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Longer Rules

St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925

23. Rule 23: Concerning the Girdle (R. 11)

The Saints that have gone before teach us that the use of the girdle is necessary—John, for example, who girded his loins with a leathern girdle, and Elijah before him. For the Scripture speaks of him as “a hairy man with a leathern girdle round his loins,”² as if it were his distinguishing mark. Peter too is shown to have used a girdle, as is clear from the words of the angel who spoke to him: “Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals.”³ The blessed Paul also is shown to have used a girdle, by the prophecy of Agabus addressed to him. “So shall they bind at Jerusalem” he says “the man that owneth this girdle.”⁴ Job too is ordered by the Lord to gird himself. For as a token of manliness and preparedness for action, “Gird thy loins” it says “like a man.”⁵ And it is clear that the use of the girdle was familiar to all the disciples of the Lord, since they were forbidden to have money in their girdles.⁶ It is especially necessary that he who means to do work in person should be neatly dressed and able to move without hindrance. Consequently he needs a girdle by which to draw his tunic to his body. Being folded round it will both keep him warmer and make him free to move. For even the Lord when He was preparing to minister to the disciples took a towel and girded Himself.⁷

Concerning the multitude of garments we need not speak, since we have examined this matter sufficiently in our discourse on poverty.⁸ For if he that has two tunics is ordered to give one to him that has none, clearly to possess a number for one’s own sake is forbidden. What need then to legislate about the use of them for men who are forbidden to possess two?

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