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Shorter Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
230. Rule 230: What is Service, and What is Reasonable Service?
Service is, so I reckon, intent, continuous and undistracted attention to the object of service. The difference between reasonable and unreasonable service is shown us by the apostle when he says, in one place:1 Ye know that when ye were Gentiles ye were led away unto these dumb idols, howsoever ye might be led”’2; and in another place: ‘Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”3 For he who goes as he is led offers an irrational service since he is stirred by an impulse and purpose of his own, not by the guidance of reason; he is carried away by the authority of the leader to whatever end he is led and not as he himself wishes. But when a man with sound reason and good counsel accompanied by much thought always and everywhere intends and accomplishes what is pleasing to God he fulfils the commandment of a reasonable service as did he who said: “Thy law is a lamp to my feet and a light to my paths”4; and again:5 Thy judgments are my counsel.”6
Notes
- Important for B.s view of confession; see Intr. p. 46 f.
- 1 Cor. xii. 2.
- Rom. xii. 1.
- Ps. cxix. 105.
- Ps. cxix. 24 xai 9) συμβουλία pov with RART, Sw.’s (N) text af ausfovlon,
- ἢ ἐνίοτε καὶ ἱερεύς.