In 369 A.D., the inhabitants of Cappadocia, in what is now Turkey, suffered a disastrous year. A poor harvest led to serious food shortages, high prices, and a flourishing black market. Many starved; but one man took action—a local pastor, Basil of Caesarea (329/30-379). He sold much of his personal fortune, gathered those affected by the disaster, and “collecting all kinds of food, fed them and tried to keep them alive.”1 Basil’s actions were a fine example of the ideals expressed in his monastic rules of life.2 His pioneering work in the Church both as a theologian and church leader resulted in history remembering him as one of the “Cappadocian Fathers”—St. Basil the Great.3

Basil was not the founder of monasticism. In his day, there were already many monks. St. Antony (c. 251-356) had embarked on the monastic life in response to a sermon on Matthew 19:21. He sold his inheritance and eventually moved to the Egyptian desert seeking to avoid human contact. He continued in seclusion for 20 years, until forced out of his shrine by others seeking to imitate him. In Asia Minor, there were also wandering bands of ascetics, who were condemned by the Synod of Gangra for their antisocial behavior of “wearing unisex dress, avoiding the normal assemblies of the faithful, [and] refusing to work.”4

Neither of these examples appealed to Basil. When he founded his monastery in 357/58, he took his model from Luke’s description of the church in Acts 2:44. Basil’s Long Rules governed the life of the monks. Doubtless these are unnecessarily ascetic, downplaying the importance of family relationships, and belittling God’s gifts of good food and possessions. Nevertheless, in his Rules and his preaching on monasticism, Basil helpfully emphasized the need for Christian community, hard work, and care for the poor.

Basil begins his Long Rules by emphasizing the two great commandments: love for God and love for neighbor. In Rule 3, he says that “nothing indeed is so compatible with our nature as living in society and in dependence upon one another . . .”5 He observes that Jesus had said that the world would know Christians as His disciples by their love for one another (John 13:34-35). This stress on brotherly love should also issue in love for the poor.

Unlike solitary monks, who often depended on the charity of others for food, Basil insisted that monks should work hard, in order to be useful, and to provide for their own needs. In a letter on “The Perfection of the Monastic Life,” he says, “Each one ought to prefer all others to himself . . . He who is idle, although able to work, should not eat [cf. 2 Thess. 3:10].”6

Christians today ought not follow Basil in his asceticism, nor in his retreat from the social networks of ordinary life. However, his monastic rules and his own life, in many ways, provide a fine example for the modern Church. His advice is not glamorous or spectacular. But surely pagan society would take note if believers, in the midst of everyday life, were to devote themselves to the fellowship, work hard, making good use of their skills, and care in practical ways for the poor.
Footnotes:
1

Ioannes Karayannopoulos, “St. Basil’s Social Activity: Principles and Praxis,” Basil of Caesarea: Christian, Humanist, Ascetic: A Sixteen-Hundredth Anniversary Symposium, vol. 1, ed. Paul Jonathan Fenwick (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1981), 375; for a full biography of Basil, see Philip Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).
2

Basil, “The Long Rules,” St. Basil Ascetical Works, in The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, trans. M. Monica Wagner (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1962), 223-337.
3

The other two Cappadocian Fathers were: Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus. The trio defended Nicene orthodoxy against the Arian heresy, and coined the Trinitarian formula “one God (in Greek ousia ) in three persons (in Greek hypostases).”
4

Anthony Meredith, The Cappadocians (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1996), 25.
5

Basil, “The Long Rules,” St. Basil Ascetical Works, in The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, trans. M. Monica Wagner (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1962), 239.
6

Basil, “Letter 22,” Saint Basil: Letters, 1-185, in The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, trans. Agnes Clare Way (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1951), 58; cf. “The Long Rules,” Rule 38, 311-312.

article adapted from Kairos Journal

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