St Basil's Eschatological Vision: Aspects of the Recapitulation of History and the Eighth Day, Mario Baghos

Abstract: Throughout his writings, St Basil the Great puts forward a holistic eschatological vision whereby the glorious transfiguration of the world at the end of time was already precipitated on the very first day of the creation. This paper expounds upon various modern approaches to the concept of the eschaton before addressing St Basil’s cosmological interpretation of the ‘one day’ of creation in the book of Genesis as subsuming within itself all of creation history from alpha to omega. Of course, this recapitulation includes within itself the ‘eighth day,’ traditionally understood as paradoxically transcending the seven days of creation and thereby identified with the eschatological state. It then seeks to expound upon the existential dimension of the eschatological state, the proper domain of which, for St Basil, was the life of the Church.

Bio: Mario Baghos is a PhD candidate in Ancient History at Macquarie University. In 2009, he was awarded both the Rev Dr Brian Murray and Diane Feeney Memorial Prizes for the highest grades in both the discipline of theology and the BTh. In 2010, he was awarded First Class Honours, sharing the Dr Beth Blackall Memorial Prize for the highest grade in a graduate level thesis. He is associate teacher in Early Byzantine History at St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological College. His interests include the notion of the polis, the history and philosophy of mentalities, and both traditional and non-traditional eschatology.