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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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88 Pages
Page 38
Chapter XV.
Reply to the suggested objection that we are baptized "into water." Also concerning baptism.
34. What more? Verily, our opponents are well equipped with arguments. We are baptized, they urge, into water, and of course we shall not honour the water above all creation, or give it a share of the honour of the Father and of the Son. The arguments of these men are such as might be expected from angry disputants, leaving no means untried in their attack on him who has offended them, because their reason is clouded over by their feelings. We will not, however, shrink from the discussion even of these points. If we do not teach the ignorant, at least we shall not turn away before evil doers. But let us for a moment retrace our steps.
35. The dispensation of our God and Saviour concerning man is a recall from the fall and a return from the alienation caused by disobedience to close communion with God. This is the reason for the sojourn of Christ in the flesh, the pattern life described in the Gospels, the sufferings, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection; so that the man who is being saved through imitation of Christ receives that old adoption. For perfection of life the imitation of Christ is necessary, not only in the example of gentleness, [1004] lowliness, and long suffering set us in His life, but also of His actual death. So Paul, the imitator of Christ, [1005] says, "being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." [1006] How then are we made in the likeness of His death? [1007] In that we were buried [1008] with Him by baptism. What then is the manner of the burial? And what is the advantage resulting from the imitation? First of all, it is necessary that the continuity of the old life be cut. And this is impossible less a man be born again, according to the Lord's word; [1009] for the regeneration, as indeed the name shews, is a beginning of a second life. So before beginning the second, it is necessary to put an end to the first. For just as in the case of runners who turn and take the second course, [1010] a kind of halt and pause intervenes between the movements in the opposite direction, so also in making a change in lives it seemed necessary for death to come as mediator between the two, ending all that goes before, and beginning all that comes after. How then do we achieve the descent into hell? By imitating, through baptism, the burial of Christ. For the bodies of the baptized are, as it were, buried in the water.
[1004] aorgesia in Arist. Eth. iv. 5, 5, is the defect where meekness (praotes) is the mean. In Plutarch, who wrote a short treatise on it, it is a virtue. In Mark iii. 5, Jesus looked round on them "with anger," met' orges, but in Matt. xi. 29, He calls Himself praos.
[1005] cf. 1 Cor. xi. 1.
[1006] Phil. iii. 10, 11.
[1007] Rom. vi. 4, 5.
[1008] A.V., "are buried." Grk. and R.V., "were buried."
[1009] John iii. 3.
[1010] In the double course (diaulos) the runner turned (kampto) the post at the end of the stadium. So "kampsai diaulon thateron kolon palin" in AEsch. Ag. 335, for retracing one's steps another way.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/holy-spirit.asp?pg=38
