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Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Pneumatomachian Controversy of the 4Th Century1 Michael A

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Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Pneumatomachian Controversy of the 4Th Century1 Michael A Defending the Holy Spirit’s Deity: Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Pneumatomachian Controversy of the 4th Century1 Michael 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 Constantinople. In 350 or so, he went Professor of Church History at The Tertullian (fl.190-215) at the end of the sec- to study in Athens, where he became a Southern Baptist Theological Seminary ond century, it was not until the middle of close friend of Gregory of Nazianzus 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 Gregory of Nyssa, are known as of Toronto. Dr. Haykin is the author of a number of books on the person and work the Cappadocian Fathers. 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 Basil of Caesarea 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 Augustine of Hippo (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 Cappadocia (now central Turkey). 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 Christianity 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 Gregory Thaumaturgus 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 bishop of Graeco-Roman society—where, since the Sebaste in Armenia, 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 360s, Basil became a against the Spirit” (Pneumatomachi), 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 hospitals (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 gift 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. Arianism, 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 370s, 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 orthodoxy 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.
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