On Happiness and Misfortune, and also on Prudence

-St. Basil the Great

Just as pleasant and much-desired things possess no permanence or stability, so too all sorrowful events cannot endure long or remain unshaken; everything is subject, as it were, to some surging wave and to sudden changes. Neither bodily health, nor the bloom of youth, nor abundance of possessions, nor any other worldly prosperity lasts long. Even in the calm tranquillity of this life, expect at some point a storm of circumstances: sickness will come, poverty will come, for the wind does not always blow from behind. Even the most renowned and exemplary man is often overtaken by unexpected misfortune; unforeseen events, like tempestuous winds, disturb all earthly prosperity. Evils come upon you in succession, wave after wave. Yet you will see in time that even this passes into joy and is transformed into pleasant calm. For just as the sea cannot long remain in one state (now you see it calm and still, yet soon you behold it lashed by fierce winds, and what was raging with billows quickly turns again to profound tranquillity), so too do the things of this life readily change from one extreme to the other.

Therefore a prudent helmsman is needed: one who, even in the calm of life when everything goes according to desire, remains attentive to possible changes and does not rest in present goods as though they were immortal; and who, in adverse circumstances, does not despair, lest by excessive grief he be swallowed up and sink. Yet while a pilot cannot command fair weather upon the sea whenever he wishes, it is easy for us to make our life serene if only we calm the waves raised within us by our passions and do not allow our spirit to be overcome by external happenings. For those who care too much about this life are like over-fat birds that have wings in vain and crawl upon the earth together with wingless creatures.

Many who gathered great wealth in youth and stood in the very flower of their age could not withstand the stormy assault of the spirits of wickedness because they lacked prudent governance, and thus lost everything. Some fell away from the faith (1 Tim 1:19); others, having preserved chastity from youth, when a violent tempest of lust arose within them, lost it utterly. A pitiable sight! A man who has wasted his whole body with fasting, who has kept vigil in prayer without ceasing, who has shed abundant tears, who has guarded abstinence for twenty or thirty years, through inattention and spiritual negligence loses everything in a single instant. A man enriched by fulfilment of the commandments becomes like a merchant laden with great wealth who, rejoicing that his ship has safely crossed fearful deeps, yet perishes at the very harbour and suddenly loses all. Such men our God pities.

Pity is a kind of compassion felt toward those who have suffered something undeserved, arising in hearts inclined to sympathy. We feel pity for one who, after great riches, has fallen into utter poverty; or who, having enjoyed perfect health, has come into extreme weakness; or who, having once possessed beauty and comeliness of body, has been disfigured by the most grievous diseases. Therefore God Himself, seeing that we who once dwelt in Paradise were glorious, and then through banishment became inglorious and contemptible, has compassion on us, beholding what we have become from what we once were. With the voice of mercy He called to Adam, saying: “Adam, where art thou?” (Gen 3:9). Assuredly God, being all-knowing, did not ask this in order to learn; He wished Adam himself to recognise what he had become from what he had been. “Where art thou?” as though saying: “Into what abyss hast thou fallen from such a height?”

Therefore the reason, which holds the chief place in us like a judge, must examine and discern every action: whether it should be undertaken or not; and it must admit both our own consent and the impulses of the soul only after careful discernment. Of this the Apostle Paul also speaks: “But if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged” (1 Cor 11:31).

Do not be curious about the future, O man! Use the present profitably. What advantage is there in foreknowledge? If good is to come, it will come even though you did not know it beforehand; and if evil, what profit is there in being devoured by sorrow ahead of time?

Is it not plain that the name “wisdom” is used in two senses? One is the safeguarding of one’s own interest at the expense of one’s neighbour—the wisdom of the serpent that guards its own head. This appears to consist in cunning of character: it quickly finds its own advantage and ensnares the simple; such was the wisdom of the builder of iniquity. True wisdom, however, is the knowledge of what ought to be done and what ought to be avoided; its follower never departs from virtue and will never be pierced by the deadly arrow of malice.

But since none of us can by himself know what ought to be done, therefore the gracious God gives us counsellors, not overlords. It belongs to a king to command subjects; to a counsellor belongs the giving of profitable advice to the one who receives it. Let each of us, then, consider himself not a ruler but a counsellor given by the Lord to men. Such a counsellor was Paul in the New Testament, who said: “I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord” (1 Cor 7:25).

The presence of a wise and prudent counsellor is truly a great gift of God to us: he supplies by his counsels what others lack in prudence. How great the benefit that comes from counsel is shown above all by Moses, who was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and spoke with God as a man speaks with his friend. Yet when he received counsel from his father-in-law Jethro, he appointed captains over thousands, hundreds, and tens to judge the people. And David, by heeding the counsel of Hushai, overthrew the warlike counsel of Ahithophel. In short: counsel is a sacred thing, a uniting of wills, the fruit of love, the proof of humility.

It is wicked arrogance for each to think that he has need of no one, but only to attend to himself as though he alone were able to advise concerning the best things. Yet we are unwilling to entrust ourselves to those who give us good counsel, and we are ashamed to acknowledge that in the affairs of life they are wiser than we. He who seeks counsel gives his own thoughts due season, that in fuller time and with greater care he may examine what is fitting.

Thus counsel is exceedingly needful and profitable in human life. No one by himself alone can accomplish all that is required in life; rather, we need helpers far more in choosing what is profitable than in bodily actions. Therefore a man without counsellors is nothing else than a ship without a pilot, driven wherever the chance winds may blow.

When we sometimes need counsel even in the smallest matters, should we not, when considering the soul and its welfare, seek wise counsellors? On the contrary, he who even when given good counsel follows the desire of his own heart makes himself like Rehoboam, who rejected the sound counsel of the elders and followed the counsel of the young men brought up with him, and thereby lost ten tribes of his kingdom.

Thus counsel devised against the righteous turns back upon the heads of the counsellors, just as arrows shot against hard and unyielding objects rebound upon the archer: “The Lord preserveth all them that love Him: but all the wicked will He destroy” (Ps 144/145:20).

To Him belong all glory, honour, and majesty, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.