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Shorter Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
Rule 151: May He Who Serves Speak with a Loud Voice? (R. 130)
The need of the hearers defines the measure of the voice. Therefore if it is too low and sluggish it is more like whispering and deserves condemnation1; but if it is louder than necessary, the listener being able to hear quiet speech, then it becomes the clamour that is condemned. Unless it be that the sluggishness of the hearer compels us to use clamour, and, so to speak, awake him out of sleep. For this the Lord also is narrated to have done, as the evangelist says: “Jesus cried and said, He that believeth, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me.”2
Notes
- Seems to refer to the necessary conversation of him who waits at meals. Whispering is more annoying than a low ordinary tone. A book was read at meals (B. 180).
- : 7 Jn. xii. 44.