Saint Basil the Great on Secular Education and Christian Virtue

Teaching ascesis: Recovering the neglected center of early Christian pedagogy

“…As the fourth-century pagan emperor Julian wrote, “We believe that a true education results, not in carefully acquired symmetry of phrases and language, but in a healthy state of mind, which has understanding and true opinions about things good and evil, honorable and base” (Laistner, 1951: 15–16; compare the article “Basil as exemplar for reading pagan texts” in this issue). It is not surprising, then, that the early Christians’ approach to education was, in both its content and its pedagogy, derived from the dominant educational paradigm of their day (Holder, 1992: 395). For church fathers like John Chrysostom, “The ideal of an educated person should not be he or she who speaks well, reads well, and knows a great deal, it must be the person who lives well” (Christou, 2018: 112).…”

“…Basil’s primary concern in this work is to defend the use of pagan literature in the education of Christian youths, insofar as its right and careful use in the curriculum can invite students to a life of virtue and provide them with examples of virtuous deeds (See “Basil as exemplar for reading pagan texts” in this issue). In the last major section of the work, Basil outlines his vision for “a concentrated program of training” in virtue (Holder, 1992: 407), drawing deeply on athletic imagery to underscore the hard work involved in developing the habits of virtue ( To Young Men 8; Deferrari, 1934: 411). As Basil ( To Young Men 9; Deferrari, 1934: 417, 419) goes on to explain, “purification of the soul” involves “scorning the pleasures that arise through the senses, in not feasting the eyes on silly exhibitions of jugglers or on the sight of bodies which gives the spur to licentious songs to enter through the ears and drench your souls.” As with Chrysostom, Basil connects our embodied nature with the realization that those things that we take in through our senses can have a profound formative impact on what we go on to desire and pursue, here linking asceticism with the distinctively Christian aim of the “purification of the soul.” Basil goes on to give several examples from Greek literature that demonstrate how a failure to cultivate an ascetical approach to the body and the world leads to ruin; he takes the biblical teaching on this subject to be so self-evident that he can merely suggest in an aside that “we Christians shall doubtless learn all these things more thoroughly in our own literature” ( To Young Men 10; Deferrari, 1934: 429, 431).…”

“…Still, Basil does not stop at merely providing examples from classical literature or the Bible that demonstrate the connection between asceticism and Christian virtue; for Basil, the role of the teacher must include actively training students in what Holder (1992: 408) calls “a moderate asceticism” that will steer young people away from those vices “to which Basil thought his adolescent hearers would be most susceptible: gluttony, vanity of dress or personal appearance, revelry, desire for wealth, and ambition for flattery.” To this end, Basil ( To Young Men 9; Deferrari, 1934: 421) both calls on young people to avoid “cultivating the pleasures associated with the senses of touch and taste” and to actively engage in practices whereby they can “chastise the body and hold it in check.” Basil does not provide much in the way of specific examples to flesh out this point, but we can infer from his other writings that he doubtless had in mind various forms of renunciation that would enable one to become more mindful of God (Hildebrand, 2018: 37). For instance, to combat the vice of gluttony, the church has traditionally prescribed the practice of fasting, and so we can easily imagine Basil insisting on moderation or abstention from certain foods at certain times as a way of training students not to cultivate the pleasures of taste, instead cultivating their ability to gain the kind of self-control that is germane to growing communion with God.…”

“…Lest Basil’s audience doubt the seriousness with which he advocates for training young people in the way of asceticism, Basil ( To Young Men 10; Deferrari, 1934: 433) exhorts students to “gaze towards that long and ageless eternity whose limit the mind can in no wise grasp any more than it can conceive an end for the immortal soul,” and therefore he tells them, “it is for this eternity that I would exhort you to acquire travel-supplies, leaving no stone unturned, as the proverb has it, wherever any benefit towards that end is likely to accrue to you.” Again, as with Chrysostom, Basil connects the present pursuit of virtue and asceticism with the ultimate end of the Christian life. Thus, as Holder (1992: 409) summarizes, the implication is that students need to seize the present opportunity “to amass a supply of virtue that will sustain them through their long journey to eternity.” Here we see a clear statement of Basil’s approach to asceticism that goes beyond abstaining from negative behaviors to one that encompasses the pursuit of positive actions, habits, and virtues. Basil is after nothing less than a process of transformation along the lines of that suggested by Paul: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:2 NRSV).…”