For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.
Read Chapter 8
Basil the Great
AD 379
“Accept discipline, not silver,” so that at a time of calamity or physical illness or domestic trouble, you would think nothing at all perverse of God, but accept the blows meted out by him with great patience as though you were being castigated for your sins. Thus, conscious of being disciplined, say, “I will bear the wrath of the Lord because I have sinned against him.”
[Jesus] “spoke all things in parables, and without a parable he spoke nothing” [to the apostles]; and if “all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made,” consequently also prophecy and the law were by him and were spoken by him in parables. “But all things are right,” says the Scripture, “before those who understand,” that is, those who receive and observe, according to the church’s rule of faith, the exposition of the Scriptures explained by him. And the church’s rule is the concord and harmony of the law and the prophets in the covenant delivered at the coming of the Lord. Knowledge is then followed by practical wisdom and practical wisdom by selfcontrol, for it may be said that practical wisdom is divine knowledge and exists in those who share in God’s life, while the selfcontrol that is mortal, which is present in those who philosophize, is not yet wise.
It is written that “wisdom is better than stones of costly price; and all precious things are not comparable to her.” For the wisdom that comes from above, from God, is an incomparable blessing. When we attain to it by means of the holy Scripture, which is inspired of God, and gain the divine light to dwell in our minds, we then advance without wandering, and we come toward whatever is useful for our spiritual profit. Come, therefore, and let us now also scrupulously examine the meaning of the Gospel lessons. Commentary on Luke, Homily
