07 — Social Teaching
The social section of the St. Basil the Great compendium: the famine homilies that became the classical Orthodox theology of wealth and poverty, and the Basiliad — the hospital-and-hospice complex that turned that theology into an institution. Here the dogmatic theologian of the Trinity appears as the social reformer whose preaching and philanthropy set the pattern for Orthodox charity.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)
Basil’s social teaching is not a department separate from his theology but its overflow into the world. The same bishop who fixed the grammar of ousia and hypostasis sold his inheritance to feed the starving, served at a soup kitchen with his own hands, and built outside Caesarea a foundation that historians of medicine treat as an ancestor of the hospital. The trigger for all of it was the Cappadocian famine of 368–369, the hinge of his path to the episcopate (see Athens and Conversion); the conviction beneath it was that the surplus of the wealthy belongs, in justice, to the poor.
This section dovetails with the wider Orthodox treatment of Social Ethics, which presents Basil as the fountainhead of a tradition running through John Chrysostom to the modern social documents. The aim here is the man and his works in detail, not the later tradition; the cross-collection file carries that forward.
A note on method, per the repository’s Methodology: Basil’s homilies are cited by work and section in C. Paul Schroeder’s On Social Justice (Popular Patristics Series 38), with famous quotations conformed to that translation’s wording; Gregory of Nazianzus’s Oration 43 is the contemporary witness for the Basiliad, cited from NPNF II/7. PG references (Basil is PG 29–32; Gregory’s Oration 43.63 is PG 36:577) are given only where verified. Where the popular picture of the Basiliad outruns the sources — its supposed size and internal organization — the text says so rather than repeating embellishment.
Files in this Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Basiliad | The famine of 368–369; Gregory of Nazianzus’s “new city” (Oration 43.63, quoted); the hospital/hospice/leprosarium complex, its staffing and scale (sources vs. embellishment); its disputed claim to be the first hospital (Crislip, Miller); and its influence on the Orthodox philanthropic model. |
| Wealth and Poverty Homilies | The four sermons of On Social Justice — To the Rich, I Will Tear Down My Barns, In Time of Famine, the usury homily on Psalm 14; the famous “bread belongs to the hungry” passages in Schroeder’s translation; the theology of koinonia, hoarding-as-theft, and usury; and an honest note on Basil’s opposing modern uses. |
See Also
- 01 — Foundations — the famine of 368–369 as the hinge toward the episcopate
- 05 — Monastic Rules — the cenobitic charity that staffed the Basiliad
- Orthodox Social Ethics — Basil as the fountainhead of the Orthodox social tradition
- Pastoral Economy — the pastoral application of moral teaching
References
- Basil the Great. On Social Justice. Translated by C. Paul Schroeder. Popular Patristics Series 38. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009.
- Gregory of Nazianzus. Oration 43: Funeral Oration on the Great S. Basil, §63 [PG 36:577]. Translated in NPNF II/7.
- Miller, Timothy S. The Birth of the Hospital in the Byzantine Empire. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.
- Crislip, Andrew T. From Monastery to Hospital. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
- Rousseau, Philip. Basil of Caesarea. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.