NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

Ascetic.(iv) The Regulæ fusius tractatæ (ὅροι κατὰ πλάτος), 55 in number, and the Regulæbrevius tractatæ (ὅροι κατ᾽ ἐπιτομήν), in number 313, are a series of precepts for the guidanceof religious life put in the form of question and answer. The former are invariably supportedby scriptural authority.Their genuineness is confirmed by strong external evidence. 545 Gregory of Nazianzus(Or. xliii. § 34) speaks of Basil’s composing rules for monastic life, and in Ep. vi. intimatesthat he helped his friend in their composition. 546 Rufinus (H.E. ii. 9) mentions Basil’s InstitutaMonachorum. St. Jerome (De Vir. illust. cxvi.) says that Basil wrote τὸ ἅσκητικόν, andPhotius (Cod. 191) describes the Ασχετιχυμ as including the Regulæ. Sozomen (H.E. iii. 14)remarks that the Regulæ were sometimes attributed to Eustathius of Sebaste, but speaks ofthem as generally recognised as St. Basil’s.The monk who relinquishes his status after solemn profession and adoption is to beregarded as guilty of sacrilege, and the faithful are warned against all intercourse with him,with a reference to 2 Thess. iii. 14. 547545 Combefis, however, refused to accept them.546 In this series, p. 448.547 With this may be compared the uncompromising denunciation in Letter cclxxxviii., and what is said inthe first of the three Tractatus Prævii. It has been represented that St. Basil introduced the practice of irrevocablevows. cf. Dr. Travers Smith, St. Basil, p. 223. De Broglie, L’Eglise et l’empire, v. 180: “Avant lui, c’était, aux yeuxde beaucoup de ceux même qui s’y destinaient, une vocation libre, affaire de goût et de zèle, pouvant être dilaisséeà volonté, comme elle avait été embrassée par chois. Le sceau de la perpetiuté obligatoire, ce fut Basile qui l’imprima;c’est à lui réellement que remonte, comme règlé commune, et comme habitude générale, l’institution des vœuxperpétuels. Helyot, Hist. des ordres monastiques, i. § 3, Bultean, Hist. des moines d’orient, p. 402, Montalembert,Hist. des moines d’occident, i. 105, s’accordent à reconnaitre que l’usage général des vœux perpétuels remonte àSt. Basil.” To St. Basil’s posthumous influence the system may be due. But it seems questionable whether St.Basil’s Rule included formal vows of perpetual obligation in the more modern sense. I am not quite sure thatthe passages cited fully bear this out. Is the earnest exhortation not to quit the holier life consistent with abinding pledge? Would not a more distinctly authoritative tone be adopted? cf. Letters xlv. and xlvi. It is plainthat a reminder was needed, and that the plea was possible that the profession had not the binding force ofmatrimony. The line taken is rather that a monk or nun ought to remain in his or her profession, and that it isa grievous sin to abandon it, than that there is an irrevocable contract. So in the Sermo asceticus (it is not universallyaccepted), printed by Garnier between the Moralia and the Regulæ, it is said: “Before the profession ofthe religious life, any one is at liberty to get the good of this life, in accordance with law and custom, and to givehimself to the yoke of wedlock. But when he has been enlisted, of his own consent, it is fitting (προσήκει) thathe keep himself for God, as one of the sacred offerings, so that he may not risk incurring the damnation of sacrilege,by defiling in the service of this world the body consecrated by promise to God.” This προσήκει is repeatedin the Regulæ. Basil’s monk, says Fialon (Et. Hist., p. 49) was irrevocably bound by the laws of the Church, bypublic opinion, and, still more, by his conscience. It is to the last that the founder of the organisation seems to90