At the Feet of the Fathers: St. Basil on the Created World

At the Feet of the Fathers

Monday, August 21, 2023

St. Basil the Great

Basil of Caesarea, or St. Basil the Great (AD 330 – AD 379), was a bishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia, Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). He was an influential theologian who stood opposed to the heresies of the early Christian church, particularly Arianism (the heresy that while Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, He is but a created creature, not begotten from eternity as of the same substance as the Father). St. Basil, together with his brother Gregory of Nyasa, and his friend Gregory of Nazianzus, are collectively known as the Cappadocian Fathers.

In the beginning, God created

the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

“I stop struck with admiration at this thought. What shall I say first? Shall I demonstrate the vanity of the Gentiles? Shall I praise the truth of our faith?

The philosophers of Greece have tried very hard to explain nature, and not one of their systems has remained firm and unshaken. They are enough in themselves to destroy one another. Those who were too ignorant to rise to a knowledge of God could not allow that an intelligent cause presided at the birth of the universe-a primary error that trapped them in sad consequences.

Some fell back on material principles and attributed the origin of the universe to the elements of the world. Others imagined that atoms, and invisible bodies, molecules and tubes, unite to form the nature of the visible world.

It is because they did not know how to say, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Fooled by their inherent atheism, they thought that nothing governed or ruled the universe, and that everything was given up to chance.

To keep us from this error, the writer on creation, from the very first words, enlightens our understanding with the name of God: “In the beginning God created.”

-St. Basil, Hexameron, 1.2