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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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88 Pages
Page 21
18. For "through Him" comes every succour to our souls, and it is in accordance with each kind of care that an appropriate title has been devised. So when He presents to Himself the blameless soul, not having spot or wrinkle, [859] like a pure maiden, He is called Bridegroom, but whenever He receives one in sore plight from the devil's evil strokes, healing it in the heavy infirmity of its sins, He is named Physician. And shall this His care for us degrade to meanness our thoughts of Him? Or, on the contrary, shall it smite us with amazement at once at the mighty power and love to man [860] of the Saviour, in that He both endured to suffer with us [861] in our infirmities, and was able to come down to our weakness? For not heaven and earth and the great seas, not the creatures that live in the water and on dry land, not plants, and stars, and air, and seasons, not the vast variety in the order of the universe, [862] so well sets forth the excellency of His might as that God, being incomprehensible, should have been able, impassibly, through flesh, to have come into close conflict with death, to the end that by His own suffering He might give us the boon of freedom from suffering. [863] The apostle, it is true, says, "In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." [864] But in a phrase of this kind there is no suggestion of any lowly and subordinate ministry, [865] but rather of the succour rendered "in the power of his might." [866] For He Himself has bound the strong man and spoiled his goods, [867] that is, us men, whom our enemy had abused in every evil activity, and made "vessels meet for the Master's use" [868] us who have been perfected for every work through the making ready of that part of us which is in our own control. [869] Thus we have had our approach to the Father through Him, being translated from "the power of darkness to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." [870] We must not, however, regard the oeconomy [871] through the Son as a compulsory and subordinate ministration resulting from the low estate of a slave, but rather the voluntary solicitude working effectually for His own creation in goodness and in pity, according to the will of God the Father. For we shall be consistent with true religion if in all that was and is from time to time perfected by Him, we both bear witness to the perfection of His power, and in no case put it asunder from the Father's will. For instance, whenever the Lord is called the Way, we are carried on to a higher meaning, and not to that which is derived from the vulgar sense of the word. We understand by Way that advance [872] to perfection which is made stage by stage, and in regular order, through the works of righteousness and "the illumination of knowledge;" [873] ever longing after what is before, and reaching forth unto those things which remain, [874] until we shall have reached the blessed end, the knowledge of God, which the Lord through Himself bestows on them that have trusted in Him. For our Lord is an essentially good Way, where erring and straying are unknown, to that which is essentially good, to the Father. For "no one," He says, "cometh to the Father but ["by" A.V.] through me." [875] Such is our way up to God "through the Son."
[859] Eph. v. 29.
[860] philanthropia occurs twice in the N.T. (Acts xxviii. 2, and Titus iii. 4) and is in the former passage rendered by A.V. "kindness," in the latter by "love to man." The philanthropia of the Maltese barbarians corresponds with the lower classical sense of kindliness and courtesy. The love of God in Christ to man introduces practically a new connotation to the word and its cognates.
[861] Or to sympathize with our infirmities.
[862] poikile diakosmesis. diakosmesis was the technical term of the Pythagorean philosophy for the orderly arrangement of the universe (cf. Arist. Metaph. I. v. 2. "he hole diakosmesis); Pythagoras being credited with the first application of the word kosmos to the universe. (Plut. 2, 886 c.) So mundus in Latin, whence Augustine's oxymoron, "O munde immunde!" On the scriptural use of kosmos and aion vide Archbp. Trench's New Testament Synonyms, p. 204.
[863] In Hom. on Ps. lxv. Section 5, St. Basil describes the power of God the Word being most distinctly shewn in the oeconomy of the incarnation and His descent to the lowliness and the infirmity of the manhood. cf. Ath. on the Incarnation, sect. 54, "He was made man that we might be made God; and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality. For while He Himself was in no way injured, being impassible and incorruptible and the very Word and God, men who were suffering, and for whose sakes He endured all this, He maintained and preserved in His own impassibility."
[864] Rom. viii. 37.
[865] huperesia. Lit. "under-rowing." The cognate huperetes is the word used in Acts xxvi. 16, in the words of the Saviour to St. Paul, "to make thee a minister," and in 1 Cor. iv. 1, "Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ."
[866] Eph. vi. 10.
[867] cf. Matt. xii. 29.
[868] 2 Tim. ii. 21.
[869] This passage is difficult to render alike from the variety of readings and the obscurity of each. I have endeavoured to represent the force of the Greek ek tes hetoimasias tou eph' hemin, understanding by "to eph' hemin," practically, "our free will." cf. the enumeration of what is eph' hemin, within our own control, in the Enchiridion of Epicetus, Chap. I. "Within our own control are impulse, desire, inclination." On Is. vi. 8, "Here am I; send me," St. Basil writes, "He did not add I will go;' for the acceptance of the message is within our control (eph' hemin), but to be made capable of going is of Him that gives the grace, of the enabling God." The Benedictine translation of the text is "per liberi arbitrii nostri praeparationem." But other readings are (i) tes hetoimasias autou, "the preparation which is in our own control;" (ii) tes hetoimasias autou, "His preparation;" and (iii) the Syriac represented by "arbitrio suo."
[870] Col. i. 12, 13.
[871] cf. note on page 7.
[872] prokope: cf. Luke ii. 52, where it is said that our Lord proekopte, i.e., "continued to cut His way forward."
[873] 1 Cor. iv. 6, R.V. marg.
[874] There seems to be here a recollection, though not a quotation, of Phil. iii. 13.
[875] John xiv. 6.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/basil/holy-spirit.asp?pg=21
