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

Homiletical.The last of the Panegyrical Homilies (XXIII.) is on Saint Mamas, commemorated onSeptember 2 by the Greeks, and on August 17 by the Latins. He is said to have been ashepherd martyred at Cæsarea in 274 in the persecution of Aurelian. Sozomen (v. 2) relatesthat when the young princes Julian and Gallus were at the castle of Macellum 693 they wereengaged in building a church in the martyr’s honour, and that Julian’s share in the worknever prospered. 694 The homily narrates no details concerning the saint, and none seemto be known. It does contain a more direct mention of a practice of invocation. There is acharge to all who have enjoyed the martyr in dreams to remember him; to all who have metwith him in the church, and have found him a helper in their prayers; to all those whom hehas aided in their doings, when called on by name. 695 The conclusion contains a summaryof the Catholic doctrine concerning the Son. “You have been told before, and now you arebeing told again, ‘In the beginning was the Word,’ 696 to prevent your supposing that theSon was a being generated after the manner of men, 697 from His having come forth out ofthe non-existent. ‘Word’ is said to you, because of His impassibility. ‘Was’ is said becauseof His being beyond time. He says ‘beginning’ to conjoin the Begotten with His Father.You have seen how the obedient sheep hears a master’s voice. ‘In the beginning,’ and ‘was,’and ‘Word.’ Do not go on to say, ‘How was He?’ and ‘If He was, He was not begotten;’ and‘If He was begotten, He was not.’ It is not a sheep who says these things. The skin is asheep’s; but the speaker within is a wolf. Let him be recognised as an enemy. ‘My sheephear my voice.’ 698 You have heard the Son. Understand His likeness to His Father. I saylikeness because of the weakness of the stronger bodies: In truth, and I am not afraid ofapproaching the truth, I am no ready deceiver: I say identity, always preserving the distinctexistence of Son and Father. In the hypostasis of Son understand the Father’s Form, thatyou may hold the exact doctrine of this Image,—that you may understand consistently withtrue religion the words, ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me.’ 699 Understand not confusionof essences, but identity of characters.”lxxiihave mediators between God and us; that we may present our prayers to them, and they to God. To which addthat the Church of Rome presenting candles and other donaries to the Virgin Mary as to the Queen of heaven,do that which the Collyridians did (Epiphan. Hær. lxxix. vol. i. p. 1057). The gift is only differing, as candle andcake, gold and garments, this vow or that vow.”693 cf. p. xv., n.694 cf. Greg. Naz., Or. iv. § 25.695 ὅσοις, ὀνόματι, κληθεὶς, ἐπι τῶν ἔργων παρέστη. On the reverence for relics cf. Letters cxcvii., cclii., andcclvii.696 John i. 1.697 γέννημα ἀνθρώπινον.698 cf. John x. 16.699 John xiv. 10. cf. De Sp. Scto. § 45, p. 28.125