Saint Basil the Great
Bishop and
Doctor of the Church
(330?-379)
"Are you not a robber, you who consider your own that which has
been given you solely to distribute to others? This bread which you
have set aside is the bread of the hungry; this garment you have
locked away is the clothing of the naked; those shoes which you let
rot are the shoes of him who is barefoot; those riches you have
hoarded are the riches of the poor."
St. Basil was raised in a family of
saints. His grandmother, his parents, his brothers and sister
(including St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Macrina) all came to be
canonized. And yet there was nothing inevitable about his religious
vocation. Though his family was pious they were also quite wealthy.
By his own account Basil's early life was given over to "vanity."
He received a classical education in Constantinople and Athens,
studying philosophy and rhetoric. He was nearly thirty when he
experienced a conversion, which he described as "waking from a
profound sleep." As he wrote, "I opened my eyes to the wonderful
life of the evangelical truth." Immediately he resolved to abandon
worldly ambitions and devote himself to God.
Basil made a tour of the monastic
communities in Egypt, the Holy Land, Syria, and Mesopotamia, before
settling into a monastery near his hometown of Caesarea. He spent
five years there-long enough to devise a rule that had a
revolutionary influence on the development of monasticism. Unlike
the early monks whose spirituality focused on individual feats of
asceticism, Basil stressed the importance of community. The
monastery was more like an ideal society, a place in which the love
of God and the love of neighbor could be cultivated in tandem. As
he wrote, "A community of brothers is a stadium in which athletes
are exercised.... Its end is the glory of God according to the
commandments of God."
At the same time, he believed the
monastery should be clearly integrated into the life of the church
and the society. Rather than existing in isolation, the monastery
should welcome guests; it should include orphanages and schools; it
should be a center of service and the works of mercy. For Basil the
monastery did not exist for the sanctification of its members
alone, but for the wider community.
In order to better serve the church
Basil agreed to be ordained. Afterward he divided his time between
monastic life and priestly duties. In 370 he was elected bishop of
Caesarea. In this office he served as a pastoral leader to the
local church while also emerging as one of the most important
champions of theological orthodoxy. With his brother Gregory of
Nyssa and his lifelong friend Gregory of Nazianzus he became known
as one of the Cappadocian fathers. Together they effectively
countered the Arian heresy by their persistent teaching on the
theology of the Trinity.
As a trained rhetorician, Basil became
famous for his preaching and exposition of the Scriptures. But as a
bishop he was even more distinctive for his heavy emphasis on the
social aspects of the gospel. During times of famine he organized
soup kitchens, personally donning an apron to wait on the hungry.
He established a hospital for the sick poor that was described as
one of the wonders of the world. Constantly he referred to the
teaching of Christ, who so united the precepts of love of God and
neighbor "that He refers to Himself the good deeds of which our
neighbor is the object: 'For I was hungry, and you gave me to
eat."'
Basil, however, went beyond the usual
exhortation to charity, calling for a basic redistribution of
wealth as a demand of justice. In effect, he taught that the needs
of the poor held a social mortgage on the superfluous holdings of
the rich. Thus he challenged the well-to-do in unusually outspoken
terms:
You refuse to give on the pretext
that you haven't got enough for your own needs. But while your
tongue makes excuses, your hand convicts you-that ring shining on
your finger silently declares you to be a liar! How many debtors
could be released from prison with one of those rings?
Exhausted by his
own labors and austerities, Basil died on January 1, 379, at the
age of forty-nine. He was quickly acclaimed as a saint and later
named a Doctor of the Church. (St. Basil's feast day, formerly
celebrated on June 14, has moved to January 2.)
See:
Louis Bouyer, A History of Christian Spirituality, vol. 1 (New
York: Seabury, 1963).
See:
St. Basil the
Great
[Reprinted
with permission from "All Saints" by Robert Ellsberg (New York:
Crossroad, 1998)]
