Deus Misereatur

Net Galley Review Basil of Caesarea Stephen M. Hildebrand [In the Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality series, eds. Hans Boersma and Mark Levering] Baker Academic (March 18, 2014) ISBN: 9780801049071; $26.99 For many Protestants, especially Evangelicals, the early church pastors and theologians are something of a closed book. They sit at a far distance from the modern pressures and progresses, and appear to have little to say to Christians in the 21st Century. But there is a new move afoot that is attempting to retrieve our forbearers in the faith and make them accessible for Evangelicals, and one of the feeder-streams in the ressourcement rivulet is Baker Academic’s “ Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality ” series, edited by Hans Boersma and Mark Levering. The third volume of this series has now arrived on the scene; the 224 page paperback, “Basil of Caesarea” by Steph...

St. Basil was a senior pastor in Christ’s Church during the 4th Century AD. During this stormy time he found himself beset by opponents on several fronts. During one of the conflicts he wrote a short little piece, “On the Holy Spirit”. In this work he strove to counter the pneumatomachoi (fighters against the Spirit). Their position was that the Son was less than the Father and came after Him in time, and that the Spirit was underneath the Father and the Son. While St. Basil was showing that the Father and the Son are “inseparably joined in name and nature” (34), he made a unexpected statement about tradition and Scripture. What is surprising is the position in which he puts tradition: “…therefore we offer the doxology to the Father with the Son. But we are not content simply because this is the tradition of the Fathers. What is important is that the Fathers followed the meaning of Scripture , beginning with the evidence which I have just extracted from the Scriptures and presented...