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Shorter Rules

St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925

Rule 46: If a Man Suffers Another to Commit Sin, is He Guilty of that Sin? (R. 121)

His condemnation is clear from the words of the Lord to Pilate: “He that delivered me to thee hath greater sin.”¹ For it is clear from this that Pilate, by suffering those who delivered Him, had sin, though in a lesser degree. It is also proved by Adam who suffered Eve, and Eve who suffered the serpent. For none of these was allowed to go unpunished as innocent. And God’s actual indignation against them when carefully considered shows this. For when Adam as an excuse said: The woman whom thou gavest to be with me she gave to me and I did eat,” God answers: “Because thou didst hearken to the voice of thy wife, and didst eat of the tree, concerning which I commanded thee, of it alone not to eat, cursed is the ground in thy works”’² and so on.

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