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

We must not be the slaves of our bodies, except where we are compelled. Our best
provision must be for the soul. We ought by means of philosophy to release her from fellowship
with all bodily appetites as we might from a dungeon, and at the same time make
our bodies superior to our appetites. We should, for instance, supply our bellies with necessaries,
not with dainties like men whose minds are set on cooks and table arrangers, and
who search through every land and sea, like the tributaries of some stern despot, much to
be pitied for their toil. Such men are really suffering pains as intolerable as the torments of
hell, carding into a fire, 684 fetching water in a sieve, pouring into a tub with holes in it, and
getting nothing for their pains. To pay more than necessary attention to our hair and dress
is, as Diogenes phrases it, the part either of the unfortunate or of the wicked. To be finely
dressed, and to have the reputation of being so, is to my mind quite as disgraceful as to play
the harlot or to plot against a neighbour’s wedlock. What does it matter to a man with any
sense, whether he wears a grand state robe, or a common cloak, so long as it serves to keep
off heat and cold? In other matters necessity is to be the rule, and the body is only to be so
far regarded as is good for the soul.”
. . . . . . . . . . .
Similar precepts are urged, with further references and allusions to Pythagoras, the
Corybantes, Solon, Diogenes, Pythius, the rich man who feasted Xerxes on his way to Greece,
Pheidias, Bias, Polycletus, Archilochus, and Tithonus. 685
It is suggestive to compare the wealth of literary illustration in this little tract with the
severe restrictions which Basil imposes on himself in his homilies for delivery in church,
where nothing but Scripture is allowed to appear. In studying the sermons, it might be
supposed that Basil read nothing but the Bible. In reading the treatise on heathen authors,
but for an incidental allusion to David and Methuselah, it might be supposed that he spent
all his spare time over his old school and college authors.
(iii) The Panegyrical Homilies are five in number.
Homily V. is on Julitta, a lady of Cæsarea martyred in 306, and commemorated on July
30. (In the Basilian menology, July 31.) Her property being seized by an iniquitous magistrate,
she was refused permission to proceed with a suit for restitution unless she abjured
Christianity. On her refusal to do this she was arraigned and burned. She is described as
having said that women no less than men were made after the image of God; that women
as well as men were made by their Creator capable of manly virtue; that it took bone as well
as flesh to make the woman, and that constancy, fortitude, and endurance are as womanly
as they are manly.
684 εἰς πῦρ ξαίνοντες, i.e. labouring in vain. cf. Plat., Legg. 780 c. The ordinary rendering to “flog fire,” ad-
opted by Erasmus (Adag. Chil. i., Centur. iv.), seems wrong. cf. Bekker on the phrase in Plato.
685 Herod. vii. 21.
Homiletical.
120
lxix