Longer Rules (Asceticon, Regulae fusius tractatae) preface–2

Preface. Since by the grace of God we have come together in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we who have set before ourselves one and the same aim of life, the life according to godliness; and since you are plainly longing to learn something of what bears on salvation, while on me lies the necessity of declaring the ordinances of God, as I remember night and day the Apostle, who says: “For three years I did not cease night and day to admonish every one with tears”; and since the present is a most fitting time for us, and this place offers quiet and full freedom from the noise outside: let us pray together for one another, that we may give our fellow servants their portion of food in due season, and that you, receiving the word like the good ground, may yield the fruit of righteousness, perfect and manifold, as it is written.

I beseech you, then, by the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins: let us at last take in hand the care of our souls; let us grieve over the vanity of our past life; let us strive for what is to come, to the glory of God and of his Christ and of the adorable and Holy Spirit. Let us not remain in this sloth and slackness, always letting the present slip by through sloth and putting off the beginning of our works to tomorrow and the day after, and then, overtaken by him who demands our souls, unprepared with good works, be cast out from the joy of the bridal chamber and weep idle and useless tears, lamenting then the time of life so badly let pass, when repentance will avail nothing any more. “Now is the acceptable time,” says the Apostle, “now is the day of salvation.” This age is the age of repentance, that one of recompense; this of endurance, that of consolation. Now God is the helper of those who turn from the evil way; then he will be the fearful examiner, who cannot be deceived, of human deeds and words and thoughts. Now we enjoy his long-suffering; then we shall know his just judgment, when we rise, some to eternal punishment and some to eternal life, and each receives according to his deeds.

To what time are we putting off obedience to Christ, who has called us into his heavenly kingdom? Shall we not sober up? Shall we not call ourselves back from the life of habit to the exactness of the Gospel? Shall we not set before our eyes that fearful and manifest day of the Lord, on which the kingdom of heaven will receive those who have drawn near to the Lord's right hand by their deeds, while those thrust away to the left for want of good works the Gehenna of fire and the eternal darkness will hide? “There,” he says, “will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” We say we desire the kingdom of heaven, but we take no thought for the means by which it may be attained; and, accepting no labour for the Lord's commandment, in the vanity of our mind we suppose that we shall obtain the same honours as those who have stood firm against sin even to death. Who that sat at home or slept in the time of sowing has filled his lap with sheaves when harvest came? Who has gathered the grapes of a vineyard he did not plant and toil over? The fruits belong to those whose labours they were; the honours and the crowns belong to those who have conquered. Who ever crowns a man who has not even stripped to face his opponent? For one must not only win but also “compete according to the rules,” as the Apostle says; that is, not to neglect even a little of what has been commanded, but to do each thing as we have been ordered. For “blessed,” he says, “is that servant whom the Lord when he comes will find,” not doing as he happens to please, but “so doing.” … [we,] supposing that we have done [the commandments] (for I would not say “having done” them: all of them hang together, according to the sound purpose of the word, so that when one is broken the rest are necessarily broken with it), do not expect wrath for what we have left undone, but look for honours for what we have supposedly done right.

The man who out of ten talents entrusted to him keeps back one or two and repays the rest is not recognized as honest for repaying the greater part, but is convicted as unjust and grasping for defrauding of the smaller. Why do I say “defrauding”? When the one who was entrusted with one talent and then returned that very talent whole and intact, just as he received it, is condemned because he did not trade further with what was given him. The one who has honoured his father for ten years and afterward strikes him a single blow is not honoured as a benefactor but is condemned as a parricide. “Go,” says the Lord, “make disciples of all the nations, teaching them,” not to observe some things and neglect others, but “to observe all that I have commanded you.” And the Apostle writes in agreement: “Giving no offence in anything, that the ministry may not be blamed, but in everything commending ourselves as ministers of God.” For if all of them were not necessary to us for the goal of salvation, all the commandments would not have been written, nor would it have been declared that all must of necessity be kept. What profit to me are my other good deeds, if for calling my brother a fool I am to be liable to Gehenna? What is the good of freedom from many masters to one held in slavery by one? “For whoever commits sin,” he says, “is a slave of sin.” And what is the gain of being free from many diseases to one whose body is being destroyed by one disease?

“Will, then,” someone says, “the multitudes of Christians who do not keep all the commandments have no profit from keeping some?” In answer it is good to remember blessed Peter, who after so many good deeds and such blessings heard, for one thing alone: “If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.” I pass over the point that this very thing showed no sloth or contempt in him, but was a sign of honour and reverence. “And yet,” someone might say, “it is written: Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; so that the mere calling on the name of the Lord is enough to save the one who calls on it.” But let him too hear the Apostle saying: “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?” And if you believe, hear the Lord saying: “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Even the one who does the will of the Lord, if he does it not as God wills, nor in the disposition of love for God, has no profit from his zeal for the work, according to the voice of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who said: “They do it to be seen by men; truly I say to you, they have their reward.” Hence Paul the apostle was taught to say: “And if I give away all I have to feed the poor, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

In general I see three different dispositions in which the unavoidable necessity of obedience is met. Either we turn away from evil because we fear punishment, and we are in the disposition of slaves; or we pursue the gains of the wage and fulfil the commands for our own advantage, and in this we resemble hirelings; or we obey for the sake of the good itself and of love for him who gave us the law, rejoicing that we have been counted worthy to serve so glorious and so good a God, and so we are in the disposition of sons. Now the one who keeps the commandments out of fear, and is always wary of the penalty for sloth, will not do some of the things commanded him and overlook others, but will consider the punishment for every disobedience equally fearful for himself. And for this reason he is called blessed who is in awe of all things out of reverence; and he stands firm in the truth and can say: “I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken,” as one who chooses to overlook nothing of what he ought to do; and: “Blessed is the man who fears the Lord.” Why? Because “he will delight greatly in his commandments.” So it is not the way of those who fear to leave aside any of the commands, or to do it carelessly. Nor will the hireling choose to transgress any of the things laid down. For how will he receive the wage for his work in the vineyard if he has not done all that was agreed? Indeed, if one of the necessary tasks is left undone, … [what son, though he] has his father's good pleasure [as his aim] and gladdens him in the greater things, will choose to grieve him for the sake of the smallest? All the more if he remembers the Apostle, who said: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed.”

In which rank, then, do those who transgress most of the commandments wish to be placed? They neither serve God as a Father, nor obey him as one who promises great things, nor serve him as a Master. “If I am a father,” he says, “where is my glory? And if I am a Lord, where is my fear?” For the one who fears the Lord “will delight greatly in his commandments”; but “by transgressing the law,” he says, “you dishonour God.” How then, having preferred a life of pleasure to a life according to the commandment, can we promise ourselves the blessedness of life, citizenship with the saints, and the joys with the angels in the presence of Christ? Such fancies belong to a truly childish mind. How shall I be with Job, I who have not received even an ordinary affliction with thanksgiving? How with David, I who have not been long-suffering toward my enemy? How with Daniel, I who have not sought God with constant self-control and laborious prayer? How with each of the saints, I who have not walked in their footsteps? What judge of the games is so undiscerning as to think the victor and the man who has not competed at all worthy of the same crowns? What general ever called those who did not even appear at the battle to an equal share of the spoils with those who won?

God is good, but he is also just. And it belongs to the just to repay according to desert, as it is written: “Do good, O Lord, to those who are good and to the upright in heart. But those who turn aside into crooked ways the Lord will lead away with the workers of iniquity.” He is merciful, but he is also a judge. “For the Lord loves mercy and judgment,” he says. That is why he says: “Of mercy and judgment I will sing to you, O Lord.” We have learned on whom mercy falls: “Blessed,” he says, “are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Do you see how discerningly he uses mercy? Neither showing mercy without judgment nor judging without mercy. “For the Lord is merciful and just.” Let us not, then, know God by halves, nor take his love for mankind as an occasion for sloth. For this reason there are thunders, for this reason thunderbolts, so that his goodness may not be despised. He who makes the sun rise also condemns to blindness. He who gives the rain also rains down fire. The former belong to his kindness, the latter to his severity: let us either love him for the former or fear him for the latter, lest it be said to us too: “Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that God's kindness leads you to repentance? But by your hardness and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath.”

Since, then, it is not possible to be saved without doing the works commanded by God, and it is not without danger to overlook any of the things enjoined (for it is a dreadful arrogance for us to sit as judges of the lawgiver and accept some of his laws while dismissing others), come, let us, champions of godliness, who have honoured the quiet and undistracted life as a help toward keeping the precepts of the Gospel, set before ourselves a common care and counsel, so that nothing of what has been commanded may escape us. For if the man of God must be perfect (as it is written, and as the argument has shown above), he must of all necessity be cleansed through every commandment “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”; since by the divine law, too, a victim with a blemish, even if it is clean, is unacceptable as a sacrifice to God. Whatever, then, each one thinks he is lacking, let him put it forward for common examination. For what is hidden is more easily discovered when many search diligently together, God, that is, granting us the finding of what we seek through the teaching and reminding of the Holy Spirit, according to the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ. Just as necessity is laid upon me, and woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel, so there is an equal danger for you if you grow slack about the inquiry, or are disposed feebly and listlessly toward keeping what has been handed down and fulfilling it in works. For the Lord says: “The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day”; and: “The servant who did not know his master's will, but did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating; but the one who knew it and did not do it, nor prepare himself for his will, will receive a severe beating.” Let us pray, then, that my stewardship of the word may be blameless and your instruction fruitful. Knowing, therefore, that the words of the God-inspired Scripture will stand against us before the judgment seat, let us attend soberly to what is said and press on earnestly to bring the divine teachings into action, for we do not know on what day or at what hour our Lord is coming.

[Title:] Of our father among the saints, Basil, archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia: The Rules Treated at Length, by Question and Answer.

On order and sequence in the commandments of the Lord.

Question. Since the word has given us leave to ask questions, we need first of all to be taught whether there is any order and sequence in the commandments of God, so that one is first, another second, and so on; or whether they all hang together and are all of equal rank with respect to which comes first, so that anyone who wishes is free to begin wherever he likes, as in a circle.

Answer. Your question is an old one, put forward long ago in the Gospels, when the lawyer came to the Lord and said: “Teacher, which is the first commandment in the law?” And the Lord answered: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” The Lord himself, then, set an order on his own commandments, defining the commandment about love toward God as the first and greatest, and the one about loving one's neighbour as second in order and like the first, or rather as completing the former and depending on it. So from what has been said, and from other such passages found in the God-inspired Scriptures, one may learn the order and sequence in all the commandments of the Lord.

On love toward God, and that the inclination and the power to keep the Lord's commandments are in human beings by nature.

Question. Speak to us first, then, about love toward God. That we must love, we have heard; how this may be achieved, we seek to learn.

Answer. Love toward God is not taught. We did not learn from another to rejoice in light and to cling to life, nor did anyone else teach us to love those who bore us or brought us up. So, then, or much more, … [the love of God does not come] from instruction outside us; but together with the making of the living being (I mean the human being) a kind of seminal principle has been implanted in us, which has within itself the starting points of an inclination to love. The school of God's commandments takes this up and by its nature cultivates it with care, nurtures it with skill, and brings it to perfection by the grace of God. Therefore we too, welcoming your zeal as necessary to the goal, will strive, God granting it and you helping us with your prayers, to stir up the spark of divine longing hidden in you, according to the power given us through the Spirit.

We must know, however, that this is one achievement, but in its power it accomplishes and contains every commandment. “For whoever loves me,” says the Lord, “will keep my commandments”; and again: “On these two commandments hang the whole law and the prophets.” We shall not now try to go through the subject in detail (for so we should find ourselves bringing the whole account of the commandments round into this part); but as far as is fitting for us and suited to the present purpose, we shall remind you of the love we owe to God. First we say this: for all the commandments given us by God, we have received beforehand from him the powers to keep them as well, so that we may neither be vexed as though something strange were demanded of us, nor be puffed up as though we were contributing something beyond what was given. By these powers, when we use them rightly and fittingly, we complete the life of virtue in godliness; when we corrupt their working, we slide into vice. And this is the definition of vice: the evil use, against the Lord's commandment, of what God has given us for good; just as the definition of the virtue God requires is the use of the same things from a good conscience according to the Lord's commandment.

This being so, we shall say the same about love. Having received the commandment to love God, we possess the power of loving, implanted together with us at our first making; and the proof is not from outside, but anyone can learn it from himself and in himself. For we naturally desire beautiful things, however much one thing seems beautiful to one person and another to another; we have an untaught affection for what is our own and akin to us; and we freely show every goodwill to our benefactors. What, then, is more wonderful than the divine beauty? What thought is more delightful than the majesty of God? What longing of the soul is so keen and unbearable as that which God produces in a soul cleansed of all vice, which says from a true disposition: “I am wounded with love”? Wholly unspeakable and indescribable are the lightning flashes of the divine beauty; speech does not convey them, the ear does not receive them. Speak of the rays of the morning star, of the brightness of the moon, of the light of the sun: all are without honour as images of that glory, and fall further short of comparison with the true light than deep night and gloomy moonless darkness fall short of the clearest noon. This beauty, invisible to eyes of flesh and grasped only by the soul and the mind, whenever it shone around any of the saints, left in them the unbearable goad of longing; and, weary of life here, they said: “Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged!” and “When shall I come and appear before the face of God?” and “To depart and be with Christ is far better”; and “My soul thirsted for God, the mighty, the living”; and “Now, Master, you let your servant depart.” Burdened with this life as with a prison, those whose souls the divine longing had touched were so hard to hold back in their yearning. Indeed, because they could not have enough of the contemplation of the divine beauty, they prayed that the contemplation of the Lord's delightfulness might extend through all eternal life.

So, then, human beings naturally desire beautiful things. But what is properly beautiful and lovable is the good. And God is good; and all things desire the good; therefore all things desire God. So what is achieved by free choice is also in us by nature, at least in those whose thoughts have not been twisted by wickedness. We are therefore required to pay love toward God as a necessary debt, and for the soul that fails in it this is the most unbearable of all evils. For estrangement and turning away from God is more unbearable even than the punishments expected in Gehenna, and heavier for the one who suffers it, as the loss of light is to the eye, even if no pain comes with it, or the loss of life to a living creature. And if those who are born have a natural affection for those who begot them, as is shown by the behaviour of irrational animals and by the disposition of human beings in earliest childhood toward their mothers, let us not show ourselves more irrational than infants or more savage than wild beasts by being without affection and estranged toward him who made us. Even if we did not know from his goodness what he is like, from the mere fact of having been made by him we ought to love and cherish him exceedingly and hang continually on the remembrance of him, as infants do on their mothers.

But a benefactor ranks above those who are loved by nature. And this attachment to those who have given us some good is not peculiar to human beings; it is felt by almost all living creatures. “The ox knows his owner,” he says, “and the ass his master's crib.” But far be it that what follows should be said of us: “But Israel has not known me, and my people has not understood.” As for the dog and many other such creatures, what need is there to say how much goodwill they show to those who feed them? If, then, we naturally show goodwill and affection to our benefactors and endure every labour to repay what has been done for us, what words can worthily reach the gifts of God? They are so many in number that they escape counting, and so great and of such a kind that even one is enough to make us debtors of every thanks to the giver. I shall pass over the rest, which, though in themselves surpassing in greatness and grace, are outshone by the greater, like stars by the sun's rays, and so give a dimmer sense of their own grace. For one who has left the surpassing gifts aside has no leisure to measure the benefactor's goodness by the lesser. Let silence, then, cover the risings of the sun, the circuits of the moon, the temperings of the air, the changes of the seasons, water from the clouds and water from the earth, the sea itself, the whole earth, the things that grow from the earth, those that live in the waters, the kinds in the air, the countless varieties of living creatures, all that has been appointed to serve our life.

But this one cannot pass over even if one wished; for anyone with a sound mind and reason it is wholly impossible to keep silent about this grace, and still more impossible to say anything worthy of it: that God made the human being after the image and likeness of God, counted him worthy of knowledge of himself, adorned him with reason above all the living creatures, gave him the indescribable beauties of paradise to delight in, and set him as ruler of all things on earth; and then, when he had been beguiled by the serpent and had fallen into sin, and through sin into death and what death deserves, God did not disregard him. First he gave the law as a help, set angels over him for protection and care, sent prophets to rebuke vice and teach virtue; he checked the impulses of vice with threats, roused eagerness for good with promises, and often revealed beforehand the end of each in various persons for the warning of others; and when, in spite of all these and the like, we persisted in disobedience, he did not turn away. We were not abandoned by the goodness of the Master, nor did we cut off his love for us, though we had insulted our benefactor by our insensibility to his honours; but we were called back from death and made alive again by our Lord Jesus Christ himself. And in him the manner of the benefit is the more wonderful: “For though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself,” … “And he took our weaknesses and bore our diseases,” and “was wounded for us, that by his stripes we might be healed”; and he redeemed us from the curse, becoming a curse for us, and underwent the most shameful death, to lead us back to the glorious life. And he was not content only to make us alive when we were dead, but bestowed on us the dignity of divinity as well, and prepared eternal rest, surpassing every human thought by the greatness of its joy. “What, then, shall we render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to us?” But he is so good that he does not even ask for a return; he is content only to be loved for what he has given.

When I come to think of all these things (to tell you what I feel), I fall into a kind of shuddering and a fearful dismay, lest through inattention of mind or preoccupation with vain things I fall from the love of God and become a reproach to Christ. For the one who now deceives us, and strives by every device to make us forget our benefactor through the lures of the world, leaping upon us and trampling on us for the destruction of our souls, will then bring our contempt before the Lord as a reproach, and will boast of our disobedience and apostasy: he who neither created us nor died for us, yet had us following him in disobedience and in neglect of God's commandments. This reproach against the Lord and this boast of the enemy seem to me heavier than the punishments in Gehenna: that we should become matter for boasting to the enemy of Christ and an occasion for exalting himself against him who died and rose for us, to whom for this reason we are all the more debtors, as it is written. So much, then, about love toward God. For the aim, as I said before, is not to say everything (that is impossible), but by a brief reminder of the main points to produce in souls what will constantly stir up the divine longing.