RB 1980- The Rule Of St Benedict

by Saint Benedict

  Therefore, investiture with the habit had a quasi-sacramental meaning: it was the outward sign signifying that a man had become a monk.3 Both Pachomius and Cassian prescribe that the candidate’s secular clothes should be set aside and kept (Pachom. reg. 49; Cassian. inst. 4,6); the latter specifies that if he should later fail to live up to his profession, he should be stripped of the monastic garb, clothed in his former secular garments and expelled.

  The Egyptian practice, then, seems to have permitted admission within some days after a candidate’s arrival. Cassian states this quite formally (Cassian. inst. 4,32); the Pachomian rule is not quite so clear, as it supposes that some instruction has been given before investiture (Pachom. reg. praecepta 49), but it probably also refers to a short period of time. When invested, the new monk entered into the community as a full-fledged member. If he received further instruction, the texts do not refer to this explicitly. Probably there was a gradual development; as the need for instruction became apparent, the period of formation was lengthened. One Pachomian text speaks of a period of a month (Theod. catech. 3,28-29). Cassian affirms that after investiture the monk did not yet enter the community, but for a whole year was under the supervision of the guestmaster, a senior who lived near the gate and cared for the pilgrims and guests. The new monk was to learn humility and patience by caring for the guests. After a full year thus engaged, he was finally admitted to the community and placed under another senior who was in charge of the younger monks (Cassian. inst. 4,7).4 Here we find for the first time the one-year formation period, but it comes after admission rather than before. Once placed before admission, as in the RB, the one-year novitiate became the norm in the Western Church.

  There was also another tradition in Egypt that is attested before the end of the fourth century, that of a three-year formation period. It is found only in the so-called Rule of the Angel, a collection of monastic practices said to have been dictated to Pachomius by an angel.5 Here it is prescribed that a candidate should not be received into the community until he has spent three years doing hard work. It is not specified whether this three-year period is before or after investiture. We find the three-year norm again in the legislation of Justinian of 535 (Novellae 5,2), in which it is clear that the three-year period precedes investiture.6 Gregory the Great was familiar with this law and prescribed in one of his letters that ex-soldiers should be given the habit only after three years’ probation (Greg. epist. 8,5).7

  The development that took place in regard to monastic profession is analogous to that of baptismal practice. In the New Testament it is clear that as soon as a person had been moved to conversion by the preaching (kerygma), he was baptized (Acts 8:35-38; 10:44-48). He still needed instruction (didachē), but this was given after baptism (Acts 2:37-42). In the course of the second century, however, instruction was required baptism, and the sacrament accordingly postponed. This was probably due, at least in part, to the danger of Gnosticism; experience showed that it was advisable to test the motives of candidates more rigorously and instruct them more thoroughly. By the beginning of the third century there was a developed catechumenate in preparation for baptism (Hippol. trad.apost. 15-20). In a similar way, the monks seem to have realized gradually the need for further testing and instruction of candidates, and to have required this teaching before the conferral of the habit thus postponing profession. Cassian already knows of the full year under an elder’s direction, but he still places it after profession. By the beginning of the sixth century, the Western practice required a full year’s training before investiture with the habit (Caes.Arel. reg.virg. 4; RM 90.79-80).

  In the Regula Magistri we find the basic features of the Egyptian system, as reported by Cassian, but in a quite developed form. The program has now become complex, and the Master’s penchant for detail does not facilitate the understanding of the five chapters he devotes to the question of recruitment (RM 87–91).8 The lay postulant who came to the monastery was met by the abbot, who feigned rejection of his request as a matter of policy (RM 90.2). He then explained the difficulties of the life in detail, read the entire rule to him, and exacted a promise to obey it (90.64) as well as the abbot (90.67). We learn from chapters 87–88 that this entire procedure lasted for two months (88.3) and included precise arrangements for the candidate to dispossess himself of everything he owned (87.4-74). During this time he lived in the guesthouse, under the supervision of the two guestmasters (88.7-9), but shared the life of the community (88.4-5). At the end of these two months, he made the promise that constituted his profession (90.64-67; 89.8); this was celebrated in a public rite conducted in the presence of the community (89.3-28). Thereupon he was assigned to a deanery and officially received into the community (89.28).

  The profession rite, however, did not include investiture; the candidate had to be further tested for a whole year (90.79) and only then received the habit and the tonsure (90.80-81). During this time he remained in his deanery, but his daily instruction and testing were carried out by the abbot (90.74). There was no novice master (senior). The full year came between profession and investiture, which the Master separates. The new monk’s secular clothes were kept in case he should leave. Clearly the basic features of this system were derived from Cassian, but they have been reworked, in a rather original way, into a new synthesis.

  Reception and formation in the RB

  The provisions of the RB for the reception and training of postulants retain most of the elements found in the RM and earlier sources, but St. Benedict rearranges them into a new program. The RB is more developed in some respects, suggesting a further stage of evolution, but is also simpler and more coherent. The principal difference is that profession and investiture are combined into a single rite, with the full year of formation preceding.

  The RB continues the tradition of making admission difficult, which goes back to the earliest days of Egyptian monasticisim. Rather than the merely pro forma refusal of the RM, it prescribes a genuine test of perseverance: the person is not admitted for four or five days, and during this time he is subjected to harsh treatment (iniurias) and “difficulty of entry” (difficultatem ingressus). St. Benedict is not specific about the nature of the “harsh treatment” and “difficulty of entry,” but clearly wants a searching examination of the man and his motives for coming, and a preliminary test of his patience and persistence. As a biblical justification for this procedure, he adopts the same passage of 1 John as is used by the RM: “Test the spirits to see if they are from God” (1 John 4:1; RM 90.71; RB 58.2).

  During these four or five days (a reduction by half of the period prescribed by Cassian), the candidate is apparently left outside. Then, if he has shown patience and humility during this time of probation, he is admitted to the guesthouse “for a few days” (paucis diebus). Nothing is specified about this period. It is followed by a full year, divided into periods of two, six and four months. At the end of each of these intervals, the Rule is read to the candidate. He is now called a “novice” and lives in a special area of the monastery called the “novitiate” (cella, noviciorum), where his formation is entrusted to a monk described as “a senior chosen for his skill in winning souls” (RB 58:5-6).

  At this point the text of the Rule presents a problem of interpretation, especially if the provisions of the RM are kept in mind. Verse 4 speaks of the “few days” in the guesthouse and verse 9 of the “two months” after which the Rule is read, following which the candidate is taken to the novitiate (v.11). In between these passages, however, verses 5-7 introduce the subject of the novitiate, the senior, and what is to take place there under his direction. This passage seems intrusive insofar as it suddenly speaks of “novices” in the plural (vv.5-6), only to revert to the singular again in verse 7.9

  There are two ways in which this section can be understood. The usual interpretation (which is presupposed by our translation) understands it to describe a consecutive order of events: after a few days in the guesthouse (v.4), the candidate goes to
the novitiate area (v.5), and there spends the two months that culminate in the first reading of the Rule (v.9). The two months are therefore spent in the novitiate. This seems the most natural way to read the text: since verse 5 introduces the novitiate immediately after the few days in the guesthouse, the reader is led to understand the postea to mean “directly after this.” Such is in fact the understanding of the vast majority of commentators and the practice of nearly all Benedictine monasteries.10

  The other interpretation—that the two months were spent in the guesthouse—goes back to ancient times. It is adopted by the ninth-century commentary on the Rule that appears in various recensions under the names of Basil, Hildemar and Paul the Deacon.11 While it offers a better explanation of verses 10-11 and provides a closer parallel to the RM, it requires verses 5-7 to be understood as parenthetical, anticipating information about the novitiate that chronologically belongs later, after verse 11. The reader would quite naturally understand the candidate to be in the novitiate from verse 5 onward, and in fact this is what St. Benedict has generally been taken to mean.

  The twelve months of formation are divided into three periods, of two, six and four months, respectively. At the conclusion of each of these periods, the Rule is solemnly read to the novice. St. Benedict here amplifies the program of the RM, which has only two months and a single reading of the Rule before profession. The repeated stress upon the Rule is intended to let the candidate know precisely what obligations he is undertaking, and the increase in the length of time and emphasis upon his deliberation show a concern that he make the decision to commit his life with full knowledge, reflection and freedom.

  Whereas the RM has but a single promise, which comes at the end of the two months and constitutes profession, the RB mentions two promises during the formation period (58.9,14), in addition to the formal promise at the profession rite (58.17). The first of these is a promise de stabilitate sua perseverantia made at the beginning (or perhaps the end) of the initial two-month period. The second comes at the end of the year, following the third reading of the Rule, and is a promise “to observe everything and to obey every command given him.” What is the meaning of these promises, which seem redundant? They are not binding commitments: at least in the case of the first, the novice is still free to leave after promising (58.10). The second is scarcely independent of profession, which follows immediately. The first promise explicitly mentions perseverance, the second obedience.

  These promises express scarcely more than the intention to remain for the present and subject oneself to everything the monastic life entails during the time of formation. The difficult expression “to promise perseverance in his stability” simply means that the candidate, after the few days he has spent in the guesthouse (or after the two months?), has decided to stay and wants to persevere through the novitiate to profession. The second promise, at the end of the year, means that he wants to make profession and bind himself permanently to all the obligations of the monastic life.

  St. Benedict, as we have seen, placed the full year of formation before profession and investiture. His legislation in this regard has been decisive for all religious life in the Western Church (CIC 555). In addition to this, however, he made two other influential contributions: a special area for the novices (cella noviciorum) and a special official to supervise them (senior). The RB accepts neither the solution of Cassian, who has the candidate spend his year in the guesthouse learning humility by performing humble tasks under the direction of the guestmaster, nor that of the Master, who places him, like the other monks, in a deanery under a praepositus. St. Benedict prescribes instead a special regime suited to his needs and directed by a monk whose primary qualification is “skill in winning souls.”

  For the RB there is no question but that the novice is to be separate from the community in some important respects. He is not separated in every respect: he takes part in the Divine Office with the other monks (58.7) and presumably in such other common exercises as instruction by the abbot and the pre-Compline reading (42.3-6). He may have been with them during manual labor—the Rule does not specify this point. But his living quarters are separate: he is to sleep and eat in the novitiate (58.5). The latter point may seem surprising to those accustomed to modern practice, but the Rule is quite clear about it, and medieval monasteries often had a separate refectory in the novitiate.12 No doubt the intention of St. Benedict in prescribing such extensive separation of the novice from the community was to provide him with a genuine experience of solitude and silence. The separation was considered necessary to create an atmosphere suitable for what the novice was to accomplish in the novitiate. This is defined by the RB as meditatio (58.5).

  For the ancients, the term meditatio meant something different from what it does for us today.13 It was not a purely interior activity (“thinking about” or “reflecting on”), but involved the repetition of a text aloud. Associated with reading (which was also done aloud), it meant that the reader repeated passages over and over again in order to learn them by heart. Once learned, these texts could then be repeated from memory without a book. This latter activity, which could be carried on during work or other activities, was also called meditatio. The “meditation” or “rumination” of scriptural passages while performing other tasks, which required extensive memorization of Scripture, was an important activity among the Pachomians. While it is still mentioned, albeit rarely, in the RM (50.26,43), the RB no longer speaks of it; St. Benedict never mentions meditatio in connection with work, but always with lectio (8.3; 48.23).14 These two activities go together: while reading from a book, the monk is to repeat passages again and again until he has them memorized.

  The novice had a good deal to learn during his year’s training. He may have had to begin with learning to read; some candidates, at the end of their year’s formation, were still unable to write their own profession formula (58.20). He then had to memorize those portions of Scripture that monks had to know by heart for use in the office. These included the psalms (8.3) and the short readings that were recited without a book (9.10; 10.2; 12.4; 13.11). He may also have memorized passages that were to be “chewed over” or “ruminated upon” later as a stimulus to private prayer; the RB does not speak of this, but it was a common monastic practice both before and after St. Benedict.15 The novice’s meditatio, then, was a kind of study, but not in the modern sense; it was confined to sacred texts, principally Scripture, and its goal was not purely intellectual, but an existential appropriation of the Word in view of forming his life. It was an activity as closely related to prayer as to study: medieval monastic writers considered lectio, meditatio, oratio and contemplatio to be four successive phases of a single movement involving the mind, the heart, the will and the body.16

  The Rule does not specify other studies for novices. No doubt they became acquainted with the Fathers and the monastic literature through their lectio. We may suppose that beginners received appropriate guidance in their reading. The senior in charge of them is directed to “look after them with careful attention.” The principal responsibility for their formation fell upon him, though probably the abbot retained a certain role for himself. Hence it is probably the novice master who is to “preach” (praedicentur) the “hardships and difficulties that will lead him to God.” While this may have involved a certain amount of teaching in the modern sense, ancient monastic formation was more oriented toward the development of virtue: to learn humility, patience, obedience and self-denial (see Cassian. inst. 4,8; Basil. reg. 6). This was the work of experience, not of any academic instruction. As at the origins of monasticism in Egypt, formation is accomplished by a kind of apprenticeship to an experienced elder.

  The elder, certainly, is not supposed to drive candidates away; “winning souls” is his task. But he is not to leave them under any illusions; they must be tried seriously and exposed to the dura et aspera. The RB specifies certain criteria by which the development of a novice may be judged: “Whether the novice truly see
ks God and whether he shows eagerness for the Work of God, for obedience, and for trials.”17 The primary criterion is the seeking of God: the novice’s motives must be probed to be sure that he has come to the monastery for the right reason. The ancients were aware of the subtle intrusion of self-deception, and in an unscientific but intuitive fashion recognized the varieties of subconscious motivation that are studied by moden psychology. Often the novice is unaware of his own motivation, and his intentions have to be brought to light and purified.

  Eagerness for sincerely seeking God is ordinarily manifested by one’s concrete behavior in regard to the essential features of the monastic life. The Rule singles out three that are especially important, though not exclusive. The “Work of God” in the RB always means the divine office, although in earlier monastic literature it had a wider connotation.18 The novice must come to love the common prayer of the community, prepare himself for it industriously through meditatio, take part in it with attention and devotion, and extend the prayer of the office throughout his life in constant attention to God (7.10-30; 43.3). Obedience, in all the monastic rules, is the primary qualification of the cenobite; both Cassian and the RM insist upon it in the formation of novices (Cassian. inst. 4,8,10,23-31; RM 90.55-67). The RB regards it as the means “by which we return to God” (Prol.2) and makes it one of the three great virtues treated in chapters 5–7.