Basil the Great and His "Basileias" : Hospitals in Early Christianity

Abstract

In this article I intend to reconstruct the historical contents of the hospital "Basileias" made by Basil the Great in 372 through the texts of Basil's works, Gregory of Nazianz's homily on Basil and the Church Histories of Rufinus, Theodoret, and Sozomen. Basil built the hospital in the place given by the emperor Valens near Caesarea in order to take care of the poor, especially the leprous people whom he had cared for previously in his ascetic life. Here I review especially the observations of Timothy S. Miller (The Birth of the Hospital in the Byzantine Empire) and A. T. Crislip (From Monastery to Hospital). To Miller I say there is no direct witnesses that Aetios built the hospital, so Basil did not build the hospital because of the Arian conflict. To Crislip, there are also similarities between Basileias and Eustatius's hospital. Crislip makes the mistake of treating the concept of doctors and nurses in a too-modern view. In this hospital Basil has served the poor, especially the leprous people. For him the leprous people are Christ who is incarnated as a human being, and through the incarnation their humanity (that was usually neglected by society because of their illness) becomes real for the people. As a human being, he loves the leprous people as the same human being. This is the meaning of philanthropy. The incarnation and philanthropy are two pivots of Basil's thought on care for the poor.