Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

it is of no small importance, with a view to man’s sound condition, 609 that he should not
devote himself to any sciences whatsoever, but should become acquainted with the education
which is most profitable. It has ere now happened that men who have spent their time in
the study of geometry, the discovery of the Egyptians, or of astrology, the favourite pursuit
of the Chaldæans, or have been addicted to the loftier natural philosophy 610 which is concerned
with figures and shadows, have looked with contempt on the education which is
based upon the divine oracles. Numbers of students have been occupied with paltry rhetoric,
and the solution of sophisms, the subject matter of all of which is the false and unreal. Even
poetry is dependent for its existence on its myths. 611 Rhetoric would not be but for craft
in speech. Sophistics must have their fallacies. Many men for the sake of these pursuits
have disregarded the knowledge of God, and have grown old in the search for the unreal.
It is therefore necessary that we should have a full knowledge of education, in order to
choose the profitable, and to reject the unintelligent and the injurious. Words of wisdom
will be discerned by the attentive reader of the Proverbs, who thence patiently extracts what
is for his good.”
The Homily concludes with an exhortation to rule life by the highest standard.
“Hold fast, then, to the rudder of life. Guide thine eye, lest haply at any time through
thine eyes there beat upon thee the vehement wave of lust. Guide ear and tongue, lest the
one receive aught harmful, or the other speak forbidden words. Let not the tempest of
passion overwhelm thee. Let no blows of despondency beat thee down; no weight of sorrow
drown thee in its depths. Our feelings are waves. Rise above them, and thou wilt be a safe
steersman of life. Fail to avoid each and all of them skilfully and steadily, and, like some
untrimmed boat, with life’s dangers all round about thee, thou wilt be sunk in the deep sea
of sin. Hear then how thou mayest acquire the steersman’s skill. Men at sea are wont to
lift up their eyes to heaven. It is from heaven that they get guidance for their cruise; by day
from the sun, and by night from the Bear, or from some of the ever-shining stars. By these
they reckon their right course. Do thou too keep thine eye fixed on heaven, as the Psalmist
did who said, ‘Unto thee lift I up mine eye, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.’ 612 Keep
thine eyes on the Sun of righteousness. Directed by the commandments of the Lord, as by
609 σωτηρία.
610 μετεωρολογία. The word had already been used by Plato in a certain contemptuous sense. cf. Pal. 299
B.: μετεωρόλογον ἀδολέσχην τινὰ σοφιστήν. But not always, e.g. Crat. 401, B.: κωδυνεύουσι γοῦν οἱ πρῶτοι
τὰ ὀνόματα τιθέμενοι οὐ φαῦλοι εἶναι, ἀλλὰ μετεωρολόγοι τινὲς καὶ ἀδολέσχαι.
611 Gregory of Nazianzus was publishing verses which formed no unworthy early link in the Catena Poetarum
Christianorum, in our sense of the word poet. Basil may have in his mind the general idea that the Poetics of
the heathen schools were all concerned with mythical inventions.
612 Ps. xxiii. 1.
Homiletical.
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