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

Definitive conceptions about the Spirit which conform to the teaching of the Scriptures.Spirit to every one who receives it, as though given to him alone, and yet It sends forth gracesufficient and full for all mankind, and is enjoyed by all who share It, according to the capacity,not of Its power, but of their nature.23. Now the Spirit is not brought into intimate association with the soul by local approximation.How indeed could there be a corporeal approach to the incorporeal? Thisassociation results from the withdrawal of the passions which, coming afterwards graduallyon the soul from its friendship to the flesh, have alienated it from its close relationship withGod. Only then after a man is purified from the shame whose stain he took through hiswickedness, and has come back again to his natural beauty, and as it were cleaning theRoyal Image and restoring its ancient form, only thus is it possible for him to draw near tothe Paraclete. 919 And He, like the sun, will by the aid of thy purified eye show thee inHimself the image of the invisible, and in the blessed spectacle of the image thou shalt beholdthe unspeakable beauty of the archetype. 920 Through His aid hearts are lifted up, the weakare held by the hand, and they who are advancing are brought to perfection. 921 Shiningupon those that are cleansed from every spot, He makes them spiritual by fellowship withHimself. Just as when a sunbeam falls on bright and transparent bodies, they themselvesbecome brilliant too, and shed forth a fresh brightness from themselves, so souls whereinthe Spirit dwells, illuminated by the Spirit, themselves become spiritual, and send forth theirgrace to others. Hence comes foreknowledge of the future, understanding of mysteries,apprehension of what is hidden, distribution of good gifts, the heavenly citizenship, a placein the chorus of angels, joy without end, abiding in God, the being made like to God, and,highest of all, the being made God. 922 Such, then, to instance a few out of many, are the16919 cf. Theodoret, Dial. i. p. 164, Schaff and Wace’s ed. “Sin is not of nature, but of corrupt will.” So the nintharticle of the English Church describes it as not the nature, but the “fault and corruption of the nature, of everyman.” On the figure of the restored picture cf. Ath. de Incar. § 14, and Theod. Dial. ii. p. 183.920 cf. Ep. 236. “Our mind enlightened by the Spirit, looks toward the Son, and in Him, as in an image,contemplates the Father.” There seems at first sight some confusion in the text between the “Royal Image” inus and Christ as the image of God; but it is in proportion as we are like Christ that we see God in Christ. It isthe “pure in heart” who “see God.”921 “Proficientes perficiuntur.” Ben. Ed.922 Θεὸν γενεσθαι. The thought has its most famous expression in Ath. de Incar. § 54. He was made manthat we might be made God—Θεοποιηθῶμεν. cf. De Decretis, § 14, and other passages of Ath. Irenæus (Adv.Hær. iv. 38 [lxxv.]) writes “non ab initio dii facti sumus, sed primo quidem homines, tunc demum dii.” “Secundumenim benignitatem suam bene dedit bonum, et similes sibi suæ potestatis homines fecit;” and Origen (contraCelsum, iii. 28), “That the human nature by fellowship with the more divine might be made divine, not in Jesusonly, but also in all those who with faith take up the life which Jesus taught;” and Greg. Naz. Or. xxx. § 14, “Tillby the power of the incarnation he make me God.” In Basil adv. Eunom. ii. 4. we have, “They who are perfectin virtue are deemed worthy of the title of God.” cf. 2 Pet. i. 4: “That ye might be partakers of the divine nature.”172