|
HOME | GREEK LANGUAGE |
LIBRARIES |
BLOG | HELP | SEARCH | BOOKSTORE | FREEWARE |
|
|
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
|
130 Pages
Page 95
Wherefore it does sometimes come to pass that the calamities of war are righteously inflicted on those who deserve them--if you like to understand the words I kill and I make alive' in their obvious sense. Fear edifies the simple. I wound and I heal' is at once perceived to be salutary. The blow strikes terror; the cure attracts to love. But it is permissible to thee to find a higher meaning in the words, I kill'--by sin; I make alive'--by righteousness. Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.' [598] He does not kill one and make another alive, but He makes the same man alive by the very means by which He kills him; He heals him by the blows which He inflicts upon him. As the proverb has it, Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell.' [599] The flesh is smitten that the soul may be healed; sin is put to death that righteousness may live. In another passage [600] it is argued that death is not an evil. Deaths come from God. Yet death is not absolutely an evil, except in the case of the death of the sinner, in which case departure from this world is a beginning of the punishments of hell. On the other hand, of the evils of hell the cause is not God, but ourselves. The origin and root of sin is what is in our own control and our free will."
Homily XII. is "on the beginning of the proverbs." "The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel." [601]
"The name proverbs (paroimiai) has been by heathen writers used of common expressions, and of those which are generally used in the streets. Among them a way is called oimos, whence they define a paroimia to be a common expression, which has become trite through vulgar usage, and which it is possible to transfer from a limited number of subjects to many analogous subjects. [602] With Christians the paroimia is a serviceable utterance, conveyed with a certain amount of obscurity, containing an obvious meaning of much utility, and at the same time involving a depth of meaning in its inner sense. Whence the Lord says: These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs, but the time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father.'" [603]
[598] 2 Cor. iv. 16.
[599] Prov. xxiii. 14.
[600] S: 3.
[601] Prov. i.
[602] paroimia is defined by Hesychius the Alexandrian grammarian, who was nearly contemporary with Basil, as a biopheles logos, para ten hodon legomenos.
[603] John xvi. 25.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/basil/life-works.asp?pg=95
