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Course 3 · Lesson 1.3

Basil of Caesarea and his Rules

10 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 3 outline

Module 1: The Idea of a Rule

  1. What a rule of life is, and what it is for
  2. Pachomius and the first written rule
  3. Basil of Caesarea and his Rules
  4. Benedict: the Rule as a school of the Lord’s service
  5. Adapting a monastic rule for ordinary life

Module 2: The Hours and the Psalms

  1. Origins of fixed-hour prayer in Jewish and early Christian practice
  2. The Divine Office in the West and the hours in the East
  3. How to pray the Psalms: lament, praise, trust, wisdom and imprecation
  4. Building a simple office for one person

Module 3: Scripture and the Prayer of the Heart

  1. Lectio divina: reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation
  2. Meditative reading compared with study and with Ignatian imaginative prayer
  3. The Jesus Prayer: its words, its history and its Eastern setting
  4. Practicing the prayer of the heart, with its cautions

Module 4: Fasting, Giving, Rest and the Year

  1. Fasting in Scripture and tradition, and its safe limits
  2. Almsgiving and care for the poor
  3. Sabbath rest and the Lord’s Day: how traditions differ
  4. The church year: Advent to Pentecost and the ordinary weeks

Module 5: Conscience, Confession and Worship Alone

  1. Examination of conscience: methods old and new
  2. Confession in the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions
  3. Repentance, confession to God and to a trusted person when no minister is available
  4. What worship alone can include: prayer, Scripture, song, the hours
  5. What the traditions say requires a church or ordained minister

Module 6: Seasons and Ordinary Duties

  1. Silence as a discipline and its dangers
  2. Planning a day, a weekend and a longer retreat
  3. Work as part of the rule: ora et labora
  4. Hospitality, family and neighbor

Module 7: Dryness, Perseverance and Review

  1. Dryness and the dark night: what the tradition teaches
  2. Acedia: Evagrius, Cassian and the noonday demon
  3. Doubt and perseverance
  4. Accountability for a rule of life
  5. Reviewing and revising a rule at thirty days, ninety days and one year

All courses

Program / Course 3: The Rule of Life / Lesson 1.3

What you will learn

  • Describe who Basil of Caesarea was and the shape of his Long Rules and Short Rules.
  • Explain why Basil argued that life in community fits the commandments better than life alone.
  • State how Basil joined prayer, work and care for the poor.
  • Compare Basil’s approach with that of Pachomius.

The big idea

Basil of Caesarea (c. 330 to 379), a bishop in what is now Turkey, wrote collections of questions and answers on the ascetic life that are called his Long Rules and Short Rules. They are not a tidy legal code. They are a body of teaching that treats the whole Christian life as obedience to the Gospel. Basil argued that Christians are made for one another and that the commandments of love are best kept in community. His work shaped Eastern monasticism and still guides Orthodox monks today.

Key terms

Asketikon
The Greek name for Basil’s collected ascetic writings, including the Long and Short Rules.
Bishop
A senior leader of a local church, with authority over clergy and congregations in a region.
Cappadocia
A region of central Asia Minor (modern Turkey) where Basil lived. His friends Gregory of Nazianzus and his brother Gregory of Nyssa also came from it.
Catechetical form
A way of teaching by questions and answers. Basil’s rules are arranged this way.
Superior
The leader of a monastic community, to whom the members owe obedience.
Philanthropy
Literally love of humankind. Basil used it for Christian care of the poor and the sick.

Background

Basil was born around 330 into a Christian family of Caesarea in Cappadocia. He studied in Constantinople and Athens, traveled to visit ascetics in Egypt and Syria, and then settled on a family estate to live a simple life of prayer. Around 370 he became bishop of Caesarea, a post he held until his death in 379. He was therefore both a monastic organizer and a church leader. Orthodox and Catholic Christians count him a saint and a Doctor of the Church, and he is one of the Three Holy Hierarchs of the Orthodox tradition with Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom.

His ascetic writings grew over years and exist in several editions. The Long Rules, in 55 questions and answers, treat the main principles. The Short Rules, in more than three hundred answers, treat daily problems in brief form. Scholars debate how the collection took shape, and they agree that Basil did not write one finished book at one sitting. The material is more like the record of a teacher answering questions from monks over time.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The Gospel as the rule

Basil does not begin with timetables. He begins with the two great commandments, to love God and to love one’s neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40). The whole rule is meant to be an extended answer to the question how a person can truly keep them. Everything else, from meals to clothing, is judged by whether it helps or hinders that love.

For this reason his rule feels more like pastoral counsel than a code. Questions can be about whether a monk may speak at meals, how to deal with a sick brother, or how to respond to a gift from a relative. The answers draw on Scripture at nearly every point.

Step 2: Why community

In the Long Rules Basil asks whether it is better to live alone or with others. He argues for community. A solitary person, he says, can attend only to personal needs, and many commandments cannot be kept alone: there is no one to wash the feet of, to bear the burdens of, or to give to. Paul writes that the body has many members and that none can say to another that it has no need of it (1 Corinthians 12:12-27). Basil also notes that a person alone has no one to correct faults.

He does not condemn every hermit. He allows that some may be called to solitude, but he places the common life first, and he wants monasteries close to towns so that monks can serve. This concern with correction and service matches what later lessons call the safeguards of a rule.

Step 3: Prayer and work together

Basil gives prayer a regular structure. He advises prayer at the beginning of the day, at set hours through the day and at night, and he cites the Psalms and the example of Daniel. He also teaches that a monk should keep God in mind during work. Work is not an interruption of prayer but another place for it.

Work has two purposes in his rule: to support the community and to provide for the poor. Basil is clear that the monks are not to be idle. He quotes the saying of Paul that anyone who will not work should not eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10). The products of work are to be shared, and the monks are not to hoard.

Step 4: Care for the poor

Basil’s concern for the poor was not limited to words. Tradition holds that he built a large complex outside Caesarea that included a hospital and shelter for the poor and the sick, which later writers called the Basiliad. The details of its size are uncertain, but his sermons on wealth and hunger are well known. In them he denounces those who store up goods while others starve.

His rule therefore joins two things people often separate: a disciplined inner life and active service. The monastery was to be a school of prayer and also a source of help to the surrounding district.

  1. Which commandments in my own life can I keep only with other people?
  2. Does my prayer shape the way I work, or does it stop when the work begins?
  3. What do I own that I do not need and could give to someone who does?
  4. Who has permission to correct me, and have I ever used it?
  5. What would my days look like if the two great commandments were my rule?
  6. Is my idea of a rule closer to a timetable or to a set of questions?

Examples

A question in Basil’s style

A monk might ask whether it is acceptable to keep a private gift from a relative. In reply a teacher in Basil’s tradition would ask what the gift does to the monk’s love for the others and for the poor, and then decide. The question is turned toward love and not only toward a technical rule. (A reconstruction of the method, not a quotation.)

Prayer in work

A nurse pauses for a few words of prayer before each shift and offers silent short prayers during hard moments. She does not have an hour for formal prayer, but her work is full of prayer. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

The Orthodox view

Basil’s rules are a foundation of Eastern monasticism. Orthodox monks and nuns usually say that they follow the rule of Basil, and in the East monasteries do not belong to separate orders as they do in the West. Basil’s liturgy is also still used, on certain days of the year.

The Catholic view

Catholics honor Basil as a Doctor of the Church and acknowledge that his rule influenced Western monasticism, including Benedict, who in his own rule points readers to the rule of our holy father Basil as a further guide.

The Protestant view

Protestants hold Basil in varied esteem. Many value his defense of the Holy Spirit’s divinity in his work On the Holy Spirit, and his preaching on wealth and the poor. Some Protestants question the monastic framework but still value the Gospel focus of his questions.

The scholarly view

Scholars debate how the Asketikon developed and whether the rules reflect Basil’s own thinking in every part. They also debate how much his monasteries were attached to the ordinary church and how much they stood apart. Most agree that he tied monastic life closely to the church.

Why it matters

Basil answers a challenge that modern readers often raise: can a person be devout alone? His reply is that the commandments of love cannot be fulfilled in isolation. Even for someone who must pray largely alone, the question remains useful. Who benefits from my life of prayer, and who helps me keep it honest? Basil’s pairing of prayer, work and the poor is also a standing check against a rule that serves only the person who keeps it.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Basil wrote one rule in the manner of a legal code.

Correction: He left a collection of questions and answers, the Long and Short Rules, which grew over time. The form is pastoral and based on Scripture, not a list of regulations.

Misunderstanding: Basil was against hermits.

Correction: He favored the common life and argued strongly for it, but he allowed that some might be called to live alone. His objection was to a solitude that excused a person from love and correction.

Misunderstanding: Monasteries in the East are one organized order.

Correction: Eastern monasteries generally follow Basil’s principles but are not grouped into the separate orders found in the Latin West.

Knowledge check

Who was Basil of Caesarea?

Basil (c. 330 to 379) was a bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, in what is now Turkey. He was a monastic organizer, a theologian and a preacher on behalf of the poor. He wrote ascetic works including the Long and Short Rules. Orthodox and Catholic Christians both honor him as a saint and teacher.

What is the form of the Long and Short Rules?

They are collections of questions and answers. The Long Rules treat main principles in 55 answers, and the Short Rules treat daily problems in more than three hundred shorter ones. The form is closer to pastoral teaching than to a legal code, and the material grew over time.

Why did Basil prefer community to solitude?

He argued that many commandments, such as bearing burdens and serving others, cannot be kept alone, that a solitary person has no one to correct faults, and that the body of Christ has many members who need one another. He allowed some exceptions but placed the common life first.

How did Basil connect prayer, work and the poor?

He set regular times of prayer and taught that prayer should continue in work. Work supported the community and provided for those in need, and he rebuked the hoarding of wealth. Tradition adds that he built a hospital and shelter near Caesarea. Prayer and service belonged together.

Think it through

  1. Basil asks what each practice does to love of neighbor. How would your present habits answer?
  2. Is there someone in your life whose correction you would accept? Why or why not?
  3. What would it mean to treat your work as a place for prayer?

Independent assignment

Basil’s questions

In your notebook, write 300 to 400 words. Write down three practical questions about your own habits, in the manner of Basil’s catechetical form (for example, may I keep this money, how should I use this evening, how should I respond to this person). Answer each one with a Scripture passage and a decision. Keep the work in your notebook and do not post it.

Further study