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

Ascetic.of Paul and Silas, 558 and the injunction of the Psalmist. 559 Before dawn we should rise andpray again, as it is written, “Mine eyes prevent the night watches.” 560 Here the canonicalhours are marked, but no details are given as to the forms of prayer.XL. deals with the abuse of holy places and solemn assemblies. Christians ought not toappear in places sacred to martyrs or in their neighbourhood for any other reason than topray and commemorate the sacred dead. Anything like a worldly festival or common-martat such times is like the sacrilege of the money changers in the Temple precincts. 561LI. gives directions for monastic discipline. “Let the superintendent exert disciplineafter the manner of a physician treating his patients. He is not angry with the sick, but fightswith the disease, and sets himself to combat their bad symptoms. If need be, he must healthe sickness of the soul by severer treatment; for example, love of vain glory by the impositionof lowly tasks; foolish talking, by silence; immoderate sleep, by watching and prayer; idleness,by toil; gluttony, by fasting; murmuring, by seclusion, so that no brothers may work withthe offender, nor admit him to participation in their works, till by his penitence that needethnot to be ashamed he appear to be rid of his complaint.”LV. expounds at some length the doctrine of original sin, to which disease and deathare traced.The 313 Regulæ brevius tractatæ are, like the Regulæ fusius tractatæ, in the form ofquestions and answers. Fessler singles out as a striking specimen XXXIV.Q. “How is any one to avoid the sin of man-pleasing, and looking to the praises ofmen?”A. “There must be a full conviction of the presence of God, an earnest intention toplease Him, and a burning desire for the blessings promised by the Lord. No one beforehis Master’s very eyes is excited into dishonouring his Master and bringing condemnationon himself, to please a fellow servant.”XLVII. points out that it is a grave error to be silent when a brother sins.XLIX. tells us that vain gloriousness (τὸ περπερεύεσθαι. Cf. 1 Cor. xiii. 4) consists intaking things not for use, but for ostentation; and L. illustrates this principle in the case ofdress.liv558 Acts xvi. 25.559 Ps. cxix. 62.560 Ps. cxix. 148.561 cf. Letterclxix. and notes on this case in the Prolegomena. It is curious to notice in the Oriental church asurvival of something akin to the irreverence deprecated by St. Basil. A modern traveller in Russia has told methat on visiting a great cemetery on the day which the Greek church observes, like November 2 in the Latin, inmemory of the dead, he found a vast and cheerful picnic going on.93