This book is a collection of three short works which, it appears, St. Basil the Great intended to be taken as a whole, even though they were originally written as separate works. The three works included are On the Judgment of God, On the Faith, and Ethics (often known by the Latin title Moralia). The first short treatise addresses a group which excused certain “lesser” sins and only avoided those most grievous. “This tradition avoids some sins to be sure, but it indiscriminately embraces others—affecting a violent irritation against some, such as murder, adultery, and the like, while adjudging others unworthy even of censure, such as anger, an abusive tongue, drunkenness, arrogance, and others like these. Yet elsewhere Paul, speaking in Christ, has assigned to all these the same sentence, saying, ‘Those who practice such things are worthy of death.’” (59). The second work provides a short summary of the Faith with broad similarities to the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. The final work is a list of 80 “rules” for Christian living drawn from the scriptures which follow each rule. He writes, “I considered it necessary ... to lay out all the things that are either displeasing or pleasing to God which I have collected from the God-breathed Scriptures to the best of my ability, by our common prayers, so that those struggling in the contest of piety might have them to mind” (65)