Funeral Oration on Basil

Contents

Reading pages: 787–805 · 807–817

1. 787Gregory begins by noting that the church's feasts in these days follow an order taught by Paul.
2. 789After the Nativity and the feasts of the apostles comes Basil's, the pastor and teacher, master of both Christian and Greek learning, second to the apostles only in time.
3. 791Lateness in time does not lessen sanctity: in each age God raises the physician fitted to its disease, as he raised Abraham against Chaldean astrology, Moses against Egyptian magic, and Samuel against anarchy.
4. 793Gregory continues the list of God's physicians for each age: Elijah against Ahab's idolatry, John the Baptist, and Paul, whose late calling did not keep him from the summit of holiness.
5. 795Basil ranks with the earlier saints; God raised him against the Arian heresy, which Gregory calls a disguised idolatry worshipping a creature as the Son, backed by the emperors.
6. 797Basil defied emperors and prefects, unafraid of confiscation, exile, or death; Gregory begins comparing him with Paul in the love of God with the whole heart.
7. 799Since Basil loved God with his whole heart as Paul did, and love contains every other virtue, he lacked none of Paul's virtues; even Paul's rapture to the third heaven was not in the body.
8. 801Basil matched Paul in spreading the Gospel and in mortification, and matched John the Baptist in austerity and steadfastness, never a reed shaken by the wind.
9. 803Basil's bold stand against the emperor Valens for the faith surpasses John's rebuke of Herod; Elijah's chariot and miracles are beyond human imitation.
10. 805Basil shared Elijah's zeal, austerity, and dignity; his lifelong frugality answers Elijah's forty-day fast; his Trinitarian faith draws down the Spirit's fire; his prayer ended a drought, and in a famine he sold his goods.
11. 807In the famine Basil fed all comers, Jewish children included; like Samuel he was born in answer to prayer and offered sacrifice against the enemies, here heresies; Gregory turns to Moses.
12. 809Basil imitated Moses: nourished by the church while learning pagan wisdom, he left worldly glory, killed the “Egyptian” of the passions, withdrew to solitude, saw a divine light, and led his people through baptism and teaching and built a house for the poor.
13. 811Basil built in souls the furnishings of Moses' tabernacle, entered the divine darkness, defeated “Amalekites” by prayer and undid sorcerers like Balaam; like Moses he left no memorial of the flesh.
14. 813Like Moses, Basil left no tomb of wealth; Gregory declines a conventional encomium of his family and homeland, since Basil despised the flesh and rose above the whole world.
15. 815Basil's true family is kinship with God and his homeland is virtue; since words cannot praise him fittingly, the best praise is to make our own lives better by remembering him.
16. 817As wax takes the seal's image, true praise of Basil is to imitate him in self-control, poverty, devotion to God, and heavenly citizenship; disciples honour their teacher by showing his art in themselves.