God is not the author of evil

This article presents an annotated translation of excerpts from the ninth Homily of Saint Basil the Great, translated from Greek by Eugène Rusu. The study addresses the question of the origin of evil and divine responsibility. Basil develops an ontological approach according to which evil has no substance of its own: it is the privation of good, just as blindness is the absence of sight. He then articulates an anthropology of freedom: it is through free choice that man and angel turn away from God, the source of being and life. The fall of Adam and that of the devil illustrate this dynamic. The theological contribution is twofold: on the one hand, the refutation of Manichaean dualism; on the other hand, the highlighting of the Orthodox conception of union with God through love, distinct from the Western notion of ecstasy as the summit of beatitude.