Early and medieval Christian monastic spirituality - a study in meaning and trends (Thesis)

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H.A.

ROBERTS, Jeff E.

Religious

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Early & me~ieval' christian monastic spirituality.

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EARLYi AND MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN MONASTIC SPIRITUALITY:

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A STUDY IN MEANING AND , TRENDS

by Jeff

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Roberts

A Thesis Submitted To The Faculty Of Graduate Studies And Research In Partial 'Fulf ilment Of The Requirements For The Degree Of Master Of ~rts

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Faculty Of Religious Studie's McGi~l university Montreal

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ABSTRACT , ,

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, ,This thesis will explore the.rneaning of the

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Christian èontemplative monasttc life,as it was stood by the early,Egyptia~ rnoflks pf the fourth

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the primitive-Benedictine~ of the

the early

cisterc~ans

of the twelth century.

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que&tio~ i t asks is twofoid.

F~rst, 'how qid the

inreach of these historical periods orde4 their lives-

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as individuals and as a c~mmunity, and to what end?6 Se~on9.,

what particular modality of Chris'tian qiscip-

lëship'and witness did such a,lifé r~present in the Cpurcll and in the world

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period?

Th~

answer to \

this quesÜen ~ill al~o take into consideration the , ,\ response of the hierarchy of the Church te the ideals ,

and practices of

-th~.

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The study will conclude

'of ~om~ ~~~~ci~~ends in " monast~ -----of Christian contemplativ~

with a discussion and dimensions J

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ospirituality_-

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PAR T

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THE ORI9INS OF

MONASTICIS~

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SECTION ONE -

THE ASCETICS

Preface

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Since Johannes Weiss and. Albert Schweitzer first emphasized the .eschatological element in the/ Gospels, it has bec9me commonplace,to say that Jesus, Paul and the early Christians l.ilred in expectation bf the' inuninent '~nd' of the world jnd that this deeply influenced their thought and .

l~fe.

(a)

' ,The new age had begun with the resurrec~1on of

Jesus and the Pentecostal outpQ~ring of the Holy Spirit upon

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the Church at Jerusalem.

The Kingdom of God had been founded ::

and would soon be fully established with the triumphant retu:r;n

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of

)

~

~e

Son of Man ,in glory. 1

When the 'end' did not 'come and as, over the years, the

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Christian Church continued to grow and finally to find an

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acc~pted

ptace in the world, ChristianitY began to asswne a,

different character ,ah,d to pose a different set of questions.

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What does it mean to live in the world but not of, it? ~

In

what sense are Christians "strangèrs and pilgrims on this eart1}" (Heb. Il: 13)? i

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W'hat is the place

o~

the

CJhur~h

in

th~s

(a) In this paper I shall be substituting ian eschatology in the process of realization' (Joachim Jeremias) for the 'thoroughgoing eschatology' of Weiss and Schweitzer.

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alleged in-between time (i.e. between the 'already established '

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but Inot yetI fully consurnmated ' Kingdom of God), and what is its

particular'cel~tionship

to the KingdoJ of God and to the

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world?

' Let us begin then by looking briefly at how the Christian community, in response to the unexpected delay of the parousia, began to split up into two groups. presented by the hierarchy.

The first group was re-

It was largely concerned with

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the establishment' and expansion of ,tlhe Church as a religious society.

The second was' represented by the ascetics.

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It was

oriented' more towards an ascetic and other-worldly lifestyle.

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A short review of. sorne of the . principal political andltheolo-

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gical developrnents which led the ascetics to abandon their the monastic li~e of t~e desert ~ill I~en follow.

This wilf serve as an introduction to the main

bOdy'Oflour study • •

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He cited the parable of the fares and the wheat (Matt. 13:24-30) and compared the Church to the ark of Noah in which were 1 things c'lean and unclean 1 •• 5

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Thus there arose in the Church by the second century an increasingly individualistic spirit and a grbwing belief in the vital connection between1asceticisrn and Christian holiness. The ascetics became highly esteerned by their fellow Christians, /

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and by the third century came,to occupy sorne of the-top echel;bs r

-.& ,bring us aIl alike to life everlasting.(c)

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(a) 'RSB

c~58.

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(b), Ibid. c.6o'. (c) Ibid. c's 4, 7, 72. 1

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The RSB was for its author but a minimum rule for beginners. It instructed the monks to refer to the more authoritative writings of other monastic and Church Fathers.

Furthermore,

lit taught that the monk had ultimately to learn, in and through th~

liturgy, the sacred reading and indeed the life itself,

directly from the Holy Spirit.

In other words, the Benedictine

monk was firstly a Christian and, therefore, a mernber (and, ,

conversely, nothing outside) of the one, holy, catholic and ,' apostolic Church of Christ.

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A brief comparison of primitive Benedictinism with the

earlier coptic, Basilian and Alexandrian monasticism might .

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be helpful here in providing us. witl)-, a

hisroric~l

focus of

their respective orientations towards the Church and the world.

Primitive Benedictinism, it is clear, more closely

resembled Alexandrian than Basilian monasticism in its ern, phasis upon the contemPlative life, and its correlative preference for solitude and enclusure 0ier against an expliéit 1

service orientation.

'On the other hand, it may have more

closely resembled coptic than Alexandrian monasticisrn in the sebse that Benedict, like Anthony, m~y have expected an imminent end of the age. It is difficult to know exactly when Benedict expected

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the end of' the wor Id 1 1

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come.

Perhaps, like many of his con-

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temporaries, he thought it would coincide with the final

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collapse of the Roman empire. it?

What, after aIl, could follow

On the other hand, Benedict 1 s creation of a self- suf;ficient

rnonastic community with its finely developed and weIl balanced

'\ life anticipated so weIl the future needs of Europe that one has to ask oneself whether Benedict was not in fact preparing, for an indefinite future?

Or again. perhaps he was sirnply

responding to conditions as they already existed in those last aays of

~rder

and civilization?

On the basis of RSB, one may

conclude that its intense concern with 'the Last Things'

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provides support for the first choice.

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Since our present

knowledge of Benedict is seant, however, l do not think that

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one should push

t~s

hykothesis too far.

position in this study

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Consequently, my

that the influence of Alexandrian

(and Basilian)-monasticism on primitive Benedictinism rnay have ,

been~~re~

by the possible intense 'eschatological

et~ta-

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tions' . of the latter. \

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The attitude of the hierarchy toward the Benedictines ~as strongly positive beeause they believed that through them

, God was 1re-v,italizing rnonasticism in. Italy.


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910 under the influence of the Carolingian reforms of the ï l'" ,~~

Synod of

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~achen

(A.D. 8l7)(a) - was at the

h~ight

of it)

powers and prestige in the eleventh century and its influence

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extended, th:OUg~ut Christian Europe.

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Together with its many

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daughter-houses, it owned immense tracts of land and great

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wealth and exercised control over a large proportion of the

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local peasants, including thousands of serfs.

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As a\ consequence,

however, it beèame entangled with numerous,dependencies, and responsibilities and deeply involved in both ecclesiastical

outs~de

and worldly -affairs

of its proper jurisdiction.

It

- h~d, in other words, departed from its original monastic purpose. 1 Cluny·s wealth

power, status and social involvement

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drew people to it who were often not,

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spiritually ipclined or motivated.

strictlY~Speaking,\

The practice of child

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oblation and the wranglin.g over privileges and positions further ___+i__ .

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(a) Benedict of AnianeJC~e so-called second ~ounde~ of' Benedictinism - was the driving force behihd these reforms. \ ~,

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compounded the prob1em.

Moreover, the life of the black

monks (a) had becorne undu1y l;p-sided because' of an ex~ensive

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Th~ tra?ièional balance

prolongation of the (èhoral) Office. "

between the Opus Dei, Lectio "Dj,vina, and Labor Manuurn had been 1fst because of the aqcumulation of a mass of liturgica1 ob-

s~rvances

and customs.

The monks

th~s

spent most

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their

t:!zne in choir, rela"t;ivel'y litt1e in reading land, by the e1eventh century, none at aIl in manua1 labour. This development transformed the Jitherto Shott and

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simple liturgy of the eajlY Benedictines into a ponderous and, complicated affaire

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The Cluniac ideal had been that the monks

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represented the vanguard of Christians in,that the y were 'guiding the world:,

tow~rds

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its true destiny - the earthly

imitation bf the angelic choir in'heaven - the worship of God in the Church.

In actual fact, however ,'. the inner -meaning

o~ the Office, partly under the influ~nce of the strongfY

liturgical orientation of certain non-Benedictine monastic trends and partIy because of the highly ordered character of contemporary

West~rn

Christendom, had

und~rgone

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subtl~

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(a) ThE;! cistercian~ were first. called "gray'" and then fina;Lly "wllite" monks lin contrast to the traditional "black" habit of the Benedictines. ...

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transformation. (a)

It was irtcreasingly interpreted in a

rather meéhanistic and ritualistiè fashion as a guid pro (

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in which the monks performed a fixed role in society by # (1 praising God on behalf of the Church, by interceding in ~

ptayer for others aJ'l,d by thus calling down God's graces for His people.

fot enqugh consideration, f,;-.om the point of view (,

of the future Cistercians, was being given to the more important interior dimetJ,sions of monastic servic,e and prayer. The beginnings of the cistercian Order can be dated to the ylear

A. D.

1098 when Robert of Moleome and subsequently \

Alberic and Stephen H~rding foùnded the Citeaux. (b) t

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'New Monastery 1 of ,

The

cisterci~'

movement has to be seen in thel

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context of the widespread upheaval - the crisis, in fact, of a changing civilization - which was taking, place in Europe 'at the ti.rne>.

This upheaval was characterized, in the religious

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~avid

Knowles makes the point that .. Benedict did not expect or o:t;der that (his monks) should carry out the elaborate and so'lemn public worship .of Gdd which was then being brought to perfection at Rome, at Milan, at Lyons and else, where ••• (that) to put nothing b~fore the Opus Dei~ ••• , was not ••• the announcement of a 'policy or an ideal but t a simple interpretation ••• of the divine command that the direCt service of God (was to be a primary) duty of a \Chri.stian. -II The Benedictines (Abridged Version) (St.' Leo, Florida: Abbey Press, 1962), p. 13. 1 The word "Cistercian" der ives from Citeaux, itSjlf named after the reeds - cistels in BurgWldj.an patois which abounded in the marshy woodland of the ,area. 0

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" domain, by a renewed emphasis upon poverty and asceticism, solitude and the spiritual legacy of early Christian and monastic history.

The Cistercians sought./-o disengage them-

selves from the man y encumbrances of worldly involvement and therefore founded monasteries oin isolated and uninhabited reg ions.

Here they returned to a more pure and exact obsel1vance

of RSB. (a)

They simplified the

~iturgy and did away with many

of the mitigations of the RSB and other superfluities which had introduced fine clothes, abundant food, ornate decorations, muraIs and paintings into the Benedictine abbeys.

a

restored manual labour to an integral place

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They also e daily

h~.rariUrn.

The Exordiurn Parvum, an

~arly

Ciste;rcian

ocument, reads:

In thus taking the rectitude of the le as the norm on conduct for their whole w of life, they fully complied with s in' eccle~iastical as weIl as in other observance and arranged themselves accordingly. way, discarding the old man, they enjoye putting on the new one ••• and behold ••• the new soldiers of Christ, poor themselves as Christ was poor ••• poverty (is) the safeguard of the virtues ••• denounced the riches of the wor Id ••• and f led f rom ( i t) (thereby) livJ.ng up to th~ etymology of their name. 27

(a) ~

The early cistercian documents do not speak of a "literal" observance of RSB since Benedict himself had allowed that circumstances coula. calI .,for adaptations of his ,Rule. The institution of laY"'"brothers, for ins~~ce, was dksigned precisely to enable the dhoir-monks ta "fulfil perfectly the precepts of the. Rùle day and night." "Exordium 'Parvwn" in LOuis\ Lekai: The White Monks (Wisconsin: Cistercian Fathers :Publications, 1953), p. 2'63.

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and egalitarianisrn of

life began to attract Christiars

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eager.) for an ,evangelical and integra,l monastic experience un-

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compromised

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involvement with the world.

Again the Exordium Parvum records what followed:

Through the example (of the first Cistercian,s) • •• upon whom God poured out His deepest mercy old and young:, men of every walk of life and from various parts of the- world became encourag,ed since , they saw through them that what they hàd feared impossible, the observance of the Rule, was possible. So they began to flock together there in order to bow their proud necks under the sweet yoke of Christ, and to love fervently the rigourous and burdensome precepts of the Rule, and they began'to rnake (Citeaux) wonderfully happy and strong .28

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Bernard of Clairvaux was one of 'those who went to citeaux

(A.D. 1112) and thence, after onlt \three years,

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the new

foundation whicb soon became identified with bis name.

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more than anyone else drew men to the new

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its dynamic

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impulse~

mov~ment,

and shaped it;:; character.

He

gave it

Indeed,

w~at

was originally intended, on the part of the first generation

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of Cistercians, to be a simple restoration of the monastic

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life according to the primitive Benediçtine ideal,) soon developed, 4nder Bernard's guidance, into a more explicitly ,

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mystical venture.

Bernard emphasized the individual and

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int.erior dimensions of the rnonastic life and -the prirnacy of

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self-consecration to the perfest love of God. Accordingly, Bernard's criticism of Cluniac rnonasticism was not that it was unholy, but rather that it was Inadequate for those'who needed

stricte~ discipline

more contemplative mode of life. 1~

spir~t

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and who desired a'

Thus, although the cistercian

was basically the sarne as that_of the primitive Bene-

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dictines, the accent with regard to the search for God was,

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by virtue of the particular emphasis of the eleventh century

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rnohastic renewal, more upon the personal and contemplative than

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upon the communal and liturgical aspects of the life.

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Our place is at the bottom, is humility, is poverty, obedience'and joy in the Holy Spirit. Our place is under a master, under an abbot, under a rule, under ·discipline. Our place is to cultivate silence,to exert ourselves in fasts, vigils, prayers, manual work and, above aIl, to keep that more excellent way which is the way of love: -furthermore, to advance day by day in these things and to persevere in them until the last day (his emphasis).29

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volunt~ry

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Bernardine accent can be seen in his portrayal of the Cistercian spirit and ideal:

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The influence i

poverty and

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~olitude.

the conternporary

Europe~n

movement toward

and atso, perhaps, of Guigo the Carthusian, \ ~

whose meditative writings made

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deep

impre~sion

upon Ber!lard,

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is evident here. Einally, despite this eremitical influence upon early -Cistercian (i.e. Bernardine) spirituality, it is important to recognize that the Cistercians helped to preserve Benedict of \

Nursia's cenobitic model of the monastic life precisely at a •

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time when this renewal\ff the eremitical life was making a serious challenge to the foundations of traditional Benedictine '~monasticism.

They reaffirmed the shaken authority of Ben;edict

+ and his Rule while reinvigorating the old structure

through

their innovative reforms. (a) This faith in the enduring value of RSB was central to '1

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(a)! "Three basic ideas ••• seem to have guided the eleventh century monastic renewal: poverty, eremitism and apostolic life (i.e. the life of the apostolic community at Jerusalem) , ••• The revival of eremitism was closely linked with the new concept of poverty as an idea as weIL as a historical phenomenon. The hermit not only withdrew frorn society but lived in total renunciation, in total poverty, both internaI and'external ••• Eremitisrn, just as the newand strict interpretation of poverty, emerged as a reaction to the prevailing standards of1monastic li~e, a spont~eous protest against the cornfort and quiet daily routine of monks of great abbeys which no lon~~r presented sufficient challenge to souls yearning for the heroie life of the Desert Fathers. This attitude clearly irnplied that in the eyes of the'new generation of refoxmers eremitical life appeared higher (in value) 'than life spent under RSB. Louis r..e'~ai:\, The Cistercian Sp=irit, ed. Basil -Fennington (Shannon, Ireland: Irish University ~ress, 1970), pp. 35-8 •. Il

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Bernard's

conce~tion

of the rnonastic life.

Consequently, he

could say:

There can be no doubt as to the true holiness of this way of life which was designed by divine inspiration and wisdom rather than by human prudence or ingenuity. It is,surely for this reason that Benedict attained a peak of holiness in life as great as was his glory and happiness after death. 30 \

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Bernard betieved that only confusion and darkness were to be found outside of the Christian world of faith, order and meaning and that, psychologiéally speakiJ;lg, distress and·

". misery characterized the life of those who lived according to self-will and cupidity.

Genuine love for others, moral \

goodness, peace, joy aqd inner harmony could only come from 1

a faithful conformity ta the life of the Kingdom of God, that is, from a true practice of that Christ-life which fully in\

carnated it. He commented:

For this is the prdperty of that eternal and just law of God, tha~ he who would not be ruled with gentleness by God, ,should be ruled as a punishment by his own self: . and that aIl those who have willingly throym off the gent le yoke and lighlt burden of Love should bear unwillingly the unsupportable burden of their own will. 31

The purpose of asceticism and obedience to the cross of Christ was not to spurn the creation as though i t were inhetent~y evil.

Rather, it ~as, according to Bernard, to

adhere with aIl one 1 s heart to the order, leauty and good which had been willed by God from the beginning, had then been eorrupted by sin, and whieh Christ had sinee come to restore

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in the worlq. and in man and -bis corrununity.

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AlI human endeavor,

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taught Bernard, should therefore tend to God by way of knowi ledge,and love. The quest for truth should lead to the conternplation of truth, to the cruclfied Christ who reveals himself in order to give life and in whom are stored aIl ~he treasures of wisdom.

The study of the content of revelation

should lead to union with the will of God, to onels own crucifixion to the world of sin and to a beginning of the \

resurrection

life~

Bernard 1 s response to the great question

of -his century as to the imPortanc\e of love in hum an life (a) wa~

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to orient everything towards the love of God and of onels

neighbour in Christ.

(a)

Man should love God, he believed, because

Since the rniddle of

~he

eleventh century there was behind the increasingly vigorous intellectua~ movements a def~nite tendency toward ernotional.ism, with a specifie emphasis on ~he motive of love. Since neither the for~ of its expression nor its mora~ imputability was yet clarified, the problem caused considerable ,confusion in public opinion as weIl as \~ong men of l:lterature and theology.' The extremists were represented by'two heretical movements ••• the Albigensians (for whom) the flesh and carnal desires, consequently love and marritilge,"IIIare evil • .'. the Troubadours (who) elevated women to a pedestal ••• and ignored the principles'of Christian morality ••• St. Bernard, with the heart of a Troubadour himself, p~aced the motive of love in the center' his mystical theology, teaching that affectionate love of God was thè only way of approaching the final goal of Christian perfection, the union of tne hurnan soul with its Creator. Il Lekai: The Whi~6 Monks. pp. 39-40. Il

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God first loved him and was always seeking hirn in order that

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he might love God, his neighbour and himself with the same love with which the Triune God loves Himself. To reject the love of God was to be a child not of God but of wrath and to place oneself not on the

~hres»old

glory but in the dark places by the gates of death.

of

Free will

constituted fok Bernard the 'image' of God in man, but only its consecration to qod would restore man's 'likeness' to Rim.

Such a restoration -

the, journey :trom the 'region of

unlikeness' to the Kingdom of God - could be effected only through

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gra~e,

the transforming power jof the indwelling Holy

Spirit of Christ. is Bernard's

It is interesting to note here how modern

conscious~ess

of self - the sûbjectivity in which t

the modern spirit-was born -

and his particular form of humanism,

that is, his belief that self-consecration to the perfect love l

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of God and of aIl creatures in God represented the true'fulfilment of man's nature and destiny. The monastic life, and especially cistercian (contemplative life, represented, according to Bernard, the best way to fut into practice the life of love and of spiritual perfection. It was, if not the unique, at least thé safest It Jas therefore sorne.

desiJ~le

ray

to

.for aIl and,

The monk, hé hEnd, having turned his face

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true and

heaV~nlY

Jerusalem - the Kingdom prepared for him

from the

beginni~g

of the world - had chosen with Mary the

best part ofl aIl (Cf. Lk. 10:38-42). Bernard commented: ,

l think that monastic profession can be considered as a second baptism •• : because of the more perfect renouncement of the world and the singular excellence of/such a $pirituat wayof life. It makes those who live it and love i~ stand out from other men as rivaIs of the angels and as hardly men at aIl; fQr it restores the divine (likeness) in the human soul and makes us Christlike, much as baptism does. It is also like another baptism in that we mortify the earthly side of our nature 50 that we may be mo~e and more clothed with Christ, being thus again "buried in the likeness of his death" (Rom. 6: 5). Jus,t as 'in baptism we are delivereçl from the power of darkness and carried over into the Kingdom of light, 50 1ikewise in the second regeneration of this holy profeasion we are refashioned in the light of virtue, being delivered, not now from the unique 'darkness of original ~in, but from many actual sins, according to that cry of the apostle: IIthe night is far advanced and the day is at hand" (Rom. 13:12).32 Bernard spoke of the cistercian monastery as a school l

of self-giving love in which the monks learned the mysterious ways of the Spirit

~y

acquiring an ever deeper detachment from 1

self and purity of heart, and by displacing fear and cupidity by love by way of the practice of

h~ility.

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He remarked: •

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(To) give ourselves to outward things ,(would be to) aban~on the true and everlasting yalues of

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God's Kingdom which is within us. The monk is supposed to be a poor man and spiritual ••• his attire the spirit o~ prayer and humility.33

Bernard was confident thatj generosii:y of spirit and ardent faith would be rewarded,with God's good blessings, the 'kiss' of Christ. to be a

1

IdeallY

claustral paradise '

tnerefore, the monastery was

r J'n which the monks

a foretaste of the blessednes

.

might enjoy \

of heaven.

J

Ours is a paraaise .,. beautified, like that of 'old, by the waters from four fountains ••• the fountain of mercy which washes away the stains of our sins; the foqntain of wisdom which gives the waters of discretion for allaying our spiritual thirst; the fountain of gr ace and devotion which irrigates the plants of our good works and the labours of our penance and abstinence; the fountain of ~ove which enflames our hearts ••• These four fountains our Blessed Lord otfers to us in His own Person while we still live on earth. A fifth, which is the fountain of eternal life, He promises to give us in the world to come. 34 Q

\'

There was for Bernard and the early Cistercians and, indeed, for aIl who adhered to the patristic tradition, anJ

\"

-

ever present tension between tbis-worldly concerns and the call~of

the beyond.

Therein lay the cause for their detach-

ment from the things of this world, the source ofl their hJpe -

,

tHe expectation bf

~nd incli~ation

towards the heavenly

\

Jerusalem -

and their unquenchable thirst for an ever more

/

- ...

-

-

e-

intimate union with God.

73 -

Thus Bernard cou,ld exclaim:

Thanks be to God, through Whose mercy in this our pilgrimage, in this our banishment, in this our state of misery, unto us consolation also has greatly abounded. For this ,reason we have taken care to adrnonish you that this our distance from our heavenly country should not be long absent from our mind, and that we should b~ found ever hastening onwards to our heaveniy iqheritance. He that knows not desolation,cannot appreciate consolation, and whoever~ is ignorant~ that consolation is necessary shows plainly·that he is not in God's favour. 35 How did early C'istercian monasticism compare, wlth regard o

.

to its orientation towards the Church and the world, with the

1

monasticism of the Roman period? An

o~vious

point becomes apparent as soon as one looks

at the historical and monastic context in which each arose.

--

.

The Church and 'the world had become one in Christian Europe by the eleventh century in the sense that a society which had still been largely pagan in the fourth and even

c~ntury

was now

c~mpl~tely Chri~t~anized.

~e

sixth

Moreover, monasticism

had now assumed a status in Christendom ,much greater and more pervasive than that which it had known during the Roman periode •

The Cistercians, therefore, were separatidg thernselves from a society which was now not only lthoroughly Christiap but also one in which the monastic tradition was deeply entrenched and widely respected.

Thus, whereas the primitive ,Benedictines ' \1

-

Ir -

-

had offered almost the only

74 alt~rnative

to a life in full

contact with a pagan world, the Oistercians were reacting •

against an ecClesiastical culture and a Cluniac monasticisrn which was strong ahd

health~.

This belief that the Cluniac observance was still too worldly and insufficiently monastic (i.e. in the primitive Benedictine sense) reflected both the current widespread ." desire for solitude, poverty and the apostolic life on the

.'

/

one hand, and Bernard's particular 'eschatological perspective' on the other. Early cisterctan rnonasticism resembled primitive Bened-

r

ictinisrn in its preference for the cenobitic over the eremitical

\

life and in its emphasis upon contemplative solitude as opposed to the service orientation of Basilian

~onasticism.

whereas the latter had incorporated the personal and

Yet, contempla~ive

aspects of Egyptian_monasticism into its own more cbrnmunai and liturgical regimen, Bernard allowed this Egyptian (and contemporary eremitfcal) s~irit to temp~r th~ cistercian observance of RSB. pective

Another po~sible differenèe with r~gard to their res-

expectat~ons

as to the imminency of the parous'ia wil'l

depend on one's estimation of Benedict's views in this

"

1

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1

75 -

iegard. (a) '.

In any case, BeFnard, in his perception of of the Kingdom of

GOd~

t~~ 't

dynamics •

,

-

o O' 12oke A1 exandr2an put the emphas2s,

monasticism before h±m, not on i'bs future, consummation but rather on its presence as a hidden, spiritual reality with .

which the Christian mystically communes, as it were, through

1

O a pragress2ve converS2on, of lOf 2 e an d 2nter2or t rans f orma t 20n o

in the Spirit.

0

0

0

Man'S exile from the Kingdom of God, tapght,

Bernard, was commensurate with his spiritual ignorance and, \

,

.r

,

above aIl, lack of love: (b)

If the soul lives by the love of God just as the body lives by the soul, how, l ask, can one contend that it is more present where it gives life than where it receives it? Love is the fountain of life ••• he who loves God,is with God according ta the measure of his love. 'Insofar as he fails to love, to that extent he

1Î

(a) They may also have differed from it witq regard to the practice of hospitalitYi specificaliy, fin the degree to which each monastic community\separate5 itself from its' , guests. So great was theif d~sire_to tV~i~ worldiy contact, and such were the social customs which had deve10ped in the intervening centuries withregar~ to ryal and ecclesiastical /"visitors, that the ~istrrcians conside ed it imperative to '" ~tain a stricter pol+cy of enclo~ur~ than had been necessary in Benedict's time. Thus~ the'cistercian practice allowed only the Guestrnaster and occasionally the abbot J to make themselves avàilable to- guests. \ (h) Early Cistercian differed from the more thoroughly Christian Platonist Alexandrian monasticism in preferring to emphasize' love rather than gnosis.•

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76 -

is yet in exile ••• The ~gdom of heaven and its justice are to be sought within your own souls rather than outside or above ,them ••• ~ ,Our rewa!d is n0 to b~ :ound'i~ ~ny passible 36 . or changeable thlng but ~n a SpJ..rltu~1 heaven.

7

-

The early cistercian preference for greater solitude, silence, pQverty and austerity and a

m~re

integraL observance

of RSB thus followed naturally not 'bnly from their dissatisfac- . tion with current'monastic attitudes and practices, but also 1

..

from their belief that such measures better promoted 'a !l>rofound , interior experience.of the life of the Kingdom of God. Let us now look at the relationship between the monks

-,

and the hierarchy.

an indeterminable .future •

.-

\

C

Christianb were in exile, according to Bernard, to the

\

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1

/ A

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-

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1

86 -

extent to which their 'likeness' to Christ'had yet to be

.

restored, that 'is to say, in the measure in ,whi' ch they had \ not yet found their true self in loving and serving God and each other with the same love which Christ Jesus had manifested. When ~e\sPoke of the world as alien and as a place of darkness 1

and of death, therefore, he was referring to its

cha~acter

as

a 'region of unlikeness' where people were e\stranged fromGod and from thernselves because they resisted, or were in open opposition to,

~his

Spirit of (self-giving) Love which ,is thé

.

\

\ Ground and Source of truth and of life.

of the'monks was, first, to encourage the construction,

cultur~'

order which would reflect

~he

\

\

pol~tical

defence and expansion of a Christian-inspired and

~

\

The proper ta~k of the Church from the point of view

.'

\

cosmological

1

\

arder and where the,princi\les of the Kingdom of God would be better served.

And secorrd, t\

le~d

the People of Gad

towards an ever purer love for G6d and for each other ln\

.. ,

holy living.

migJ~

One

'add in this regard that the Church's self-

understanding was, until the ascendancy of Scholasticisrn

'\.

!~ ,1 ,~

o

~

, j

in the latter part of the

twelft~century,

it had been in the t'ime of the 1;athers. much as an institution .or

\ ,

\\

'

much the same as

It was seen not so

organizatio~ but~rather ~s ~

\\

/

\

the

-

87 -,

Mystical Body and Servant of

Chris~,

the presence of God's

redemptive love and mercy among men and the organism of their manife'station to the world, where the transforming revelation of the \

My~tery

Sim~larly,

was accomplished.

with regard to

the teaching of the Church, Etienne Gilson has observed:

From Gregory the Great to Bernard the objective content of revèlation was unchanged as were the practical demands which union with God makes on the soul; only men themselves had ehanged to a certain extent. A new senslib ility, a more affective outlook, had gradually appeared. 4l

\ Ideally, the monastie eommunity itself was thought to

a

represent a sort of antechamber of heaven in that_it 'Pa foretaste of the peace,

;,

joy and love of heaven.

.of~ered

At the

same time, the monks set a prophetie example for al'l Chris~endom

on two levels:

On a public level, they

witnesse~

.

to the reality, the primaey and the de"lectability of the life and values of the Kingdom of God. with Christ in God"

On a deeper level, 'Yhid

(Col. \3:3), they,

like the monks of the.

Roman period, continued to keep vitally alive in the Church . the sp,irit of prayer: and sacrifice.

This -contemplative

.- life., they held, helped to maintain thë'

char~,sma~ic

heritage

of the ~hurch wh~le ~laying ~n integral part in the mtstérious unfolding of the' Kingdom lOf-"food and of His Christ.

"

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'l,

\ 1

--,--- , - - --

~

. .\ \

r -

- 88 -

\

The patristic outlook of Anthony, Benedict and Bernard \

and of their spiritual sons was in sharp contrast to the modern worldview.

Theirs was a theocentric,

non-dial~ctical

anh

contemplative as opposed to an anthropocentric, dialectical and operative worldview. f

To modern eyes, their tiny and

'

\

geocentric universe was the forum for a cosmic drama in which the eternaî destiny of each human being was "to be decided on the basis of his beliefs and actions in this life.

God

held the universe in being by His power and wisdom, and aIl transpired lin it happened wi~h His foreknowledge and ccording to His will.

a

h re which was

,.

obj~ctive

.-

There was a fixed order and design to man whose task was to

disc~ver

it frOgFeSSiVelY, and to conform-his intellect and will to i t. \ In the same way as "tÎ~ body was s1Wordinate to t~e .,soul,

so was the/material to the SPirÎtual order.

Ihe thealogieal

formulation of this faith held that man discovered right /

,-/

living and the fulness' of life in obedience to the teaching and guidance of Christ alfd of His Church, and in --the use of created things and the exercise of hurnan freedom in the s1rvice of the Kingdorn of God. ,

Q

.

The 'monks of the RQman period and of the Low Middle Ages,

li~e Augustine, saw history as a great poem which ~ook on a o

'c)

complete and intélligible rneaning - d~~pite the hidden signif\

\\

\ (

,

(

1 "

1

.

, , .. ,1.

.

\ 1

/

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- 89 -

1

par~iculars

icance of many end

~f

it were known.

-

as~soon

as the beginning and

The Word of God made flesh was at

the center of) the whole great. work of the creation and sanctification of the world.

It was in re"lation ta Christ

that all that had preceded'His

cO~ing, al~ tha~

accompanied

' .

it\ and all that would fOdlow it, were to be

\

u~derstood

1

aAd

correlated. \ History was ordered and penetrated throu9h 1

and thr7pgh by this internal unit y and teleology. fore, these monks thr

pa~t

te~ded

ta pay much

~oderns,

than do most

g~eater

.

form of

t~e

Creator Spiritus. \

truth for themselves, 1 and by

attention ta

it was because they considereq

their Chri.stian and, mOl1astic sources °to

c

If, there-

r~veal'! .

the breath à'n