St. Basil the Great

• He was one of ten children, three of whom became bishops: St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Peter of Sebaste. His sister St. Macrina the Younger was a model of ascetic life.
• He received his elementary training from his father Basil, the son of St. Macrina the Elder who was a pupil of St. Gregory the Wonderworker.
• St. Basil began his education at Caesarea, the Cappadocian capital, but presently proceeded to Constantinople, and from thence to Athens. At Athens he had for a fellow-student Gregory, a son of the bishop of the small Cappadocian town Nazianzus, who had previously studied at Caesarea in Palestine, and at Alexandria under Didymus with whom he entered upon a lifelong friendship.
• He returned to Caesarea ca. 356 to begin a career as a rhetorician but soon afterwards embraced monasticism.
• He journeyed through Egypt, Palestine and Syria in order to meet the most famous ascetics, after which he went into solitude near Neocaesarea.
• When St. Gregory of Nazianzus visited him in 358, they prepared together the Philocalia and the two Rules which had a decisive influence in the expansion of the cenobitic life, and earned St. Basil the name of “Lawgiver of Greek monasticism.” In a short time, he founded a number of monasteries.
• In Eusebius, the metropolitan of Caesarea, persuaded St. Basil to become a priest. He accepted and, as Gregory of Nazianzus writes, was “a good counselor, a skillful helper, and expounder of the Scriptures, an interpreter of his duties, the staff of his old age, the prop of his faith, more trustworthy than all his clerics, more experienced than any layman.”
• After Eusebius died in 370, St. Basil became his successor as bishop of Caesarea and metropolitan of

1. Dogmatic Works

• De Spiritu Sancto. He appeals to Scripture and early Christian tradition in support of the catholic (universal) doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and the book is at once well reasoned and edifying in tone and substance.
• Contra Eunomium, is a lengthy refutation of Anomoean Arianism. 2. Homilies
• The Hexaemeron, an Exposition of the Psalms, and addresses on a variety of subjects,doctrinalandpractical. 3. Ascetic Writings
• The Moralia, rules for the ordering of life in the world, especially the life of the clergy; and two sets of Regulae, rules for the monastic state. 4. Letters
• 366 letters have survived. They possess deep feeling, great warmth of affection, and a fund of quiet humor, at times approaching to playfulness.
• It must be remembered that we are reading the self- revelations of one who struggled with constant ill-health, and whose days were full of distractions and anxieties from without. 5. The Liturgies of St. Basil
• Three liturgies are attributed to St. Basil: (a) that of the Byzantine Church, (b) that of the Syrian Orthodox Church, and (c) that of the Coptic Orthodox Church, of which there is also a Greek version.
• In the Anaphora of the Coptic Liturgy of St. Basil, he says: He was incarnate and became man, and taught us the ways of salvation. He granted us the birth from on high through water and Spirit. He made us unto Himself a congregation, and sanctified us by Your Holy Spirit ; He loved His own who are in the world, and gave Himself up for our salvation unto death which reigned over us, whereby we were bound and sold on account of our sins,