ON ST. MACRINA, GRANDMOTHER OF ST. BASIL, AT NEOCAESAREA IN PONTUS
Fourth Century.
CommentaryMacrina, Grandmother of St. Basil, at Neocaesarea in Pontus (S.)
From Various Sources.
[1] The family of Basil the Great was illustrious, as St. Gregory of Nazianzus relates in oration 20. His paternal grandmother Macrina was his nurse and teacher of the orthodox faith and piety. Her name is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on January 14 St. Macrina, grandmother of St. Basil. in these words: "At Neocaesarea in Pontus, St. Macrina, disciple of the blessed Gregory Thaumaturgus, grandmother of St. Basil, who reared him in the faith."
[2] Baronius writes in his Notes to the Martyrology that she lived in the times of the Emperor Decius and his successors at Neocaesarea in Pontus, Whether a disciple of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus. instructed by that great Gregory Thaumaturgus. Macrina must have been of advanced age if she drew the doctrine of faith from the very lips of Gregory (who does not seem to have long survived the Synod of Antioch held in the year of Christ 265, in the twelfth year of Gallienus, against Paul of Samosata, as we shall say in his Life on November 17), since from the age of St. Basil, whom she nurtured and instructed, it can be inferred that she lived at least until the beginning of the reigns of Constantius and his brothers. The words of Basil are in letter 75 (in Scott's edition, 69), to the Neocaesareans: "And what clearer proof could there be of our faith than that we were reared by our blessed grandmother, who came from among you (I mean Macrina, that illustrious woman), and were taught by her the words of the most blessed Gregory, which she herself preserved, having been transmitted to her by continuous succession of memory, and she taught us while we were still children, and formed us in the dogmas of piety." The Greek reads: per hes edidachthemen ta tou makariotatos Gregoriou rhemata, hosa pros auten akolouthia mnemes diasothenta aute te ephylasse, kai hemas eti nepious ontas eplatte, kai emorphou tois tes eusebeias dogmasi—these words can be understood to mean that she herself preserved in her own memory what she had heard Gregory teaching when she was a young woman; and by a certain succession and tradition of memory, what he had once taught she learned from her parents and teachers and in turn taught to her grandson. Thus in the same letter Basil himself boasts of being a disciple of the same Gregory: "The same were for you and for us both masters of divine mysteries and spiritual fathers, those who from the beginning founded your Church: I mean the great Gregory and as many as after him received the Episcopal throne among you, one after another rising like stars and walking in the same footsteps."
[3] The same Basil mentions this grandmother's instruction in letter 79 (Scott's 73), to Eustathius of Sebastea: "For although," he says, "all our other affairs are such St. Basil's teacher in the faith. that we must rightly groan on account of them, yet this one thing I dare to boast of in the Lord: that I have never held false opinions about God, nor, having thought differently, have I afterward changed the judgment of my mind. Rather, the belief about God which I imbibed as a child from my blessed mother and my grandmother Macrina, I have preserved in myself, increased by just growth. For I did not adopt one opinion after another as my judgment matured, but I completed and brought to perfection the principles handed down to me by them." In letter 64 he also attests that he was brought up at Neocaesarea with his grandmother or nurse; for the word titthe signifies both. We shall treat of St. Basil's mother, St. Emmelia, and father Basil, on May 30.
[4] Basil's brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his Life of his sister Macrina (treated on July 19), writes thus: "The virgin's name was Macrina, so called by her parents She suffered persecution for the faith. because there had once been a certain distinguished Macrina in our family, namely our father's mother, who in the time of the persecutions had fought for the confession of Christ." St. Gregory of Nazianzus explains these combats to some degree in his oration in praise of Basil, and from him Baronius, volume 2, at the year 304, nos. 53 ff.
[5] "The different families of other men, or even of any individual, have other distinctions and ornaments of praise, In the time of Maximian Galerius. either greater or lesser, which, like a kind of paternal inheritance, devolve upon posterity from a more or less remote origin; but for this family, (a) the mark and ornament of both parents was piety, as our discourse will now make clear. There was a persecution, and indeed the most atrocious and terrifying one—I speak to those to whom that persecution is known—which (b) Maximinus stirred up, who, having succeeded many who had come shortly before, made them all seem humane by his cruelty, raging with incredible audacity and striving in every way to carry off the palm of impiety. Most of our athletes overcame him, some fighting even to death, others almost to death—left alive, that is, so that they might survive their victory and not breathe their last in the very contest, but might be left for others as (c) trainers in virtue, living martyrs, breathing pillars, and (d) silent proclamations."
[6] (e) "Their number was increased by the parents of his father, who, having practiced every kind of piety, received from that storm an outstanding crown. For they were so constituted and prepared in mind that they would readily endure all things for which Christ crowns those who imitate the contest he undertook on our behalf; yet since their contest also had to be legitimate (and the law of martyrdom is this: that we should neither rush headlong into the contest—considering both the persecutors themselves and the weaker athletes—nor, when we are present, decline the contest: for the former is the mark of a rash and reckless spirit, the latter of a timid and cowardly one)—in this too reverencing the Lawgiver, what did they contrive? Or rather, to what were they led by divine providence, which governs all their counsels? They fled to a certain forest of the mountains of Pontus She hides with her husband in the wilderness for seven years. (there are many such there, and they are dense and very large and spacious), with very few companions in their flight and ministers of food. And here indeed let others admire the length of time (for they say that their exile was prolonged to nearly a seventh year and beyond), and the manner of life, cramped and unfamiliar, as is likely, for bodies of noble birth; and that, exposed to the open air, they were vexed by cold, heat, and rain; and finally that in this troublesome solitude they lacked the society and fellowship of other people—a thing which must be thought most calamitous and bitter for those who were accustomed to be surrounded and honored by a large retinue."
[7] "But I shall set forth what is greater and more worthy of admiration. Nor let anyone refuse to believe me, unless he thinks it nothing great to have undertaken persecutions and dangers for the sake of Christ—thinking quite wrongly indeed and most dangerously. Desiring more elegant food. These noble people desired certain more pleasant foods, as people broken and weakened by the length of time and having contracted a disgust for their necessary provisions. Yet they did not use the language of the Israelites (for they were not querulous and murmuring, as those were when they had left Egypt and were pressed by hunger in the desert), namely that the wilderness was to be preferred to Egypt, which supplied them with a generous abundance of cooking pots and meat and all other things they had left behind there; nor, mad as they were, did their hard brick-making labor any longer seem grievous to them. Rather, they spoke other things that savored more of sanctity and faith. 'What then,' they said, 'cannot this happen: that the God of miracles, who so abundantly fed a foreign and fugitive people in the desert that he rained bread and poured forth birds, feeding them not only with necessary but even with more delicate foods; who divided the sea, held back the course of the sun, stopped a river'—and they would then add whatever else he had done of old (for in such circumstances the mind loves to pursue ancient histories and celebrate the glory of God from many miracles)—'cannot the same God also feed us today, athletes of piety, with more elegant provisions? Many wild beasts, which have escaped the tables of the rich, such as ours once were, lurk in these mountains; many edible birds fly above us who desire them—of all these, what cannot easily be caught at your mere nod?' These were their words, and the prey was the companion of their words: a feast spontaneously offered, a banquet prepared with no labor—stags suddenly appearing from the hillocks, how large! how fat! Stags voluntarily offer themselves to be slaughtered. how ready and prepared for the slaughter! You would almost suppose they were annoyed at not having been summoned sooner. These they drew by the nodding of their heads, the others followed. By what pursuer or driver? By none. By what horses? What dogs? What baying and hunting cry? What young men occupying the exits of the roads, as the laws of the hunt demand? Bound only by the bond of prayer and just petition. Who in our own memory or in the memory of all who have ever lived has known such a hunt and such a catch? O admirable thing! They were (f) the stewards of their own prey: whatever was desired was kept; what was left over was sent back to the forests for a second course. The places were impromptu, the dinner was elegant, the guests grateful, regarding this miracle as a prelude to the hoped-for blessings. From which they were also rendered more eager for that contest for which these things stood ready.
Annotationsa The Greek reads: to de genoin amphoteroin to eusebes episemon. Others read genoin. Billius translates: "the glory of both lineages."
b Rather Maximian Galerius, who is commonly called Maximinus by the Greeks. Baronius treats of this persecution at length, at the year 304. The centurion St. Gordius also withdrew into the wilderness at that time, as we stated on January 3.
c Aleiptes is one who anoints athletes in the gymnasium, from aleiphein, "to anoint."
d Because they inculcate piety not by voice but by the display of their severed and mangled limbs.
e The Greek reads: syn pollois de tois arithmoumenois kai hoi pro patros touto pateres. Billius translates: "Together with many others, and indeed celebrated ones, of his paternal grandfather." But Baronius in the Annals and Notes to the Martyrology at May 30 takes this to refer to the parents of St. Basil the Great, whereas it is said only of his father's parents, namely Macrina and her husband.
f Tamiai: arbiters, stewards.