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

Homiletical.‘Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell.’ 599 The flesh issmitten that the soul may be healed; sin is put to death that righteousness may live. In anotherpassage 600 it is argued that death is not an evil. Deaths come from God. Yet death isnot absolutely an evil, except in the case of the death of the sinner, in which case departurefrom this world is a beginning of the punishments of hell. On the other hand, of the evilsof hell the cause is not God, but ourselves. The origin and root of sin is what is in our owncontrol and our free will.”Homily XII. is “on the beginning of the proverbs.” “The proverbs of Solomon, the sonof David, king of Israel.” 601“The name proverbs (παροιμίαι) has been by heathen writers used of common expressions,and of those which are generally used in the streets. Among them a way is calledοἰμος, whence they define a παροιμία to be a common expression, which has become tritethrough vulgar usage, and which it is possible to transfer from a limited number of subjectsto many analogous subjects. 602 With Christians the παροιμία is a serviceable utterance,conveyed with a certain amount of obscurity, containing an obvious meaning of muchutility, and at the same time involving a depth of meaning in its inner sense. Whence theLord says: ‘These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs, but the time cometh when Ishall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father.’” 603On the “wisdom and instruction” of verse 2, it is said: Wisdom is the science of thingsboth human and divine, and of their causes. He, therefore, who is an effective theologian 604knows wisdom. The quotation of 1 Cor. ii. 6, follows.On general education it is said, 605 “The acquisition of sciences is termed education, 606as it is written of Moses, that he was learned 607 in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. 608 But599 Prov. xxiii. 14.600 § 3.601 Prov. i.602 παροιμία is defined by Hesychius the Alexandrian grammarian, who was nearly contemporary with Basil,as a βιωφελὴς λόγος, παρὰ τὴν ὁδὸν λεγόμενος.603 John xvi. 25.604 ἐπιτετευγμένως θεολογεῖ.605 § 6.606 ἡτῶν μαθημάτων ἀνάληψις ταιδεία λέγεται.607 ἐπαιδεύθη.608 Acts vii. 22.102