Doctors of the Catholic Church
"These words, especially the last three-we become God-are powerful and provocatively written for all humankind by a wise and learned person. However, the words must be interpreted and comprehended in the right sense and spirit. St Basil meant we become God by participation and not by nature. Doctors are designated official guides given us by the Church. They, with God’s grace, enlighten us in a special way. We need to be open and docile to the Spirit of God to understand what God is communicating to us through them."It’s also helpful to look at another translation (
New Advent and
CCEL) of St. Basil the Great’s work (
De Spiritu Sancto). The title of the chapter whence comes the quote is “Definitive conceptions about the Spirit which
conform to the teaching of the Scriptures”. Here’s the paragraph containing the quote:23. Now the Spirit is not brought into intimate association with the soul by local approximation. How indeed could there be a corporeal approach to the incorporeal? This association results from the withdrawal of the passions which, coming afterwards gradually on the soul from its friendship to the flesh, have alienated it from its close relationship with God. Only then after a man is purified from the shame whose stain he took through his wickedness, and has come back again to his natural beauty, and as it were cleaning the Royal Image and restoring its ancient form, only thus is it possible for him to draw near to the Paraclete. And He, like the sun, will by the aid of your purified eye show you in Himself the image of the invisible, and in the blessed spectacle of the image you shall behold the unspeakable beauty of the archetype. Through His aid hearts are lifted up, the weak are held by the hand, and they who are advancing are brought to perfection. Shining upon those that are cleansed from every spot, He makes them spiritual by fellowship with Himself. Just as when a sunbeam falls on bright and transparent bodies, they themselves become brilliant too, and shed forth a fresh brightness from themselves, so souls wherein the Spirit dwells, illuminated by the Spirit, themselves become spiritual, and send forth their grace to others.
Hence comes foreknowledge of the future, understanding of mysteries, apprehension of what is hidden, distribution of good gifts, the heavenly citizenship, a place in the chorus of angels, joy without end, abiding in God, the being made like to God, and, highest of all, the being made God. Such, then, to instance a few out of many, are the conceptions concerning the Holy Spirit, which we have been taught to hold concerning His greatness, His dignity, and His operations, by the oracles of the Spirit themselves.Here is the footnote in the CCEL on “the being made God”:
Θεὸν γενεσθαι. The thought has its most famous expression in Athanasius
de Incar. §54: “He was made man that we might be made God” — Θεοποιηθῶμεν, cf.
De Decretis §14, and other passages of Athanasius.
Irenæus (
Adv. Hær., iv. 38 [lxxv.]) writes “non ab initio dii facti sumus, sed primo quidem homines, tunc demum dii.” “Secundum enim benignitatem suam bene dedit bonum, et similes sibi suæ potestatis homines fecit;” and Origen (
contra Celsum, iii. 28), “That the human nature by fellowship with the more divine might be made divine, not in Jesus only, but also in all those who with faith take up the life which Jesus taught;” and Greg. Naz.
Or. xxx. §14, “Till by the power of the incarnation he make me God.”
In Basil
adv. Eunom., ii. 4. we have, “They who are perfect in virtue are deemed worthy of the title of God.” cf. 2 Peter 1:4: “That ye might be partakers of the divine nature.”
