this remarkable group the eldest is commemorated as Saint Macrina in the biography written by her brother Gregory. Naucratius died in early manhood, about the time of the ordination of Basil as reader. The three remaining brothers occupied respectively the sees of Caesarea, Nyssa, and Sebasteia.
As to the date of St. Basil's birth opinions have varied between 316 and 330. The later, which is supported by Garnier, Tillemont, Maran, Fessler, and Böhringer, may probably be accepted as approximately correct. It is true that Basil calls himself an old man in 374, but he was prematurely worn out with work and bad health, and to his friends wrote freely and without concealment of his infirmities. There appears no reason to question the date 329 or 330.
Two cities, Caesarea in Cappadocia and Neocaesarea in Pontus, have both been named as his birthplace. There must be some amount of uncertainty on this point, from the fact that no direct statement exists to clear it up, and that the word patris was loosely employed to mean not only place of birth, but place of residence and occupation. Basil's parents had property and interests both in Pontus and Cappadocia and were as likely to be in the one as in the other. The early statement of Gregory of Nazianzus has been held to have weight, inasmuch as he speaks of Basil as a Cappadocian like himself before there was any other reason but that of birth for associating him with this province. Assenting, then, to the considerations which have been held to afford reasonable ground for assigning Caesarea as the birthplace, we may adopt the popular estimation of Basil as one of "The Three Cappadocians," and congratulate Cappadocia on the Christian associations which have rescued her fair fame from the slur of the epigram which described her as constituting with Crete and Cilicia a trinity of unsatisfactoriness. Basil's birth nearly synchronizes with the transference of the chief seat of empire from Rome to Byzantium. He is born into a world where the victory already achieved by the Church has been now for sixteen years officially recognized. He is born into a Church in which the first great Council has already given official expression to those cardinal doctrines of the faith, of which the final and formal vindication is not to be assured till after the struggles of the next six score of years. Rome, reduced, civilly, to the subordinate rank of a provincial city, is pausing before she realises all her loss, and waits for the crowning outrage of the barbarian invasions, ere she begins to make serious efforts to grasp ecclesiastically, something of her lost imperial prestige. For a time the centre of ecclesiastical and theological interest is to be rather in the East than in the West.
Of sufferers in this supreme struggle of heathenism to delay the official recognition of the victory of the Gospel over the empire, the Reformed Kalendar of the English Church preserves the memory of St. Blaise (Blasius), bishop of Sebasteia in Armenia, St. George, St. Agnes, St. Lucy, St. Margaret of Antioch, St. Katharine of Alexandria.
Greg. Naz., Or. xliii. (xx.). N.B. The reff. to the orations and letters of Greg. Naz. are to the Ordo novus in Migne.
Bishop of an unknown see. Of the foolish duplicity of Gregory of Nyssa in fabricating a letter from him, see the mention in Epp. lviii., lix., lx.
Basileios, Basilius=royal or kingly. The name was a common one. Fabricius catalogues "alii Basilii ultra xxx.," all of some fame. The derivation of Basileus is uncertain, and the connexion of the last syllable with leus=leos=laos, people, almost certainly wrong. The root may be ÖBA, with the idea that the leader makes the followers march. With the type of name, cf. Melchi and the compounds of Melech (e.g. Abimelech) in Scripture, and King, LeRoy, Koenig, among modern names.
Greg. Nyss., Vit. Mac. 392.
Greg. Nyss., Vit. Mac. 186.
Greg. Nyss., Vit. Mac. 182.
Greg. Naz., Or. xliii. (xx.).
329. Prudent Maran, the Ben. Ed. of Basil, was a Benedictine exiled for opposing the Bull Unigenitus. 1762.
Gregory of Nazianzus, so called, was born during the episcopate of his father, Gregory, bishop of Nazianzus. Gregory the elder died in 373, after holding the see forty-five years. The birth of Gregory the younger cannot therefore be put before 328, and Basil was a little younger than his friend. (Greg. Naz., Ep. xxxiii.) But the birth of Gregory in his father's episcopate has naturally been contested. Vide D.C.B. ii. p. 748, and L. Montaut, Revue Critique on Greg. of N. 1878.
Ep. clxii.
Gregory of Nazianzus calls Basil a Cappadocian in Ep. vi., and speaks of their both belonging to the same patris. In his Homily In Gordium martyrem, Basil mentions the adornment of Caesarea as being his own adornment. In Epp. lxxvi. and xcvi. he calls Cappadocia his patris. In Ep. lxxiv., Caesarea. In Ep. li. it is doubtful whether it is Pontus, whence he writes, which is his patris, or Caesarea, of which he is writing. In Ep. lxxxvii. it is apparently Pontus. Gregory of Nyssa (Orat. I. in xl. Mart.) calls Sebaste the patris of his forefathers, possibly because Sebaste had at one time been under the jurisdiction of Cappadocia. So in the N.T. patris is the place of the early life and education of our Lord.
Maran, Vit. Bas. i.
Böhringer.
Kappadoches, Koetes, Kilikes, tria kappa kakista. On Basil's own estimate of the Cappadocian character, cf. p. 153, n. cf. also Isidore of Pelusium, i. Epp. 351, 352, 281.
The edict of Milan was issued in 313.
II.--Education.
The place most closely connected with St. Basil's early years is neither Caesarea nor Neocaesarea, but an insignificant village not far from the latter place, where he was brought up by his admirable grandmother Macrina. In this neighbourhood his family had considerable property, and here he afterwards resided. The estate was at Annesi on the river Iris (Jekil-Irmak), and lay in the neighbourhood of scenery of romantic beauty. Basil's own description of his retreat on the opposite side of the Iris matches the reference of Gregory of Nazianzus to the narrow glen among lofty mountains, which keep it always in shadow and darkness, while far below the river foams and roars in its narrow precipitous bed.
There is some little difficulty in understanding the statement of Basil in Letter CCXVI., that the house of his brother Peter, which he visited in 375, and which we may assume to have been on the family property (cf. Letter CX. § 1) was "not far from Neocaesarea." As a matter of fact, the Iris nowhere winds nearer to Neocaesarea than at a distance of about twenty miles, and Turkhal is not at the nearest point. But it is all a question of degree. Relatively to Caesarea, Basil's usual place of residence, Annesi is near Neocaesarea. An analogy would be found in the statement of a writer usually residing in London, that if he came to Sheffield he would be not far from Doncaster. [25]
At Annesi his mother Emmelia erected a chapel in honour of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste to which their relics were translated. It is possible that Basil was present at the dedication services, lasting all night long, which are related to have sent his brother Gregory to sleep. Here, then, Basil was taught the rudiments of religion by his grandmother, and by his father, in accordance with the teaching of the great Gregory the Wonder-worker. Here he learned the Catholic faith.
At an early age he seems to have been sent to school at Caesarea, and there to have formed the acquaintance of an Eusebius, otherwise unknown, Hesychius, and Gregory of Nazianzus, and to have conceived a boyish admiration for Dianius the archbishop. [34]
From Caesarea Basil went to Constantinople, and there studied rhetoric and philosophy with success. Socrates and Sozomen say that he worked at Antioch under Libanius. It may be that both these writers have confounded Basil of Caesarea with the Basil to whom Chrysostom dedicated his De Sacerdotio, and who was perhaps the bishop of Raphanea, who signed the creed of Constantinople. [37]
There is no corroboration of a sojourn of Basil of Caesarea at Antioch. Libanius was at Constantinople in 347, and there Basil may have attended his lectures. [39]
From Constantinople the young Cappadocian student proceeded in 351 to Athens. Of an university town of the 4th century we have a lively picture in the writings of his friend, and are reminded that the rough horse-play of the modern undergraduate is a survival of a very ancient barbarism. The lads were affiliated to certain fraternities, and looked out for the arrival of every new student at the city, with the object of attaching him to the classes of this or that teacher. Kinsmen were on the watch for kinsmen and acquaintances for acquaintances; sometimes it was mere good-humoured violence which secured the person of the freshman. The first step in this grotesque matriculation was an entertainment; then the guest of the day was conducted with ceremonial procession through the agora to the entrance of the baths. There they leaped round him with wild cries, and refused him admission. At last an entry was forced with mock fury, and the neophyte was made free of the mysteries of the baths and of the lecture halls. Gregory of Nazianzus, a student a little senior to Basil, succeeded in sparing him the ordeal of this initiation, and his dignity and sweetness of character seem to have secured him immunity from rough usage without loss of popularity. At Athens the two young Cappadocians were noted among their contemporaries for three things: their diligence and success in work; their stainless and devout life; and their close mutual affection. Everything was common to them. They were as one soul. What formed the closest bond of union was their faith. God and their love of what is best made them one. Himerius, a pagan, and Prohaeresius, an Armenian Christian, are mentioned among the well-known professors whose classes Basil attended. Among early friendships, formed possibly during his university career, Basil's own letters name those with Terentius and Sophronius. [46]
If the Libanian correspondence be accepted as genuine, we may add Celsus, a pupil of Libanius, to the group. But if we except Basil's affection for Gregory of Nazianzus, of none of these intimacies is the interest so great as of that which is recorded to have been formed between Basil and the young prince Julian. One incident of the Athenian sojourn, which led to bitter consequences in after days, was the brief communication with Apollinarius, and the letter written "from layman to layman," which his opponents made a handle for much malevolence, and perhaps for forgery. Julian arrived at Athens after the middle of the year 355. Basil's departure thence and return to Caesarea may therefore be approximately fixed early in 356. Basil starts for his life's work with the equipment of the most liberal education which the age could supply. He has studied Greek literature, rhetoric, and philosophy under the most famous teachers. He has been brought into contact with every class of mind. His training has been no narrow hothouse forcing of theological opinion and ecclesiastical sentiment. The world which he is to renounce, to confront, to influence is not a world unknown to him. He has seen heathenism in all the autumn grace of its decline, and comes away victorious from seductions which were fatal to some young men of early Christian associations. Athens no doubt contributed its share of influence to the apostasy of Julian. Basil, happily, was found to be rooted more firmly in the faith. [53]
Epp. cciv., ccx., ccxxiii.
Epp. iii., ccxxiii. The researches of Prof. W. M. Ramsay enable the exact spot to be identified with approximate certainty, and, with his guidance, a pilgrim to the scenes of Basil's boyhood and earlier monastic labours might feel himself on fairly sure ground. He refers to the description of St. Basil's hermitage given by Gregory of Nazianzus in his Ep. iv., a description which may be compared with that of Basil himself in Ep. xiv., as one which "can hardly refer to any other spot than the rocky glen below Turkhal. Ibora," in which the diocese Annesi was situated, "cannot be placed further down, because it is the frontier bishopric of Pontus towards Sebasteia, and further up there is no rocky glen until the territory of Comana is reached. Gregory Nyssenus, in his treatise on baptism" (Migne, iii. 324 c.) "speaks of Comana as a neighbouring city. Tillemont, thinking that the treatise was written at Nyssa, infers that Nyssa and Comana were near each other. The truth is that Gregory must have written his treatise at Annesi. We may therefore infer that the territory of Ibora adjoined that of Comana on the east and that of Sebasteia on the south, and touched the Iris from the boundary of Comana down to the point below Turkhal. The boundary was probably near Tokat, and Ibora itself may have been actually situated near Turkhal." Prof. W. M. Ramsay, Hist. Geog. of Asia Minor, p. 326.
Ep. xiv.
Greg. Naz., Ep. iv.
On the visits to Peter, Prof. W. M. Ramsay writes: "The first and more natural interpretation is that Peter lived at a place further up the Iris than Dazimon, in the direction of Neocaesarea. But on more careful consideration it is obvious that, after the troubles in Dazimon, Basil went to take a holiday with his brother Peter, and therefore he did not necessarily continue his journey onward from Dazimon. The expression of neighbourhood to the district of Neocaesarea is doubtless only comparative. Basil's usual residence was at Caesarea. Moreover, as Ibora has now been placed, its territory probably touched that of Neocaesarea." Hist. Geog. of A.M. p. 328.
Greg. Nyss., Orat. in xl. Mart.
Greg. Naz., Or. xliii.
Ep. ccxxiii.
See Ep. cciv. and note on p. 250.
i.e. the Cappadocian Caesarea. The theory of Tillemont that Caesarea of Palestine was the scene of Basil's early school life seems hardly to deserve the careful refutation of Maran (Vit. Bas. i. 5). cf. Ep. xlv. p. 148, and p. 145, n. cf. also note on p. 141 on a possible intercourse between the boy Basil and the young princes Gallus and Julian in their seclusion at Macellum. The park and palace of Macellum (Amm. Marc. "fundus") was near Mt. Argaeus (Soz. v. 2) and close to Caesarea. If Basil and Julian did ever study the Bible together, it seems more probably that they should do so at Macellum, while the prince was still being educated as a Christian, than afterwards at Athens, when the residence at Nicomedia has resulted in the apostasy. cf. Maran, Vit. Bas. ii. 4.
Ep. cclxxi.
Ep. lxiv.
Greg. Naz. Or. xliii.
Ecc. Hist. iv. 26.
Ecc. Hist. vi. 17.
Maran, Vit. Bas. ii., Fabricius, Ed. Harles. vol. ix.
He does not seem to have been at Antioch until 353, D.C.B. iii. 710, when Basil was at Athens.
cf. the correspondence with Libanius, of which the genuineness has been questioned, in Letters cccxxxv.-ccclix. Letter cccxxxix. suggests a possibility of some study of Hebrew. But Basil always uses the LXX.
Greg. Naz., Or. xliii., and poem De Vita Sua.
phratriai. Greg., De Vita Sua, 215.
A somewhat similar exemption is recorded of Dean Stanley at Rugby.
Greg. Naz., Or. xliii. 20, 21; Carm. xi. 221-235: "O d' eis en hemas diapherontos egage Tout en theos te kai pothos ton kreissonon." Ullman (Life of Greg.) quotes Cic., De Amicitia, xxv.: "Amicitiae vis est in eo ut unus quasi animus fiat ex pluribus."
Soc. iv. 26 and Soz. vi. 17.
Ep. lxiv.
Ep. cclxxii.
Ep. cccvi.
Greg. Naz., Or. iv., Epp. xxxix., xl., xli., on the first of which see note.
Amm. Mar. xv. 2, 8. "Permissus" is no doubt an euphemism for "coactus."
"Non enim citius contigit anno 355 exeunte aut ineunte 356, si quidem ibi vidit Basilius Julianum, qui in hanc urbem venit jam media parte anni 355elapsa: neque etiam serius, quia spatia inter studia litterarum et sacerdotium nimis contrahi non patitur rerum Basilii gestarum multitudo." Maran.
On the education of Basil, Eug. Fialon remarks (Etude Historique et Litteraire, p. 15): "Saint Grégoire, sur le trône patriarcal de Constantinople, déclarait ne pas savoir la langue de Rome. Il en fut de même de Saint Basile. Du moins, c'est vainement qu'on chercherait dans ses ouvrages quelque trace des poètes ou des prosateurs Latins. Si des passages de l'Hexaméron semblent tirés de Cicéron ou de Pline, il ne faut pas s'y méprendre. C'étaint de sortes de lieux cammuns qui se retrouvent dans Plutarque et dans Élien-ceux-ci les avaient empruntés à quelque vieil auteur, Aristotle, par exemple, et c'est à cette source première qu'avaient puisé Grecs et Latins. Les Grecs poussaient même si loin l'ignorance du ayant à dire comment le mot ciel s'exprime en Latin, l'écrit a peu pres comme il devait l'entendre prononcer aux Romains, Keloum, sans se préoccuper de la quantité ni de l'etymologie...La littérature Grecque était donc le fonds unique des études en Orient, et certes elle pouvait, à elle seule, satisfaire de nobles intelligences...C'est dans Homère que les jeunes Grecs apprenaient à lire. Pendant tout le cours de leurs études, ils expliquaient ses poèmes...Ses vers remplissent la correspondances des pères de l'Eglise, et plus d'une comparaison profane passe de ses poèmes dans leurs homélies. Après Homère, venaient Hésiode et les tragiques Hérodote et Thucydide, Démosthène, Isocrate, et Lysias. Ainsi poètes, historiens, orateurs, formaient l'esprit, dirigeaient le coeur, élevaient l'âme des enfants. Mais ces auteurs étaient les coryphées du paganisme, et plus d'une passage de leur livres blessait la morale sévère du christianisme. Nul doute qu'un maitre religieux, un saint, comme le père de Basile, á propos des dieux d'Homére,...dût plus d'une fois déplorer l'aveuglement d'un si beau génie....Jusqu'ici, les études de Basile repondent à peu près á notre instruction secondaire. Alors, comme aujourd'hui ces première études n'etaient qu'un acheminement à des travaux plus serieux. Muni de ce premier bagage littéraire, un jeune homme rich, et que voulait briller dans le monde, allait dans les grands centres, à Antioche, à Alexandrie, à Constantinople, et surtout à Athènes, ètudier l'éloquence et la philosophie."