Life[edit]

The son of Macrina the Elder, Basil is said to have moved with his family to the shores of the Black Sea during the persecution of Christians under Galerius.[1] He is said to have been a well known lawyer and rhetorician,[2] noted for his virtue. He married into the wealthy family of his wife Emmelia, and settled in Caesarea. There, he and his wife, with the help of his mother, raised a family that would greatly influence Christian history. Of their nine children (other sources claim ten children), five of them are remembered by name and are considered to be saints: Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Peter of Sebaste, Naucratius, and Saint Macrina the Younger.[3][4] After his death, his family property was converted into a monastic community for female virgins.[5]

Corrigan, Kevin (21 October 2009), , Ashgate Publishing, ISBN 978-0-7546-9287-4, retrieved 2013-02-25

Evagrius and Gregory: Mind, Soul and Body in 4th Century

Holböck, Ferdinand (1 October 2002), , Ignatius Press, ISBN 978-0-89870-843-1, retrieved 2013-02-25

Married Saints and Blesseds

Keenan, Mary (1950), "De Professione Christiana and De Perfectione: A Study of the Ascetical Doctrine of Saint Gregory of Nyssa", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 5, Dumbarton Oaks: 167+169–207, :10.2307/1291077, ISSN 0070-7546, JSTOR 1291077

doi

Smith, J Warren (April 2006), "The Body of Paradise and the Body of the Resurrection: Gender and the Angelic Life in Gregory of Nyssa's "De Hominis Opificio"", The Harvard Theological Review, 99 (2), Cambridge University Press: 207–228, :10.1017/s0017816006001210, ISSN 0017-8160, JSTOR 4125294

doi

Santiebeati: Basil the Elder