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

III.—Life at Cæsarea; Baptism; and Adoption of Monastic Life.
When Basil overcame the efforts of his companions to detain him at Athens, Gregory
was prevailed on to remain for a while longer. Basil therefore made his rapid journey
homeward alone. His Letter to Eustathius 54 alleges as the chief reason for his hurried departure
the desire to profit by the instruction of that teacher. This may be the language of
compliment. In the same letter he speaks of his fortitude in resisting all temptation to stop
at the city on the Hellespont. This city I hesitate to recognise, with Maran, as Constantinople.
There may have been inducements to Basil to stop at Lampsacus and it is more probably
Lampsacus that he avoided. 55 At Cæsarea he was welcomed as one of the most distinguished
of her sons, 56 and there for a time taught rhetoric with conspicuous success. 57 A deputation
came from Neocæsarea to request him to undertake educational work at that city, 58 and in
vain endeavoured to detain 59 him by lavish promises. According to his friend Gregory,
Basil had already determined to renounce the world, in the sense of devoting himself to an
ascetic and philosophic life. 60 His brother Gregory, however, 61 represents him as at this
period still under more mundane influences, and as shewing something of the self-confidence
and conceit which are occasionally to be observed in young men who have just successfully
completed an university career, and as being largely indebted to the persuasion and example
of his sister Macrina for the resolution, with which he now carried out the determination
to devote himself to a life of self-denial. To the same period may probably be referred Basil’s
baptism. The sacrament was administered by Dianius. 62 It would be quite consonant with
the feelings of the times that pious parents like the elder Basil and Emmelia should shrink
from admitting their boy to holy baptism before his encountering the temptations of school
54 Ep. i.
55 What these inducements can have been it seems vain to conjecture. cf. Ep. i. and note.
56 Greg. Naz., Or. xliii.
57 Rufinus xi. 9.
58 Ep. ccx. § 2. The time assigned by Maran for the incident here narrated is no doubt the right one. But the
deputation need have travelled no farther than to Annesi, if, as is tolerably certain, Basil on his return from
Athens visited his relatives and the family estate.
59 The word κατασχεῖν would be natural if they sought to keep him in Pontus; hardly, if their object was to
bring him from Cæsarea.
60 Or. xliii.
61 Vit. Mac.
Life at Cæsarea; Baptism; and Adoption of Monastic Life.
62 cf. De Sp. Scto. xxix., where the description of the bishop who both baptized and ordained Basil, and spent
a long life in the ministry, can apply only to Dianius. cf. Maran, Vit. Bas. iii.
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