Basil Of Caesarea Quotes

the whole idea of a “holy” war was an alien concept to the Byzantine mind. Killing, as Saint Basil of Caesarea had taught in the fourth century, was sometimes necessary but never praiseworthy, and certainly not grounds for remission of sins. The Eastern Church had held this line tenaciously throughout the centuries, even rejecting the great warrior-emperor Nicephorus Phocas’s attempt to have soldiers who died fighting Muslims declared martyrs. Wars could, of course, be just, but on the whole diplomacy was infinitely preferable. Above all, eastern clergy were not permitted to take up arms, and the strange sight of Norman clerics armed and even leading soldiers disconcerted the watching hosts.

He who plants kindness gathers love.

There is only one way out of this, namely, total separation from all the world. But withdrawal from the world does not mean physical removal from it. Rather, it is the withdrawal by the soul of any sympathy for the body. One becomes stateless and homeless. One gives up possessions, friends, ownership and property, livelihood, business connection, social life and scholarship. The heart is made ready to receive the imprint of sacred teaching, and this making ready involves the unlearning of knowledge deriving from evil habits. To write on wax, one has first to erase the letters previously written there, and to bring sacred teaching to the soul one must begin by wiping out preoccupation rooted in ordinary habits.

Here is how Basil of Caesarea puts it: “When the Lord taught us the doctrine of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, . . . He blessed us with the knowledge given us by faith, by means of holy Names.”9 In other words: The one name of the one God is the threefold name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So, why do we address the Father as “Father”? Because Jesus did (John 17:1). Because this is the name of the first Person of the Trinity—and for no other reason.

Time, my brothers and sisters, seems to be running out; we are not yet tearing one another apart, but we are tearing apart our common home. Today, the scientific community realizes what the poor have long told us: harm, perhaps irreversible harm, is being done to the ecosystem. The earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called “the dung of the devil”. An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home.

Supporters of apokatastasis in roughly chronological order: - [c. 30-105] Apostle Paul and various NT authors - [c. 80-150] Scattered likely references among Apostolic Fathers o Ignatius o Justin Martyr o Tatian o Theophilus of Antioch (explicit references) - [130-202] Irenaeus - [c. 150-200] Pantaenus of Alexandria - [150-215] Clement of Alexandria - [154-222] Bardaisan of Edessa - [c. 184-253] Origen (including The Dialogue of Adamantius) - [♱ 265] Dionysius of Alexandria - [265-280] Theognustus - [c. 250-300] Hieracas - [♱ c. 309] Pierius - [♱ c. 309] St Pamphilus Martyr - [♱ c. 311] Methodius of Olympus - [251-306] St. Anthony - [c. 260-340] Eusebius - [c. 270-340] St. Macrina the Elder - [conv. 355] Gaius Marius Victorinus (converted at very old age) - [300-368] Hilary of Poitiers - [c. 296-373] Athanasius of Alexandria - [♱ c. 374] Marcellus of Ancrya - [♱378] Titus of Basra/Bostra - [c. 329-379] Basil the Cappadocian - [327-379] St. Macrina the Younger - [♱387] Cyril of Jerusalem (possibly) - [c. 300-388] Paulinus, bishop of Tyre and then Antioch - [c. 329-390] Gregory Nazianzen - [♱ c. 390] Apollinaris of Laodicaea - [♱ c. 390] Diodore of Tarsus - [330-390] Gregory of Nyssa - [c. 310/13-395/8] Didymus the Blind of Alexandria - [333-397] Ambrose of Milan - [345-399] Evagrius Ponticus - [♱407] Theotimus of Scythia - [350-428] Theodore of Mopsuestia - [c. 360-400] Rufinus - [350-410] Asterius of Amaseia - [347-420] St. Jerome - [354-430] St. Augustine (early, anti-Manichean phase) - [363-430] Palladius - [360-435] John Cassian - [373-414] Synesius of Cyrene - [376-444] Cyril of Alexandria - [500s] John of Caesarea - [♱520] Aeneas of Gaza - [♱523] Philoxenus of Mabbug - [475-525] Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite - [♱543] Stephen Bar Sudhaili - [580-662] St. Maximus the Confessor - [♱ c. 700] St. Isaac of Nineveh - [c. 620-705] Anastasius of Sinai - [c. 690-780] St. John of Dalyatha - [710/13-c. 780] Joseph Hazzaya - [813-903] Moses Bar Kepha - [815-877] Johannes Scotus Eriugena

The ancient and mediaeval church had always acknowledged that the Bible ought to be read allegorically in many instances, according to the spiritual doctrines of the church, and that the principal truths of scripture are not confined to its literal level, which often reflects only the minds of its human authors. Origen, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine—all denied that, for instance, the creation story in Genesis was an actual historical record of how the world was made

Many women have distinguished themselves no less than men in the spiritual warfare, and some of them more … It was not only men but also women who followed Jesus, and he accepted help from women as much as from men. Basil of Caesarea Shorter Rules,

The Orthodox Church of Christ is the Body of Christ, a spiritual organism whose Head is Christ. It has a single spirit, a single common faith, a single and common catholic consciousness, guided by the Holy Spirit; and its reasonings are based on the concrete, definite foundations of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Apostolic Tradition. This catholic consciousness is always with the Church, but, in a more definite fashion, this consciousness is expressed in the Ecumenical Councils of the Church. From profound Christian antiquity, local councils of separate Orthodox Churches gathered twice a year, in accordance with the 37th Canon of the Holy Apostles.18 Likewise, often in the history of the Church there were councils of regional bishops representing a wider area than individual Churches and, finally, councils of bishops of the whole Orthodox Church of both East and West. Such Ecumenical Councils the Church recognizes as seven in number. The Ecumenical Councils formulated precisely and confirmed a number of the fundamental truths of the Orthodox Christian Faith, defending the ancient teaching of the Church against the distortions of heretics. The Ecumenical Councils likewise formulated numerous laws and rules governing public and private Christian church life, which are called the Church canons, and required the universal and uniform observance of them. Finally, the Ecumenical Councils confirmed the dogmatic decrees of a number of local councils, and also the dogmatic statements composed by certain Fathers of the Church — for example, the confession of faith of St. Gregory the Wonderworker, Bishop of Neo-Caesarea,19 the canons of St. Basil the Great,20 and so forth.

Theologian Michael Vlach has done an admirable job chronicling the appearances of penal substitution in the writings of the fathers,9 citing Clement of Rome, Ignatius, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Epistle to Diognetus, Justin Martyr, Eusebius of Caesarea, Eusebius of Emesa, Hilary of Poitiers, Athanasius, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Ambrose of Milan, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory the Great, Severus of Antioch, Oecumenius, and of course Augustine of Hippo. Vlach’s significant documentation spans the first ten centuries of the orthodox church.