56. The assessor of a judge was attempting to force into a distasteful marriage a lady of high birth whose husband was but recently dead. At a loss to escape from this high-handed treatment, she resorted to a device no less prudent than daring. She fled to the holy table, and placed herself under the protection of God against outrage. What, in the Name of the Trinity Itself, if I may introduce into my panegyric somewhat of the forensic style, ought to have been done, I do not say, by the great Basil, who laid down the law for us all in such matters, but by any one who, though far inferior to him, was a priest? Ought he not to have allowed her claim, to have taken charge of, and cared for, her; to have raised his hand in defence of the kindness of God and the law which gives honour to the altar? Ought he not to have been willing to do and suffer anything, rather than take part in any inhuman design against her, and outrage at once the holy table, and the faith in which she had taken sanctuary? No! said the baffled judge, all ought to yield to my authority, and Christians should betray their own laws. The suppliant whom he demanded, was at all hazards retained. Accordingly, in his rage, he at last sent some of the magistrates to search the saint's bedchamber, with the purpose of dishonouring him, rather than from any necessity. What! Search the house of a man so free from passion, whom the angels revere, at whom women do not venture even to look? And, not content with this, he summoned him, and put him on his defence; and that, in no gentle or kindly manner, but as if he were a convict. Upon Basil's appearance, standing, like my Jesus, before the judgment seat of Pilate, he presided at the trial, full of wrath and pride. Yet the thunderbolts did not fall, and the sword of God still glittered, and waited, while His bow, though bent, was restrained. Such indeed is the custom of God.
57. Consider another struggle between our champion and his persecutor. His ragged pallium having been ordered to be torn away, "I will also, if you wish it, strip off my coat," said he. His fleshless form was threatened with blows, and he offered to submit to be torn with combs, and he said, "By such laceration you will cure my liver, which, as you see, is wearing me away." Such was their argument. But when the city perceived the outrage and the common danger of all--for each one considered this insolence a danger to himself, it became all on fire with rage; and, like a hive roused by smoke, one after another was stirred and arose, every race and every age, but especially the men from the small-arms factory and from the imperial weaving-sheds. For men at work in these trades are specially hot-tempered and daring, because of the liberty allowed them. Each man was armed with the tool he was using, or with whatever else came to hand at the moment. Torch in hand, amid showers of stones, with cudgel's ready, all ran and shouted together in their united zeal. Anger makes a terrible soldier or general. Nor were the women weaponless, when roused by such an occasion. Their pins were their spears, and no longer remaining women, they were by the strength of their eagerness endowed with masculine courage. It is a short story. They thought that they would share among themselves the piety of destroying him, and held him to be most pious who first laid hands on one who had dared such deeds. What then was the conduct of this haughty and daring judge? He begged for mercy in a pitiable state of distress, cringing before them to an unparalleled extent, until the arrival of the martyr without bloodshed, who had won his crown without blows, and now restrained the people by the force of his personal influence, and delivered the man who had insulted him and now sought his protection. This was the doing of the God of Saints, Who worketh and changeth all things for the best, who resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. [4499] And why should not He, Who divided the sea and stayed the river, and ruled the elements, and by stretching out set up a trophy, to save His exiled people, why should not He have also rescued this man from his perils?
58. This was the end and fortunate close, in the Providence of God, of the war with the world, a close worthy of his faith. But here at once is the beginning of the war with the Bishops, and their allies, which involved great disgrace, and still greater injury to their subjects. For who could persuade others to be temperate, when such was the conduct of their prelates? For a long time they had been unkindly disposed towards him, on three grounds. They neither agreed with him in the matter of the faith, except in so far as they were absolutely obliged to yield to the majority of the faithful. Nor had they altogether laid aside the grudge they owed him for his election. And, what was most grievous of all to them, though they would have been most ashamed to own it--he so far outshone them in reputation. There was also a further cause of dissension which stirred up again the others. When our country had been divided into two provinces and metropolitical sees, and a great part of the former was being added to the new one, this again roused their factious spirit. The one [4500] thought it right that the ecclesiastical boundaries should be settled by the civil ones: and therefore claimed those newly added, as belonging to him, and severed from their former metropolitan. The other [4501] clung to the ancient custom, and to the division which had come down from our fathers. Many painful results either actually followed, or were struggling in the womb of the future. Synods were wrongfully gathered by the new metropolitan, and revenues seized upon. Some of the presbyters of the churches refused obedience, others were won over. In consequence the affairs of the churches fell into a sad state of dissension and division. Novelty indeed has a certain charm for men, and they readily turn events to their own advantage, and it is easier to overthrow something which is already established, than to restore it when overthrown. What however enraged him most was, that the revenues [4502] of the Taurus, which passed along before his eyes, accrued to his rival, as also the offerings at Saint Orestes', [4503] of which he was greatly desirous to reap the fruits. He even went so far as, on one occasion when Basil was riding along his own road, to seize his mules by the bridle and bar the passage with a robber band. And with how specious a pretext, the care of his spiritual children and of the souls entrusted to him, and the defence of the faith--pretexts which veiled that most common vice, insatiable avarice--and further, the wrongfulness of paying dues to heretics, a heretic being any one who had displeased him.
59. The holy man of God however, metropolitan as he was of the true Jerusalem above, was neither carried away with the failure of those who fell, nor allowed himself to overlook this conduct, nor did he desire any inadequate remedy for the evil. Let us see how great and wonderful it was, or, I would say, how worthy of his soul. He made of the dissension a cause of increase to the Church, and the disaster, under his most able management, resulted in the multiplication of the Bishops of the country. From this ensued three most desirable consequences; a greater care for souls, the management by each city of its own affairs, and the cessation of the war in this quarter. I am afraid that I myself was treated as an appendage to this scheme. By no other term can I readily describe the position. Greatly as I admire his whole conduct, to an extent indeed beyond my powers of expression, of this single particular I find it impossible to approve, for I will acknowledge my feelings in regard to it, though these are from other sources not unknown to most of you. I mean the change and faithlessness of his treatment of myself, a cause of pain which even time has not obliterated. For this is the source of all the inconsistency and tangle of my life; it has robbed me of the practice, or at least the reputation, of philosophy; of small moment though the latter be. The defence, which you will perhaps allow me to make for him, is this; his ideas were superhuman, and having, before his death, become superior to worldly influences, his only interests were those of the Spirit: while his regard for friendship was in no wise lessened by his readiness then, and then only, to disregard its claims, when they were in conflict with his paramount duty to God, and when the end he had in view was of greater importance than the interests he was compelled to set aside.
60. I am afraid that, in avoiding the imputation of indifference at the hands of those who desire to know all that can be said about him, I shall incur a charge of prolixity from those whose ideal is the golden mean. For the latter Basil himself had the greatest respect, being specially devoted to the adage "In all things the mean [4504] is the best," and acting upon it throughout his life. Nevertheless, disregarding alike those who desire undue conciseness or excessive prolixity, I proceed thus with my speech. Different men attain success in different ways, some applying themselves to one alone of the many forms of excellence, but no one, of those hitherto known to me, arriving at the highest eminence in all respects; he being in my opinion the best, who has won his laurels on the widest field, or gained the highest possible renown in some single particular. Such however was the height of Basil's fame, that he became the pride of human kind. Let us consider the matter thus. Is any one devoted to poverty and a life devoid of property, and free from superfluity? What did he possess besides his body, and the necessary coverings of the flesh? His wealth was the having nothing, and he thought the cross, with which he lived, more precious than great riches. For no one, however much he may wish, can obtain possession of all things, but any one can learn to despise, and so prove himself superior to, all things. Such being his mind, and such his life, he had no need of an altar and of vainglory, nor of such a public announcement as "Crates [4505] sets Crates the Theban free." For his aim was ever to be, not to seem, most excellent. Nor did he dwell in a tub, [4506] and in the midst of the market-place, and so by luxuriating in publicity turn his poverty into riches: but was poor and unkempt, yet without ostentation: and taking cheerfully the casting overboard of all that he ever had, sailed lightly across the sea of life.
61. A wondrous thing is temperance, and fewness of wants, and freedom from the dominion of pleasures, and from the bondage of that cruel and degrading mistress, the belly. Who was so independent of food, and, without exaggeration, more free from the flesh? For he flung away all satiety and surfeit to creatures destitute of reason, whose life is slavish and debasing. He paid little attention to such things as, next to the appetite, are of equal rank, but, as far as possible, lived on the merest necessaries, his only luxury being to prove himself not luxurious, and not, in consequence, to have greater needs: but he looked to the lilies and the birds, [4507] whose beauty is artless, and their food casual, according to the important advice of my Christ, who made Himself poor [4508] in the flesh for our sakes, that we might enjoy the riches of His Godhead. Hence came his single coat and well worn cloak, and his bed on the bare ground, his vigils, his unwashedness (such were his decorations) and his most sweet food and relish, bread, and salt, his new dainty, and the sober and plentiful drink, with which fountains supply those who are free from trouble. The result, or the accompaniment, of these things were the attendance on the sick and practice of medicine, our common intellectual pursuit. For, though inferior to him in all other respects, I must needs be his equal in distress.
62. A great thing is virginity, and celibacy, and being ranked with the angels, and with the single nature; for I shrink from calling it Christ's, Who, though He willed to be born for our sakes who are born, by being born of a Virgin, enacted [4509] the law of virginity, to lead us away from this life, and cut short the power of the world, or rather, to transmit one world to another, the present to the future. Who then paid more honour to virginity, or had more control of the flesh, not only by his personal example, but in those under his care? Whose are the convents, and the written regulations, by which he subdued every sense, and regulated every member, and won to the real practice of virginity, turning inward the view of beauty, from the visible to the invisible; and by wasting away the external, and withdrawing fuel from the flame, and revealing the secrets of the heart to God, Who is the only bridegroom of pure souls, and takes in with himself the watchful souls, if they go to meet him with lamps burning and a plentiful supply of oil? [4510] Moreover he reconciled most excellently and united the solitary and the community life. These had been in many respects at variance and dissension, while neither of them was in absolute and unalloyed possession of good or evil: the one being more calm and settled, tending to union with God, yet not free from pride, inasmuch as its virtue lies beyond the means of testing or comparison; the other, which is of more practical service, being not free from the tendency to turbulence. He founded cells [4511] for ascetics and hermits, but at no great distance from his cenobitic communities, and, instead of distinguishing and separating the one from the other, as if by some intervening wall, he brought them together and united them, in order that the contemplative spirit might not be cut off from society, nor the active life be uninfluenced by the contemplative, but that, like sea and land, by an interchange of their several gifts, they might unite in promoting the one object, the glory of God.