Through Arianism and Modern Therapeutic Deism with Basil: “He’s not afraid of threats. He’s more powerful than our convictions. Let’s threaten some coward but not Basil,” Part II. The Confrontation

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The battle still raging from a millennium and a half ago:

The immediate background

Though the majority of what is presented below comes from the transcript of Basil’s defense before the Prefect of the Arian Emperor, Valens, handed down to us by Basil’s great friend, Gregory of Nazianzus in his Ortation 43, (The Funeral Oration on the Great S. Basil, Bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia), we offer below extended excerpts from Stylianos G. Papadopoulos’ (1933-2012), The Life of A Great Man (Basil of Caesarea), Apostiliki Diakonia, 1979 (pp. 308-320), as it offers a true glimpse into the state of the Church in that era.

The immediate background is well summarized by Newman in Church of the Fathers,

The Arian Emperor, Valens, made a progress through the East, from Constantinople to Antioch, in A.D. 371. 372, with the determination of deposing the Catholic Bishops [Catholic = katá hólos: ‘according to the whole’] in the countries which he traversed; and about the end of the former year he came to Caesarea. The Praetorian Prefect, Modestus, travelled before him, proposing to the Bishops of the cities, which lay on his road, the alternative of communicating with the Arians, or losing their sees.

He summoned Basil into his presence, in his turn, set before him the arguments which had been already found successful wiht others—that is was foolish to resist the times, and to trouble the Church about inconsiderable questions; and he promised him the prince’s favor for him and his friends, if he complied.

Failing by soft language, he adopted a higher tone: be he found his match. Gregory has preserved the dialogue which passed between them.

The Wider Historical Background:

The violence and savagery of the Emperor Valens

For this and the historical outline below, we return to Papadopoulos:

“Until then, Orthodoxy in Cappadocia seemed very much like an islet in the East.  Valens let loose the evils of heresy everywhere. The combination of his brutality and cunning brought shocking results. He swept through Orthodoxy and then dug his claws into Caesarea. It’s true to say that the Cappadocians hadn’t really experienced Valens’ savage cruelty yet. When they heard what had happened elsewhere their blood curdled.

The various centres of the empire were subject in reality to the policy of the Arian emperor.  This came about because the Orthodox were persecuted; their assets were confiscated; they were harassed and violently constrained. Anyone resisting was removed.

The hate and ferocity knew no bounds. It reached the point where, in Nikomedia, they burnt Orthodox priests on board a ship. In fact, the nearer they got to Caesarea the more vicious their ferocity became. Henchmen of the emperor desecrated the churches. In one city they entered the church, climbed onto the holy altar and danced on top of it. In another church, where the Orthodox priest was doing his best to hinder the desecrators, they murdered and poured human blood onto the holy altar itself. It was the priest who was the victim.  Accounts of this violence assailed the ears of the Caesarean Orthodox on a daily basis.”

The pressures mounting on St. Basil…while others caved

“It must have been around November or December time. The pressures on Saint Basil were unrelenting. One day they insulted him, the next they promised him much.

Before making a decision as to the timing of his final onslaught, Valens attempted various means of winning Saint Basil over. Understandably, he felt the fact that Basil remained the Orthodox Metropolitan of Caesarea was a sign of the failure of his policy, a mockery of his royal prestige. A significant role in the build up of pressure was played by the magistrates, who had entirely become instruments of the emperor. Not that the army was any better.

His stratagems were getting him nowhere and Valens was becoming impatient. He wanted to be finished as quickly as possible with this last remaining locus of resistance, with Basil. So he decided to subdue Cappadocia, Pontos, and Armenia immediately. Of necessity, therefore, the emperor played his last card. He sent Prefect Modestos, the captain of the Praetorian Guard, to Caeserea as his envoy. He knew what he was doing.

Now, Modestos was one of the worst types of people who, in order to keep his position, acted more imperiously than the emperor. In order to serve his master, he was unscrupulous and inhumane. The Church in the East was very well aware of his atrocities.

Once in Caesarea, Modestos took up residence in the Government Headquarters. The confrontation, however, probably took place in the Courts. He ordered them to bring in Saint Basil, who was already prepared.”

How Basil became prepared

“The bishop had spent the whole night praying. At one point he felt weak at the knees from fear. How would he manage? Would he be able to stand his ground before this beast?

A bitter cup is no less bitter even for great people.

However, his trepidation passed. The Holy Spirit strengthened him and he began to feel better.

And Modestos? Once he was told, he went to the official hall and sat on the throne, aggressive or, perhaps more, vindictive.

He had, from the outset, to catch Saint Basil off guard. All that he had heard about this man with the sparse frame made him feel less certain. He felt suddenly awkward and a nameless fear stabbed at his heart and refused to let go.

He therefore had to make him succumb from the beginning, in a brusque, arbitrary and harsh manner. To get it over and done with.

Just behind the prefect stood certain official personages: a governor, eunuchs, passed-over judges.

They brought Saint Basil into the chamber. He went boldly up to the throne, but was not provocative; Good-natured, but not smiling.”

The confrontation and imperial assault with Basil’s standing firm

“Modestos tensed, put iron and ice into his voice and spoke:

“Basil, how dare you—you alone—go against the will of our emperor? Who are you to dare to show your contempt for him?”

Basil understood the tactic: attack and surprise. He was not to be swayed, however. He would impose his own pace on these dreadful proceedings. He would become the rock against which the anger and hatred of the heretics would shatter. He would loom as a symbol for the rights of the Church in the face of the authorities of this world. He therefore demanded specific facts, a clear charge:

Basil “What am I charged with? Where am I at fault, because I don’t know?”

Modestos: “You don’t have the emperor’s faith, even though everyone’s submitted to him now.”

Basil: “I’m behaving like this because my own Emperor doesn’t stoop to the faith of Valens, who worships something created (for the Arians believed that the Son was created).

How can I do so, when I, who am created, have been called upon to become God? I worship the Son as God, not as a created being.”

Modestos: “And what are we, then, who believe the same as the emperor?”

The Bishop’s counters

Basil: “Nothing, as long as you order such goings-on!”

Sweat, anxiety and fury fought in the troubled spirit of the prefect. He began to become confused, as well. This explains his naïve question.

Modestos: “Why don’t you think it important to be on our side, to have us for friends?”.

Basil: “Of course, you’re prefects and among the most powerful, to be sure, but I don’t hold you in higher esteem than God! As the children of God that you are, it’s important for me to have you as friends. Just as important as it is for me to have your subordinates as friends. Christianity doesn’t depend on office, but on the faith of the persons involved.”

With these words, the saint illumined the powerful magnate. He showed him how insignificant he really was and how comical his insolence was becoming.

Modestos realized what was going on. He felt he’d been stripped bare. That the power he used to terrify lesser people had been taken away from him. His anger flared. His veins stood out. All of a sudden he stood up from the throne and, almost inarticulately, menaced the saint.

Modestos: “So, you’re not afraid of my power?”

Basil: “What can you do to me. What will happen?”

Modestos: “What can I do? One of the many things within my jurisdiction.”

Basil: “What’s going to happen to me. Tell me. I want to hear.”

Modestos: “Confiscation of your property, exile, torture, death.”

Basil: “Think of some other threat. These have no influence upon me.

The furious prefect felt those words as a stab to his vitals. He eyes became red, his voice hoarse. His nerves were shot to pieces and nothing around him made any sense. From powerful, he’d become to weak. He felt he was shrinking. He became what he really was: petty. He gathered his strength, however, and whispered:

Modesotos: “How is it that you’re not afraid?”

A poor man loses nothing; a pilgrim can’t be exiled; a man dead rejoices in life

Basil: “Because he runs no risk of confiscation, who has nothing to lose, except these shabby clothes and a few books. That’s all I’ve got in the world, Modestos.

Exile doesn’t terrify the man, who does not make a home of the place where he dwells; but everywhere is a home wherever he is cast; or rather everywhere is God’s home. Even Caesarea, where I’m living now, isn’t mine. So wherever you cast me will be a place of God and I’ll be a pilgrim and a stranger in it.

Torture? And how can that harm a frame so frail as mine, which would break under the first blow?

Death? You could but strike once and death would be my gain. It would but send me the sooner to Him for whom I live and labor, for whom I am dead rather than alive, to whom I have long been journeying.

Modestos: “No one yet ever spoke to Modestos with such boldness.”

Basil seized his opportunity.

Basil: “That’s because you’ve never met a real bishop. If you had, he’d have spoken in the same way, because he’d be struggling for such important things.”

Basil saw how affected the prefect was and toned down his language and lightened the atmosphere.

We Orthodox, Prefect, are kinder and more humble than other people. We’re not arrogant towards the emperor, nor to the least of his subjects.

If our faith in God is in jeopardy, though, we ignore everything else and cleave to it. Then the fire, the executioner’s sword, the wild animals, the torturers tearing at our flesh with their nails all bring us more satisfaction than fear.

So do your worst; whatever it lies in your power to do. Curse me, threaten me as much as you want.

But let the emperor be made aware of this, too: you’ll never make me accept a false faith, however much you threaten me.”

This was the final damper the tragic prefect received from Basil at this dreadful and historic encounter. Numbed, Modestos, like a beaten animal, made a sign to the guards to allow Basil to go free.

What happened to Modestos?

He rose and went to the emperor who was arriving in Caesarea.

He did not hesitate to tell the truth:

“We’ve been defeated, my liege, by the bishop of this Church here. He’s not afraid of threats. He’s more stable than our words, more powerful than our convictions. Let’s threaten some coward, but not Basil. If we want to get anywhere, we’ll have to force him into exile.”

The unforeseen outcome: Persecution prohibited; by worship subdued; with generosity overcome

We now return to Newman:

Modestos parted with him with the respect which firmness necessarily inspires in those who witness it; and going to the emperor repeated the failure of his attempt. A second conversation between the bishop and great officers of the court took place in the presence, as some suppose, of Valens himself, who had generosity enough to admire his high spirit, and to dismiss him without punishment.

Indeed, his admiration of Basil occasioned a fresh trial of the archbishop’s constancy, more distressing, perhaps, than any which he had hitherto undergone. On the feast of Epiphany, he attended, with all his court, the church where Basil offered the Holy Sacrifice, and heard his sermon. The collected air of the Bishop, the devotion of the clergy, the numbers and the attention of the congregation, and the power of their voices, fairly overcame him, and he almost fainted away.

At the Offertory he made an effort to approach the altar to present his oblation; but none of the ministers of the church presenting themselves to receive it from him, his limbs again gave way, and it was only by the assistance of one of them that he was kept from falling.

It cannot be too much insisted on that the Church gains the respect of the great, not by unduly courting them, but by treating them as her children. It would be a satisfaction, however, to be able to indulge a hope that the good feelings of the emperor were more than the excitement of the moment; but his persevering persecution of the Catholics for years afterwards forgids the favorable supposition. Yet it was not once only that he trembled before the majestic presence of the Exarch of Caesarea. Miracles and supernatural favors are said to have been displayed.

Modestos became the saint’s friend; Cappadocia was secured, in great measure, from the sufferings with which the Catholics elsewhere were visited, and some of the best of the imperial lands in the neighborhood were made over for the endowment of an hospital which Basil had founded for lepers (Ch. 2, Basil the Great, pp. 17-19).

An incredible series of events. The persecution which ravaged much of the empire does not so much as touch Cappadocia. The power of the emperor brought to a state of utter weakness and impotence before the altar of God amidst the faithful proclamation of the Word the praises of His people. The lands of the Prefect himself becoming the very grounds of a hospital for the poorest and most outcast sector in the ancient world.

The paradox of Orthodoxy.

In the words of the Apostle with which we close,

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a scandal and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men (I Cor 1:20-25),

Amen!

And Amen!

May this same weakness of God so work in us that it become stronger than men as we are strengthened in the Lord and in the power of His might.

So that, like Basil before us, may we

“be able to stand against the schemes (methodeía) of the devil and take up the whole armor (panoplía) of God that we

may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (Eph 6:10-11, 13).