The Cappadocian Doctors

Happy ninth day of Christmas! Today the Church turns to the east for her celebrations, honouring Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, bishops and Doctors of the Church.

They both lived in the middle of the fourth century – in fact, they knew each other and were friends.

Interestingly, this is not infrequently the case with two great Doctors – think of Saints Ambrose and Augustine, also in the fourth century, or Saints Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross in the sixteenth.

These are, I think, examples of saints exhorting each other to sanctity and service. May that it ever be so!

Today I’d like to talk just a little bit about Saint Basil. Among his many literary accomplishments is a work called the Asketika, often called “the Rule of Saint Basil“. He wrote it for a small community of monks that he founded in the late 350s. I’m sure he had no idea that it was going to lay the foundation of monastic life, particularly in the east, for the next seventeen hundred years.

In his own Rule, Saint Benedict refers to Saint Basil’s Rule as a monument “of the virtues of exemplary and obedient monks”.

Unlike that of Saint Benedict, Saint Basil’s Rule does not concern day-to-day operations or administration of a monastery. Instead, it enumerates indisputable moral principles for the monastic – indeed, the Christian – life.

The twenty-six chapters, including ninety-five individual rules, are written in question-and-answer format, often quoting Scriptural passages and stressing the importance of the Scriptures as the “true rules”.

Here’s an example:

Question VII.

Since your words have given us full assurance that the [monastic] life is dangerous with those who despise the commandments of the Lord, we wish accordingly to learn whether it is necessary that he who withdraws should remain alone or live with brothers of like mind who have placed before themselves the same goal of piety.

Response I think that the life of several in the same place is much more profitable. First, because for bodily wants no one of us is sufficient for himself, but we need each other in providing what is necessary.

For just as the foot has one ability, but is wanting another, and without the help of the other members it would find neither its own power strong nor sufficient of itself to continue, nor any supply for what it lacks, so it is in the case of the solitary life: what is of use to us and what is wanting we cannot provide for ourselves, for God who created the world has so ordered all things that we are dependent upon each other, as it is written that we may join ourselves to one another [cf. Wis. 13: 20].

But in addition to this, reverence to the love of Christ does not permit each one to have regard only to his own affairs, for love, he says, seeks not her own [I Cor. 13: 5]. The solitary life has only one goal, the service of its own interests. That clearly is opposed to the law of love, which the Apostle fulfilled, when he did not in his eyes seek his own advantage but the advantage of many, that they might be saved [cf. I Cor. 10: 33].

Further, no one in solitude recognizes his own defects, since he has no one to correct him and in gentleness and mercy direct him on his way. For even if correction is from an enemy, it may often in the case of those who are well disposed rouse the desire for healing; but the healing of sin by him who sincerely loves is wisely accomplished.

Let us ask this both these great Doctors of the Church, both monks and both later bishops, to pray for us in our pursuit of the Christian life.

O God, who were pleased to give light to your Church
by the example and teaching
of the Bishops Saints Basil and Gregory,
grant, we pray,
that in humility we may learn your truth
and practice it faithfully in charity.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.