From Monachos.net
Translated by Esmeralda Ramirez de Jennings; based on the text edited by the Revd D.R. Jennings, with additional editorial work by the Monachos.net Library Project
Prescriptions and sentences, also from our father Pachomius
The fullness of the law is charity; for us that know which times we are living in, it is the time for us to wake up from sleep, salvation is much closer to us than when we began to believe. The night is almost over and the daylight is near, so let us discard the works of darkness (Rom. 13.10-20
): namely, discussions, murmuring, hatred and pride that inflates the heart (Gal. 5.20).
If a brother, quick to defame and say whatever is not true, is surprised in flagrant crime, they will warn him twice. If he refuses with contempt to listen to the observations, he will be separated from the community of the brothers for seven days and will not have more food than bread and water until he commits himself formally to abandon his vice and proves it [through his behaviour], then he will be forgiven.
If a choleric and violent brother gets upset often without a reason because of things that do not have any importance, he will be rebuked six times. The seventh time he will be told to get up from the place where he usually sits and will be placed between the last people. Like that, he will learn to purify himself from that disorder of his soul. When he can present three sure witnesses that promise in their names that he will not do anything like that, he will recover his position. But if he perseveres in the vice, he will remain among the last ones. Then he will have lost his former rank.
That one who desires to impute something false to another to oppress somebody innocent will receive three warnings, then he will be considered guilty of sin, whether he is among the most prominent or among the most humble.
Whoever has the hateful vice of deceiving his brothers by using perverting words with the simple ones he will be warned three times: if he gives proofs of his sin, is obstinate and persevering in hardness of his heart, he will be put apart outside the monastery and he will be beaten with twigs at the door. Then they will take him food, but only bread and water, until he purifies his spots.
If a brother has the habit of whispering or lamenting himself, with the excuse that he is overwhelmed by a heavy load, he will be told up to five times that he whispers without a reason and they will make reality clear to him. If after this he disobeys, and if this is an adult, they will consider him sick and they will install him at the infirmary, he will eat there as an unemployed person until he returns to reality.
But if his laments are justified and he has been oppressed with wickedness by his superior, this one, that has induced him to sin, will be under the same punishment.
If anyone is disobedient, stubborn, contradictory or a liar, if he is an adult, he will be warned ten times to get rid of his vices. If he will not listen, he will be reprimanded depending on the rules of the monastery. But if he falls in his sins for the lack of another person and if this is proven, the guilty one will be the one who was the cause of the sin of his brother.
If a brother is fond of laughing and/or playing freely with children; if he has a friendship with the younger ones, he will be warned three times that he should break those ties and remember the honour and fear of God. If he does not abandon such behaviour, he will be lectured as he deserves, with the most severe punishment.
The ones who underestimate the precepts of the elders and the rules of the monastery (that have been established by the order of God), and the ones who do not pay attention of the warnings of the elders, will be punished according to the established form until they correct themselves.
If the one that judges concerning the sins abandons the truth with perversity of spirit or by negligence, twenty, ten or even five holy men who are fearful of God, accredited by the testimony of all of the brothers, will sit to judge him and will degrade him; and he will be assigned the last place until he reforms himself.
The one who troubles the hearts of the brothers and has a quick word to seed discords and quarrels will be warned ten times, and if he does not reform himself, he will be punished according to the rule of the monastery until he corrects himself.
If a superior or a chairman, seeing one of his brothers on trial, refuses to seek the cause and in doing so disvalues him, the aforesaid judges will put in the clear the matter between the brother and the chairman. If they find out that the brother has been oppressed by the negligence or the selfishness of the chairman and this one takes his decisions not according to the truth but according to people, they will degrade his rank for not having taken into consideration the truth but instead taking into consideration people and for having made himself a slave of the vileness of his heart before the judgement of God.
If anyone promised to keep the rules of the monastery, he started to practice them and then he abandoned them only to immediately return to them, repentant, excusing himself on the pretext that the weakness of his body did not allow him to carry on with what he had promised, they will place him among the sick brothers, until he fulfils what he has promised, after having made penance.
If in the house, the children give themselves to the idleness without effective punishments, the chairman himself will admonish them and punish them for thirty days. If he states that they persevere in their wrong dispositions and discovers any sin but does not inform the father of the monastery, he himself, in his place, will be put under a proportional punishment to the sin that he discovered.
The one who judges unjustly will be punished by the others due to his injustice.
If one, two or three brothers have been scandalized by any thing and leave their house but return afterwards, they will inquire what has scandalized them and when they have discovered the guilty one, they will correct him according to the rules of the monastery.
The one that becomes an accomplice with the ones who sin and defends a brother who has committed any fault, he will be cursed by God and the men, and will be punished with the most severe correction. If he has let himself be taken by ignorance, without thinking that he was actually doing that, he will be forgiven.
In the beginning, all the ones who sin by ignorance will obtain forgiveness easily, but the one who sins with knowledge will be put under a punishment proportional to his action.
End of the third part.