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Shorter Rules

St Basil the Great, tr. Lowther Clarke, 1925

Rule 32: Whence Comes Untimely and Immoderate Sleep and How are We to Avoid It? (R. 55)

Such sleep comes whenever the soul is slack concerning thoughts of God, and we despise the judgments of God. And we avoid it whenever we resume sincere and worthy thoughts of the greatness of God and once more desire His will, after the fashion of him who said: “I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids until I find a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.”¹

Notes

Ps. cxxxii. 4; 5. Cf. Hom. in Mart. Julittam 36B where the night is said to be intended to be divided between sleep and prayer.