A History of Monastic Spirituality.
by Luc Brésard
Benedictine rules at
Introduction.
1. Our Purpose.2. Presentation.
1. Prehistory.
I. The Monastic Phenomenon.II. History and Prehistory.III. The Source of Christian Monasticism.1. The Old Testament.2. The Jewish Monks.3. The Evangelical Call.4. The Martyrs.5. Origen.
2. Antony (251-356).
I. Introduction.II. Athanasius and the Desert.III. The ‘Life of Antony.’IV. In Conclusion.
3. The Mediterranean basin.
Lower Egypt.Upper Egypt.Palestine.Syria.Asia Minor.North Africa.Rome.Gaul.British Isles.Conclusion.
4. The Monastic Rules.
Classification.Their Length.Their Content.Different Emphases.The Word “Monk.”
5. Pachomius (292-346).
I. The Pachomian Fire in Straw.II. The Life of Pachomius.III. Rules & Organisation of the Koinonia.IV. Pachomian Spirituality.V. Conclusion.
6. The Apophthegmata.
I. The Literature of the Desert.II. The Apophthegmata.III. How are the Apophthegmata to be Read?IV. How are they to be Understood?V. Hesychasm.VI. Conclusion: Flowers of the Desert.
7. Evagrius (345-399).
I. Scholarly Monasticism.II. The Life of Evagrius.III. The Works of Evagrius.IV. Evagrius’ TeachingV. Conclusion.Explanation of some terms.
8. Cassian (365-435).
I. His Life.II. His Works.The Institutes.The Conferences.III. Conclusion: Synthesis of his Teaching.
9. Basil (328-378).
I. Saint Basil and his Ascetical Writings.2. The Origin and History of the Basilian Rules.3. Structure of the Basilian Rules.II. the Moral Rules.III. The Little Asceticon.IV. The Communities of Women.V. Basil Complemented by Gregory of Nyssa.
10. Pseudo-Macarius.
I. The Author and his Writings.2) Was Macarius a Messalian?3) His Writings.II. Macarius’ Doctrine.3) Christ and the Holy Spirit.4) Prayer.
11. Augustine (354-430).
I. Saint Augustine’s Monastic Life.II. Augustine’s Rule.III. Other Monastic Writings.IV. Conclusion.
12. Western Monasticism.
The Monks of Gaul.I. Central Gaul.II. Monasticism in Provence.The Monastic writings of Cesarius.III. Iberian Monasticism.IV. The Gallic Rules.Celtic MonasticismII. Saint Patrick & His Posterity.III. Saint Columban.Table of 2 Centuries in the History of Monasticism.
13. The Monks of Gaza (c. 500).
I. The Desert of Gaza.II. the Spiritual Masters.III. Teaching.IV. Conclusion: Repose.
14. John Climacus (circa 580-680).
I. His Life.II. His Writings.III. His Teaching.IV. Conclusion.
By Way of Conclusion.
Glossary.
Introduction.
1. Our Purpose.
This is a course on the history of monastic spirituality. Some terms used in this course:
1. History.
History is the knowledge or the recounting of the past, the events of the past; it deals with facts relating to the evolution of a social group. It looks at a succession of men and women and the events through which they lived. It runs along a horizontal line.
These events are past, the people are dead. In spite of their archeological interest or the examples and lessons they give, they are nevertheless dead and gone.
2. Spirituality
This concerns the spiritual life, the life of the Holy Spirit within us. The Spirit of the Living God comes to dwell within us and to lead us to God. Here we have a vertical line constantly coming down to arouse our response to return to him.
3. History of Spirituality
Here we have a convergence of the two lines, horizontal and vertical. More exactly, the horizontal line of history is brought to life at every moment by the movement of the living God who comes to live among men and women (“to play with the sons of men” as the book of Proverbs has it). To this movement of God there corresponds a free movement of men and women who can respond to him in two ways:
a) In setting oneself free from everything which could be an obstacle to the work of God, renouncing the evil forces capable of limiting or annihilating this divine action. It is a combat, a struggle (= ascesis) leading to purification.
b) In letting oneself be caught up in this movement of return to God, giving oneself to his action through availability, surrender, prayer. This is contemplation.
Ascesis and contemplation are two movements linked together which we will come across constantly.
To study the history of spirituality is then to try to understand the movement of God towards men and women and their response to god in the course of history, particularly through the texts which have been handed down to us, texts written by people who have spent their lives close to God or who have written about it. There is no history without texts. These texts will draw for us the moral and spiritual profile of each of these witnesses to God, their response to the action of God, their way of going to God. We are not dealing with something dead as in history pure and simple, but with something very much alive.
All the more alive as the same Spirit who has fashioned the different spiritual characters of the men and women whom we shall meet, is also within us to help us understand their teaching, the breath of life with which he has endowed them and their writings will transform us with a life-giving touch. It is the Spirit who will bring us into contact, and even into friendship with these men who are always present among us through their writings.
4. Monastic
This third term simply indicates that we have made a choice in the history of spirituality. We will just think about monks, leaving on one side for the moment the Fathers of the Church who have little or nothing to tell us about the monastic life. For those among them who do say something in their writings, we will only give a brief presentation of their personality and look at what concerns monastic life alone in their works, leaving on one side what belongs to a course on Patrology.
The purpose of this study of the history of monastic spirituality, then, is to make personal contact with the spirit which was at work in our Fathers in the faith, the first monks. It should be an apprenticeship to lectio divina. For St Benedict, the lectio which can “lead us to the summit of perfection,” is the Bible and the “holy Doctors,” among whom he names particularly the monks: the works of CASSIAN and BASIL (Rule ch.73).
2. Presentation.
In this preamble explaining our purpose, first we state our OPTIONS: in this case spirituality takes precedence of history. There are already ‘histories of monasticism’; we present a ‘History of Monastic Spirituality.’
Then, we do not pretend to say everything that can be said on the subject. There is an excellent document: ‘The study of the Fathers of the Church in priestly formation’ which is useful for the study of monks as well. It underlines: “the need to make a choice, considering the huge amount of material.” Among the four different ways which it suggests for presenting this “great quantity of material,” we have chosen “the monograph, which concentrates on some of the more representative of the Fathers, a method particularly adapted to teach in a concrete way how to approach them and study their thought.”
This preamble also shows you the MANNER in which we will work:
One part will be the presentation of the subject or the author, as we must place our first monks in their historical context in order to understand them; this will be fairly brief, as many other books deal with the history of monasticism. Mention will also be made of the principal works of the authors studied; but we will concentrate particularly on their teaching.
To understand this, contact with texts is indispensable. It is through these above all that our Fathers speak to us and pass on the Spirit who dwelt in them. We will cite the texts on separate pages, giving their reference in the course.
Thirdly, before it was published, this course was given to the novices at Cîteaux, during which mention was occasionally made of the Rule of St Benedict in the form of short exercises. Identifying the sources as we go along helps to understand them better, and so to value them.
Then, we thought it would be helpful to check the knowledge gained by revision at the end of each main subject.
As the course is now being used by other monasteries, we have added, for the use of the tutors, the answers to the revision and the exercises on the Rule of St Benedict; and also some explanations of the texts, which do not pretend to be the only explanations!
The PLAN followed tries to be both logical and chronological, but as monasticism appeared at the same time in several places, it is not possible to be completely chronological.
After this Introduction, we study the Prehistory of monasticism (1), then the earliest preparation, before there were any texts. After the prehistory, we present the first text, which begins the history, the ‘Life of St Antony’ by Athanasius (2).
Having established this landmark, the initial step, we take a look at what happened round the Mediterranean basin, the panorama of all the different kinds of monks who appeared in the fourth century (3). This ‘Bird’s-Eye View’ is followed by a few words on the Monastic Rules (4).
Next we study the first of the ‘Mother’-Rules, with the first form of cenobitism led by Pachomius (5). We stay in Egypt, to look at the anchorites who were the Fathers of the desert, and we study their Apophthegmata (6). This takes us to Evagrius, one of the Desert Fathers, who put their teaching into writing (7), and to Cassian who took it to the cenobites of Gaul (8).
Then we look at the “strong race of cenobites” with another Mother-Rule, that of Basil, to which we add some monastic texts of his brother Gregory of Nyssa (9). We turn next to the author who goes under the name of Ps. Macarius, and who depends to some extent on Basil and Gregory (10). Then we pass on to the last of the Mother-Rules, that of Augustine (11).
After a quick look at Western Monasticism (12), strengthened in Gaul by Cassian, we finish with the later inheritors of this magnificent flowering of Eastern monasticism which we have studied: the monks of Gaza (13) in the fifth and sixth centuries, and John Climacus in the seventh (14).
1. Prehistory.
I. The Monastic Phenomenon
1. Outside Christianity
2. Definition and essential elements
3. Conclusion: for us as Christians
II. History and Prehistory
III. The source of Christian monasticism
1. The Old Testament
2. Jewish monks
3. The evangelical call
4. The martyrs
5. Origen
I.The Monastic Phenomenon.
We are going to study the history of monastic spirituality. Let us consider what we mean by this.
1) Outside Christianity.
First, is monasticism a typically Christian phenomenon? To this we must reply: No.
There were monks long before Christianity. Fifteen hundred years before Jesus came, there were monks in India. Most non-Christian religions have known some form of monastic life.
In Europe, the mediterranean religions of antiquity had virgin priestesses: the Pythia of Delphi, the Roman vestal virgins, vowed to chastity at least for a time, but this was understand in a physical rather than a moral way. Among the Greek philosophers, there were also modes of life similar to that of monks. In the first half of the sixth century BC, Pythagoras founded a sort of community which one entered through different degrees of initiation. However there was, on the whole, no practice of sexual ascesis.
Much later, after the rise of Christianity, Islam, which has never officially recognised any form of monastic life, nevertheless had from its earliest days ascetics living in solitude who practised continence in the presence of God. Fraternities sprang up subsequently for training in a method of raising the soul to God.
Even in the New World, at that time unknown in Europe, in the pre-historic religions of America, Fr Lafitau, a 17th century missionary (quoted by Dom Jean Leclerq) has shown that there were communities of consecrated virgins. The famous temples in Peru under the Inca kings had communities of vestal virgins whose rules were more severe than those of the Roman vestals. The temples in Mexico had religious of the same kind: “They ate in common and slept in large halls, rising in the night and assisting in a choir like our religious at Matins. They were responsible for sweeping the temple and for its upkeep, and practised great mortifications; they were called ‘daughters of penitence.’”
The Iroquois also had “vestals whom they called ‘Ieouinnon’ and who were professional virgins. There were also men who were virgin. It may be that in ancient times some lived in community, like the Essenians. But I think nevertheless that it is more likely that they retired into solitude, at some distance from their village, where they lived separately like hermits, having only a servant who brought them the necessities of life.”
2) Definition and essential elements.
From these examples we can see that before Christian monasticism, there was in all the religions a universal phenomenon which resembled what we call monasticism. These special forms of life, not always similar, included essential elements of monastic life.
Let us try to see what are the essential elements of this kind of life which we have defined by the general term “monastic,” several examples of which we have observed outside Christianity. We can infer that they will certainly occur in our Christian monastic life as well.
The first thing that stands out is that these various forms of para-Christian monastic life have a tendency to set themselves apart, to separate themselves from the world in isolation from the rest of men. This isolation often has an exterior sign, a wall, a reserved enclosure, access to certain buildings being reserved to the ascetics. Yet frequently they insist rather on the cloister of the heart.
This separation from the world is indicated by a distinctive habit and a special way of cutting the hair. It is ratified by different rites of aggregation or initiation.
We also find ascetic practices such as celibacy, at least temporarily, and poverty understood as detachment. These practices are meant to encourage interior vigilance.
They do not insist very much on obedience which is considered to be the consequence of a general openness or availability developed through meditation. On the other hand great stress is
placed on absolute docility to a spiritual master.
Finally, the third essential element: mystical aspiration that is to say a profound sense of the Absolute and a desire for communion with this absolute reality. This is perhaps the deepest foundation of the monastic life, for it is the source of a keen awareness of the radical insufficiency of this changing world. It is the driving power of the two other elements: separation from the world and ascetic practices.
We can now formulate a broad definition of monasticism: it is a manner of life having a spiritual goal which transcends the objectives of earthly life, the attainment of which is considered the one thing necessary.
3) Conclusion: for us as Christians.
All through our course in Christian monasticism we shall find these three elements which constitute monastic life, but in a totally new perspective: the call to follow Christ (the ‘sequela Christi), is at the origin of Christian monastic life. In the daily living out of an unconditional response to the love of Christ, one discovers practices similar to those in other forms of monastic life; for the demands inherent in such a way of life are always the same, but the source is different, for the Christian monk and nun it lies in the Gospel imperative. For them these elements are transfigured and illuminated by the wonderful coming of a God of love to mankind in the person of Christ. Christian monks and nuns will be in love with the person of Christ.
Separation from the world will express their desire to belong to him.
Their ascesis will be a communion with his Kenosis (self-emptying) and his Passion.
Their mystical aspiration will find its full-flowering in the union with a divine-human person who will bring them into the heart of the Trinity.
Note 1, below.
A Difficult Word.
We have just characterised the third element of monasticism as, in a broad sense, a ‘mystical aspiration.’ But this word ‘mystical’ is a snare, often misunderstood and used in the wrong way. What is its meaning for us as Christians?
In Christianity, it does not mean looking for extraordinary experiences. The word should be understood first in the way St Paul used it, with reference to the ‘mystery of Christ,’ which concerns salvation — known through faith — beyond reason. In this sense, mysticism is at the foundation of Christianity; baptism introduces us into the mystery of Christ, into the mystical life. Real union with God through belonging to Christ, the God-Man, is a supernatural reality which remains mysterious and hidden. We speak of the ‘mystical aspiration’ to express the desire of the Christian for communion with this hidden reality.
This communion comes about in this life in faith through the sacraments and through the desire to lead a holy life, the desire to do “what is pleasing to God,” (a Pauline expression which we will find again in Basil), and through the pursuit of continual prayer which, as we will see, is characteristic of these first monks.
This is the first meaning of the ‘mystical life,’ the basic meaning: communion in the mystery of Christ and so in his Spirit who works in the soul through his gifts. The more intense this communion with Christ, the more the gifts play their part. Gregory of Nyssa will explain it by the idea of synergy.
It sometimes happens that, under the influence of the gift of wisdom, the baptised person suddenly experiences the presence of Christ in the soul, a mysterious contact, a kind of spiritual touch of divinity, without intermediary: the presence of God invades the soul. So in this text from St Basil: “If ever a kind of light falling on your heart has suddenly given you an awareness of God, flooding your soul in a way that makes you love God and despise the world and all material things, this obscure and fleeting image can help you to understand the state of the just who rejoice in God with a peaceful and unending happiness. This joy is sometimes bestowed by the Providence of God, but rarely, so that this little taste may lead you to the remembrance of the good things which you do not possess” (Homily on Psalm 32). This text emphasises the unexpectedness, the suddenness of these graces, and also their rarity. The vocabulary of spiritual authors who have experienced them gives numerous expressions tounderline these two qualifications.