Basil of Caesarea

In his own words on Zechariah

• Zechariah 6:12

  Therefore God helps the city, producing in it early morning by his own rising and coming. "Behold a man," it is said, "the Orient is his name." For those upon whom the spiritual light will rise, when the darkness that comes from ignorance and wickedness is destroyed, early morning will be at hand. Since, then, light has come into the world in order that he who walks about in it may not stumble, his help is able to cause the early morning. Or perhaps, since the resurrection was in the dim morning twilight, God will help the city in the morning early, who on the third day, early on the morning of the resurrection gained the victory through death.

  HOMILIES ON THE PSALMS 45:18.5

• Zechariah 10:1

  Let us not, therefore, know God by halves or make his lovingkindness an excuse for our indolence; for this, his thunders, for this, his lightnings—that his goodness may not be held in despite. He who causes the sun to rise also strikes people with blindness. He who sends the rain also causes the rain of fire. By the one he manifests his goodness; by the other, his severity. For the one let us love him, for the other let us fear, that it may not be said also to us, "Or despise you the riches of his goodness and patience and longsuffering? Know you not that the mercy of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you treasure up to yourself wrath against the day of wrath."

  THE LONG RULES, PREFACE