Ἅγιος ὁ Θεός, Ἅγιος ἰσχυρός, Ἅγιος ἀθάνατος, ἐλέησον ἡμᾶςKatholikon

Library › St Basil the Great › Shorter Rules

Shorter Rules

St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925

Rule 252: What is the Daily Bread Which We are Taught to Pray May Be Given Us Each Day?…

When a man in his work, remembering the Lord’s words: “‘Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink,” and the apostle1 s injunction that we are to work that we may have to give to him that is in need,2 works not for his own need but for the sake of the Lord’s commandment (for the labourer is worthy of his food3) then he does not claim daily bread, that is, the bread that is useful for our existence to sustain our daily life, as his right, but prays to God for it. Then, having shown God the extremity of his need, he eats what is given him by the man who has been charged, after testing, with the task of carrying out the words: “Distribution was made unto each, according as any man had need.”

Notes

  1. Mt. vi. 25.
  2. See Eph. iv. 28.
  3. Mt. x. 10 omit ἐστιν.

· Contents ·