Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/134

116 that he visited the whole of the adjacent district, entreating the Christians everywhere to be constant to the faith and not to pollute themselves with sacrifices to idols (Soz. H. E. v. 11). He was apprehended and put to the torture. On the arrival of Julian at Ancyra, Basil was presented to him, and after having reproached the emperor with his apostasy was further tortured. Basil's constancy remained unshaken, and after a second interview with Julian, in which he treated the emperor with the greatest contumely, he suffered death by red-hot irons on June 29 (Soz. H. E. v. 11; Ruinart, Act. Sinc. Martyr. pp. 559 seq.; Tillemont, vii. 375 seq.). [E.V.]  Basilius, bp. of Caesarea in Cappadocia, commonly called Basil the Great, the strenuous champion of orthodoxy in the East, the restorer of union to the divided Oriental church, and the promoter of unity between the East and the West, was born at Caesarea (originally called Mazaca), the capital of Cappadocia, towards the end of 329. His parents were members of noble and wealthy families, and Christians by descent. His grandparents on both sides had suffered during the Maximinian persecution, his maternal grandfather losing both property and life. Macrina, his paternal grandmother, and her husband, were compelled to leave their home in Pontus, of which country they were natives, and to take refuge among the woods and mountains of that province, where they are reported to have passed seven years (Greg. Naz. Or. xx. p. 319). [ Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Macrina, the Elder.] His father, whose name was also Basil, was an advocate and teacher of rhetoric whose learning and eloquence had brought him a very large practice. Gregory Nazianzen speaks of this elder Basil in terms of the highest commendation as one who was regarded by the whole of Pontus as "the common instructor of virtue" (Or. xx. p. 324). The elder Basil and Emmelia had ten children, five of each sex, of whom a daughter, Macrina, was the eldest. Basil the Great was the eldest son; two others, Gregory Nyssen and Peter, attained the episcopate. Naucratius the second son died a layman. Four of the daughters were well and honourably married. Macrina, the eldest, embraced a life of devotion, and exercised a very powerful influence over Basil and the other members of the family. [, (2).] Basil was indebted for the care of his earliest years to his grandmother Macrina, who brought him up at her country house, not far from Neocaesarea in the province of Pontus (Bas. Ep. 210, § 1). The date of Basil's baptism is uncertain, but, according to the prevalent custom, it was almost certainly deferred until he reached man's estate. For the completion of his education, Basil was sent by his father first to his native city of Caesarea (Greg. Naz. Or. xx. p. 325). From Caesarea he passed to Constantinople (Bas. Epp. 335‒359; Liban. Vita, p. 15), and thence to Athens, where he studied during the years 351‒355, chiefly under the Sophists Himerius and Prohaeresius. His acquaintance with his fellow-student and inseparable companion Gregory Nazianzen, previously begun at Caesarea, speedily ripened at Athens into an ardent friendship, which subsisted with hardly any interruption through

the greater part of their lives. Athens also afforded Basil the opportunity of familiar intercourse with a fellow-student whose name was destined to become unhappily famous, the nephew of the emperor Constantius, Julian. The future emperor conceived a warm attachment for the young Cappadocian, with whom—as the latter reminds him when the relations between them had so sadly changed—he not only studied the best models of literature, but also carefully read the sacred Scriptures (Epp. 40, 41; Greg. Naz. Orat. iv. adv. Julian, pp. 121 seq.). Basil remained at Athens till the middle or end of 355, when with extreme reluctance he left for his native city. By this time his father was dead. His mother, Emmelia, was residing at the village of Annesi, near Neocaesarea. Basil's Athenian reputation had preceded him, and he was received with much honour by the people of Caesarea, where he consented to settle as a teacher of rhetoric (Greg. Naz. Or. xx. p. 334). He practised the profession of a rhetorician with great celebrity for a considerable period (Rufin. ii. 9), but the warnings and counsels of Macrina guarded him from the seductions of the world, and eventually induced him to abandon it altogether and devote himself to a religious life (Greg. Nys. u.s.). Basil, in a letter to Eustathius of Sebaste, describes himself at this period as one awaked out of a deep sleep, and in the marvellous light of Gospel truth discerning the folly of that wisdom of this world in the study of which nearly all his youth had vanished. His first care was to reform his life. Finding, by reading the Gospels, that nothing tended so much toward perfection as to sell all that he had and free himself from worldly cares, and feeling himself too weak to stand alone in such an enterprise, he desired earnestly to find some brother who might give him his aid (Ep. 223). No sooner did his determination become known that he was beset by the remonstrances of his friends entreating him, some to continue the profession of rhetoric, some to become an advocate. But his choice was made, and his resolution was inflexible. Basil's baptism may be placed at this epoch. He was probably baptized by Dianius, bp. of Caesarea, by whom not long afterwards he was admitted to the order of reader (de Spir. Sancto, c. xxix. 71). Basil's determination in favour of a life of devotion would be strengthened by the death of his next brother, Naucratius, who had embraced the life of a solitary, and about this period was drowned while engaged in works of mercy (Greg. Nys.  de Vit. S. Macr. p. 182). About A.D. 357, when still under thirty, Basil left Caesarea to seek the most celebrated ascetics upon whose life he might model his own; visiting Alexandria and Upper Egypt, Palestine, Coelesyria, and Mesopotamia. He records his admiration of the abstinence and endurance of the ascetics whom he met, their mastery over hunger and sleep, their indifference to cold and nakedness, as well as his desire to imitate them (Ep. 223, § 2). The year 358 saw Basil again at Caesarea resolved on the immediate carrying out of his purpose of retiring from the world, finally selecting for his retreat a spot near Neocaesarea, close to 