Holy Obedience

The first verse of Chapter 5 of the Rule of Saint Benedict is a stumbling block for most 21st Century modernites groomed by the lifestyles and expectations of Western culture.

There is really no easy or polite way to say that. It must be said, however, if we are to be earnest in our approach to understanding and integrating the principles presented by Saint Benedict in the Rule of Saint Benedict. Without being earnest in our approach to understanding the principles contained in his Rule, we will ever be like the Sarabaites and Gyrovagues [a.k.a. Landlopers] that Benedict mentions in Chapter 1.

But a third and most vile class of monks is that of Sarabaites, who have been tried by no rule under the hand of a master, as gold is tried in the fire (cf Prov 27:21); but, soft as lead, and still keeping faith with the world by their works, they are known to belie God by their tonsure. Living in two's and three's, or even singly, without a shepherd, enclosed, not in the Lord's sheepfold, but in their own, the gratification of their desires is law unto them; because what they choose to do they call holy, but what they dislike they hold to be unlawful.

But the fourth class of monks is that called Landlopers, who keep going their whole life long from one province to another, staying three or four days at a time in different cells as guests. Always roving and never settled, they indulge their passions and the cravings of their appetite, and are in every way worse than the Sarabaites. It is better to pass all these over in silence than to speak of their most wretched life.[1]

One of the great catastrophes affecting Christianity in these modern times is this idea of independence that rejects and casts aside the necessity for hierarchical Church [ecclesial] authority. Casting off ecclesial authority naturally opens the door for casting off any other form of authority. Casting off ecclesial authority degenerates into heresies. Casting off civil authority degenerates into chaos and opens the door for oppressive forms of government. Casting off authority, whether ecclesial or civil, is anarchy in one form or another.

Saint Benedict, though often referred to as the founder of monasticism in the West, is not the founder of monasticism. Saint Anthony the Great [A.D. 251 – 356] is ascribed as the Father of Monasticism. It is erroneous to think of Anthony as the first Christian monk. There were other ascetics before him. It is also important to see that Christianity had already been introduced to the British isles - resulting there in forms of monasticism.

Paul of Thebes [A.D. 227 – A.D. 342] is generally considered the first religious hermit in the East. It is claimed that Paul went to the Egyptian desert and became a Christian hermit at age 16 and stayed there until he died at age 113.

Anthony is, however, one of the first [around A.D. 270] to pursue God as a solitary in the wilderness. By the time of his death, thousands of monks and nuns had been drawn into the desert. The extreme asceticism adopted by those who chose the desert over the ease of legalized Christianity brought about by the Edict of Milan [Constantine] in 313 was viewed [in part] as an alternative for the martyrdom that was such an expected certainty during the dire persecutions of Christians by the Roman Empire.

The Rule of Saint Benedict is not something that can be thought of as completely original to Benedict [A.D. 480-547]. It is more so an adaptation of the rules that were developed for monastic communities before the time that Benedict turned his back on corrupt society and moved into a cave. Benedict, in fact, lays claim to nothing new in his rule. He, to the contrary, points his students to the respected tutelage of those who came before him.

Now, we have written this Rule that, observing it in monasteries, we may show that we have acquired at least some moral righteousness, or a beginning of the monastic life.

On the other hand, he that hasteneth on to the perfection of the religious life, hath at hand the teachings of the holy Fathers, the observance of which leadeth a man to the height of perfection. For what page or what utterance of the divinely inspired books of the Old and the New Testament is not a most exact rule of human life?

Or, what book of the holy Catholic Fathers doth not loudly proclaim how we may go straight to our Creator? So, too, the collations of the Fathers, and their institutes and lives, and the rule of our holy Father, Basil—what are they but the monuments of the virtues of exemplary and obedient monks?

But for us slothful, disedifying, and negligent monks they are a source for shame and confusion.

Thou, therefore, who hastenest to the heavenly home, with the help of Christ fulfil this least rule written for a beginning; and then thou shalt with God's help attain at last to the greater heights of knowledge and virtue which we have mentioned above.[2]

There was a time, not so long ago, when amassing the works mentioned by Benedict was an expensive proposition. Printed volumes can be expensive. One of the beautiful things about living in this modern age is the availability of books [and entire sets of books] on Kindle. We no longer need access to a 38-volume printed set of the Church Fathers [$1,000.00] to read their works. The works of Saint Basil, for instance, can be downloaded to a Kindle for a mere few dollars. So can Saint John Cassian’s Conferences and Institutes. Not only these works referred to by Saint Benedict in his Rule. We also have digital access to many more works of those early ones that left behind these monumental testimonies of their exemplary and obedient lives.

There simply is no excuse for any of us to be illiterate and unversed in these matters unless we choose to remain slothful, disedifying, and negligent. It is not for knowledge that puffs up that we strive for familiarity with what the Church Fathers and early monastic examples left behind. It is for their instructions on how to live simply, humbly, and obediently as followers of Christ who have promised to live our lives after the manner prescribed to us in the Holy Rule of Saint Benedict.

Not only is this wealth applicable to those of us who have an association with a monastery and the lives of those who live out their lives within the confines of the cloister. This is applicable to all of Christendom! As the Apostle Paul told Timothy, “Carefully study to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”[3] The Apostolic injunction to study applies not only to the Sacred Scriptures but also to these historic hand-me-downs. Studying is our only hope in avoiding the profane babblings of modern professors and preachers steeped in the intoxicating influences of humanism.

Truth does not change.[4]

We do not modify the truth to make it palatable to modern tastes. Contrarily, we live it despite modern tastes, modern psychologies, modern theologies, and modern humanistic preferences. The whole of Christendom would be much better prepared as salt and light[5] if every modern-day person claiming a profession of faith had a working knowledge of what the ancient ones believed and taught.

Saint Benedict begins this chapter saying,

“The first degree of humility is obedience without delay.”

Without obedience there is no humility.

Saint John Climacus [A.D. 579 – A.D. 649] was familiar with the same monastic rules that influenced Benedict in his more succinct rendering. While Benedict established monasticism in the West, John Climacus was a monk at Saint Catherine’s Monastery at the base of Mount Sinai. In his chapter on Obedience in The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Saint John tells us that, “Obedience is absolute renunciation of our own life, clearly expressed in our bodily actions. Or, conversely, obedience is the mortification of the limbs while the mind remains alive. Obedience is unquestioning movement, voluntary death, simple life, carefree danger, spontaneous defense by God, fearlessness of death, a safe voyage, a sleeper’s progress.”

He tells us that “Obedience is the tomb of the will and the resurrection of humility.”

He tells us further in his chapter on obedience that the Fathers have laid down that psalmody is a weapon, and prayer is a wall, and honest tears are a bath; but blessed obedience in their judgment is confession of faith, without which no one subject to passions will see the Lord.

Obedience is the tomb of the will. Herein rests the reason that the beginning words of this chapter create a stumbling block for people, especially Westerners, groomed by the will-satisfying lifestyles and expectations of Western culture. To put it in the simplest terms, we do not want to give up our will.

Saint Benedict states plainly in the opening verses of his Prologue that obedience is the pathway that brings us back to him from whom we had drifted through the sloth of disobedience and that his message is for those who are ready to give up their own will, once and for all, and armed with the strong and noble weapons of obedience to do battle for the true King, Christ the Lord.[6]

[1] Holy Rule 3:6-11 [2] Holy Rule Chapter 73 [3] 2 Timothy 2:15 [4] Matthew 24:35-39 [5] Matthew 5:13-16 [6] Holy Rule Prologue 2-3