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Longer Rules

St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925

Rule 37: Whether We Must Neglect Work for the Sake of the E Prayers and Psalmody, and…

Since our Lord Jesus Christ says: “Worthy of his food is” (not just any or every one but) “the labourer,”² and the apostle commands us to labour and work with our hands that which is good that we may have to give to him that is in need,³ it is self-evident that one should work diligently. For we must not treat the ideal of piety as an excuse for idleness or a means of escaping toil, but as an opportunity for contending, for more abundant toils, and for patience in tribulations, in order that we may be able to say: “In labour and travail, in watchings more abundantly, in hunger and thirst.”⁴ For such a mode of life is useful to us not only because of the body-buffeting it entails, but because of love to our neighbour, in order that God by our means may bring sufficiency to the weak among the brethren, after the example given us in the Acts by the apostle when he says: “In all things I gave you an example, how that so labouring ye ought to help the weak.”⁵ And again: “That ye may have to give to him that is in need”⁶ —that we may be counted worthy to hear the words: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was an hungred, and ye gave me to eat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me to drink.”⁷

How great an evil is that of idleness, what need is there to tell, since the apostle plainly commands that he who does not work neither shall he eat⁸? As then daily food is necessary to each man, equally necessary is work according to his power. For not in vain did Solomon write by way of praise: “She ate not the bread of idleness.”⁹ And again the apostle says of himself: “Neither did we eat bread for nought at any man’s hands, but in labour, and travail, working night and day,”¹⁰ although he had power, since he was proclaiming the Gospel, to live of the Gospel. Moreover, the Lord coupled slothfulness with wickedness, saying: “Thou wicked and slothful servant.”¹¹ And the wise Solomon not only praises the worker in the words just recorded, but also rebukes the slothful man by comparing him with the smallest creatures, saying: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard.”¹² And so we should fear lest this be brought up against us in the day of judgment when He that gave us power to work demands of us work commensurate with the power. For He says: “To whom they committed much, of him they will ask the more.”¹³ Now since some get off work under pretext of prayers and psalmody, you must know that for each separate task there is a special time, as Ecclesiastes says: “There is a time for everything.”¹⁴ But for prayer and psalmody, as for many other things, every time is suitable; so that we praise God with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs while we move our hands in work with the tongue if it is possible, and conducive to the edification of the faith,—but if not, then in the heart, giving thanks to Him Who gave both strength of hand to work and wisdom of brain to know how to work, and also bestowed means by which to work both in the tools we use and the arts we practise, whatever the work be. We pray moreover that the works of our hands may be directed towards the mark of pleasing God.

Thus then we secure stedfastness in our soul, by asking God to prosper our work in every undertaking, rendering thanksgiving to Him Who gave the power to work, and observing the aim of pleasing Him, as we said before. For, unless these are our methods, how can we make what was said by the apostle consistent: “Pray without ceasing” and “working night and day”¹⁵? However, we must not imagine that because giving of thanks at every season has been commanded by the law and has been shown to be necessary to our life both by nature and reason, the formal times of prayer should be neglected in the brotherhoods, times which we have necessarily chosen because each has its own special memorial of blessings received from God. These are the times:

To begin with, dawn, so that the first movements of the soul and mind may be dedicated to God and nothing taken into consideration before we are gladdened by thoughts of God, as it is written: “I remembered God and was gladdened”¹⁶; and so that we do not stir the body to work before doing what is said: “Unto thee will I pray, O Lord. In the morning thou shalt hear my voice: in the morning I shall stand before thee, and I shall see thee.”¹⁷

Again at the third hour¹⁸ we must rise to prayer and collect the brotherhood, should they happen to be scattered to their various occupations and, remembering the gift of the Spirit given to the apostles at the third hour, we must worship all together that we too may become worthy to receive sanctification, at the same time asking that He may guide us and teach us what is expedient, after the fashion of him that said: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and stablish me with thy guiding spirit.”¹⁹ And elsewhere: “Thy good spirit shall lead me into a straight land.”²⁰ And then we resume our work again.

Should some find themselves at a distance owing to the nature of the work or the locality, they must of necessity observe the common ordinances²¹ there without any hesitation, “for where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”²² In the sixth hour we conclude prayer is necessary after the pattern of the Saints who said: “Evening and morning and noonday will I speak and declare and he shall hear my voice”²³ and, that we may be delivered from mishap and the noonday demon, at the same time the ninetieth psalm²⁴ is also said.²⁵

The ninth hour is handed down to us as necessary for prayer by the apostles themselves in the Acts, which tell how Peter and John went up into the temple at the ninth hour of prayer.²⁶

When the day is finished²⁷ let us give thanks for what has been given us during the day and for what we have done rightly, and let us confess what we have left undone, every sin whether voluntary or involuntary, or perhaps unknown to us, either in word or deed or in the heart itself, beseeching God’s mercy for all in our prayers. For to review the past day is a great safeguard against falling into the like again. Wherefore it says: “What ye say in your hearts, feel compunction for upon your beds.”²⁸

Again at the beginning of the night²⁹ we ask that our rest may be offenceless and free from phantasies, and we recite again of necessity the ninetieth psalm.

And midnight Paul and Silas have handed down to us as a necessary time for prayer,³⁰ so the story of the Acts proclaims: “But about midnight Paul and Silas were singing hymns to God.”³¹ And the Psalmist too, saying: “At midnight I rose to give thanks to thee because of the judgments of thy righteousness.”³²

And again we must rise for prayer³³ preventing the dawn so that we are not caught by the day sleeping in bed, according to him who said: “Mine eyes prevented the dawn, that I might meditate on thy words.”³⁴

None of these times must be neglected by those who have chosen to live watchfully to the glory of God and His Christ. But I think it advantageous to have diversity and variety in the prayers and psalms at the fixed hours, because when there is monotony, the soul often gets weary and is a prey to distraction; but when the psalms and readings of each hour change, and are variable, the desire of the soul is renewed, and attention is restored.³⁵

Notes

This answer is of great importance in the history of the Divine Office. See Morison St. Basil and his Rule p. 58 f. for an excellent discussion of the problems.
Mt. x. 10.
Eph. iv. 28 ¶.
2 Cor. xi. 27 περισσοτέρως for πολλάκις**.
Acts xx. 35.
Eph. iv. 28 ἔχητε for ἔχῃ**.
Mt. xxv. 34, 35.
See 2 Thess. iii. 10.
Prov. xxxi. 27.
2 Thess. iii. 8.
Mt. xxv. 36 †.
Prov. vi. 6 Bas. ἴθι with B*ℵA¹, Sw.’s (B) text ἴσθι.
Lk. xii. 48 ἀπαιτήσουσιν for αἰτήσουσιν.
Eccl. iii. 1 καιρὸς τῷ παντὶ πράγματι with B^abℵAC (Sw. B omit τῷ).
1 Thess. v. 17 †, 2 Thess. iii. 8 †.
Ps. xxvii. 3 ηὐφράνθην with T, Sw.’s (B) text εὐφράνθην.
Ps. v. 2, 3. This is clearly Prime, unless B. with great carelessness mentions the early morning office twice, at the beginning and end of the list, which is unlikely. Cassian Inst. iii. 4 is therefore mistaken in saying that Prime was first introduced in his time at the monastery of Bethlehem, to prevent the monks from sleeping too long after the night office. Cf. B. 43, 44; and Ep. ii. 2 “What state can be more blessed than to imitate on earth the choruses of angels? to begin the day with prayer, and honour our Maker with hymns and songs?”
Terce. The reference to the gift of the Holy Spirit would be specially congenial to B., who wrote On the Holy Spirit, but it was usual to support prayer at the third hour thus; cf. Cypr. De Orat. Dom. 34; Cass. Inst. iii. 3. Can. Hipp. 27 bases it on the Crucifixion.
Ps. li. 10–12.
Ps. cxliii. 10 τὸ ἀγαθόν with ℵ^ca RT, Sw.’s (B) text τὸ ἅγιον, ἐν γῇ εὐθείᾳ with ART, Sw.’s (B) text ἐν τῇ εὐθείᾳ.
Cf. F. 39, B. 154. The offices were by origin private prayers, so that absence from the rest of the brotherhood could not affect the obligation to recite them. Cf. Duchesne, Christian Worship, p. 448.
Mt. xviii. 20 ὅπου for οὗ, ἂν ὦσιν for εἰσίν**.
Ps. lv. 17.
Ps. xci., as at Compline, see below.
Cass. Inst. iii. 3 has the expected reference to the Crucifixion as the justification for Sext.
None is not connected with the death of Christ as in Serm. Asc., 322A, where of Terce, Sext and None four offices are made.
Vespers is meant. The references to confession suggest a liturgical formula. Cf. De Spir. Sanc. 73: “It seemed fitting to our fathers not to receive the gift of eventide in silence, but on its appearance immediately to give thanks. Who was the author of these words of thanksgiving at the lighting of the lamps, we are not able to say. The people, however, utter the ancient form, and no one has ever reckoned guilty of impiety those who say ‘We praise Father, Son, and God’s Holy Spirit’” (the conclusion of the first stanza of Φῶς ἱλαρόν). B.’s sister Macrina repeated the hymn on her death-bed (Greg. Nyss. Vit. Macr. 9868).
Ps. iv. 4. B. agrees with B^abℵAR against Sw.’s (B) text.
Compline is unmistakable. Cf. the Latin Compline hymn: “Procul recedant somnia Et noctium phantasmata Hostemque nostrum comprime Ne polluantur corpora.” Ben. Reg. xviii orders the 90th (91st) psalm for Compline. Duchesne (Christian Worship, p. 449) says that Compline “has not any earlier attestation than the rule of St. Benedict.” He does not mention this passage. Compline in a Benedictine monastery in winter time was as early as 6 p.m., Vespers 4.30, see Butler, Benedictine Monachism, p. 281.
Nocturns (or Mattins). Cf. Ep. ii. 6: “What dawn is to some, midnight is to athletes of piety”; and Ep. ccvii. 3, describing psalm-singing at all-night vigils out of which the night offices would naturally grow. Cf. also Hom. in Ps. cxiv.
Acts xvi. 25 omit προσευχόμενοι**.
Ps. cxix. 62.
Lauds here is a distinct office intended to break the sleep between midnight and dawn. For B.’s vigils and broken sleep see Epp. ii, ccvii; Greg. Naz. Or. xliii. 61; Greg. Nyss. In laud. Bas.
Ps. cxix. 148 πρὸς ὄρθρον with ℵ^ca AT, Sw.’s (ℵ) text πρός σε ὀρθροῦν.
A careful reading of the foregoing answer makes it clear that to B. belongs the main credit of the Divine Office. The desirability of variation is put forward as if it is his own idea.