Homilies and Sermons

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–1.11 · 2.1–2.8 · 3.0–3.7 · 4.1–5.1 · 5.2–5.9 · 6.0–7.1 · 7.3–8.1 · 8.2–8.9 · 9.1–9.8 · 9.9–9.10 · 10.1–10.6 · 11.1–12.1 · 12.5–12.14 · 12.15–12.17 · 13.1–13.6 · 14.0–14.8 · 15.1–16.1 · 17.1–18.8 · 19.0–19.8 · 20.1–21.0 · 21.1–21.10 · 21.11–22.2 · 22.6–23.4 · 24.0–24.4

1. 1.1Basil opens the Lenten fast: it is to be welcomed cheerfully, practised without display, and it is older than the law.
2. 1.4No one may plead weakness to avoid fasting, since a light diet keeps the body healthier than luxury.
3. 1.5Fasting is older than wine and meat-eating; Moses received the law through fasting, while the people's feasting led to idolatry.
4. 1.6Examples from Esau to Daniel show the power of fasting, which also brings peace to households and rest to servants.
5. 1.8Fasting frees from debt and makes food more enjoyable by interrupting continual luxury.
6. 1.9The rich man's luxury and the fasting of the saints, of John the Baptist, of Paul and of Christ himself show the value of fasting.
7. 1.10True fasting is abstaining from evils, and no one should prepare for the fast by getting drunk, since every passion is a kind of drunkenness.
8. 1.11Drunkenness drives away the Lord and the Spirit, while fasting brings calm to the city; Basil closes with a prayer for the coming Pascha.
9. 2.1As generals and trainers exhort their men, Basil exhorts Christ's soldiers to train for spiritual warfare by fasting.
10. 2.2Fasting is fitting for every rank, age and condition, and Christ's soldiers, armed differently from the world's, are strengthened not by food but by doctrine.
11. 2.4No one should prepare for the fast by getting drunk; fasting brings order to households and to the whole city.
12. 2.8Basil closes by urging his hearers to feast instead on the Spirit's teaching, lest they suffer the famine of the word threatened in Amos.
13. 3.0Title of the homily on Deut 15:9.
14. 3.1Basil introduces Deut 15:9 and expounds 'give heed to yourself' as watchfulness over one's thoughts and soul, applied to every calling and to every state of fortune.
15. 3.6The poor and lowly should not despair, since as human beings made by God's hands and in his image they possess gifts of nature and of grace greater than wealth.
16. 3.7Heeding oneself curbs anger and lust, keeps reason ruling the passions, and leads from the soul and the marvellous structure of the body to the knowledge of God.
17. 4.1Basil opens his homily on 1 Thess 5:16-18 by stating the objection that unceasing joy, prayer and thanksgiving are impossible.
18. 4.2To the objection that one cannot give thanks under torture or loss, Basil answers that the apostle speaks to those whose souls, united to God, are above the sufferings of the flesh, and who have abundant reasons for joy.
19. 4.6Christ's tears are a measure, not a license, for grief; Job and the hope of resurrection teach Christians to bear bereavement and loss calmly and so to rejoice always.
20. 5.0The end of the title of the homily on the martyr Julitta, which completes the homily on thanksgiving.
21. 5.1Basil introduces the feast of the martyr Julitta: when a powerful man seized her property, he had her lawsuit barred unless she sacrificed and denied Christ.
22. 5.2Julitta went joyfully to the fire, encouraging women to equal men in piety; Basil then explains unceasing prayer as a life directed to God and thanksgiving even in bereavement.
23. 5.6Gratitude is lost by comparing ourselves with those above us; we should give thanks for God's countless gifts of creation and redemption, and weep only for what deserves tears.
24. 5.8Those who visit mourners should share their sorrow with restraint and console them gently, rather than lamenting with them.
25. 5.9Christians should weep only for sin, as Paul and Jeremiah did, and not use grief as an excuse for drunkenness; Basil closes his exposition of 1 Thess 5:16-18.
26. 6.0Title of the homily on the rich fool of Luke 12:18.
27. 6.1Prosperity is a trial like affliction; the rich fool, blessed by God's kindness, answered with miserliness and was as troubled by his plenty as the poor by their want.
28. 6.2The rich fool's miserliness is set against the generosity of the earth, the sufferings of the poor who must sell their children, and the judgment that condemns those who do not share; what the rich hold back belongs to the needy.
29. 7.1Basil recalls that the rich young man is not the testing lawyer of Luke, since he asked sincerely.
30. 7.3Wealth beyond need goes on luxuries invented by the devil or is buried in the ground; those who keep every commandment but this one are shut out like a traveller who stops at the city gate.
31. 7.4The rich who adorn walls and horses but neglect the poor will have no answer at the judgment; greed is insatiable, swallows up neighbors like Naboth, and knows no bounds.
32. 7.6Basil sets the judgment seat of Christ before the greedy rich and exposes gold and gems as mere stones; the plea that wealth is needed for children is a pretext for greed.
33. 7.8The childless who postpone giving to the poor until their wills are written gain nothing, since there is no reward after death and wills can be prevented or forged.
34. 7.9Bequests made only at death are no virtue; Basil urges the rich to take their wealth with them by giving it now, following Christ who became poor for us.
35. 8.1Basil opens his homily in a time of famine with Amos's call to repentance, praying that his hearers will listen better than Israel did.
36. 8.2Drought and famine are God's fatherly chastisement for the hard-heartedness of the rich toward the poor; Basil rebukes the half-hearted prayer of the city and holds up the repentance of Nineveh.
37. 8.4True repentance would show itself in tears, hospitality and the cancelling of debts; drought tests rich and poor alike, and God, whose power and goodness have not failed, feeds those who trust him.
38. 8.6As God fed Israel in the desert, the poor should give from their little like the widow of Sidon; hunger is the cruellest of deaths, and those who let others starve are like murderers, while the generous stand first at the judgment.
39. 8.8Even animals share pasture; Christians should imitate the common life of the first church and Joseph's generosity, giving the soul its share as a bride to be presented to Christ.
40. 8.9Basil closes with the certainty of the resurrection and the judgment, when each will receive what he deserves.
41. 9.1Basil argues that God is not the author of evil: true evil is sin, arising from free will; sufferings are medicinal or corrective; Scripture's 'evils from the Lord' mean chastisements or refashioning; evil has no substance of its own but is the privation of good, and death came from Adam's turning away from God.
42. 9.8The devil, an angel who fell by his own choice, is evil not by nature but by estrangement from God, and in envy deceived man in paradise.
43. 9.9God set enmity between the serpent and humanity; the tree tested obedience, and the devil, an incorporeal ruler of the air whose name means 'adversary', is used by God to exercise our souls.
44. 9.10The 'heavenly places' where the devil's forces dwell are the air, from which Christ saw Satan fall.
45. 10.1Basil's homily against anger opens: experience shows the wisdom of Scripture's warnings, since anger turns a man into a beast.
46. 10.4Retaliating against abuse brings the same guilt; Christians should bear insults humbly, remembering that they are poor and naked by nature and that Christ was slandered, struck and spat upon.
47. 10.6Rage directed by reason against sin is right, as in Moses, Phinehas, Samuel and Elijah; but anger against our brothers must be cured by the humility Christ taught and showed.
48. 11.1Envy, the devil's own vice, consumes the envious soul, rejoices only in others' fall, drove the devil against mankind and Cain against Abel, and made Saul hate David the more for his benefits.
49. 11.4Envy sold Joseph and crucified Christ; it attacks those nearest us, harms the envious most, sees only faults, and is cured by valuing only true and eternal goods and turning ambition toward virtue.
50. 11.6Envy breeds hypocrisy and brought death into the world; Basil ends with Paul's call to kindness and forgiveness.
51. 12.0Title of Basil's homily on the opening of the book of Proverbs.
52. 12.1Basil explains the three books of Solomon, the meaning of “proverb,” why the author's name and kingship are given, and what wisdom is, divine and human, beginning with the fear of the Lord.
53. 12.5The fear of God shuts out the profane; Basil then explains “instruction” as God's corrective discipline, which opens the ears of the careless.
54. 12.6Instruction also means choosing useful learning over geometry, astrology, poetry, rhetoric and sophistry; Basil then turns to “words of prudence” and the puzzle of the “prudent” serpent.
55. 12.8Basil explains “true righteousness” and “directing judgment”: human and divine justice, degrees of guilt, Solomon's judgment, and the inner court where chastity and pleasure contend.
56. 12.10Within the soul each virtue is on trial against its vice; the mind must judge for virtue, so as to be crowned on the day of judgment.
57. 12.11Basil distinguishes innocence acquired by virtue from mere inexperience, and good shrewdness, which protects the simple, from wicked cunning.
58. 12.12Opening words of section 12: biblical history gives examples of shrewdness used well and badly.
59. 12.13The “young child” of Prov 1:4 is the soul newly born in baptism, to whom Proverbs gives perception of present things and understanding of things to come.
60. 12.14The bodily senses stand for powers of the soul trained by Proverbs; it also gives understanding of judgment and the promises, and makes even the wise wiser.
61. 12.15The “steering” of Prov 1:5 is the skill of crossing the changing sea of life and the storm of the passions without being elated or sunk.
62. 12.16Christians are merchants carrying the cargo of good works; without the skill of steering, years of virtue can be lost in one shipwreck of sin.
63. 12.17Steering by heaven: keep the eyes on God, the sun of righteousness and the commandments, and the Spirit will bring you to the harbor of God's will.
64. 13.1Basil reverses Solomon's “time to be born and time to die” for baptism, which brings death to sin and new birth, and urges the delaying catechumens to be baptized at Pascha.
65. 13.2Opening of section 2: the goodness of the Lord must be tasted to be known.
66. 13.4Basil urges self-examination: the baptismal seal marks Christ's own; delaying baptism to enjoy sin is folly, since self-control in old age is mere incapacity and death may come with a fever.
67. 13.6Like the Ethiopian eunuch, the hearer should be baptized without delay; the devil's trick is to say “today for me, tomorrow for God,” but the Christian life, though demanding, is easier than the toils of sin.
68. 14.0Title of Basil's homily against drunkenness.
69. 14.1On Easter evening women danced drunk at the martyrs' shrines; Basil, though discouraged, denounces drunkenness, which makes people more irrational than beasts and deranges body and mind.
70. 14.4Drunkenness breeds unnatural lust and ruins the body; Basil expounds Prov 23:29–30 (“who has woe?”) phrase by phrase.
71. 14.5Hungover drinkers cannot hear the Scriptures' warnings; wine dries and weakens the body and brings on the trembling of Cain's curse.
72. 14.6Basil describes the luxurious drinking parties, with their contests and machines for equal drunkenness, and the soldier carried home dead drunk, applying Isaiah's woe on those who drink from morning to evening.
73. 14.8Men and women danced together drunk, so that girls lost their virginity and men committed adultery by looking; Basil prescribes fasting, psalms, tears and almsgiving, and tells the sober to separate from the unrepentant.
74. 15.1Speech about God always falls short; Basil leads the hearer in thought beyond the senses, the cosmos and the angels to contemplate the simple, unchangeable divine nature.
75. 15.2Father, Son and Spirit share one uncreated nature: the Son is the perfect image, having by nature all the Father has; the Spirit is holy by nature, one and undivided, and works every gift in the Church.
76. 16.1Expounding John 1:1, Basil shows that the Word's “beginning” has no beginning before it and that the fourfold “was” refutes the Arian “there was when he was not,” while “Word” and “with God” exclude both passion in the begetting and Sabellian confusion.
77. 17.1Panegyric on the martyr Barlaam, an unlettered rustic who endured scourging and held still the burning incense on his outstretched right hand rather than let it fall on the pagan altar.
78. 18.1Panegyric on Gordius, a centurion of Caesarea: biblical praise rests on deeds, not homeland; in the persecution Gordius fled to the desert, then came down into the crowded stadium and declared himself a Christian.
79. 18.4Gordius appears in the stadium, confesses Christ before the magistrate, scorns threats and bribes, and is condemned; the whole city pours out to watch, and friends urge him to deny with his lips only.
80. 18.8Gordius urges the crowd to confess Christ, since death is inevitable and martyrdom rare; he signs himself with the cross, is beheaded, and his memory remains ever fresh.
81. 19.0Title of Basil's homily on the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste.
82. 19.1No praise can match the forty martyrs, one soul in forty bodies; to honor them sincerely is to share their will and their reward.
83. 19.2The martyrs' praise lies not in homeland or family but in their deeds; their city is the heavenly Jerusalem; they were soldiers renowned for strength and valor.
84. 19.3Under persecution many fled or gave way, but the forty soldiers stood before the governor and declared themselves Christians.
85. 19.4Each of the forty answers only “I am a Christian”; they reject the governor's flattery and bribes, preferring the crown of righteousness and fearing only Gehenna.
86. 19.5The governor condemns the forty to die of exposure, naked on the frozen lake on a winter night; Basil describes the agony of freezing.
87. 19.6Stripping joyfully, the forty encourage one another through the night: they put off the old man and offer themselves as a whole burnt offering of cold.
88. 19.8The forty are burned and their ashes thrown into the river; their relics, though divided among many places, remain forty and help all who pray with them; the mother of the youngest lifts him onto the cart herself.
89. 20.1Man fell by seeking false glory, and humility is his cure; wealth, office, bodily gifts and even human wisdom only puff up, while the true boast is to know God and be justified by faith in Christ.
90. 20.4All we have is received from God; Peter learned humility through his fall, the Pharisee lost his righteousness through pride; Basil sets Christ's lowliness from manger to cross before us as the pattern.
91. 20.7Practical counsel for humility in dress, speech, rebuke, and office, ending with Christ's call to learn from him, gentle and lowly in heart.
92. 21.0Title of Basil's homily on detachment from worldly goods.
93. 21.1Life is a road on which the devil lies in ambush among worldly delights; wealth, food, lust and power cannot be truly ours, but only the soul, the body as its vehicle, and the virtues.
94. 21.6The wise care first for the soul, accept bodily hardship with Paul's confidence, and give the body only what it needs.
95. 21.8Basil urges giving to the poor, warns that the rich who lavish money on flatterers while spurning beggars are worse than the rich man of the parable, and closes his exhortation.
96. 21.9Basil adds thanks for the church's escape from a fire set nearby, blamed on the devil, and asks the congregation to provide for those who lost everything in it.
97. 21.10Those who lost their goods in the fire should imitate Job, who met each report of disaster, even the death of his children, with “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away.”
98. 21.11Struck in body and seated on the dunghill, Job resists even his wife's plea to curse God, answering that good and evil alike are to be received from the Lord.
99. 21.12Job received back double wealth but only the same number of children, since the dead children still live; Basil urges the victims of the fire to bear their loss in the same way.
100. 22.1Basil, writing as an experienced elder and near kinsman, offers the young advice on their education, recalling Hesiod's three kinds of men.
101. 22.2Pagan literature can prepare the young for Scripture as dyeing prepares cloth: take from poets, historians and orators, like bees from flowers, what praises virtue (Homer, Solon, Theognis, Prodicus, the deeds of Pericles, Socrates, Alexander) and reject the rest.
102. 22.6Athletes endure everything for a perishable crown; we must labor for far greater prizes, caring for the soul and giving the body only what it needs, shunning luxury, finery, corrupting music and sensual pleasure.
103. 22.8Disdain for the body frees one from love of wealth, flattery and the craving for reputation; virtue is the provision for the endless age to come.
104. 23.1On the feast of the martyr Mamas, Basil asks the congregation to praise him themselves by recalling the dreams, prayers, healings and other benefits they have received through him.
105. 23.2A martyr is praised for his own virtue, not his ancestry; Mamas was a poor shepherd, a calling shared by Abel, Moses, Jacob and David, and by Christ, who is both shepherd and king.
106. 23.4The hirelings are those who lead for their own profit, then and now; Basil condemns schism over Christ's words and turns to the heretics' use of “I know my own and my own know me.”
107. 24.0Title of Basil's homily against the Sabellians, Arians and Anomoeans.
108. 24.1The Sabellians renew Judaism by making Father and Son one person, the Anomoeans renew paganism by worshiping a created Son; Christ's own words show two persons and one nature.
109. 24.4One essence without two gods: the Son is the Father's perfect image and radiance; the Spirit is a distinct person, inseparable from Father and Son, ranked with them in baptism, and not a creature, as the Pneumatomachians' sophisms claim.