Basile de Césarée

See also: Holy Basile

Basile de Césarée also called Basile Large the (329, Césarée - 379) one of principal the Pères of the Church Greek that, is recognized also right from the start like Doctors of the Church. It is celebrated the June 14th and the January 2nd in Occident, and on January 1st, his dies natalis , in the East. He is also celebrated at the time of the “festival of the three oecumenical doctors” on January 31st, with Saint Jean Chrysostome and Saint Gregoire de Nazianze.

Biography

Basile the Large one is originating in Césarée in Cappadoce. He is itself Rhéteur and wire of rhetor. He is the older brother of Gregoire de Nysse which, become Christian and even priest before him, baptizes it. He is born in a family which will count many saints: his/her father him even fore-mentioned Basile, his mother, her sister, and her two brothers of which most famous is Gregoire de Nysse.

To Athens where it finishes its studies, it binds friendship with one of its compatriots, the future saint Gregoire de Nazianze and with the emperor Julien (then catholic, and since Apostat). He professed rhetoric with Césarée, and followed some time the lawyer occupation there.

After its baptism, holy Basile, attracted by the monastic vocation, made long voyages to get informed about the rules and lifestyles of the monks in various places.

In 357, it renonça in the world, was withdrawn in a loneliness of the Pont, and founded there at the edge of the Iris, a monastery which was the model of almost all those which were established since in Orient. The community which it founds, and especially the designs very balanced that it is made of the monastic life will exert through its famous Règle a great influence on the monachism as well Eastern as Western (in particular on Benoît saint). Cf Order of saint Basile.

Starting from 365, it takes an increasing share with the fight against the Arianisme.

In 370, Basile becomes bishop of his birthplace, Césarée de Cappadoce. He occupied himself with zeal to inform his people, sought to restore peace in the Church, and fought several heresies. It is necessary for him to be essential vis-a-vis being able it of the emperor Valens who persecutes the adversaries of the faith arienne. He is with Athanase of Alexandria (another Father of the Greek Church) one of the champions of orthodoxy. Basile has a considerable importance in the Church of the East. He wrote a monastic Règle, always into force. It is him which still fixed the form of a almost unchanged liturgy of use at the orthodoxe ones and the catholics of Byzantine Rite. This liturgy is celebrated Sundays of Lent and the days of certain festivals in the place of the liturgy of saint Jean Chrysostome. The Ethiopian Coptes and the have also an anaphora of Basile saint, whose paternity is confirmed by the liturgists.

In Greece, Basile is known for his charitable organizations and precursory distance of the Red Cross. He also holds, like saint Nicolas in Occident, the role of the Father Christmas.

He moreover produced several other literary works in a style which are connected with that of the second Sophistique (for example Lucien) and with an exceptional oratorical talent.

Works

Contents of its work

Its work very vast Théologique is dominated by a capital treaty over the Holy Spirit. More estimated its works Hexaméron or the six days of creation is .

Except its Rule and the liturgy, the most known work of Basile is the Discours with young people. This “humanistic” work shows how a Christian can benefit from the pagan traditional literature. It has leaves Homélies , treaties of Morale and Asceticism , Commentaires on various parts of the Writing . One also preserved of Basile several sermons, including nine Sermons on the Genèse , with an evocation of the beauty of Creation and size of God. Several letters of Basile were also preserved. Like the sermons, they are of high literary behavior and bring important information on manners and the sensitivity of its time. One admires there with the oiling of the piles bishop, a gracious and flowered eloquence, linked with dialectical rigorous and major knowledge: he had the profane letters as well as crowned science. One notices also his treaty of the Lecture of the profanes .

Publications with XVIIIe and XIXe centuries

Its works were joined together in 3 volumes folio, by Julien Garnier and Prudhomme Maran, Paris, 1721 - 1730, and reprinted by the Gaume brothers, 1835 - 1840, and in the collection of the Abbé Jacques-Paul Migne.

The Homélies and the Lettres were translated into French by the Abbé Jean-Baptiste Morvan de Bellegarde, 1691; the Hexaméron , by Athanase Auger, 1788; ascetic by Godefroy Hermant, 1661; one of the treaties of Moral by the Leroy abbot, 1663; the Speech on the utility of the profane books by Claude-Antoine-Felix Frémion, 1819.

Mr. Roustan published a complete translation of Saint-Basile, 12 volumes in-8, 1846 and Hermant gave its Vie , 1674; Eugene Fialon, a historical and literary Study on Saint Basile , followed Hexaméron , translated into French, 1865.

Modern translations

  • With young people. On the manner of benefitting from the Hellenic letters ; ED. and tr. F. Boulenger. Paris: beautiful Letters, 1935. (Collection of the Universities of France). 96p. ISBN 2-251-00296-0.

  • Correspondence . Volume 1, Lettres I-C; ED. and tr. Yves Courtonne. Paris: beautiful Letters, 1957. (Collection of the Universities of France). xxv-440p. ISBN 2-251-00298-7.
  • Correspondence . Volume 2, Lettres CI-CCXVIII; ED. and tr. Yves Courtonne. Paris: beautiful Letters, 1961. (Collection of the Universities of France). 444p. ISBN 2-251-00299-5.
  • Correspondence . Volume 3, Lettres CCXIX-CCCLXIV. Index; ED. and tr. Yves Courtonne. Paris: beautiful Letters, 1961. (Collection of the Universities of France). 473p. ISBN 2-251-00300-2.
  • On the Holy Spirit ; ED. and tr. Benoit Pruche of the 2 {{E}} ED. review and increased of 1968. Paris: Stag, 2002. (Christian Sources; 17bis). 561p. ISBN 2-204-07119-6.
  • Against Eunome , Volume 1 of Apology; introd., transl. and notes of Bernard Sesboüé, S.J., with the collab. for the text and the introd. criticisms of Georges Matthieu of Durand, o.p., and Louis Doutreleau, S.J. Paris: ED. stag, 1982. (Christian Sources; 299). 274 p. ISBN 2-204-01960-7.
  • Against Eunome , Volume 2 of Apology; introd., transl. and notes of Bernard Sesboüé, S.J., with the collab. for the text and the introd. criticisms of Georges Matthieu of Durand, o.p., and Louis Doutreleau, S.J. Paris: ED. stag, 1983. (Christian Sources; 305). 355 p. ISBN 2-204-02119-9.
  • On the baptism ; Greek text of the ED. Neri; introd., transl. and annotation by Jeanne Ducatillon. Paris: ED. stag, 1989. (Christian Sources; 357). 321 p. ISBN 2-204-04062-2.

Source

Bonds

Internal bonds

  • Saint-Basile

  • Order of saint Basile
  • List of the saints of the '' gilded Légende ''

External bonds

  • online version of the '' Homélies, Speech and selected Letters of Basile-the-Large S. '', transl. by Mr. the Auger Abbot, Lyon, 1827, on the Holy site of the Abbey Benoit of Port-Valais. (including the homélies on the hexaëméron)
  • patristique.org , written of Saint Basile, general information on the Fathers of the Church, original texts, translations, teaching documentation, prayers, meditations…
  • monastic rules of St Basile
  • the Byzantine liturgy of St Basile
  • the liturgy copte of St Basile
  • Texts of St Basile, in Greek

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