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On a Recreant Nun - Basil the Great · Classic Speeches

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Section thirty four of the World's Best Orations, Volume one. This is a
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LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
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or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Gloria Lowry.
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The World's Best Orations from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Volume one
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by David J. Brewer and Edward A. Allen On a recreant nun by
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Basil the Great Basil the Great three twenty nine two three seventy nine. Basil
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the Great born at Caesarea in Cappadocia eighty three twenty nine was one of the
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leading orators of the Christian Church in the fourth century. He was a friend
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of the famous Gregory of Nazianzas, and Gregory of Nissa was his brother.
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The spirit of his time was one of change. The foundations of the Roman
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world were undermined. The old classical civilization of beauty and order had reached its
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climax and reacted on itself. The Greek worship of the graceful, the Roman
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love of the regular, the strong, the martial, the magnificent had failed
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to save the world from a degradation which under the degeneracy of the later Caesars
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had become indescribable. The early Christians, filled with a profound conviction of the
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infernal origin of the corruption of the decaying civilization they saw around them, were
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moved by such a compelling desire to escape it, as later times can never
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realize and hardly imagine. Moved by this spirit, the earnest young man of
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the time, educated as Basil was in the philosophy, the poetry, and
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the science of the classical times, still felt that having this they would lose
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everything unless they could escape the influences of the world around them. They did
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not clearly discriminate between what was within and without themselves. It was not clear
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to them whether the corruption of an effete civilization was not the necessary corruption of
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all human nature, including their own. This doubt sent men like Basil to
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the desert to attempt, by fasting and scourging, to get such mastery over
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their bodies as to compel every rebellious nerve and stubborn muscle to yield instant obedience
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to their aspirations after a more than human perfection. If they never attained their
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ideal, if we find them coming out of the desert, as they sometimes
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did to engage in controversies, often fierce and unsaintly. Enough, we can
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see, nevertheless, how the deep emotions of their struggle after a higher life
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made them the great orators they were. Their language came from profound depths of
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feeling. Often their very earnestness betrays them into what, for later ages is
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unintelligibility. Only antiquarians now can understand how deeply the minds of the earlier centuries
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of the New Order, which saved progress from going down into the bottomless pit
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of classical decadence, were stirred by controversies over propositions and conjunctions. But if
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we remember that in all of it, the men who are sometimes ridiculed as
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mere ascetics, mere pedants, were moved by a profound sense of their duty
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to save a world so demoralized, so shameless in the pursuit of everything sensual
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and base, that nothing short of their sublime enthusiasm, their very madness of
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contempt for the material and the sensual, could have saved it. After studying
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in Constantinople and in Athens, the spirit of the reformers of his time took
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hold on Basle and under the acidic impulse. He visited the hermits of Arabia
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and Asia Minor, hoping to learn sanctity from them. He founded a convent
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in Pontus, which his mother and sister entered. After his ordination as presbyter,
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he was involved in the Great Aryan Controversy, and the ability he showed
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as a disputant probably had much to do with his promotion to the bishopric of
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Caesarea. In meeting the responsibilities of that office, his courage and eloquence made
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him famous. When threatened by the Emperor Valens, he replied that, having
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nothing but a few books and his cloak, he did not fear confiscation of
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his goods, that he could not be exiled, since the whole earth was
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the lord's, that torture in death would merely put an end to his labors
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and bring him nearer to the God for whom he longed. He died at
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Caesarea a d. Three seventy nine. Such men must be judged from their
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own standpoints. It is worth much to understand them. The Sermon to the
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Fallen here, used from Fish's translation, was greatly admired by Fenelon, who
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calls it a masterpiece. It was occasioned by a nun's breaking a vow of
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perpetual virginity on a recreant nun. It is time now to take up the
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exclamation of the prophet. Oh, that my head were waters, and mine
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eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep for the wounded of the
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daughter of my people Jeremiah nine one. For although they are wrapped in profound
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silence, and lie quite stupefied by their calamity, and deprived by their deadly
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wound, even of the very sense of suffering, Yet it does not become
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us to withhold our tears over so sad a fall. For if Jeremiah deemed
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those worthy of countless lamentations who had received bodily wounds in battle, what shall
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we say when souls are involved in so great a calamity. Thy wounded,
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says the Prophet, are not wounded with the sword, and thy dead are
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not the dead of war. But my lamentation is for grievous sin, the
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sting of the true death, and for the fiery darts of the wicked,
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which have cruelly kindled a flame in both body and soul. Well might the
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laws of God groan within themselves be holding such pollution on earth, those laws
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which always utter their loud prohibition, saying in olden time thou shalt not covet
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thy neighbor's wife, And in the Gospels that whosoever looketh on a woman to
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lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. But now
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they behold the very bride of the Lord her, of whom Christ is the
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head, committing adultery without fear or shame. Yes, the very spirits of
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departed saints may well groan the zealous Phineas that it is not permitted to him
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now to snatch the spear and to punish the loossome sin with a summary corporeal
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vengeance. And John the Baptist that he cannot now leave the celestial abodes as
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he once left the wilderness and hastened to rebuke the transgression, and if the
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sacrifice were called for, to lay down his head sooner than abate the severity
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of his reproof. Nay, let us rather say that, like blessed Abel,
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John, being dead, yet speaketh and now lifts up his voice with
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yet louder cry than in the case of Herodias, saying it is not lawful
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for thee to have her. For although the body of John, yielding to
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the inevitable sentence of God, has paid the debt of nature, and his
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tongue is silent, yet the word of God is not bound. And he
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who, when the marriage covenant had been violated in the case of a fellow
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servant, was faithful even unto death, with his stern reproofs what must he
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have felt if he had seen the holy bride chamber of the Lord thus wantonly
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outraged. But as for thee, O, thou who hast thus cast off
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the yoke of that divine union and deserted the undefiled chamber of the True King,
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and aimfully fallen into this disgraceful and impious defilement. Since thou hast no
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way of evading this bitter charge, and no method or artifice can avail to
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conceal thy fearful crime, Thou boldly hardenest thyself in guilt. And as he
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who has once fallen into the abyss of crime, becomes henceforth an impious despiser,
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so thou deniest thy very covenant with the true bridegroom, alleging that thou
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wast not a virgin, and hast never taken the vow, although thou hast
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both received and given many pledges of virginity. Remember the good confession which thou
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hast made before God and angels and men. Remember that venerable assembly, and
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the sacred Choir of Virgins, and the Congregation of the Lord and the Church
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of the Saints. Remember thy aged grandmother in Christ, whose Christian virtues still
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flourish in the vigor of and thy mother in the Lord, who vies with
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the former and strives by new and unwonted endeavors to dissolve the bands of custom,
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And thy sister likewise in some things their imitator, and in some aspiring
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to excel them and to surpass in the merits of virginity the attainments of her
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progenitors, and both in word and deed, diligently inviting thee her sister as
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is meet to the same competition. Remember these and the angelic company associated with
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them, in the service of the Lord and the spiritual life, though yet
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in the flesh and the heavenly converse upon earth. Remember the tranquil days and
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the luminous nights, and the spiritual songs, and the melodious psalmody, and
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the holy prayers, and the chaste and undefiled couch, and the progress in
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virginal purity, and the temperate diet so helpful in preserving thy virginity uncontaminated.
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And where is now that grave deportment and that modest mean, and the plain
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attire which so become a virgin, and that beautiful blush of bashfulness, and
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that comely paleness, the delicate bloom of abstinence and vigils that outshines every ruddier
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glow. How often in prayer that thou mightest keep unspotted thy virginal purity,
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hast thou poured forth thy tears? How many letters hast thou indicted to holy
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men, imploring their prayers. Not that thou mightest obtain these human nuptials,
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shall I call them rather this dishonorable defilement, But that thou mightest not fall
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away from the Lord Jesus. How often hast thou received the gifts of the
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spouse? And why should I mention also the honors accorded for his sake by
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those who are his The companionship of the virgins, journeying with them welcomes from
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them encomiums on virginity, lest seems bestowed by virgins, letters addressed to thee
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as to a virgin, But now having been just breathed upon by the aerial
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spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience, Thou hast denied all these,
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and hast bartered that precious and enviable possession for a brief pleasure, which is
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sweet to thy taste for a moment, but which afterward thou wilt find bitterer
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than Gaul. Besides all this, who can avoid exclaiming with grief, how
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is Zion the faithful city become an harlot? Nay, does not the Lord
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himself say to some who now walk in the spirit of Jeremiah, hast thou
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seen what the Virgin of Israel hath done unto me. I betrothed her unto
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me in faith and purity, in righteousness and in judgment, and in loving
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kindness and in mercy, even as I promised her by Hoseiah the Prophet.
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But she has loved strangers, and even while I her husband lived, she
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has made herself an adulteress, and has not feared to become the wife of
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another husband. And what would the bride's guardian and conductor say the divine and
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blessed Paul, both the ancient apostle and this modern one, under whose auspices
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and instruction thou didst leave thy father's house and join thyself to the Lord,
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would not each filled with grief at the great calamity, Say, the thing
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which I greatly feared has come upon me, and that which I was afraid
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of is come unto me. For I espoused you unto one husband, that
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I might present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. And I was always
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fearful lest in some way, as the serpent beguiled Eve by his son,
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so thy mind should sometime be corrupted. And on this account I always endeavored,
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like a skillful charmer, by innumerable incantations to suppress the tumult of the
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passions, and by a thousand safeguards to secure the bride of the Lord.
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Rehearsing again and again the manner of her who is unmarried, how that she
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only careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be wholly both
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in body and in spirit. And I set forth the honor of virginity,
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calling thee the temple of God, that I might add wings to thy zeal
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and help THEE upward to Jesus. And I also had recourse to the fear
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of evil to prevent THEE from falling, telling THEE that if any man defile
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the temple of God, him shall God destroy. I also added the assistance
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of my prayers, that if possible, thy whole body and soul and spirit
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might be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But all
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this labor I have spent in vain upon Thee, and those sweet toils have
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ended in a bitter disappointment. And now I must again groan over her,
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of whom I ought to have joy. For Lo, thou hast been beguiled
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by the serpent more bitterly than Eve. For not only hast thy mind become
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defiled, but with it thy very body also. And what is still more
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horrible, I dread to say it, but I cannot suppress it, for
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it is as fire burning and blazing in my bones, and I am dissolving
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in every part and cannot endure it. Thou hast taken the members of Christ
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and made them the members of a harlot. This is incomparably the greatest evil
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of all. This is a new crime in the world to which we may
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apply the words of the prophet. Pass over the isles of Chittam and sea,
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and send undo Cadar, and considered diligently, and see if there be
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such a thing. Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no
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gods. For the Virgin hath changed her glory, and now glories in her
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shame. The heavens are astonished at this, and the earth trembleth very exceedingly.
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Now also, the Lord says, the Virgin hath committed two evils.
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She hath forsaken me, the true and holy bridegroom of sanctified souls, and
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hath fled to an impious and lawless polluter of the body and corruptor of the
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soul. She hath turned away from God, her savior, and hath yielded
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her members servants to imperody and iniquity. She hath forgotten me and gone after
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her lover, by whom she shall not profit. It were better for him
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that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the sea,
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than that he should cause one of the Lord's virgins to offend. What impudent
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servant ever carried his insane audacity so far as to fling himself upon the couch
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of his lord? Or what robber has ever become so madly hardened as to
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lay hands upon the very offerings devoted to God. But here it is not
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inanimate vessels, but living bodies, inhabited by souls made in the image of
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God. Since the beginning of the world, was anyone ever heard of who
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dared, in the midst of a great city and broad midday to deface the
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likeness of a king? Why I inscribing upon it the forms of filthy swine.
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He that despises human nuptials dies without mercy under two or three witnesses,
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of how much sore punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy? Who hath
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trodden underfoot the Son of God and defiled his espoused wife, and done despot
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to the spirit of virginity? But after all this shall they fall and not
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arise? Shall he turn away and not return? Why hath the virgin turned
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away in so shameless an apostasy? And that too, after having heard Christ
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the bridegroom saying by Jeremiah and I said, after she had ludely done all
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these things, turn thou unto me, But she returned, Not is there
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no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then, is
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not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? Truly, thou mightest
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find in the divine scriptures many remedies for such an evil, Many medicines that
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recover from perdition and restore to life. Mysterious words about death and resurrection,
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a dreadful judgment and everlasting punishment, the doctrines of repentance and remission of sins,
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those innumerable examples of conversion, the peace of silver, the lost sheep,
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the son that had devoured his living with harlots, that was lost and
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found, that was dead and alive again. Let us use these remedies for
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the evil. With these, let us heal our souls. Think too,
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of thy last day, for thou art not to live always more than others,
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of the distress and the anguish, as the hour of death draws near,
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of the impending sentence of God, of the angels moving on rapid wing.
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Of the soul, fearfully agitated by all these things, and bitterly tormented
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by a guilty conscience, and clinging pitifully to the things here below, and
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still under the inevitable necessity of taking its departure. Picture to thy mind the
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final dissolution of all that belongs to our present life, When the Son of
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Man shall come in his glory with his holy angels. For he shall come
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and shall not keep silence. When he shall come to judge the living and
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the dead, and to render to every man according to his work. When
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the trumpet, with its loud and terrible echo, shall awaken those who have
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slept from the beginning of the world, and they shall come forth, they
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that have done good to the resurrection of the life, and they that have
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done evil to the resurrection of damnation. Remember the divine vision of Daniel,
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how he brings the judgment before our eyes. I beheld, says he,
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till the thrones were placed, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose
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garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool.
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His throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.
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A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him. Thousand thousands ministered
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unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousands stood before him, The judgment
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was set, and the books were opened, revealing all at once in the
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hearing of all men and all angels, all things, whether good or bad,
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open or secret, deeds, words, thoughts? What must all these
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things have on those who have lived viciously? Where then, shall the soul
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thus suddenly revealed in all the fullness of its shame, in the eyes of
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such a multitude of spectators, Oh, where shall it hide itself? In?
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What body? Can it endure? Those unbounded and intolerable torments of the
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unquenchable fire, and the tortures of the undying worm, and the dark and
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frightful abyss of hell, and the bitter howlings and woeful wailings, and weeping
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and gnashing of teeth, and all those dire woes without end deliverance from these
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after death there is none, neither is there any device nor contrivance for escaping
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these bitter torments. But now it is possible to escape them. Now,
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then, while it is possible, let us recover ourselves from our fall.
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Let us not disc of restoration if we break loose from our vices. Jesus
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Christ came into the world to save sinners. Oh, come, let us
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worship and bow down, Let us weep before him. His word calling us
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to repentance, lifts up its voice and cries aloud, Come unto me,
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all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
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There is then a way to be saved, if we will. Death
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has prevailed and swallowed us up. But be assured that God will wipe away
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every tear from the face of every penitent. The Lord is faithful in all
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his words. He does not lie when he says, though your sins be
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as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red
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like crimson, they shall be as wool. The great physician of souls is
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ready to heal thy disease. He is the prompt deliverer, not of THEE
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alone, but of all who are in bondage to sin. These are his
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words, his sweet and life giving lips pronounce them. They that be whole
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need not a physician, but they that are sick. I am not come
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to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. What excuse then remains to
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THEE or any one else when he utters such language as this. The Lord
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is willing to heal thy painful wound. And to enlighten thy darkness. The
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good shepherd leaves the sheep who have not strayed, to seek for thee.
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If thou give thyself up to him, he will not delay. He,
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in his mercy, will not disdain to carry thee upon his own shoulders,
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rejoicing that he has found his sheep which was lost. The father stands waiting
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thy return from thy wanderings. Only arise and come, and wilst thou art
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yet a great way off, he will run and fall upon thy neck,
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and purified at once by thy repentance, Thou shalt be enfolded in the embraces
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of his friendship. He will put the best robe on thy soul when it
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has put off the old man with his deeds. He will put a ring
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on thy hands when they have been washed from the blood of death. He
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will put shoes on thy feet when they have turned from the evil way to
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the path of the Gospel of peace. And he will proclaim a day of
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joy and gladness to the whole family of both angels and men, and will
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celebrate thy salvation with every form of rejoicing. For he himself says, verily,
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I say unto you that joy shall be in heaven before God over one
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sinner that repent. And if any of those that stand by should seem to
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find fault, because thou art so quickly received, the Good Father himself will
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plead for thee saying it was me that we should make merry and be glad
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for this is my daughter was dead and is alive again, and was lost
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and is found. End of Section thirty four on a recreant nun