EN XIIa: τὰ τῆς κακίας βλαστήματα

Didymus used the term βλὰστημα (‘offshoot’). The expression τὰ τῆς κακίας βλαστήματα (‘offshoots of wickedness’) was available to Cassian, since earlier authors adopted it. He presumably took this up from Eusebius, where the phraseology is similar to that of the present Scholion. We come upon it also in Gregory of Nyssa, and in the spurious work on Isaiah. Although there is a single instance in Basil where a phrase similar, yet not identical, where κακίας βλαστήματα is used, I insist that the commentary on Isaiah is not his own, as I hope to show in a future work of mine. Enarratio in Prophetam Isaiam must have been written under the influence of Eusebius, by someone who held the historian in high regard. There are parts of this Enarratio which are plain quotations from Eusebius’ work, even though they purport to deal with different topics. To cite an instance, a specific part from this commentary is a word-for-word quotation from Eusebius’ commentary on the Psalms.

The verb βλαστάνειν (‘to shoot forth, to bud, to sprout’) is characteristic of Theodoret describing the generation of evil and sin, including heresy. On this point Cassian wrote under the influence of Theodoret and Didymus, not Origen. For in the latter the verb βλαστάνειν has only the natural meaning (that is, a certain physical function), whereas in Didymus this is associated with ‘evil’ (κακία) coming to pass. There are of course instances where a simply natural sense appears, but this is only an exception.