Natural Revelation in St. Basil the Great's Hexaemeron | Fr. Cosmin Sicoe

"Natural Revelation in St. Basil the Great's Hexaemeron" — a paper presented by Fr. Cosmin Sicoe (Ph.D. student, AHOS) at the Ninth Summer Symposium of the Orthodox Academic Society, Antiochian House of Studies. Theme: "Faith and Reason in the Patristic Mind — From Creed to Controversy: The Fathers' Intellectual Defense Against Heresies" Saturday, 30 May 2026 · Via Zoom This paper takes up the ancient question — "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" — and answers it through the Orthodox doctrine of natural revelation, read in the light of St. Basil the Great's nine fourth-century homilies on creation. Setting Tertullian's famous challenge alongside the modern restatement of the "conflict" of science and faith, Fr. Sicoe argues, with St. Dumitru Staniloae and St. Maximus the Confessor, that the Orthodox Church makes no separation between natural and supernatural revelation: the two laws, natural and written, are of equal dignity and reveal the same Word. At its center is a close reading of the Hexaemeron itself. From its insistence on the "good order" of visible things, St. Basil reads the cosmos as a school in which reasonable souls learn to know God — the mind led "as by a hand" from the visible to the invisible. Fr. Sicoe situates Basil within a wider Orthodox witness — Maximus the Confessor, Symeon of Thessalonica, Staniloae, and Florovsky on the rationality of the cosmos and the logoi of the Logos. Natural revelation, he concludes, is an open book which, together with supernatural revelation, proclaims the glory of God and leads creation, in the Spirit and through the Son, to the Father. — — — 📖 Read the full symposium report: https://ahos.edu/orthodox-academic-so... 🌐 OAS Website OAS.AHOS.edu 🌐 Antiochian House of Studies AHOS.edu — — — CHAPTERS Introduction "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" The "conflict" of science and faith Natural and supernatural revelation: the two laws A close reading of the Hexaemeron The cosmos as a school for the soul The logoi of the Logos Conclusion: creation leads to the Father #OrthodoxChristianity #AntiochianHouseofStudies #StBasiltheGreat #Hexaemeron #PatristicTheology #OrthodoxTheology