St. Basil the Great
“If you wish to speak or hear about God,”
St. Basil the Great theologizes, “renounce your own body, renounce your bodily senses, abandon the earth, abandon the sea, make the air to be beneath you; pass over the seasons of the year, their orderly arrangement, the adornments of the earth; stand above the ether, traverse the stars, their splendor, grandeur, the profit which they provide for the whole world, their good order, brightness, arrangement, movement, and the bond or distance between them. Having passed through all of this in your mind, go about heaven and, standing above it, with your thought alone, observe the beauties which are there: the armies of angels which are above the heavens, the chiefs of the archangels, the glory of the Dominions, the presiding of the Thrones, the Powers, Principalities, Authorities.
Having gone past all this and left below the whole of creation in your thoughts, raising your mind beyond the boundaries of it, present to your mind the Essence of God, unmoving, unchanging, unalterable, dispassionate, simple, incomplex, indivisible, unapproachable light, unutterable power, infinite magnitude, resplendent glory, most desired goodness, immeasurable beauty that powerfully strikes the wounded soul, but cannot worthily be depicted in words.”
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insert from Selected Lives of Orthodox Saints:
https://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/saints_different_e.htm
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Saint Basil had become very friendly with a rich Jewish doctor of Caesarea named Joseph. He was excellent in his profession and was able to tell whether a patient would live or die simply by feeling his pulse. Saint Basil had tried many times to convert his friend to Christianity, but Joseph retained his ancestors’ beliefs.
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The Saint had a premonition of his death, and therefore, asked Joseph to come to his home.
When the physician arrived, Saint Basil asked him, "When will I die, Joseph?"
The doctor felt the Saint’s pulse and said, "You will die before morning, Your Eminence."
Saint Basil continued, "If I live until tomorrow, what will you do?"
Joseph responded, "If you don’t die, you will defy all natural laws. I will then seek baptism as a Christian."
Saint Basil prayed, after Joseph left, and asked God to let him live until the next day for two reasons. The first was that the widow mentioned earlier was returning from the desert.
Secondly, he wanted Joseph to convert to Christianity. His prayers were answered.
The next morning, he sent for Joseph, who thought he was going to confirm the Saint’s death.
When he arrived and found the Saint alive, he was shocked. He felt his pulse, but there was none. Joseph fell at the Saint’s feet and confessed his belief in Christ.
Saint Basil took Joseph and his entire household, and baptized them.
He also renamed the physician John. After the baptism, he explained the Christian religion’s teachings to them. Saint Basil then turned to John and said, "When shall I die, my friend?"
John replied, "When you are ready, Your Eminence."
Saint Basil closed his eyes and died on the first day of January in the year 379 A.D.
John fell at the Saint’s feet and cried, "I believe that you would not have died now, if you did not wish to."
Saint Basil the Great’s funeral took place the next day. Thousands of people attended, not only Christians, but Jews and idolaters as well. They mourned the loss of the greatest man of their time. Saint Gregory the Theologian, then Patriarch of Constantinople, wrote Saint Basil’s eulogy. Two years afterwards, he went to Caesarea, and in tears, read it at the Saint’s grave.