Saint Basil the Great (c. 330–79) was a bishop in Asia Minor. He lived through some of the most significant doctrinal moments in church history, between the first council of Nicaea (325) and Chalcedon (451). According to the translator of this volume, Basil played a significant role

calming the doctrinal storm besieging the Church, not so much through his political efforts (which failed) but through his theological work: Basil laid the theological foundation upon which trinitarian orthodoxy in the East was established. (21)

On the Holy Spirit is the first patristic writing in which the Holy Spirit is clearly portrayed as God. Basil writes polemically against those who would subordinate the Spirit to the Father and Son, dismantling the arguments of those who would rely on self-serving interpretations of certain biblical prepositions.

Basil’s passion for sound doctrine and elevation of the Spirit is inspiring. May we all be like the person who “clearly fixes his eyes on the Spirit” and is “somehow transformed by the Spirit’s glory into something brighter as his heart is illumined by the truth of the Spirit, as if by a light” (90).

Basil the Great. On the Holy Spirit. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011. Translated by Stephen Hildebrand, Popular Patristics Series 42.