Source: https://media.christendom.edu/2004/04/the-martyrdom-of-st-basil-the-priest-translated-from-an-anonymous-greek-text-with-an-introduction/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 18:29:26+00:00

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“The Martyrdom of St. Basil the Priest” presents the priest-martyr Basil, a true priest of Christ trying to save the little flock that he could assemble in the “cruel times that have fallen” in mid-fourth century Ancyra. This flock was assembled from those who would hear him as he went about the city of Ancyra and engaged in controversy with heretic and pagan alike. He seems to have been a native of the city of Ancyra, the metropolis of Galatia Prima, a prosperous city that lay along the east-west trade route. It was as Julian the Apostate was heading to Antioch of Syria in the early summer of 362 that St. Basil had the final confrontation that led to his martyrdom.
St. Basil describes his apostolate succinctly: expose error, preserve the Faith of the Fathers integrally, and help the faithful to avoid following apostates to damnation. He himself seems to have been engaged in theological controversy with the Arians before Julian’s accession. If the translator correctly interprets haireskhelias (note 4), the original reading of the MS Vaticanus 655 in § 1, St. Basil is, then, noting how the rise or growth of heresy leads to the success of apostasy; it was through St. Basil’s perseverance “in the Faith and Tradition of the Fathers” that “he kept the Faith and his confession of God unbroken” in a time of persecution. The focus of the Martyrion, however, is how St. Basil’s fifteen-month long fight against state-sponsored apostasy culminated in his death.
The anonymous author of the Martyrion writes in the name of the Church in Ancyra, it seems. He writes to testify to the enduring effectiveness that St. Basil’s sacrifice has had; he was the Ancyrans’ “enduring support.” The storm of persecution during Julian’s abortive pagan renaissance had passed, but it was not the end of their problems. Heresy remained, and the example of St. Basil was still to be followed: Ancyrans, and all the orthodox, must still persevere, like him, in keeping the Faith completely. One must note that such a detail would seem to indicate that the state of orthodoxy was not so secure in Ancyra at the time of writing. One may, then, reasonably assume a late fourth-century date of composition from the author’s precise details that come from a fresh memory of the events, the apparent use of this text as the source for Sozomen’s notice about St. Basil, and the fact that orthodoxy at that time had not definitively triumphed.
Among the very touching features of the Martyrion, note St. Basil’s prayers and declarations, especially to the apostate bishop Pegasios; one can see that even after having left the Church, an apostate’s heart can be touched. The meaning of the exchange between the two in § 10 and the effect it had on Pegasios at the end of § 11 is illuminated by a single well-chosen word: lupoumenos. The author uses exactly the same word that St. Matthew does when speaking of the rich young man who turned away from Our Lord. Pegasios’ pain, the extreme reaction by Elpidios and Asklepios, and St. Basil’s new bout of torture are more comprehensible not as revenge simply for offensive speech, but because St. Basil hit his mark. He touched Pegasios’ heart, but still he did not convert. While he certainly piqued others guring in the account, they seemed to have been less perceptibly impacted by the action of grace to repent.
St. Basil’s attitude with Julian, the prefect Saturninus, and the comes Frumentinus was a resolute protest of God’s rights over His Creation and the rights of His Church. Note worthy is the repeated warning that Julian had forfeited his divine sanction to rule by his apostasy and that he could expect to be removed, in consequence. The author of the Martyrion takes pains to note for his readers that St. Basil did not speak as a seditionist, nor were his denunciations of the evil government policies of Julian a call to overthrow him. St. Basil merely named the ineluctable consequences for those who oppose God.
A small riddle remains: why was St. Basil’s feast day placed on 22 March instead of the anniversary of his martyrdom (29 June 362)? We do not know what the date of celebration was in Ancyra but refer now to the Greek calendar, whose date is, as well, the one used in the Roman Martyrology. Considering that the celebration of St. Basil’s feast on 29 June would likely be occulted by the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, one wonders if the date chosen is not capricious. Perhaps this was the anniversary of some other event connected with his cult, the dedication of a church with his name or the translation of his relics. If the feast date originated in Ancyra, since that city lay along the pilgrim route to Jerusalem, it could have been a suitable date to allow one of the hallowed martyrs to be celebrated before pilgrims continued to the Holy Land for Easter. If one calculates that the beginnings of St. Basil’s resistance to Julian is dated to fifteen months before the saint’s martyrdom, March 22 is just about the time when his efforts may have begun.
St. Basil evokes St. Elias by his ironic reference to God as “God of the High Places” and suggests what was in his heart as he went to martyrdom. He was the holocaust in the ordeal between the two religions. His patient, resolute endurance was the miracle to prove the truth of the Faith. The meaning, then, for the date of his feast is the triumph of God over paganism, a grace granted in part because of the shedding of St. Basil’s blood.
2. This is what he used to do every day as he went around the city and supported everyone in keeping the Faith integrally and avoiding the punishment dealt out by the evil men who attacked them. Basil was forbidden by Eudoxios, Makarios, Eugenios,6 and many others from attending the synod being held in Constantinople; for he belonged to the pious,7 and he kept the Faith with scrupulous perfection. He addressed the two hundred thirty bishops at the synod in Palestine, and he considered the holy men, who loved God, as his teachers;8 for he was among those who were under judgment in the palace.9 His life was one act of worship of God,10 he was an unreserved herald of the doctrine of the Faith, and he converted many from error. In this critical moment that caused11 every Christian soul to sink, he did not reply to everyone who was entrusted with authority like a seditionist, he was beloved by all on account of the truth, and he made many people Christians. He persevered in the Faith and the tradition12 of the Fathers; he kept the Faith and his confession of God unbroken.
8. The prefect ordered him to be taken away to the prison. As the blessed was being taken away, a filthy pagan named Felix28 came up to him and said, “Basil, what is it that you do want to get? Just save yourself; become a friend of the gods. Enjoy the Emperor’s promises – if you refuse, you will be punished, since you are already judged.” Basil said, “Be gone, you wicked, unclean creature. You are estranged from the true promises. Since you are in darkness, how can you look at the truth; how can you be made to see the darkness in which you are engulfed?” Saying this, he left, and entered the prison.
9. The prefect referred the case of the sainted Basil to Emperor Julian. When Julian heard it, he sent Elpidios, who taught a doctrine of damnation,29 and Pegasios, both of whom had lapsed and lost their treasure in heaven.30 As they went, in Nicomedia they found a priest of Asklepios, himself named Asklepios.31 They took him along, and the three men, who were generals in the Devil’s war,32 came to Ancyra. As soon as they stopped there, they asked for St. Basil. They learned that he was in prison and that he sang hymns and glorified God both night and day.
11. When he had said these words, he prayed as follows, “Glory be to Thee, O God, who art professed by Thy servants, who enlighten those who whole-heartedly love Thy Godhead, who honor those who hope in Thee, who bring shame upon those who hate Thy commandments, who promise salvation to those who are far from Thee, who art glorified by those who are in heaven, and art worshiped on earth: O God of the high places,36 be pleased to melt away from the soul of Thy servant every bond of the Devil, in order that I may escape him who hates the good and overcome the power of those who threaten us.” When Pegasios heard this, he departed from the prison grieving,37 and he went to his companions and reported what Basil had said. They were enraged on account of Pegasios’ plight. They went to the prefect and reported what38 they had heard from Pegasios.
16. When he heard this he went out to the temple of Asklepios and gave orders that the just man be brought to him there. And so, Basil went out and said to Julian, “Where are your priests and the soothsayers who attend you, Emperor?” Did they tell you the whole reason48 that I am speaking with you?” Julian said, “I think that, since you are intelligent, you have changed your mind; it is because you desire to sit at banquet with us and because you have yourself, moreover, come to recognize the gods.” Basil said, “No, it is so that you know that those whom you call gods are nothing, Emperor; for idols are deaf, blind things that lead to hell those who believe in them.” And when he finished saying this, he took one of the strips of flesh that had been cut from49 his body and threw it at Julian’s face. “Here, Julian, this will be your food there; for me to live is Christ; to die is gain. Christ is my aid; I believe in Him. I am martyred on account of Him.” The Christians blessed the saint on account of his confession of Christ.
1 The Greek text on which the translation is based is a transcription of MS Vaticanus 655, f. 382, as given in the Acta Sanctorum for March 22, pp. *13-*15.
2 hoi tou diabolou stratêgoi. The term stratêgos can mean equally a general, a comes, praetor, or other officer of imperial administration. The more generic rendering given here fits the context without excluding a more pointed allusion to the weight of the Empire’s might that St. Basil was to confront. The Adversary (diabolos) can equally be Satan or his servant, Emperor Julian.
3 diakonous. Possibly these are Arians or apostates. St. Basil has seemingly employed a double entendre. This term, of course, names sacred ministers of the Church: the immediate context, i.e., apostasy among the faithful and St. Basil’s exhortations to keep the Faith, prepare the reader for what is to come in this account, Christian clergy who apostatized. Is one to see from the terms used here that the author of the Martyrion assigns dual responsibility for the dilemma of the Church in Ancyra: the government for promoting apostasy and service of pagan gods, men in the Church for promoting heresy and undercutting through their initial act of in delity the resistance that should have met this program?
4 The Bollandists remark that the MS here reads haireskhelias, which they have corrected to hereskhelias. It would be signi cant if the original word could be understood as “supports of heresy.” If that reading is valid, then one supposes that the author asserts a linkage between heresy and apostasy.
5 St. Basil here alludes to effects that Julian’s pagan renaissance had in Ancyra. The dance metaphor suggests a specific festival in Ancyra, perhaps the very one that is mentioned in § 13. D. Woods, “The Martyrdom of the Priest Basil of Ancyra,” Vigiliae Christianae 46 (1992): 31, identifies the feast occurring at Julian’s advent as one associated with the cult of Adonis (i.e., Attis), the consort of the Magna Mater. The mention of rewards evokes the emperor’s distribution of largitio (cf. § 13). Acknowledging the likelihood of the Bollandists’ correction here to read hereskhelias, is there also to be envisioned some kind of disputation, whose assertions in for of paganism are “abominable sophistry”?
6 Is this a Christian, perhaps the deacon of the same name who defended bishop Marcellus of Ancyra to St. Athanasius?
7 tôn eulabon – a synonym for the orthodox, it seems.
8 Woods signals that this is one of the passages that were misrepresented in the Latin Acta. The reference is, he writes, an obscure allusion to Acacius of Caesarea and not a council. See Woods, 39, n.41. It seems difficult not to read the Greek text as a reference to a council, known or not: houtos oun, epi tês Palaistinçs kai epi diakosiôn triakonta Episkopôn eparrhêsiasato, ekhôn didaskalous hosious andras, tous erastas tou Kuriou. Are these “lovers of God” monastic or identical with the bishops of the synod? In any event, it seems that the timeframe of this section need not be restricted to the fifteen-month period from Julian’s assumption of the title Augustus until the death of St. Basil.
9 He was either already under sentence or part of a list of notorious suspects on account of his opposition to Arianism or paganism, it seems.
10 Understanding haploô in the sense of making a prostration. It may easily mean “open,” and, in consequence, the sentence may mean that his life was open to God, that is, he was in a state of docility to the direction of Providence.
11 Reading sunisantos for suniasantos. While reluctant to alter the text as given in the Acta sanctorum, it seems necessary here and elsewhere in the Martyrion, owing to small errors in transcription or typesetting, one must as- sume. There are a number of words in the text with incongruous meanings, if even words at all, that would leave sections with nonsensical content. On the strength of that and in the absence of a better edition to consult, the translator has changed the text slightly as needed and has noted the changes.
12 Reading paradosei for paradôsei.
13 Reading ekthemenos for eathemenos.
14 Woods, 36-37, remarks that the chronology is precise, if one dates from Julian’s usurpation of the title Augustus in the spring of 361.
15 Reading keleusmati for keneusmati.
16 Reading aneurôi as a synonym for anarthrôi.
17 Reading eispêdêsas for eipêdêsas.
20 Both Woods, 32; and C. Foss, “Late Antique and Byzantine Ankara,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 31(1977): 41, identify this Saturninus as the praefectus praetorio Orientis, Saturninius Secundus Salutius, whom Julian appointed to that of ce in 361.
21 In Greek houtos names the opponent in a legal proceeding, s.v. in Liddell-Scott.
22 kubeuôn. Literally, “playing dice.” St. Basil is being accused of sedition, it seems.
23 Reading emasônto for emassônto.
24 Is this and the reference to an image of Hecate in § 13 to make us think of the mutilations associated with the Anatolian worship of Kybele in her guise as Magna Mater? Unconnected with this question, the Bollandists remark that the text lacks something to make complete sense and propose an addition in their endnotes that the translator has not incorporated. The text here seems suf ciently intelligible as it stands.
25 In the following interchange the emperor and God are named by the same Greek word, basileus. In order not to obscure completely St. Basil’s assertion that it is God who is the true ruler over His creation, the translator here departs from the convention used elsewhere in the Martyrion and renders basileus as “king” when referring to the emperor as well.
26 kouestionariôn – a Latinism. Quaestionarius is the title of a military officer charged with interrogating, and consequently, torturing prisoners.
27 The Bollandists remark that the MS reads periômai, which they have expanded to peripoioumai. The question of Felix is, then, a follow-up to Basil’s declaration. The editor’s second emendation of apollontôn to read apollouse (sic! he must have meant apollousi) has not been followed in the text that the Bollandists publish. It would make the text easier to read, but would change the translation little.
28 Most likely the comes sacrorum largitionum whom Julian appointed in March 362, Woods, 33.
29 Reading apôleias for apoleias.
30 Woods, 33, suggests that this rather prolix reference to their apostasy is not mere verbosity but an oblique indication of the new position that Elpidios had obtained: comes rei privatae.
31 Woods, 34, identifies him with the Cynic philosopher Asclepiades.
32 See note 2. Here and in subsequent references, the author of the Martyrion uses terminology that suggests accurately that the immediate instigator of the persecution was Julian in league with other apostate Christians, but 8 the ultimate author was the Devil.
34 pêgês – St. Basil seems to make a small pun at the expense of Pegasios, whose name, in virtue of a pious folk etymology, he may be taking to mean one belonging to the Source.
35 klêronomos evokes klêros, the office of the clergy. The context indicates very strongly that Pegasios is a renegade priest. Woods, 34, identifies him with the bishop of Ilion, now become pagan priest, whom Julian had met in 354 on his passage west to the court in Milan.
36 St. Basil is, perhaps, being ironic with Pegasios: ho Theos tôn hupsômatôn sounds extremely like the “gods of the high places” of the pagans found in Scripture.
38 Reading ha for han.
40 The Bollandists indicate a small lacuna here; the text is mutilated so slightly and without damaging the overall sense that they felt it unnecessary to conjecture what was missing.
41 miereis, i.e., mê hiereis, as the Bollandists piously observe, not priests at all. The word is equally applicable to heretics, like the Manichaeans, whose leaders Peter of Sicily names in the same way.
42 Reading komizometha for komêzometha.
43 Reading epeisthêis for epei thêis.
44 Not the captain of a detail of ayers, as the text reads in its current form, but the head of the imperial bodyguards. The Bollandists question both the orthography of the officer’s name and unit designation. They suggest that because of features of orthography in the Middle Ages, beta and mu were confounded. It had been conjectured that the name Frubetinus (or, as later in the text, Frubentinus) were misspellings for Frumentinus. As to his unit, scutariorum (shield-guards) would be easier to believe than the cutariorum (flayers) that appears in the text. The Bollandists suggest also that this title comes (translated captain throughout) is incongruous for an officer commanding a unit engaged in such a savage and vile task. Woods, 35-36, identifies him as the comes domesticorum, the commander of the emperor’s bodyguards, Dagalaifus, to whom reference is made here by his otherwise unknown praenomen. Nearly two generations later St. Nilus of Ancyra (fl. 390430) sent a letter, ep. IV 21, to a person also named Dagalaifus, whom one assumes is an Ancyran. Perhaps he is a son or grandson of the persecutor, although it would satisfy piety were he the comes himself. The text from PG 79: 560C reads: “There is advantage in not putting off from day to day your conversion to the Lord: do not neglect it, do not be remiss, do not hesitate. Confess your failures. For Our Lord says through Isaias the Prophet: ‘Say thou rst thy sins, that thou be justi ed.’ For if you make a declaration in this manner, if you confess, if you pray and make frequent supplications, without delay you will hear the Lord giving you this answer: ‘I am He who blots out thy sins and thy transgressions of the Law.”’ There is another letter that St. Nilus wrote to a comes named Frumentinus, ep. II 27, PG 79:212A-B; this possibly could be the same person. This text reads: “‘Circumcision is nothing,’ the Apostle says, ‘and the foreskin is nothing.’ Neither of the things that I have just mentioned is profitable for the salvation of the soul and profound knowledge of God. What, then, would be useful; what would gain one profit? Clearly, it is keeping God’s commandments.” Piety would have one hope that St. Basil’s death obtained conversion for his persecutors and their progeny.
45 derotomein appears to be a hapax legomenon; the translator understands it as a specific application of the verb derô. Perhaps it means “to flay in slices”? The Bollandists report that some identify derotomein with deirotomein, “to cut the throat” in preference to the other possibility dêrotomein, “to cut lengthwise” (?).
47 Reading kratei sou for krateisou.
48 Reading heneken tínos (interrogative) for heneken tinos (indefinite).
50 See note 44. The Greek has an alternate spelling here, Frubentinus.

References: § 1
 § 10
 § 11
 § 13
 § 13
 § 13