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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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88 Pages
Page 83
74. But where shall I rank the great Gregory, [1328] and the words uttered by him? Shall we not place among Apostles and Prophets a man who walked by the same Spirit as they; [1329] who never through all his days diverged from the footprints of the saints; who maintained, as long as he lived, the exact principles of evangelical citizenship? I am sure that we shall do the truth a wrong if we refuse to number that soul with the people of God, shining as it did like a beacon in the Church of God; for by the fellow-working of the Spirit the power which he had over demons was tremendous, and so gifted was he with the grace of the word "for obedience to the faith among...the nations," [1330] that, although only seventeen Christians were handed over to him, he brought the whole people alike in town and country through knowledge to God. He too by Christ's mighty name commanded even rivers to change their course, [1331] and caused a lake, which afforded a ground of quarrel to some covetous brethren, to dry up. [1332] Moreover his predictions of things to come were such as in no wise to fall short of those of the great prophets. To recount all his wonderful works in detail would be too long a task. By the superabundance of gifts, wrought in him by the Spirit in all power and in signs and in marvels, he was styled a second Moses by the very enemies of the Church. Thus in all that he through grace accomplished, alike by word and deed, a light seemed ever to be shining, token of the heavenly power from the unseen which followed him. To this day he is a great object of admiration to the people of his own neighbourhood, and his memory, established in the churches ever fresh and green, is not dulled by length of time. Thus not a practice, not a word, not a mystic rite has been added to the Church besides what he bequeathed to it. Hence truly on account of the antiquity of their institution many of their ceremonies appear to be defective. [1333] For his successors in the administration of the Churches could not endure to accept any subsequent discovery in addition to what had had his sanction. Now one of the institutions of Gregory is the very form of the doxology to which objection is now made, preserved by the Church on the authority of his tradition; a statement which may be verified without much trouble by any one who likes to make a short journey. That our Firmilian held this belief is testified by the writings which he has left. [1334] The contemporaries also of the illustrious Meletius say that he was of this opinion. But why quote ancient authorities? Now in the East are not the maintainers of true religion known chiefly by this one term, and separated from their adversaries as by a watchword? I have heard from a certain Mesopotamian, a man at once well skilled in the language and of unperverted opinions, that by the usage of his country it is impossible for any one, even though he may wish to do so, to express himself in any other way, and that they are compelled by the idiom of their mother tongue to offer the doxology by the syllable "and," or, I should more accurately say, by their equivalent expressions. We Cappadocians, too, so speak in the dialect of our country, the Spirit having so early as the division of tongues foreseen the utility of the phrase. And what of the whole West, almost from Illyricum to the boundaries of our world? Does it not support this word?
[1328] i.e. Gregory, bishop of Neocaesarea, known as Gregorius Thaumaturgus, or Gregory the Wonder-worker. To the modern reader "Gregory the Great" more naturally suggests Gregory of Nazianzus, but this he hardly was to his friend and contemporary, though the title had accrued to him by the time of the accepted Ephesine Council in 431 (vide Labbe, vol. iv. p. 1192) Gregory the Wonder-worker, /- c. 270.
[1329] 2 Cor. xii. 18.
[1330] Rom. i. 5.
[1331] e.g.according to the legend, the Lycus. cf. Newman, Essays on Miracles, p. 267.
[1332] The story is told by Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Greg. Thaum. Migne xlvi. 926-930.
[1333] The Neocaesareans appear to have entertained a Puritan objection to the antiphonal psalmody becoming general in the Church in the time of Basil. cf. Ep. ccvii.
[1334] Firmilian, like Gregory the Wonder-worker, a pupil of Origen, was bishop of Caesarea from before a.d. 232 (Euseb. vi. 26) to 272 (Euseb. vii. 30). By some his death at Tarsus is placed in 264 or 5.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/basil/holy-spirit.asp?pg=83
