Translator’s Introduction: Homily 16 on “In the beginning was the Word” by St. Basil of Caesarea

Abstract

Translator’s IntroductionHomily 16 on “In the beginning was the Word” by St. Basil of Caesarea Fr. Austin Dominic Litke, OP (bio) Key Words Basil of Caesarea, 4th century Christology, Gospel of John, Patristics Historical (and often neglected) texts in the Catholic intellectual tradition with contemporary comment and reflection In polite society, one is not supposed to discuss politics or religion. In fourth-century Cappadocia, however, it seems there were moments when people discussed little else. This is the lament of St. Gregory of Nyssa, the brother and fellow-bishop of St. Basil of Caesarea, in a passage from a work on the divinity of the Son and Holy Spirit, where he writes: “If you ask for change [at the market, the vendor] philosophizes about the Begotten and Unbegotten. If you ask about the price of bread, you get in response: ‘the Father is greater and the Son is subordinate.’ If you ask whether the bath is ready, [the attendant] defines that the Son exists from what is not.”1 St. Gregory takes this as a negative thing, since it means that many laypeople were on [End Page 148] the opposite side of the Arian controversy, espousing what historians call the “Anomoian” position concerning the Son, a radical version of the Arian heresy which held that the Son was a “totally different” kind of thing from the Father. In the late-fourth century, St. Gregory, along with St. Basil of Caesarea and St. Gregory of Nazianzen, was a staunch defender of the position defined at the Council of Nicaea in 325, which states that the Son is “consubstantial with the Father,” that is, the Son is the same kind of thing that the Father is. Even though this had been defined dogmatically a generation before, the three “Cappadocians” spent much of their time defending that teaching against those who would deny it. All of this is important for understanding the context of the homily of St. Basil, called “the Great” by the tradition, which we present for the first time here in a complete English translation. Historians have specified that the homily was composed and preached sometime between 363–78, but most likely in 372, the same year he preached a widely disseminated homily “On the Faith,” placing it among the sermons he gave in the first years of his episcopate at Caesarea.2 In it, St. Basil presents the first lines of the Gospel according to St. John as the remedy to the Arian doctrines that were still gaining support among Christians of the time. The continual affirmation that “the Word was God” is meant to combat the Arian assertion to the contrary. These inspired words of the Beloved Disciple are offered to give confidence to the faithful that what the Church taught at Nicaea comes directly from the experience of the one who reclined on Jesus’s chest at the Last Supper, such that one need not despair at their truth in the face of those who think otherwise. Even though St. Basil’s homily is primarily a pastoral writing, intended to form and edify the people under his care, he does not shy away from using philosophical examples and theological vocabulary. In order to explain how God the Word is the same being as God the Father, he presents the example of how human language is produced. We first have an idea that resides in our souls. That idea is then expressed in a word or series of words that are brought outside [End Page 149] of us. Even though the idea and the word are distinct, they are not separate. In fact, they are the same thing in different modes of expression. This distinction between an “inner word” and an “exterior word” was commonplace among the philosophers of the fourth century, and St. Basil has no problem using it to demonstrate the unity in being of the Father and the Son, of God and his Word. The bishop also has no problem using technical theological vocabulary. He speaks of the Word as a distinct prosopon, the Greek word for “Person.” He makes use of the technical theological term hypostasis to describe the unique being...