Vigils Reading – SS Basil & Gregory

ST BASIL AND ST GREGORY

From a treatise by St John Henry Newman

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The instruments raised up by Almighty God for the accomplishment of

His purposes are of two kinds, equally gifted with faith and piety, but from

natural temper and talent, education, or other circumstances, differing in the

means by which they promote their sacred cause.

The first of these are men of acute and ready mind, with accurate

knowledge of human nature, and large plans, and persuasive and attractive

bearing, genial, sociable, and popular, endued with prudence, patience,

instinctive tact and decision in conducting matters, as well as boldness and

zeal…

There is an instrument in the hand of Providence, of less elaborate and

splendid workmanship, less rich in its political endowments, so to call them, yet

not less beautiful in its texture, nor less precious in its material… Such, perhaps,

was Basil, who issued from the solitudes of Pontus to rule like a king, and

minister like the lowest in the kingdom; yet to meet little but disappointment,

and to quit life prematurely in pain and sorrow.

Such was his friend, the accomplished Gregory, however different in

other respects from him, who left his father’s roof for an heretical city, raised a

church there, and was driven back into retirement by his own people, as soon as

his triumph over the false creed was secured…

No comparison is, of course, attempted here between the religious

excellence of the two descriptions of men; each of them serves God according to

the peculiar gifts given to him. If we might continue our instances by way of

comparison, we should say that St Paul reminds us of the former, and Jeremiah

of the latter.