No higher testimony as to the inherent excellencies of the Rule can be adduced than the results it has achieved in Western Europe and elsewhere; and no more striking quality is exhibited by it than by its adaptability to the ever-changing requirements of time and place since St. Benedict's days. Its enduring character is the highest testimony to its wisdom. For fourteen centuries it has been the guiding light of a numerous family of religious, men and women, and it is a living code at the present day, just as it was a thousand years ago. Though modified and adapted, from time to time, to suit the peculiar necessities and conditions of various ages and countries, by reason of its wonderful elasticity its principles still remain the same, and it has formed the fundamental basis of a great variety of other religious bodies. It has merited the encomiums of councils, popes, and commentators, and its vitality is as vigorous at the present time as it was in the ages of faith. Though it was no part of St. Benedict's design that his spiritual descendants should make a figure in the world as authors or statesmen, as preservers of pagan literature, as pioneers of civilization, as revivers of agriculture, or as builders of castles and cathedrals, yet circumstances brought them into all these spheres. His sole idea was the moral and spiritual training of his disciples, and yet in carrying this out he made the cloister a school of useful workers, a real refuge for society, and a solid bulwark of the Church (Dudden, Gregory the Great, II, ix). The Rule, instead of restricting the monk to one particular form of work, makes it possible for him to do almost any kind of work, and that in a manner spiritualized and elevated above the labour of merely secular craftsmen. In this lies one of the secrets of its success.
The results of the fulfilment of the precepts of the Rule are abundantly apparent in history. That of manual labour, for instance, which St. Benedict laid down as absolutely essential for his monks, produced many of the architectural triumphs which are the glory of the Christian world. Many cathedrals (especially in England), abbeys, and churches, scattered up and down the countries of Western Europe, were the work of Benedictine builders and architects. The cultivation of the soil, encouraged by St. Benedict, was another form of labour to which his followers gave themselves without reserve and with conspicuous success, do that many regions have owed much of their agricultural prosperity to the skillful husbandry of the sons of St. Benedict. The hours ordered by the Rule to be devoted daily to systematic reading and study, have given to the world many of the foremost scholars and writers, so that the term "Benedictine erudition" has been for long centuries a byword indicative of the learning and laborious research fostered in the Benedictine cloister. The regulations regarding the reception and education of children, moreover, were the germ from which sprang up a great number of famous monastic schools and universities which flourished in the Middle Ages.
It is true that as communities became rich and consequently less dependent upon their own labours for support, the primitive fervour for the Rule diminished, and for this reason charges of corruption and absolute departure from monastic ideals have been made against monks. But, although it is impossible to deny that the many reforms that were initiated seem to give colour to this view, it cannot be admitted that the Benedictine Institute, as a whole, ever became really degenerate or fell away seriously from the ideal established by its legislator. Individual failures there certainly were, as well as mitigations of rule, from time to time, but the loss of fervour in one particular monastery no more compromises all the other monasteries of the same country than the faults of one individual monk reflect necessarily upon the rest of the community to which he belongs. So, whilst admitting that the rigour of the Rule has varied at different times and in different places, we must, on the other hand, remember that modern historical research has entirely exonerated the monastic body as a whole from the charge of a general departure from the principles of the Rule and a widespread corruption of either ideal or practice. Circumstances have often rendered mitigations necessary but they have always been introduced as such and not as new or better interpretations of the Rule itself. The fact that the Benedictines still glory in their Rule, guard it with jealousy, and point to it as the exemplar according to which they are endeavouring to model their lives, is in itself the strongest proof that they are still imbued with its spirit, though recognizing its latitude of application and its adaptability to various conditions.
Publication information
Written by G. Cyprian Alston. Transcribed by Robert Gordon -- image scanned by Wm Stuart French Jr.. In Memory of Clifford A Gordon
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume II. Published 1907. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Bibliography
MONTALAMBERT, Monks of the West (Tr., London, 1896), IV; TOSTI, St. Benedict, tr. Woods (London, 1896); DOYLE, The Teaching of St. Benedict (London,1887); DUDDEN, Gregory the Great (London, 1905); BUTLER Lausiac History of Palladius, Introd., XIX in Cambridge Texts and Studies (Cambridge, 1898); IDEM, The Text of St. Benedict's Rule, in Downside Review, XVII, 223; and in Journal of Theol. Studies, III, 458; BESSE, Le Moine Bénédictine (Ligué], 1898); HAEFTEN, Disquisitiones Monasticae (Antwerp, 1644); SCHMIDT, Regula Scti. Benedicit (Rtatisbon, 1880, 1892); WOELFFLIN, Benedicti Regula Monachorum (Leipzig, 1895); TRAUBE, Textgeschicte der Regula S. Benedicti (Munich 1898). COMMENTARIES: WARNEFRID (Monte Cassino, 1880); MÈGE (Paris, 1687); MARTÈNE (Paris, 1690); also in P.L. LXVI; CALMET (Paris, 1734); MABILLON, Prefaces to Acta Sanctorum O.S.B. (Venice, 1733). ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE RULE: ANONYMOUS (Ramsgate, 1872; Rome, 1895); DOYLE, ed. (London, 1875); VERHEYEN (Atchison, Kansas, 1906); HUNTER-BLAIR (Fort Augustus, Scotland, 1906).
The results of the fulfilment of the precepts of the Rule are abundantly apparent in history. That of manual labour, for instance, which St. Benedict laid down as absolutely essential for his monks, produced many of the architectural triumphs which are the glory of the Christian world. Many cathedrals (especially in England), abbeys, and churches, scattered up and down the countries of Western Europe, were the work of Benedictine builders and architects. The cultivation of the soil, encouraged by St. Benedict, was another form of labour to which his followers gave themselves without reserve and with conspicuous success, do that many regions have owed much of their agricultural prosperity to the skillful husbandry of the sons of St. Benedict. The hours ordered by the Rule to be devoted daily to systematic reading and study, have given to the world many of the foremost scholars and writers, so that the term "Benedictine erudition" has been for long centuries a byword indicative of the learning and laborious research fostered in the Benedictine cloister. The regulations regarding the reception and education of children, moreover, were the germ from which sprang up a great number of famous monastic schools and universities which flourished in the Middle Ages.
It is true that as communities became rich and consequently less dependent upon their own labours for support, the primitive fervour for the Rule diminished, and for this reason charges of corruption and absolute departure from monastic ideals have been made against monks. But, although it is impossible to deny that the many reforms that were initiated seem to give colour to this view, it cannot be admitted that the Benedictine Institute, as a whole, ever became really degenerate or fell away seriously from the ideal established by its legislator. Individual failures there certainly were, as well as mitigations of rule, from time to time, but the loss of fervour in one particular monastery no more compromises all the other monasteries of the same country than the faults of one individual monk reflect necessarily upon the rest of the community to which he belongs. So, whilst admitting that the rigour of the Rule has varied at different times and in different places, we must, on the other hand, remember that modern historical research has entirely exonerated the monastic body as a whole from the charge of a general departure from the principles of the Rule and a widespread corruption of either ideal or practice. Circumstances have often rendered mitigations necessary but they have always been introduced as such and not as new or better interpretations of the Rule itself. The fact that the Benedictines still glory in their Rule, guard it with jealousy, and point to it as the exemplar according to which they are endeavouring to model their lives, is in itself the strongest proof that they are still imbued with its spirit, though recognizing its latitude of application and its adaptability to various conditions.
Publication information
Written by G. Cyprian Alston. Transcribed by Robert Gordon -- image scanned by Wm Stuart French Jr.. In Memory of Clifford A Gordon
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume II. Published 1907. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Bibliography
MONTALAMBERT, Monks of the West (Tr., London, 1896), IV; TOSTI, St. Benedict, tr. Woods (London, 1896); DOYLE, The Teaching of St. Benedict (London,1887); DUDDEN, Gregory the Great (London, 1905); BUTLER Lausiac History of Palladius, Introd., XIX in Cambridge Texts and Studies (Cambridge, 1898); IDEM, The Text of St. Benedict's Rule, in Downside Review, XVII, 223; and in Journal of Theol. Studies, III, 458; BESSE, Le Moine Bénédictine (Ligué], 1898); HAEFTEN, Disquisitiones Monasticae (Antwerp, 1644); SCHMIDT, Regula Scti. Benedicit (Rtatisbon, 1880, 1892); WOELFFLIN, Benedicti Regula Monachorum (Leipzig, 1895); TRAUBE, Textgeschicte der Regula S. Benedicti (Munich 1898). COMMENTARIES: WARNEFRID (Monte Cassino, 1880); MÈGE (Paris, 1687); MARTÈNE (Paris, 1690); also in P.L. LXVI; CALMET (Paris, 1734); MABILLON, Prefaces to Acta Sanctorum O.S.B. (Venice, 1733). ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE RULE: ANONYMOUS (Ramsgate, 1872; Rome, 1895); DOYLE, ed. (London, 1875); VERHEYEN (Atchison, Kansas, 1906); HUNTER-BLAIR (Fort Augustus, Scotland, 1906).
No comments:
Post a Comment