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

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

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

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Parentage <strong>and</strong> Birth.one as in the other. The early statement of Gregory of Nazianzus has been held to haveweight, inasmuch as he speaks of <strong>Basil</strong> as a Cappadocian like himself before there was anyother reason but that of birth for associating him with this province. 17 Assenting, then, tothe considerations which have been held to afford reasonable ground for assigning Cæsareaas the birthplace, we may adopt the popular estimation of <strong>Basil</strong> as one of “The Three Cappadocians,”18 <strong>and</strong> congratulate Cappadocia on the Christian associations which have rescuedher fair fame from the slur of the epigram which described her as constituting with Crete<strong>and</strong> Cilicia a trinity of unsatisfactoriness. 19 <strong>Basil</strong>’s birth nearly synchronizes with thetransference of the chief seat of empire from Rome to Byzantium. He is born into a worldwhere the victory already achieved by the Church has been now for sixteen years officiallyrecognized. 20 He is born into a Church in which the first great Council has already givenofficial expression to those cardinal doctrines of the faith, of which the final <strong>and</strong> formalvindication is not to be assured till after the struggles of the next six score of years. Rome,reduced, civilly, to the subordinate rank of a provincial city, is pausing before she realisesall her loss, <strong>and</strong> waits for the crowning outrage of the barbarian invasions, ere she beginsto make serious efforts to grasp ecclesiastically, something of her lost imperial prestige. Fora time the centre of ecclesiastical <strong>and</strong> theological interest is to be rather in the East than inthe West.it is apparently Pontus. Gregory of Nyssa (Orat. I. in xl. Mart.) calls Sebaste the πατρίς of his forefathers, possiblybecause Sebaste had at one time been under the jurisdiction of Cappadocia. So in the N.T. πατρίς is the placeof the early life <strong>and</strong> education of our Lord.17 Maran, Vit. Bas. i.18 Böhringer.19 Καππάδοχες, Κοῆτες, Κίλικες, τρία κάππα κάκιστα. On <strong>Basil</strong>’s own estimate of the Cappadocian character,cf. p. 153, n. cf. also Isidore of Pelusium, i. Epp. 351, 352, 281.20 The edict of Milan was issued in 313.10

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