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

Life at Cæsarea; Baptism; and Adoption of Monastic Life.III.—Life at Cæsarea; Baptism; and Adoption of Monastic Life.When Basil overcame the efforts of his companions to detain him at Athens, Gregorywas prevailed on to remain for a while longer. Basil therefore made his rapid journeyhomeward alone. His Letter to Eustathius 54 alleges as the chief reason for his hurried departurethe desire to profit by the instruction of that teacher. This may be the language ofcompliment. In the same letter he speaks of his fortitude in resisting all temptation to stopat the city on the Hellespont. This city I hesitate to recognise, with Maran, as Constantinople.There may have been inducements to Basil to stop at Lampsacus and it is more probablyLampsacus that he avoided. 55 At Cæsarea he was welcomed as one of the most distinguishedof her sons, 56 and there for a time taught rhetoric with conspicuous success. 57 A deputationcame from Neocæsarea to request him to undertake educational work at that city, 58 and invain endeavoured to detain 59 him by lavish promises. According to his friend Gregory,Basil had already determined to renounce the world, in the sense of devoting himself to anascetic and philosophic life. 60 His brother Gregory, however, 61 represents him as at thisperiod still under more mundane influences, and as shewing something of the self-confidenceand conceit which are occasionally to be observed in young men who have just successfullycompleted an university career, and as being largely indebted to the persuasion and exampleof his sister Macrina for the resolution, with which he now carried out the determinationto devote himself to a life of self-denial. To the same period may probably be referred Basil’sbaptism. The sacrament was administered by Dianius. 62 It would be quite consonant withthe feelings of the times that pious parents like the elder Basil and Emmelia should shrinkfrom admitting their boy to holy baptism before his encountering the temptations of school54 Ep. i.55 What these inducements can have been it seems vain to conjecture. cf. Ep. i. and note.56 Greg. Naz., Or. xliii.57 Rufinus xi. 9.58 Ep. ccx. § 2. The time assigned by Maran for the incident here narrated is no doubt the right one. But thedeputation need have travelled no farther than to Annesi, if, as is tolerably certain, Basil on his return fromAthens visited his relatives and the family estate.59 The word κατασχεῖν would be natural if they sought to keep him in Pontus; hardly, if their object was tobring him from Cæsarea.60 Or. xliii.61 Vit. Mac.62 cf. De Sp. Scto. xxix., where the description of the bishop who both baptized and ordained Basil, and spenta long life in the ministry, can apply only to Dianius. cf. Maran, Vit. Bas. iii.16