NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

Homiletical.aversion from what is injurious; while, on the other hand, by a kind of natural attraction,they are impelled to the enjoyment of what is beneficial to them. Wherefore also God ourTeacher has given us this grand injunction, in order that what brutes possess by nature mayaccrue to us by the aid of reason, and that what is performed by brutes unwittingly may bedone by us through careful attention and constant exercise of our reasoning faculty. Weare to be diligent guardians of the resources given to us by God, ever shunning sin as brutesshun poisons, and ever hunting after righteousness, as they seek for the herbage that is goodfor food. Take heed to thyself, that thou mayest be able to discern between the noxious andthe wholesome. This taking heed is to be understood in a twofold sense. Gaze with the eyesof the body at visible objects. Contemplate incorporeal objects with the intellectual facultyof the soul. If we say that obedience to the charge of the text lies in the action of our eyes,we shall see at once that this is impossible. How can there be apprehension of the wholeself through the eye? The eye cannot turn its sight upon itself; the head is beyond it; it isignorant of the back, the countenance, the disposition of the intestines. Yet it were impiousto argue that the charge of the Spirit cannot be obeyed. It follows then that it must be understoodof intellectual action. ‘Take heed to thyself.’ Look at thyself round about fromevery point of view. Keep thy soul’s eye sleepless 575 in ceaseless watch over thyself. ‘Thougoest in the midst of snares.’ 576 Hidden nets are set for thee in all directions by the enemy.Look well around thee, that thou mayest be delivered ‘as a gazelle from the net and a birdfrom the snare.’ 577 It is because of her keen sight that the gazelle cannot be caught in thenet. It is her keen sight that gives her her name. 578 And the bird, if only she take heed,mounts on her light wing far above the wiles of the hunter.“Beware lest in self protection thou prove inferior to brutes, lest haply thou be caughtin the gins and be made the devil’s prey, and be taken alive by him to do with thee as hewill.”A striking passage from the same Homily is thus rendered by Rufinus: “Considera ergoprimo omnium quod homo es, id est solum in terres animal ipsis divinis manibus formatum.Nonne sufficeret hoc solum recte atque integre sapienti ad magnum summumque solutium,quod ipsius Dei manibus qui omnia reliqua præcepti solius fecit auctoritate subsistere, homofictus es et formatus? Tum deinde quod cum ad imaginem Creatoris et similitudinem sis,potes sponte etiam ad angelorum dignitatem culmenque remeare. Animam namque accepistiintellectualem, et rationalem, per quam Deum possis agnoscere, et naturam rerum conspicabililvi575 ἀκοίμητον. On the later existence of an order of sleepless monks, known as the Acœmetæ. cf. Theodoret,Ep. cxli. p. 309, in this series, and note.576 Ecclus. ix. 13.577 Prov. v. 5, LXX.578 δορκάς, from δέρκομαι,=seer. So Tabitha (Syr.)=keen-sighted.97