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Shorter Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
Rule 262: Whereas Scripture Puts Poverty and Need in the Category of Things Praised, as…
Remembering the apostle’s words about the Lord: ‘“Though was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor,”6 I reckon that he who has come from riches to want is poor,” but he who was in want to begin with and has managed such adversity in a way well pleasing to the Lord is needy.7 But David confesses he is poor and needy, perhaps saying this in the person of the Lord, Who is called poor according to the saying: “Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor”8; and He is needy in that His title according to the flesh was son, not of a rich man, but of a carpenter. Perhaps also it was because like Job He knew how not to guard His own possessions as a treasure nor to heed wealth a private possession, but to manage all things according to the will of the Lord.
Notes
- Ps. x. 17.
- Ps. lxxiv. 21.
- Ps. xl. 17. Bas.” order of words agrees with NRT against Sw.’s (B) text.
- 2 Cor. viii. 9 ἡμᾶς for Suds. 7 πτωχός.
- πένης. (πτωχός
- = a beggar, therefore a lower degree of poverty than πένης = a poor labouring man.)
- 2 Cor. viii. 9 ἡμᾶς for ὑμᾶς
- Tk. xiv. 33,