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

called her first born. For it is said, ‘Till she brought forth her first born Son.’ 415 There is
therefore no need of any brother in comparison with whom He is styled first begotten. 416
“It might also be said that one who was before all generation was called first begotten,
and moreover in respect of them who are begotten of God through the adoption of the Holy
Ghost, as Paul says, ‘For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren.’” 417
On Prov. vii. 22. The Lord created Me (LXX.). 418
“If it is the incarnate Lord who says ‘I am the way,’ 419 and ‘No man cometh unto the
Father but by me,’ 420 it is He Himself Who said, ‘The Lord created me beginning of ways.’
The word is also used of the creation and making of a begotten being, 421 as ‘I have created
a man through the Lord,’ 422 and again ‘He begat sons and daughters,’ 423 and so David,
415 Matt. i. 25.
416 Jerome’s Tract on the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin appeared about 383, and was written at
Rome in the episcopate of Damasus (363–384). The work of Helvidius which Jerome controverted was not
published till about 380, and there can be no reference to him in the passage in the text. Basil is contending
against the general Arian inference, rather than against any individual statement as to who the “Brethren of the
Lord” were. cf. also dub. Hom. in Sanct. Christ. Gen. p. 600. Ed. Garn. On the whole subject see Bp. Lightfoot,
in his Ep. to the Galatians, E. S. Ffoulkes in D.C.B. s.v. Helvidius, and Archdeacon Farrar in his Life of Christ,
chap. vii., who warmly supports the Helvidian theory in opposition to the almost universal belief of the early
Church. Basil evidently has no more idea that the ἕως οὗ of Matt. i. 25, implies anything as to events subsequent
to the τόκος than the author of 2 Sam. had when he said that Michal had no child till (LXX. ἕως) the day of her
death, or St. Paul had that Christ’s reigning till (ἄχρις οὗ) He had put all enemies under His feet implied that
He would not reign afterwards. Too much importance must not be given to niceties of usage in Hellenistic
Greek, but it is a well-known distinction in Attic Greek that πρίν with the infinitive is employed where the action
is not asserted to take place, while it is used with the indicative of a past fact. Had St. Matthew written πρίν
συνῆλθον, the Helvidians might have laid still greater stress than they did on the argument from Matt. i. 18,
which St. Jerome ridicules. His writing πρὶν ἢ συνελθεῖν is what might have been expected if he wished simply
to assert that the conception was not preceded by any cohabitation.
417 Rom. viii. 29.
418 The LXX. version is Κύριος ἔκτισέ με ἀρχὴν ὁδῶν αὐτοῦ.
419 John xiv. 6.
420 Id.
421 γέννημα.
422 The Heb. verb here is the same as in Prov. viii. 22, though rendered ἐκτησάμην in the LXX.
423 Gen. v. 4. Here Basil has ἐποίησεν for the LXX. ἐγέννησεν, representing another Hebrew verb.
Dogmatic.
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