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Shorter Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
Rule 128: If a Man Wishes to Practise Abstinence Beyond His Strength So that He is…
The question does not seem to me to be rightly framed. For c abstinence consists not in refraining from material foods, whereby the severity to the body condemned by the apostle results, but in complete giving up of one’s own will. But how great is the danger of falling from the Lord’s commandment owing to one’s own will is clear from the apostle’s words: “Doing the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and we were by nature children of wrath.”1
Notes
- Eph. ii. 3 ἦμεν for ἥμεθα K.