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Shorter Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
Rule 102: Should a Man Who Means to Leave the Brotherhood, for Whatever Cause, Be…
The Lord said: “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,”1 and again: ‘They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick”2; and elsewhere: “Which of you having a hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and go and seek that which is gone astray, until he find it? ’3 So we must in every way cure the sick man and strive to set the dislocated limb, so to speak. But if a man persist in his wickedness, whatever it be, then let him go, regarding him as a stranger. For it is written: “Every plant which my heavenly Father planted not shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they are blind guides.”4
Notes
- Jn. vi. 37.
- Mt. ix. 12. Quoted also in Ben. Reg. xxvii.
- Mt. xviii. 12 conflated with Lk. xv. 4 **.
- Mt. xv. 13; 14.