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Longer Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
40. Rule 40: Concerning Business Transacted at Conventions
Scripture shows us that buying and selling conducted at martyrs’ tombs is not fitting for us. For it is incumbent on Christians to be seen at the martyrs’ tombs or in their neighbourhood for no other reason than that of prayer and in order that, remembering how the Saints contended even unto death on behalf of godliness, we may be incited to a like zeal. We must remember the most fearful wrath of the Lord, Who though He was always and everywhere meek and lowly of heart, as it is written,2 yet on one class—those that bought and sold in the temple precincts—inflicted a castigation, since their trafficking turned the house of prayer into a den of thieves. Others may have corrupted the accustomed order of the Saints, and in place of praying for one another, worshipping God and lamenting to Him in company with others, asking His mercy for their sins, giving thanks for His benefits, and edifying people by the word of exhortation—all of which conduct we have known observed within our own memory3—in place of this, I say, may have used the time and place as a market and fair4 and common emporium. But it ill befits us now to follow their example5 and encourage such evil courses by joining in the matter. Rather we should imitate the conventions which are recorded in the gospels of our Lord Jesus Christ, and fulfil what the apostle commands as conducive to the following of such a model. Thus he writes: “When ye come together, each of you hath a psalm, hath a teaching, hath a revelation, hath a tongue, hath an interpretation; but let all things be done unto edifying.”6
Notes
- συνόδοις.
- See Mt. xi. 29.
- B. has seen the degeneration which accompanied the inrush of imperfectly assimilated converts after the State recognition of Christianity.
- πανήγυριν, see F. 39 where visits to πανηγύρεις are allowed under safeguards.
- Cf. Epp. clxix–clxxi, which describe how Glycerius the deacon and monk led a band of young women to the feast at Venasa. Ramsay, Church in Roman Empire, p. 443 f., discusses the incident. In pagan times there was a great synodos of Zeus at Venasa, the priest of which place ranked next in Cappadocia to the priest of Komana. Putting Ramsay’s evidence and the present answer together, we conclude that the synodos was a pagan festival to which a fair was attached. In the 4th century a Church festival at a martyr’s tomb was grafted on to the old observance. B. tried in vain to suppress the commercial element, vested interests being too strong. Venasa is still a holy place, where Moslems revere the founder of the Dervish order (Enc. Britt. art. “Cappadocia”).
- 1 Cor. xiv. 26 add ὑμῶν after ἕκαστος K.