BASIL THE GREAT (c. , bishop of Caesarea (and founder of monastic institutions) came of a famous family, which gave a number of distinguished supporters to the Church. His eldest sister, Macrina, was celebrated for her saintly life; his second brother was the famous Gregory of Nyssa; his youngest was Peter, bishop of Sebaste ; and his eldest brother was the famous Christian jurist Naucratius. Basil was born at Caesarea in Cappadocia. While he was still a child, the family removed to Pontus, but he soon returned to Cappadocia to live with his mother's relations. Eager to learn, he went to Constantinople (c. 346) and after four or five years there, to Athens, where he had Gregory (q.v.) of Nazianzus for a fellow-student. Both men were deeply influenced by Origen, and compiled the famous anthology of his writings, known as Philocalia (edited by J. A. Robinson, Cambridge, 1893) . It was at Athens that he seriously began to think of religion, and resolved to seek out the most famous hermit saints in Syria and Egypt in order to learn from them how to attain to sincere piety, and how to practise asceti cism. About 36o, we find him leading the monastic life at Annesi in Pontus, near the convent in which his mother, Emilia now a widow and his sister Macrina were living. He was not ordained priest until (c.) 365, and his ordination was probably the result of the entreaties of his ecclesiastical superiors, who wished to use his talents against the Arians, so numerous in that part of the country and favoured by the Arian emperor, Valens, then reign ing in Constantinople. In 37o Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, died, and Basil was chosen to succeed him. It was then that his great powers were called into action to stamp out Arianism and to unite the scattered orthodox elements in the East. Caesarea was an important diocese, and its bishop was ex o f f icio, exarch of the great diocese of Pontus. Hot-blooded and somewhat imperious, Basil was also generous and sympathetic as may be seen from his letters. "His zeal for orthodoxy did not blind him to what was good in an opponent; and for the sake of peace and charity he was content to waive the use of orthodox terminology when it could be surrendered without a sacrifice of truth." Basil is also important for his improvement of the liturgy (the liturgy of St. Basil still being used in the Eastern Church) and for his propagation of a monastic life that substituted hard labour, works of charity and the common life, for the existing hermitical asceticism (see BASILIAN MONKS). He died in 379.
The principal theological writings of Basil are his De Spiritu Sancto, a lucid and edifying appeal to Scripture and early Chris tian tradition, and his three books against Eunomius, the chief exponent of Anomoian Arianism. He was a famous preacher, and many of his homilies, including the Hexaemeron, a series of sermons on the opening verses of Genesis and an exposition of the psalter, have been preserved. His ascetic writings include the Moralia and Regulae, ethical manuals for use in the world and the cloister respectively. His numerous letters reveal a rich and observant nature, which, despite the troubles of ill-health and ecclesiastical unrest, remained optimistic, tender and. even playful.
The name Basil also belongs to several other distinguished churchmen. (i.) Basil, bishop of Ancyra from 336 to 36o, a semi-Arian, highly favoured by the emperor Constantine, and a great polemical writer; none of his works are extant. (ii.) Basil of Seleucia (fl. a bishop who shifted sides continually in the Eutychian controversy, and who wrote extensively ; his works were published in Paris in 1622. (iii.) Basil of Ancyra (fl. 787) ; he opposed image-worship at the second council of Nicaea, but afterwards retracted. (iv.) Basil of Achrida, arch bishop of Thessalonica about 1155; he was a staunch upholder of the claims of the Eastern Church against the widening suprem acy of the papacy.