Sketch of the Life and Works of Saint Basil the Great

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Page 85

Again at the third hour there is to be a rising up to prayer, and the brotherhood is to be called together, even though they happen to have been dispersed to various works. The sixth hour is also to be marked by prayer, in obedience to the words of the Psalmist, [554] "evening, and morning, and at noon will I pray, and cry aloud: and He shall hear my voice." To ensure deliverance from the demon of noon-day, [555] the XCIst Psalm is to be recited. The ninth hour is consecrated to prayer by the example of the Apostles [556] Peter and John, who at that hour went up into the Temple to pray. Now the day is done. For all the boons of the day, and the good deeds of the day, we must give thanks. For omissions there must be confession. For sins voluntary or involuntary, or unknown, we must appease God in prayer. [557] At nightfall the XCIst Psalm is to be recited again, midnight is to be observed in obedience to the example of Paul and Silas, [558] and the injunction of the Psalmist. [559] Before dawn we should rise and pray again, as it is written, "Mine eyes prevent the night watches." [560] Here the canonical hours are marked, but no details are given as to the forms of prayer.

XL. deals with the abuse of holy places and solemn assemblies. Christians ought not to appear in places sacred to martyrs or in their neighbourhood for any other reason than to pray and commemorate the sacred dead. Anything like a worldly festival or common-mart at such times is like the sacrilege of the money changers in the Temple precincts. [561]

[554] Ps. lv. 17.

[555] Ps. xci. 6, LXX. daimonion mesembrinon. cf. Jer. Taylor, Serm. ii. pt. 2: "Suidas" (Col. 1227) "tells of certain empusae that used to appear at noon, at such times as the Greeks did celebrate the funerals of the dead; and at this time some of the Russians do fear the noon-day devil, which appeareth like a mourning widow to reapers of hay and corn, and uses to break their arms and legs unless they worship her."

[556] Acts iii. 1.

[557] cf. Pythag. Aur. Carm. 40 (quoted by Jer. Taylor in Holy Living and Holy Dying): med' hupnon malakoisin ep' ommasi prosdexasthai, prin ton hemerinon ergon tris hekaston epelthein, pe pareben; ti d' erexa; ti moi deon ouk etelesthe.

[558] Acts xvi. 25.

[559] Ps. cxix. 62.

[560] Ps. cxix. 148.

[561] cf. Letterclxix. and notes on this case in the Prolegomena. It is curious to notice in the Oriental church a survival of something akin to the irreverence deprecated by St. Basil. A modern traveller in Russia has told me that on visiting a great cemetery on the day which the Greek church observes, like November 2 in the Latin, in memory of the dead, he found a vast and cheerful picnic going on.

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