You Cannot Live with Feet Only
Those who are pursuing the same objective, if they live together, will find many advantages in this sharing of their life.
In the first place, none of us is self-sufficient when it is a question of material needs. We all need one another to procure the necessities of life.
The foot, for example, is capable of doing certain things on its own. If the absurd could happen and it was cut off from the other limbs, the owner would realize that the foot’s capabilities are not enough to preserve its existence and acquire the things it must have.
This is what happens in the solitary life: what we have is no use to us and what we are lacking we cannot procure. Yes, it is God’s will that we should be indispensable to one another so that we can be in unity with one another.
Besides this, Christ’s commandment to love does not allow us to be solely concerned with ourselves. ‘Love does not seek its own interest.’ [1 Cor. 13:5]
The solitary life, by contrast, seeks exactly that, namely the advantage of the individual – an objective which is evidently the opposite of the law of love. Suffice it to consider how Paul kept this law: ‘Not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.’ [1 Cor. 10:33]
In the second place, it is difficult for solitaries to discover their faults. They do not have anyone to point them out. They have no one to correct them.
A reproof, even if it comes from an opponent, stirs up the desire for improvement if the soul is well disposed. But the person who is not living in community will find neither reproof nor improvement.
Basil the Great
The Greater Rules, 7 (PG31, 928)
If You Love God You Will Love your Neighbour, If You Love your Neighbour You will Love God
Surely everyone knows that human beings are social creatures and for that reason are not made for a solitary and uncivilized life. Nothing is better suited to our nature than to have continual relationships to seek one another out and to love one’s own kind.
The Lord asks no more than the fruit of the seed he has implanted in us, when he says: ‘A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.’ [John 13:34]
To lead us to obey this precept he does not want the badge of recognition of disciples to consist in miracles. Rather he asserts: ‘By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’ [John 13:35]
And between the commandment to love God and the commandment to love your neighbour, he has established so close a bond that he takes as done to himself anything done to our brothers or sisters. He says: ‘I was thirsty and you gave me drink.’ [Matt. 25:35) And he adds: ‘As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ [Matt. 25 :40]
The keeping of the first commandment includes the keeping of the second, and in the fulfilment of the second the first is fulfilled.
Whoever loves God loves his neighbour. The Lord says: ‘Anyone who loves me will keep my word’ [John 14:23] and ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.’ [John 15:12]
So then, whoever loves his neighbour loves God, and God reckons our unity with our brothers and sisters is unity with him.
One is reminded of Moses. He loved his brothers and sisters so much that he asked to be blotted out of the book of the living if the people did not receive forgiveness of their sins. [Exod. 32:32)
Basil the Great
The Greater Rules, 3 (PG3r, 917)
~ Thomas Spidlik, Drinking from the Hidden Fountain, A Patristic Breviary: Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World
