Basil’s Corpus

The Works of Basil of Caesarea

Basil of Caesarea

The organiser. He built a hospital, wrote a rule monks still keep, and died two years before the council proved him right.

Catch rate: Not found in the wild
Base research: 190
Stat total: 320

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina84

Contend82

Defend78

Popularity76

Total320

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 84

Very high. On the Holy Spirit, the nine homilies on creation, three books against Eunomius, the monastic rules, and three hundred and sixty-six letters.

Contend 82

Basil died in 379 without seeing it settled. Two years later the council of Constantinople wrote the third article of the creed the church still says on Sundays, and his argument is what is standing behind it.

Defend 78

Copied without a break in the Greek East and carried early into Latin, Syriac and Armenian. The letters alone survive in numbers a fourth-century collection has no business surviving in.

Popularity 76

Basil the Great — the one of the three Cappadocians whose name reached everybody. The rules he wrote are still read aloud in Eastern monasteries. It takes the floor first.

Cited for this book

Basil was the organiser among the Cappadocians. Gregory of Nazianzus preached and Gregory of Nyssa thought; Basil ran things. He sold his inheritance to feed Caesarea in the famine of 369, built a hospital, and held the Nicene churches of the East together by letter while an Arian emperor took their buildings.

Development

A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.

On the Holy Spirit→
Lv 30

Basil’s Corpus

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
30	A Place for Strangers	Ethics	Argument	78	100%	10
35	The Traditions of the Fathers	History	Argument	84	100%	10
39	Affirm	—	Status	—	—	1
40	The Common Life	Spirituality	Argument	72	100%	10
50	Speak Greek	History	Status	—	100%	5

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“But to whom do we do any harm by building a place of entertainment for strangers, both for those who are on a journey and for those who require medical treatment on account of sickness, and so establishing a means of giving these men the comfort they want, physicians, doctors, means of conveyance, and escort?”
Basil of Caesarea, Letter 94, to Elias, Governor of the Province (trans. Blomfield Jackson, NPNF² 8, public domain).public domain

A Place for Strangers

EthicsArgument · power 78 · 100% accurate

In the gameFamine emptied Caesarea in 369 and Basil sold his inheritance to feed it. Then he built: a hospital, a hostel for travellers, workshops, and a house for lepers. People called the whole complex the Basiliad. A provincial governor was told the bishop had overreached, and this letter is what came back.

“…the worst of all is that those who are being treated ill cannot accept their sufferings in proof of their testimony, nor can the people reverence the athletes as in the army of martyrs, because the name of Christians is applied to the persecutors. The one charge which is now sure to secure severe punishment is the careful keeping of the traditions of the Fathers.”
Basil of Caesarea, Letter 243, to the bishops of Italy and Gaul (trans. Blomfield Jackson, NPNF² 8, public domain). (trimmed quote)public domain

The Traditions of the Fathers

HistoryArgument · power 84 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe emperor Valens held the Arian side, and for thirteen years he took the churches away from bishops who did not. Basil wrote to Italy and Gaul to describe it. The one offence that reliably got you punished, he says, was keeping the faith your fathers had handed you.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.

Affirm

Status

In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.

What answers it

The specific move or chapter of Scripture that cuts through this one, and why. The number is how much harder it hits than usual — ×4 is four times the normal force.

Believes Where He Pleases×2.5

Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus put this very passage of Origen’s into the Philocalia, their anthology of his work.

Judge and Determine×2.5

Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus put this very passage of Origen’s into the Philocalia, in its chapter on free will.