A third argument is drawn from the state of the institutions in the two rules. The Master is much more precise and goes into the smallest details at every opportunity. But at the same time, the organization of his monastery is much more primitive than that of St. Benedict, in whose rule we find a more developed complex of monastic institutions. The Master, for example, does not have a prior in his monastery, nor does he seem to know of such an official. St. Benedict tolerates the practice of having a prior, though he is not very favorable toward it. By the time of St. Gregory the office of prior seems to be taken for granted. It looks, therefore, as if St. Benedict is the middle term between the RM, which represents an earlier stage of development, and St. Gregory, whom we know to be later than the RM and the RB. It is true, of course, that the evolution of institutions does not always proceed in unilinear fashion nor progress at the same pace in different places. The argument has greater force if it is admitted that both rules come from the vicinity of Rome. Although there is considerable evidence for this, some scholars continue to locate the RM in southern Gaul.
The case of the prior is by no means the only instance of a more developed institutional structure in the RB. The Master also has no novice master, no infirmarian, no permanent guest master, no special cooks for guests, no scrutatores to check on the monks’ application to their lectio divina, no monk appointed to give the signal for the divine office. The RB has all these officials. In addition to the monastic chapter, it also introduces the council of seniors, unknown to the RM. In his monastery, the Master, unlike the RB, provides no special place for the novices or for the sick, and no special kitchen for the guests. The more probable interpretation of these differences is that the legislation of the RM is earlier, whereas that of the RB represents a further stage in the evolution of monastic practice and provides for a larger community.
The plan of the two rules and the sequence of subject matter constitute a fourth argument for the priority of the RM. Commentators on the RB have always found it difficult to construct a satisfactory outline of the Rule.23 There are many places where it is difficult to follow the sequence of thought. Moreover, there are several blocks of material, such as the liturgical section, the disciplinary measures, and the last seven chapters, which look like independent collections of material inserted into the Rule in such a way as to break the continuity. The RM, on the contrary, is a much more unified work; each chapter follows logically from the preceding, often with explicit links. In spite of the fact that the complete RM, in the form in which it appears in Codex P, has probably already been subject to interpolation, the overall plan of the rule is quite clear.
On the hypothesis that the RM is the later work, it would be difficult to imagine the Master creating such a unity and composing such links to weld the disparate sections of the RB together with the additional material that the RM contains. On the other hand, it is easy to understand the process undertaken by St. Benedict if he had the text of the RM before him when he wrote. Given the extent to which he abbreviated the Master’s text, it would have been impossible for his redactional activity not to have severely dislocated the order of the RM by displacing certain sections, and particularly by omitting many of the connecting links.
These are not the only arguments that can be adduced. Scholars have also observed that a comparison of the liturgical practices prescribed by the two rules seems to indicate the priority of the RM. The manner of introducing Scriptural citations suggests that the common parts are homogeneous with the passages proper to the RM rather than with those proper to the RB. The Prologue of the RB seems clearly secondary to that of the RM: only the latter develops the argument completely, and the passages proper to the RB that now begin and end its Prologue are not homogeneous with the common parts, since they are in the second person singular, whereas the rest is in the first person plural. Indeed, every parallel passage must, in the end, be examined on its own merits. While no single argument settles the matter, and there remains some evidence that seems to favor the priority of the RB in certain passages, the cumulative effect is impressively in favor of the precedence of the RM.
If this point is now generally agreed upon, there is, however, no unanimity concerning the origin and development of the RM. One school of thought holds that it originated near Rome in the first few decades of the sixth century, and that the form St. Benedict knew and used toward the middle of the century was substantially the same as that we know in Codex P.24 Another view maintains, on the contrary, that the RM developed in stages: that the florilegium in Codex E represents a very early stage, that St. Benedict used an intermediate form no longer extant, and that the long form in Codex P is a more developed version unknown to him. Hence the RM and RB really are two forms of a single monastic rule, but reflect different stages in its evolution.25
Both the author and the place of origin of the RM are objects of dispute. It has been suggested that the RM may be, in fact, an earlier composition of St. Benedict, perhaps dating from his Subiaco period.26 Though not impossible chronologically, this view is difficult to reconcile with the profound differences in both form and content between the two rules.
5. THE CONTEXT OF THE RULE
The priority of the RM involves the admission that St. Benedict derived the teaching of some of the most important parts of his Rule directly from another monastic work. This discussion has obliged us to alter what had become a popular image of him as a solitary genius, detached from his time and locality, handing down from his lofty mountain an atemporal legislation of universal application. Rather, he was a great monastic teacher, taking his place in the ranks of his predecessors and followers, and blending harmoniously into his environment. To see a great historical figure as a man of his time is not to demean him or lessen his greatness but to understand him and his contribution more realistically. His borrowing from the RM is only an outstanding instance of a procedure already recognized in him and other monastic legislators. They had a profound sense of tradition. Like the other great monastic founders of the West, St. Benedict did not envisage himself as a reformer or founder of a new “religious order” but as the father of a community, who handed on to his sons the traditional monastic wisdom he had received from others.
Some modern writers have spoken of St. Benedict as an innovator and a genius of great originality,27 but in fact this is not how he was perceived in ancient times. His Rule was appreciated not because it was original, but precisely because it was so traditional: it was seen to be a masterful summary of the whole preceding monastic experience. The Western monastic fathers were profoundly conscious of being heirs of a past, of a tradition. Their aim was not to produce something new but to collect, assimilate and propagate the monastic wisdom accumulated by their Eastern and Western predecessors. That wisdom was common property; there was no sense of literary authorship. Each legislator was welcome to borrow anything he found useful in any other monastic writing. Our understanding of the Rule of St. Benedict, therefore, is enhanced by seeing it in context. To the extent that we can reconstruct the development of monastic teaching, terminology, institutions and discipline from their beginnings in the West down to the time of Gregory the Great, we can appreciate the role that the Rule played in this evolution.
While deservedly the most renowned, the Rule of St. Benedict is only one of a whole series of rules that enriched Latin monastic literature during this period. More than two dozen are still extant. The term “rule” does not designate a well-defined literary form, but has been used to cover a number of works differing substantially from one another. What they have in common is their intent to regulate the life of monks living in a coenobium. This legislation normally includes, on the one hand, theoretical spiritual teaching and, on the other, practical regulations to govern the daily life of the monastery by determining the time and measure of food, sleep and liturgical prayer, relationships with the outside, authority structures, etc. These two elements may be combined in quite different proportions. Some rules conta
in chiefly spiritual doctrine; some consist almost exclusively of practical regulations; others combine both. Their length can vary from a few hundred words to the more than fifty thousand words of the Regula Magistri.
Despite the diversity of these rules, the life actually lived in Western monasteries from the end of the fourth century up to the sixth seems to have been basically the same. Both the theory and the practice are more remarkable for their overall homogeneity than for the innumerable differences of detail from one monastery to another. The reason for this is the persistence of a common tradition, which was the determinant of monastic life much more than the rule was. The various rules were merely so many individual expressions of the tradition. All the ancient monks considered their real rule, in the sense of the ultimate determinant of their lives, to be not some product of human effort but the Word of God himself as contained in the Scriptures. Monasticism was simply a form of the Christian life itself, and hence it drew its inspiration from divine revelation. Eastern legislators such as Pachomius and Basil always spoke of the Scriptures as the rule of the monk and diligently searched them for a clear expression of God’s will for their communities.28
As monasticism grew and gained experience, a traditional interpretation of the Bible gradually accumulated, together with a complex of doctrine and observances forming a deposit, universally accepted, that was handed down in both oral and written tradition. The West inherited this tradition largely from the East, while adapting it to the different local circumstances of climate and culture. A monastic legislator was concerned, not to produce something new, but to draw from the traditional deposit of monastic teaching what was needed in his own circumstances and to apply it to the concrete conditions present in a given community. These contingencies are never precisely the same, and so the details may vary from one rule to the other, though all draw upon the common fund of tradition. A rule, therefore, was generally intended for a single community; the doctrine might be of wider application, but the concrete observances were laid down in view of local conditions. It is true, however, that some legislators envisaged the possibility of their rule being used in other places. They eagerly studied the work of their predecessors, for each new rule became another link in the chain of monastic tradition that led back to the pure sources of monastic origins and thus to the Word of God.
St. Benedict’s indebtedness to earlier monastic fathers has long been known. Modern editions of the Rule have noted his citations from such sources as Pachomius, Basil, Cassian and Augustine, and have often pointed out parallels that may sometimes indicate allusions to other works, but often merely represent a similarity of approach common to the whole tradition. While there is no certain evidence of his having knowledge of Greek sources (most likely he could not read Greek), it has been concluded that he was quite well read in the Latin Fathers, especially but not exclusively in monastic writers, including those Eastern sources translated into Latin by his time. This judgment is undoubtedly correct.
Benedict’s knowledge of the tradition is profound. It should be specified, however, that it is not an academic type of knowledge but the thorough assimilation of truth that comes from long application to lectio divina, a total immersion of oneself in the Word of God and its exposition by those whom he calls “holy catholic Fathers” and “reputable and orthodox catholic Fathers” (RB 73.4; 9.8). His dependence on the RM, however, shows that some of this contact with sources was not direct but at second or third hand, though the sections proper to the RB also manifest an extensive acquaintance with the earlier tradition. The fact is that monastic writers borrowed so much from one another that it is sometimes impossible to tell whether a particular parallel is due to direct dependence or came to the writer through one or more intermediaries. They were interested in the truth and intrinsic value of the tradition, not in knowing who had first formulated it in a particular way.
An examination of the entire spectrum of the Latin rules shows the lifeblood of this tradition coursing through the body of Western monasticism from the fourth century down to the Middle Ages. It is difficult to perceive all the intricacies of their mutual relationships, so pervasive was their authors’ propensity for reading and borrowing from one another.29 The earliest, which are decisive influences upon the subsequent tradition, are the proto-rules of Pachomius, Basil and Augustine. Of these, only the last is of Western origin and originally in Latin, but the other two, in the Latin versions of Jerome and Rufinus, respectively, made their appearance in the West about the same time as Augustine’s, around the year 400. None of them is dependent upon either of the others; they represent the separate interpretations of biblical teaching, as applied to cenobitic life, of three exceptionally perceptive and saintly Christian thinkers, each of whom translated his own teaching into practice or, to put it perhaps more correctly, recorded the fruit of his experience. They were very different personalities and lived in very different circumstances, cultures and ecclesiastical situations. The three forms of monastic life which they conceived, therefore, are also different and lay their stress somewhat diversely upon various Christian values. Yet, they are profoundly at one in their most basic intentionality and achievement, for they flow from the same pure biblical source, and their diversity confers a splendid richness upon the monastic phenomenon.
The first half of the fifth century saw the work of Cassian, which, as we have seen, although not cast in the form of a “rule” (an unknown writer later put together a “Regula Cassiani” out of prescriptions from the Institutes), nevertheless was an important link in the chain. Cassian shows no knowledge of the work of Augustine, is acquainted with Basil and occasionally refers to him, but depends chiefly upon Egypt. Though his knowledge of Pachomian cenobitism seems to be quite indirect, suggesting that he had not visited any Pachomian monasteries and was not acquainted with the Rule, he nevertheless was familiar with the wider Egyptian tradition that Pachomius shared. Both the theory and the institutions that he propagates are of Egyptian origin, though they reflect the intellectual sophistication of the Evagrian system rather than the primitive simplicity of the Coptic founders. To this period probably belongs also the Rule of the Four Fathers, a mysterious document that appears at the beginning of Codex P with the Regula Magistri and is still the object of controversy.
Few monastic rules appeared in the second half of the fifth century. About the only one that can reasonably be placed in this period is the Second Rule of the Fathers, a brief work that seems to show no direct dependence on any of its predecessors except the Rule of the Four Fathers. These short rules purport to be the minutes of meetings of monastic superiors to discuss problems of monastic life and discipline. It is known that such synods of abbots were in fact held in the fifth century, though the names are a literary fiction. The Second Rule, which is concerned with correcting abuses in regard to guests, obedience, humility and the prayer life of the community, is echoed in a surprising number of later rules, and seems to be the immediate inspiration of the RB’s famous dictum “nothing is to be preferred to the Work of God.”
The opening decades of the sixth century saw the appearance of two rules of major importance: the Regula Magistri and the Rule for Virgins of St. Caesarius of Arles. The latter, which appears to be earlier than his brief Rule for Monks,30 became the predominant influence upon a series of Gallic rules stretching into the seventh century. Caesarius, although he was a former monk of Lerins, drew primarily upon Augustine and owed but little to Cassian and the Egyptian tradition. No doubt this was due in large part to his abandonment of the Gallic position on the question of nature and grace, and his adoption of Augustinianism. This was the period of the “Augustinian invasion.” The tradition of Caesarius continued in his followers: first with the Rule for Monks and Rule for Virgins of his successor Aurelian of Arles; then with the nearly contemporary Regula Tarnantensis and the somewhat later Rule of Ferreolus, also Gallic productions of the sixth century.31
A similar introduction of Augustinian influence occurs
in Italy, but a little later. The RM, contemporary with Caesarius, seems not to know Augustine at all, or at least to have used him very sparingly. It resembles Caesarius, however, in that it produced a progeny in Italy as his work did in Gaul. This fact, plus its similarity to rules of known Italian provenance in features that distinguish them from the rules of Gallic origin, constitutes a forceful argument for the Italian origin of the RM. Its first descendant is the cento-rule found in Codex E (if we suppose that this florilegium is derivative from a longer form of the rule substantially identical with Codex P), which has with great probability been identified as the Rule of Eugippius. This latter rule already signals the “Augustinian invasion” of Italy: it opens with the text of the Ordo Monasterii and the Praeceptum, which occupy a place of honor. But nearly half of its text is drawn from the RM, with substantial passages also from Cassian and Basil, and lesser borrowings from Pachomius, Jerome and the Rule of the Four Fathers. There is no attempt to draw these disparate sources together into a unity; passages are simply extracted from the sources and strung together, with only minor changes. But it is important that Eugippius opened his horizons wide to predecessors of such different tendencies; he is the first who depends simultaneously upon Augustine, Basil and the Egyptian tradition, as represented both by the RM and by Cassian and Pachomius.
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