On mortification. The greatest part of the rule of monks is mortification, to whom indeed it is enjoined through Holy Scripture: 'Do nothing without counsel' (Sir. 32:24). Therefore, if nothing is to be done without counsel, everything must be inquired about through counsel. Hence also it is commanded through Moses: 'Ask your father, and he will declare it to you; your elders, and they will tell you' (Deut. 32:7). But although to the hard this discipline may seem hard—namely that a man should always depend on the mouth of another—yet to the rest who fear God it will be found sweet and secure, if it be kept wholly and not in part:
for nothing is sweeter than the security of conscience, and nothing more secure than the impunity of soul, which no one can grant to himself by himself, since it properly belongs to the examination of others. For this defends one from the fear of judgment, which the judgment of the one judging has already examined, upon whom the weight of another's burden is laid, and who bears the whole peril of what he undertakes. For greater, as it is written, is the peril of the one judging than of him who is judged (Wisd. 6:6-7). Whoever, therefore, always inquires, if he keeps it, will never err. For if he err in another's answer, the faith of the believer and the labor of the obedient will not err, nor will they lack the reward of the one inquiring.
For if he who ought to have inquired examines something by himself, in this very thing he is convicted of having erred, because he presumed to judge, who ought to have inquired: and even if it be right, it will be reckoned to him as wrong, since by this he turned aside from the right; for he dares to judge nothing by himself, whose office is only to obey. Since, therefore, these things are so, a proud freedom must everywhere be guarded against by monks, and true humility must be learned; with them obeying without murmuring and hesitation: so that, according to the word of the Lord, they may feel the yoke of Christ to be sweet, and his burden light (Matt. 11:30); otherwise, until they learn the humility of Christ, they will not feel the sweetness of his yoke and the lightness of that burden.
For humility of heart is the rest of a soul wearied by vices and toils, and its one refreshment amid so many evils; and in proportion as the soul is, by this consideration, drawn away from so many things that wander abroad and are vain, so much the more does it within find rest and refreshment, so that even bitter things become sweet to it, and things once held hard and arduous it now feels to be level and easy. Mortification too, which is intolerable to the proud and the hard, is consolation to him whom that alone pleases which is humble and meek. But it must be known that no one will be able perfectly to fulfill either this happiness of martyrdom or any other useful thing that may befall him, unless he has set himself singularly upon this study, that he be not found unprepared.
For if, alongside this study, one should wish to pursue or to foster any intentions of his own, then, continually held captive by the occupation of intervening things, wholly disturbed in following whither command leads, he will never be able to be content; nor can he fulfill it as is fitting, who is turbulent and ungrateful. The principle of mortification, therefore, is threefold: not to disagree in mind, not to speak one's own pleasure with the tongue, not to go anywhere of one's own accord. It is always for the elder to speak, though commanding contrary things: 'Not as I will, but as Thou wilt' (Matthew XXVI, 39); according to the example of the Saviour, who says: 'I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me, the Father' (John VI, 38). (Thus far the manuscript codices and the exemplar of Saint Gall;
but the Bobbio manuscript at this place adds the following more fully enclosed.) On the perfection of the monk. Let the monk live in the monastery under the discipline of one Father and in the fellowship of many, that from one he may learn humility, from another patience; let one teach him silence, another meekness. Let him not do what he wishes; let him eat what he is bidden; let him have only as much as he has received; let him discharge the task of his work; let him be made subject to one whom he does not wish; let him come weary to his bed and fall asleep while still walking, and be compelled to rise before his sleep is finished; when he has suffered injury, let him be silent; let him fear the superior of the monastery as a lord, and love him as a father.
Let him believe that whatever that one commands is for his own salvation, and let him not pass judgment on the opinion of his superiors, whose duty is to obey and to fulfill what is just, as Moses says: 'Hear, O Israel' (Deuteronomy VI, 4), and the rest.