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Preliminary Sketch of the Ascetic Life

St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925

Chapter 1

A KING’s edicts addressed to his subjects are solemn enough, but greater and more kingly are his orders to soldiers. So let him who covets the great and high² prize, who desires to stand continually at Christ’s side, who hears those great words: “If any man serve me, let him follow me. And where I am, there also let my servant be”³—let him attend just as if military orders were being proclaimed.

Where is Christ the King? In heaven, to be sure. Thither, soldier,⁴ it befits thee to direct thy course. Forget all earthly rest. No soldier builds a house, or burdens himself with the acquisition of lands, or mixes himself up with the various moneymaking activities of commerce. “No soldier on service entangles himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who enrolled him as a soldier.”⁵ A soldier has rations from the king; he need not get rations for himself, nor concern himself on this score. Everywhere the houses of subjects are open to him, by the king’s command. He need not trouble about a house. His tent is pitched in the streets, bare necessities are his food,⁶ water is his drink, and his sleep is what nature gives and no more. Many are his journeys and vigils; he contends against heat, against cold. He fights the foe and faces extreme dangers and often, it may be, death. But a glorious death and honours and royal gifts are his lot. His life is laborious in war, splendid in peace. The prize of valour, and the crown awarded to one whose life is a successful record of good actions, is to be entrusted with rule, to be called The King’s Friend,⁷ to stand near the king, to take his right hand, to enjoy honours conferred by the king, to be foremost among his subjects, to plead on behalf of his friends outside, for whatever they desire.

Come, then, soldier of Christ, take to heart these small lessons from human affairs and consider eternal blessings. Set before thyself a life without house, city, or possessions. Be free, released from all worldly cares. Let not love of woman enchain thee, nor solicitude for child. For in the divine warfare this cannot be.⁸ For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God.”⁹

Bodily nature does not conquer thee nor throttle thee against thy will, making thee a prisoner instead of a free man. Seek not to leave children on earth, but to lead them up to heaven; not to be joined in bodily wedlock, but to desire spiritual marriage,¹⁰ to rule over souls and beget spiritual children. Imitate the heavenly Bridegroom. Repel the attacks of invisible foes; fight against principalities and powers¹¹; driving them out first from thine own soul that they may have no lot in thee, then from those that flee to thee and put thee forward as leader and champion and are protected by thy words.

Cast down the imaginations that rise up against the faith of C Christ. Fight by the word of piety against impious and wicked imaginations. For it says: ‘Casting down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God.”¹² And especially feel confidence in the hand of the great King, which affrights and routs adversaries by its mere appearance. But since He wishes thee to become good through dangers and has desired His army to contend with the opposing army, therefore thou must shrink from no toil in equipping thyself, and thy soul must be daunted by no danger, and gladly must thou move from one land to another, one sea to another. “For,” it says, “when they persecute you, flee from one city to another.”¹³ And when thou must needs be summoned to judgment and stand before rulers, and bear the assaults of the populace, and see the dread face of the executioner, and hear his harsh voice, and endure the irksome sight of his instruments, and make trial of tortures, and contend unto death—¹⁴ in the face of all this lose not thy faith, but have before thine eyes Christ Who endured all these things on thy behalf, knowing that thou must endure them because of Christ, and thou shalt conquer in them. For thou followest a victorious King, Who wishes thee to become a partner in His victory. For not even if thou diest hast thou been defeated, but then indeed hast thou conquered most perfectly, having kept the truth for thyself stedfast to the end, and retained unshaken thy confident belief in the truth.

Moreover, from death thou shalt pass to life eternal, from dishonour among men to glory with God, and from tribulations and punishments in the world to eternal rest with the angels. Earth rejected thee as its citizen, but heaven shall receive thee. The world persecuted, but angels shall carry thee to present thee to Christ. And thou shalt be called friend¹⁵ and shalt hear the longed-for words of praise:¹⁶ Well done, good and faithful servant, noble soldier and imitator of the Master, follower of the King, I will reward thee with My gifts, I will hearken to thy words, since thou hast hearkened to Mine.” Thou shalt ask for the salvation of oppressed brethren and shalt receive from the King for thy comrades in the faith and the initiates of holy love a share in thy blessings. Thou shalt play thy part in the chorus of eternity and wear a crown among the angels, reigning over creation under the King and living to eternity in blessed wise in the chorus of bliss.¹⁷

But if He wishes to leave thee in the world yet a while after thy struggles, that thou mayest engage in more and divers struggles yet and save many from contests, visible and invisible, great shall be thy glory even upon earth, and thou shalt be precious among thy friends, who have found thee a champion and helper and good ambassador. They shall provide for thee as a good soldier. They shall honour thee as a noble hero. They shall greet thee and with joy receiving thee welcome thee as an angel of God—as Paul says, as Christ Jesus.¹⁸ These and such as these are the modes of the divine warfare.

But not of men alone is our story told. Women too join the campaign at Christ’s side, being enrolled for the campaign owing to the manliness of their souls and not rejected for the weakness of the body. Many women have succeeded in no way less than men. Some have won even greater fame. Among their number are those who fill the virgins’ chorus, those who shine resplendent in the contests of confessorship and the victories of martyrs. The Lord Himself, when He came, was followed not by men only, but by women too, and both sexes ministered to the Saviour.

Since such glorious rewards are in store for those who serve in Christ’s army, let both the fathers of sons desire such service and the mothers of daughters. Let them bring their offspring, rejoicing in the eternal hopes, desiring to have champions with Christ and good ambassadors. And let us not be anxious about the children, or afraid if they have to toil, but let us rejoice that they will be glorified. Let us present to the Lord what He has given us, that we may become partakers of the fair fame of our children, bringing and presenting ourselves along with them.¹⁹ To those who show such alacrity and contend thus, well might a man say in the words of the psalmist: ‘Blessed are ye of the Lord, Which made heaven and earth²⁰’; and like Moses he will pray for them: ‘Bless, O Lord, their works, break down the high looks of those who contend against them.”²¹ Quit you like men of noble birth, run nobly the race for the eternal crowns, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to Whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Notes

Ἀσκητικὴ Προδιατύπωσις (Praevia Institutio Ascetica). See Intr. p. 9, for a discussion of authorship.
ἄνω, cf. Phil. iii. 14.
Jn. xii. 26 &v Tic ἐμοὶ διακονῇ (change of order); omit ὁ before διάκονος**; ἔστω for ἔσται. This means that the text of the N.T. here translated differs from Souter’s (the Revisers’) text in the ways indicated. It is further collated with von Soden’s apparatus. The change of order, as compared with Souter, having no accompanying sign, is denoted as a variant of some significance, not characteristically “K.” The second variant, marked by **, does not appear in von Soden’s apparatus. The third, marked by *, is one of von Soden’s third class of unimportant readings. See Intr. p. 25.
The conception of the Christian soldier goes back to the N.T. See Eph. vi. 10 f., 1 Tim. i. 18, 2 Tim. ii. 3, and for later writers esp. Tert. ad Mart. 3. It is too common in all ages to need explanation. Cf. Plato, Apol. 28k, Epict. iii. 24, 31, and for soldiers of Mithras, Tert. de Cor. 15. As conditions of life in the world became easier for Christians it was natural to look upon monks as the true soldiers of Christ. For instance, they like soldiers had to leave the company of women; see Sulp. Sev. Dial. ii. 11. Cf. Bas. Hom. in Ieiun. (2nd), Ep. cvi. In B. 127 the dominant thought of this treatise recurs.
2 Tim. ii. 4.
Cf. Hom. in Ieiun. 12a: “Soldiers are provided with necessaries not with luxuries.”
A Court title under Oriental monarchies: cf. 1 Macc. ii. 18. Abraham was a “friend of God” (James ii. 23). For the monks as friends of God, therein being successors of the prophets and martyrs, see Holl, Enthusiasmus und Bussgewalt, and Intr. p. 51. The phrase in its technical sense occurs in B. 312.
The intercession of saints is presupposed. See below.
2 Cor. x. 4.
B. seems to have introduced the principle of permanent vows, to break which is tantamount to adultery. See Ep. ccxvii, Can. 60, where the spiritual marriage of the nun is implied, then that of the monk, and Clarke, p. 107.
Cf. Eph. vi. 12.
2 Cor. x. 5.
Mt. x. 23 ὅταν γὰρ διώκωσιν ὑμᾶς, φεύγετε ἀπὸ πόλεως εἰς πόλιν**, conflated with xxiii. 34.
This description, inapplicable to B.’s own day, is still in place at a time when tales of the last persecution were still being told. Cf. B.’s homilies on the martyrs.
Cf. Jn. xv. 15, James ii. 23.
Mt. xxv. 21.
… but the writer clearly expects faithful members of his community to become at death “saints” whose intercession would be potent. See Hom. in XL Mart. (passage beginning “he that is in distress flees to the forty ’) and Hom. in Mam., ad init. The monks have succeeded to the place of the martyrs. For the power of their prayers when alive, see Ep. cclxxxiv.
Gal. iv. 14 q (see p. 26 for this symbol). Cf. Palladius, Hist. Lous. pref. I, ix. 1.
See F. 15 for the admission of children to B.’s monasteries.
Ps. cxv. 15. B. omits ἐστέ with Sw.’s (XR) text. See Intr. p. 20f., for method of dealing with O.T. quotations.
Deut. xxxiii. 11. B.’s text is apparently very free reminiscence. eOAbyer (v.l. eddéymoov) Kipie ta ἔργα αὐτῶν, κάταξον ὀφρῦν (ν.]. ὀσφὺν) ἀνθεστηκότων αὐτοῖς.