The Rule of Benedict Read online

  THE RULE OF BENEDICT

  * * *

  Translated by

  Carolinne White

  Contents

  Prologue

  1: The kinds of monks

  2: What kind of man the abbot should be

  3: Summoning the brothers for consultation

  4: The tools for good works

  5: Obedience

  6: Restraint of speech

  7: Humility

  8: The divine office at night

  9: The number of psalms to be said at the night office

  10: Arrangements for the night office in summer

  11: The night office on Sundays

  12: The office of Lauds

  13: Arrangements for Lauds on ordinary days

  14: Arrangements for the night office on saints’ days

  15: The times for saying the Alleluia

  16: Arrangements for the divine office during the day

  17: The number of psalms to be said at these hours

  18: The order of the psalms

  19: Regulations regarding the singing of psalms

  20: Reverence in prayer

  21: The deans of the monastery

  22: Sleeping arrangements

  23: Excommunication for offences

  24: Degrees of excommunication

  25: Serious offences

  26: Unauthorized association with the excommunicated

  27: The abbot’s care for the excommunicated

  28: Those who refuse to amend despite frequent rebuke

  29: Readmission of brothers who leave the monastery

  30: Correction of the young

  31: What kind of person the monastery’s cellarer should be

  32: The monastery’s tools and property

  33: The question of private ownership

  34: The question of distribution according to need

  35: The weekly kitchen servers

  36: Sick brothers

  37: The elderly and children

  38: The weekly reader

  39: The proper amount of food

  40: The proper amount of drink

  41: Meal times

  42: Silence after Compline

  43: Latecomers to the work of God or to meals

  44: How the excommunicated should make amends

  45: Mistakes in the oratory

  46: Offences committed elsewhere

  47: Announcing the time for the work of God

  48: Daily manual labour

  49: Observance of Lent

  50: Brothers working or travelling far from the oratory

  51: Brothers on a short journey

  52: The monastery oratory

  53: The reception of guests

  54: Letters or gifts for monks

  55: The brothers’ clothing and footwear

  56: The abbot’s table

  57: The monastery craftsmen

  58: Regulations regarding the admission of brothers

  59: The offering of their sons by nobles or by the poor

  60: The admission of priests to the monastery

  61: The reception of visiting monks

  62: Priests of the monastery

  63: Rank within the community

  64: Election of the abbot

  65: The prior of the monastery

  66: The porter of the monastery

  67: Brothers sent on a journey

  68: The assignment of impossible tasks to a brother

  69: No one is to defend someone else in the monastery

  70: No one is to strike someone else without due cause

  71: Mutual obedience

  72: Beneficial fervour in a monk

  73: This rule is only a start on the path to justice

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  BENEDICT OF NURSIA

  Born c. 480, Nursia, Umbria

  Died c. 545, the monastery of Monte Cassino

  The Rule of St Benedict was written in Latin in around 540.

  The text is taken from The Rule of Benedict,

  Penguin Classics 2008.

  BENEDICT OF NURSIA IN PENGUIN CLASSICS

  The Rule of Benedict

  Prologue

  Listen, my son, to the master’s instructions and take them to heart. These are the instructions of a loving father: receive them gladly and carry them out to good effect so that by the efforts of obedience you may return to him from whom you have withdrawn through the laziness of disobedience. It is to you that my words are now addressed, if you are ready to take up the powerful and glorious weapons of obedience, renouncing your own will with the intention of fighting for the true king, Christ the Lord.

  First of all, every time you begin a good work you should pray to him with total commitment to bring it to perfection, so that he who has already been kind enough to count us as his sons will never be disappointed by our doing wrong. We must always obey him with the good things he has given us, so that he never disinherits his children like an angry father or becomes exasperated by our bad behaviour and hands us over to everlasting punishment as a terrifying master does with his delinquent servants, for refusing to follow him to glory.

  Now at last we must wake up, as Scripture rouses us to do when it says, ‘Now is the time for us to rise from sleep’ (Rom. 13:11). Let us open our eyes to the divine light and listen carefully to what the divine voice tells us to do when it cries out each day, ‘If you hear his voice today, do not harden your hearts’ (Ps. 95:7–8), and also, ‘He who has ears to hear, let him listen to what the spirit says to the churches’ (Rev. 2:7; see also, Matt. 11:15). And what does he say? ‘Come to me, my children and listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord’ (Ps. 34:11). ‘Run, while you have the light of life, so that the darkness of death does not overtake you’ (John 12:35).

  The Lord looks for his workman among the crowds of people, and repeatedly calls to him, ‘Who is the man who desires life and who wishes to see good days?’ (Ps. 34:12). If you hear him and answer, ‘I do’, God will say to you, ‘If you wish to have true and everlasting life, keep your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from speaking deceitfully. Turn away from evil and do good. Seek after peace and pursue it’ (Ps. 34:13–14). And when you have done this, my eyes will be upon you and I will listen to your prayers. Even before you call on me, I will say to you, ‘Here I am’ (Isa. 58:9). What can be sweeter to us, dear brothers, than the Lord’s voice when he invites us with these words? Look how the Lord in his loving kindness shows us the way of life.

  And so, clothed in faith and the performance of good works, let us set off along his path using the Gospel as our guide, so that we may deserve to see him ‘who has called’ us ‘into his kingdom’ (1 Thess. 2:12). If we wish to live in the tabernacle of his kingdom, we will certainly only reach it if we run there by means of good works. But let us question the Lord in the words of the prophet, saying to him, ‘Lord, who will live in your tabernacle or who will rest on your holy mountain?’ (Ps. 15:1). After putting this question, brothers, we must listen to the Lord’s reply for he points out to us the way to this tabernacle. He says, ‘He who walks without blemish and who acts justly; he who speaks the truth in his heart and does not use his tongue to deceive; who does not harm his fellow man and does not listen to slander said about him’ (Ps. 15:2–3). This person has thwarted the devil in his wickedness by casting him and his suggestion away from the sight of his heart when the devil tries to persuade him to do something: he takes hold of the devil’s plans before they have time to mature and dashes them against Christ. Those who fear the Lord and do not allow themselves to become proud because of their good works realize that the good that is in them does not come from their own abilities but from the Lord. They praise the Lord working
within them, repeating the words of the prophet, ‘Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name give the glory’ (Ps. 115:1). In the same way the apostle Paul refused to claim any credit for the success of his preaching, saying, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am’ (1 Cor. 15:10) and ‘The person who boasts should boast in the Lord’ (2 Cor. 10:17). That is why the Lord, too, says in the Gospel, ‘He who hears these words of mine and acts in accordance with them is like the wise man who built his house on the rock; the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon that house but it did not collapse for it was founded on rock’ (Matt. 7:24–5). Having made this pronouncement, the Lord every day expects that we should make our lives conform to this holy advice of his. And so the days of this life are lengthened and we are granted a truce during which to amend our bad ways, as the Apostle says, ‘Do you not know that God’s patience is leading you to penitence?’ (Rom. 2:4). For the Lord in his kindness says, ‘I do not want the death of a sinner but that he should be converted and live’ (Eze. 33:11). Brothers, we have questioned the Lord about the person who lives in his tabernacle, and we have heard his instructions about living there, but it is for us to fulfil the obligations of those who live there. And so we must prepare our hearts and bodies to fight by means of holy obedience to his instructions. If our natural abilities do not allow us to do something, we must ask the Lord to grant us his grace to assist us. If we wish to escape the punishments of hell and reach eternal life, we must hasten to do now what will profit us forever, while we still have time and while we are in this body and have the opportunity to fulfil all these things by the light of this life.

  And so we intend to establish a school for the Lord’s service. In doing so we hope to demand nothing that is harsh, nothing oppressive. Even if, in order to maintain a balance, there are some slight restrictions aimed at the correction of errors and the preservation of love, you should not for that reason be frightened off and run away from the path of salvation, which has to be narrow at the beginning. As we make progress in our way of life and in faith, as our heart expands with the inexpressible sweetness of love, we shall run along the path of God’s commandments, never abandoning his guidance but persevering in his teaching within the monastery until death, so that we may have a share, through patience, in the sufferings of Christ and thereby also a share in his kingdom. Amen.

  1

  The kinds of monks

  There are clearly four kinds of monks. First there are the coenobites; in other words, those who live in monasteries and do their service under a rule and an abbot. The second are the anchorites, that is, hermits: they are no longer in the first fervour of the monastic life, but have been trained by a lengthy period of probation in the monastery with the support of many others and have learned to fight against the devil. Well-armed, they go out from the ranks of the brothers to the single combat of the desert, without anyone’s support; relying on their own strength and with God’s help, they are able to fight against physical and mental temptations.

  The third and most detestable kind of monks are the sarabaites, who have not been tested like gold in the furnace by any rule and have not learned from experience; instead, softened like lead, they still keep faith with the world in what they do. Their tonsure makes it clear that they are lying to God. In groups of two or three or even singly, without a shepherd, enclosed not in the Lord’s sheepfold but in their own, they take their own desires and pleasures as their laws, calling their every whim holy and claiming that whatever they do not want to do is unlawful.

  The fourth kind of monks are known as gyrovagues: they spend their whole lives wandering around different regions, staying in different cells for three or four days at a time, always moving from one place to another and never remaining in the same place, indulging their own desires and caught in the snares of greed. They are in every way worse than the sarabaites. It is better to say nothing than to speak about all of them and their despicable way of life. And so, leaving them aside, let us proceed with God’s help to make provision for the coenobites who are the most effective kind of monks.

  2

  What kind of man the abbot should be

  To be worthy of being in charge of a monastery, the abbot must always bear in mind what his title signifies and live up to the name of ‘superior’. For he is believed to be Christ’s representative in the monastery, since his title is one that is applied to Christ, as is clear from the Apostle’s words, ‘You have received the spirit of adoption of sons by which we call out, Abba, Father’ (Rom. 8:15). And so the abbot should not teach or decree or command anything contrary to the Lord’s instructions; instead, he should work into the minds of his disciples the Lord’s commands and his teaching, as if they were the yeast of divine justice. The abbot must never forget that at the dread judgement of God he will have to give an account of his teaching and of his disciples’ obedience. The abbot must be aware that the shepherd will bear the blame for whatever deficiencies the sheep’s owner might find in them. However, if the shepherd has focused all his efforts on his restless and disobedient flock and been very careful to correct their bad behaviour, then he will be acquitted at the Lord’s judgement and will say to the Lord in the words of the prophet, ‘I have not hidden your justice in my heart; I have spoken your truth and your salvation (Ps. 40:10); but they have despised and rejected me’ (Isa. 1:2). And so in the end the disobedient sheep entrusted to his care will be punished by a devastating death.

  Consequently, when someone is appointed abbot he should manage his disciples by teaching them in two ways: he ought to display all that is good and holy in his actions as much as in his words. In this way he will use words to teach the more able disciples the commands of the Lord, while to those who are stubborn and less intellectually sophisticated, he will demonstrate the Lord’s teaching by means of his own actions. He should indicate by his actions that everything he tells his disciples to be against the Lord’s teaching is to be avoided, so that he is not found guilty of failing to practise what he preaches, and so that God never says to him in his sin, ‘Why do you repeat my just commands and boast of my covenant with your mouth? You have hated discipline and have thrown my words behind you’ (Ps. 50:16–17), or ‘You saw the speck in your brother’s eye but you failed to see the beam in your own’ (Matt. 7:3). He must not show any favouritism in the monastery. He ought not to love one more than another, unless he finds one to be better in good deeds and in obedience. A person who is born free should not be accorded higher status than one who was a slave, unless other reasonable grounds exist for this. If the abbot considers it right, he can make alterations to anyone’s status, when justice so demands. Otherwise the brothers should keep to their regular positions, because we are all one in Christ, whether slave or free, and we are soldiers of the same rank fighting under the one Lord, ‘for God shows no partiality’ (Rom. 2:11). The only way in which we are distinguished in his sight is if we are found to be better than others in good works and in humility. The abbot should therefore love all equally and apply the same discipline to all, according to what they deserve.

  In his teaching the abbot must always observe the Apostle’s advice when he says, ‘Reprove, appeal, rebuke’ (2 Tim. 4:2). In other words the abbot must adapt himself to different circumstances, combining encouragement with threats, displaying the sternness of a teacher and the kind affection of a father. This means that he should rebuke more sternly those who are undisciplined and restless, and appeal to those who are obedient, mild and patient to make even more progress. We advise him to rebuke and to punish those who are careless and contemptuous. He must not ignore the faults of those who do wrong, but as far as possible he should cut such faults out at the root as soon as they appear, remembering the fate of Eli, priest of Shiloh. On the first and second occasions, he should use a verbal rebuke to reprimand those who are decent and reasonable, but those who are wicked and obstinate, arrogant or disobedient he should restrain by means of a beating and corporal punishment, as soon as they start to go wrong
, remembering that it is written, ‘The fool cannot be corrected by words’ (Prov. 18:2), and again ‘Beat your son with the rod and you will save his soul from death’ (Prov. 23:14).

  The abbot should always remember what he is and what his title signifies, and should bear in mind that more will be demanded from the person to whom more has been entrusted (Luke 12:48). He should also be aware that it is a difficult and demanding task to guide souls and to manage many different temperaments, using encouragement to deal with one person, rebuke with another, persuasion with a third, according to the disposition and understanding of each one. He must adapt himself to all in such a way that he does not lose any of the flock entrusted to him, but may even rejoice to find that his flock is a good one and that it has increased in number.

  Above all let him be careful not to show too much concern for trivial matters, for what is earthly and temporary, neglecting the salvation of the souls entrusted to him or failing to accord sufficient importance to it. He should always remember that he has received these souls so that he may guide them and that he will have to give an account of them. To prevent him perhaps complaining about a lack of resources, let him remember that it is written, ‘First seek the kingdom of God and his justice and all these things will be added to you’ (Matt. 6:33), and again, ‘Those who fear him lack nothing’ (Ps. 34:9). The abbot must bear in mind that the person who receives souls for guidance should be ready to give an account of them. He should be aware that however many brothers he has under his care, on the Day of Judgement he will definitely have to give an account to the Lord of each of their souls, and indeed of his own soul, too. And so, fearing always the future interrogation that the shepherd will have to undergo regarding the sheep entrusted to him and anxious about the account he must give of others, he will think carefully about the account he must give of himself. In this way, as he helps to correct others by reprimanding them, he will find that his own faults are corrected.