Institutes & Conferences 2 part 3/15

For among those men, these offices, which we are constrained to discharge to the Lord through the distinctions of hours and the intervals of time with the admonition of one who compels us, are celebrated spontaneously and continually throughout the whole space of the day, with the addition of work. For the labour of the hands is so incessantly exercised by them privately throughout their cells, that the meditation of the psalms or of the other Scriptures is never wholly omitted at all; and mingling with it prayers and supplications at every single moment, they consume the whole time of the day in those offices which we celebrate at an appointed time.

Wherefore, except for the evening and nocturnal congregations, no public solemnity is celebrated among them during the day, apart from the Sabbath day or the Lord's day, on which at the third hour they come together for the sake of the sacred communion. For that which is offered incessantly is more than that which is discharged at intervals of time; and a voluntary gift is more welcome than the functions which are rendered by canonical compulsion -- David also exulting in something more glorious on this account, when he says: 'I will sacrifice to Thee voluntarily,' and: 'Let the freewill offerings of my mouth be well-pleasing to Thee, O Lord.'

And so in the monasteries of Palestine or Mesopotamia and of the whole East, the solemnities of the aforesaid hours are daily finished with three psalms, so that both the assiduity of prayers may be offered to God at appointed times, and the necessary offices of work, with the spiritual services completed in due measure, may in no way be able to be hindered. For at these three times we know that the prophet Daniel also daily, with the windows opened in his upper chamber, poured out prayers to the Lord. And not undeservedly are these times more especially assigned to religious offices: for at them the fulfillment of the promises and the summit of our salvation has been accomplished.

For at the third hour it is proved that the Holy Spirit, once promised through the prophets, first descended upon the apostles as they were set in the office of prayers. For when, on account of the utterance of tongues which flowed forth from them by the infusion of the Holy Spirit, the unbelieving nation of the Jews, astonished and at the same time mocking, said that they were filled with new wine, Peter, standing in the midst of them, said: 'Men of Israel, and all you who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is the third hour of the day; but this is that which was spoken through the prophet Joel:'

'And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith the Lord, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: yea, upon My servants and upon My handmaids in those days will I pour out of My Spirit, and they shall prophesy.' All of which things we see fulfilled at the third hour, and the foretold coming of the Holy Spirit, prophesied through the prophets, passed upon the apostles at that same time. But at the sixth hour our Lord and Saviour, an immaculate victim, was offered to the Father, and, ascending the cross for the salvation of the whole world, He blotted out the sins of the human race:

Having despoiled the principalities and powers, he led them openly in triumph, and set free all of us who were liable and bound fast by the debt of an unbreakable bond, taking it out of the way and fastening it to the trophy of his cross. At that same hour, too, in a rapture of mind, there was revealed to Peter from heaven, by a voice sent down from God, the calling of the nations, through the lowering of the evangelical vessel let down from on high, and the purification of every kind of living creatures set within it, when the voice said to him: 'Rise, Peter, kill and eat.' And that vessel, let down from heaven by four beginnings, is plainly recognized to signify nothing other than the Gospel.

For although, being distinguished by the fourfold narrative of the Evangelists, it seems to have four beginnings, yet there is but one body of the Gospel, embracing namely both the nativity and the divinity of the same Christ, and his miracles and his passion as well. And beautifully it does not say 'a linen cloth,' but 'as it were a linen cloth': for a linen cloth is a sign of mortification. Since therefore the death of the Lord's passion is undergone not by the law of human nature, but by the choice of his own will, it is called 'as it were a linen cloth.' For being dead according to the flesh, he was not dead according to the spirit, since neither was his soul left in hell, nor did his flesh see corruption. And again he says, 'No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself:'

'I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.' And so in this vessel of the Gospels destined once more, that is, inscribed by the Holy Spirit, all the nations, which were once accounted unclean as being placed outside the observance of the Law, flowing together through the trustfulness of faith, that from the worship of idols they might be wholesomely offered up and might advance to the food of salvation, are brought to Peter, purified by the Lord's voice. But at the ninth hour, penetrating the lower regions, he extinguished the inextricable darkness of Tartarus by the flashing of his own splendor, and shattering its brazen gates and breaking in pieces its iron bars, the captivity of the saints which was shut up

held fast in the pitiless darkness of hell—he wholesomely carried captive with him up to the heavens, and having removed the fiery sword, he restored the ancient dweller to paradise by a devout confession. At that same hour also Cornelius the centurion, persevering in his prayers with his accustomed devotion, learned—an angel speaking with him—that the memorial of his prayers and of his almsgiving had been made before the Lord, and openly at the ninth hour the mysteries of the calling of the nations were disclosed to him, which had been revealed to Peter at the sixth hour in a rapture of mind. In another place too, concerning this same time, it is thus narrated in the Acts of the Apostles: 'Now Peter and John were going up into the temple at the ninth hour of prayer.'

By these things it is clearly proved that these hours were consecrated to religious observances by the holy and apostolic men not without reason, and that they ought likewise to be observed by us as well: for unless we are compelled, as by a kind of law, to discharge these offices of piety at least at the appointed times, we spend the whole space of the day wrapped in forgetfulness or sloth or occupations, without any interposition of prayer. And what should be said of the evening sacrifices, which are decreed to be continually offered even in the Old Testament under the Mosaic law? For that morning holocausts and evening sacrifices were unceasingly offered all the days in the temple, even though with figurative victims, we can prove even from this, that it is sung by David:

'Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight: the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.' In which passage a still more sacred meaning can be understood of that true evening sacrifice as well, which either in the evening was handed down by the Lord and Savior to the apostles as they supped, when he instituted the most sacred mysteries of the Church, or which he himself on the following day, in the very end of the ages, was offered to the Father as an evening sacrifice by the lifting up of his hands for the salvation of the whole world. And this stretching out of his hands upon the gibbet is quite properly called a 'lifting up.' For all of us lying in hell he lifted up to the heavens, according to the sentence of his promise, when he said: 'When I shall be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself.'

Concerning the morning solemnity, that too instructs us which is wont to be chanted daily in it: 'O God, my God, to thee do I watch at break of day,' and: 'In the mornings I will meditate on thee,' and: 'I prevented the dawn, and cried,' and again: 'My eyes prevented the morning watches: that I might meditate on thy words.' At these hours also that Gospel householder hired laborers into his vineyard. For thus is he described as having hired first in the early morning, which time designates our morning solemnity; then at the third, thence at the sixth, after these at the ninth, and last of all at the eleventh, in which the hour of lamp-lighting is signified.

It should nevertheless be known that this morning office, which is now observed especially in the western regions, was in our time first instituted as a canonical function in our own monastery, where our Lord Jesus Christ, born of a Virgin and deigning to take on the increases of human infancy, confirmed by his grace our infancy also, still tender and suckling in religion. For up to that time we find that this morning solemnity—which after the night psalms and prayers is wont to be celebrated in the monasteries of Gaul after a little interval of time—was consummated together with the daily vigils, and the remaining hours were assigned by our elders to the refreshment of the body.

But when certain more negligent ones, abusing this indulgence, drew out the respite of sleep too long—since indeed no necessity of any assembly summoned them to go forth from their cells or to rise from their beds before the third hour—and when, to the detriment of their work, they were also torpid with excessive slumber during that part of the day when it was fitting to cling to certain duties, and this especially on those days on which, for those keeping the watches from the evening hours until near dawn, a more burdensome weariness arose: then, this kind of negligence displeasing not a little to certain brethren there who were fervent in spirit, a complaint was brought to the elders, and it was decreed by them, after long treatment and anxious deliberation, that until sunrise, when

reading could now be prepared without hindrance, or handiwork taken up, a refreshment being granted to their wearied bodies, and being invited by it—after this all should likewise rise together from their beds by the observance of this religious practice, and having celebrated three psalms and prayers according to the manner which was of old established in the observance of the third or sixth hour after the example of the threefold confession, they should thereafter set at once, with equal moderation, both an end to sleep and a beginning to work.

And although this pattern seems to have been discovered on occasion and to have been established within recent memory for the reason we have mentioned, yet it most manifestly fulfills, according to the letter, that number which the blessed David designates—though it also has a spiritual understanding: 'Seven times a day have I given praise to thee, upon the judgments of thy justice.' For by the addition of this solemnity we are without doubt shown, in making these spiritual assemblies seven times in the day, to say the praises of the Lord seven times in it. And finally, though this same pattern, proceeding from the East, has been most usefully propagated even up to here, in some most ancient monasteries throughout the East to this very day—which by no means suffer the most venerable rules of the fathers to be violated—it seems by no means to have been admitted.

Some in this province, being ignorant of the reason why the ordinance of this solemnity was established or discovered, after the morning hymns are finished turn back again to sleep, falling nonetheless into that very cause for the checking of which this solemnity was instituted by our elders. For they hasten to consummate it at that hour at which, to the more negligent and less careful, an occasion of sleeping again is afforded.

This ought by no means to be done, as we have more fully set forth in the previous little book when describing the synaxis of the Egyptians, lest our purification, acquired by suppliant confession and by the prayers before dawn, be either polluted by some emerging overflow of natural humors, or corrupted by the mockery of the enemy; or lest indeed the refreshment of even pure and simple sleep, coming in between, should interrupt the fervor of our spirit, and, once we are made lukewarm by the torpor of sleep, should lead us on inert and slothful through the whole space of the day thereafter.

That the Egyptians may not fall into this—and indeed although they are wont at fixed times to rise even before cockcrow—when the canonical office has been celebrated, they extend their vigils thereafter until daylight, so that the morning light coming upon them may find them established in this fervor of spirit, and may keep them more fervent and more careful throughout the whole time of the day, receiving them made ready for the conflict and strengthened against the daytime struggle of the devil by the exercise of the nightly vigils and by spiritual meditation.

This too we ought to know, that nothing was changed by our elders—who judged that this same morning solemnity ought to be added—from the ancient custom of the psalms, but that the office was celebrated perpetually in the same order in which it was formerly celebrated in the nocturnal assemblies. For the hymns which in this region they received for the morning solemnity, they likewise chant even today at the end of the nocturnal vigils, which they are wont to finish after cockcrow before dawn: that is, the one hundred and forty-eighth psalm, whose beginning is 'Praise ye the Lord from the heavens,' and the rest which follow. But the fiftieth psalm and the sixty-second and the eighty-ninth were assigned to this new solemnity.

In short, throughout Italy even today, when the morning hymns are finished, the fiftieth psalm is sung in all the churches, which I do not doubt was derived from nowhere else than from this source. But he who, at the third, sixth, or ninth hour, does not come to prayer before the psalm which has been begun is finished, does not further presume to enter the oratory.

nor to mingle himself with those chanting the psalms, but stands before the doors awaiting the dismissal of the congregation, until, when all are going out, by a penitence lowered to the ground he may obtain pardon for his negligence or tardiness; knowing that he can in no other way expiate the fault of his sloth, nor that he is to be admitted even in that solemnity which will follow after three hours, unless, propped up by true humility, he hastens at once to make satisfaction for his present negligence.

But in the nocturnal assemblies a delay is granted to the one who is late up to the second psalm, provided only that, before the brethren prostrate themselves in prayer at the end of that same psalm, he hastens to insert and mingle himself with the congregation; being without doubt subject to the same rebuke and penitence which we have mentioned before, if he tarries even a little beyond the appointed hour of delay.

As for the vigils, which are celebrated each week from the evening as the Sabbath dawns, the elders for this reason moderate them throughout the monasteries in the winter season, when the nights are longer, until the fourth cockcrow, so that after the watches of the whole night, refreshing their bodies for the remaining nearly two hours, they may by no means wither with the torpor of sleep through the whole space of the day, being content with the rest of this brief time in place of the refreshment of the whole night.

This we too ought to keep with all observance, namely that, content with the sleep which is granted to us after the dismissal of the vigils until the coming of the light—that is, until the morning psalms—we should thereafter pass the whole day in work and necessary duties, lest, compelled by the weariness and emptiness of the vigils to resume during the day the sleep which we subtracted from the night, we should seem not so much to have subtracted rest from the body as to have exchanged the time of quiet and the nocturnal refreshment.

For the frail flesh will by no means be able to be so defrauded of the whole night's rest that through the following day it can preserve an unshaken watchfulness without dozing of mind and torpor of spirit—which will rather be hindered by this than helped—unless after the dismissal of the vigils it has tasted however little of sleep. And therefore if but a nap of one hour, as we have said, be granted before the coming of the light, we shall all gain the hours of the vigils which we have spent the whole night through in prayer, granting to nature what is its own, and having no necessity of resuming during the day what we subtracted from the night.

For without doubt whoever tries not to subtract a part from this flesh reasonably, but to deny it the whole, and, to speak more truly, wishes to amputate not what is superfluous but what is necessary, will restore the whole to it. On which account it is necessary that the vigils be compensated at a greater interest, if they have been drawn out until daylight with inconsiderate and irrational excess. And therefore they distinguish them by threefold offices, so that the labor, divided by this variety, may relieve the failing of the body by a certain delight.

For when, standing, they have chanted together three antiphons, afterward, sitting on the ground or on very low seats, they respond to three psalms with one man modulating, which nevertheless are furnished singly by single brethren succeeding one another in turn; and to these, under the same repose of sitting, they add three lessons. Thus it comes about that, lessening the bodily labor, they exercise their vigils with a greater intentness of mind.

These vigils, from the time of the apostolic preaching, in which the Christian religion and faith was founded, have been throughout the whole East appointed to be celebrated as the Sabbath dawns, for this reason: that when our Lord and Savior was crucified on the sixth day of the week, the disciples, still stricken by his recent passion, remained watchful the whole night, by no means indulging their eyes with the sleep of rest. Wherefore from that time the solemnity of the vigils assigned to this night is likewise observed throughout the whole East even to the present day.

And therefore the loosing of the fast after the labor of the vigils, appointed likewise by apostolic men on the Sabbath day, is not without reason assumed throughout all the churches of the East, according also to that sentence of Ecclesiastes—which, though it has another mystical sense, yet does not shrink from this either—by which we are bidden to impart the same portion of solemnity to each day, that is, to the seventh (the week) and the eighth (the ogdoad) alike, thus saying: 'Give a portion to these seven, and indeed to these eight.'

For this loosing of the fast is not to be reckoned as belonging to the communion of the Jewish festivity—especially by those who show themselves alien to all Jewish superstition—but as pertaining to the refreshment, which we have mentioned, of the wearied body, which, fasting continually five days through all the weeks of the year, unless it be revived by at least two days interposed, easily grows weary and fails. The cause of this moderation being unknown to some in certain western cities, and especially in the City (Rome), they think that the loosing of the fast on the Sabbath ought by no means to be assumed, because they assert that the apostle Peter fasted on that day when he was about to contend against Simon.

From which it rather appears that he did this not by canonical custom, but rather by the necessity of the present conflict, since even there, for this same reason, Peter seems to have enjoined a fast on his disciples not as a general but as a special thing. Which assuredly he would not have done, if he had known that it was wont to be observed by canonical custom—being without doubt prepared to enjoin it on the Lord's day also, if the occasion of that very contest had befallen him then. Nor yet on this account should a canonical rule of fasting have been at once promulgated, which no general observance had established, but which the reasoning of necessity had extorted to be done but once.

But not even this should be left unknown, that on the Lord's day only one office is celebrated before the midday meal, in which, expending something more solemn and more copious in psalms and prayers and lessons out of reverence for the assembly itself, or for the Lord's communion, they reckon the third and sixth hours to be alike consummated in it.

And so it comes about that from the offices of prayer nothing is diminished—by the addition, namely, of the lessons—and nonetheless a certain difference or relaxation seems to be granted to the brethren out of reverence for the Lord's resurrection, more than at any other time; which both seems to loosen the observance of the whole week, and, on account of this very difference which is interposed, calls forth that same day, as festive, to be again more solemnly awaited, and makes the fasts of the coming week less felt through the expectation of it. For any weariness whatever is always borne more equanimously, and labor is expended without disgust, if some interchange or alteration of work of whatever kind succeeds it in between.

Finally, even on these very days—that is, the Sabbath or the Lord's day, or the festal times—on which both a midday meal and a supper are wont to be provided to the brethren, no psalm is said at evening, that is, neither when they come to supper nor when they rise from it, as is wont to be done at the solemn midday meals or at the canonical refreshment of the fasts, which the customary psalms are wont both to precede and to follow: but only, with a simple prayer made, they come to supper, and again, rising from it, they conclude it with prayer alone—because this refreshment is extraordinary among the monks, nor are all compelled to come together to it, except either strangers who have arrived, brethren, or those whom infirmity of body or their own will invites.

ON THE INSTITUTES OF THOSE WHO RENOUNCE THE WORLD. CHAPTERS. I. On the instruction of those who renounce this world, and in what manner among the Tabennesiotes or the Egyptians those are trained who are received into the monasteries. II. By what method they persevere among them in the coenobia even to the last old age. III. By what examination he is tested who is to be received into the coenobium. IV. Why those who are received into the monastery are not permitted to bring anything in with them. V. Why those who renounce the world, when received into the monasteries, lay aside their own garments and are clothed with others by the abbot. VI. For what cause the garments of those renouncing the world, with which they entered the monastery, are kept by the steward. VII.

Why those received into the monastery are not permitted to be immediately mingled with the brethren, but are first handed over to the guest-master. VIII. By what first institutes the juniors are exercised, that they may advance to the overcoming of all their concupiscences. IX. Why it is commanded to the juniors that they withdraw nothing of their thoughts from their elder. X. How great obedience is rendered to the elders even in natural necessity. XI. What kind of food is held among them to be most delicate. XII. That at the sound of one knocking at the door they omit no part of their work in their eagerness to run quickly. XIII. How criminal it is held, if anyone should call even the most worthless thing his own. XIV.

That, although much money may be gathered from each one's work, yet no one should presume to exceed the frugality of the appointed sufficiency. XV. On the immoderate zeal for possessing among us. XVI. On the rules of the various corrections. XVII. By what authorities it was brought in that the sacred lessons should be recited to the brethren refreshing themselves in the coenobia, and how great silence is furnished among the Egyptians. XVIII. How unlawful it is to taste anything of food or drink outside the common table. XIX. In what manner throughout Palestine or Mesopotamia the daily services are furnished by the brethren. XX. On the three grains of lentil found by the steward. XXI. On the voluntary ministry of certain brethren. XXII.

On the pattern of the Egyptians, which is established concerning the daily services of the brethren. XXIII. On the obedience of the abbot John, through which he was advanced even to the grace of prophecy. XXIV. On the dry stick, which the same abbot John, at the judgment of his elder, did not cease to water as though it were to be cultivated. XXV. On the single vessel of oil cast away by the abbot John at the command of his elder. XXVI. In what manner the abbot John obeyed his elder in rolling a rock, which could not be moved even by many. XXVII. On the humility and obedience of the abbot Patermutus, which he did not hesitate to fulfill in casting his little son into the river at the command of his elder. XXVIII.

In what manner it was revealed to the abbot concerning Patermutus that he had done the work of Abraham, and that when that same abbot had died, the same Patermutus succeeded to the administration of the monastery. XXIX. On the obedience of the brother who, carrying about ten baskets, sold them publicly at the command of the abbot. XXX. On the humility of the abbot Pinufius, who, leaving a most celebrated coenobium over which he presided as presbyter, sought out a distant monastery in which he might be received as though a beginner, out of desire for perfection. XXXI. In what manner the abbot Pinufius, brought back to his own monastery and having stayed a short time, fled again into the parts of Syria and Palestine. XXXII. What precepts the same abbot Pinufius gave to the brother whom he was receiving in his monastery in our presence.

XXXIII. That, just as a great reward is owed to the monk who labors according to the institution of the fathers, so also a punishment is likewise rendered to the slothful; and therefore no one ought to be admitted so easily into a monastery. XXXIV. That renunciation is nothing else than mortification and the image of the crucified. XXXV. That our cross is the fear of the Lord. XXXVI. That renunciation profits nothing, if we are entangled in those very things which we have renounced. XXXVII. That the devil always lies in wait for our end, and we ought continually to watch his head. XXXVIII. On the preparation of the one renouncing against temptations, and on imitating a few. XXXIX.

By what order one may be able to attain to perfection, by which he may consequently ascend from the fear of God to charity. XL. That a monk ought not to seek examples of perfection from many, but from one or a few. XLI. Of whose infirmities he ought to take on the likeness, who dwells in a coenobium. XLII. That a monk ought not to hope for the good of his own patience from the virtue of others, but rather from his own long-suffering. XLIII. A recapitulation of the exposition, by which a monk may be able to ascend to perfection.

Concerning the canonical manner of prayers and psalms which ought to be kept in the daily assemblies throughout the monasteries, we now pass on, the order of our narrative summoning us to the instruction of him who renounces this world; endeavoring first of all, in as brief a discourse as we can, to embrace the conditions under which those who desire to be converted to God are received into the coenobia—mingling, namely, some things from the rules of the Egyptians, some from those of the Tabennesiotes, whose coenobium is in the Thebaid, and the more populous it is in number than all others, the more strict it is in the rigor of its manner of life; since indeed in it more than five thousand brethren are governed by a single abbot, and so great is the obedience of so vast a number of monks, subject in every age to its elder, as no one among us can either render obedience to one for a little time, or preside over him.