The Rule of St. Benedict

It so happens that we visit Buckfast Abbey, on the banks of the River Dart at Buckfast, in Devon, four or fives a year. Probably more often than any of the other attractions nearer home, although Hampton Court Palace must be in with a chance.

Part of this is it being an interesting place with handsome gardens. It is, for example, home to a full size copy of the famous Aachen Barbarossaleuchter of reference 1. Another part being that it has a large free car park, a cafeteria – this last having had its wings trimmed a bit by the plague – and at least two shops. At the very least, a handy place to while away an hour or so while waiting to move onto something else.

On the last occasion, a little earlier in the month, I was tempted to buy a fat picture book about the abbey and its 20th century rebuilding, but in the end decided that I was not going to get my £35 worth. All very capricious on my part, considering the sorts of things I do spend my money on. I settled instead for a little booklet containing a translation of the Rule of St. Benedict, prepared by the abbot of a sister abbey in Atchison, Kansas. With both abbot and abbey being derived from the Aramaic – the language of our Lord – word for father. With the Atchison abbey being of a similar size to the present one, but quite different in outside appearance. See reference 2.

I was a little surprised to find an abbey there and wonder now from where they draw their faithful. I had always assumed that the Bible Belt stuck to some version of the true faith, that is to say the Protestant faith, but clearly I am in error. While we have Catholics in high places – for example in Downing Street – and they have at least one Catholic member of their Supreme Court. They clearly get everywhere.

A rather casual perusal of this rule has been a surprisingly interesting learning experience. So, it has a prologue and 73 chapters, each organised into short verses, as the Bible, the whole occupying 80 small format pages, perhaps four inches by seven, no simple fraction of the standard A4 page of offices and rather smaller than a standard paperback novel.

The rule is very hot on obedience, on humility and on being largely silent. The thought on silent seems to be that if one talks a lot, one is all too likely to talk rubbish or worse and to generally get into bad habits. While obedience, the submission to another, the suppression of one’s own desires and urges, seems to be the best way to godliness. Obedience seems to be more important than being right – say about the best way to line the well providing the monastery water. Do what you are told whatever you might think about it.

We are reminded that while it is good not to say bad things, the angels keep watch on what you think too, 24 by 7 as we would say now. And the only remedy for that is to confess you sin to your superior.

Monks are enjoined to run at things, at least metaphorically. Life is short and one needs to get one’s account books in a fit state to be inspected at the Pearly Gates. A state not to be attained by snoozing all day or sleeping all night. Much talk of shepherds accounting for the state of their flocks to their masters.

I have finally, after more than sixty years of instruction, learned about the seven Divine Offices – Prime, Lauds (dawn), Tierce, Sext, None, Vespers (dusk) and Compline – but with the magic seven confused by the occasional addition of the overnight Vigils. With the Divine Office forming the backbone of, or at least the background to, the elaborate Books of Hours, intended for lay use, to be found to this day in our museums and libraries. Not to mention on the Internet.

Benedictines are also very keen on the Psalms, following in this the customs and traditions of the Jews from whom the early Christians sprang. I now know that there are 150 of them and the monks work their way through them once a month, roughly five to a day, with a few adjustments at the margins to allow for short days, short nights, short psalms and long psalms. Once to be found in Psalters, then in breviaries, missals and our own Book of Common Prayer. Where they have been shoe-horned into the morning and evening prayers into which the seven Divine Offices have been reduced: as good Protestants we need to leave a good clear space in the middle part of the day in which to do real work.

While the dictionary tells me that psalms are of Greek rather than Hebrew or Aramaic in origin, with the word originally having to do with the twanging of a harp or a cithara, so a song usually sung accompanied by same. Now usually restricted to the Psalms in the Bible, but once more inclusive, once including, for example, certain collections of Irish songs or chronicles, possibly also involving harps. See, for example, reference 9.

I get the impression that St. Benedict knew a lot about people and a lot about the management of people. He knew how to make a monastery, no doubt often including a very mixed bunch, work. Which is, no doubt, why his rule has survived as long as it has.

PS: the illustration above is taken from the oldest known copy of the Rule of Saint Benedict, from the eighth century, now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, once part of the famous Hatton collection of books and manuscripts. According to the people at reference 10: ‘Christopher Hatton, 1st Baron Hatton (1605-1670) was the eldest surviving son of Sir Christopher Hatton, the Elizabethan courtier. His strong royalist sympathies led him to retire to France in 1648, whence he returned after the Restoration. At various times he occupied minor political posts, but never rose to high office. He was a close friend of Clarendon and of a number of antiquaries, more especially Roger Dodsworth’.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/aachen-barbarossaleuchter.html. 

Reference 2: https://www.kansasmonks.org/. 

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_Saint_Benedict. 

Reference 4: https://www.abbaziamontecassino.org/index.php/. St. Benedict’s last foundation, the site of much fighting and sacking over the centuries and the site of much fighting in the second world war – including costly – if ultimately successful – assaults by the allies. Not yet clear whether all this fighting was about capturing an important military position or about pillaging monastic gold and jewels.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirach. There are a number of references in the rule to the Book of Sirach, not to be found in either my King James Bible or my Good News Bible. Also known as the Book of Ecclesiasticus, but not to be confused with the Book of Ecclesiastes, this last word being closely related to our own ‘ecclesiastical’ and this last book is to be found in my King James Bible.

Reference 6: http://www.bible-researcher.com/cheltenham.html. 

Reference 7: https://christdesert.org/prayer/opus-dei. A useful supplement to the rule, the organisation and coverage of which leave something to be desired. Not exactly a recipe book for the wannabee abbot.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_hours. 

Reference 9: https://www.libraryireland.com/Pedigrees2/psalter-cashel.php. 

Reference 10: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/.