Say "He Was" Four Times

I took a brief detour outside of the letters of St. Basil, our holy father and guide in the spiritual life, to read his Homily on the Beginning of the Gospel of John, found in the book On Christian Doctrine and Practice. In his homily, not only is our guide clear-sighted and battle-ready to repel the enemy seeking to confuse his flock, but he delivers a simple, straightforward, and easily memorable few words that anyone could walk away and use.

He was preaching in a world flooded with the influence of the Arian heresy, even though, confusingly (as we look from our viewpoint 1,500 years later), Arianism had been clearly denounced a few decades before at the Council of Nicaea. Heaping high-sounding philosophical terms upon his flock would not have helped anyone. He picked one beautifully simple passage with which to arm them against deception: John 1.

He says that “the Holy Spirit takes the initiative through the gospel, saying, In the beginning was the Word” to give us everything we need to refute this heresy. St. Basil quotes Arius’s much-repeated heretical maxim: “There was a time when he was not,” meaning that Jesus Christ is not God, but is a created being. This one phrase of Scripture easily refutes the Arian deception, even though the support given in defense of Arian claims may be well-crafted and convincing (for they were indeed well-crafted and quite deceiving). In very non-theological terms, our holy pastor says, “Listen to the gospel: In the beginning he was. If he was in the beginning , at what point was he not?”

He then goes on. And the Word was with God. “Where was the Word? Not in a place. For that which is uncircumscribed is not contained in a place. But where was he? With God. Not that the Father is understood to be in a place, or the Son in some marked off space and definite, circumscribed area. On the contrary, the Father is infinite and the Son is infinite.”

In the beginning was the Word. That is Basil’s “he was” number one. And the Word was…that is he was number two. The Scriptures continue, The Word was God. This one was in the beginning with God. That is he was number three and four.

This can all seem like such a far-off problem of a by-gone age. And maybe we do not have the same types of deceptions today. However, maybe he was, he was, he was, he was could also apply to our current age when we need to remind ourselves that Jesus was not just some great teacher who did nice things, which is suggested in so many ways in the secular culture in which we live. When our faith wanes just enough to forget that God himself, who already existed in the beginning when only the Uncreated existed, who already was, that same God came in the flesh to restore all mankind to its first-created communion with God.

Our loving guide in the faith ends his sermon with this admonition: “Please save these few words, imprinting them like a seal upon your memory. They will be for you an impregnable wall against the attacks of those who plot against you.” … “Say he was four times and you will quash their “he was not”.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.