Longer Rules (Asceticon, Regulae fusius tractatae)

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.

On love toward one's neighbour.

Question. It would follow to discuss the commandment that is second both in order and in importance.

Answer. [That the law is the cultivator and nurturer of the powers] present in us was said in what we said before. But since we have been commanded to love our neighbour as ourselves, let us learn whether we have from God the power to fulfil this commandment as well. Who, then, does not know that the human being is a gentle and social animal, not solitary or savage? For nothing is so proper to our nature as to share with one another, to need one another, and to love those of our own kind. So of the things whose seeds the Lord himself gave us beforehand, he consistently seeks the fruits as well, saying: “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another.” And wishing to stir our soul up to this commandment, he did not ask, as the proof of his disciples, for signs and extraordinary wonders (though he granted the working of these too in the Holy Spirit); but what does he say? “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” And everywhere he joins these commandments together in such a way that he transfers to himself the good done to one's neighbour. “For I was hungry,” he says, “and you gave me food,” and so on. Then he adds: “As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

So through the first it is possible to achieve the second as well, and through the second to come back again to the first: the one who loves the Lord consequently loves his neighbour too. “For whoever loves me,” said the Lord, “will keep my commandments.” “And this,” he says, “is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” And again, the one who loves his neighbour fulfils his love toward God, since God receives the kindness as done to himself. Therefore Moses, the faithful servant of God, showed such love for his brothers that he chose to be blotted out of the book of God in which he had been written, if the people's sin were not forgiven. And Paul dared to pray to be accursed from Christ for the sake of his brothers, his kinsmen according to the flesh, wishing, in imitation of the Lord, to become the ransom for the salvation of all; and at the same time he knew that it was impossible for one who, out of love for God, gave up God's favour for the sake of the greatest of the commandments to be estranged from God, and that for this reason he would receive many times over what he gave. That the saints reached this measure of love for their neighbour, what has been said gives sufficient proof.

On the fear of God.

Answer. For those who are just being brought into godliness, a first schooling through fear is the more useful, according to the counsel of the most wise Solomon, who said: “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.” But you, who have passed beyond infancy in Christ and no longer need milk, but can be perfected in the inner man by the solid food of doctrine, have need of the more fundamental commandments, in which the whole truth of love in Christ is achieved; taking care, that is, lest the abundance of God's gifts become the cause of a heavier condemnation for you, if you are ungrateful toward your benefactor. “For to whom they have entrusted much,” he says, “of him they will demand the more.”

On keeping the mind free from distraction.

Answer. This, however, we must know: that we cannot achieve the keeping of any other commandment, nor love toward God itself, nor love toward our neighbours, if our minds wander now to one thing and now to another. It is not possible to master an art or a science by passing now to one and now to another; nor indeed to succeed in even one without knowing what belongs to its end. For actions must follow from the goal, since nothing done by reason is achieved by means unsuited to it. The end of the smith's art cannot naturally be reached by the work of the potter, nor are athletes' crowns won by zeal for playing the flute; each end requires the labour that belongs and fits to it. So also the discipline of pleasing God according to the Gospel of Christ is achieved by withdrawal from the cares of the world and complete estrangement from distractions. Therefore the Apostle, although marriage is permitted and counted worthy of blessing, set the occupations that come from it against the cares that concern God, as though these could not go together, saying: “The unmarried man cares for the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man cares for the things of the world, how to please his wife.” So too the Lord bore witness to the disciples' sincere and undistracted disposition, saying: “You are not of this world.” And on the other side he testified that the world cannot receive the knowledge of God, nor contain the Holy Spirit: “Righteous Father,” he says, “the world has not known you”; and: “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive.”

The one who means truly to follow God must therefore be loosed from the bonds of attachment to this life; and this is achieved by complete withdrawal and forgetting of old habits. So that unless we make ourselves strangers both to kinship according to the flesh and to the common life, passing as it were in our disposition to another world, according to him who said, “For our citizenship is in heaven,” it is impossible for us to reach the goal of pleasing God; for the Lord said definitively: “So, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” Having done this, we must guard our heart with all watchfulness, so as never to cast out the thought of God or to soil the memory of his wonders with imaginations of vain things, but to carry the holy thought of God about with us, stamped on our souls by constant and pure remembrance like an indelible seal. For so love toward God is achieved in us, at once stirring us to work the Lord's commandments and in turn being kept by them, so that it lasts and does not fall away. The Lord shows this, saying at one time, “If you love me, keep my commandments,” at another, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love,” and, more movingly still, “As I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.” From these he teaches us always to set the will of the one who gave the command before us as the goal of the task in hand, and to direct our zeal toward him, as he says elsewhere: “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me.”

For just as the arts of daily life set before themselves certain goals proper to them and fit their particular operations to those goals, so too, since our works have one standard and rule, to do the commandments in a way pleasing to God, the exactness of the work cannot be achieved otherwise than by carrying it out according to the will of the one who assigned it. And in exact zeal in the work for the will of God one will be joined to God through remembrance. For just as the smith at work, say, on an axe, remembering the one who ordered it and keeping him in mind, thinks of its shape and size and directs the work to the wish of the one who commissioned it (for if he forgets, he will make something else, or something different from what he intended), so too the Christian, directing every action, small and great, to the will of God, both adorns the deed with exactness and keeps the thought of the one who commanded it, and fulfils the saying: “I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.” And he achieves that command: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” But one who corrupts the exactness of the commandment in his work is plainly weak in the remembrance of God.

Remembering, then, the voice of him who said, “Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord,” and “I am a God at hand, and not a God far off,” and “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them,” we must perform every action as done under the eyes of the Lord and think every thought as watched by him. For so fear will abide constantly, hating injustice, as it is written, “insolence and pride and the ways of the wicked”; and love will be perfected, fulfilling what the Lord said, “I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me,” the soul being constantly assured that good deeds are accepted by the judge and awarder of the prize of our life, and that deeds of the opposite kind receive their condemnation at once. I think that along with this is achieved also that the Lord's commandments themselves are not done to please men. For no one, assured of the presence of the greater, turns to the lesser; but even if what is done happens to be acceptable and pleasing to the more honourable person while it appears unwelcome and blameworthy to the inferior, he values the approval of the superior more highly and despises the blame of the lesser. If it is so among men, will a soul that is truly sober and healthy, assured of the presence of God, ever leave off doing what pleases God and turn to the opinions of men? Will it ever neglect God's commands and serve human custom, or be held fast by common prejudice, or be put out of countenance by men of rank? Such was the disposition of him who said: “The lawless have told me idle tales, but not as your law, O Lord”; and again: “And I spoke of your testimonies before kings, and was not put to shame.”

That it is necessary to live apart.

Answer. Living apart in one's dwelling also helps the soul to be free from distraction. For that it is harmful to have one's life mixed with those who are disposed without fear and with contempt toward the exact keeping of the commandments, the word of Solomon also shows, teaching us: “Do not be a companion to a hot-tempered man, and do not lodge with an angry friend, lest you learn his ways and get snares for your soul.” And the saying “Come out from among them, and be separate, says the Lord” tends to the same end. So, that we may not receive incitements to sin through the eyes or the ears and grow used to it without noticing, and that the impressions and images of what is seen and heard may not remain in the soul to its ruin and destruction, and that we may be able to persevere in prayer, let us first live apart in our dwelling. For so we may overcome our former habit, in which we lived as strangers to Christ's commandments (it is no small struggle to overcome one's own custom; for habit confirmed over a long time takes on the strength of nature), and we shall be able to wipe away the stains of sin by laborious prayer and constant meditation on the will of God; and it is impossible to succeed in this meditation and prayer amid many things that drag the soul about and produce worldly occupations. And when could anyone living among these fulfil the saying, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself”? For we must deny ourselves, take up the cross of Christ, and so follow him. Denial of oneself is complete forgetting of the past and withdrawal from one's own wishes, which is most difficult, not to say wholly impossible, to achieve while living in indiscriminate everyday company. Mixing with such a life is a hindrance also to taking up one's cross and following Christ. For readiness for death for Christ's sake, putting to death our members that are on earth, being prepared in battle order for every danger that comes on us for the name of Christ, and being without attachment to the present life: this is to take up one's cross; and we see that great hindrances to it arise in us from the habits of common life.

Besides all the many other things, the soul that looks at the multitude of transgressors, first, finds no time to perceive its own sins and to crush itself by repentance for its offences; rather, by comparison with worse people it even gains some impression of having done well. Then, drawn away from the more worthy remembrance of God by the noise and occupations that common life naturally produces, it not only loses the joy and gladness in God, the delight in the Lord, and the sweetness of his words, so as to be able to say, “I remembered God and was glad,” and “How sweet are your words to my throat, more than honey to my mouth”; but it also grows used to complete contempt and forgetfulness of his judgments, and it could suffer no greater or more destructive evil than this.

That one must live with those who share the same mind toward the goal of pleasing God; and that living alone is both difficult and dangerous.

Question. Since the word has assured us that life with those who are contemptuous toward the Lord's commandments is dangerous, we ask to learn next whether one who has withdrawn from them should live apart by himself, or with brothers of the same mind who have chosen the same goal of godliness.

Answer. I find that the life of many together is more useful in many respects. First, because none of us is self-sufficient even for the needs of the body, but we need one another in providing what is necessary. For just as the foot has one power and lacks another, and without the help of the other members finds neither its own working possible or sufficient for itself to endure, nor any supply for what it lacks, so too in the solitary life what we have becomes useless to us and what we lack goes unsupplied, since God the Creator determined that we should need one another, as it is written, so that we may be joined to one another. Besides this, the principle of Christ's love does not allow each to look to his own. “Love,” he says, “does not seek its own.” But the life apart has one aim, the service of each one's own needs. This is plainly in conflict with the law of love, which the Apostle fulfilled, seeking not his own advantage but that of the many, that they might be saved.

Then, in seclusion each will not easily recognize even his own failing, having no one to rebuke him and correct him with gentleness and compassion. A rebuke, indeed, even from an enemy, may often produce in a right-minded person a desire for healing; but the healing of sin is skilfully achieved by one who loves sincerely. “For he who loves,” he says, “disciplines with care.” Such a one it is impossible to find in solitude unless one has first been united with him in life; so that there happens to him what was said: “Woe to him who is alone, for if he falls there is no one to lift him up.” And the commandments are easily done in greater number by many together, but no longer by one alone; for in the working of one, another is hindered. For example, in visiting the sick, the receiving of the stranger is hindered; and in giving and sharing of necessities (especially when the services take a long time), zeal for one's work; so that by this the greatest commandment and the one that most urgently leads to salvation is neglected, and the hungry is not fed nor the naked clothed. Who, then, would choose to prefer the idle and fruitless life to the fruitful one carried out according to the Lord's commandment?

And if all of us who have been received in the one hope of our calling are one body, having Christ as head, and members each of one another, then unless we are fitted together in harmony into the joining of one body in the Holy Spirit, but each of us chooses solitude, not serving the common good in the ordering that pleases God but satisfying his own passion for pleasing himself, how can we, cut off and divided, keep the relation and service of the members toward one another, or our subjection to our head, which is Christ? For it is not possible to rejoice with the one who is honoured or to suffer with the one who suffers when lives are separated, since each cannot, in all likelihood, know the affairs of his neighbour. Then, since one person is not sufficient to receive all the spiritual gifts, but the supply of the Spirit is given according to the proportion of each one's faith, in the common life the gift proper to each becomes common to those who live together. “To one is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another faith, to another prophecy, to another gifts of healing,” and so on; and each of these the receiver has not so much for himself as for the others. So in the common life the working of the Holy Spirit in one person necessarily passes to all together. The one who lives by himself has perhaps one gift, and makes it useless by idleness, burying it in himself; and how great the danger of this is, all of you who have read the Gospels know. But in the life of many together he both enjoys his own gift, multiplying it by sharing it, and reaps the fruit of the others' gifts as his own.

The common life has still more good things, which it is not easy to count in full. It is more useful than solitude for keeping the good things given us by God; and for guarding against the enemy's plots from outside, the rousing by those who are awake is safer, if it should ever happen that one begins to nod into that sleep unto death which David taught us to pray might not befall us, saying: “Lighten my eyes, lest I sleep unto death.” For the one who sins, withdrawal from the sin is easier when he is ashamed of the condemnation pronounced by many in agreement, so that there may apply to him the saying, “For such a one this punishment by the many is enough”; and for the one who does right, there is great assurance in the approval and assent of many to his work. For if “every word shall be established at the mouth of two or three witnesses,” plainly the one who does a good work will be much more firmly confirmed by the witness of many.

Besides what has been said, dangers attend the solitary life. The first and greatest is that of self-satisfaction. For having no one able to test his work, he will think he has reached the perfection of the commandment. Then, always keeping his condition unexercised, … [he neither] knows [his failings nor his progress], because he has removed all material for working the commandments. For in what will he show humility, having no one to whom he can show himself lower? In what compassion, cut off from the fellowship of many? And how will he train himself in long-suffering, when no one opposes his wishes? If anyone says that the teaching of the divine Scriptures is enough for setting his conduct right, he is like a man who learns carpentry but never does any carpentry, or who is taught smithing but will not put the lessons into practice. To him the Apostle would say: “It is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.” For see: the Lord, in the excess of his love for mankind, was not content with teaching by word only, but, to hand on to us exactly and clearly the example of humility in the perfection of love, he girded himself and washed his disciples' feet. Whose feet, then, will you wash? Whom will you serve? Whose last will you be, living by yourself? And that good and pleasant thing, brothers dwelling together, which the Holy Spirit compares to the ointment flowing down from the high priest's head, how will it be fulfilled in a solitary dwelling?

The dwelling together of the brothers, then, is a stadium for the contest, a good road to progress, a constant training and meditation on the Lord's commandments. Its goal is the glory of God, according to the commandment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” And it keeps the pattern of the saints whose story is told in the Acts, of whom it is written: “All who believed were together and had all things in common”; and again: “The multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul, and no one said that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common.”

On renunciation.

Question. Whether one must first renounce all things and so come to the life according to God.

Answer. Since our Lord Jesus Christ, after much and strong proof given through many deeds, says to all: “If anyone comes to me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”; and again: “So, then, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple”; we consider that the command extends to many things from which estrangement is necessary. For before all else we renounce the devil and the passions of the flesh, we who have renounced the hidden things of shame; and bodily kinship, and human companionships, and a habit of life that fights against the exactness of the Gospel of salvation. And, more necessary than these, the one who has put off the old man with his deeds, which is corrupt according to the deceitful desires, renounces himself. He renounces also every attachment to the world that can hinder the goal of godliness. Such a one will consider as his true parents those who begot him in Christ Jesus through the Gospel, and as his brothers those who have received the same Spirit of adoption; and he will treat all possessions as belonging to others, as indeed they do. In a word, how can one for whom, through Christ, the whole world has been crucified, and he to the world, still share in the cares of the world? For our Lord Jesus Christ carries hatred of one's own life and denial of oneself to the extreme, when he says: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross,” and then adds, “and follow me”; and again: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

So perfect renunciation consists in achieving freedom from attachment even to life itself, and in having the sentence of death, so as not to trust in oneself. But it begins with estrangement from external things, such as possessions, vain glory, the habits of life, attachment to useless things; as the holy disciples of the Lord showed us: James and John, leaving their father Zebedee and the very boat in which they had their whole livelihood; and Matthew, rising from the tax office itself and following the Lord, not only leaving behind the gains of the tax office, but also disregarding the dangers that were likely to follow him and his family from the authorities for leaving the tax office's accounts unsettled. And to Paul the whole world was crucified, and he to the world. So the one who is strongly possessed by the desire to follow Christ can no longer turn back to anything of this life: not to the affection of parents or kinsfolk, when it is opposed to the Lord's commands (for then the saying has its time, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother,” and the rest); not to human fear, so as to shrink from anything profitable because of it, as the saints achieved when they said, “We must obey God rather than men”; not to the mockery of outsiders at what is good, so as to be overcome by their scorn.

If anyone wishes to know more exactly and clearly the intensity joined to the desire of those who follow the Lord, let him remember the Apostle, who tells his own story for our instruction and says: “If anyone thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord, for whose sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ.” For if (to say something bold but true) he likened the very advantages of the law, given by God for a time, to the most cast-off and loathsome parts of the body, from which we are most anxious to be rid, because they hinder the knowledge of Christ, the righteousness that is in him, and conformity to his death, what would one say of human [advantages]? … [But why should I confirm] the argument [by other proofs] and by the examples of the saints, when one can set out the Lord's own words and by them move the fearful soul to shame? For he testifies clearly and beyond dispute when he says: “So, then, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple”; and elsewhere, after “If you would be perfect,” he first said, “Go, sell what you have and give to the poor,” and then added, “Come, follow me.” The parable of the merchant, too, plainly bears on this for any right-minded person: “The kingdom of heaven,” he says, “is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” For it is clear that the pearl of great value is taken as a likeness of the heavenly kingdom, which, as the Lord's word shows, we cannot obtain unless we give up everything we have together, wealth, glory, family, and whatever else the many eagerly pursue, in exchange for it.

Then, too, the Lord declared that what is earnestly sought cannot be achieved when the mind is divided among various concerns, saying: “No one can serve two masters”; and again: “You cannot serve God and mammon.” We must therefore choose one treasure, the heavenly one, so that we may have our heart in it. “For where your treasure is,” he says, “there will your heart be also.” If, then, we keep back for ourselves any earthly possession or perishable wealth, the mind is buried there as in mud, and the soul necessarily cannot see God and is unmoved toward desire for the heavenly beauties and the good things laid up for us in the promises; and we cannot come to possess these unless an undistracted and more intense longing leads us to ask for them and lightens the labour they require. Renunciation, then, as the word has shown, is a loosing of the bonds of this material and temporary life and a freedom from human obligations, making us readier to set out on the road to God; an unhindered means of acquiring and using the things of great price, “more than gold and much precious stone”; and, to sum up, the transfer of the human heart to the citizenship in heaven, so that one can say, “For our citizenship is in heaven”; and, greatest of all, the beginning of likeness to Christ, who for our sake became poor, though he was rich. Unless we achieve this, it is impossible for us to lay hold of the way of life according to the Gospel of Christ. For when can contrition of heart, or humility of mind, or release from anger and grief and anxieties and, in short, the destructive passions of the soul, be achieved amid wealth and the cares of life and attachment and habituation to other things? In general, one who is not allowed to be anxious even about necessities, such as food and clothing, what reason permits him to be choked, as by thorns, by the evil cares of wealth, which hinder the fruit-bearing of the seed sown by the husbandman of our souls? For our Lord said: “These are the ones sown among thorns, who are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.”

Whether one who joins those dedicated to the Lord should simply leave his property to his ungrateful kinsfolk.

Answer. Since the Lord said, “Sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me”; and again, “Sell your possessions and give alms”; I consider that one who leaves his own with such a goal should not be disposed contemptuously toward his property, but should try to take everything with exactness, as now consecrated to the Lord, and to administer it with all reverence, either himself, if he is able and experienced, or through those chosen after much testing who have given proof that they can administer faithfully and prudently; knowing that it is not without danger either to leave it to his kinsfolk or to administer it through just anyone. For if one entrusted with the care of the emperor's estates, even if he often does not embezzle from what is at hand, but through some negligence lets slip what could have been gained, is not acquitted of the charge, what condemnation must we expect those to incur who are disposed slackly and carelessly toward the management of what has already been named as the Lord's? Will they not be liable to the judgment of the negligent, according to what is written: “Cursed is everyone who does the works of the Lord negligently”?

But everywhere we must take care not to be seen breaking one commandment on the pretext of another. For it is not fitting for us to fight or quarrel with the ungrateful, since “the Lord's servant must not quarrel”; rather, the one treated ungratefully by his kinsmen according to the flesh must remember the Lord who said: “There is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands,” not simply, but “for my sake and for the Gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.” To the ungrateful, however, we must solemnly declare the sin of sacrilege, according to the commandment of the Lord who said: “If your brother sins, go and rebuke him,” and the rest. But the word of godliness has forbidden going to law about these things in outside courts, where it says: “If anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well”; and: “Does any of you, having a matter against another, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints?” And even before these let us call him to judgment, having more regard for our brother's salvation than for an abundance of money. For the Lord, having said, “If he listens to you,” added, “you have gained,” not the money, but “your brother.” There are times when, to make the truth clear, if the one who began the wrong often calls us to a common arbitration, we come down to the inquiry, not beginning it ourselves but following those who summoned us, not satisfying our own passion of anger or contentiousness, but making the truth manifest. For so we shall rescue him from evil even against his will, and we ourselves shall not transgress the commandments, standing firmly together for the making known of the truth as ministers of God who are not quarrelsome and not lovers of money, and nowhere exceeding the measure of zeal that has been given.

Whether we should receive all who come, or only some; and whether we should admit them at once, or after testing, and what kind of testing.

Answer. Since our God and Saviour Jesus Christ, the lover of mankind, proclaims and says, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” it is not without danger to turn away those who come to the Lord through us and wish to take on his kind yoke and the burden of the commandments, which lifts us up toward heaven. Yet we must not allow them to tread on the holiness of the teachings with unwashed feet; but just as our Lord Jesus Christ asked the young man who came to him about his former life, and when he learned that he had lived rightly, commanded him to fulfil what was still lacking for perfection, and then allowed him to follow, so plainly it is fitting for us also to learn about the past life of those who come. To those who have already achieved something, we should hand on the more perfect teachings; but those who are turning from an evil life, or who have set out from indifference toward the exact life of the knowledge of God, must be examined as to what their character is: whether they are not unstable and quick to change their decisions. For the changeableness of such people is suspect: not only do they do themselves no good, but they become a cause of harm to others as well, spreading reproaches and lies and wicked slanders about our work. But since all things are achieved by care, and the fear of God overcomes every kind of defect of soul, we must not despair of these at once either, but lead them to suitable exercises, making trial of their resolve by time and laborious contests, so that, if we find something firm in them, we may admit them without danger; and if not, we may send them away while they are still outside, so that the trial brings no loss to the brotherhood.

We must also test whether one who has been caught in sins confesses the hidden things of shame without shame and becomes his own accuser, at once putting to shame and disowning the partners of his evil deeds, according to him who said, “Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity,” and gaining security for himself for the rest of his life, so as not to fall again into the same passions. The common way of testing for all is whether they are disposed to all humility without shame, so as to accept even the meanest crafts, if reason judges that their work is useful. And when each one, after every examination by those able to search into such things with skill, has been shown to be like a vessel useful to the Master and ready for every good work, let him be numbered among those who have dedicated themselves to the Lord. Especially for one who is hastening from a more distinguished life to humility in the likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must appoint some of the tasks that outsiders think disgraceful, and watch whether he presents himself to God with full assurance as a worker who has no need to be ashamed.

On slaves.

Answer. Slaves under the yoke who take refuge with the brotherhoods should be admonished and made better, and then sent back to their masters, after the example of blessed Paul, who, having begotten Onesimus through the Gospel, sent him back to Philemon. He assured the one that the yoke of slavery, borne in a way that pleases the Lord, makes him worthy of the kingdom of heaven; and he urged the other not only to give up his threats against him, remembering the true Lord who said, “If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive your trespasses,” but also to be more kindly disposed toward him, writing: “Perhaps this is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother.”

If, however, the master happens to be wicked, commanding unlawful things and forcing the slave to transgress a commandment of the true Master, our Lord Jesus Christ, we must strive that the name of God may not be blasphemed because of that slave doing something that does not please God. The struggle is achieved either by that slave being trained to endure the sufferings brought on him, in order to obey God rather than man, as it is written; or by those who have received him taking upon themselves, as pleases God, the trials brought on them for his sake.

How those who are married should be received.

Answer. Those in the bond of marriage who come to such a life must also be examined, whether they do this by mutual consent, according to the Apostle's ordinance (“For he does not have authority,” he says, “over his own body”); and so the one who comes should be received before many witnesses. For nothing is to be preferred to obedience to God. But if the other partner is at odds and resists, caring less for pleasing God, let the Apostle be remembered, who says, “God has called us to peace”; and let the command of the Lord be fulfilled, who said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children,” and the rest, “he cannot be my disciple.” For nothing is to be preferred to obedience to God. And we have known in many cases that, often through earnest prayer and unremitting fasting, the goal of a life of chastity has been reached, the Lord bringing even those who had been wholly unwilling, often through bodily necessity as well, to consent to the right judgment.

That the exercise of silence is also useful for those being admitted.

Answer. The exercise of silence is good for those being admitted. For by mastering the tongue they will give sufficient proof of their self-control, and at the same time, in quiet, they will learn intently and without distraction from those who use speech with skill how one ought both to ask questions and to answer each person. For there is a tone of voice, a measure in speech, a fitness of occasion, and a choice of words that are proper and distinctive to the godly, and these cannot be taught unless one has unlearned the habits of ordinary life; and silence both produces forgetfulness of former things through disuse and gives leisure for learning what is good. So, unless some personal need concerning the care of one's own soul, or the unavoidable necessity of the work in hand, or some such question put to one, presses, one should keep silence, except, of course, for psalmody.

On those who have professed themselves to God and then attempt to set aside their profession.

Answer. Anyone of these who has been received into the brotherhood and then sets aside his profession must be regarded as one who has sinned against God, before whom and to whom he made the profession of his covenant. “But if anyone sins against God,” he says, “who will pray for him?” For one who has dedicated himself to God and then leaps off to another life has become guilty of sacrilege, having stolen himself away and taken from God what was dedicated to him. It is reasonable that the brothers' door should no longer be opened to such people, not even if they should stop by merely in passing for the sake of shelter. For the apostolic rule is plain, bidding us to keep away from everyone who is disorderly and not to associate with him, that he may be put to shame.

From what age should people be allowed to profess themselves to God, and when should the profession of virginity be considered firm?

Answer. Since the Lord says, “Let the children come to me,” and the Apostle praises the one who had known the sacred writings from infancy, and again commands that children be brought up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, we judge every time, even that of earliest age, suitable for receiving those who come. Those without parents we take in on our own initiative, so as to become fathers of orphans after the example of Job; those under the care of parents, when brought by the parents themselves, we receive before many witnesses, so as to give no occasion to those who seek an occasion, but that every unjust mouth of those who speak blasphemy against us may be stopped. They should be received, then, on this principle, but they should not at once be numbered and enrolled in the body of the brothers, lest reproaches arising from their failure be brought upon the life of godliness. Rather, they should be brought up in all godliness as common children of the brotherhood; and both the houses and the daily life of the boys and the girls should be kept apart, so that neither familiarity nor undue boldness toward their elders may arise in them, and their reverence for their seniors may be kept through the rarity of meeting. Nor should the penalties imposed on the more advanced for oversights in their duties, if it should ever happen that they become distracted, breed in the children a readiness to sin, or often, without their noticing, conceit, when they see their elders often stumbling in the very things in which they themselves do well. For one who is a child in mind differs in nothing from a child in age; so it is no wonder that the same passions are often found in both. Nor should the young, through living together, rush forward prematurely and unbecomingly to those things in which the elders keep what is fitting because of their age. For the sake of this order, then, and of decorum generally, the dwellings of the children and of the more advanced should be separate. At the same time the house of the ascetics will not be disturbed by the repetition of lessons that is necessary for the young.

But let the prayers appointed for the day be common to children and elders; for the children gain from the zeal of the more advanced a habit of compunction, and for the seniors the help of little ones in prayer is no small thing. But let their studies be separate, and let their daily life in sleeping and waking, the time of meals, and the measure and kind of food be appointed suitably for children. Let one advanced in age be put in charge of them, one who surpasses the others in experience and has a good testimony for long-suffering, so that he may correct the young people's faults with a father's compassion and with skilful words, applying to each fault its proper remedy, so that the same thing both punishes the sin and becomes a training of the soul in freedom from passion. For example: has a boy been angry with one of his own age? Let him be made to tend him and serve him in proportion to his offence. For the habit of humility, as it were, cuts out the irascible part of the soul, since it is mostly pride that produces anger in us. Has he touched food out of time? Let him go without food for most of the day. Has he been found eating immoderately or unbecomingly? Let him be kept from food at mealtime and made to watch the others eating properly, so that he may be both punished by going without and taught decorum. Has he let fall an idle word, an insult to his neighbour, a lie, or anything else forbidden? Let him be corrected with fasting and silence.

The study of letters, too, must suit the goal: they should use names from the Scriptures, be told the stories of wonderful deeds instead of myths, be taught with maxims from the Proverbs, and be offered prizes for remembering names and facts, so that the goal may be reached with pleasure and relaxation, without pain and without offence. Attentiveness of mind, too, and the habit of not being distracted, would easily arise in such children through right training, if they were constantly asked by those in charge where their thoughts are and what they are turning over in their minds. For the simplicity and guilelessness of that age, unsuited to lying, readily discloses the secrets of the soul; and so as not to be constantly caught in forbidden things, such a child would flee thoughts of what is improper, and would constantly call himself back from improper things, fearing the shame of being rebuked. The soul, then, while it is still easily moulded and tender, and readily impressed like soft wax by the forms pressed on it, must be led straight away and from the beginning to every practice of good things; so that when reason comes and the habit of discernment is added, there may be a course already run from the first elements and the patterns of godliness handed down, reason suggesting what is useful and habit making it easy to accomplish.

Then the profession of virginity also should be admitted, as now firm, made by one's own will and judgment after the full development of reason, after which honours and punishments are given by the just judge to those who sin or do right according to the worth of their works. The superiors of the churches should be taken as witnesses of the decision, so that through them the sanctification of the body may be consecrated to God like a dedicated offering, and the deed may be confirmed through their testimony. “For at the mouth of two or three witnesses,” he says, “every word shall be established.” So the zeal of the brothers will be beyond reproach, and no occasion for shamelessness will be left to those who have professed themselves to God and then attempt to set it aside. But the one who does not accept the life of virginity, as unable to care for the things of the Lord, should be dismissed before the same witnesses. The one who has made profession, after much examination and consideration, which it is fitting to allow him to make by himself over a number of days, so that nothing may seem to be done by us by snatching him away, should then be received and counted a member of the brotherhood, to share the same house and the same way of life as the more advanced.

What we forgot to say may fittingly be added even now: since some crafts must be practised from early childhood, when some of the children already show themselves apt for learning, we do not forbid them to spend the day with the teachers of the craft; but at night we necessarily bring them back to those of their own age, with whom they must also take their meals.

Whether self-control is necessary for one who means to live a godly life.

Answer. That the principle of self-control is necessary is clear: first, because the Apostle counts self-control among the fruits of the Spirit; then, because he says that the blamelessness of the ministry is achieved by this too, where he says: “In labours, in watchings, in fastings, in purity”; and elsewhere: “In toil and hardship, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often”; and again: “Everyone who competes exercises self-control in all things.” The pommelling of the body and bringing it into subjection are achieved by nothing else so much as by self-control. For the seething of youth, hard to restrain in its impulses, is held in by self-control as by a bridle. “Luxury does not befit a fool,” according to Solomon. And what is more foolish than flesh at ease and youth carried about? Therefore the Apostle says: “And make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires”; and: “She who lives in self-indulgence is dead while she lives.” The example of the rich man's luxury also shows us that self-control is necessary, lest we hear what the rich man heard: “You received your good things in your lifetime.” How fearful a thing lack of self-control is, the Apostle also showed, counting it among the marks of apostasy and saying: “In the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self”; and after listing many kinds of vice he added: “slanderers, without self-control.” Esau too was accused of the greatest of evils, lack of self-control, since he sold his birthright for a single meal. And the first disobedience came upon man through lack of self-control.

But all the saints have been commended for self-control. The whole life of the holy and blessed ones, and the example of the Lord himself in his coming in the flesh, help us toward this. Moses received the law through long attendance in fasting and prayer, and heard words from God “as a man speaks,” he says, “to his friend.” Elijah was counted worthy of the vision of God when he too had come to the same measure of self-control. What of Daniel? How did he come to see wonderful visions? Was it not after the twentieth day of fasting? And how did the three youths quench the power of the fire? Was it not through self-control? The whole manner of John's life, too, sprang from self-control. With it the Lord also began his manifestation.

By self-control we do not mean complete abstinence from food in every case (for that is a violent ending of life), but the abstinence from pleasant things practised for the overthrow of the mind of the flesh, with a view to the goal of godliness. In a word, for us who are ordering our lives toward godliness, self-control is necessary with regard to all those things whose enjoyment is desired by people who live by passion. The discipline of self-control is not exercised only with regard to the pleasure of food, but extends to abstaining from everything that hinders. So the one who is exactly self-controlled will not master his belly and then be overcome by human glory; he will not overcome shameful desire and then fail against wealth or any other ignoble disposition, such as anger or grief or whatever naturally enslaves untrained souls. For what we observe in nearly all the commandments, that they hang together and cannot be achieved separately one from another, is seen most of all in self-control. The one self-controlled about glory is humble; the one disposed to self-control about money fulfils the Gospel measure of poverty; the one who masters wrath and anger is free from anger. The exact principle of self-control sets measures for the tongue, limits for the eyes, and for the ears a hearing free from idle curiosity; and the one who does not keep to these is without self-control and undisciplined. Do you see how around this one commandment all the others hold together as in a dance?

That one must exercise self-control also over laughter.

Answer. What is overlooked by most people is also worthy of no small watchfulness by those in training. To be possessed by uncontrolled and unrestrained laughter is a sign of lack of self-control, of not having one's movements composed, and of the soul's slackness not being kept down by exact reason. To show the soul's cheerfulness as far as a bright smile is not unbecoming, enough only to show what is written: “A glad heart makes a cheerful face.” But to burst out loudly and to have the body shaken involuntarily does not belong to one whose soul is composed, or who is approved, or who has mastery over himself. The Preacher too rejects this kind of laughter, as most of all overturning the soul's steadiness, when he says: “I said of laughter, It is mad”; and: “As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of fools.” And the Lord is seen to have undergone the necessary passions of the flesh, and those that bear witness to virtue, such as weariness and compassion for the afflicted; but he never used laughter, so far as the Gospel narrative shows, and he even pronounced woe on those who are possessed by it.

But let us not be misled by the sameness of the word “laughter.” For Scripture often calls the joy of the soul and the cheerful disposition at good things “laughter,” as when Sarah says, “God has made laughter for me”; and “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh”; and the saying in Job, “He will fill a truthful mouth with laughter.” In all these the words are used for gladness, of the soul's exultation.

So the one who is above every passion, and who suffers no incitement from pleasure, or does not give way to it, but is disposed with self-control and unyielding firmness toward every harmful enjoyment, is perfectly self-controlled; and such a one is plainly free from all sin as well. There are times when one must abstain even from things permitted and necessary for life, when the abstinence is arranged for the benefit of our brothers. As the Apostle says: “If food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat.” And though he had authority to live by the Gospel, he did not use that authority, so as not to put any obstacle in the way of the Gospel of Christ.

Self-control, then, is the destruction of sin, estrangement from the passions, the putting to death of the body even as to its natural passions and desires, the beginning of spiritual life, the agent of eternal goods, destroying in itself the sting of pleasure. For pleasure is the great bait of evil, through which we human beings are most prone to sin, by which every soul is dragged as by a hook to death. So the one who is not softened or bent by it has, through self-control, achieved complete flight from sins. But if someone has escaped most things but is held by one, he is not self-controlled; just as one troubled by a single bodily ailment is not healthy, and one ruled by a single master, whoever he may be, is not free. The other virtues, achieved in secret, are seldom visible to men; but self-control makes its possessor known from the very first meeting. For as bulk and a fine colour mark the athlete, so the Christian's lean body and the pallor that blooms from self-control show that he is truly an athlete of Christ's commandments, overthrowing his enemy in the weakness of the body and showing his strength in the contests of godliness, according to the saying, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” How great the gain merely to see the self-controlled man, touching necessities scarcely and little by little, rendering them [to nature] as a burdensome service, [and begrudging] the time spent on it, and quickly springing up from the table to the zeal of work! For I think that no word would touch the soul of one undisciplined in eating, and bring him to change, so much as the mere meeting with a self-controlled man. And this, it seems, is eating and drinking to the glory of God: that even at table our good works should shine, so that our Father who is in heaven may be glorified.

That we must taste all the foods set before us.

Answer. This must necessarily be laid down as well: that for the pommelling of the body self-control is indispensable to those who contend for godliness, “for everyone who competes exercises self-control in all things.” But so as not to fall in with the enemies of God, who are seared in their own conscience and therefore abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful, we must touch each food when occasion arises, enough to show those who see us that “to the pure all things are pure,” and that “everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” Yet even so we must keep the aim of self-control: using the cheaper things necessary for life only as far as need requires, and even in these avoiding the harm of satiety, while abstaining altogether from those that serve pleasure. So we shall both cut out the passion of the lovers of pleasure and, as far as in us lies, heal those seared in their own conscience, and free ourselves from suspicion on either side. “For why,” he says, “should my liberty be judged by another's conscience?”

Self-control marks the one who has died with Christ and put to death his members that are on earth. We know it as the mother of chastity, the agent of health, sufficiently removing the hindrances to bearing the fruit of good things in Christ; since, according to the Lord's word, “the cares of this age and the pleasures of life and the desires for other things choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” Even demons flee from it, as the Lord himself taught us: “This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

What is the measure of self-control?

Answer. With regard to the passions of the soul, there is one measure of self-control: complete estrangement from whatever leads to destructive pleasure. With regard to food, just as needs differ from one person to another, according to age and occupation, and are distributed fittingly according to the condition of the body, so too the measure and manner of use differ. So it is impossible to include all those in the training of godliness under one rule; but having fixed the measure for the healthy among the ascetics, we leave to those appointed over them the arrangement of variations from it, made with judgment according to what befalls each person. For it is not possible to cover every particular in words, but only what belongs to common and general teaching. For the relief of the sick by means of food, or of one otherwise exhausted by strenuous work, or of one preparing for toil such as a journey or some other laborious task, those in charge will always arrange in proportion to the need, following the one who said, “Distribution was made to each as any had need.” So it is not possible to lay down for all the same time of eating, or the same manner or measure; but let the common aim be the satisfying of need. For to overfill the belly and be weighed down with food deserves a curse, since the Lord said, “Woe to you who are full now”; and it makes the body itself unfit for its activities, prone to sleep, and readier to suffer harm. Nor should we make pleasure the end of eating, but the need of life, refusing the excess of pleasure. For to be a slave to pleasures is nothing other than to make one's belly one's god.

Since our body, always being emptied and wasting away, needs to be filled (which is why the appetites for food are natural), right reason in the use of food prescribes the filling of what has been emptied, for the maintenance of the living creature, whether the lack is of dry or of liquid food. Whatever, then, will relieve our need with the least fuss, that is what should be taken. The Lord himself shows this when he welcomed the weary crowds, so that they should not faint on the way, as it is written. For though he could have heightened the wonder in the desert by devising something costly, he prepared food for them so plain and simple that it was barley loaves, with a little fish besides the bread. Of drink he made no mention at all, since water lay at hand for all, natural and sufficient for their needs; unless for someone, because of illness, such a drink should be harmful, so that it must be refused, according to Paul's advice to Timothy. Everything plainly harmful must also be refused. For it is inconsistent to choose food for the maintenance of the body and then, by the food itself, to make war on the body and hinder it from serving the commandment. This same thing is also an example to us of training our soul to flee what is harmful, even if it gives pleasure.

We should, however, in every way prefer what is easier to obtain, so that we may not, on the pretext of self-control, busy ourselves with more costly things, preparing expensive dishes with costly seasonings; but we should choose what is easily obtained in each region, cheap, and ready for the use of most people, using imported things only for what is most necessary to life, such as oil and the like, and anything suitable for the necessary relief of the sick, and this only if it can be obtained without much trouble, commotion, and distraction.

What is the manner of receiving guests at table?

Answer. Vainglory, the wish to please men, and doing anything for show are entirely forbidden to Christians in every matter; for even the one who does the commandment itself so as to be seen and glorified by men loses the reward for it. And those who have accepted every kind of humility because of the Lord's commandment must shun every form of vainglory all the more. Since we see outsiders ashamed of the lowliness of poverty and striving for every abundance and extravagance of food whenever they receive a guest, I fear lest the same passion may touch us too without our noticing, and we be found ashamed of the poverty that Christ called blessed. Just as it is not fitting for us to procure from outside silver vessels, or curtains with purple borders, or a soft bed, or transparent coverlets, so neither is it fitting to devise foods far different from our own diet. For us to run about searching for things not sought for the necessity of need but devised for wretched pleasure and destructive vainglory is not only shameful and out of keeping with the goal set before us, but also does no ordinary harm, when those who live in luxury and define happiness by the pleasures of the belly see us too busy with the same concerns that excite them. For if luxury is evil and to be shunned, it is never to be chosen by us; for nothing that has been condemned can be suitable for an occasion. Those who live wantonly, who anoint themselves with the finest ointments and drink strained wine, are accused by Scripture; and because of her self-indulgence the widow is said to be dead while she lives. The rich man was deprived of paradise because of his luxury here. What, then, have we to do with extravagance?

Has a guest arrived? If he is a brother with the same goal of life, he will recognize his own table; for what he left at home he will find with us. But is he weary from the journey? We add as much as will relieve his weariness. Has another come from life outside? Let him learn by deeds what words did not persuade him of, and let him take a model and pattern of contentment in food. Let him keep memories of a Christians' table and of poverty for Christ's sake that is not ashamed. If he pays no heed but mocks, he will not trouble us a second time. As for us, when we see rich people who place the enjoyment of pleasant things among the first goods, we groan greatly over them, because they spend their whole life on vanity and have made their pleasures their god, and do not perceive that in this life they are receiving their share of good things, and through their luxury here are heading for the fire prepared and its burning heat. And if ever we find an occasion, we do not hesitate to go through these things even with them. But if we ourselves are to be held by the same things, and, as far as our means allow, to seek what serves pleasure and prepare for display, I fear lest we be seen building up what we tear down, and condemning ourselves by the very things for which we judge others, living a life of pretence and changing shape now one way and now another, unless indeed we also change our clothes whenever we meet the proud. If that is shameful, it is far more shameful to change our table for the sake of those who live in luxury.

The Christian's life is of one form, having one goal, the glory of God. “For whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God,” says Paul, who speaks in Christ. But the life of outsiders is many-formed and varied, reshaped now one way and now another to please those it meets. So you too, when by the quantity of dishes and by elaborateness for pleasure you change your table for your brother, accuse him of love of pleasure and heap on him the reproach of gluttony by what you prepare, convicting him of self-indulgence in these things. Or do we not often, seeing the kind and manner of the preparations, guess who the expected guest is, or what he is like? The Lord did not praise Martha, distracted with much serving, but said: “You are anxious and troubled about many things; but few things are needed, or one”: few, that is, for the preparation, and one for the aim, that the need be met. And you are not unaware what kind of food the Lord himself set before the five thousand. Jacob's prayer to God was: “If you give me bread to eat and a garment to put on”; not, “If you give me luxury and extravagance.” And what of the most wise Solomon? “Give me neither wealth nor poverty,” he says, “but appoint for me what is needful and sufficient, lest I be full and become false and say, Who sees me? or be poor and steal and swear by the name of my God.” He defines wealth as surfeit and poverty as complete lack of what is necessary to live, and by sufficiency he means what is both without want and without excess in what is needed. Sufficiency differs from one to another according to the condition of the body and the present need. One needs more and stronger food because of toil; another lighter and less heavy food, suited in every way to his weakness; but all in common need food that is cheaper and easier to obtain. In everything, indeed, care and a well-kept table are necessary, so long as we nowhere pass the limits of need; but let the limit of hospitality be what each guest's need requires. “For let those who use this world,” he says, “be as not misusing it.” Misuse is spending beyond need. Have we no money? May we never have any. Are our storehouses not full? Our food is for the day; our living is by our hands. Why, then, do we spend the food God has given for the hungry on the pleasures of the luxurious? We sin both ways, increasing for the one the distress of want, and for the other the harm of surfeit.

How one should behave about seats and places at table at the time of the midday and evening meals.

Answer. Since it is a command of the Lord, who everywhere trains us in humility, that when we recline even at meals we should take the lowest place first, the one who is eager to do everything according to the commandment must not overlook this command either. If, then, any people of the world recline with us, it is fitting that we should be an example to them in this respect too, so that they may not exalt themselves or seek the first place. But where all come together with the same aim, so as to give proof of their humility on every occasion, it falls to each to take the lowest place first, according to the Lord's commandment; yet to jostle over it contentiously is unacceptable, since it destroys good order and causes disturbance. Being unyielding toward one another and fighting about this will make us like those who quarrel over the first places. Therefore here too, recognizing and pursuing with forethought what is fitting for us, we should leave the order of places at table to the one who receives us, as the Lord also laid down, saying that the arrangement of these things belongs to the master of the house. For so we shall bear with one another in love, doing all things decently and in order; and [we shall not seem] to practise humility for show before the many, or to court popularity, by unyielding …

What clothing is fitting for the Christian?

Answer. The argument has already shown that humility is necessary, and plainness, and cheapness and small expense in all things, so that few occasions of distraction may arise for us from bodily needs. The account of clothing too must follow those aims. For if we should be eager to be last of all, plainly in this too the last is most to be preferred. For just as lovers of glory hunt for glory from the clothes they wear, ambitious to be looked at and envied for the costliness of their dress, so plainly the one who has brought his life down to the last place through humility should choose in these things too what is last of all. For just as at the common supper the Corinthians are reproached for shaming those who have nothing by their own extravagance, so plainly in the common and visible use of clothes too, display above the many shames the poor man, as it were, by comparison. And since the Apostle says, “Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly,” let each examine himself: which likeness is more fitting for Christians, to those who dwell in kings' palaces and are clothed in soft garments, or to the messenger and herald of the Lord's coming, than whom none greater has arisen among those born of women? I mean John the son of Zechariah, whose garment was of camel's hair. And the saints of old went about in sheepskins and goatskins. The Apostle set out the aim of use in a single phrase, saying: “Having food and covering, with these we shall be content,” as though we need only covering, not variety and the adornment that comes from it, which falls into the forbidden vanity, not to say anything worse. For these things were brought into life later by meddlesome and useless craft.

The first use of coverings, which God himself gave to those who needed them, is also plain: “God made for them,” it says, “garments of skins.” For such a use of tunics was enough to cover what is unseemly. But since another aim enters too, that of being kept warm by the coverings, the use must aim at both: covering our unseemliness and being a defence against harm from the weather. And since even among these some things serve many uses and others fewer, it follows that we should prefer whatever can be put to more uses, so that the principle of poverty may not be harmed at all; and not have some things prepared for display and others for use at home, and these again different coverings for day and for night; but we should think of acquiring one such thing as can suffice us for everything, both for decent clothing by day and for what is needed at night. From this it follows that we share in common dress with one another, and that a kind of distinctive mark, given by the clothing too, is set upon the Christian. For things that tend to one goal are for the most part alike. The distinctiveness of dress is also useful, proclaiming each person in advance and declaring beforehand his profession of the life according to God, so that those who meet us demand conduct to match. For what is unbecoming and unseemly does not show in the same way in ordinary people and in those who promise great things. If a commoner, or any ordinary person, gives or receives blows in public, utters unseemly words, spends his time in taverns, and behaves shamefully in other such ways, no one would readily even notice, accepting what happens as consistent with his whole chosen way of life; but the one who professes exactness, if he overlooks even the least of his duties, all watch him and cast it up against him as a reproach, doing what was said: “They will turn and tear you.” So the profession made by the dress is a kind of tutor for the weaker, to keep them from base things even against their will. Just as there is something proper to the soldier in his dress, and another to the senator, and another to another, from which their ranks are usually guessed, so there should be also a distinctiveness of the Christian, even from his clothing, that is seemly and consistent, preserving the decorum handed down by the Apostle, who at one time prescribes that the bishop be decorous, at another that women be in decorous apparel, decorum plainly being understood according to the proper goal of Christianity. The same principle, I say, holds also for shoes: what is unelaborate, easier to obtain, and sufficient for the aim of need is to be chosen in each case.

On the belt.

Answer. The saints who went before also show that the belt is necessary: John binding his loins with a leather belt, and Elijah still earlier; for it is written, as a mark of the man, “A hairy man, with a leather belt about his loins.” Peter too is shown to have used a belt, as is clear from the angel's words to him: “Gird yourself and put on your sandals.” And blessed Paul appears from Agabus's prophecy about him to have used a belt: “So shall they bind the man who owns this belt,” he says, “in Jerusalem.” And Job is commanded by the Lord to gird himself; for as a symbol of courage and readiness for work he says, “Gird your loins like a man.” And it is clear that the use of a belt was customary for all the Lord's disciples, since they were forbidden to have copper in their belts. Besides, one who is to work with his own hands must be neatly dressed and unhindered in his movements. So he needs a belt too, by which his tunic will be drawn close to his body; and it will keep him warmer by wrapping him round on all sides, and make him free to move. For the Lord too, when he was preparing to serve his disciples, took a towel and girded himself. About the number of garments we need say nothing, since this has been examined sufficiently before in the discussion of poverty. For if one who has two tunics is commanded to share with him who has none, plainly the possession of more for oneself is forbidden. What need is there to legislate about the use of two tunics for those who are forbidden even to have them?

Question. Now that these things have been sufficiently handed on to us, it would follow for us to learn about the manner of our life with one another.

Answer. Since the Apostle says, “Let all things be done decently and in order,” we consider that way of life decent and orderly in the fellowship of the faithful in which the principle of the members of the body is preserved: so that one, entrusted with the common care, holds the power of the eye, both in examining what has been done and in foreseeing and considering what is to be done; another that of the ear or the hand, in hearing and in carrying out what falls to him; and so on, each in his place. We must know, then, that just as among the members it is not without danger for any member to neglect what falls to it, or not to use another for what it was made for by God who created it (for if the hand or the foot does not obey the guidance of the eye, the one will necessarily touch deadly things to the ruin of the whole, and the other will stumble or even be carried over cliffs; and if the eye shuts so as not to see, it too must perish with the other members suffering what has been described), so neither is negligence without danger for the superior, who will be judged for all, nor is disobedience harmless and without loss for the one who obeys; and it is more dangerous still if he also causes others to stumble. Each one, then, showing in his own place unflagging zeal and fulfilling the Apostle's command, “Do not be slothful in zeal,” has the praise of his eagerness; but for negligence the opposite, plainly lament and woe. “For cursed,” he says, “is everyone who does the works of the Lord negligently.”

That the judgment is fearful for the superior who does not rebuke those who sin.

Answer. The one entrusted with the common care, then, as one who must give account for each, should be disposed thus: knowing that if one of the brothers falls into sin without his having told him beforehand the ordinance of God, or having fallen, persists in it without being taught the way of correction, his blood will be required at his hand, as it is written; and especially if he overlooks something pleasing to God not through ignorance, but, going along with each one's faults out of flattery, relaxes the exactness of their way of life. “For those who call you blessed,” he says, “lead you astray and confuse the path of your feet”; and “the one who troubles you will bear his judgment, whoever he is.” Therefore, that we may not suffer this, we must follow the apostolic rule in our dealings with the brothers: “For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed, God is witness; nor did we seek glory from men, whether from you or from others.” The one who is pure of these passions may perhaps carry out a guidance that does not go astray, rewarding for himself and saving for those who follow. For the one who does not, for the sake of human honours, practise giving no offence to sinners in order to be pleasant and agreeable to them, will truly in love and with boldness be an ambassador of the word, without peddling it and with sincerity, choosing in nothing to falsify the truth; so that what follows also applies to him: “But we were gentle among you, like a nurse cherishing her own children; so, longing for you, we were well pleased to share with you not only the Gospel of God but also our own selves.” The one who is not so is a blind guide, throwing himself over the cliff and drawing his followers along with him.

How great an evil it is to become, instead of a guide, a cause of error to one's brother can be seen from what has been said. It is also a sign that the commandment of love is not being fulfilled; for no father overlooks his own child when he is about to fall into a pit, or leaves him in his fall once he has fallen. How much more terrible it is that a soul falling into a depth of evils should be left to perish, what need is there to say? The superior is answerable to the brotherhood, then, to keep watch over their souls and to take thought for the salvation of each, as one who will give account; and to take thought so far as to show his zeal for them even to death, not only according to the Lord's common principle of love toward all, “that one lay down his life for his friends,” but according to the special principle of him who said: “Longing for you, we were well pleased to share with you not only the Gospel of God but also our own selves.”

On laying open everything, even the secrets of the heart, to the superior.

Answer. Each of those under authority, if he means to show any notable progress and to come into a settled habit of the life according to the commands of our Lord Jesus Christ, must keep no movement of his soul hidden within himself and utter no word unexamined, but must lay bare the secrets of his heart to those of the brothers who are entrusted with caring compassionately and sympathetically for the weak. For so what is praiseworthy is confirmed, and what is unacceptable will receive fitting treatment; and from such training together, by gradual addition, perfection will come to us.

That the superior too must be reminded by those foremost in the brotherhood, if ever he errs.

Answer. Just as the superior is answerable for guiding the brotherhood in everything, so in turn it falls to the rest, if ever some fault is suspected in the superior, to remind him. But so that good order may not be broken, the reminding should be left to those foremost in age and understanding. If, then, there is something deserving correction, we have both helped our brother and, through him, ourselves, having set straight the one who is, as it were, the rule of our life and who ought by his own straightness to expose what is crooked in us. But if some have been troubled about him in vain, they are freed from their doubt about him once they have been assured by the bringing to light of what was suspected without truth.

How all should be disposed toward the disobedient.

Answer. Toward one who is sluggish in obeying the Lord's commandments, all should first feel compassion as toward a sick member, and the superior should try by his own exhortations to set his illness right. If he persists in disobedience and does not accept correction, he should be rebuked more severely before the whole brotherhood, and remedies applied to him with every encouragement. But if after much admonition he is not ashamed and does not heal himself in his deeds, being, as the proverb says, his own destroyer, then with many tears and laments, yet nonetheless, as a corrupted and wholly useless member, he must be cut off from the common body, in imitation of physicians. For they too, whatever member they find seized by an incurable disease, are accustomed to remove by cutting and burning, so that the harm may not spread far and destroy the adjacent parts by contact. This we too must of necessity do with those who are hostile to the Lord's commandments or hinder them, according to the command of the Lord himself, who said: “If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you.” For kindness toward such people is like the undisciplined indulgence of Eli, for which he is reproved, since he used it toward his sons against what pleased God. A pretended kindness toward evildoers, then, is a betrayal of the truth, a plot against the community, and a training in indifference to evil; for then what is written is no longer done, “Why did you not rather mourn, so that the one who did this deed might be removed from among you?” and what follows necessarily comes about, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” “Those who sin,” says the Apostle, “rebuke before all”; and he at once adds the reason: “so that the rest also may stand in fear.”

In general, the one who does not accept the treatment applied to him by the superior is inconsistent even with himself. For if he will not submit, but defends his own will, why is he with him at all? Why does he enrol him as the guardian of his life? But having once accepted enrolment in the body of the brotherhood, if he is judged fit to become an instrument of service [for some work, even if] the command seems beyond his strength, let him throw the responsibility on the one who commands beyond his strength and show himself compliant and obedient even to death, remembering the Lord, who became “obedient to death, even death on a cross.” Resisting and contradicting show many evils: sickness of faith, wavering of hope, arrogance and pride of character. For no one disobeys without first despising the one who advised him; nor will one who believes God's promises and has a firm hope in them ever shrink from what is commanded, even if it is laborious, knowing that “the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed.” And one who is persuaded that “he who humbles himself will be exalted” shows more eagerness than the one who gave the command expected, knowing that “this momentary lightness of affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.”

On one who works with pride or grumbling.

Answer. The work of one who grumbles, or is found to act in pride, must not be mixed with the work done by those who are humble in heart and contrite in spirit, nor indeed be used at all among the devout. For “what is exalted among men is an abomination before God.” And there is another command of the Apostle, who says, “Nor grumble, as some of them grumbled and were destroyed by the destroyer”; and, “not reluctantly or under compulsion.” The work of such people is therefore unacceptable, like a blemished sacrifice, and it is not holy to mix it with the work of the others. For if those who brought strange fire to the altar experienced such wrath, how is it not dangerous to admit into the service of the commandments a work coming from a disposition hostile to God? “For what partnership,” he says, “has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what portion has a believer with an unbeliever?” Therefore he says: “The lawless man who sacrifices a calf to me is like one who kills a dog, and he who offers fine flour is like one who offers swine's blood.” So the works of the slothful and contentious must necessarily be kept away from the brotherhood. The superiors must attend exactly to this part, so that they themselves may not corrupt the decree of him who said, “He who walks in a blameless way, he shall minister to me; he who acts proudly shall not dwell in the midst of my house”; and so that, by accepting the work of one who mixes sin with the commandment and soils his work with slackness in labour or pride in his superiority, they may not encourage him to persist in his perversity, not allowing him to come to an awareness of his own faults. The superior must therefore be persuaded that to preside over his brother not according to reason brings on him heavy and inescapable wrath, for “his blood will be required at his hand,” as it is written; and the one who obeys must be so prepared as not to shrink from any command, not even the hardest, persuaded that his reward is great in heaven. Let the hope of glory gladden the one who obeys, so that the Lord's work may be done with all joy and endurance.

With what disposition superiors should care for the brothers.

Answer. Let not his rank make the superior proud, lest he too fall from the blessedness of humility, or, puffed up, fall into the condemnation of the devil; but let him be persuaded of this, that care for many is service of many. Just as one who serves many wounded people, cleaning the discharge from each wound and applying remedies according to the nature of the injury in question, takes his service not as an occasion for pride but rather for humility, anxiety, and struggle, so much more must the one entrusted with healing the infirmities of the brotherhood think and be anxious as the servant of all, who will give account for all. For in this way his aim will be achieved, since the Lord said: “If anyone among you would be first, let him be last of all and servant of all.”

That one must accept service from the superior.

The brothers in general should also accept bodily service offered by those who are held to be foremost in the brotherhood. For the principle of humility both prompts the greater to serve and shows that it is not unfitting for the lesser to be served. The Lord's example leads us to this: he did not disdain to wash his own disciples' feet, and they did not dare to resist it. Indeed Peter, who out of great reverence did not at first accept it, at once turned himself to obedience when he was taught the danger of disobedience. So the one under obedience need not fear that his aim of humility is undone when he is sometimes served by the greater. For the service is offered him for teaching and as a practical example rather than, as often, for necessary need. Let him show his lowliness, then, by obedience and imitation; and let him not, by setting himself against it under a show of humility, do a work of pride and boastfulness. For contradiction shows self-will and insubordination. It is proof, then, of conceit and contempt rather than of lowliness and of obedience in all things. Therefore it is necessary to obey the one who said: “Bearing with one another in love.”

How one should be disposed toward one's kinsfolk according to the flesh.

Answer. Those once received into the brotherhood should not be allowed by the superior to be distracted toward anything, nor on the pretext of visiting relatives to withdraw from the brothers and live a life without witnesses, nor be permitted to have cares about the protection of their kinsmen according to the flesh. For the word altogether rejects the saying of “mine” and “yours” in a brotherhood: “All who believed,” it says, “were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things he possessed was his own.” As for anyone's parents or brothers according to the flesh, if they live according to God, let them be cared for by all in the brotherhood as common fathers or kinsfolk. “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven,” says the Lord, “is my brother and sister and mother.” And we judge that the care of these belongs to the superior of the brotherhood. But if they are entangled in common life, we have nothing in common with them, we who are eager to achieve what is decent and devoted to the Lord without distraction. For besides giving them no benefit, we also fill our own life with noise and confusion and draw on ourselves occasions of sin. Nor is it fitting to receive, when they come to visit those who were once their kin, those who despise God's commandments and set at nought the work of godliness, since they do not love the Lord, who said: “Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.” “And what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what portion has a believer with an unbeliever?” And above all we must strive in every way to remove from those still in training for virtue the occasions of sinning, of which the greatest is the memory of their former life, lest they suffer what was said, “In their hearts they turned back to Egypt”; which mostly happens through constant conversation with kinsfolk according to the flesh.

In general, we should allow neither kinsman nor stranger to address any words to the brothers unless we are persuaded that they hold their conversations for the building up and strengthening of souls. And if there should be need of speech with those who happen to come, let the gift of speech be exercised by those entrusted with it, as having the power to speak and to listen with skill for the building up of faith; for the Apostle clearly teaches that the power of speech is not present in all, but that the gift belongs to few, when he says: “To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge”; and elsewhere: “that he may be able to exhort in sound teaching and to refute those who contradict.”

What is the manner of meeting with the sisters?

Answer. The one who has once renounced marriage will, plainly, much more renounce the cares which the Apostle says the married man has, how to please his wife; and he will cleanse himself altogether of every care aimed at pleasing a woman, fearing the judgment of him who said, “God has scattered the bones of men-pleasers.” So he will not endure meeting even with a man for the sake of pleasing him; but for the sake of the zeal owed by each to his neighbour according to God's commandment, he will come to a meeting when need requires. Yet the meeting should not simply be allowed to those who wish it, nor is every time or every place suitable for it. But if we mean, according to the Apostle's command, to give no offence to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, and to do all things decently and in order and all for building up, the person, the time, the need, and the place must be fittingly fixed by choice; by all of which every suspicion of evil, even its shadow, will be driven away, and proof of dignity and chastity will appear in every way in those who have been approved to see one another and to take counsel about what pleases God, both as to bodily need and as to the care of souls. Let there be not fewer than two on each side; for a single person is easily open to suspicion, not to say more, and is weaker for confirming what is said, since Scripture clearly declares that every word stands on two or three; nor more than three, so that the zeal for work done because of the commandment of our Lord Jesus Christ may not be hindered.

If any others in the brotherhood need to say or to hear something of private concern, let them not come into conversation with one another themselves; but let chosen elders serve as go-betweens with chosen elder sisters, and so let the need for speech be met through their mediation. Let the same good order be kept not only of women toward men or men toward women, but also among those of the same sex toward one another. Let these, then, be marked by reverence and dignity in all things besides, prudent in asking and answering, faithful and wise in handling what is said, fulfilling the saying, “He will order his words with judgment,” so that for those who confide in them the need is met and at the same time there is assurance about what is stirring in them. Let some others also serve bodily needs, they too after testing, advanced in age and dignified in bearing and character, so as not to strike anyone's conscience with evil suspicion. “For why should my liberty be judged by another's conscience?”

What kind of men those who manage necessities in the brotherhood should be.

Answer. Among those within who distribute necessities, there will surely be in each rank some who can imitate those in the Acts who did what was said, “Distribution was made to each as any had need”; taking great care to be compassionate and patient toward all, and to give no one cause to suspect attachment or favouritism toward some, according to the command of the Apostle, who said, “doing nothing from partiality”; or again of contentiousness, which the same Apostle rejects as unfitting for Christians, saying, “If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God”: as though by these means they would withhold what is needed from those against whom they are contentious, and give in excess to those to whom they happen to be partial. The one is a sign of hatred of the brothers, the other of attachment, which is most of all to be condemned; by these the harmony of the brotherhood, which comes from love, is torn apart, and evil suspicions, jealousies, strifes, and sluggishness toward work enter in its place. Those who distribute necessities to the brotherhood must therefore be utterly free from attachment and contentiousness, because of what has been said and many other such consequences.

They ought to be conscious in themselves of such a disposition, and to show such zeal, both they and those who carry out the other work of serving the brothers, as serving not men but the Lord himself, who in his great goodness counts as done to himself the honour and zeal shown to those dedicated to him, and promises the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven for them. “Come,” he says, “you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” And conversely they should recognize the danger of negligence, remembering him who said, “Cursed is everyone who does the works of the Lord negligently”; for not only are such people cast out of the kingdom, but they also await that dreadful and fearful sentence of the Lord against them: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

And if those who offer care and service find so great a gain from their zeal, and await so great a judgment for their negligence, how great a struggle is needed for those who receive the service, to show themselves worthy of the name of the Lord's brothers, according to the Lord's teaching, who said: “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” For the one who has not set before himself the will of God as his goal through all his life, so as to show in health the labour of love through zeal for the Lord's works, and in sickness to show all endurance and patience with joy, is in danger: first and greatest, because he is estranged from the Lord and has cut himself off from the portion of his brothers by not doing the will of God; second, because he dares unworthily to share in what is prepared for the worthy. Therefore it is necessary here too to remember the Apostle, who said, “Working together with him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain”; and that those called to the place of the Lord's brothers should not insult such grace of God, nor betray so great a dignity through neglect of God's will, but should rather obey the same Apostle, who says: “I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthily of the calling to which you have been called.”

Whether several brotherhoods should be formed in the same village.

Answer. The example of the members, which we apply to many things, usefully sets out the matter before us. The argument has shown that a body that is to be fitted together well and rationally for every activity needs eyes and a tongue and the other parts that are necessary and most important; but a soul able to be the eye of many is hard and difficult to find. For if exactness requires the superior of the brotherhood to be far-seeing, sufficient in speech, sober, compassionate, and seeking God's ordinances with a perfect heart, how is it possible to find several such men in the same village? And if it should ever happen that two or three were found, which is not easy and which we have never known, it is far better for them to share this charge with one another and lighten the labour; so that when one is away, or occupied, or in other circumstances, as it happens that the one superior is separated from the brotherhood, the other may be there to make up for his absence; or if not, he may go to another brotherhood that needs someone to guide it.

Experience of outside affairs can also help us much toward the goal before us. Just as those skilled in the common crafts are jealous of their rivals, the thing itself naturally producing contentions unnoticed, so too in such a life it mostly happens. Beginning with emulation in what is good and with eagerness to outdo one another, either in hospitality, or in increasing the number of those training together, or in some other such works, as they go on they fall into rivalry. Then the brothers who come to visit find much uncertainty and difficulty instead of rest, divided in mind as to whom they should lodge with; for preference gives pain, and to satisfy both is impossible, especially when they happen to be in haste. And to those who come at first to share the life they will cause great distress as to whom they should choose as superiors of their life; and by choosing some they altogether [reject] the rest. So they are harmed from the very beginning toward pride, not forming themselves for learning, but growing used to being judges and examiners of the brotherhood. Since, then, there is no acknowledged good in dividing the dwellings, and so many things against it, separating from one another is wholly unprofitable. If it should happen that this has been done already, they must hasten to correct it, especially after experience of the harm. To persist in the decision is plain contentiousness. “If anyone is inclined to be contentious,” says the Apostle, “we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.”

For what reason will they say they are hindered from joining together? Because of their needs? But they are much better supplied in common, since one lamp, one hearth, and all such things can suffice for all. If anything, we should pursue ease in these matters too in every way, reducing our possession of necessities to the least. Then, since outside people bring needs upon the brotherhood, when divided they need more, and when living together, half. And how hard it is to find a man who does not shame the name of Christ, but conducts his dealings with outsiders on journeys worthily of his profession, you know before I say it. Then how can those who persist in division build up those in common life, either urging them to peace if ever there is need, or exhorting them to the other commandments, when by not being united they give rise to evil suspicions against themselves? Besides this, we hear the Apostle writing to the Philippians: “Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind; doing nothing from rivalry or vainglory, but in humility counting others better than yourselves; each looking not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” What greater proof of humility, then, than that the superiors of the brotherhood should be subject to one another? If they are equal in spiritual gifts, it is better that they contend together, as the Lord himself showed us by sending them out two by two; and one of them will surely choose with joy to be subject to the other, remembering the Lord who said, “He who humbles himself will be exalted.” But if it happens that one is lesser and the other greater, it is more profitable for the weaker to be taken in by the stronger. And how is it not plain disobedience of the apostolic command which says, “each looking not to his own”? For I reckon that this cannot be achieved when they are divided, since each group makes its own the care for those with it and is estranged from concern for the others, which, as I said, plainly opposes the apostolic command.

And the saints in the Acts are often commended, of whom it is written at one time, “The multitude of those who believed were of one heart and soul,” and at another, “All who believed were together and had all things in common”; plainly there was no division among them all, nor did each live under his own authority, but all were directed under one and the same care; and that when they numbered five thousand in all, among whom there were perhaps not a few things that, by human reckoning, seemed to hinder union. But where those found in each village are so few, what reason allows them to stand apart from one another? Would that it were possible not only for those in the same village to be gathered together in this way, but also for several brotherhoods established in different places to be built up under the one care of those who can administer the affairs of all impartially and wisely, in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.

On those who withdraw from a brotherhood.

Answer. Those who have once professed to one another the life in common cannot withdraw at will; for failure to abide by what has been decided has two causes: either harm from living together, or the instability of mind of the one who changes. The one who tears himself away from the brothers because he is being harmed should not hide the cause within himself, but should expose the harm in the way handed down by the Lord, who said: “If your brother sins, go and rebuke him between you and him alone,” and so on. And if the fault is corrected, … If both do this, both will share with the Lord the crown of glory, and they will become models for all and a rule of love and humility. But if he sees them remaining in the evil and not accepting correction, he will show it to those competent to judge such matters; and after the witness of the many, let him then separate. He will separate no longer from brothers but from strangers, since the Lord likens the one who persists in evil to a Gentile and a tax collector: “Let such a one be to you,” he says, “as a Gentile and a tax collector.” But if he springs away from the fellowship of the brothers through his own fickleness, let him heal his weakness, or, if he will not accept that, let him be unacceptable to the brotherhoods. If, however, by the Lord's commandment one is drawn to one place and another to another, such men are not separating but fulfilling a charge. The word admits no other cause of separation of brothers: first, because the name of our Lord Jesus Christ which gathered them is dishonoured; then because the conscience of each will not be able to be clear toward the other, but they will be suspicious of one another. And this plainly opposes the command of the Lord, who said: “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

Whether one should neglect work on the pretext of prayers and psalmody; and what times are suitable for prayer; and first, whether one must work.

Answer. Since our Lord Jesus Christ says, “Worthy,” not simply everyone, nor anyone at random, but “the worker is worthy of his food”; and the Apostle commands us to labour and work with our own hands what is good, so that we may have something to share with anyone in need; that one must work diligently is clear from this alone. For we must not consider the aim of godliness a pretext for idleness or an escape from labour, but an occasion of contest, of more abundant labours, and of endurance in afflictions, so that we too may say: “In toil and hardship, in watchings more abundantly, in hunger and thirst.” [Such hardship] is useful to us not only for the pommelling of the body, [but also for] love of neighbour, so that through us God may provide sufficiency for the weak among the brothers too, after the pattern given by the Apostle in the Acts, who said, “In all things I have shown you that by labouring like this we must help the weak”; and again, “so that you may have something to share with anyone in need”; that we may be counted worthy to hear: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink.” And how great an evil idleness is, what need is there to say, since the Apostle plainly commands that one who does not work should not eat either? As daily food is necessary for each, so also is work according to one's strength. Not in vain did Solomon write in praise: “She did not eat the bread of idleness.” And again the Apostle says of himself: “Nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying, but with toil and hardship we worked night and day”; though, as one preaching the Gospel, he had the right to live by the Gospel. And the Lord joined sloth to wickedness, saying: “You wicked and slothful servant.” The wise Solomon too not only praises the worker in the words already mentioned, but also rebukes the sluggard by comparison with the smallest of creatures, saying: “Go to the ant, O sluggard.” So we must fear lest this be brought against us on the day of judgment, when he who gave us the strength to work requires work in proportion to the strength. “For to whom they have entrusted much,” he says, “of him they will demand the more.”

But since some excuse themselves from work on the pretext of prayers and psalmody, we must know that for some other things each has its own proper time, according to the Preacher, who said, “There is a time for every matter”; but for prayer and psalmody, as for many other things, every time is suitable, so that, while moving our hands at our tasks, we may praise God, sometimes with the tongue too, when this is possible, or rather useful for building up faith; and if not, with the heart, “in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” as it is written; and fulfil prayer in the midst of work, giving thanks to him who gave both strength of hands for work and wisdom of mind for acquiring skill, and who granted the material, both that in the tools and that which the crafts work on, whatever we happen to be working at; and praying that the works of our hands may be directed to the goal of pleasing God. So we also achieve freedom from distraction for the soul, when at each action we ask from God the success of the work, render thanks to him who gave us the power to act, and keep the goal of pleasing him, as has been said. For if things are not so, how can the Apostle's sayings agree with one another, “Pray without ceasing” and “working night and day”?

Yet because thanksgiving at every time has been commanded by law and shown to be necessary to our life both by nature and by reason, we must not therefore neglect the times of prayer appointed in the brotherhoods, which we have necessarily chosen, each holding its own reminder of the good things from God. Early morning, so that the first movements of the soul and mind may be offerings to God, and that we may take up nothing else into our care before we have rejoiced in the thought of God, as it is written, “I remembered God and was glad”; nor move the body to work before we have done what was said, “To you will I pray, O Lord; in the morning you will hear my voice; in the morning I will stand before you and watch.” Again, at the third hour, we must rise to prayer and gather the brotherhood, even if they happen to be divided among different tasks; and remembering the gift of the Spirit given to the apostles at the third hour, all should worship with one accord, that they too may become worthy to receive his sanctification, and ask his guidance and teaching toward what is profitable, according to him who said, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a guiding spirit”; and elsewhere, “Your good Spirit will lead me in a level land”; and so return again to their work. And if some are left behind farther off because of the nature of their work or of the places, they must necessarily fulfil there everything that has been decided in common, without hesitation, for “where two or three are gathered,” says the Lord, “in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” At the sixth hour we have judged prayer necessary in imitation of the saints who say, “Evening and morning and at noon I will tell and declare, and he will hear my voice”; and so as to be delivered from mishap and the noonday demon, the ninetieth psalm is also said. The ninth hour has been handed down to us as necessary for prayer by the apostles themselves in the Acts, which relate that “Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth.” When the day is completed, there is thanksgiving for what has been given us or done rightly by us during it, and confession of what has been left undone, whether a fault has been committed willingly or unwillingly, or even unnoticed, in words or deeds or in the heart itself, as we propitiate God through prayer for them all. For the review of what is past is a great help toward not falling into the same things again. Therefore he says, “What you say in your hearts, be pierced with sorrow for it on your beds.” And again, at the beginning of the night, there is the request that our rest may be without offence and free from fantasies; at this hour too the ninetieth psalm is necessarily said. Paul and Silas have handed down midnight to us as necessary for prayer, as the history of the Acts shows, saying, “About midnight Paul and Silas were singing hymns to God”; and the psalmist, saying, “At midnight I rose to give thanks to you for your righteous judgments.” And again we must rise to prayer before the dawn, so as not to be overtaken by the day in sleep and in bed, according to him who said, “My eyes anticipated the dawn, that I might meditate on your words.” None of these times should be neglected by those who have chosen to live watchfully for the glory of God and of his Christ. I reckon that the difference and variety of the prayers and psalmody at the appointed hours is useful also for this reason, that in sameness the soul often grows weary and distracted, but by change and variety in the psalmody and in what is said at each hour its desire is made fresh and its sobriety renewed.

Question. Since the argument has sufficiently shown both that prayer must not be omitted and that work is necessary, it follows that we be taught which crafts suit our profession.

Answer. It is not easy to define particular crafts, because different ones are sought in different places, according to the character of the places and the suitability of the trades in each region. But in general terms one can outline the choice of them: those that preserve the peace and quiet of our life, needing neither much business to procure their materials nor much struggle to sell what has been made, nor such as bring about unfitting or harmful meetings with men or women. In everything we must consider plainness and cheapness the goal proper to us, avoiding serving the foolish and harmful desires of men by making what they seek. In weaving, we should accept what belongs to the ordinary usage of life, not what the licentious devise for the snaring and trapping of the young. Likewise in shoemaking, let us serve by our craft those who seek what is necessary for use. Building, carpentry, smithing, and farming are in themselves necessary to life, of great use, and by their own nature not to be rejected by us; except that whenever they cause us disturbance or tear apart the united life of the brothers, then we must of necessity avoid them, preferring the crafts that keep our life undistracted and devoted to the Lord, and that do not draw those who persevere in the discipline of godliness away from the time of psalmody or prayer or the rest of the good order. When nothing is likely to be harmed by them in the principal life, they are to be preferred to many others, and especially farming, which supplies necessities from the place itself and saves those who farm from much wandering and running up and down, provided only that, as we said, it does not bring us disturbances and troubles from neighbours or those living near us.

How one should sell the products of one's work, and how one should travel.

Answer. We should take care not to dispose of the products of our work far away, nor to expose ourselves in public for the sake of selling. Staying in one place is more seemly and more useful both for building one another up and for the exact keeping of the daily life; so that we should rather choose even to lower the price somewhat than for a little gain to travel abroad. But if experience shows this to be impossible, we should choose places and cities of devout men, so that our journey may not be fruitless for us; and at the appointed festivals several of the brothers should go together, each bringing the products of his own work. The journey should be made in company, so as to complete the road with psalms and prayers and the building up of one another; and when they arrive at the place they should choose the same lodgings, both to keep watch over one another and so that no time of prayer, by day or by night, may escape us, and so that one may pass through dealings with hard-bargaining and grasping people with less harm, being with several rather than by himself. For even the most violent shrink from having many witnesses of their wrongs.

On trading at gatherings.

Answer. Nor does the word show that the markets held at the martyrs' shrines are fitting for us. For it does not befit Christians to appear at the martyrs' shrines or in the places around them for any other reason than for prayer, and, coming to remember the saints' steadfastness for godliness even to death, to be stirred to the same zeal; remembering the most fearful wrath of the Lord, who, though always and everywhere meek and lowly in heart, as it is written, raised the whip against those alone who sold and bought in the temple, since trade was turning the house of prayer into a den of robbers. Nor, because others before us have corrupted the custom that prevailed among the saints, and instead of praying for one another, worshipping and weeping before God together with many, propitiating him for sins and giving thanks for benefits, and building up by the word of exhortation (which we know was still kept even within our memory), make the time and the place instead a market, a fair, and a common trading place, does it now follow that we should follow them and confirm what is wrong by taking part in it. But imitate … [each one] has [a lesson], has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation; let all things be done for building up.

On authority and obedience.

Answer. Even within the permitted crafts, each one should not be allowed the craft he has or wishes to learn, but the one for which he is judged suitable. For the one who has denied himself and put away all his own wishes does not do what he wishes but what he is taught. Nor does the word allow one who has once entrusted the management of himself to others to choose what is profitable on his own; they will appoint him to whatever they learn, in the name of the Lord, to be suitable. For the one who chooses a work by his own desire brings a charge against himself: first of self-satisfaction; then, that he has become attached to the occupation for worldly glory, or hope of gain, or some such reason; or that through sluggishness and sloth he prefers the lighter task. Being in these is proof that he has not yet been freed from the evil of the passions. The one who wishes to carry out his own impulses has not denied himself, nor has he renounced the affairs of the world, if he is still excited by gain and glory. Nor has the one who does not endure the toil of work put to death his members that are on earth; rather he brings against himself proof of self-will too, thinking his own judgment more exact than the examination of the many.

If, then, someone has a craft not condemned by the community, he ought not to spring away from it; for to despise what one has belongs to an unstable mind and an uncertain will. If he has none, let him not take one for himself, but accept what is approved by those over him, so as to keep obedience in everything. As it has been shown unfitting to entrust oneself to oneself, so also not to accept what others have approved is to be condemned. And if someone has a craft, but its practice does not please the brotherhood, let him readily throw it aside, showing that he is passionately attached to nothing in the world. For to do the wishes of the mind belongs to one who has no hope, according to the word of the Apostle; but obedience in everything is worthy of acceptance, since the same Apostle praises some because they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us by the will of God.

Each one, however, should attend to his own work, care for it eagerly, and, as though God were watching, carry it out blamelessly with unflagging zeal and closer diligence, so that he may have boldness always to say, “Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hands of their masters, so our eyes look to the Lord our God”; and he should not leap from one thing to another. For our nature cannot achieve many pursuits at once, and to carry out one diligently is more useful than to touch many incompletely. For dividing oneself among many things and passing from one to another, besides achieving none of the works, also exposes a lightness of character that was already there, or produces it where it was not. If ever need arises, it is fitting for one who is suited to help in other crafts too; and not even this on his own initiative, but only if he is called on, since we do this not as a principal task but as the circumstances require; as with the members of the body, when the foot gives way, we support ourselves on the hand. And again, just as springing to a task on one's own initiative is unprofitable, so not accepting what one is commanded deserves blame, so that neither the passion of self-will may be nourished nor the limit of obedience and compliance be dissolved.

The care of the tools belongs principally to the craftsman of each work; but if ever something should happen to be overlooked, let it receive fitting attention from those who first see it, as the common property of all. For even if their use is particular, the benefit from them is common. To despise the things of another craft as no concern of one's own is proof of estrangement. Nor is it fitting for those who handle the crafts to claim ownership of the tools, so as either not to allow the superior of the brotherhood to use them for whatever he wishes, or to permit themselves to sell or exchange them or part with them in any other way, or to acquire others in addition to those they have. For how would one who has once decided not to be master even of his own hands, but has entrusted the management of their working to another, act consistently if he lords it over the tools of his craft and uses the dignity of ownership over them?

With what aim and what disposition one should work.

Answer. We must know this: that the one who works ought to work not in order to serve his own needs by his work, but to fulfil the commandment of the Lord, who said, “I was hungry and you gave me food,” and so on. For anxiety for oneself has been altogether forbidden by the Lord, who said, “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on,” and added, “For the Gentiles seek all these things.” So the goal set before each in his work should be the service of those in need, not his own need. For so he will escape the charge of self-love and receive from the Lord the blessing for brotherly love, who says, “As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” And let no one think that the Apostle contradicts what we say when he says, “that by working they may eat their own bread.” For this was said to the disorderly and idle: that it is preferable to an idle life for each at least to serve himself and not be a burden to others. “For we hear,” he says, “that some among you walk in idleness, not doing any work, but being busybodies. Such persons,” he says, “we command and urge to work quietly and to eat their own bread.” And the saying, “working night and day, that we might not be a burden to any,” bears the same meaning, since the Apostle, out of brotherly love, submitted himself to labours beyond what was required of him in order to cut off the disorderly. But it belongs to one who is hastening to perfection to work night and day so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

For the one who puts his hope in himself, or in the one who has undertaken the care of his needs, and who reckons his own work or that of his companion a sufficient means of living, in so far as he has set his hope on a man, is in danger of falling under the curse which says, “Cursed is the man who has his hope in man, and will make flesh his arm, and whose soul turns away from the Lord.” By “who has his hope in man” the word forbids hoping in another; by “will make flesh his arm,” trusting in oneself; and it calls each of them apostasy from the Lord and adds the end of both: “For he will be like the wild tamarisk in the desert, and will not see when good comes”; the word showing that to hope in oneself or in anyone else is to turn away from the Lord.

Question. The manner of our work has been sufficiently handed down to us, unless we are taught by the circumstances themselves to discover something further. But what kind of men the superiors of the brotherhood should be, and how they should lead those with them, we need to have made clear.

Answer. This part too has been spoken of in summary. But since you rightly wish it to be made clearer (for as is the one who presides and rules, so for the most part the ruled tend to become), it is necessary not to pass it over lightly. The superior, then, remembering the Apostle's command, “Be an example to the believers,” must make his own life a clear pattern of every commandment of the Lord, so as to leave those he teaches no occasion to think the Lord's commandment impossible or contemptible. First, then, as is first, he must so achieve humility in the love of Christ that even when he is silent, the example of his works may stand before them for teaching more powerfully than any word. For if this is the definition of Christianity, the imitation of Christ in the measure of his becoming man, according to what befits each one's calling, those entrusted with the guidance of the many ought, through their own mediation, to lead the still weaker forward to likeness to Christ, according to blessed Paul, who says, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” It is fitting, then, that they themselves first, achieving the measure of humility handed down by our Lord Jesus Christ, should become an exact pattern. “For learn from me,” he says, “for I am meek and lowly in heart.” Let meekness of manner, then, and lowliness of heart mark the one who presides. For if the Lord was not ashamed to serve his own servants, but consented to be the servant of the earth and clay that he himself had formed and shaped into a human being (“For I am among you,” he says, “as one who serves”), what must we do for our equals to think that we attain to the imitation of him?

This one thing, then, the superior must have in such measure. Next, he must be compassionate, bearing patiently with those who through inexperience fall short in any of their duties; not passing over sins in silence, but bearing meekly with the refractory and applying remedies to them with all compassion and moderation; able to find a way of treatment suited to the disorder, not rebuking with harshness but admonishing and correcting with meekness, as it is written; sober in present matters, far-seeing of what is to come, able to contend alongside the strong and to bear the infirmities of the weak, and able to do and say everything for the strengthening of those with him; not taking the office of superior on himself, but chosen by those who are foremost in the other brotherhoods, having given sufficient proof of his character in his past life. “Let these also,” he says, “be tested first; then let them serve, being blameless.” So let such a one be entrusted with the office of superior, and let him define good order for the brotherhood, making the distribution of the works according to each one's aptitude.

To whom journeys should be permitted, and how those returning should be examined.

Answer. Let the superior permit a journey to one who can carry it out without harm to his own soul and with benefit to those he meets. If no suitable person is at hand, it is better to bear every affliction and hardship in want of necessities, even to death, than for the sake of bodily relief to disregard plain harm to the soul. “For it would be better for me,” says the Apostle, “to die than that anyone should make my boast empty”; and this in matters within his own right; how much more in matters of commandment! Yet the law of love does not leave even this without relief. For if it happens that one brotherhood has no one suitable to send, those nearby will make up the lack, making their journeys in common and inseparable from one another, so that those weak in soul, or even infirm in body, may be kept safe together with the stronger in such fellowship; the one entrusted with this arranging it well in advance, so that relief may not be hard to find at the moment of need through the pressure of the time.

After his return, let the superior examine the traveller: what he did, with what kind of men he had meetings, what words he spoke to them, what thoughts his soul had; whether he spent every day and every night living with the fear of God, or turned aside somewhere and disturbed any of the things decided, either yielding to outside circumstances or slipping through his own sloth. What has been done rightly, let him confirm by approval; what has gone wrong, let him correct by careful and skilful teaching. For so those who travel will be more watchful through concern to give an account, and we shall be seen not to neglect their life even in time of separation. The history of the Acts shows that this was customary for the saints too, teaching us how Peter, on returning to Jerusalem, gave account to those there of fellowship with the Gentiles; and how Paul and Barnabas, when they arrived and had gathered the church, reported all that God had done with them; and again that all the multitude fell silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul relating all that God had done. We must know this, however: that running about, business dealings, and huckster's gains must in every way be avoided by the brotherhoods.

That after the superior there must be another able to take care of the brothers in his absence or when he is occupied.

Answer. Since it often happens that the superior is separated from the brotherhood through bodily illness, or the necessity of a journey, or some other circumstance, let there be another, chosen for this after testing by him and by others able to test, to take over the care of the brothers in his absence; so that those present may receive the encouragements of the word from one person, and the brotherhood may not, in the superior's absence, take on some democratic form to the dissolving of the rule and of the good order handed down, but that what has been approved after testing may be kept to the glory of God. And there should be someone to answer guests who arrive with understanding, so that those who seek the word may be built up in a manner worthy of the subject, and the community of the brotherhood may not be put to shame. For for all alike to leap at speaking causes disturbance and is a sign of disorder; since the Apostle did not allow even those counted worthy of the gift of teaching to speak several at once, when he says, “If a revelation is made to another, let the first be silent”; and again he exposes the impropriety of such disorder when he says, “If, then, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad?” And if the guest through ignorance directs his questions to another, even if the one questioned face to face is fully able to answer, let him nevertheless keep silent for the sake of good order and point out the one entrusted with this part, as the apostles did in the Lord's time, so that the use of speech may be orderly and seemly.

For if in the treatment of bodies it is not for everyone to use the knife on the sick, but for one who has acquired the art by long time, experience, practice of the works, and the teaching of experts, what reason is there for anyone at random to leap at the treatment that is done by the word, in which even the smallest oversight brings the greatest loss? Among those with whom not even the distribution of bread is permitted to anyone at random, but such a service belongs to one, entrusted after testing, how is it not much more necessary that spiritual food be offered to those who ask for it by one of the more capable, chosen and watched with care? So it is no ordinary self-will for one questioned about a judgment of God to venture on an answer so fearlessly and at random, instead of pointing out the one entrusted with the stewardship of the word, who, as being surely a faithful and wise steward, has been chosen to distribute the spiritual food in due season and to order his words with judgment, as it is written. And if something escapes the one who ought to answer and another discovers it, let him not leap at once to correct him, but suggest what occurred to him privately. For from this an occasion of pride against their superiors arises for the lesser; so that even if someone answers usefully, but not fittingly, he is liable to the penalties for disorder.

On not concealing the sins of a brother or of oneself.

Answer. Every sin must be reported to the superior, either by the sinner himself or by those who know of it, if they themselves cannot heal it, according to what the Lord commanded. For vice kept silent is a festering disease in the soul. Just as we would not call a benefactor the one who shuts deadly things up in the body, but rather the one who draws them out into the open through pain and lancing, so that the harmful thing may be thrown off by vomiting, or at least the manner of treatment may become clear through the disclosure of the disorder, so plainly to hide sin is to help prepare death for the sick man. “For the sting of death,” he says, “is sin.” “And open rebukes are better than hidden friendship.” Let no one, then, conceal for another, lest he become a fratricide instead of a lover of his brother; nor for himself. “For he who does not heal himself,” he says, “in his works is brother to him who destroys himself.”

On those who do not accept what the superior lays down.

Answer. The one who does not accept what the superior has approved should contradict him openly or privately, if he has some strong argument in accordance with the will of the Scriptures, or else keep silent and do what was commanded. If he is ashamed himself, let him use some others as mediators for this, so that, if the order is against Scripture, he may rescue both himself and the brothers from harm; but if it is shown to have been made on proper grounds, he may also free himself from vain and dangerous doubt (“For he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because it is not from faith”) and not cause the simpler to slip into disobedience. “For it would be better for him,” says the Lord, “to have a millstone hung around his neck and be thrown into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.” But if some persist in disobedience, finding fault in secret without making their grievance public, as being a cause of doubt to the brotherhood, shaking its assurance toward the commandments, and teachers of disobedience and insubordination, let them be cast out of the brotherhood. “For drive out a pestilence from the council,” he says, “and strife will go out with it”; and again, “Remove the evil one from among you.” “For a little leaven leavens the whole lump.”

That one must not meddle with the superior's arrangements, but attend to one's own work.

Answer. So that no one may easily fall into such a passion of doubt, to the harm of himself and others, this must be guarded against in general in a brotherhood: that no one at all should meddle with the superior's arrangements or busy himself with what is being done, except those nearest the superior in rank and understanding, whom he will necessarily take into counsel and consideration about common affairs, obeying the exhortation of him who said, “Do everything with counsel.” For if we have entrusted to him the management of our souls, as one who will give account to God, it is wholly unreasonable to distrust him about the most trivial things, and both to be filled oneself with unfitting suspicions against the brother and to give occasion for them to others. Therefore, so that this may not happen, let each remain in that to which he was called; and having given himself wholly to the care of what falls to him, let him not meddle at all with the other arrangements, imitating the Lord's holy disciples, among whom, although the matter of the Samaritan woman could have led to suspicion, nevertheless “no one,” it says, “said, What do you seek? or, Why are you talking with her?”

On disputed matters in the brotherhood.

Answer. About disputed matters in the brotherhood, when some disagree about something, they should not contend against one another contentiously, but reserve the decision for those more capable. So that order may not be confused, with everyone asking questions at all times, and no occasion for wrangling and idle talk may arise, there must be one person, tested and capable, either to put before the brotherhood for common examination what some are in doubt about, or to refer it to the one in charge. For in this way the consideration of what is sought will be more orderly and more skilful. For if every matter needs knowledge and experience, much more do such matters. And if one would not entrust the use of tools to the inexperienced, much more should the handling of words be left to the capable, who will be able to discern the place, time, and manner of questions, setting out objections without contentiousness and with prudence, listening with understanding, and carefully keeping the solutions of what was asked for the building up of the community.

How the superior should rebuke.

Answer. Let the superior apply rebukes to those who have sinned without passion. For to reprove a brother with wrath and anger is not to free him from sin, but to involve oneself in faults. Therefore he says, “correcting opponents with meekness.” Nor should he be severe in matters where he himself is slighted, and show kindness toward the sinner in matters where he sees another despised; rather he should then be all the more indignant at the evil. For so he will escape the suspicion of self-love and give proof, by the difference between his treatment of himself and of the other, that he does not hate the sinner but turns away from the sin. But if he makes the difference in his indignation not as described but the opposite, it is plain that he is indignant neither for God's sake nor for the danger of the one who has sinned, but for his own love of glory or love of rule. For he must show zeal for the glory of God, which is dishonoured by the transgression of the commandment, and have the compassion of brotherly love for the salvation of the brother endangered by sin (since “the soul that sins shall die”); and at every sin he must be moved as against sin, and show the ardour of his disposition by the vehemence of his punishment.

In what way the fault of one who has sinned should be corrected.

Answer. Let the superior apply corrections to those subject to passions according to the principle of medicine, not being angry with those who … idle talk by silence; immoderate sleep by watching in prayer; bodily idleness by labours; unbecoming eating by fasting; grumbling by separation, so that none of the brothers will choose to work with him, nor will his work be mixed with that of the others, as has been said before, unless by repentance without shame he is seen to have been freed from the passion. And then the work done in grumbling may be accepted, yet not even then for the use of the brothers, but disposed of for some other need. The reason for these things has been sufficiently shown before.

With what disposition penalties should be accepted.

Answer. Just as we said that the superior must apply treatments to the sick without passion, so in turn those being treated must not receive penalties in enmity, nor consider as tyranny the care offered them out of compassion for the salvation of the soul. For it is shameful that those sick in body should trust physicians so much that, even if they cut or burn or pain them with bitter medicines, they consider them benefactors, while we do not have the same disposition toward the physicians of our souls when they work our salvation by a painful regimen; since the Apostle says, “And who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have grieved?” and again, “For see what earnestness this very thing, your being grieved according to God, has produced in you.” So, looking to the end, we should judge as our benefactor the one who causes us godly grief.

How the teachers of crafts should correct the boys when they err.

Answer. … [Those] of the brothers who are found at fault by those teaching the crafts [should be brought] before the superior to be reproved, so that he may determine the penalty fitting each sin; … [for so the offender will be corrected,] being ashamed of being reproved before many, the rest will be safer from falling into the like, and fitting treatment can be applied rather by the more experienced. [Sloth] in work, or idle talk, or a lie, or anything else of the kind forbidden to the godly, they must bring before the overseer of the common good order and reprove there, so that the measure and manner of healing the sins may be devised by him. For if rebuke is the healing of the soul, it is not for everyone to rebuke, as it is not for everyone to heal, unless the superior himself entrusts it to someone after much testing.

That the superiors of the brotherhoods should refer their affairs to one another.

Answer. It is good also for a meeting of those set over the brotherhoods to take place at certain appointed times and places, at which they may lay before one another the matters that have turned out unexpectedly, the characters that are hard to handle, and how they dealt with each; so that whatever has sometimes been done wrongly by someone may be reliably brought to light by the judgment of many, and what has been done rightly may be confirmed by the witness of the many.

Whether using the remedies of medicine is in keeping with the aim of godliness.

Answer. Each of the crafts has been granted to us by God as a help for the weakness of our nature: farming, for example, since what grows of itself from the earth does not suffice to relieve our needs; weaving, since the use of coverings is necessary both for decency and against harm from the weather; and building likewise. So also medicine. Since our body, subject to suffering, is exposed to various harms, both those that befall it from outside and those that arise within from food, and is distressed by excess and deficiency, the art of medicine, prescribing the removal of what is superfluous and the addition of what is lacking, has been granted by God, who orders our whole life, as a pattern of the healing of the soul. For just as, if we were in the paradise of delight, we would have needed no device and toil of farming, so also, if we were free from suffering according to the gift at creation before the transgression, we would need nothing from medicine for relief. But just as, after being banished to this place and hearing, “In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread,” we then established the art of farming by long experience and hardship on the land, as a relief of the pains that came from the curse, God granting us understanding and grasp of this art; so too, since we were commanded to return again to the earth from which we were taken, and were joined to a painful flesh condemned to corruption because of sin and for this reason subjected to these sufferings, the help applied by medicine to the sick has been given us as well, at least in some measure. For the herbs suited to each disease did not spring up from the earth by chance; plainly they were brought forth by the will of the Creator for the purpose of our benefit. The natural property in roots, flowers, leaves, fruits, or juices, and whatever from metals or from the sea has been found suitable for the benefit of the flesh, is like the discovery of what is eaten and drunk. But what is far-fetched and elaborate, and causes much preoccupation, and as it were turns our whole life about the care of the flesh, must be refused by Christians.

We must take care to use the art, if ever we must, in such a way as not to place in it the whole cause of health or sickness, but to take the use of its remedies for the glory of God and as a pattern of the care of souls. When medical help is lacking, we must not place all our hope for relief from pains in this art, but know that he will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear; or that, just as the Lord then sometimes made clay, anointed with it, and commanded washing in Siloam, and at other times was content with his will alone, saying, “I will; be clean,” while some he left to struggle with their sufferings, making them more approved by the trial; so too with us, he sometimes touches us invisibly and unseen, when he knows this to be profitable to our souls, and at other times is pleased that we use material helps for our diseases, by the length of the treatment producing a lasting remembrance of his grace, or also providing, as I said, a pattern for the care of the soul. For as with the flesh the removal of what is foreign and the addition of what is lacking are necessary, so with our soul we must get rid of what is foreign and take in what belongs to it by nature. For “God made man upright,” and “created us for good works, that we should walk in them.” And just as there we bear cuttings, burnings, and the taking of bitter medicines for the healing of the body, so here we must accept the cutting power of the word of reproof and the bitter medicines of rebukes for the healing of the soul. The prophetic word, reproaching those who were not instructed, says: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Or is there no physician there? Why then has the healing of the daughter of my people not come?” And to wait for healing in chronic diseases through a long time and through remedies both painful and varied is a sign that we too ought to correct the sins of the soul by laborious prayer, long repentance, and the painful regimen that the word may suggest to us as sufficient for healing.

So, because some do not use the art of medicine well, we must not shun all the benefit that comes from it. For because those who are undisciplined in pleasures use cookery to devise luxury, or baking, or weaving, going beyond the limit of necessities, it does not follow that we must refuse all the crafts together; on the contrary, by their right use we expose what has been corrupted by those people. So too with medicine, it is unreasonable to slander the grace of God because of evil use. For to have the hope of one's health in the hands of physicians is brutish, as we see some wretched people do, who do not even refuse to call them saviours; but to shun its benefits altogether is contentious. But just as Hezekiah did not consider the cake of figs the first cause of his health, nor reckon it the cause of the body's healing, but added to the glory of God thanksgiving also for the creation of figs; so we too, receiving the blows from God, who orders our life with goodness and wisdom, ask him first for knowledge of the reason for which he brings the scourges, and then for release from the pains and for endurance, that with the temptation he may also provide the way of escape, that we may be able to bear it. And when the grace of healing is given us, whether through wine and oil, as with the man who fell among robbers, or through figs, as with Hezekiah, we receive it with thanksgiving. And it will make no difference to us whether God's care for us comes unseen or through something bodily, which often leads us more effectively to awareness of the Lord's grace. Often too, having fallen into diseases for our correction, we have been sentenced to undergo painful treatment as part of the correction. Right reason, then, does not tell us to refuse cuttings, or burnings, or the pains caused by sharp and painful medicines, or fasting, or exact measures of diet, or abstinence from what is harmful; provided (I say again) that the aim of the soul's benefit is kept, the soul being trained by way of example in the care of itself.

But there is no small danger of the mind falling into distraction, as though every ailment needed the help of medicine. For not all ailments come from nature, or arise in us from a faulty diet or other bodily causes, for which we sometimes see medicine to be useful. Often ailments are also scourges for sins, applied to bring us to conversion. “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,” he says; and: “That is why many among you are weak and ill, and some have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined, so that we may not be condemned along with the world.” Such people, then, when we recognize our faults, must keep quiet, leave aside medical practices, and endure what is brought upon them, according to him who said, “I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him”; and show their amendment by bearing fruits worthy of repentance, and remember the Lord who said, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” Sometimes it happens also at the evil one's demand, when the Master, the lover of mankind, lets him down into the contest as against a great champion, and overthrows his boasting by the utmost endurance of his servants; as we have learned happened in the case of Job. Or those who can persevere in pains even to death are set forth by God as an example to the fainthearted, like Lazarus, who, though afflicted with such sores, is nowhere written to have asked anything of the rich man or to have been displeased with his lot; therefore he obtained rest in Abraham's bosom, as one who had received evil things in his life. We have found also another cause of ailments that befalls the saints, as with the Apostle. So that he might not seem to pass the limit of human nature, and that no one might think him to have something beyond the natural constitution (as the Lycaonians thought, bringing garlands and bulls), illness was constantly with him, as a demonstration of human nature. What gain, then, could come to such people from medicine? And is there not rather danger of their being distracted from right reason to the care of the body?

But those who have brought illness on themselves by a bad diet must use the treatment of the body as a pattern and model for the care of the soul, as has been said before. For abstinence from what harms, according to the principle of medicine, is beneficial to us too, as is the choice of what is useful and the keeping of the prescriptions. And the very change of the flesh from illness to good health should be a comfort to us, so that we do not despair of the soul, as though it could not return from sins to its own soundness through repentance. So we should neither shun the art altogether, nor is it fitting to place all our hopes in it. But just as we use farming but ask God for the fruits, and [entrust the helm] to the pilot [but pray God] to be brought safe out of the sea, so too, when we call in a physician, as reason permits, we do not give up our hope in God. To me the art seems also to contribute not a little to self-control. For I see that it cuts off luxuries, condemns surfeit, and rejects variety of diet and elaborate devising of seasonings as unprofitable; and in sum, it calls want the mother of health, so that in this respect too its advice is not useless to us. Whether, then, we sometimes use the prescriptions of medicine or refuse them, for any of the reasons given above, let the aim of pleasing God be kept, let the benefit of the soul be provided for, and let the command of the Apostle be fulfilled, who said: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”