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Longer Rules

St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925

Rule 20: What is the Method of Receiving Guests, So Far as Food is Concerned

Vainglory and men-pleasing and doing things for display are absolutely forbidden to Christians² in every matter; since he who performs the actual command to be seen by men and receive glory, loses the attendant reward. And those who have accepted every form of humiliation because of the commandment of the Lord must be exceedingly careful to shun every form of vainglory. But since we see worldlings ashamed of the humility of poverty and providing plentiful and expensive food whenever they receive a guest, I fear lest the same disease may attack us unwittingly, and we be convicted of being ashamed of the poverty pronounced blessed by Christ. For just as it does not befit us to procure from outside silver vessels or crimson hangings or soft cushions or diaphanous robes, so also it is unfitting to devise food much different from our daily diet. For that we should run round seeking out what is not required for essential needs, but is devised for miserable pleasure and deadly vainglory, is not only disgraceful and inappropriate to our professed aim, but does no common harm, when the luxurious who measure happiness by the pleasures of the belly see us also engaged in the same cares as distract them. For if luxury is evil and to be avoided, we must never choose it. For nothing that is condemned can be right temporarily. For they that give themselves to pleasure and anoint themselves with the choicest myrrh and drink strained wine are condemned by the Scripture.³ And because of pleasure the widow is said to be dead, though still alive.⁴ The rich man was deprived of Paradise owing to his luxury here. What then have we and costly expenditure in common? Has a stranger come to see us? If he is a brother and has the same ideals as ourselves, he will recognise the familiar table. For he will find with us what he left at home. But suppose he is tired after his journey? Then we give him just so much as will alleviate his fatigue.

Another has come from the life of the world. Let him learn from works what words did not teach him, and let him receive the pattern and example of our frugality. Let him have abiding memories of the table of Christians and poverty borne without shame for Christ’s sake. But if he takes no notice of these, but rather mocks at them, he will not trouble us a second time. But when we see certain rich men who put the enjoyment of pleasures in the forefront of blessings, we grieve much on their account because, spending all their life on folly and having made pleasure their god, they do not perceive that they are receiving their portion of blessings in this life, by their luxury here, and are speeding to the fire prepared for them and its scorching heat. If ever we get an opportunity, we do not hesitate to explain these things to them in person.

But if we too are to be guilty of the same fault and according to our opportunities both seek pleasures and make preparations for display, then I fear we shall seem to be building up what we are destroying, and in judging others shall condemn ourselves in that our life is insincere and we assume different guises from time to time, even going so far as changing our clothes when we have to meet illustrious persons. But if this is disgraceful, much more disgraceful is it that our table should be altered on account of luxurious-living men. The life of the Christian is consistent, and has one aim—the glory of God. “For whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God,”⁵ says Paul speaking in Christ. Whereas the life of men of the world is inconsistent and varied, constantly altered in different ways to please chance-comers.

So also, if thou alterest thy table for thy brother’s pleasure piling up the food and fussing over it, thou art accusing him of being an epicure and by thy preparations reproaching him with gluttony, since thou art convicting him of delight in such things. Have we not often guessed who or what was expected after seeing the appearance and quality of the preparations? The Lord did not praise Martha, cumbered about much serving, but said: “Thou art anxious and troubled about many things; but few things, or only one, are needed”⁶—“few,” referring to the preparations: “one,” referring to the end, the satisfying of the need. Thou knowest what food the Lord Himself put before the Five Thousand. Then there is Jacob’s prayer to God: “If thou wilt give me bread to eat and raiment to put on,”⁷ not “If thou wilt give luxuries and costly things.” What says Solomon, wisest of men? “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but provide what is necessary and sufficient, lest I be filled and become false and say, Who seeth me? or lest I become poor and steal and use profanely the name of my God.”⁸ He thus defines riches as satiety and poverty as complete absence of the necessaries of life; and means by sufficiency having neither a deficiency or superfluity of necessaries. But sufficiency has a different meaning in different cases according to the state of the body and its needs in view of the work to be done. For one man needs food more in quantity and more nourishing on account of his toil, another lighter food suitable in every way to his condition because of his weakness; but all alike need the cheaper and easily procurable kinds. Howbeit on every occasion careful preparation and a hospitable table are essential, provided we never pass the bounds of what is necessary. Let this be the limit of our hospitality, what is required by the needs of each visitor. “As using this world,” we read, “and not abusing it.”⁹ E Now unnecessary expenditure is abuse. Have we no money? So let it be. Are our barns not full? Our life is lived from day to day, and the labours of our hands ensure its continuance. Why should we spend the food given by God to the hungry on the pleasures of the luxurious? In so doing we sin doubly, inflicting on the one side the sufferings caused by want and on the other the consequences of satiety.

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