§ 164:. BASIL THE GREAT. 893
ing method ^f the Alexandrian scliool ; and a sjnopsiLj or compendium of the Bible. But the genuineness of these unim portant works is by many doubted.'
5. Ascetic and Practical works. Chief among these are hia " Life of St. Anthony," composed about 365, or at all eventa after the death of Antliony/ and his " Festal Letters," which have but recently become known," The Festal Letters give us a glimpse of his pastoral fidelity as bishop, and throw new light also on many^ of his doctrines, and on the condition of the church in his time. In these letters Athanasius, according to Alexandrian custom, announced annually, at Epiphany, to the clergy and congregations of Egypt, the time of the next Easter, and added edifying observations on passages of Scrij)ture, and timely exhortations. These were read in the churches, during the Easter season, especially on Palm-Sunday. As Athanasius was bishop forty-five years, he would have written that number of Festal Letters, if he had not been several times prevented by flight or sickness. The letters were written in Greek, but soon translated into Syriac, and lay buried for centuries in the dust of a Nitrian cloister, till the research of Protestant scholarship brought them again to the light.
§ 164. JBadl the Great.
[. S. Basilius Oses. Cappad. archiepisc. :, Opera omnia quae exstant vel quae ejus nomine ciroumferuntur, Gr, et Lat. ed. Jul. Gamier, presbyter and monk of the Bened. order. Paris, 1721-'30. 3 vols. fol. Eadem ed. Parisina altera, emendata et aucta a Lud. de Sinner, Par. (Gaiiraa Fratres) 1839, 3 tomi in 6 Partes (an elegant and convenient ed.). ■"Reprinted also by Migne, Par. 1857, in 4 vols. (Patrol. Gr. tom. xxix.xxxii.). The first edition of St. Basil was superintended by Erasmm with Froben in Basle, 1532. Comp. also Opera Bas. dogmatica selects in ThiWs Bibl. Patr. Gr. dogm. vol. ii. Lips. 1854 (under care of J. D.
' Comp. the arguments on both sides in the Opera, tom. ii. p. 1004 sqq. and tore. iii. p. 1 24 sqq.
' Opera, tom. ii. Cproperly tom. L Pars ii.), pp. 785-866. Comp. above, § 35.
' Comp. the ci';ed editions of the J/'estal Letters by Cureton, Larsow, and Angelo Uai.
894 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
n. Goldhorn, and containing the Lihri iii. ad versus Ennomiatn, and Liber i. de Spiritu Sancto). 11. Ancient accounts and descriptions of Basil in tlic funeral diacoTses and eulogies of Grkgoey Naz. (Oratio xliii.), Gkegory Nyss., Amphilo onius, Ephe^m Sybus. Garnier: Vita S. Basilii, in his edition of the Opera, torn. iii. pp. xxxviii.-ccllv. (in the new Paris ed. of 1839; or torn. i. in Migne's reprint). Comp. also the Vitfe in the Acta Sanotordm, sub Jan. 14, by IIermant, Tii.lemont (torn, ix.), FAnRioius (Bibl. torn, ix.), Oave, Pfbiffer, SonucECKn (Part xiii. pp. 3-220), BoHRiNOER, W. Klose (Basilius der Grosse, Stralsnnd, 1835), and Fialon (Etude historique et litt('raire siir S. Basile. Par. 1866).
The Asiatic province of Cappadocia produced in the fourth century the three distinguished church teachers, Basil and the two Gregories, who stand in strong contra.st witli the general character of their countrynnen ; for the Cappadocians are described as a cowardly, servile, and deceitful race.'
Basil was born about the year 329," at Ca^sarea, the capital of Cappadocia, in the bosom of a wealthy and pious family, ■whose ancestors had distinguished themselves as martyrs. The seed of piety had been planted in liim by his grandmother, St. Macrina, and his mother, St. Emmelia. He had four brothers and live sisters, who all led a religious life; two of liis brothers, Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, and Peter, bishop of Sebaste, and his sister, Macrina the Younger, are, like himself, among the saints of tlie Eastern church. He received his literary education at lirst from his father, who was a rhetorician ; afterwards at school in Constantinople (347), where he enjoyed the instruction and personal esteem of the celebrated Libanius ; and in Athens, where he spent several years, between 351 and 355,' studying rhetoric, mathematics, and philosophy, in company with his intimate friend Gregory Nazianzen, and at the game time with prince Julian the Apostate.
' Particularly in tlie Letters of laidore of Pehisium, who flourished in the be pinning of the fifth century. Gregory Nazianzeu gives a more favorable picture of the Cappadocians, and boasts of their orthodoxy, which, however, might easily ba Dnited with the faults above mentioned, especially in the East.
' According to Garnier; comp his Vita Bas. c. 1, § 2. Fabricius puts tbo birlh erroneously into the year 316.
* On the time of hia residciire ui Athens, sec Tilleuout and Gamier.