Promises Should Not Be Made Rashly

It is indeed good and right, and fully in keeping with our profession, to carry out effectively whatever we have decided to do in the case of any promise. That is why a monk ought not to make any promise hastily. Otherwise he may be forced to do what he carelessly promised, or, if he is held back by a sounder view, he may appear to be a breaker of his promise. But at the present moment our purpose is to treat not so much a state of health as the cure of sickness. So with healing counsel we must consider, not what you ought to have done in the first place, but how you can escape from the rocks of this dangerous shipwreck.

When no chains hold us back and no conditions restrict us, and a choice is put before us between good things, the most advantageous should be preferred. But when some harm and loss stands in the way, and we must compare things that will hurt us, we should look for the one that exposes us to the smallest loss. Further, as your own account shows, your heedless promise has brought you to the point where some serious loss and harm must come to you either way. So the will, in choosing, should lean to the side that involves the loss that is easier to bear, or that can more easily be made up for by the remedy of making amends. If, then, you think you will gain more for your spirit by staying here than you gained from your life in that monastery, and that the terms of your promise cannot be fulfilled without the loss of great good, it is better for you to suffer the loss that comes from a falsehood and an unfulfilled promise. That is done once for all, and need not be repeated any more or become the cause of other sins. It is better than to incur the loss which, you say, would make your state of life colder, and would harm you every day without ceasing.

For a careless promise is changed in a way that may be pardoned, or even praised, if it is turned into a better path. Whenever a faulty promise is corrected, we need not take it as a failure of consistency, but as a correction of rashness. And all this can be proved by the surest witness of Scripture: for many, keeping their promise has led to death, and on the other hand, for many it has been good and profitable to refuse it.