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

Dogmatic.and that heresy is the exponent of an amiable and reverent vagueness. In the Arian controversyit was Arius himself who dogmatically defined with his negative “There was when Hewas not,” and Eunomius with his “The essence is the unbegotten.” “What pride! Whatconceit!” exclaims Basil. “The idea of imagining that one has discovered the very essenceof God most high! Assuredly in their magniloquence they quite throw into the shade evenHim who said, ‘I will exalt my throne above the stars.’ 323 It is not stars, it is not heaven,that they dare to assail. It is in the very essence of the God of all the world that they boastthat they make their haunt. Let us question him as to where he acquired comprehensionof this essence. Was it from the common notion that all men share? 324 This does indeedsuggest to us that there is a God, but not what God is. Was it from the teaching of theSpirit? What teaching? Where found? What says great David, to whom God revealed thehidden secrets of His wisdom? He distinctly asserts the unapproachableness of knowledgeof Him in the words, ‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attainunto it.’ 325 And Isaiah, who saw the glory of God, what does he tell us concerning the DivineEssence? In his prophecy about the Christ he says, ‘Who shall declare His generation?’ 326And what of Paul, the chosen vessel, in whom Christ spake, who was caught up into thethird heaven, who heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful to man to utter? Whatteaching has he given us of the essence of God? When Paul is investigating the specialmethods of the work of redemption 327 he seems to grow dizzy before the mysterious mazewhich he is contemplating, and utters the well-known words, ‘O the depth of the riches bothof the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His wayspast finding out!’ 328 These things are beyond the reach even of those who have attainedthe measure of Paul’s knowledge. What then is the conceit of those who announce that theyknow the essence of God! I should very much like to ask them what they have to say aboutthe earth whereon they stand, and whereof they are born. What can they tell us of its ‘essence’?If they can discourse without hesitation of the nature of lowly subjects which liebeneath our feet, we will believe them when they proffer opinions about things whichtranscend all human intelligence. What is the essence of the earth? How can it be comprehended?Let them tell us whether reason or sense has reached this point! If they say sense,by which of the senses is it comprehended? Sight? Sight perceives colour. Touch? Touchdistinguishes hard and soft, hot and cold, and the like; but no idiot would call any of thesexxxv323 i.e. Lucifer, cf. Is. xiv. 13.324 On κοινὴ ἔννοια, cf. Origen, C. Cels. i. 4.325 Ps. cxxxix. 6.326 Is. liii. 8.327 τοὺς μερικοὺς τῆς οἰκονομίας λόγους.328 Rom. xi. 33.57