Basil of Caesarea’s Biblical Readings in the Address to Young Men on Reading the Greek Literature

Abstract

Basil of Caesarea’s Address to Young Men is a text of considerable celebrity that has been attentively read by generations of scholars. They usually focused on Basil’s use of pagan literature and saw in the Address one of the most important expressions of the Christian attitude to Greek pagan culture. In order to illustrate his argument by which he defends the moral utility of school education, Basil introduced in the Address a series of biblical references. Through mentions of biblical figures and paraphrases, creatively responding to pagan parallels, Basil laid out how the form of critical reading that he advocates should work in practice. The Bible appears cloaked in a Hellenized form and in this process the Hellenized form is vindicated. Thus, the work of reformulation and harmonization does not question the superiority of the Christian discourse but rather emphasizes its powers of assimilation of foreign elements.