Basil

Basil

When Basil was baptized and renounced the world, he at the same time renounced pagan culture.  In accordance with Christian traditions, he de­nounced the philosophers.  The same conventional polemic appears in the works of both Gregories.  Dabbling in philosophy was the source of heresy.  Grudging recognition might be given to Plato, but only if his dependence on Moses was stressed.  In theory only the Bible pointed the way to truth.

Yet the value of pagan education could not be denied by its beneficiaries (emphasis mine).  Basil claims to have given up cul­tural pur­suits, but writes An Address to Young Men on How They Might Derive Benefit from Greek Literature.He accepts that training in pagan lit­erature is a useful preparation for the difficulty of scriptural exegesis.  Where there is an affinity with Chris­tian values the two traditions should be set side by side; the fruit of the soul is truth, but ‘external wisdom” (that is, non-Christian wisdom) may adorn it…

In his Homilies on the Hexaemeron, Basil draws on the best of con­temporary science; he considers the solutions of other philosophies to intel­lectual prob­lems concerning the nature and origin of the universe; he argues the validity of the Christian doctrine of cre­ation as a viable solution to these problems.  The methods and questions of the philosophers are his presuppositions, and their exam­ples, their illustrations, their suggestions provide much of his material (emphasis mine).  He presents his hearers with a complete Christian philosophy, not just ethics but cosmogony[1] and physics.  Yet here more than anywhere the ten­sions and contradictions are apparent.  Basil is preaching to a congregation; he is the official repre­sentative of the orthodox church.  He has to reflect the traditional atti­tudes.  So he expresses contempt for the philoso­phers and sci­entists who busy themselves in vain with unanswerable questions, and produce solutions which are the arrogant demonstrations of human rea­son.  Their mutual contradictions prove their folly.  Their elaborately clever sys­tems distract them from the one truth worth knowing.  Christians do not need any information which is not provided by scripture, and they should avoid ‘busy-body­ing’ curiosity about the universe, the shape of the earth, the number of the heavens.  Scripture alone suffices.  Yet even as he mocks the philosophers, he displays his own up-to-date knowledge of astronomy.  There is a real sense in which the bishop tied to orthodox tradition breathes the Greek spirit of enquiry; the monk renouncing the world appreciates the natural order.  By careful as­similation, Basil has in fact achieved a remark­able synthesis between biblical teaching and se­lected elements of the pro­fane systems [emphasis mine].

…quite clearly Basil was capable of adapting his style and his approach to his audience, quoting only the Bible in his ascetical works, but being freer in his use of quotations and allusions in other literary gen­res.  Even so, many of his compositions show a remarkable unselfcon­scious marriage of cultures [emphasis mine], which is perhaps espe­cially well evidenced in the collocation of biblical and Hellenic motifs in his letter of consolation. [2]

[1] Definition:  a theory of the origin and development of the universe.

[2] Young, pp. 101 ,102.