St. Basil the Great was a Bishop of Caesarea in the Roman province of Cappadocia.
Background
Basil was born in 329 in Caesarea, Cappadocia, Turkey. One of 10 children, Basil came from a wealthy and noble Christian family of Cappadocia (now in Turkey); his younger brother Gregory, later known as Gregory of Nyssa, also became a bishop and a distinguished theologian.
Education
When he was 22, after studying in his native Caesarea and in Constantinople, Basil went to Athens for 5 years to further his liberal education. There he met Gregory of Nazianzus, a fellow student, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship.
Career
After teaching rhetoric for a time in Caesarea, Basil decided to abandon the pleasures of secular life and to pursue instead the ideal of Christian perfection. He visited notable Christian ascetics in Egypt and the Near East and then returned, when he was about 30, to his family's estates on the Iris River to lead a life of monastic retirement and rigid discipline. Influencing others by his example, Basil was the inaugurator in Asia Minor of cenobitic monasticism, a system in which monks live in communities under a shared rule of life. Basil's writings on monasticism are the single most important body of regulative documents in Eastern Orthodox monasticism. Bishop of Caesarea Because of his leadership and learning, Basil was drawn away from monastic affairs into the wider life and conflicts of the Church.
Between 359 and 370 two successive bishops of Caesarea summoned him to their service, the second of them ordaining him a priest. But Basil's strong convictions resulted in strained relations with his superiors, and he often left Caesarea to work among his monasteries. In 370, however, he was made bishop of Caesarea, and until his death in 379 he was one of the most important figures of the Eastern Church. The most pressing problem Basil faced was the still unresolved Arian controversy, which had severely troubled the Eastern Church over the preceding 50 years.
As a Church leader, Basil showed notable courage in defying the Eastern emperor Valens, who was intent on forcing a creedal statement tolerant of Arianism on the Church and banishing anti-Arian bishops. In his prolonged attempts to bring order and understanding to the chaotic conflict of parties in the Eastern Church, Basil tried repeatedly but without success to win the aid of the Roman papacy in approving the growing coalition of non-Arian parties. Too much of a moderate to be acceptable to the staunchly Nicene position of the papacy, he paved the way nonetheless for the final victory of his cause at the Council of Constantinople in 381, a victory he did not live to see.
Views
While the Arians asserted that belief in the full deity of Christ was incompatible with monotheism, the chief problem for the various non-Arian groups had come to rest in the question of whether it was possible to preserve the distinctions among God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit, while continuing to assert the full deity of all three. Basil was certain that Arianism was heretical, but he also believed that the Nicene party, adhering strictly to the language of the Council of Nicaea (325), had not yet presented a defensible theological formulation of the orthodox position. He took the decisive step of agreeing with the Nicene party that there is only one divine substance (Greek, ousia) shared by Father, Son, and Spirit, but of insisting at the same time that each of the three is an individual hypostasis within the triune deity.
Quotations:
“When someone steals another's clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor. ”
“A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love. ”
“The bread which you hold back belongs to the hungry; the coat, which you guard in your locked storage-chests, belongs to the naked; the footwear mouldering in your closet belongs to those without shoes. The silver that you keep hidden in a safe place belongs to the one in need. Thus, however many are those whom you could have provided for, so many are those whom you wrong. ”
“What does the Spirit do? His works are ineffable in majesty, and innumerable in quantity. How can we even ponder what extends beyond the ages? What did He do before creation began? How great are the graces He showered on creation? What power will He wield in the age to come? He existed; He pre-existed; He co-existed with the Father and the Son before the ages. Even if you can imagine anything beyond the ages, you will discover that the Spirit is even further before. ”
“I want creation to penetrate you with so much admiration that everywhere, wherever you may be, the least plant may bring to you the clear remembrance of the Creator. If you see the grass of the fields, think of human nature, and remember the comparison of the wise Isaiah. “All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. ”
“The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit. ”
“Care for the needy requires the expenditure of wealth: when all share alike, disbursing their possessions among themselves, they each receive a small portion for their individual needs. Thus, those who love their neighbor as themselves possess nothing more than their neighbor; yet surely, you seem to have great possessions! How else can this be, but that you have preferred your own enjoyment to the consolation of the many? For the more you abound in wealth, the more you lack in love. ”
“When I go into the house of one of these tasteless newly rich individuals, and see it bedecked with every imaginable hue, I know that this person possesses nothing more valuable than what is on display; such people decorate inanimate objects, but fail to beautify the soul. ”
“You showed no mercy; it will not be shown to you. You opened not your house; you will be expelled from the Kingdom. You gave not your bread; you will not receive eternal life. ”
“And what then? One night, a fever, a pleurisy, or an inflammation of the lungs, snatches away this man from the midst of men, stripped in a moment of all his stage accessories, and all this, his glory, is proved a mere dream. Therefore the Prophet has compared human glory to the weakest flower. ”
“[The Holy Spirit] is present as a whole to each and wholly present everywhere. He is portioned out impassably and participated in as a whole. He is like a sunbeam whose grace is present to the one who enjoys him as if he were present to such a one alone, and still he illuminates land and sea and is mixed with the air. Just so, indeed, the Spirit is present to each one who is fit to receive him, as if he were present to him alone, and still he sends out his grace that is complete and sufficient for all. The things that participate in him enjoy him to the extent that their nature allows, not to the extent that his power allows. ”
“Had you clothed the naked, had you given your bread to the hungry, had your door been open to every stranger, had you been a parent to the orphan, had you made the suffering of every helpless person your own, what money would you have left, the loss of which to grieve?”
“After they have squandered their wealth among so many pursuits, if there is any left over, they hide it in the ground and guard it deep within the earth. “For the future, ” they say, “is always uncertain; therefore let us take care, lest some unforeseen need should arise. ” Yet while it is uncertain whether you will have need of this buried gold, the losses you incur from your inhuman behavior are not at all uncertain”
“I know many who fast, pray, sigh, and demonstrate every manner of piety, so long as it costs them nothing, yet would not part with a penny to help those in distress. ”
“What then will you answer the Judge? You gorgeously array your walls, but do not clothe your fellow human being; you adorn horses, but turn away from the shameful plight of your brother or sister; you allow grain to rot in your barns, but do not feed those who are starving; you hide gold in the earth, but ignore the oppressed!”
Personality
Basil, his brother Gregory, and Gregory of Nazianzus are often referred to as the "Cappadocian fathers. "