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

To Amphilochius, concerning the Canons.man to perjure himself in the matter of his transfer, and last of all lies in pretended forgetfulness.I am no judge of hearts; I only judge by what I hear; let us leave vengeance to theLord, and ourselves pardon the common human error of forgetfulness, and receive the manwithout question.XI. The man who is guilty of unintentional homicide has given sufficient satisfactionin eleven years. We shall, without doubt, observe what is laid down by Moses in the caseof wounded men, and shall not hold a murder to have been committed in the case of a manwho lies down after he has been struck, and walks again leaning on his staff. 2644 If, however,he does not rise again after he has been struck, nevertheless, from there being no intent tokill, the striker is a homicide, but an unintentional homicide.XII. The canon absolutely excludes digamists from the ministry. 2645XIII. Homicide in war is not reckoned by our Fathers as homicide; I presume fromtheir wish to make concession to men fighting on behalf of chastity and true religion. Perhaps,however, it is well to counsel that those whose hands are not clean only abstain fromcommunion for three years. 2646XIV. A taker of usury, if he consent to spend his unjust gain on the poor, and to be ridfor the future of the plague of covetousness, may be received into the ministry. 26472282644 Exod. xxi. 19.2645 Ap. Can. xiii. 14: “It is clear from the Philosophumena of Hippolytus (ix. 12) that by the beginning ofthe 3d century the rule of monogamy for the clergy was well established, since he complains that in the days ofCallistus ‘digamist and trigamist bishops, and priests and deacons, began to be admitted into the clergy.’ Tertullianrecognises the rule as to the clergy. Thus in his De Exhortatione Castitatis (c. 7) he asks scornfully; ‘Being a digamist,dost thou baptize? Dost thou make the offering?’” Dict. C. A. i. 552. Vide also Canon Bright, Notes onthe Canons of the first four General Councils. On Can. Nic. viii. p. 27.2646 The Ben. note quotes Balsamon, Zonaras, and Alexius Aristenus as remarking on this that Basil givesadvice, not direction, and regards the hands, not the hearts, of soldiers as defiled; and as recalling that this canonwas quoted in opposition to the Emperor Phocas when he wished to reckon soldiers as martyrs. The canon waslittle regarded, as being contrary to general Christian sentiment. cf. Athan. Ep. xlviii. p. 557 of this edition: “Inwar it is lawful and praiseworthy to destroy the enemy; accordingly not only are they who have distinguishedthemselves in the field held worthy of great honours, but monuments are put up proclaiming their achievements.”2647 cf. Can. Nic. xvii. Canon Bright (On the Canons, etc., p. 56) remarks: “It must be remembered that interest,called τόκος and fenus, as the product of the principal, was associated in the early stages of society,—inGreece and Rome as well as in Palestine,—with the notion of undue profit extorted by a rich lender from theneedy borrower (see Grote, Hist. Gr. ii. 311 H.; Arnold, Hist. Rome i. 282; Mommsen, Hist. R. i. 291). HenceTacitus says, ‘sane vetus urbi fenebre malcum, et seditionum discordiarumque creberrima causa’ (Ann. vi. 16),and Gibbon calls usury ‘the inveterate grievance of the city, abolished by the clamours of the people, revived bytheir wants and idleness.’” (v. 314.)658