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

The winter of 378–9 dealt the last blow, and with the first day of what, to us, is now the
new year, the great spirit fled. Gregory, alas! was not at the bedside. But he has left us a
narrative which bears the stamp of truth. For some time the bystanders thought that the
dying bishop had ceased to breathe. Then the old strength blazed out at the last. He spoke
with vigour, and even ordained some of the faithful who were with him. Then he lay once
more feeble and evidently passing away. Crowds surrounded his residence, praying eagerly
for his restoration to them, and willing to give their lives for his. With a few final words of
advice and exhortation, he said: “Into thy hands I commend my spirit,” and so ended.
The funeral was a scene of intense excitement and rapturous reverence. Crowds filled
every open space, and every gallery and window; Jews and Pagans joined with Christians
in lamentation, and the cries and groans of the agitated oriental multitude drowned the
music of the hymns which were sung. The press was so great that several fatal accidents
added to the universal gloom. Basil was buried in the “sepulchre of his fathers”—a phrase
which may possibly mean in the ancestral tomb of his family at Cæsarea.
So passed away a leader of men in whose case the epithet ‘great’ is no conventional
compliment. He shared with his illustrious brother primate of Alexandria the honour of
rallying the Catholic forces in the darkest days of the Arian depression. He was great as
foremost champion of a great cause, great in contemporary and posthumous influence,
great in industry and self-denial, great as a literary controversialist. The estimate formed
of him by his contemporaries is expressed in the generous, if somewhat turgid, eloquence
of the laudatory oration of the slighted Gregory of Nazianzus. Yet nothing in Gregory’s
eulogy goes beyond the expressions of the prelate who has seemed to some to be “the wisest
and holiest man in the East in the succeeding century.” 287 Basil is described by the saintly
and learned Theodoret 288 in terms that might seem exaggerated when applied to any but
his master, as the light not of Cappadocia only, but of the world. 289 To Sophronius 290 he
is the “glory of the Church.” To Isidore of Pelusium, 291 he seems to speak as one inspired.
To the Council of Chalcedon he is emphatically a minister of grace; 292 to the second council
of Nicæa a layer of the foundations of orthodoxy. 293 His death lacks the splendid triumph
of the martyrdoms of Polycarp and Cyprian. His life lacks the vivid incidents which make
the adventures of Athanasius an enthralling romance. He does not attract the sympathy
287 Kingsley, Hypatia, chap. xxx.
288 cf. Gibbon, chap. xxi.
289 Theod., H.E. iv. 16, and Ep. cxlvi.
290 Apud Photium Cod. 231.
291 Ep. lxi.
292 cf. Ceillier, vi. 8, 1.
293 Ib.
Troubles of the Closing Years.
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