Select Orations (2/40/43) 3-1 part 4/5

From which many grievous things, some were already happening, others were in travail.

Synods were drawn away by the new metropolitan, revenues were plundered;

presbyters of the churches—some were persuaded over, others were exchanged.

From which it came about that the affairs of the churches too fared worse, being divided and torn asunder.

For somehow men rejoice in innovations and gladly profit by what is their own;

and it is easier to overthrow something of the established order than to restore what has been overthrown.

But what enraged him the more were the revenues of Tauri and the way-station tolls, which were within his sight, yet had accrued to the other; and he reckoned it a great matter that holy Orestes should reap their fruit;

so that he even once laid hold of the man's mules as he was journeying on his own road, barring his way forward with a band of brigands.

And the pretext, how plausible!

For the spiritual children, and the souls, and the word of the faith—these were the veils of his insatiable greed, a thing easily come by—and the plea that one ought not to pay tribute to the ill-believing; for everyone who causes grief is ill-believing.

Yet the holy man of God and true metropolitan of the Jerusalem above neither was carried away with those who erred, nor endured to overlook these things, nor devised some small remedy for the evil.

But let us consider how great and marvellous a thing—and what else than worthy of his soul.

For he made the dissension an increase to the Church, and disposed of the calamity in the best possible way, filling his homeland thickly with more bishops.

From which what comes about? Three most excellent things:

greater care for souls, and that each city should have what is its own, and that the war should be brought to an end thereby.

or else I know not what it would be fitting even to say.

For admiring all things in the man—indeed not so much as one can express—this one thing alone I am unable to praise; for I will confess my feeling, which is moreover not unknown to the many: the innovation and faithlessness shown toward me, the grief of which not even time has consumed;

for from there befell me all the irregularity and confusion of my life, and the fact that I could not, or was not thought to, pursue the philosophic life, even if there be small account of this second matter;

save that one might accept this, while we plead in the man's defence, that, having a mind too lofty for human things, and having migrated from this life before he died, he made everything subservient to the Spirit;

and though he knew how to reverence friendship, in this one thing only did he dishonour it, where God had to be preferred and the things hoped for were to outweigh the things that pass away.

But despising both alike—those who are over-curt and those who are over-insatiable—I will use my discourse somewhat thus.

Others, then, succeed each in some one thing, and some in certain of the many forms of virtue;

but no one has attained to all in their highest degree—not, at least, of those now known to us;

rather he is best in our eyes who has succeeded in the more part, or in one thing to the utmost.

But he so attained through all, as to be a kind of emulation of nature itself.

Does anyone praise possessionlessness and a life unencumbered and free of superfluity? But what ever did he have, except his body and the necessary coverings of the flesh? His wealth was to have nothing, and the cross, with which alone he lived, which he counted more precious to himself than many riches.

For all things no one could acquire, even if he wished;

but to know how to despise all things, and thus to appear superior to all—this is possible.

And being thus minded and thus disposed, he had no need of an altar and vainglory, nor of the public proclamation, 'Crates sets free Crates the Theban.' For he was zealous to be, not to seem, the best.

Nor did he dwell in a tub and in the midst of the marketplace, so as to flaunt himself before all, making of his destitution a novel kind of affluence;

but free from love of glory, he was poor and unploughed;

and having gladly cast off all things which once he had, he sailed lightly over the sea of life.

Wonderful is self-control and being content with little, and not being mastered by pleasures, nor being led, as by a bitter and ungenerous mistress, the belly.

Who was thus more nourishment-free—and, not to say too much, more flesh-free? For he cast off surfeit and satiety to the more irrational creatures, and to those whose life is slavish and bent downward.

But he himself knew nothing great among the things equal in honour after the throat, but lived only on necessities while it was possible, and knew only one luxury—to seem not to live luxuriously, and not on this account to need more;

but to look to the lilies and the birds, whose beauty is artless and whose food is improvised, according to the great exhortation of my Christ, who for our sakes also became poor in the flesh, that we might be made rich in Godhead.

Hence for him the single tunic and the worn cloak, and the bed on the ground, and the sleeplessness, and the going unwashed—these were his proud distinctions;

and the sweetest dinner and dish, the bread and the salt, that novel relish;

and a drink both sober and abundant, which the springs cultivate for those who toil not at all.

From which, or with which, came the nursing of the sick and the healing of them, our common philosophic pursuit;

for I too had to have an equal share of the hardships, being left behind by the others.

A great thing is virginity and the unwedded state, and being ranked with the angels and with the solitary nature;

which leads upward and abridges the world, or rather sends one world on by means of the other—the present by means of the world to come.

Who then honoured virginity more than he, or legislated more for the flesh, not only by his own example, but by the things he laboured at? Whose are the convents of virgins, and the written ordinances, by which he brought every sense to sobriety and gave rhythm to every member, and truly persuaded men to live virgin lives, turning their beauties inward, from the things seen to the things not seen;

and quenching what is outward, and withdrawing the fuel from the flame, but showing the hidden thing to God, who alone is the bridegroom of pure souls, and who brings in to Himself the watchful souls, if they come to meet Him with bright lamps and with an abundant supply of the oil's nourishment? Now since the eremitic and the communal life are for the most part at war with one another and stand apart, and neither one wholly has the good or the bad unmixed;

but the one being more quiet and settled and bringing one to God, yet not free from conceit because of the untried and uncompared character of its virtue;

and the other being more practical and more useful, yet not fleeing the tumult—he most excellently reconciled and blended these with one another;

building hermitages and monasteries, yet not far from the communal and the mingled life, nor dividing these off as by some wall between and separating them from one another, but joining them near and yet disjoining them;

that neither the philosophic life might be unsociable, nor the practical life unphilosophic;

but, like land and sea exchanging their own products with one another, they might run together into one glory of God.

What more? A good thing is love for mankind and the feeding of the poor and the succour of human weakness.

Go forth a little from the city, and behold the new city, the storehouse of godliness, the common treasury of the wealthy, into which the superfluities of riches—nay, by his exhortations, even the necessities—are laid up, shaking off the moths and giving no joy to thieves, and escaping both the wrestling of envy and the corruption of time;

in which sickness is borne with philosophy, and calamity is counted blessed, and compassion is put to the test.

What to me, compared with this work, are seven-gated Thebes and Egyptian Thebes, and the walls of Babylon, and the Carian tomb of Mausolus, and the Pyramids, and the measureless bronze of the Colossus, or the size and beauty of temples no longer existing, and all the other things that men admire and consign to histories, of which none profited those who raised them, save a little glory? But to me the most marvellous thing is the short road of salvation, the easiest ascent to heaven.

No longer is there set before our eyes a sight dreadful and pitiable—men dead before death, and deceased in most of the members of their body, driven away from cities, houses, marketplaces, waters, from their very dearest ones, recognized by their names rather than by their bodies;

nor are they set forth in gatherings and assemblies in pairs and in companies, no longer pitied because of the disease, but hated;

composers of piteous strains, if to any a voice still remains.

Why should I dramatize all our miseries, when the discourse is not equal to the suffering? But he above all men persuaded men, being men, not to despise their fellow-men, nor to dishonour Christ, the one Head of all, through inhumanity toward those people;

but in others' misfortunes to lay up well their own affairs, and to lend mercy to God, being themselves in need of mercy.

And it was not that the city was thus, while the countryside and the regions outside fared otherwise;

but he set before all who presided over the peoples a common contest—the love for them and the magnanimity toward them.

Others have their cooks and their rich tables and the wizardries and refinements of caterers and the elegant carriages, and clothing as soft and flowing as may be;

but Basil's are the sick, and the dressings of wounds, and the imitation of Christ, who cleansed leprosy not in word, but in deed.

In view of these things, what will they say to us who charge him with conceit and arrogance—those bitter critics of such men, who apply the wrong rules as a measuring-line? Is it possible to embrace lepers and so far to abase oneself, yet to look haughtily upon the healthy? And to waste the flesh through self-control, yet to swell the soul with empty arrogance? And to condemn the Pharisee and recount the humiliation that comes of pride, and to know that Christ came down even to the form of a servant and ate with tax-collectors and washed the feet of the disciples and did not refuse the cross, in order to nail my sin to it—and yet what is more paradoxical than this, to see God crucified, and that with robbers, and mocked by the passers-by, He who is invulnerable and higher than suffering;

yet himself to soar above the clouds and to know nothing as his equal—which is the opinion of those who envy him? But I think it was the steadfastness and firmness and refinement of his character that they named conceit.

And these same persons seem to me as readily to call the brave man rash, and the cautious man cowardly, and the temperate man a misanthrope, and the just man unsociable.

For indeed not idly have some philosophized this: that the vices are set close beside the virtues, and are somehow next-door neighbours;

and it is very easy for a thing that is one to be thought another by those untrained in such matters.

For who more than he honoured virtue, or chastised vice, or showed himself kindly to those who did right, and weighty toward those who sinned;

whose very smile was often praise, and whose silence was rebuke, torturing the evil by one's own conscience? But if he was not a chatterer, nor a buffoon and vulgar, nor pleasing to the many by becoming all things to all and gratifying them, what of that? Is he not rather to be praised than blamed by those at least who have sense? Unless one were to find fault even with the lion that it does not look apish, but grim and royal, whose very gambols are noble and loved with wonder;

and would admire those upon the stage as pleasant and kindly, because they gratify the crowds and stir laughter by slaps on the cheek and noisy antics.

And yet, even if we should seek this, who was so pleasant in company, so far as I know who have most intimately known him? Who more agreeable in narration? Who more apt to jest instructively, who to reprove gently? And neither to make the rebuke an insolence, nor the relaxation a dissipation, but to flee the excess of both, using both with reason and in due season, according to the laws of Solomon, who appointed a time for every matter.

But what are these things compared with the man's excellence in discourse and the might of his teaching, which makes the very ends of the earth its own? We are still turning about the foothills of the mountain, falling short of the summit;

we are still crossing the strait, having left untouched the great and deep ocean.

For I think that if there ever was or shall be a trumpet reaching far through the air, or a voice of God encompassing the world, or an earthquake of the inhabited earth from some innovation and wonder, these would be his voice and mind, so far surpassing all and setting them below, as we surpass the nature of the irrational creatures.

Who cleansed himself more by the Spirit, and made himself worthy to recount divine things? Who was more enlightened with the light of knowledge, and peered into the depths of the Spirit, and searched out the things concerning God together with God? Who had speech a better interpreter of his thoughts, so as to limp on neither side, as most men do—either with a mind that has no speech, or with speech not keeping pace with the mind;

the deep things of God are borne witness to by the Spirit, not as to one ignorant, but as to one who delights in the contemplation.

And all the things of the Spirit were searched out by him, from which he educated every character and taught lofty discourse and raised men up from things present and refashioned them toward things to come.

His beauty was virtue, his greatness was theology, his running was the ever-moving and God-ward course in its ascents, his power was the sowing and dissemination of the word;

so that for me, at least, even this is not to be hesitated to say: that his voice went out into all the earth, and the power of his words into the ends of the inhabited world.

What other grace has an assembly today? What is the pleasure of banquets? What of marketplaces? What of churches? What is the delight of those in office and of those after them? What of monks or of those in the mingled life? What of the unencumbered or of those in business? What of those who philosophize in outward learning or in our own? One thing, and through all, and the greatest: his writings and labours.

Nor have writers any other resource after him than that man's writings.

The ancient writings are passed over in silence—all that some sweated over upon the divine oracles;

the new are acclaimed, and he is best in discourse among us who chances most of all to know that man's works and to bear them on his tongue and to instruct the ears;

for one sufficed in place of all for the more diligent in their education.

This one thing only of his will I recount.

Whenever I handle his Hexaemeron and bear it on my tongue, I come to be with the Creator, and I know the principles of creation, and I marvel at the Creator more than before, using sight alone as my teacher.

Whenever I light upon his refutatory discourses, I see the Sodomitic fire, by which wicked and lawless tongues are turned to ashes, or the tower of Calanne, ill-built but well dissolved.

Whenever I am at his discourses on the Spirit, I find the God whom I have, and I take courage to proclaim the truth boldly, mounting upon his theology and contemplation.

Whenever I am at his other expositions, which he unfolds for those who see but little, having written them threefold upon the firm tablets of his own heart, I am persuaded not to halt at the letter, nor to look only at the surface, but to pass yet further and to advance into depth upon depth, deep calling unto deep, and finding light by light, until I attain to the highest.

Whenever I converse with his panegyrics of the martyrs, I despise the body and am present with those who are praised and am roused to the contest.

Whenever I am at his moral and practical discourses, I am cleansed in soul and body, and become a temple able to receive God, and an instrument struck by the Spirit, and a singer of divine glory and power;

by this I am re-tuned and given rhythm and become another out of another, undergoing the divine transformation.

But since I have made mention of theology, and of the man's especial loftiness of utterance concerning it, I will add this also to what has been said;

for it is most profitable to the many, that they be not harmed by holding a worse opinion concerning him.

And the discourse is directed against those evildoers, who aid their own evils, by which they wrong others.

For he, for the sake of the right doctrine and of the conjunction and co-Godhead according to the Holy Trinity—or I know not what one ought to call it more authoritatively and more clearly—would have readily accepted, not only to fall from thrones, upon which he had not even from the beginning leapt, but also exile and death and the torments before death, as gain, not danger;

to take up the writing-tablet and follow.

For they sought to lay hold of the bare utterance concerning the Spirit, that He is God;

which, being true, was reckoned impious by those men and by the evil patron of impiety;

that they might banish from the city the man with the theologian's tongue, and they themselves, seizing the Church and making it a base of operations for their own evil, might thence overrun all that remained, as from some citadel.

But he, by other scriptural sayings and by indisputable testimonies of equal force, and by the necessities arising from syllogisms, so ruled over his opponents that they could not gainsay, but were bound by their own utterances—which indeed is the greatest power and sagacity of discourse.

But the decisive utterance he for a time held in reserve, asking grace of the Spirit Himself and of His genuine fellow-combatants, that they should not be displeased at the dispensation;

nor that, clinging to a single utterance, they should lose the whole through insatiableness, true religion being swept away by the crisis of the moment.

For to themselves there was no loss, the words being slightly altered, while they were taught the same thing in other utterances;

for salvation lies for us not in words rather than in things;

for the nation of the Jews would not have been cast off, if, seeking for a while the word 'anointed' instead of 'Christ,' they had deigned to be ranked with us;

but to the common cause the greatest harm would have come, the Church being seized.

For that he knew, more than anyone, the Spirit to be God, is plain both from what he often proclaimed publicly, whenever there was occasion, and privately confessed readily to those who asked;

but he made it plainer in his discourses to me, to whom nothing concerning these matters was kept secret when he conferred with me;

and he did not declare this simply, but, what he had never before done many times, calling down upon himself the most fearful imprecation—that he should fall from the Spirit Himself, if he did not worship the Spirit together with the Father and the Son, as consubstantial and co-equal in honour.

But if anyone should accept me as his partner even in such matters, I will disclose something also of the things hitherto unknown to the many;

namely, that since the crisis pressed hard upon us, he entrusted the dispensation to himself, but the bold speech to us, whom no one was likely to judge or to cast out of our homeland, honoured as we were with obscurity—so that from both together our gospel might be strong.

And these things I have gone through, not that I might plead in defence of that man's reputation;

for the man is stronger than his accusers, if indeed there are any;

but that men may not, thinking this the limit of true religion—only the utterances of the man found in his writings—have a weaker faith, and take as proof of their own evil-doing that theology of his which the occasion shaped together with the Spirit;

but that, testing the meaning of what was written and the aim from which these things were written, they may rather be brought to the truth and may silence the impious.

For my part, may his theology be mine, and whoever is a friend to me!

And I am so confident in the man's purity concerning this matter, that I make even this common to all besides;

and may my things be reckoned to him, and his things to me, both before God and before the more fair-minded of men!

For we would not say that the evangelists do contrary things to one another, because some occupied themselves more with the fleshly aspect of Christ, while others went on to His theology;

and some made their beginning from the things that pertain to us, and others from the things above us;

thus dividing the proclamation for the profit, I think, of those who receive it, and being thus impressed by the Spirit within them.

Come then, of the many men of old and of recent times renowned for godliness—lawgivers, generals, prophets, teachers, those manly even unto blood—let us view our affairs alongside theirs, and from thence let us come to know the man.

Adam was counted worthy of God's hand and of the delight of paradise and of the first legislation;

but—if I say nothing blasphemous out of reverence for our forefather—he did not keep the commandment;

but this man both received it and preserved it, and was not harmed by the tree of knowledge, and having passed by the flaming sword, I well know, has attained to paradise.

Enos was the first to hope to call upon the Lord;

but this man both called upon Him and proclaimed Him to others, which is far more honourable than the calling upon Him.

Enoch was translated, a reward of a small godliness—for faith was still in shadows—having found translation as his prize, and escaped the danger of the life that followed;

but this man's whole life was a translation, having been perfectly proved in a perfect life.

Noah was entrusted with an ark, and the seeds of a second world entrusted to a little wood and saved upon the waters;

but this man escaped the flood of impiety, and made his own city an ark of salvation, sailing lightly above the heretics, from which he recalled a whole world.

Great is Abraham, both patriarch and sacrificer of a new sacrifice, who offered to the Giver the child of the promise, a victim ready and hastening to the slaughter;

But not even that small thing was his: he offered himself to God, and nothing of equal honor was given in return;

for what indeed was there? So that the sacrifice might be perfected.

Isaac was promised even before his birth;

but this man was self-offered, and he led Rebecca—I mean the Church—not from afar but from near at hand, not through a servant's mediation, but as one given by God and entrusted to him;

nor was he outwitted concerning the preference of his children, but he allotted to each what was according to merit, unerringly, with the discernment of the Spirit.

I praise Jacob's ladder and the pillar which he anointed to God, and his wrestling with Him, whatever it was;

I take it to be a comparison and contrast of the human measure with the divine height, whence also it produces the tokens of the conquered nature.

I praise also the man's skill and prosperity with his flocks, and the twelve patriarchs born of him, and the distribution of blessings together with no ignoble prophecy of the future;

but I praise too this man's ladder—not only seen but trodden by his successive ascents into virtue—and the pillar which he did not anoint but raised to God, pillorying the deeds of the impious; and the wrestling which he wrestled not against God but for God, casting down the doctrines of the heretics; and the man's pastoral skill, by which he grew rich, gaining the notable sheep more than the obscure; and the noble fruitfulness in children begotten according to God, and the blessing by which he strengthened many.

Joseph became a giver of grain, but only to Egypt, and not often, and only bodily;

but this man was so to all, and always, and spiritually—which to me is more venerable than that giving of grain.

Like Job of Uz, he both was tested and conquered, and was proclaimed gloriously at the end of his struggles, shaken by none of the many things that assailed him, but with great abundance overthrowing the tempter, and silencing the unreason of friends who were ignorant of the mystery of his suffering.

"Moses and Aaron among his priests."

And great Moses indeed afflicted Egypt, saved a people with many signs and wonders, entered within the cloud, and gave the twofold law—both the outward law of the letter, and all that within is the law of the Spirit;

and Aaron, Moses' brother both in body and in spirit, offering sacrifice and prayer on behalf of the people, an initiate of the holy and great tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man.

But this man too led a peculiar people, zealous of good works, to the land of promise, inscribing laws on tablets not broken but preserved, no longer shadowy but wholly spiritual;

and entering into the Holy of Holies, not once a year, but often and almost daily, so to speak, whence he reveals to us the holy Trinity, and cleansing the people not with temporary sprinklings, but with everlasting purifications.

What was the finest thing about Joshua? Generalship and apportionment of inheritance, and the possession of the holy land;

but was not this man also a leader? Was he not a general of those saved through faith? Was he not a distributor of the various lots and mansions with God, which he allots to those whom he leads? So that he too could utter that saying: "The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;"

"My lots are in Thy hands;"

lots far more precious than those things that come from the earth and are snatched away.

And to pass over the Judges, or the most esteemed of the Judges, Samuel was among those who call upon His name, and given to God before his birth, and immediately after his birth consecrated, and anointing kings and priests through the horn.

But this man—was he not from infancy consecrated to God from the womb, and presented at the altar with the double cloak, and beholding heavenly things, and both an anointed of the Lord and an anointer of those being perfected by the Spirit?

Solomon asked breadth of heart from God and obtained it, advancing to the utmost in wisdom and contemplation, so as to become the most esteemed of all his contemporaries.

But this man, in my judgment, falls short—by nothing or but little—of the one in gentleness, and of the other in wisdom;

so that he even softened the insolence of demon-possessed kings;

and so that not only a queen of the south, or some particular person, came from the ends of the earth at the report of his wisdom, but his wisdom was made known to all the ends of the earth.

And the rest concerning Solomon I will pass over;

they are plain to all, even if we are sparing.

Do you praise Elijah's boldness toward tyrants, and his rapture through fire? And Elisha's noble inheritance, the mantle, with which Elijah's spirit accompanied it? Praise this man's life in fire too—I mean by the multitude of trials—and his salvation through fire, which burned but did not consume, the wonder of the bush, and the fair fleece from on high, the freedom from the flesh.

I omit the rest: the youths bedewed in the fire;

the fugitive prophet who prayed in the belly of the sea-monster, and came forth from the beast as from a bridal chamber;

the righteous man in the pit, who fettered the boldness of lions;

or the contest of the seven Maccabees, perfected in blood together with a priest and a mother, amid all kinds of tortures.

Emulating their endurance, this man also bore away their glory.

But I pass now to the New Testament, and comparing his deeds with those esteemed here, I will honor the disciple from the teachers.

Who was the forerunner of Jesus? John, as a voice of the Word and as a lamp of the Light, before whom he leaped in the womb, and ran before into Hades, sent ahead through Herod's madness, that he might proclaim there too the One who was coming.

And if to anyone the saying seems too bold, let him first examine in what is said, that I do not put the man before, nor bring him to equality with, him who among those born of women is above all; rather it is on this footing that I make the comparison;

but showing him to be an emulator, and bearing in himself something of that man's character.

For it is no small thing to the earnest, that even small imitation of the greatest things should be theirs.

For is not the man a vivid image of that one's way of life? He too dwelt in the wilderness;

and for him too the nights had a garment of hair—unknown, not displayed;