Friendship with Basil
The friendship of St. Gregory the Theologian and St. Basil the Great is the most documented friendship in patristic literature — forged at Athens, deepened in the monastic retreat of Pontus, recorded in an affectionate and teasing correspondence, wounded by the Sasima affair of 372, and immortalized in Gregory’s Oration 43, the funeral oration he delivered for Basil. This section treats both the human bond and the theological partnership it produced.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)
The two met as students at Caesarea and were reunited at Athens around 350, where their shared pursuit of virtue made them, in Gregory’s celebrated phrase, “one soul in two bodies” (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43.20; trans. NPNF II/7). They knew at Athens only “two ways … the one leading to our sacred buildings and the teachers there, the other to secular instructors” (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43.21; trans. NPNF II/7) — the same passage the repository’s Basil files cite for the friendship’s beginning (see Athens and Conversion).
The bond was real but not frictionless. It was nearly broken by the Sasima affair of 372, when Basil consecrated Gregory bishop of a desolate posting-station to serve his own jurisdictional ends — an injury Gregory recorded with lasting bitterness (McGuckin, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, ch. 5). The two reconciled only partially before Basil’s death on January 1, 379; three years later Gregory delivered Oration 43, the funeral panegyric that remains the richest portrait of Basil and the monument of their friendship.
Contents
| File | Subject |
|---|---|
| The Friendship | Athens, the Pontus interlude, the correspondence, the Sasima rupture, and Oration 43 |
| The Theological Partnership | The Philocalia, the shared Trinitarian front, the divided labor against Eunomius, and the “Cappadocian settlement” |
See Also
- Priesthood and Flight — the Pontus refuge of 362 and the Sasima refusal
- Athens and Conversion — Basil’s side of the Athenian friendship
- The Meletian Schism and Rome — Basil’s side of the Sasima affair
References
- Gregory of Nazianzus. Oration 43: Funeral Oration on the Great S. Basil. Trans. C. G. Browne and J. E. Swallow, NPNF II/7.
- McGuckin, John Anthony. St. Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001.
- Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus. Letters. Trans. Roy J. Deferrari, Loeb Classical Library, 4 vols., 1926–1934.