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1
The
Life
& Rule
Of St
Benedict
When Constantius was bishop of Albi (ca.
627), Venerandus, a nobleman of his diocese,
sent him a manuscript containing “the Rule of St. Benedict,
Roman abbot,” with the request that it be kept in the archives
of his cathedral church. The bishop was also to see that the Rule
was observed by the abbot and monks of the small monastery
of Altaripa, a stipulation that was part
of an agreement some years earlier between Venerandus,
the founder, and Bishop St. Fibicius,
uncle of Constantius. Venerandus provides the first certain mention of the spread of St. Benedict's Rule beyond the confines of its origin. In the year 593 or 594, Pope St. Gregory the Great had noted its existence in his Dialogues: “He [Benedict] wrote a Rule for monks that is remarkable for its discretion and its clarity of language. Anyone who wishes to know more about his life and character can discover in his Rule exactly what he was like as abbot, for his life could not have differed from his teaching” (D 36). [1] It is highly
probable that this pontifical recommendation helped to make the
Rule known and to assure its success. At the time of St. Benedict's
death, most likely between 540-550, his Rule was followed only
in some monasteries of central Italy. By the ninth century
it had supplanted, in the Carolingian Empire, virtually all other
Rules-some thirty in number-that were being used by monks of the
Latin West. In the twelfth century it held sway, unrivaled,
from Scandinavia to Sicily, from Ireland to Poland, from Spain
to Palestine. It was even practiced by a convent of nuns buried
in the snows of Eystribygd, Greenland. The history of Benedictine monachism is the history of this Rule fashioning, little
by little, the entire far-flung complex of Latin monastic communities. For this
reason it can be said that Benedictines, unlike other religious
families, do not really have a founder; or rather, they have a
multitude of founders. To Benedictines, St. Benedict is not so
much founder as lawgiver, master, and teacher of spiritual doctrine. It is in this capacity that he is
father and founder to them. Instead of representing, as do other
Rules, a stage in the evolution of monachism,
Benedict's Rule in its most essential parts became the permanent
and definitive norm of the monastic life pursued in common. But thanks to the Rule's remarkable
flexibility, monachism was not frozen
into one invariable type. The Rule adapted itself to places, to
times, to civilizations, to the spiritual aspirations of generations
of disciples among whom it nevertheless maintained the strong Benedictine
bond of kinship. What, for
example, could be more dissimilar on the human plane than a Monte Cassino monk of the sixth century and a Maurist of
the seventeenth; than a member of the great Carolingian communities
and an African monk today; than a follower of the “new” monasticism
of the twelfth century and a son of Dom Guéranger?
Yet in the various realizations of the Benedictine monastic ideal
there are many points of contact, many basic similarities. The
spiritual configuration of the disciple of St. Benedict remains
essentially the same in all forms of Benedictinism because the same Rule inspired and left its
mark on them. The man whose work would
become the common patrimony of Western monks was born at Nursia in
the Sabine hills, toward the end of the fifth century (ca. 480).
He was sent to Rome for his early education but when still very
young embarked upon the ascetical life as the way that would lead
him safely to God. He practiced this life at Affile (Enfide).
His next step, prompted by a desire for greater solitude, was to
settle in a grotto at Subiaco, where
he spent some years as a hermit. The monks of Vicovaro then
made him their abbot, but this first venture ended in frustration,
and Benedict returned to Subiaco. His life again attracted disciples who gathered
around him. Eventually, accompanied by some monks he settled at
the top of Monte Cassino and became the
spiritual father of several communities of monks for whom he wrote
his Rule. Latin monasticism was already two hundred years
old. (St. Martin had founded it about the year 361 with a monastery
in Gaul, at Ligugé.) What is
the basic material available for treating of the mind and message
of St. Benedict? Where can one go to find what he believed? To
what extent does his written work reveal the man? And who are the
witnesses who can tell us what it was that gave his spiritual life
its particular orientation? Benedict of Nursia left us his “Rule for monasteries”: a
prologue and seventy-three chapters. The work is not voluminous,
only some hundred pages in pocket size. Nevertheless, compared
with other Rules of that time, some of which were no more than
a few pages, it is one of the most complete and most extensive
monastic codes we have. Less than
fifty years after Benedict's death Pope Gregory the Great wrote
a sort of biography in the form of a dialogue. The Pope based his
work on the testimony of four of Benedict's monks who had lived
under Benedict: Constantine, his successor at Monte Cassino; Valentinian,
abbot of the monastery at the Lateran; Simplicius,
third abbot of Cassino; and Honoratus,
abbot of Subiaco. The latter was still
living when Gregory wrote the Dialogues and
probably had been a disciple only indirectly. Book II of the Dialogues The recourse
to firsthand witnesses is impressive. But the Pope did not approach
his task in the manner of a modern historian, sifting his data
for accuracy. His aim was to provide spiritual instruction and
to illustrate it from the life of various saintly persons, mostly
from central Italy. The Dialogues were destined to be a great success, a “best seller.” Pope
Zachary (741-752) translated them into Greek; they were also translated
into Arabic and Anglo-Saxon. The press and frustrations of papal
business had made it necessary for Gregory to find some rest.
He went, as he says at the beginning of the Dialogues,
to a “quiet spot, congenial to my mind.” He is joined
by Peter the deacon, his favorite pupil and companion. Peter elicits
and receives the confidences of his master, who tells him of his
regret for not having opted for the solitary life, like so many
saintly persons he knew. Peter's
curiosity is aroused. Has there really been, in the recent past,
here in Italy, this flowering of holiness, authenticated by miracles?
Peter wants to know, and the Pope obliges by recounting episodes
without number in the best tradition of the golden legend. Gregory,
however, tries to minimize the importance of the wonders he relates.
To Peter's question, “How is it that we cannot find men or
women of this type today?” Gregory replies, “I believe
there still are many such people in the world. One cannot conclude
that there are no great saints just because no great miracles are
worked. The true estimate of life, after all, lies in acts of virtue,
not in the display of miracles. There are many, Peter, who without
performing miracles are not at all inferior to those who perform
them” (D, I, 12). Book II
of St. Gregory's Dialogues is
not a life of St. Benedict in the strict sense. Too many facts
are missing. It is a spiritual portrait whose features are designed
to offer a message, a doctrine. In recounting the miracles
chosen from among others, the Pope intends to exemplify the qualities
that make the saint, the spiritual person. But St. Gregory did
not invent what he narrates. He worked on preexistent material
received from witnesses who could testify firsthand to the life
of St. Benedict. True, he discarded what was not directly to his
purpose, and the Dialogues consequently are a work: tailored
to a thesis, but a thesis that purports to rest on concrete facts.
That the facts were poorly verified by St. Gregory, or that he
was perhaps too inclined to accept reports of the spectacular in
regard to God's power, this no one doubts. Nevertheless, the reports
did exist. If St. Benedict had a legend, it was not manufactured
by St. Gregory; nor is a young legend likely to be without foundation. The Rule As books go, the Rule is a diminutive,
an hour's reading, if that. St. Gregory's biography of the Abbot
of Monte Cassino at best doubles the
dossier at one's disposal. With only a legislative document,
necessarily impersonal, to go by and a biography more indicative
of Pope Gregory's mind than his subject's, what are the chances
of discovering the inner truth, the soul of what Benedict believed?
It seems like attempting the impossible. Benedict of Nursia never
refers to his personal relations with his God. He left no spiritual
diary, no “confessions” to bare his soul. His concern
was to organize the common monastic
life; to define the complex patterns of relationships and
duties that touched every member of his claustral family,
and to propound the practices that would serve them in their quest
of God. God is
present throughout the Rule. Not that the Rule is a treatise on
God or his mysteries, but God dominates the Rule by constant
reference to him as terminus of the disciple's spiritual journey.
The terminus, however, is not treated in and for itself. Fortunately
for our purpose, no code of Christian antiquity is simply a legislative
document, juridical and impersonal through and through. “Rule” is
a name with many connotations. Monks regarded the Bible as their
first rule of life. The life of a saint, of a monastic founder,
is a norm, a rule of life. Rule also applies to the living teaching
of a spiritual master, of an abbot. As for Rules in the proper
sense, they are very rich documents. In addition to particular
and nonessential prescriptions, they contain exhortations, counsels,
and especially universal teachings. They bear the mark of a long
process of elaboration that they both reflect and consolidate. St. Benedict's
Rule is a masterpiece. It excels by far all the Latin Rules of
his time. It lays down general rules and principles, clear, magnanimous
and flexible, evidence of his own rich experience. Its exhortations
are well considered and to the point. Though concerned for
balance and moderation, it is careful not to stifle any generous
impulse, but at the same time displays great practical wisdom.
It has been aptly compared to a clear, bright fire, glowing rather
than ablaze. It possesses a quality truly its own, very pure, as
though distilled. The Dialogues portray a hermit who became
a spiritual father despite himself, a mystic endowed with many
charismatic gifts: the gift of tears, of special knowledge of God
and secrets of the heart, the gift of miracles. The Rule projects
a sage: a wise and prudent lawgiver for a monachism formed of moderation and discretion. The Problem of Sources St. Benedict
is no exception to lawgivers in every age. His work utilizes older
sources. He refers to Scripture most of all, and in its own words.
His Rule, as we shall see, tries to make the scriptural message
real, to weave it into the daily life of his followers. In the
final chapter St. Benedict recommends to the person “who
would hasten to the perfection of [religious] life the teachings
of the holy Fathers. . . . For what book of the holy Catholic Fathers
does not loudly proclaim how we may come by a straight course to
our Creator? Then the Conferences and the Institutes
[2]
and the Lives of the Fathers, as also the Rule
of our holy father Basil- what else are they but tools of virtue for right-living
and obedient monks?” (R 73)
[3]
The works
he recommends to his followers Benedict himself had read, meditated
on, and absorbed. He had no intention of producing an original
work. Hence, he did not scruple to draw extensively from the
books of his predecessors, the common treasure of the monastic
tradition. Many passages of his Rule make implicit reference
to the Church Fathers: St. Augustine especially, but also St.
Ambrose, St. Jerome and St. Leo the Great. There are numerous
undertones of St. Cyprian, others of Sulpicius Severus (in
his Life of St. Martin). There are echoes of liturgical sources,
the Gelasian Sacramentary in particular. As for
monastic authors, St. Benedict's considerable indebtedness
to Cassian has long been recognized. But Cassian is
not the only monastic author to appear in the Rule. Also encountered
are borrowings from such non-Western sources as the Rule of
St. Pachomius, of St. Basil, the Regula Patrum and the Regula Orientalis attributed
to St. Macarius, and collections of apothegms The whole Egyptian and Eastern
tradition makes its influence felt through Cassian,
who inspired the doctrinal chapters of the Rule. To some extent
the Rule has the appearance of patchwork, a sewing of excerpts.
But this comes from the nature of the Rule. Like other works of
its kind, it necessarily incorporates a variety of elements
common to all monachism. Commentators
consequently have long been busy identifying St. Benedict's borrowings and comparing
them with parallel passages of the earlier monastic tradition,
East and West. But no one, until rather recently, paid much attention
to a very lengthy Rule, the most prolix by far of all the Rules
that have been preserved, and known through the “Concordance
of Rules” produced by the Carolingian monk, Benedict of Aniane.
[5]
This diffuse work, copied out from the aforesaid “Concordance,” consists
of a very long prologue and ninety-five chapters, most of them quite copious.
Many passages are common with the Rule of St. Benedict, especially in its
first chapters. It is a
commonly accepted canon of textual criticism that the presumption
of priority goes to the shorter version. The profuseness of Aniane's “Rule,” which
also suffers from a lack of coherence, quickly led to its acceptance
as the first known commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict. The
Carolingian monk titled his document Rule of the Master. Actually,
its text is completely anonymous. Some manuscripts designate it Rule
of the Fathers, without further identification. Shortly
before the First World War a monk of Solesmes,
Dom Augustine Genestout, who was preparing
a new critical edition of St. Benedict's Rule, decided to take
a closer look at the passages common to both Rules. The upshot
of his analysis was the announcement that the traditional view
of interdependence is incorrect. St. Benedict, he contended, was
the debtor and appropriated parts of the Master. The situation
was now reversed: the Master was not a commentator of St. Benedict;
rather, it was the Patriarch of monks who figured as abridger and
disciple. Understandably, Dom Genestout's revolutionary thesis was immediately challenged,
the more so because a number of weak points did militate against
it. Still, after thirty-five years of discussion and critical research;
after two international congresses, one at Spoleto in 1956, the
other in Rome in 1971; after the integral edition of the Rule of
the Master and minute analyses, historical, theological and philological,
the priority of the Rule of the Master is a hypothesis decidedly
more probable than the reverse. But the
story of the Rule of the Master is still only in its beginning.
The Rule has undergone several recensions,
and the primitive text is not available. Is it the work of several
successive authors, or only of one? At what stage of its redaction
does the connection with the Rule of St. Benedict appear? Did the
Benedictine Rule influence the final redaction of the Rule of the
Master, as some internal evidence seems to suggest? These are so
many questions that are still without satisfactory answer and are
likely to remain so for a long time to come. The earliest known
manuscript of the Rule of the Master is a half century later than
the first appearance of the Benedictine Rule. Whatever the
future may bring, the experience gained from the work of biblical
exegesis should be a warning against oversimplification of
the issue. It is not absolutely certain that the text of the Master
is a homogeneous whole in style or that it is inspired by one dominant
purpose and is the work of a single author. A monastic rule, the
fruit of experience, generally develops in stages; founders of
more recent orders have taught us that. The gestation is necessarily
slow. The first developments are subsequently revised and amended,
glossed and annotated, or simply added to, all with an eye to improvement
or as daily needs require. Attempts at revision or achieving consistency
do not necessarily correct every minor incoherence. Nor did
a celebrated author have to die before copies of his work were
made. Nor was revision itself reserved for his survivors. / The author himself might go back over
his work, touching it up till the day of his death. Many anomalies
are thus accounted for. Finally,
it is important to distinguish between the literary sources themselves
and the particular use made of them. The author of a Rule is an
abbot who himself had received a spiritual formation within a living
tradition. His very office gained him a personal experience
all his own. When he makes use of an earlier work he does not become
its slave or necessarily adopt every aspect of it, even when taking
over long excerpts word for word. He incorporates in his personal
work the fruit of his reading. As a result, borrowings he makes
from a pre-existent codex are transformed and bear his mark. Benedict
is far more personal than appears to the superficial reader. His
Rule is truly his. The Rule, “quintessence of perfection” The Rule of the Master organized
the life of the monastery and its ascetical practice around the
person of the abbot. St. Benedict does not set aside this basic
conception but completes it with the new dimensions of brotherly
relations, mutual regard, and charity. Here St. Augustine, ignored
or unknown by the Master, is his guide and point of reference.
The Augustinian influence again is seen when it is left to the
living authority of the abbot to deal with many concrete details
for which Benedict, unlike the Master, declines to draw up binding
rules. Benedict
displays a rare understanding of persons and circumstances,
an evolution toward a more remedial and pastoral view of authority.
In general, the Abbot of Monte Cassino focuses
on the subjective and qualitative aspect of observance and, through
numerous reminders, puts the emphasis on the central element of
monastic life: charity. Souls are his major preoccupation. He is
attentive to the needs of the weak, to those who are experiencing
difficulty or are given to discouragement. But he can also
be strict, and , is sometimes more severe than the Master. He entertains
no penitential practices except fasting, abstinence, and the
Vigils (night Office); and he wants them moderate. Much is left
to the individual discretion and generosity, under the watchful
care of the abbot. Austerity is real but not crushing. Work occupies
a large place, and St. Benedict does not hesitate to shorten the
Office at times because of work. He did
not write a doctrinal treatise for his disciples but a legislative
code. He offers a practical means of realizing the very high ideal
set forth by Cassian in the Conferences, and characterizes his work as “this
minimum Rule, written for beginners” (R 73). To him it is
an introduction, a point of departure. Its purpose is to prepare
the soul for the highest contemplation; to mark out the path of
onward ascetical practice that leads to pure prayer in the
Holy Spirit, when no barriers remain and the soul is at last open
to the illimitable action of the third Person of the Trinity: the
attainment of “the loftier heights of doctrine and virtue” (R
73). . The Rule is a kind of synthesis
bringing together the spiritual teaching of monastic forms and
traditions that preceded it: Egypt, St. Basil, and St. Augustine.
Partly through the Master, Benedict was able to reduce these multiple
contributions to an integrated whole. Gregory the Great, thinking
primarily of the Old Testament prophets and the apostles,
describes him as “filled with the spirit of all the just”;
to which one might add, without exaggeration, the spirit of the
fathers of monachism as well. Benedict's
Rule profited from the experience and the charismatic gifts of
all the ancients; it retained what was best and had most proved
itself. By the goal it sets itself and by the discretio (in
the sense of “discernment of spirits”) that governs
it, the Rule qualifies as a complete recapitulation of the practical
evangelical ideal of perfection, lived and exemplified in monastic
community. According to St. Benedict
of Cluse, the Rule contains “all
evangelical and apostolic perfection.” “You
ask me what I think,” wrote a mystic of the seventeenth century,
Marie of the Incarnation. “My reply is that the quintessence
of perfection is contained [in this Rule]. There is no Order in
the Church that does not owe its most sacred endowments to St.
Benedict and his saintly sons and daughters.”
[7]
[1]
Book
II of the Dialogues of St. Gregory (which deals with St.
Benedict) is cited from Life and Miracles of St. Benedict, trans. Odo J. Zimmermann, O.S.B., and Benedict R. Avery, O.S.B. (Collegeville,
Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1949). The letter D and the number stand for Book II of the Dialogues and the section. [2] The Conferences and the Institutes are works of John Cassian (d. 440), the principal source for Western monks of the monastic traditions of Egypt.
[3]
[4]
[5] In an effort to produce a sort of commentary on St. Benedict's Rule, Benedict of Aniane (750-821) assembled parallel passages from early monastic rules of his acquaintance. [6] Vita, n. 4, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptorum, XII (Hanover, 1856), 199. |