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Shorter Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
Rule 80: Whence Does It Happen that Good Thoughts and Cares Well-pleasing to God Fail the…
Since David says: “My soul slumbered from heaviness ’1 it is clear that such a state of things arises from slumbering and insensibility on the part of the soul. For a soul that is watchful and sober has no failure of cares pleasing to God or good thoughts, rather it sees itself failing them. For if the eye of the body is insufficient to see but a few of God’s works and having once gazed on them is never sated but always gazing at the same sight yet never ceases from looking,2 how much more is the eye of the soul when awake and sober inadequate to behold the marvels and judgments of God? “For thy judgments” it says “are a great deep3; and elsewhere: Thy knowledge is made marvellous by me: it was stablished, I cannot attain unto it”’4; and many like things. E But if good thoughts fail the soul, then clearly illumination still fails it. Not from any failure of that which illuminates but from the slumber of that which should be illuminated.
Notes
- Ps. cxix. 28.
- Cf. Hexaemeron, passim.
- Ps. xxxvi. 6 τὰ κρίματά σου ἄβυσσος πολλή with ℵAR, Sw.’s (B) text adds ὡσεί after σου.
- Ps. cxxxix. 6.