18.11. The Triumph of St. Benedict’s Rule Throughout the West
Another distinction lies in the fact that St Benedict, in common with the early monastic legislators, set before his monks no special object or purpose, no particular work to be done, other than the common work of monks — the living in community according to the "evangelical counsels," and thereby sanctifying their souls and serving God. "A school of the service of the Lord" is St Benedict's definition of a monastery, and the one thing he requires from the novice is that "in very deed he seek God." Nothing probably was further from his thoughts than that his monks were to become apostles, bishops, popes, civilisers, educators, scholars, men of learning. His idea simply was to make them good: and if a man is good, he will do good. The ascetical side of the training in the Rule lies chiefly in obedience and humility. The very definition of a monk is "one who renounces his own wishes, and comes to fight for Christ, taking up the arms of obedience"; it is the temper of renunciation and obedience rather than the actual obeying that is of value.
The chapter on humility (7), the longest in the Rule, has become a classic in Christian ascetical literature; it embodies St Benedict's teaching on the spiritual life. The general spirit of the Rule is beautifully summed up in the short chapter "on the good zeal which monks ought to have" (72): "As there is an evil and bitter emulation which separates from God and leads to hell, so there is a good spirit of emulation which frees from vices and leads to God and life everlasting. Let monks therefore practise this emulation with most fervent love; that is to say, let them in honour prefer one another. Let them bear most patiently with each other's infirmities, whether of body or of character. Let them contend with one another in their obedience. Let no one follow what he thinks most profitable to himself, but rather what is best for another. Let them shew brotherly charity with a chaste love. Let them fear God and love their abbot with sincere and humble affection, and set nothing whatever before Christ, Who can bring us unto eternal life. "
In view of the great influence exercised on the course of European history and civilisation in things both ecclesiastical and civil, from the sixth century to the thirteenth, by St Benedict and his sons, it seemed proper to supply the foregoing somewhat detailed account of the Benedictine Rule and life. With an outline sketch of the steps whereby St Benedict's supremacy in Western monachism was achieved, this chapter will be concluded.
Though the Rule was written as a code of regulations for the government of o ne monastery, it is evident that St Benedict contemplated the likelihood of its being observed hi different monasteries, and even in different countries. Besides Monte Cassino, his own monastery at Subiaco, and perhaps the twelve others, continued after he had left them; and there is mention of one founded by him from Monte Cassino, at Terracina.
These are the only Benedictine monasteries of which there is any record as existing in St Benedict's lifetime, for the stories of the missions of St Placidus to Sicily and St Maurus to Gaul must be regarded as apocryphal. It is said of Simplicius, the third abbot of Monte Cassino, that "he propagated into all the hidden work of the master"; and this has been understood as indicating that the spread of the Rule to other monasteries began in his abbacy. But the historical determining point was the sacking of Monte Cassino by the Lombards about 580-590, when the monks fled to Rome, and were placed in a monastery attached to the Lateran Basilica, in the heart of Latin Christendom, under the eyes of the Popes.
It is now generally agreed by critical students of the period that the monachism which St Gregory the Great established in his palace on the Coelian Hill, wherein he himself became a monk, was in an adequate and true sense Benedictine, being based on that Rule which St Gregory eulogises as "conspicuous for its discretion." From the Coelian Hill it was carried to England by Augustine, the prior of the monastery, and his companions (596), and it is probable that the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul, later St Augustine's, Canterbury, was the first Benedictine monastery out of Italy. As has been said above, it was not till the seventh century that Benedictine monarchism got a foothold in Gaul; but during that century it spread steadily and at last rapidly throughout Gaul and England, and from England it was carried into Friesland and the other Germanic lands by the great English Benedictine missioners, Willibrod, Boniface, and the rest. Being well adapted to the spirit and character of the Teutonic peoples then overrunning Western Europe, the Benedictine Rule inevitably and quickly absorbed and supplanted all those previously in vogue — so completely that Charles the Great could ask the question, if there had ever been any other monastic Rule than St Benedict's? The Benedictines shared fully in the effects of the Carolingian revival, and from that date, for three centuries, St Benedict's spirit ruled supreme throughout Western monachism, Ireland alone excepted.
All through the Benedictine centuries, Benedictine nuns flourished no less than Benedictine monks, and nowhere more than in England. St Boniface's correspondence with several Anglo-Saxon nuns, both in England and in Germany, reveals the high standards of education and of life that prevailed in the English nunneries. Communities of Benedictine nuns have in all ages been predominantly ladies, recruited from the upper classes, and the life is specially adapted for them. Naturally it has been a more secluded life than that of the monks; but the great Benedictine nunneries have always exercised considerable religious and social influence.
In the foregoing pages the ideals of the various phases of early monasticism have been set forth. It is not pretended that these ideals have always been realised by monks. But it is right to estimate a system in large measure by its ideals, except where failure adequately to realise them has predominated. That this has been the case with Christian monachism as a whole will hardly now be contended by any historian.
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