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Shorter Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
Rule 173: May Conversation Take Place at the Hour When the Office is Being Held Within…
No, except by those who are responsible for the care and maintenance of good order, and the arranging of work, and then only in cases of urgent need; and not even then without deliberation but with careful consideration both of place and discipline and reverence and the avoidance of offence. For all others silence is necessary. For if at the time of talk even among those who are entrusted with the word of teaching, the first is bidden to keep silence if a revelation comes to another, how much more is silence necessary for the rank and file at the time of the singing of the Office.2
Notes
- τῆς κατ’ οἶκον ψαλμῳδίας. Another translation is “at the hour of the Office in the several houses.” Conceivably the monks were organised in groups within the monastery and the Office was said in groups. We have seen elsewhere (see notes on F. 35) that the “Superiors” may represent in some cases the Superiors of suppressed monasteries. Perhaps some group-organisation was kept up within the larger unit. Cf. Hist. Laus. vii. 2, 5 where the Nitrian monks are said to live either alone or in groups, and “the strains of psalmody arise from each habitation”; and Jerome’s version of Pachomius’ rules, where the praepositi domorum are the Superiors of the various houses within the big monastery (Ladeuze, Cénobitisme pakhomien, p. 293). Against such a theory may be put B.’s attitude towards the common life, F. 3, 7; such a practice would have blunted its idealism. But there are occasional hints in the Shorter Rules which suggest that B. is tolerating practices which the Longer Rules would exclude. See Intr. p. 17.
- Some monks being engaged in necessary work do not attend the Offices. They must refrain even from conversation about their work during these times; only their superintendent may speak.