DIVO HILARIO. URBIS PROPUGNATORI. FIDELISSIMO. ASSIDUISSIMO. CERTISSIMO. PICTAVORUM EPISCOPO. XVI. He was a man of more than common severity of life, in all the passages whereof, and indeed in all his writings, there breathes an extraordinary vein of piety: he solemnly appeals to God, that he looked upon this as the great work and business of his life, to employ all his faculties, of speaking, of reason, and understanding, to declare God to the world, and either to inform the ignorant or reduce the erroneous. He had a great veneration for truth, in the search whereof he refused no pains or study; and in the pursuit of it, was acted by a mighty zeal; and in the defence of it, used a freedom and liberty of speech, that sometimes transported him beyond the bounds of decency; as is too evident (not to name other instances) in his addresses to, and the character he gives of Constantius, wherein he lets loose the reins not to zeal, but to rage and passion, and treats him with a liberty far from being consistent with duty to governors, or indeed justifiable by the common rules of prudence and civility: his hearty concernment for religion, meeting with the vigour and frankness of his temper, the natural genius of his country, made him sometimes forget that reverence that was due to superiors, though otherwise he was of a very sweet gentle temper. No considerations, either of hope or fear, could bias him one hair's breadth from the rule of the catholic faith: he underwent banishment with as unconcerned a mind as another man takes a journey of pleasure; he was not moved with the tediousness of his journeys, the hardships of his exile, or the barbarity of the country whither he went; he knew he had to deal with potent and malicious enemies, and that were wont to imbrue their hands in blood; but he carried his life in his hand, and dared at any time to look death in the face. He tells us," that would he have been content to satisfy and betray the truth, he might have enjoyed his peace and pleasure, the favour and friendship of the emperor, places of power and grandeur in the church, and have flowed in all the pomps and advantages of secular greatness. But he had a soul elevated above the offers of this world; and truth was infinitely dearer to him than a Præf. ad fragm. 2 De Trin. 1. i. c. 17. b с liberty or life itself. He was acted by a true spirit of martyrdom, and seems to have desired nothing more, than that he might have sealed his faith and his religion with his blood. He wishes he had lived in the times of the Neronian or Decian persecutions, that he might have borne his testimony to the truth of God; that he would neither have feared the rack, nor been afraid of the flames, nor have shunned the cross, nor startled, if thrown to the bottom of the sea. And in the conclusion of his book to the bishops of France, he tells them, he knew not whether it would be more welcome to him to return home to them, or safe for him to die (where he then was) in exile. In fine, he was to the West what Athanasius was in the East, the great Atlas and support of the catholic cause, to which he stood firm and constant, when all the rest of the bishops sunk into an unwarrantable compliance and prevarication. And the historian records it to his honour,d as a thing universally known and granted, that by his alone care and diligence France had been delivered both from the infection and the guilt of heresy. XVII. His learning was as considerable as those parts of the world could furnish him with. That he was not skilled in Hebrew (which St. Jerome more than once charges upon him) is no wonder: Jewish learning was rare in those days, and especially in the Western parts. His living so many years in the East, had given him some acquaintance with the Greek, though he never attained an accuracy and perfection in that language, as is evident, amongst other instances, by his translations extant at this day. He principally applied himself to theological studies, and to examine the controversies of those times, wherein, though consisting of very nice and intricate speculations, he became a great master, and was one of the first amongst the Latins that openly undertook to explain and defend the catholic faith. His style, like the genius of the French language at that time, is turgid and lofty; which therefore St. Jerome compares to the Rhone, not so much for the copiousness, as for the quickness and rapidness of that river. His phrases are affected, his periods b Lib. contr. Const. s. 4. • De Synod. in fin. Sulp. Sever. 1. ii. c. 45. • Epist. ad Marcell. vol. ii. p. 713. Qu. in Gen. ibid. p. 507. Epist. ad Damas. vol. iv. par. i. p. 145. Præf. in lib. ii. Comm. in Galat. vol. iv. par. i. p. 255. Vid. Epist. xlix. ad Paulin. vol. iv. par. ii. p. 507. VOL. II. 2 c long, and his discourses intricate, and not easily intelligible, and which oft require a second and attentive reading. So that his language, though eloquent in its kind, is not chaste and genuine ; it being true, what Erasmus not impertinently observes upon this occasion, that the Roman provincials (some few only excepted who were brought up at Rome) seldom or never attained the purity and simplicity of the Latin tongue, but betray an over-anxious affectation of eloquence, a thing incident to all those who are naturalized into, rather than natives of any language, and who seldom fail of tincturing, or rather infecting their style with the peculiar idiotisms of their own country. Two things concurred to render him less perspicuous: the abstruseness of the subjects that he manages, being generally so sublime as not to admit a clear and easy explication; and his humour of frequently intermixing Greek idioms, and phrases borrowed from a foreign language, which he endeavours to set off with an operose and elaborate greatness and sublimity of style, (very familiar to the French writers of that age,) attended with frequent repetitions, studied transitions, and over-nice apologies and interruptions, which cannot but render him somewhat obscure to vulgar and superficial readers. All which he especially discovers in his books de Trinitate; wherein he seems to set himself to club the whole strength of his wit, parts, and eloquence, to manage that noble argument with all possible advantage, wherein (it is St. Jerome's observation") he imitated Quintilian both in the style and number of his books. Indeed, his affected subtlety, and exquisite care of words and sentences, resemble the humour of that Roman orator, though it was an ill-chosen copy to write after, in so nice and sublime an argument. In his comments on the Psalms, and St. Matthew, wherein he is more concise and short, he borrowed the sense from Origen, which he clothed with his own expressions, and many times added of his own; though in this work his friend Heliodorus, to whom he trusted to render the propriety of the Greek phrases, and the more difficult places, sometimes imposed upon him, dictating his own sense instead of Origen's, which the 8 Epist. Præf. opp. S. Hilar. et inter Epist. 1. xxviii. ep. 8. h Epist. lxxxiii. ad Magn. vol. iv. par. ii. p. 657. i Hier. Apol. adv. Rufin. vol. iv. par. ii. p. 351. Epist. xxxvi. adv. Vigil. ibid. p. 276. De Script. in Hilar. other swallowed without discerning. His notes upon the Psalms, with his book de Synodis, St. Jerome tells us he himself transcribed for him with his own hand, at what time he lay at Triers in Germany. His other writings yet extant are commonly known, and we have taken notice of as they came in our way. His odd and peculiar notions and opinions have been sufficiently discussed by others, for which there will be little reason to bear hard upon his memory, when it is considered, that the controverted articles were but newly started, and not sufficiently explained; that he lived far from the scene of action, and after his coming upon the public stage, was harassed all his life with the heats and controversies of that age. To conclude, he was learned, eloquent, and judicious, a man of quick parts and sound reason, a catholic bishop, and, what is more, a pious and good man. k Epist. iv. ad Florent. vol. iv. par. ii. p. 6. Genuine. De Trinitate, libri duodecim. His Writings. Adversus Constantium vita functum liber. Ad eundem, liber. Adversus Arianos et Auxentium, liber; cui subjungitur Auxentii ad Imp. Epistola. De Synodis adv. Arianos. Carmen in Genesim. Epistola ad Abram filiam. Liber de Patris et Filii unitate, et alter de essentia Patris et Filii, sunt Centones ex lib. de Trinitate consuti. Not Extant. Tractatus in Job. Fragmenta ex opere Historico de Synodis, Comment. in Cantica Canticorum. THE LIFE OF SAINT BASIL, BISHOP OF CÆSAREA IN CAPPADOCIA. SECTION I. HIS ACTS FROM HIS BIRTH TILL HIS FIRST ENTRANCE INTO HOLY ORDERS. His birth-place. The eminency of his ancestors. Their sufferings under the Maximinian persecution. The miraculous provision made for them. His parents, and their great piety and virtue. His education under his grandmother Macrina. His foreign improvements in several schools and universities. His removal to Athens. The manner of initiating young students in that university. The dear intimacy between him and Nazianzen. His victory over the captious Sophists. His tutors, and their great fame and eminency. His and Nazianzen's joint studies, and strict deportment. His quitting the university, and settling at Antioch under the tutorage of Libanius. Deserting the oratory, he betakes himself to the study of theology. His frequent converse with the writings of Origen. His travels into Egypt and other parts. The high esteem Julian had of him, and the frequent letters that passed between them. His acute repartee to Julian's censure. A pretended letter of his to Julian, in favour of image-worship, shewn to be spurious. Julian's great severity to the Christians at Cæsarea, and upon what occasion. ST. BASIL (whose incomparable learning and piety universally entitled him to the surname of Great) was by birth a Cappadocian, (taking the word in its larger signification,) born in Pontus, where it is plain his father lived,' and whence all his paternal ancestors were descended. And here some fix his nativity at Helenopontus, an obscure town in that country; indeed so obscure, that I find no such place in any writer of that time. For though Constantine the Great gave that title to one of those provinces in honour of his mother Helena, yet I believe no city of that name was at this time in being, whatever might be afterwards. I conjecture him therefore born at Neocæsarea, which though reckoned to Cappadocia at large, (in 1 Greg. Naz. Orat. xx. (in S. Basil.) p. 318, 324. |