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Shorter Rules
St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925
Rule 291: What is a Bruised Reed or Smoking Flax? And How Will One Not Break the One or…
A bruised reed I reckon to be the man who though the victim of some vice yet performs God’s commandment, whom one ought not to break and cut off but rather cure, as the Lord taught, saying: “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them.”2 And the apostle bids us: “Do all things without murmurings and disputings ’3; and elsewhere: Doing nothing through faction or vainglory.”4 But a man is said to be a smoking flax when he performs the commandment not with fervent desire and perfect zeal but in a slothful and slack way. Such a one we should not curb but rather stir up by reminding him of God’s judgments and His promises.
Notes
- See Mt. xii. 20.
- Mt. vi. 1 ἐλεημοσύνην for δικαιοσύνην K.
- Phil. ii. 14.
- Phil. ii. 3 ἤ for μηδὲ κατά K.