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Longer Rules

St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925

Rule 44: To Whom May Journeys Be Allowed? And How Must the Travellers Be Questioned on…

Let leave to travel be given only to the man who is able to complete his journey with benefit to his fellow-travellers, and without damage to himself. So that, if no suitable person be available, it is better to endure all affliction and distress, even unto death by reason of lack of necessaries, rather than, for the sake of bodily comfort, to overlook certain harm to the soul. “For it were good for me” says the apostle “rather to die than that any man should make my glorying void.”¹ And if this was true of things which were permitted to the apostle, how much rather does it apply to matters of commandment? And yet even in this the law of charity does not leave us without resource. For if it happens that one brotherhood has no one available who may suitably be sent, the neighbours will fulfil what is lacking, making journeys in common² and without separation from one another. So that by such companionship those who are weak in soul or feeble in body may be kept safe in company with the stronger ones. The Superior will have arranged this some time in advance, to avoid its happening at the actual moment of the need that relief is found impossible owing to the suddenness of the distress. After the return let the Superior question the traveller, what he has done and what sort of men he has met; what words he has used to them; what have been the thoughts of his heart; whether he has completed every day and night living in the fear of God—or whether he has swerved aside and violated any of the rules, either giving way to external difficulties or falling through his own slothfulness.

Let the Superior set the seal of his approval on what has been rightly accomplished, but correct failures by diligent and skilful admonition. For in this way both the travellers will be more watchful through anxiety as to the account they must render, and we shall seem not to have been neglecting their spiritual life during the period of separation. That this was the custom of the Saints is shown us by the narrative of the Acts, which teaches us that Peter on his return to Jerusalem gave them there an account of his intercourse with the Gentiles; and how that Paul and Barnabas when they arrived, having called together the Church, told what God had done with them; and again, that all the multitude kept silence and hearkened to Barnabas and Paul, rehearsing what God had done. This however we must know, that roundabout ways and legal affairs and merchants’ profits are to be absolutely avoided by the brotherhoods.

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