4.  It were better for him that a mill-stone had been hanged about his neck, and that he had been cast into the sea, than that he should have offended the virgin of the Lord. cf. Luke xvii. 2.  What slave ever reached such a pitch of mad audacity as to fling himself upon his master’s bed?  What robber ever attained such a height of folly as to lay hands upon the very offerings of God, not dead vessels, but bodies living and enshrining a soul made after the image of God? St. Basil has no idea of the image and likeness of God being a bodily likeness, as in the lines of Xenophanes.