What St Basil Was and What he Was Not Against

HGL's F.B. writings : What St Basil Was and What he Was Not Against · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on St. Basil

Dave Bestul

13 mai, 21:47

"The philosophers of Greece have made much ado to explain nature, and not one of their systems has remained firm and unshaken, each being overturned by its successor. It is vain to refute them; they are sufficient in themselves to destroy one another. Those who were too ignorant to rise to a knowledge of a God, could not allow that an intelligent cause presided at the birth of the Universe; a primary error that involved them in sad consequences. Some had recourse to material principles and attributed the origin of the Universe to the elements of the world. Others imagined that atoms, and indivisible bodies, molecules and ducts, form, by their union, the nature of the visible world. Atoms reuniting or separating, produce births and deaths and the most durable bodies only owe their consistency to the strength of their mutual adhesion: a true spider's web woven by these writers who give to heaven, to earth, and to sea so weak an origin and so little consistency! It is because they knew not how to say In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Deceived by their inherent atheism it appeared to them that nothing governed or ruled the universe, and that was all was given up to chance. To guard us against this error the writer on the creation, from the very first words, enlightens our understanding with the name of God; In the beginning God created. What a glorious order!"

St. Basil the Great
Homily on the Hexaemeron

GB

Basil of Caesaria has the best homilies against evolution. Loved it 💙

Here is another:

‘Avoid the nonsense of those arrogant philosophers who do not blush to liken their soul to that of a dog; who say that they have been formerly themselves women, shrubs, fish. Have they ever been fish? I do not know; but I do not fear to affirm that in their writings they show less sense than fish.’ (Homily VIII:2)

‘I know the laws of allegory, though less by myself than from the works of others. There are those truly, who do not admit the common sense of the Scriptures, for whom water is not water, but some other nature, who see in a plant, in a fish, what their fancy wishes, who change the nature of reptiles and of wild beasts to suit their allegories, like the interpreters of dreams who explain visions in sleep to make them serve their own ends. For me grass is grass; plant, fish, wild beast, domestic animal, I take all in the literal sense. “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel” [Rom. 1:16].’ (Homily IX:1)

Dave Bestul

Excellent stuff, GB!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

St Basil is here of course referring not to ALL Greek philosophers, but to the pre-Socratics and Democritus.

As to Plato - some Church Fathers regarded him as a disciple of Moses.

I forget who said of Timaeus "Moses speaking Greek".

"Avoid the nonsense of those arrogant philosophers who do not blush to liken their soul to that of a dog; who say that they have been formerly themselves women, shrubs, fish."

Pythagoras, still not Plato.

"‘I know the laws of allegory, though less by myself than from the works of others. There are those truly, who do not admit the common sense of the Scriptures"

Note, he is here speaking against, not St Augustine, to whom BOTH letter AND allegory are holy, but against Origen, who was - reputedly at least - "allegory, yes, letter, no".

St Augustine was also against that idea.

"Basil of Caesaria has the best homilies against evolution."

Does he ever mention it?

Or, you meant "prefuting" it?