For I wished that it were possible for me, standing upon the highest pinnacles, to sound a trumpet as if it were through the mouth, and like thunder to send forth words of self-restraint over all the inhabited world, so that they might be a testimony to all who corrupt the truth. But the thing is impossible; for I am a man of short life, and feeble in age, and small in voice, and otherwise humble in soul, steeped in many sins. But even if I should raise my voice on high like thunder, and cry out loudly, I shall not be heard. For Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, who fitted the heavens as a vault, and founded the earth upon the waters, and made firm the sea; who prepared fire, and brimstone, and Gehenna, and the fear and trembling of eternal judgments for those who sin—He Himself, crying out and commanding through the Gospels, is disregarded. The holy Apostles again, the perfect disciples of Christ, and called sons of thunder, are spurned when they write and exhort through their epistles. Nay, more, they do not reverence the holy prophets of God, nor the law, nor men who offer admonition; and who else, therefore, will be able to correct such an immense and savage matter? Since a wound has now come upon the whole world, it seems to me that I must apply many words like cauteries to the affliction. For the disease has spread, and has taken hold of the majority, that I may not say all, and like a deep, dark mist, it has seized the sight of the mind of many. But I shall speak with boldness, lighting the lamp of piety with holy words from my mouth, and relating the revered examples of virtuous ways; not fearing man, but having before my eyes Him who judges the living and the dead without partiality, and not wishing to become a partaker with those who have been ensnared in that evil net, so that just like the sun, the discourse may spread its rays, dissipate the darkness of the mind of those who listen with a pure heart, and bring the affliction to a stop by its own radiance.
Sermon on the Cohabitants
2. B For the root of all evils is the love of money, says the divine Apostle; truly a root bringing forth many branches of wickedness, through which all things in this wicked life are brought to pass. But the root of all evils is the desiring of women, and the leader of destruction—that rage, I say, for young women—a root sprouting destruction and flowering into madness. For it is Jewish, having been brought over from Sodom, inasmuch as it possesses a treacherous and fabricated fancy of an ostensibly feigned love. And come, take and bring forward for me now into the midst that saying of the Apostle, which says: "Do we not have the authority to lead about a sister, a wife, as do the rest of the apostles, and Cephas?" C Upon which they lean, those who are enslaved to this miserable affliction, taking that which was written excellently for the sake of utility, and by their own insane mind perverting it to the destruction of souls; D
A let us compare these things in turn with what the apostles did, and with what those who now believe are accustomed to do. And first, let us consider who the writer was, and whether the blessed Apostle granted the matter through a letter, or rather restrained them, setting himself forward as an example to us all. For we know that he spent all his time in the company of the most devout men, and did not live with highly unseemly women—a fact they do not even blush to state. Let them be covered with shame, those who compare themselves to Peter, the prince of the apostles and the gate-keeper of the heavenly kingdom, saying, "If he had a beloved one, we too follow in his footsteps." A fine argument, indeed! Resuscitate, then, for me, as he did Tabitha from the dead through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, that I may believe you are also filled with the Spirit and replete with divine power. Cast out for me the demons that he cast out, and the diseases, and perform the other healings that he performed in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—for I omit the rest. When you have shown me this, then I will believe you, that you are not kindled toward this poisonous beast. Do you not hear what our Lord Jesus Christ says: "Anyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart"? Do these Gospel words seem like a fairy tale to you? Do you see how He forbade not just the act, but prohibited the very manner of looking, knowing that those snares are a scandal to the soul of a man? But to you, afflicted by the disease, the matter seems like a jest. For you have dulled your mind with impudence, placing a mask, as it were, upon your face. For you are ignorant of the degree of shipwreck into which you have fallen. B Let us return to the practices of the holy prophets, how they spent their entire life in mountains and caves, liberated not only from seeing a woman, but even from thinking of one. Or will even this seem like nonsense to you? For I perceive that you are soothing your own mind with the opinions of many empty arguments. Recall to mind the expulsion from paradise, and the ruin of the flood, and the overturning of the Sodomites (for because of a woman all evils from the beginning even to the end occur), the betrayals of Samson the just, and the snares laid against that illustrious man, Joseph. Let the destruction of the chosen race of the Jews come to your mind. And if these things do not persuade you, let wise Solomon persuade you, speaking somewhere to this effect: "Wine and women will alienate the hearts of the wise." Of the wise, he said, lest you oppose something even to this and think of the expression as something common. For wine, entering into a man and causing in him the stupor of drunkenness, like an overflowing river, carries away the entire mind with its own rush and drives the man into madness. The woman does the same things to a man as wine does. For this reason, the author of the proverbs compared wine with a woman; and all the prophets also compared the race of women, which is pernicious to the souls of men, with other various evils and poisonous beasts. C D
A 3. But not even these things persuade you; for perhaps everything seems like child's play to you. For you have stopped your ears like the deaf adder, not listening to the divine Scriptures. And furthermore, you have yourself changed your nature into a beastly form, becoming in lifestyle like unto the beast in whose company you live; whose words are smooth, and whose voice is sweet, but whose soul is wild, whose mind is that of a dragon, whose purpose is serpentine, whose gaze is fire-breathing, and whose kiss is venomous; and its struggle is how it may, through the flattery of words, and the deception of its appearance, and the onslaught of its kiss, spit its poison into the throat of the wretched man. It drags away the mind, stupefies the understanding, mangles the very governing faculty, and unsettles the reason; and just as medicines that are given to men for their destruction darken the intelligence and drag the whole man into insensibility through the virulence of the poison, in the same way, the woman, through her kiss, harms the rational man who is led by irrational impulse; and that moving instrument which is composed of many strings and virtues—the free will, the godlike image of the soul—she drives hither and thither, wherever she wishes, with a single deceitful word, or the hissing of her lips, or the blinking of her eyes, as if it were some lifeless instrument; and like a churning sea, she drags the whole body away with her own impulses.
And thereupon it is possible to see the wretched, pitiable, and most lamentable man—him who was wise in judgment, who was experienced to the highest degree in grammatical knowledge, and a master of sophistic instruction, who was skilled in medicine, experienced in various types of literature, or who had devoted himself to the reading of divine words, and had frequently professed the monastic life, and had presided over the Church—as a vile animal tied with a rope, being tossed hither and thither; for she bound him with a counterfeit love, or rather, if one must tell the truth, a shameful one. And so, such a person becomes worthy of a funeral lamentation, being wept for while living, and mourned when dead. For while living he was dead, dwelling in his own body as in a tomb; and having died, he has died twice over, condemned to the penalty of the fire of eternal Gehenna. B C
D 4. What do you say now, O you who are most wretched of the wretched, O neighbor of wickedness? Where are your solemn gaits? Where is your highest cultivation? Where is your labor expended upon wisdom? Where is your solemnity of character? Where is your orderly conduct? Where are those sleepings on the ground, so often carried out by you for the sake of philosophy? Where is your understanding? Where is your love for God? Where is your love for Christ? But you have departed far from these things by living with a wicked beast, or rather, by having thrown yourself down headlong into the Tartarus of destruction. For who forced you to enter into the workshop of transgression? And who forced you into her bosom, as if into the depths of a raging...
sea? Were you lacking the power of free will? You have slaughtered yourself with your own sword. Since you were unwilling to cast this bane away from you before the disease gained strength, you were surely afraid that, if cast out, it would celebrate a triumph over your secrets. But why did you entrust secrets to her that were well stored within you? Did they constrain you, hidden away in the treasuries of your wisdom?
B Seeing that the Savior and our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, commands him who suffers scandal from his own right eye to cut off the member that causes the scandal by his own hand, why do you not cast away from yourself a hostile and opposing thing which brings not only scandal but also death to the soul? Let her be beloved for Christ’s sake as far as a greeting goes; but if she harms the soul, let her not even be greeted. Let her visit, if she must, the sick; yet let her not be a cause of stumbling to one who is well, whether in a time of distress and persecution, or even in the Church. For while we are all one in Christ, we are not so now. Why? Because we do not wish it, preferring brotherly hatred to brotherly love. Do not be a scandal to the world, you who keep women in your households. Has Scripture not permitted you to take a wife? You have become a stumbling block to Jews, to Gentiles, and to the Church of God. Do you strive to oppose the divine Scriptures, and do you provoke the Lord? Are you stronger than He? Look upon your own weakness, be ashamed of your own disease, and heal yourselves at the opportune time, before His coming suddenly strikes like lightning; before the flame of fire, before the outer darkness, C before the end, and the worm that does not die. We speak with trembling; hear with fear, and let the matter not be taken as a joke: children of God are delivered to the bonds of Tartarus for the sake of a woman.
5. But you say: "Living with this woman is no detriment to me." If living with an asp is no detriment to a dragon, then surely you will not be harmed. For even the dragon, when living with a female dragon, receives death as the wage of his cohabitation; such is the nature of that female beast. See, therefore, whether the matter of a woman might be similar. Let us offer an example to convince you rational men: Although fire may not ignite stubble, yet if you cast a male stone upon a female one, a conflagration occurs. But since you say that a woman can also live modestly, this I know clearly—and that a man living alone can live honestly, this I know perfectly well. But a man with a woman is an evil; and a woman with a man is a more grievous evil. If, again, a woman, having left her own kin, wishes to dwell with a strange man for the sake of a spurious love, this is in reality a union of illicit connection exciting a conflagration. For as time slips by, D the flame conceived from that living together ignites the material, and they burn down the dwelling—or rather, they burn their own bodies in Gehenna and into eternal punishment.
6. Tell me, you craftiest of beasts...
A you who have the fleece of a sheep but harbor the mind of an asp in your breast: why do you daub yourself? Why do you paint yourself? Why do you capture the appearance of an idol with alien and inanimate colors? Why do you torture your hair? Why do you heap false tresses and corybantic head-dresses of foreign appendages from dead and irrational animals upon your head? Through your head, through your face, and through the variety of foreign garments, you deceive, soften, and dose with hellebore the souls of men. For an unbelieving woman, collecting a collection of diverse inanimate materials and assembling a variety of pigments—using all sorts of colors, soot, lime, and herbs (which are foreign to her own body)—has made herself a multiform beast. But the faithful woman ought to be a stranger to these things, especially she who professes to be a Christian. Do you accuse God, O woman, B that He made you such as you are? Suffer yourself to be as you were created. Do not add anything to yourself through artifice; for you are not wiser than your Creator. And to whom are you trying to please by doing these things? To men? You have no husband, as you say, O virgin! But if you even have one, he knows your complex artifice. Why, having organized your body with diverse baits, do you hunt for the souls of men unto destruction? And how do you dare to call upon Christ, or tread the threshold of the church, carrying the forms of inanimate idols over your whole body through corruptible gold—or rather, being paraded by them, and drawing along a great crowd of licentious men toward the sight of yourself, which is against the law?
7. To whom are we saying these things? C Truly to one who has an animal nature, possessing the disposition of creeping serpents. Do the Scriptures not persuade you? Does Gehenna not frighten you? Does the admonition of men not prick your conscience? Even if you do not respect your own nature, change your appearance; do not make it a sign of an idol; do not imitate those who profess the shame of harlotry and fornication. For they, being the daughters of iniquity, have a custom of doing such things. But to you, who has delivered such a command? Which prophetic Scriptures, or which Gospels, or which apostolic injunctions? I know that the divine Scriptures restrain even those women who have a habit of doing this, so that they may no longer perform these idol-like representations. It has been said with boldness, yet nothing is commensurate with the worth of what is being done.
8. But someone will say: "This is a hard saying; D who can hear it?" Even that hypocritical and most hateful generation once said this to the Savior; but you all know what answer He gave them. So it is here; he who wishes, let him be pricked to the heart. For the words of the wise are like goads, and like nails driven home, says the Scripture. I think that these remarks are sufficient, even though stated in a modest discourse, against the folly of those who have women in their household.
Let the discourse, therefore, hold this bridle to pull in the unbridled impulse of those who are carried away further than is proper by the heat of women. A Fear and trembling are set before us, and the fire crackles. Let no one be scornful; for even if one should be beastly, he will be tamed by fire; even if one should have the disposition of a dragon, Tartarus is prepared; even if he carries about a Sodomite heart, fire rains down from heaven; for all the heavens are stored with fire. Let no one refuse to hear the voice of the speaker, but let him consider what terror the power of the words holds, and keep the judgment of God before his eyes; for "judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy."
9. Now the time is come for me to speak a few words to you, O men, who are enemies of the brothers and friends of women; who burn with the filthy love of women, and have grown icy cold toward the pure charity of brothers. B But you will say that you do this for Christ’s sake, taking care of the weaker vessel. Truly, I know that. Why, then, do you not perform the same for your brother who is needy for Christ’s sake? Rather, you look upon your brothers as enemies plotting ambushes, and those who truly plot ambushes you treat as sisters? But you will say to me: "How can I take a brother to live with me? That woman used to cherish me; she used to flatter me; she used to prepare for me varied garments; she used to make pastries, fritters, and little morsels; her voice was sweet, and her gaze was tender." You do not know what you are thinking. These are the words of men in a frenzy. Her sweet words will shortly be found for you more bitter than gall; her tender gaze will drag you down into the bolts of Tartarus; C but a brother’s love procures for you the kingdom of heaven. Why do you prefer the treacherous charity of a tortoise woman to the genuine charity of a brother? Why do you pursue what destroys, while rejecting what brings salvation? For if the men of Nineveh, who believed at the preaching of the prophet, shall rise in the judgment and condemn those who refused to obey the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, then certainly the wise men of the Greeks, who practiced philosophy and chose hatred of women, will condemn those who are in the true philosophy and yet entwine themselves with profligate women; for they, by means of grammatical knowledge and rhetorical ability (which is foolishness before God), practiced continence, even though they served soulless idols. D But even those who run in the stadium of madness refrain from such a thing, not even looking at a woman, for the sake of a corruptible prize. Yet you, who have learned the mysteries of heavenly things and have heard beforehand of the terrible judgments of the world to come, have neither kept modesty nor guarded continence, led away by a foolish reasoning, namely, the companionship of those dwelling under your roof.
10. And how can one of you be able to care for the Church and have a suitable discourse to give in church for the instruction of men in piety, when he has not first purged his own conscience? To whom one might justly say:
A “Hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of your own eye, and then you shall see clearly to cast out the mote that is in your brother’s eye.” But how will you dare to speak of temperance, being yourself enslaved by the insane lust for women? Or how will you teach matters of justice, being yourself held fast by injustice? Let such a person, therefore, first heal his own wound, and then he will be able to apply medicine to his brother’s bruise, strengthening his soul with divine words; for the wound of the soul, when comforted by holy words, is eased. Exhort all men, therefore—those, indeed, who are burning, to marry in Christ if they wish (knowing, however, that one woman was formed for one man, and Lamech, being of the race of Cain, was the first to take for himself two wives; and to take for oneself in this way is not according to the will of God. For polygamy has the name of marriage, but it is specious fornication)—and those who profess continence, to practice it perfectly in Christ, and not to philosophize in word while performing the deed in secret. And do not again look to the eyes of men, thinking that you are not seen because walls enclose you on every side; but fear the threat of God, because all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do B, those things which are done by men by night and by day.
11. And it strikes me with great astonishment, when I consider the senselessness of those who are blind, by what process young women of their own free will have given themselves over into slavery, having been bought for a price by the one who has valued them. For often a girl who has not rendered service to her own parents, and has not repaid the reciprocal debts of just labors to her own progenitors, is found to be zealous for her beloved, and struggles in every way to please him, and not to serve God piously, toiling by night and by day, changing her garments for him and preparing them. And there are many other things which we do not ignore, but which we do not wish to speak of now; for it is not right to bring into the open things done by them in secret, which are shameful even to mention. He, however, like some fish caught in an evil net, through his vestments and the death-dealing service which is done for the sake of man-pleasing—not according to piety—is enslaved to the woman, drunken in his mind, and, tottering, is altogether C weakened by female ways, and no longer recognizes the time for prayer; nor, if he bows down to pray, does he know what he is doing, as he turns over the image of his consort in his mind. The woman also suffers the same things as the one who is suffering. And when Scripture is read, they are blind in their understanding; and when homilies are delivered in church, they do not know what they are hearing, as they are enslaved to their mutual shameful passion. So does this erotic and maddening passion blind the soul, that, if it were possible, one would even forget one's own name. So much does the woman living with the man turn aside the mind of the man; so much does the man D with the woman...
overturns the mind: to such an extent does a man living with a woman impel the woman into the insanity of concupiscence; to such an extent is a woman living with a man able to induce even the forgetting of God Himself. Let us depart from Gehenna and from eternal fire! Why, while still breathing, do you bury yourselves in Hades and into horrible Tartarus? You who have companions and live with them, unlearn this evil teaching, which offers death and betrays salvation. Let us imitate the apostles, let us imitate the prophets, and walk in their footsteps, and let not the bait of a woman deceive us. A And let us ourselves, in turn, not lead a woman into fraud as if she were bait, out of vainglory and superstitious humility. But let all things be performed by us soberly, according to true and solid humility in Christ, so that we may be able to be delivered from the present evil time, according to the will of our Father and of our Lord Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son: through whom and with whom [be] glory, power, and honor to the invisible Father with the holy and paraclete Spirit, now and unto all ages of ages. Amen.
OF SAINT BASIL THE GREAT
SYLLOGISTIC REASONINGS AGAINST THE ARIANS, That the Son is God in the divine sense
I. If the Son is God by nature, and the Father is God by nature, then the Son is not one God, and the Father another God. But if the Son is not God by nature, He is called God just as those who are falsely called gods are, and He is not God.
II. If there is one Lord by nature, and the Father is also Lord by nature, it is manifest that there is no other nature. And if there is one God who is the Father, and the Son is also called God, it is not a different nature, but one.
III. If there is one Lord by nature, while many are called lords by C position—that is, by standing or adoption—and there is one Son by nature, while many are named sons, and he who is called lord or son by position is called so in imitation of Him who is [such] by nature: for nothing would be said by position unless that which is by nature preceded it. If, therefore, we are sons of God by *thesis*, that is, by adoption, it is necessary that there first be a Son by nature.
IV. Whatever things are truly and totally of one substance, these are the signs of those whose names they are. But the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are properly and truly God: therefore the substance is the same as the names.
V. If the Son is not "only-begotten" by generation, but is "only-begotten" on account of incomparable excellence, D and every creature is not similar but dissimilar, then there would be many "only-begotten" ones, just as the Son is the only-begotten of God.
VI. The Son is not simply "only-begotten," but is "only-begotten" from the Father; the Son, therefore, is "only-begotten," and not an "only-begotten" creature.
VII. If the Son creates by *metabasis*, that is, by concession and the permission of the Father, and not according to nature, He is nothing other than less than the creatures made by Him, even according to nature; for of those of whom He is not Creator according to nature, how could He be a creature according to nature?
VIII. If God acts as no one else does, and generates as no one else generates; for God is in all things, and regarding all things, incomparable as God.
IX. What is made is not from the substance of the one making; what is generated is from the substance of the one generating: therefore, to make and to beget are not the same.
X. If the Son is from God, but not as from the Father, but as from a cause, and the cause is such that we also are—[namely, that] God is, for from Him are all things—not