OMILIA A XVI-A A SF. VASILE CEL MARE LA VERSETUL: „LA ÎNCEPUT ERA CUVÂNTUL”
ST. BASIL THE GREAT 16TH HOMILY. ON THE VERSE: “IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD”

Summary/Abstract: St. Basil the Great 16th Homily. On the verse: “In the Beginning was the Word”. This Homily of Saint Basil the Great, whose paternity was never contested, is a fine example of how analogies can operate, up to a certain limit, in the sphere of the Trinitarian theology, here in analyzing the relation between the Father and the Son. The consubstantiality of the Father and the Son and their difference in hypostasis are briefly discussed by explaining the first verse of the Gospel of Saint John. For the contemporaries of Saint Basil, this homily aims at the representatives and the supporters of Arianism, but for us it may be also a good argument against the more recent opinions expressed by some, according to whom St. Basil was rather a semi-arian than an Nicenean Orthodox (for example, Adolf von Harnack, the protestant German theologian, who thought of St. Basil as being a supporter of the theology of Basil of Ancyra, according to which the community of substance is to be understood only in the sense of likeness of substance – homoiousios – not in that of unity of substance – homoousios).

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