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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 129 Pages
Page 75
8. For a sign that shall be spoken against. By a sign, we properly understand in Scripture a cross. Moses, it is said, set the serpent "upon a pole." [3162] That is upon a cross. Or else a sign [3163] is indicative of something strange and obscure seen by the simple but understood by the intelligent. There is no cessation of controversy about the Incarnation of the Lord; some asserting that he assumed a body, and others that his sojourn was bodiless; some that he had a passible body, and others that he fulfilled the bodily oeconomy by a kind of appearance. Some say that his body was earthly, some that it was heavenly; some that He pre-existed before the ages; some that He took His beginning from Mary. It is on this account that He is a sign that shall be spoken against.
9. By a sword is meant the word which tries and judges our thoughts, which pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of our thoughts. [3164] Now every soul in the hour of the Passion was subjected, as it were, to a kind of searching. According to the word of the Lord it is said, "All ye shall be offended because of me." [3165] Simeon therefore prophesies about Mary herself, that when standing by the cross, and beholding what is being done, and hearing the voices, after the witness of Gabriel, after her secret knowledge of the divine conception, after the great exhibition of miracles, she shall feel about her soul a mighty tempest. [3166] The Lord was bound to taste of death for every man--to become a propitiation for the world and to justify all men by His own blood. Even thou thyself, who hast been taught from on high the things concerning the Lord, shalt be reached by some doubt. This is the sword. "That the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." He indicates that after the offence at the Cross of Christ a certain swift healing shall come from the Lord to the disciples and to Mary herself, confirming their heart in faith in Him. In the same way we saw Peter, after he had been offended, holding more firmly to his faith in Christ. What was human in him was proved unsound, that the power of the Lord might be shewn.
[3162] Num. xxi. 8.
[3163] semeion, LXX.
[3164] cf. Heb. iv. 12.
[3165] Matt. xxvi. 3.
[3166] The Ben. note strongly objects to this slur upon the constancy of the faith of the Blessed Virgin, and is sure that St. Basil's error will not be thus corrected without his own concurrence. It supposes this interpretation of the passage in question to be derived from Origen, Hom. xxvii. In Lucam, and refers to a list of commentators who have followed him in Petavius, De Incar. xiv. 1.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/basil/letters-3.asp?pg=75
