Basil of Caesarea

• 1. Introduction

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  Basil of Caesarea once told a prefect of the emperor, "Perhaps you have never yet had to deal with a bishop." The prefect, a man named Modestus, had been sent by the Emperor Valens to force a compromise with the Arian faction. He later reported back that no one had ever spoken to him in that way before, and that nothing short of violence would move this man. Basil was born around 330 into a wealthy Cappadocian Greek family. He died on the 1st or the 2nd of January 379, after serving as Bishop of Caesarea Mazaca from 370. He left behind a reputation as theologian, ascetic, and defender of the Nicene Creed against the heresies of his age. But the legacy that outlived the doctrinal battles was something more concrete. How does a man who once practiced law and taught rhetoric come to be remembered as a father of communal monasticism? Why did an emperor who banished him repeatedly end up donating land to his cause? And what is the building outside Caesarea that one of his closest friends compared to the wonders of the world?

• 2. A House Of Saints

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  Ten children grew up in the household of Basil the Elder and Emmelia of Caesarea, and their parents were known for their piety. Basil's maternal grandfather had been a Christian martyr, executed in the years before Constantine I's conversion. His pious paternal grandmother, Macrina, was a follower of Gregory Thaumaturgus, who had founded the nearby church of Neocaesarea. She raised Basil and four of his siblings, all of whom are now venerated as saints: Macrina the Younger, Naucratius, Peter of Sebaste, and Gregory of Nyssa. Around 350 to 351, Basil received more formal education in Caesarea Mazaca, the city known today as Kayseri. There he first met Gregory of Nazianzus, a friendship that would shape both their lives. The two went separate ways for further study, Gregory to Alexandria and Basil to Constantinople, where he heard the lectures of Libanius. They met again in Athens and became fast friends. Among their fellow students was a young man who would later become the emperor Julian the Apostate. Basil left Athens in 356, and after travels in Egypt and Syria, he returned home. For around a year he practiced law and taught rhetoric, a worldly career that would soon collapse under the weight of a single encounter.

• 3. A Deep Sleep

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  Eustathius of Sebaste was a charismatic bishop and ascetic, and meeting him changed everything for Basil. Abandoning his legal and teaching career, Basil turned his life entirely toward God. He later described the moment in a letter, writing that he had wasted much time on follies and spent nearly all of his youth in vain labours. "Suddenly, I awoke as out of a deep sleep," he wrote. "I beheld the wonderful light of the Gospel truth, and I recognized the nothingness of the wisdom of the princes of this world." In 357 Basil travelled to Palestine, Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia to study ascetics and monasticism, with Eustathius mentoring him as a prominent anchorite near Pontus. He distributed his fortunes among the poor and went briefly into solitude near Neocaesarea of Pontus, the town now called Niksar, on the Iris River. The solitary life, he found, did not call him. He respected the ascetics' piety and prayerfulness, but he was drawn instead toward communal religious life. He and Eustathius would also eventually differ over dogma, a parting that foreshadowed the doctrinal storms ahead.

• 4. The Estate At Annesi

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  By 358, Basil was gathering around him a group of like-minded disciples, including his brother Peter. Together they founded a monastic settlement on his family's estate near Annesi, a place identified today with Sonusa or Uluköy, near the confluence of the Iris and Lycos rivers. His widowed mother Emmelia, his sister Macrina, and several other women joined them and devoted themselves to prayer and charitable works. Some hold that Macrina herself founded this community. Here Basil wrote about monastic communal life, and these writings became pivotal in developing the monastic traditions of the Eastern Church. In 358 he invited Gregory of Nazianzus to join him at Annesi. When Gregory arrived, the two friends collaborated on the Philocalia, a collection of the works of Origen, before Gregory decided to return to his family in Nazianzus. Basil's path then turned toward the great theological dispute of the century. He attended the Council of Constantinople in 360, where he at first sided with Eustathius and the Homoiousians, a semi-Arian faction. They taught that the Son was of like substance with the Father, neither the same nor different. He would not stay in that camp for long.

• 5. The Nicene Cause

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  In 362, Bishop Meletius of Antioch ordained Basil as a deacon. A bishop named Eusebius then summoned him to Caesarea and ordained him presbyter of the Church there in 365, needing him as an assistant for his intellectual gifts. Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus spent the next years combatting the Arian heresy, which threatened to divide Cappadocia's Christians. They agreed to a great rhetorical contest with accomplished Arian theologians, and in public debates presided over by agents of Valens, the two friends emerged triumphant. The Homoiousians had refused to join the supporters of the Nicene Creed, who professed that the members of the Trinity were of one substance, the term homoousios. Basil's own bishop, Dianius of Caesarea, had subscribed only to the earlier Nicene form of agreement. In time Basil abandoned the Homoiousians and emerged as a strong supporter of the Nicene Creed. His ability to balance theological conviction with political connection made him a powerful advocate. He defined the terms ousia and hypostasis, and shaped the classic formulation of three Persons in one Nature. His single greatest contribution was his insistence on the divinity and consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son. For this stance he could not be silenced, even by an emperor who came in person to hear him celebrate the Divine Liturgy on the Feast of the Theophany.

• 6. Bishop And Almoner

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  On the 14th of June 370, Basil was consecrated bishop after Eusebius died and Basil was chosen to succeed him. The post gave him the powers of exarch of Pontus and metropolitan of five suffragan bishops, many of whom had opposed him in the election. Hot-blooded and somewhat imperious, he was also generous and sympathetic. During a famine following a drought, he personally organized a soup kitchen and distributed food to the poor. His letters show him working to reform thieves and prostitutes, and warning his clergy not to be tempted by wealth or the easy life of a priest. He took care in selecting worthy candidates for holy orders, and he had the courage to criticize public officials who failed in administering justice. Every morning and evening he preached to large congregations in his own church. He gave voice to a fierce view of charity, declaring that the bread you store belongs to the hungry, and the clothes you accumulate belong to the naked. The shoes in your closet, he said, are for the barefoot, and the money buried deep in the ground belongs to the poor. "You were unfair to as many people as you could have helped and you did not." That conviction took physical form just outside the city.

• 7. The Basiliad

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  Gregory of Nazianzus compared it to the wonders of the world. The great complex Basil built outside Caesarea, known as the Basiliad or Ptochoptopheion, included a poorhouse, a hospice, and a hospital. It has been believed to be one of the earliest forms of a Christian hospital for the poor, and it became a lasting monument of Basil's episcopal care. Some of the land for it came from an unlikely donor. The Emperor Valens, an adherent of the Arian philosophy, had sent his prefect Modestus to pressure Basil toward compromise, without success. Valens later attended in person when Basil celebrated the Divine Liturgy on the Feast of the Theophany, was so impressed that he donated land for the building, and the encounter helped define the limits of governmental power over the church. Valens had issued orders banishing Basil repeatedly, none of which succeeded, and was apparently unwilling to resort to violence. Basil meanwhile entered into connections with the West, seeking with the help of Athanasius to overcome distrust toward the Homoiousians. He corresponded with Pope Damasus in hope of aid against triumphant Arianism, though the pope cherished some degree of suspicion against the Cappadocian Doctor. The disturbances had not ended when Basil's health gave out.

• 8. Letters And Legacy

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  Three hundred letters survive from Basil, and they reveal a nature that remained optimistic, tender, and even playful despite ill-health and ecclesiastical unrest. His principal theological writings include On the Holy Spirit, an appeal to Scripture and early tradition to prove the divinity of the Spirit, and his Refutation of the Apology of the Impious Eunomius, written about 364 against the chief exponent of Anomoian Arianism. He was a famous preacher whose homilies survive, among them a series of Lenten lectures on the Hexaemeron and an exposition of the psalter. In one homily he gives one of the earliest descriptions of desalination, explaining how sailors obtained fresh water by hanging sponges over boiling seawater and condensing the vapour. An admirer of Origen, he warned against stopping at the literal sense of Scripture, writing that lamps are useless when the sun is shining. Basil stressed the complete equality of both genders, holding that man and woman share one and the same nature and the same reward, and that men even risk being inferior in piety. He recognized that no human is a slave by nature, viewing slavery as a result of the Fall. Basil suffered from liver disease, and excessive ascetic practices contributed to his early death. Historians disagree about the exact date he died. His influence on Benedict of Nursia carried his monastic teaching into the Western church, transmitted via Rufinus in the late fourth century, and Benedict's own Rule instructed monks to read the Rule of our Holy Father, Basil. In Greek tradition he brings gifts to children every the 1st of January, when families cut the vasilopita, a rich bread baked with a coin inside, recalling how the bishop once hid gold coins in sweetened bread so the poor would be surprised to find them.