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II.—Exegetic.
(i) As of the De Spiritu Sancto, so
of the Hexæmeron, no further account need be given
here. It may, however, be noted that the Ninth Homily ends
abruptly, and the latter, and apparently more important, portion of the
subject is treated of at less length than the former.
Jerome472
| 472 De Vir.
Illust. cxvi. | and
Cassiodorus473
speak of nine
homilies only on the creation. Socrates474
says the Hexæmeron was completed by
Gregory of Nyssa. Three orations are published among
Basil’s works, two on the creation of men and one on
Paradise, which are attributed to Basil by Combefis and Du Pin,
but not considered genuine by Tillemont, Maran, Garnier, Ceillier,
and Fessler. They appear to be compositions which some
editor thought congruous to the popular work of Basil, and so
appended them to it.
The nine discourses in the Hexæmeron all shew
signs of having been delivered extempore, and the sequence of argument
and illustration is not such as to lead to the conclusion that they
were ever redacted by the author into exact literary form. We
probably owe their preservation to the skilled shorthand writers of the
day.475
| 475 cf.
Letterccxxiii. § 5, p. 264. It is believed that
tachygraphy was known from very early times, and Xenophon is said to
have “reported” Socrates by its aid. The first
plain mention of a tachygraphist is in a letter of Flavius
Philostratus (A.D. 195). It has been thought that the systems
in use in the earlier centuries of our era were modifications of a
cryptographic method employed by the Christians to circulate
documents in the Church. No examples are extant of an earlier
date than the tenth century, and of these an interesting specimen is
the Paris MS. of Hermogenes described by
Montfaucon, Pal. Gr. p. 351. The exact minutes of some
of the Councils—e.g. Chalcedon—seem to be due to
very successful tachygraphy. |
(ii) The Homilies on the Psalms as published
are seventeen in number; it has however been commonly held that the
second Homily on Ps. xxviii. is not genuine, but the composition of
some plagiarist. The Homily also on Ps. xxxvii. has been generally
objected to. These are omitted from the group of the Ben. Ed.,
together with the first on Ps. cxiv., and that on cxv.
Maran476
thinks that none
of these orations shew signs of having been delivered in the
episcopate, or of having reference to the heresy of the
Pneumatomachi; two apparently point directly to the
presbyterate. In that on Ps. xiv. he speaks of an
ἀμεριμνία
which would better befit priest than the primate; on Ps.
cxiv. he describes himself as serving a particular church.
Both arguments seem a little far-fetched, and might be opposed on
plausible grounds. Both literal and allegorical
interpretations are given. If Basil is found expressing
himself in terms similar to those of Eusebius, it is no doubt
because both were inspired by Origen.477
The Homily on Psalm i. begins with
a partial quotation from 2 Tim. iii. 16, “All Scripture is
given by inspiration of God, and is profitable,” and goes
on, “and was composed by the Spirit to the end that all of
us men, as in a general hospital for souls, may choose each what
is best for his own cure.” For him, Scripture is
supreme.478
| 478 cf. Epp.
cv., clx. § 2, cxcviii. § 3, and cclxiv. §
4. | As is
noticed on Hom. IX.479
of the
Hexæmeron, Basil is on the whole for the simpler sense.
But he was a student of Origen, and he well knows
how to use allegory when
he thinks fit.480
| 480
“Origène sacrifiait tout au sens mystique
Eusèbe le faisait aller de pair avec le sens historique.
Comme lui St. Basile respecte scrupuleusement la lettre; mais comme
lui aussi, il voit sous la lettre tous les mystères du Nouveau
Testament et surtout des enseignements moraux. Les
différents caractères que présente son
interprétation sont un moyen presque infaillible de connaitre
la date des ses grands travaux exégétiques. Aussi ne
doit-on pas hésiter à assigner aux premiêres
années de sa retraite la composition du commentaire
d’Isaïe, dans lequel domine à peu près
exclusivement l’interpétation morale; à sa
prêtrese celle des homilies sur les Psaumes, où il donne
une égale importance au sens moral et au sens mystique, mais en
leur sacrifiant sans cesse le sens littéral; à son
épiscopat, enfin. l’Hexaméron, qui, sans
négliger les sens figurés, s’attache surtout à
donner une explication exacte de la lettre.” Fialon,
Et. Hist. p. 291. The theory is suggestive, but I am
not sure that the prevalence of the literal or of the allegorical is
not due less to the period of the composition than to the objects
the writer has in view. | An example
may be observed in Letter VIII.,481
where there
is an elaborate allegorisation of the “times and the
seasons” of Acts i. 7. An instance of the
application of both systems is to be found in the Homily on Psalm
xxviii. (i.e. in A.V. xxix.). The LXX. Title
is Ψαλμὸς τᾥ
Δαυὶδ
ἐξοδίου
σκηνῆς, Psalmus David in
exitu e tabernaculo.” Primarily this is a
charge delivered to the priests and Levites on leaving their
sacred offices. They are to remember all that it is their
duty to prepare for the holy service. As they go out of the
Tabernacle the psalm tells them all that it behoves them to have
in readiness for the morrow, young rams (Ps. xxix. 1, LXX.), glory
and honour, glory for His name. “But to our minds, as
they contemplate high and lofty things, and by the aid of an
interpretation dignified and worthy of Holy Scripture make the Law
our own, the meaning is different. There is no question of
ram in flock, nor tabernacle fashioned of lifeless material, nor
departure from the temple. The tabernacle for us is this
body of ours, as the Apostle has told us in the words, ‘For
we that are in this tabernacle do groan.’482
The departure from the temple is
our quitting this life. For this these words bid us be
prepared, bringing such and such things to the Lord, if the deeds
done here are to be a means to help us on our journey to the life
to come.”
This is in the style of exegesis hitherto
popular. To hearers familiar with exegesis of the school of
Origen, it is an innovation for Basil to adopt such an exclusively
literal system of exposition as he does,—e.g. in Hom. IX.
on the Hexæmeron,—the system which is one of his
distinguishing characteristics.483
| 483 Im
Allgemeinen und im Grundsatze aber ist Basil gegen die allegorische
Erkärungsweise, so oft er sie dann auch im Einzelnen
anwendet. Böhringer, Basil, p.
116. | In his
common-sense literalism he is thus a link with the historical school
of Antioch, whose principles were in contrast with those of Origen
and the Alexandrians, a school represented by Theodore of
Mopsuestia, Diodorus of Tarsus, and later by Theodoret.484
| 484 cf.
Gieseler i. p. 109. |
It is remarked by Gregory of Nazianzus in his
memorial oration485
that Basil used a
threefold method of enforcing Scripture on his hearers and
readers. This may be understood to be the literal, moral, and
allegorical. Ceillier points out that this description, so far as
we know, applies only to the Homilies on the Psalms.
The praise of the Psalms, prefixed to Psalm i., is
a passage of noticeable rhetorical power and of considerable
beauty. Its popularity is shewn by the fact of its being found in
some manuscripts of St. Augustine, and also in the commentary of
Rufinus. The latter probably translated it; portions of it were
transcribed by St. Ambrose.486
“The prophets,” says St. Basil, “the
historians, the law, give each a special kind of teaching, and the
exhortation of the proverbs furnishes yet another. But the use
and profit of all are included in the book of Psalms. There is
prediction of thing to come. There our memories are reminded of
the past. There laws are laid down for the guidance of
life. There are directions as to conduct. The book, in a
word, is a treasury of sound teaching, and provides for every
individual need. It heals the old hurts of souls, and brings
about recovery where the wound is fresh. It wins the part that is
sick and preserves that which is sound. As far as lies within its
power, it destroys the passions which lord it in this life in the souls
of men. And all this it effects with a musical persuasiveness and
with a gratification that induces wise and wholesome reflexion.
The Holy Spirit saw that mankind was hard to draw to goodness, that our
life’s scale inclined to pleasure, and that so we were neglectful
of the right. What plan did He adopt? He combined the
delight of melody with His teaching, to the end that by the sweetness
and softness of what we heard we might, all unawares, imbibe the
blessing of the words. He acted like wise leeches, who, when they
would give sour draughts to sickly patients, put honey round about the
cup. So the melodious music of the Psalms has been designed for
us, that those who are boys in years, or at least but lads in ways of
life, while they seem to be singing, may in reality be carrying on the
education of the soul. It is not easy for the inattentive to
retain in their memory, when they go home, an injunction of an apostle
or prophet; but the sayings of the Psalms are sung in our houses and
travel with us through the streets. Let a man begin even to grow savage as
some wild beast, and no sooner is he soothed by psalm-singing than
straightway he goes home with passions lulled to calm and quiet by the
music of the song.487
| 487 The English
reader is reminded of Congreve’s “music” charming
“the savage breast.” |
“A psalm is souls’ calm, herald of
peace, hushing the swell and agitation of thoughts. It soothes
the passions of the soul; it brings her license under law. A
psalm is welder of friendship, atonement of adversaries, reconciliation
of haters. Who can regard a man as his enemy, when they have
lifted up one voice to God together? So Psalmody gives us the
best of all boons, love. Psalmody has bethought her of concerted
singing as a mighty bond of union, and links the people together in a
symphony of one song. A psalm puts fiends to flight, and brings
the aid of angels to our side; it is armour in the terrors of the
night; in the toils of the day it is refreshment; to infants it is a
protection, to men in life’s prime a pride, to elders a
consolation, to women an adornment. It turns wastes into
homes. It brings wisdom into marts and meetings. To
beginners it is an alphabet, to all who are advancing an improvement,
to the perfect a confirmation. It is the voice of the
church. It gladdens feasts. It produces godly sorrow.
It brings a tear even from a heart of stone. A psalm is
angels’ work, the heavenly conversation, the spiritual
sacrifice. Oh, the thoughtful wisdom of the Instructor Who
designed that we should at one and the same time sing and learn to our
profit! It is thus that His precepts are imprinted on our
souls. A lesson that is learned unwillingly is not likely to
last, but all that is learned with pleasure and delight effects a
permanent settlement in our souls. What can you not learn from
this source? You may learn magnificent manliness, scrupulous
righteousness, dignified self-control, perfect wisdom. You may
learn how to repent, and how far to endure. What good thing can
you not learn? There is a complete theology;488
a foretelling of the advent of Christ in the flesh; threatening of
judgment; hope of resurrection; fear of chastisement; promise of glory;
revelation of mysteries. Everything is stored in the book of the
Psalms as in some vast treasury open to all the world. There are
many instruments of music, but the prophet has fitted it to the
instrument called Psaltery. I think the reason is that he wished
to indicate the grace sounding in him from on high by the gift of the
Spirit, because of all instruments the Psaltery is the only one which
has the source of its sounds above.489
| 489
Cassiodorus (Præf. in Ps. iv.) describes a
psaltery shaped like the Greek Δ, with the sounding board above the
strings which were struck downwards. cf. St. Aug.
on Ps. xxxii. and Dict. Bib. s.v. | In the
case of the cithara and the lyre the metal gives forth its sound at the
stroke of the plectrum from below. The Psaltery has the source of
its melodious strains above. So are we taught to be diligent in
seeking the things which are above, and not to allow ourselves to be
degraded by our pleasure in the music to the lusts of the flesh.
And what I think the word of the Prophet profoundly and wisely teaches
by means of the fashion of the instrument is this,—that those
whose souls are musical and harmonious find their road to the things
that are above most easy.”
On Psalm xiv. (in A.V. xv.) the commentary
begins:
“Scripture, with the desire to describe to
us the perfect man, the man who is ordained to be the recipient of
blessings, observes a certain order and method in the treatment of
points in him which we may contemplate, and begins from the simplest
and most obvious, ‘Lord, who shall sojourn490
| 490 A.V. marg. and
R.V. The LXX. is παροικήσει. | in thy tabernacle?’ A
sojourning is a transitory dwelling. It indicates a life not
settled, but passing, in hope of our removal to the better
things. It is the part of a saint to pass through this world,
and to hasten to another life. In this sense David says of
himself, ‘I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner, as all my
fathers were.’491
Abraham was
a sojourner, who did not possess even so much land as to set his
foot on, and when he needed a tomb, bought one for money.492
The word teaches us that so long as
he lives in the flesh he is a sojourner, and, when he removes from
this life, rests in his own home. In this life he sojourns
with strangers, but the land which he bought in the tomb to receive
his body is his own. And truly blessed is it, not to rot with
things of earth as though they were one’s own, nor cling to
all that is about us here as through here were our natural
fatherland, but to be conscious of the fall from nobler things, and
of our passing our time in heaviness because of the punishment that
is laid upon us, just like exiles who for some crimes’ sake
have been banished by the magistrates into regions far from the land
that gave them birth. Hard it is to find a man who will not
heed present things as though they were his own; who knows that he
has the use of wealth but for a season; who reckons on the brief duration of his health;
who remembers that the bloom of human glory fades away.
“‘Who shall sojourn in thy
tabernacle?’ The flesh that is given to man’s soul
for it to dwell in is called God’s tabernacle. Who will be
found to treat this flesh as though it were not his own?
Sojourners, when they hire land that is not their own, till the estate
at the will of the owner. So, too, to us the care of the flesh
has been entrusted by bond, for us to toil with diligence therein, and
make it fruitful for the use of Him Who gave it. And if the flesh
is worthy of God, it becomes verily a tabernacle of God, accordingly as
He makes His dwelling in the saints. Such is the flesh of the
sojourner. ‘Lord, who shall sojourn in Thy
tabernacle?’ Then there come progress and advance to that
which is more perfect. ‘And who shall dwell in thy holy
hill?’ A Jew, in earthly sense, when he hears of the
‘hill,’ turns his thoughts to Sion. ‘Who shall
dwell in thy holy hill?’ The sojourner in the flesh shall
dwell in the holy hill, he shall dwell in that hill, that heavenly
country, bright and splendid, whereof the Apostle says, ‘Ye are
come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem,’ where is the general assembly of ‘angels,
and church of the first-born, which are written in
heaven.’”493
The Second Homily on Psalm xiv. (xv.) has a special
interest in view of the denunciation of usury alike in Scripture and in
the early Church. The matter had been treated of at
Nicæa. With it may be compared Homily VII., De
Avaritia.494
| 494 cf. note
on Basil’s xivth Can., p. 228. |
After a few words of introduction and reference to
the former Homily on the same Psalm, St. Basil
proceeds;—“In depicting the character of the perfect man,
of him, that is, who is ordained to ascend to the life of everlasting
peace, the prophet reckons among his noble deeds his never having given
his money upon usury. This particular sin is condemned in many
passages of Scripture. Ezekiel495
reckons taking
usury and increase among the greatest of crimes. The law
distinctly utters the prohibition ‘Thou shalt not lend upon usury
to thy brother’496
and to thy
neighbour. Again it is said, ‘Usury upon usury; guile upon
guile.’497
And of the city
abounding in a multitude of wickednesses, what does the Psalm
say? ‘Usury and guile depart not from her
streets.’498
Now the prophet
instances precisely the same point as characteristic of the perfect
man, saying, ‘He that putteth not out his money to
usury.’499
For in truth it
is the last pitch of inhumanity that one man, in need of the bare
necessities of life, should be compelled to borrow, and another, not
satisfied with the principal, should seek to make gain and profit for
himself out of the calamities of the poor. The Lord gave His own
injunction quite plainly in the words, ‘from him that would
borrow of thee turn not thou away.’500
But what of the money lover? He sees before him a man under
stress of necessity bent to the ground in supplication. He sees
him hesitating at no act, no words, of humiliation. He sees him
suffering undeserved misfortune, but he is merciless. He does not
reckon that he is a fellow-creature. He does not give in to his
entreaties. He stands stiff and sour. He is moved by no
prayers; his resolution is broken by no tears. He persists in
refusal, invoking curses on his own head if he has any money about him,
and swearing that he is himself on the lookout for a friend to furnish
him a loan. He backs lies with oaths, and makes a poor addition
to his stock in trade by supplementing inhumanity with perjury.
Then the suppliant mentions interest, and utters the word
security. All is changed. The frown is relaxed; with a
genial smile he recalls old family connexion. Now it is ‘my
friend.’ ‘I will see,’ says he, ‘if I
have any money by me. Yes; there is that sum which a man I know
has left in my hands on deposit for profit. He named very heavy
interest. However, I shall certainly take something off, and give
it you on better terms.’ With pretences of this kind and
talk like this he fawns on the wretched victim, and induces him to
swallow the bait. Then he binds him with written security, adds
loss of liberty to the trouble of his pressing poverty, and is
off. The man who has made himself responsible for interest which
he cannot pay has accepted voluntary slavery for life. Tell me;
do you expect to get money and profit out of the pauper? If he
were in a position to add to your wealth, why should he come begging at
your door? He came seeking an ally, and he found a foe. He
was looking for medicine, and he lighted on poison. You ought to
have comforted him in his distress, but in your attempt to grow fruit
on the waste you are aggravating his necessity. Just as well
might a physician go in to his patients, and instead of restoring them
to health, rob them of the little strength they might have left.
This is the way in which you try to profit by the misery of the
wretched. Just as farmers pray for rain to make their fields
fatter, so you are anxious for men’s need and indigence, that your
money may make more. You forget that the addition which you are
making to your sins is larger than the increase to your wealth which
you are reckoning on getting for your usury. The seeker of the
loan is helpless either way: he bethinks him of his poverty, he
gives up all idea of payment as hopeless when at the need of the moment
he risks the loan. The borrower bends to necessity and is
beaten. The lender goes off secured by bills and bonds.
“After he has got his money, at first a man
is bright and joyous; he shines with another’s splendour, and is
conspicuous by his altered mode of life. His table is lavish; his
dress is most expensive. His servants appear in finer liveries;
he has flatterers and boon companions; his rooms are full of drones
innumerable. But the money slips away. Time as it runs on
adds the interest to its tale. Now night brings him no rest; no
day is joyous; no sun is bright; he is weary of his life; he hates the
days that are hurrying on to the appointed period; he is afraid of the
months, for they are parents of interest. Even if he sleeps, he
sees the lender in his slumbers—a bad dream—standing by his
pillow. If he wakes up, there is the anxiety and dread of the
interest. ‘The poor and the usurer,’ he exclaims,
‘meet together: the Lord lighteneth both their
eyes.’501
The lender runs
like a hound after the game. The borrower like a ready prey
crouches at the coming catastrophe, for his penury robs him of the
power of speech. Both have their ready-reckoner in their hands,
the one congratulating himself as the interest mounts up, the other
groaning at the growth of his calamities. ‘Drink waters out
of thine own cistern.’502
Look, that is
to say, at your own resources; do not approach other men’s
springs; provide your comforts from your own reservoirs. Have you
household vessels, clothes, beast of burden, all kinds of
furniture? Sell these. Rather surrender all than lose your
liberty. Ah, but—he rejoins—I am ashamed to put them
up for sale. What then do you think of another’s bringing
them out a little later on, and crying your goods, and getting rid of
them for next to nothing before your very eyes? Do not go to
another man’s door. Verily ‘another man’s well
is narrow.’503
Better is it to
relieve your necessity gradually by one contrivance after another than
after being all in a moment elated by another man’s means,
afterwards to be stripped at once of everything. If you have
anything wherewith to pay, why do you not relieve your immediate
difficulties out of these resources? If you are insolvent, you
are only trying to cure ill with ill. Decline to be blockaded by
an usurer. Do not suffer yourself to be sought out and tracked
down like another man’s game.504
| 504 ὥσπερ
ἀλλότριον
θήραμα. Ed. Par. Vulg.
ὥσπερ ἄλλο
τι θήραμα. | Usury is
the origin of lying; the beginning of ingratitude, unfairness,
perjury.…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. .
“But, you ask, how am I to live? You have
hands. You have a craft. Work for wages. Go into
service. There are many ways of getting a living, many kinds of
resources. You are helpless? Ask those who have
means. It is discreditable to ask? It will be much more
discreditable to rob your creditor. I do not speak thus to lay
down the law. I only wish to point out that any course is more
advantageous to you than borrowing.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
. .
“Listen, you rich men, to the kind of advice
I am giving to the poor because of your inhumanity. Far better
endure under their dire straits than undergo the troubles that are bred
of usury! But if you were obedient to the Lord, what need of
these words? What is the advice of the Master? Lend to
those from whom ye do not hope to receive.505
And what kind of loan is this, it is asked, from all which all idea of
the expectation of repayment is withdrawn? Consider the force of
the expression, and you will be amazed at the loving kindness of the
legislator. When you mean to supply the need of a poor man for
the Lord’s sake, the transaction is at once a gift and a
loan. Because there is no expectation of reimbursement, it is a
gift. Yet because of the munificence of the Master, Who repays on
the recipient’s behalf, it is a loan. ‘He that hath
pity on the poor lendeth unto the Lord.’506
Do you not wish the Master of the
universe to be responsible for your repayment? If any wealthy
man in the town promises you repayment on behalf of others, do you
admit his suretyship? But you do not accept God, Who more than
repays on behalf of the poor. Give the money lying useless,
without weighting it with increase, and both shall be
benefited. To you will accrue the security of its safe
keeping. The recipients will have the advantage of its
use. And if it is increase which you seek,
be satisfied with that which
is given by the Lord. He will pay the interest for the
poor. Await the loving-kindness of Him Who is in truth most
kind.
“What you are taking involves the last
extremity of inhumanity. You are making your profit out of
misfortune; you are levying a tax upon tears. You are strangling
the naked. You are dealing blows on the starving. There is
no pity anywhere, no sense of your kinship to the hungry, and you call
the profit you get from these sources kindly and humane! Wo unto
them that ‘put bitter for sweet, and sweet for
bitter,’507
and call inhumanity
humanity! This surpasses even the riddle which Samson proposed to
his boon companions:—‘Out of the eater came forth meat, and
out of the strong came forth sweetness.’508
Out of the inhuman came forth
humanity! Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of
thistles,509
nor humanity of
usury. A corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.510
There are such people as
twelve-per-cent-men and ten-per-cent-men: I shudder to mention
their names. They are exactors by the month, like the demons
who produce epilepsy, attacking the poor as the changes of the moon
come round.511
| 511 On the connexion
between σεληνιασμός
and ἐπιληψία,
cf. Origen iii. 575–577, and Cæsarius,
Quæst. 50. On the special attribution of epilepsy
to dæmoniacal influence illustrated by the name
ἱερὰ
νοσος, see Hippocrates, De
Morbo Sacro. |
“Here there is an evil grant to either, to
giver and to recipient. To the latter, it brings ruin on his
property; to the former, on his soul. The husbandman, when he has
the ear in store, does not search also for the seed beneath the root;
you both possess the fruit and cannot keep your hands from the
principal. You plant where there is no ground. You reap
where there has been no sowing. For whom you are gathering you
cannot tell. The man from whom usury wrings tears is manifest
enough; but it is doubtful who is destined to enjoy the results of the
superfluity. You have laid up in store for yourself the trouble
that results from your iniquity, but it is uncertain whether you will
not leave the use of your wealth to others. Therefore,
‘from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou
away;’512
and do not give your
money upon usury. Learn from both Old and New Testament what is
profitable for you, and so depart hence with good hope to your Lord; in
Him you will receive the interest of your good deeds,—in Jesus
Christ our Lord to Whom be glory and might for ever and ever,
Amen.”
(iii.) The Commentary on
Isaiah. The Commentary on Isaiah is placed by the Benedictine
Editors in the appendix of doubtful composition, mainly on the ground
of inferiority of style. Ceillier is strongly in favour of the
genuineness of this work, and calls attention to the fact that it is
attested by strong manuscript authority, and by the recognition of St.
Maximus, of John of Damascus, of Simeon Logothetes, of Antony Melissa
of Tarasius, and of the Greek scholiast on the Epistles of St. Paul,
who is supposed to be Œcumenius. Fessler513
ranks the work among those of doubtful authority on the ground of the
silence of earlier Fathers and of the inferiority of style, as well as
of apparent citations from the Commentary of Eusebius, and of some
eccentricity of opinion. He conjectures that we may possibly have
here the rough material of a proposed work on Isaiah, based mainly on
Origen, which was never completed. Garnier regards it as totally
unworthy of St. Basil. Maran ( Vit. Bas. 42) would accept
it, and refutes objections.
Among the remarks which have seemed frivolous is the
comment on Is. xi.
12, that the actual
cross of the Passion was prefigured by the four parts of the universe
joining in the midst.514
Similar
objections have been taken to the statement that the devils like rich
fare, and crowd the idols’ temples to enjoy the sacrificial
feasts.515
On the
other hand it has been pointed out that this ingenuity in finding
symbols of the cross is of a piece with that of Justin
Martyr,516
who cites the
yard on the mast, the plough, and the Roman trophies, and that
Gregory of Nazianzus517
| 517
Carm. 11, Epig. 28:
Δαίμοσιν
εἰλαπίναζον,
ὅσοις
τοπάροιθε
μέμηλει
Δαίμοσιν
ἦρα φέρειν,
οὐ καθαρὰς
Θυσίας. | instances the
same characteristic of the devils. While dwelling on the
holiness of character required for the prophetic offices, the
Commentary points out518
that sometimes
it has pleased God to grant it to Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar for
the sake of their great empires; to Caiaphas as the high priest;
to Balaam, because of the exigencies of the crisis at which he
appeared. The unchaste lad519
who has
some great sin upon his conscience shrinks from taking his place
among the faithful, and is ashamed to rank himself with the
weepers. So he tries to avoid the examination of those whose
duty it is to enquire into sins520
| 520 id.
ὄκνος εἰς
προφάσεις
πεπλασμένας
ἐπινοῶν
πρὸς τοὺς
ἐπιζητοῦντας. | and he
invents excuses for leaving the church before the celebration of
the mysteries. The Commentary urges521
that without penitence the best conduct is unavailing for
salvation; that God requires of the sinner not merely the
abandonment of
the sinful part, but also the amends of penance, and warns
men522
that they must
not dream that the grace of baptism will free them from the
obligation to live a godly life. The value of tradition is
insisted on.523
Every
nation, as well as every church, is said to have its own guardian
angel.524
The excommunication reserved for certain gross
sins is represented525
as a necessary means
enjoined by St. Paul to prevent the spread of wickedness. It is
said526
to be an old
tradition that on leaving Paradise Adam went to live in Jewry, and
there died; that after his death, his skull appearing bare, it was
carried to a certain place hence named “place of a
skull,” and that for this reason Jesus Christ, Who came to
destroy death’s kingdom, willed to die on the spot where the
first fruits of mortality were interred.527
| 527 The
tradition that Adam’s skull was found at the foot of the cross
gave rise to the frequent representation of a skull in Christian
art. Instances are given by Mr. Jameson, Hist. of our
Lord, i. 22. Jeremy Taylor, (Life of our Lord, Part
iii. § xv.) quotes Nonnus (In Joann. xix.
17):
Εἰσόκε
χῶρον ἵκανε
φατιζομένοιο
κρανίου
Αδὰμ
πρωτογόνοιο
φερώνυμον
ἄντυγι
κόρσης.
cf. Origen, In Matt.
Tract. 35, and Athan, De Pass. et Cruc. Jerome speaks
of the tradition in reference to its association with the words
“As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive,”
as “smooth to the ear, but not true.” One version of
the tale was that Noah took Adam’s bones with him in the ark;
that on Ararat they were divided, and the head fell to Seth’s
share. This he buried at Golgotha. cf. Fabricius i.
61. |
On Is. v.
14, “Hell hath
enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without
measure,”528
| 528 LXX.
ἐπλάτυνεν ὁ
῾Αδης τὴν
φυχὴν αὐτοῦ
καὶ
διήνοιξε τὸ
στόμα
αὐτοῦ. | it is remarked
that these are figurative expressions to denote the multitude of
souls that perish. At the same time an alternative literal
meaning is admitted, the mouth being the opening through which the
souls of the damned are precipitated into a dark region beneath the
earth.
It is noted in some mss.
that the Commentary was given to the world by an anonymous presbyter
after St. Basil’s death, who may have abstained from publishing
it because it was in an unfinished state. Erasmus was the first
to undertake to print it, and to translate it into Latin but he went no
further than the preface. It was printed in Paris in 1556 by
Tilmann, with a lengthy refutation of the objections of
Erasmus.529
| 529 cf.
Ceillier VI. viii. 2. |
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