Basil of Caesarea

Basil the Great

Lived

c. 330–379

Era

The fathers

Where

Cappadocia

Tradition

The apostolic communities

Monastic rule, and a hospital city outside Caesarea

Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, one of the three Cappadocians whose work made the settlement of 381 possible, and an administrator of the first rank.

Why it matters

His treatise on the Holy Spirit argued the Spirit's divinity carefully, largely by pressing what the church already did in worship, and it is behind the creed's third article. His two monastic rules remain the basis of eastern monasticism and were a source for Benedict's. He also built the Basileias outside Caesarea — hospital, hostel and workshops, staffed by monks and open to all comers, including lepers, whom he was seen to embrace — effectively the first hospital, and he confronted the imperial prefect to keep it.

In the record

1. 381 AD Council

   Council of Constantinople

   Died two years before it; the creed's article on the Spirit is his work

All the figures, from the apostolic age to the present, or the timeline they stand in.