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Longer Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
52. Rule 52: With What Disposition We are to Bear Punishments
Just as we said that the Superior must apply healing methods to the weak without personal feeling, so again the recipients must not accept the penalties as a mark of hatred, nor consider a tyranny the care which he gives out of compassion in order to save the soul. For it is disgraceful if those who are sick in body should trust doctors to such an extent that whether they operate or cauterise or vex with bitter drugs they are deemed benefactors, but that we as regards the physicians of our souls when they work for our salvation by laborious discipline do not have the same feelings. The apostle said: “And who is he that maketh me glad but he that is made sorry by me?”1 and again: “For behold this self same thing, that ye were made sorry after a godly sort, what earnest care it wrought in you!”2 Accordingly, looking to the end, he that implants sorrow in us ought to be accounted a benefactor.
Notes
- 2 Cor. ii. 2 add ἐστιν after τίς K.
- 2 Cor. vii. 11 add ὑμᾶς K and év before Suiv K.