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Home , Basil of Caesarea, Cappadocian Fathers, Gregory Thaumaturgus

Defending the ’s Deity: Basil of , Gregory of , and the Pneumatomachian Controversy of the 4th Century1 A. G. Haykin

Michael A. G. Haykin is the Princi- It is curious to note that while the first book of the fourth century. pal of The Toronto Baptist Seminary and devoted to the subject of baptism was one Basil went to school in Caesarea, as well Bible College, Toronto, and an Adjunct written by the North African theologian as in . In 350 or so, he went Professor of History at The (fl.190-215) at the end of the sec- to study in , where he became a Southern Baptist Theological Seminary ond century, it was not until the middle of close friend of Gregory of in Louisville, Kentucky. He received the the ninth century that a book on the Lord’s (c.329–389), who, along with Basil, and his Th.D. from Wycliffe College, University Supper appeared. Similarly, while there are brother , are known as of Toronto. Dr. Haykin is the author of a number of books on the person and work the . In 356 Basil numerous books and articles, including of Christ in the early centuries of the returned to Caesarea, hoping to open a a forthcoming book on early Christian Church, it was not until school of rhetoric. His older sister Macrina, apologetics entitled The Defence of the (c.330-379) wrote his On the Holy Spirit in however, challenged him to give his life Truth: Contending for the Faith Yester- 375 that there was a book specifically unreservedly to Christ. Thus it was that day and Today (Evangelical Press). devoted to the person of the Spirit of God. Basil was converted. In his own words, We know more about Basil than any other Christian of the ancient Church apart I wasted nearly all of my youth in 2 the vain labor which occupied me in from (354-430). Cen- the acquisition of the teachings of tral to our knowledge of his life is a mar- that wisdom which God has made velous collection of some 350 letters. Basil foolish. Then at last, as if roused from a deep sleep, I looked at the was born around 330 in the Roman prov- wonderful light of the truth of the ince of (now central ). gospel, and I perceived the worth- His family was fairly well-to-do, his father, lessness of the wisdom of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to also called Basil, being a teacher of rheto- destruction. After I had mourned ric (i.e., the art of public speaking), and his deeply for my miserable life I prayed that guidance be given to me for my mother, Emmelia, coming from landed introduction to the precepts of piety.3 aristocracy. The family’s can be traced back to Basil’s paternal grand- Basil’s conversion to Christ was also a mother, Macrina, who was converted under conversion to a monastic lifestyle. Basil the preaching of never had the conviction, though, that the (c.213–270). Of Basil’s eight siblings we monastic lifestyle was for every believer. know the names of four: Macrina (c.327– Yet, he did believe that in fourth-century 380), Naucratius, Peter, later the of Graeco-Roman society—where, since the Sebaste in , and Gregory of Nyssa toleration of Christianity by Constantine (died c.395), one of the leading theologians (d.337), many were now flocking into the 74 Church from base motives—monasticism full deity of Christ, denied that the Spirit was a needed force for Church renewal. In was fully God. Leading these “fighters time, during the , Basil became a against the Spirit” (), as leading figure in the establishment of they came to be called, was one of his monastic communities, which he sought former friends, indeed the man who had to model after the experience of the Jerusa- been his mentor when he first became a lem church as it is depicted in the early Christian in 356, Eustathius of Sebaste chapters of Acts. (c.300–377). The dispute between Basil After founding a number of monaster- and Eustathius, from one perspective a part ies, he was ordained an elder in the church of the larger Arian Controversy, has at Caesarea, Cappadocia, in the mid-360s. become known as the Pneumatomachian He became bishop of Caesarea in 370. As Controversy. bishop Basil fought simony, established Eustathius’s interest in the Spirit seems (the first hospitals in the ancient to have been focused on the Spirit’s work, world not attached to the Roman army), not his person. For him, the Holy Spirit was aided the victims of drought and famine, primarily a divine who produced insisted on ministers living holy lives, holiness within the Spirit-filled person.4 fearlessly denounced evil wherever he When, on one occasion at a synod in 364, detected it, and excommunicated those he was pressed to say what he thought of involved in the prostitution trade in the Spirit’s nature, he replied: “I neither Cappadocia. chose to name the Holy Spirit God nor dare Basil was not only a Christian activist, to call him a creature”!5 he was also a clear-headed theologian. For a number of years, Basil sought to When Athanasius (c.299–373), the great win Eustathius over to the orthodox posi- defender of Trinitarian Christianity, died, tion. Finally, in the summer of 373 he met Basil inherited his mantle. , which with him for an important two-day collo- Athanasius combated, was still wide- quy, in which, after much discussion and spread in the eastern Mediterranean. There prayer, Eustathius finally acquiesced to an is little doubt that Basil played a key role orthodox view of the Spirit’s nature. At a in this region of the Roman Empire in the second meeting Eustathius signed a state- victory of orthodox Trinitarianism over ment of faith which stated that Arianism, which denied the deity of both the Son and the Holy Spirit. For instance, [We] must anathematize those who call the Holy Spirit a creature, those in one of his earliest books, written around who think so, and those who do not 363 or 364, Basil attacked the views of a confess that he is holy by nature, as radical Arian theologian by the name of the Father and Son are holy by nature, but who regard him as alien Eunomius (c.335–393/395) and defended to the divine and blessed nature. A the full deity of the Son and the Spirit. proof of orthodox doctrine is the refusal to separate him from the Father and Son (for we must be Eustathius of Sebaste and the baptized as we have received the Pneumatomachian Controversy words, and we must believe as we are baptized, and we must give In the early , though, Basil found honor as we have believed, to the himself locked in combat with professing Father, Son and Holy Spirit), and to Christians, who, though they confessed the withdraw from the communion of 75 those who call the Spirit a creature For my heart was crushed, my since they are clearly blasphemers. tongue was paralyzed, my hand It is agreed (this comment is neces- benumbed, and I experienced the sary because of the slanderers) that suffering of an ignoble soul … and I we do not say that the Holy Spirit is almost fell into misanthropy.… [So] either unbegotten for we know one I was not silent through disdain … unbegotten and one source of what but through dismay and perplexity exists, the Father of our Lord Jesus and the inability to say anything pro- Christ, or begotten, for we have been portionate to my grief.7 taught by the tradition of the faith that there is one Only-Begotten. But since we have been taught that the Finally, he simply felt that he had to Spirit of truth proceeds from the speak. The result was one of the most Father we confess that he is from important books of the entire patristic God without being created.6 period, On the Holy Spirit, published in 375.

In Basil’s thinking, since the Spirit is holy Basil of Caesarea, without qualification, he cannot be a crea- On the Holy Spirit ture and must be indivisibly one with the After showing why Christians believe divine nature. The confession of this unity in the deity of Christ (chapters 1-8), Basil is both the criterion of and the devotes the heart of the treatise to demon- basis upon which communion can be ter- strating from Scripture why the Spirit is to minated with those who affirm that the be glorified together with the Father and Spirit is a creature. This pneumatological the Son (chapters 9-27) and thus implicitly position thus defines the precise limits recognized as God. The baptismal formula beyond which Basil was not prepared to of Matthew 28:19 is vital to his argument, venture, even for a friend such as for it reveals that the Spirit is inseparable Eustathius. from the divine being of the Father and the Another meeting was arranged for the Son.8 The baptismal formula does not run autumn of 373, at which Eustathius would this way: “in the names of the Father and sign this declaration in the presence of a the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Mention is number of Christian leaders. But on the made only of the singular name of the three, way home from his meeting with Basil, which is a distinct indication of their unity. Eustathius was convinced by some of his There is only one God who has revealed friends that Basil was theologically in error. himself as “the Father and the Son and the For the next two years Eustathius criss- Holy Spirit.” crossed what is now modern Turkey The Spirit, moreover, ranked alongside, denouncing Basil, and claiming that the not below, the Father and the Son, partici- bishop of Caesarea was a Modalist, one pates with the Father and the Son in the who believed in absolutely no distinctions entirety of divine activity, from the creation between the persons of the Godhead. of the angelic beings to the last judgement. Basil was so stunned by what had tran- For instance, the Spirit gives insight into spired that he kept his peace for close to divine mysteries, since he plumbs the two years. As he wrote later in 376, he was depths of God (1 Cor 2:10), something “astounded at so unexpected and sudden only one who is fully divine could do.9 He a change” in Eustathius that he was un- enables men and women to confess the true able to respond. As he went on to say, identity of Christ and worship him (1 Cor 76 12:3).10 These two texts clarified for Basil Basil to intervene in a doctrinal dissension how salvation was imparted: through the over the question of the Spirit at a monas- power of the Spirit men and women come tic community on the Mount of Olives. to a saving knowledge about God’s With regard to Epiphanius’s request, Basil redemptive work in the crucified Christ replied: “We are unable to add anything to and are enabled to call him “Lord.” If the the , not even the smallest Spirit, therefore, is not fully divine, the addition, except the glorification of the work of salvation is short-circuited, for Holy Spirit, because our fathers made men- creatures simply cannot give such saving tion of this part [of the faith] cursorily, since knowledge. Moreover, he is omnipresent at that time no controversial question con- (Ps 139:7), an attribute possessed only by cerning it had yet arisen.”15 This passage is God.11 And he is implicitly called “God” important for two . First, it pro- by Peter (Acts 5:3-4).12 vides, in summary form, the position that In chapter 9, which introduces Basil’s was reached in On the Holy Spirit: the Holy study of the Spirit’s person and work in Spirit is to be glorified together with the Scripture, Basil anticipates what he will Father and the Son. Second, this explana- seek to show in the work as a whole: tion entails an expansion of the third article of the original Nicene Creed written in 325. [The Holy Spirit] perfects all other beings, but he himself lacks noth- ing.… He does not grow or increase, The Witness of Gregory of Nyssa but is immediate fulness, firmly es- A few years later, in 381, the Council of tablished in himself, and omnipres- Constantinople acted upon Basil’s convic- ent…. From him comes foreknowl- edge of the future, understanding of tions and incorporated Basil’s defense of mysteries, comprehension of hidden the Spirit’s essential deity into the creedal realities, distribution of spiritual statement issued by this council, namely, , the heavenly citizenship, … everlasting joy, abiding in God.… the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, or, Such then, to mention only a few of as it is more commonly known, the Nicene many, are the conceptions about Creed. The article on the Spirit is deeply the Spirit which we have been taught by the oracles of the Spirit indebted to Basil’s On the Holy Spirit. There themselves [i.e., the Scriptures] to is, in fact, good evidence that Basil’s hold about his greatness, his dignity and his activities.13 younger brother, Gregory of Nyssa, who was present at the council and who had Basil died on , 379, worn out drunk deeply at the well of his brother’s by hard work and illness, the latter prob- Trinitarianism, played a central role in the 16 ably associated with his liver. He never drawing up of the statement on the Spirit. witnessed the triumph of the Trinitarian- It is a landmark statement in the history of ism for which he had fought for most of the Church and runs thus: “We believe in the 370s, though, as Rowan Greer puts it, the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, “one hopes that like he saw the who proceeds from the Father, who is wor- promised land from afar.”14 shipped and glorified together with the His final recorded statement on the Father and the Son, who spoke through the question of the was given in a letter prophets.” The confession of the Spirit as written in 376 or 377 to Epiphanius of Lord, a divine title in the Scriptures, and Salamis (c.315-403). The latter had asked his being worshiped and glorified with the 77 Father and the Son clearly speak of the we encounter something hard to understand and our brains reel at the Spirit’s deity. thought of accepting what is pro- Like his older brother, Nyssa wrote posed to us. For, just as experience widely on the subject of the Trinity. One of appears to be better than a scientific theory in the case of what is seen by his most intriguing and more dramatic our eyes, so also faith is better than statements about the Trinity occurs in a the apprehension which comes from document that has been titled, On the Dif- [logical] reasoning with regard to those doctrines which transcend our ference between [being] and hypostasis comprehension. For faith teaches us [person].17 about what is separated in person and about what is united in being.18 You have before now, in springtime, beheld the brilliance of the bow in Here Gregory is grappling with a peren- the clouds—I mean the bow which nial issue in the history of Trinitarian is commonly called the “rainbow.” … Now, the brightness [of the rain- thought, namely, the difficulty that the bow] is both continuous with itself human mind encounters in reconciling the and divided. It has many diverse oneness and threeness of God. He has thus colors; and yet the various bright tints of its dye are imperceptibly resorted to an illustration from the created intermingled, hiding from our eyes realm, the rainbow. When a rainbow is seen the point of contact of the different clearly in the sky, the various colors of the colors with each other. As a result, between the blue and the flame- spectrum can be easily distinguished, but color, or the flame-color and the they pass so gradually into each other with- purple, or the purple and the amber, the space which both mingles and out any abrupt transition that it is well-nigh separates the two colors cannot be impossible to say where one color begins discerned. For when the rays of all and another ends. Similarly, the individual the colors are seen they are seen to be distinct, and yet at the same time members of the Godhead can be distin- … it is impossible to find out how guished in their operations and activities, far the red or the green color of the but this should never be done in such a way radiance extends, and at what point it begins to be no longer perceived as to destroy their unity in being. as it is when it is distinct. It is also noteworthy that Gregory, who Just as in this example we both did have definite philosophical inclina- clearly distinguish the different col- ors and yet cannot detect by obser- tions, far more than most of the orthodox vation the separation of one from the theologians of the fourth century, is quite other, so, please consider that it is also possible to draw [similar] infer- prepared to say that in the final analysis ences with regard to the divine doc- the doctrine of the Trinity surpasses human trines. In particular, one can both comprehension. In the face of this mystery, conclude that the specific character- istics of [each of] the Persons [of the logic and human can only go so far. Godhead], like any one of the bril- It is only through faith that the believer can liant colors which appear in the rain- affirm what logic ultimately cannot: the bow, reflect their brightness in each of the [other] Persons we believe to threeness and the oneness of God. A later be in the Holy Trinity, but that no Christian author, Watts (1674-1748), difference can be observed in the … put this truth well in a way that Basil of nature of the one as compared with the others.… Reason also teaches us Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa would through the created object [that is, have deeply appreciated: the rainbow], not to feel distressed in doctrinal discussions whenever Almighty God! to thee 78 Be endless honors done, 9Ibid., 16:40; 24:56. The undivided Three, 10 And the mysterious One: Ibid., 18:47. Where reason fails 11Ibid., 23:54. With all her powers, 12Ibid., 16:37. There faith prevails 13 And love adores.19 Ibid., 9:22-23. 14Broken Lights and Mended Lives: ENDNOTES and Common Life in the Early Church (Uni- 1Most of this article will be published in versity Park/London: The Pennsylvania a book by the author on early Christian State University Press, 1986) 46. apologetics entitled, The Defence of the 15Basil, Letter 258:2. Truth: Contending for the Faith Yesterday 16See Haykin, Spirit of God, 193-201. and Today (Darlington, England: Evan- 17This work has been preserved among the gelical Press, forthcoming). For further letters of Basil as Letter 38. Scholarship, reading on the Pneumatomachian con- though, has clearly shown that the work troversy, see Michael A. G. Haykin, The is from the pen of Gregory. See Reinhard Spirit of God: The of 1 and 2 Hübner, “Gregor von Nyssa, als Verfas- Corinthians in the Pneumatomachian Con- ser der sog. Ep. 38 des Basilius. Zum troversy of the Fourth Century (Leiden: E. unterschiedlichen Verständnis der ousia J. Brill, 1994). For two recent studies of bei den kappadozischen Brüdern” in Basil’s On the Holy Spirit, see Howard Jacques Fontaine and Charles Kan- Griffith, “The Churchly Theology of nengiesser, eds., EPEKTASIS. Mélanges Basil’s De Spiritu Sancto,” Presbyterion: patristiques offerts au Cardinal Jean Covenant Seminary Review, 25 (1999) 91- Daniélou (Paris: Beauchesne, 1972) 463- 108; and Mark J. Larson, “A Re-exami- 490. nation of De Spiritu Sancto: Basil’s 18Basil, Letter 38:5. Bold Defence of the Spirit’s Deity,” Scot- 19Isaac Watts, “We give immortal praise,” tish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology, 19 stanza 4. (Spring 2001) 65-84. 2On Basil’s life, see especially Philip Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of Califor- nia Press, 1994). 3Letter 223:2. All translations are by the author. 4Wolf-Dieter Hauschild, “Eustathius von Sebaste,” in Theologische Realenzyklop¨adie (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1982) 10:548-549. On Eustathius and his theological position, see Haykin, Spirit of God, 24-49. 5Socrates, Church History 2:45. 6Basil, Letter 125:3. 7Ibid., 244:4. 8Basil, On the Holy Spirit 10:24; 10:26; 12:28; 13:30; 17:43; 18:44. 79