Voices from the Past: Meditations on the Person and Work of Christ
Basil of Caesarea, also known as Basil the Great, was born in 330 and died January 1, 379. Basil received an excellent education in Athens but at the age of 27 give up worldly achievement for an ascetic life. It was in this life as a hermit that he began to write against the heresies of the church. He was a great defender of Nicean theology and was encouraged by Eusebius to leave his hermitage. He became Bishop of Caesarea in 370, and, although he died two years before the Council of Constantinople, he influenced it by his writing on the deity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit and on the Trinity as one substance in three persons.
Reading “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13
Above all, this will tell us that it is God’s command that we who trust in Christ should not grieve over them who are fallen asleep, because we hope in the resurrection; and that in reward for great patience great crowns of glory are kept in store by the Master of life’s course. Only let us allow our wiser thoughts to speak to us in this strain of music, and we may peradventure discover some slight alleviation of our trouble.
Play the man, I implore you; the blow is a heavy one, but stand firm; do not fall under the weight of your grief; do not lose heart. Be perfectly assured of this, that though the reasons for what is ordained by God are beyond us, yet always what is arranged for us by Him Who is wise and Who loves us is to be accepted, be it ever so grievous to endure. He Himself knows how He is appointing what is best for each and why the terms of life that He fixes for us are unequal.
There exists some reason incomprehensible to man why some are sooner carried far away from us, and some are left a longer while behind to bear the burdens of this painful life. So we ought always to adore His loving kindness, and not to repine, remembering those great and famous words of the great athlete Job, when he had seen ten children at one table, in one short moment, crushed to death, “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away.” As the Lord thought good so it came to pass. Let us adopt those marvelous words. At the hands of the righteous Judge, they who show like good deeds shall receive a like reward. We have not lost the lad; we have restored him to the Lender. His life is not destroyed; it is changed for the better. He whom we love is not hidden in the ground; he is received into heaven. Let us wait a little while, and we shall be once more with him.
The time of our separation is not long, for in this life we are all like travelers on a journey, hastening on to the same shelter. While one has reached his rest another arrives, another hurries on, but one and the same end awaits them all. He has outstripped us on the way. But we shall all travel the same road, and the same inn awaits us all. God only grant that we through goodness may be likened to His purity, to the end that for the sake of our guilelessness of life we may attain the rest which is granted to them that are children in Christ.
Basil of Caesarea, Letter to Nectarius (regarding the death of Nectarius’ child)
