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The principal theological writings of Basil are his ''Treatise on the Holy Spirit'' (Lat. ''De Spiritu Sancto''), a lucid and edifying appeal to Scripture and early Christian tradition to prove the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and his ''Refutation of the Apology of the Impious Eunomius'', written in 363 or 364, three books against Eunomius of Cyzicus, the chief exponent of Anomoian Arianism. The first three books of the ''Refutation'' are his work; the fourth and fifth books that are usually included to do not belong to Basil, or to Apollinaris of Laodicea, but probably to Didymus The Blind.
He was a famous preacher, and many of his homilies, including a series of Lenten lectures on ''The Six Days of Creation'' (Gr. ''Hexaëmeron''), and an exposition of the psalter, have been preserved. Some, like that against usury and that on the famine in 368, are valuable for the history of morals; others illustrate the honor paid to [[martyr]]s and [[relics]]; the address to young men on the study of classical literature shows that Basil was lastingly influenced by his own education, which taught him to appreciate the propaedeutic importance of the classicsas preparatory instruction.
His ascetic tendencies are exhibited in the ''Moralia'' and ''Regulae'', ethical manuals for use in the world and the cloister respectively. Of the monastic rules traced to Basil, the shorter is the one most probably his work.
