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Shorter Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
Rule 7: What is the Judgment Against Those Who Defend Sinners? (R. 26)
Heavier than his of whom it is said: “‘It were well for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.”1 For no longer is the sinner receiving rebuke unto correction but a defence to confirm him in his sin, and he is persuading others to like faults,2 so that to such a defender, if he has not shown fruits worthy of repentance, is appropriate what the Lord said: ‘If thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body be cast into hell.”3
Notes
- Lk. xvii. 2 conflated with parallel passages **.
- R. inserts Lk. iii. 9.
- Mt. v. 29 ἐὰν . . . σκανδαλίζῃ for εἰ δὲ . . . σκανδαλίζει**, add τήν before γέενναν.