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Shorter Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
Rule 184: How Can a Man Both in Exhorting and Rebuking Not Only Take Care to Speak Wisely…
If a man remembers the apostle’s words: “Let a man so account of us, as of ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God,”1 he will not exercise his knowledge as his private possession in a spirit of authority, but will fulfil it with fear and trembling towards God as an act of service to God and of care for souls bought by the blood of Christ, in the spirit of him that said: ‘So we speak, not as pleasing men, but God which proveth the hearts ’2; and with affection and pity towards his hearers, doing what is said: “As when a nurse cherisheth her own children, even so, being affectionately desirous of you, we were well pleased to impart unto you not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls.”3
Notes
- 1 Cor. iv. 1. The “stewards” are not necessarily priests. Cf. B. 288 and Intr. p. 41. Note πῶς δύναταί τις of the question.
- 1 Thess. ii. 4.
- 1 Thess. ii. 7 ἐάν for ἄν; ἱμειρόμενοι for ὁμειρόμενοι.