CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FOUR
The Tools of Good Works
1) In the first place to love the Lord God with one’s whole heart, whole soul, whole strength.
2) Then, one’s neighbor as one’s self. (Cf. Matt. 22:37–39; Mark 12:30–31; Luke 10:27).
3) Then, not to kill.
4) Not to commit adultery.
5) Not to steal.
6) Not to covet. (Cf. Rom. 13:9).
7) Not to bear false witness. (Cf. Matt. 19:18; Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20).
8) To honor all men. (Cf. 1 Pet. 2:17).
9) Not to do unto another, what one would not have done to oneself. (Cf. Tob. 4:16; Matt. 7:12; Luke 6:31).
10) To deny one’s self in order to follow Christ. (Cf. Matt. 16:24; Luke 9:23).
11) To chastise the body. (Cf. 1 Cor. 9:27).
12) Not to cling to soft living.
13) To love fasting.
14) To relieve the poor.
15) To clothe the naked.
16) To visit the sick. (Cf. Matt. 25:36).
17) To bury the dead.
18) To provide help in times of trouble.
19) To console the sorrowing.
20) To keep aloof from worldly ways.
21) To prefer nothing to the love of Christ.
22) Not to give way to anger.
23) Not to foster a desire for revenge.
24) Not to nurse guile in one’s heart.
25) Not to make a false peace.
26) Not to forsake charity.
27) Not to swear, lest perchance one swear falsely.
28) To speak the truth with heart and tongue.
29) Not to return evil for evil. (Cf. 1 Thess. 5:15; 1 Pet. 3:9).
30) To do no wrong, but patiently to bear the wrong done us.
31) To love one’s enemies. (Cf. Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:27).
32) Not to curse them that curse us, but rather to bless them.
33) To bear persecution for justice sake. (Cf. Matt. 5:10).
34) Not to be proud.
35) Not to be a winebibber. (Cf. Titus 1:7; 1 Tim. 3:3).
36) Not to be a gorger.
37) Not to be sluggish.
38) Not to be slothful. (Cf. Rom. 12:11).
39) Not to be a murmurer.
40) Not to be a detractor.
41) To put one’s hope in God.
42) To attribute any good one sees in oneself to God, and not to oneself.
43) But as to recognize that evil is one’s own doing and impute it as such.
44) To fear the Day of Judgment.
45) To be in dread of hell.
46) To desire eternal life with all spiritual longing.
47) To keep death before one’s eyes daily.
48) To keep a constant watch over the actions of one’s life.
49) To hold as certain that God sees one everywhere.
50) To dash at once against Christ the evil thoughts which rise in one’s heart,
51) and to disclose them to our spiritual father.
52) To guard one’s tongue against bad and wicked speech.
53) Not to love much speaking.
54) Not to encourage idle conversation or say things fit for buffoonery.
55) Not to love excessive or boisterous laughter.
56) To listen willingly to holy reading.
57) To apply one’s self often to prayer.
58) To confess one’s past sins to God daily praying with sighs and tears, and to amend them for the future.
59) Not to fulfill the desires of the flesh. (Cf. Gal. 5:16).
60) To hate one’s own will.
61) To obey the commands of the Abbot in all things, even though he himself (God forbid) act otherwise, mindful of that precept of the Lord: “What they say, do ye; but what they do, do ye not.” (Matt. 23:3).
62) Not to desire to be called holy before one is so; but to be holy first, that one may be truly so called.
63) To fulfill daily the commandments of God in one’s actions.
64) To love chastity.
65) To hate no one.
66) Not to be jealous; not to give way to envy.
67) Not to love strife.
68) To flee vainglory.
69) To honor the community’s elders.
70) To love the community’s younger members.
71) To pray for one’s enemies in the love of Christ.
72) To make peace with an adversary before the setting of the sun
73) And never to despair of God’s mercy.
Behold, these are the tools of the spiritual craft, which, if used without ceasing day and night and returned on Judgment Day, will earn for us from the Lord that reward which He hath promised: “The eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him.” (1 Cor. 2:9). But the workshop in which we labor with diligence is the enclosure of the monastery and stability in the community.