Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today is the feast day of Saint Basil of Caesarea (330-379), bishop and member of a family that produced no less than five recognized saints.

I would like to simply produce several quotes of Saint Basil’s, which I have found challenging, and which I hope will stimulate our thinking. Like the words of other saints, I find that his phraseology cuts to the heart, stating ideas with a directness and perception characteristic of those individuals whose lives are characterized by ascesis, service, and a concern for truth.

Yours in Christ,

—Justin

“In general, just as painters in working from models constantly gaze at their exemplar and thus strive to transfer the expression of the original to their own artistry, so too he who is anxious to make himself perfect in all the kinds of virtue must gaze upon the lives of the saints as upon statues, so to speak, that move and act, and must make their excellence his own by imitation.”

“Whatever requires an undue amount of thought or trouble or involves a large expenditure of effort and causes our whole life to revolve, as it were, around solicitude for the flesh must be avoided by Christians.”

“Good masters teach good doctrine, but that taught by evil masters is wholly evil.”

“No one who is in this world will end that evils exist. What, then, do we say? That evil is not a living and animated substance, but a condition of the soul which is opposed to virtue and which springs up in the slothful because of their falling away from good.”

“Resolve to treat the things in your possession as belonging to others.”

“In truth, to know oneself seems to be the hardest of all things. Not only our eye, which observes external objects, does not use the sense of sight upon itself, but even our mind, which contemplates intently another’s sin, is slow in the recognition of its own defects.”

“For if we all took only what was necessary to satisfy our own needs, giving the rest to those who lack, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, and no one would be in need.”

“The bread which you hold back belongs to the hungry; the coat, which you guard in your locked storage-chests, belongs to the naked; the footwear moldering in your closet belongs to those without shoes. The silver that you keep hidden in a safe place belongs to the one in need. Thus, however many are those whom you could have provided for, so may are those whom you wrong.”