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Shorter Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
Rule 179: How Can a Man Without Love Get So Great Faith as to Remove Mountains, or Give…
If we remember the Lord’s words: “They act to be seen of men,”1 and His answer to those that said: “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out devils, and by thy name do many mighty works?”’2—namely, “I know you not, whence ye are”3 —not because they lied, but because they used the grace of God for their own desires, which is foreign to the love of God, we can easily understand what was said. But there is nothing surprising in an unworthy recipient of the grace or gift of God. For God in the season of His kindness and longsuffering makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good. And this often happens for the benefit of him who receives the gift, on the chance that he may be put to shame by the kindness of God and be led to care about pleasing Him; or for the benefit of others, according to the apostle’s words: ‘Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife, and some also of good will.” To which he adds presently: Only that in every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and therein I rejoice.”4
Notes
- Mt. xxiii. 5 ¶.
- Mt. vii. 22.
- Lk. xiii. 27 add ὑμᾶς K.
- Phil. i. 15; 18.