English Monastic Life. Gasquet Francis Aidan

second system introduced at the beginning of the fourth century may be described as the cenobitical or conventual type of monachism. Pachomius’ monks lived together under a complete system of organisation, not, indeed, as a family under a father, but rather as an army under a discipline of a military character. This form of the monastic life spread with great rapidity, and by the time of its founder’s death (c. 345) it counted eight monasteries and several hundred monks.

      “The most remarkable feature about it,” says Dom Butler, “is that (like Citeaux in a later age) it almost at once assumed the shape of a fully organised congregation or order, with a superior general and a system of visitation and general chapters – in short, all the machinery of centralised government, such as does not appear again in the monastic world until the Cistercians and the Mendicant Orders arose in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.”4

      The various monasteries under the Rule of St. Pachomius existed as separate houses, each with a head or præpositus and other officials of its own, and organised apparently on the basis of the trades followed by the inmates. The numbers in each house naturally varied; between thirty and forty on an average living together. At the more solemn services all the members of the various houses came together to the common church; but the lesser offices were celebrated by the houses individually. Under this rule, regular organised work was provided for the monk not merely as a discipline and penitential exercise, as was the case under the Antonian system, but as a part of the life itself. The common ideal of asceticism aimed at was not too high.

      “The fundamental idea of St. Pachomius’ Rule was,” says Dom Butler, “to establish a moderate level of observance which might be obligatory upon all; and to leave it open to each – and to, indeed, encourage each – to go beyond the fixed minimum, according as he was prompted by his strength, his courage, and his zeal.”5

      Hence we find the Pachomian monks eating or fasting as they wished. The tables were laid at midday, and dinner was provided every hour till evening; they ate when they liked, or fasted if they felt called on so to do. Some took a meal only in the evening, others every second or even only every fifth day. The Rule allowed them their full freedom; and any idea of what is now understood by “Common Life” – the living together and doing all things together according to rule – was a feature entirely absent from Egyptian monachism.

      One other feature must also be noticed, which would seem to be the direct outcome of the liberty allowed in much of the life, and in particular in the matter of austerities, to the individual monk under the systems both of St. Anthony and St. Pachomius. It is a spirit of strongly marked individualism. Each worked for his personal advance in virtue; each strove to do his utmost in all kinds of ascetical exercises and austerities – in prolonging his fasts, his prayers, his silence. The favourite name used to describe any of the prominent monks was “great athlete.” They loved “to make a record” in austerities, and to contend with one another in mortifications; and they would freely boast of their spiritual achievements. This being so, penances and austerities tended to multiply and increase in severity, and this freedom of the individual in regard to his asceticism accounts for the very severe and often incongruous mortifications undertaken by the monks of Egypt.

      Monachism was introduced into Western Europe from Egypt by way of Rome. The first monks who settled in the Eternal City were known as “Egyptians,” and the Latin translation of the Vita Antonii (c. 380) became “the recognised embodiment of the monastic ideal.” It preserved its primitive character in the matter of austerities during the fourth century, and St. Augustine declares that he knew of religious bodies of both sexes, which exercised themselves “in incredible fastings,” passing not merely one day without food or drink, which was “a common practice,” but often going “for three days or more without anything.”

      During this same century the monastic life made its appearance in Gaul. About A.D. 360 St. Martin founded a religious house at Ligugé, near Poitiers; and when about A.D. 371 he became Bishop of Tours, he established another monastic centre in a retired position near his episcopal city, which he made his usual residence. The life led by the monks was a simple reproduction of that of St. Anthony’s followers. Cassian, the great organiser of monachism in Gaul, also followed closely the primitive Egyptian ideals both in theory and practice, whilst what is known of the early history of the monastery at Lerins, founded by Honoratus, to whom Cassian dedicated the second part of his Conferences, points to the fact that here too the eremitical life was regarded as the monastic ideal. On the whole, therefore, it may be said that the available evidence “amply justifies the statement that Gallic monachism during the fifth and sixth centuries was thoroughly Egyptian in both theory and practice.”6

      It is now possible to understand the position of St. Benedict in regard to monasticism. The great Patriarch of Western monks was born probably about A.D. 480, and it was during that century that the knowledge of Eastern rules of regular life was increased greatly in Italy by the translation of an abridgment of Saint Basil’s code into Latin by Rufinus. St. Basil had introduced for his monks in Cappadocia and the neighbouring provinces certain modifications of the Egyptian monastic observances. There was more common life for his religious: they lived together and ate together; and not when they pleased, but when the superior ordained. They prayed always in common, and generally depended upon the will of a common superior. About the same time St. Jerome translated the Rule of Pachomius, and the influence of these two Rules upon the monastic life of Italy at the period when St. Benedict comes upon the scene is manifest. Whatever changes had been introduced into the local observances, and however varied were the practices of individual monasteries, it is at least certain that at this period the monastic system in use in Italy was founded upon and drew its chief inspirations from Egyptian models. What was wholly successful in the East proved, however, unsuitable to Western imitators, and, owing to the climatic conditions, impossible. This much seems certain even from the mention made of the Gyrovagi and Sarabites by St. Benedict, since he describes them as existing kinds of monks whose example was to be avoided. That he had practical knowledge and experience of the Egyptian and the Eastern types of monachism clearly appears in his reference to Cassian and to the Rule of “Our Holy Father Saint Basil,” as he calls him, and in the fact that he made his own first essay in the monastic life as a solitary.

      When, some time about the beginning of the sixth century, St. Benedict came to write his Rule, with full knowledge and experience both of the systems then in vogue and of the existing need of some reconstitution, it is noteworthy that he did not attempt to restore the lapsed practices of primitive asceticism, or insist upon any very different scheme of regular discipline. On the contrary, “he deliberately turned his back on the austerities that had hitherto been regarded as the chief means for attaining the spiritual end of the monastic life.” He calls his Rule “a very little rule for beginners” —minima inchoationis regula, and says that though there may be in it some things “a little severe,” still he hopes that he will establish “nothing harsh, nothing heavy.” The most cursory comparison between this new Rule and those which previously existed will make it abundantly clear that St. Benedict’s legislation was conceived in a spirit of moderation in regard to every detail of the monastic life. Common-sense, and the wise consideration of the superior in tempering any possible severity, according to the needs of times, places, and circumstances were, by his desire, to preside over the spiritual growth of those trained in his “school of divine service.”

      In addition to this St. Benedict broke with the past in another and not less important way, and in one which, if rightly considered and acted upon, more than compensated for the mitigation of corporal austerities introduced into his rule of life. The strong note of individualism characteristic of Egyptian monachism, which gave rise to what Dom Butler calls the “rivalry in ascetical achievement,” gave place in St. Benedict’s code to the common practices of the community, and to the entire submission of the individual will, even in matters of personal austerity and mortification, to the judgment of the superior.

      “This two-fold break with the past, in the elimination of austerity and in the sinking of the individual in the community, made St. Benedict’s Rule less

4

Ibid., p. 235.

5

Ibid., p. 236.

6

Ibid., p. 247.