制度與會談錄 第 2 章 第 1/15 段

The history of the Old Testament relates that the most wise Solomon, after receiving from God wisdom and prudence exceedingly great, and breadth of heart as innumerable as the sand of the sea—so that, by the Lord's testimony, none like him is said to have existed in ages past nor to arise after him—desiring to build that magnificent temple to the Lord, sought the aid of the foreign king of Tyre. And he, having sent to him Hiram, the son of a widow woman, brought to completion, by his ministry and disposition, whatever, at the suggestion of divine wisdom, Solomon was contriving of excellence in the temple of the Lord or in the sacred vessels.

If, then, that principate loftier than all the kingdoms of the earth, and that stock nobler and more excellent than the Israelite race, and that wisdom divinely inspired which surpassed the disciplines and institutions of all the Easterns and the Egyptians, did by no means disdain the counsel of a poor and foreign man—rightly do you too, instructed by these examples, most blessed pope Castor, purposing to build to God a true and reasonable temple, not of insensible stones but of a congregation of holy men, and not temporal and corruptible but eternal and impregnable, and desiring to consecrate to the Lord vessels also most precious, not molten of dumb metal, of gold or silver—which afterward the king of Babylon, having captured them, might assign to the pleasure of his concubines and princes—but of holy souls, which, shining with the integrity of innocence, justice, and chastity, carry about Christ the King abiding within themselves: you deign to summon me, needy and in every part most poor, to the communion of so great a work.

Since indeed you wish the institutions of the Easterns, and especially of the Egyptians, tried and proven in the province of the cenobia, to be established, though you yourself are perfect in all virtues and knowledge, and so filled with all spiritual riches that, for those seeking perfection, not only your discourse but even your life alone amply and abundantly suffices as an example, you ask and command even me—tongue-tied and poor in speech and knowledge—that I contribute something toward the fulfillment of your desire out of the poverty of my understanding, and that I set forth, though with unskilled pen, the institutions of the monasteries which we have observed to be kept throughout Egypt and Palestine, just as they were handed down to us there by the fathers; not seeking elegance of speech, in which you yourself are eminently learned, but desiring that the simple life of the saints be explained in simple speech to the brethren in your new monastery.

As much as the pious ardor of your desire provokes me to obey in this matter, so much do the manifold waves of my anxieties deter me, willing though I am, from complying. First, because the merits of my life do not so match up that I should be confident I can worthily embrace with mind and heart things so arduous, so obscure, so holy.

Secondly, because those things which, established from our boyhood among these same fathers and stirred up by their daily exhortations and examples, we either attempted to do, or learned, or perceived by sight, we can now by no means fully retain, drawn away by so many cycles of years from their company and from the imitation of their way of life—especially since the rationale of these matters can by no means be either handed down, or understood, or held in memory by idle meditation and the teaching of words. For the whole thing consists in experience and practice alone; and just as they cannot be handed down except by one who is experienced, so neither can they even be grasped or understood except by one who has labored to apprehend them with equal zeal and sweat.

These things, however, if they are not frequently discussed and polished by the continual conference of spiritual men, quickly slip away again through the negligence of the mind. Thirdly, because that very thing which, in some fashion—not according to the merit of the matter but according to the state of the present time—we are able to recall, an inexperienced speech is not fittingly able to explain. To this is added that upon this subject men noble both in life and illustrious in speech and knowledge have already sweated over many little works—I mean holy Basil and Jerome and certain others.

Of these, the former, when the brethren inquired concerning various institutions or questions, answered not only in eloquent but also in copious discourse, rich with the testimonies of the divine Scriptures; the latter, moreover, not only published books elaborated by his own genius, but also turned into Latin eloquence works composed in the Greek tongue. After such overflowing rivers of eloquence from these men, I might not undeservedly be branded with presumption, had I attempted to bring in any dripping of this stream, did not this confidence in your holiness and its promise animate me—namely, that either these trifles, of whatever sort they be, would be acceptable to you, or that you would assign them to the congregation of brethren dwelling only in the new monastery:

who, if anything perhaps has been put forth by us less cautiously, may both piously read it again and support it with a more indulgent pardon, seeking rather the faithfulness of my speech than the beauty of eloquence. Wherefore, most blessed pope, sole pattern of religion and humility, animated by your prayers, according to the strength of my talent I will undertake the work which you enjoin, and those things which have been left wholly untouched by our predecessors—inasmuch as they attempted to describe things heard rather than experienced—I will impart, as it were, to a raw monastery and to those who in truth thirst. Nor indeed shall I strive to weave together a narration of the wonders and signs of God.

For although we have not only heard many and incredible such things through our elders, but have also seen them fulfilled before our own eyes, yet, all these being passed over—since to readers they confer nothing beyond admiration toward the instruction of the perfect life—I will strive faithfully to explain only their institutions and the rules of the monasteries, and especially the origins, causes, and cures of the principal vices, which are reckoned by them as eight, according to their traditions, as far as with the Lord's help I shall be able. For my purpose is to discourse a little, not concerning the wonders of God, but concerning the correction of our morals and the consummation of the perfect life, according to those things which we have received from our elders.

In this too I will endeavor to satisfy your precepts: that if perchance I find in these regions anything either diminished or added—not according to the type of the ancients, grounded in the most ancient constitution, but according to the choice of each one instituting a monastery—I will, in faithful speech, either add or cut it away according to that rule of the monasteries which we have seen anciently founded throughout Egypt and Palestine; by no means believing that any more reasonable or more perfect novel constitution could have been found in the western parts of the Gauls than are those institutions in which, from the beginning of the apostolic preaching, the monasteries founded by holy and spiritual fathers endure even unto us.

I shall indeed venture to weave into this little work that moderation, so that whatever I have found, according to the rule of the Egyptians, to be impossible, or too harsh, or too arduous in these regions—whether by reason of the severity of the climate or the difficulty and diversity of manners—I may to some degree temper by the customs of the monasteries which are kept throughout Palestine and Mesopotamia; for if a reasonable measure of what is possible be preserved, the same perfection of observance may be attained even with unequal means. ON THE DRESS OF MONKS. CHAPTERS. I. On the girdle of the monk. II. On the garment of the monk. III. On the hoods of the Egyptians. IV. On the tunics of the Egyptians. V. On their arm-bands. VI. On their capes. VII. On the sheepskin and goatskin. VIII. On the staff of the Egyptians.

IX. On their footwear. X. On the moderation of observance, which is to be maintained according to the quality of the climate or the custom of the province. XI. On the spiritual girdle and its symbolic meaning. As we are about to speak of the customs and rules of the monasteries, from what more fitting starting-point—by God's gift—shall we begin than from the very dress of the monks? For we shall then be able fittingly to set forth their inner discipline once we have depicted their outward adornment before the gaze of the eyes. Therefore the monk, like a soldier of Christ ever stationed in readiness for battle, ought continually to go about with his loins girded.

For that these too walked in this attire—namely those who in the Old Testament laid the first foundations of this profession, that is Elijah and Elisha—is shown by the authority of the divine Scriptures; and thereafter we know that the chief authors and founders of the New Testament, namely John, Peter, and Paul, and the rest of men of the same order, went about in like manner.

Of these, the first—who in the Old Testament already prefigured the flowers of virginity and the examples of chastity and continence—when he had been sent by the Lord to rebuke the messengers of Ahaziah, the sacrilegious king of Israel (because, being hindered by sickness, he had resolved to consult Beelzebub the god of Ekron concerning the state of his health, and therefore, the same prophet meeting them, had denied to him any descent from the bed onto which he had fallen), was made known to the king lying sick by the description of the quality of his dress. For the king questioned the messengers who had returned to him and reported to him the prophet's verdict, of what form and habit was the man who had met them and had spoken such words. 'A hairy man,' they said, 'and girt with a leather belt about his loins.'

From which attire the king, at once perceiving the man of God, said, 'It is Elijah the Tishbite,' recognizing beyond doubt the man of God by the token of the belt and by the appearance of his rough and unkempt body—because this mark of his own manner of dress clung to him perpetually, like a kind of special impressed sign, while he dwelt among so many thousands of the people of Israel. Concerning John also, who came forth as a kind of most sacred boundary, an end and a beginning of the Old and New Testaments, we learn thus by the Evangelist's account: 'And John himself had a garment of camel's hair and a leather girdle about his loins.' To Peter also, cast by Herod into the custody of the prison and to be brought forth to death on the following day, an angel standing by gave command:

'Gird yourself and put on your sandals.' The angel of God would by no means have admonished him to do this, had he not seen that Peter, for the refreshment of his nightly rest, had for a little while loosened his weary limbs from the accustomed binding of the girdle. Paul also, as he was going up to Jerusalem and was straightway to be cast into bonds by the Jews, the prophet Agabus, finding him at Caesarea, took his girdle and bound his own hands and feet, that by the gesture of his own body he might prefigure the injuries of Paul's suffering, and said: 'Thus says the Holy Spirit: The man whose girdle this is, so shall the Jews bind him in Jerusalem, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'

This indeed the prophet could by no means have declared, nor could he have said 'the man whose girdle this is,' unless Paul had been accustomed unceasingly to fasten it upon his loins. Let the monk's garment likewise be such as merely covers the body and wards off the shame of nakedness and blunts the injury of the cold, not such as fosters the seed-beds of vanity or pride; even as the same Apostle proclaims: 'Having food and covering, with these let us be content.'

'Coverings,' he says—not 'garments,' as is inaccurately contained in certain Latin copies—that is, such things as merely cover the body, not such as flatter it with the glory of clothing; things so mean that they may not, by any novelty of color or fashion, be considered as marks of distinction among the rest of the men of this same purpose; things so far removed from studied elaborations, that on the other hand they may not be discolored by any filth affected through neglect; in short, let them be so separated from the adornment of this world that they may remain in all things common to the manner of dress of the servants of God.

For whatever is presumptuously undertaken among the servants of God by one or a few, and is not held in a catholic manner throughout the whole body of the brotherhood, must be judged either superfluous or presumptuous, and on that account harmful, and displaying rather a specimen of vanity than of virtue. And therefore it will be fitting for us also to cut away, as superfluous and useless, those examples which we see handed down neither by the ancient saints who laid the foundations of this profession, nor by the fathers of our own time who to this day preserve by successive tradition the institutions of those men.

For this reason they have wholly shunned the garment of haircloth, as being conspicuous to all and notable, and as one which by this very fact can confer no advantage whatever upon the spirit, but may even conceive the vanity of pride; and which, moreover, for the exercise of necessary labor—in which the monk ought always to go about active and unencumbered—is unwieldy and unfit. But if we have heard that certain men clad in this attire proved themselves worthy of approval, the rule of the monasteries is not on that account to be sanctioned by us, nor are the ancient decrees of the holy fathers to be overthrown, merely because a few, presuming upon the privilege of other virtues, are believed not to deserve reproof even in those things which were adopted by them not according to the catholic rule.

For the judgment of a few ought not to be set above, nor to prejudge, the general constitution of all. For we ought to yield undoubting faith and unquestioning obedience in all things to those institutions and rules which not the will of a few brought in, but which the antiquity of so many ages and the countless number of the holy fathers propagated to posterity by harmonious definition.

Nor indeed ought it to prejudge us, as an example for our daily manner of life, that Joram, the sacrilegious king of Israel, when hemmed in on all sides by the troops of his enemies, is reported to have had haircloth beneath his rent garment; or that the Ninevites, in order to soften the sentence of God which had been pronounced against them through the prophet, were clad in the roughness of haircloth—since that king too is shown to have been so secretly clothed inwardly with it that, unless his outer garment had been torn from above, it could by no means have been perceived by anyone; and those men wore the covering of haircloth at that time when, with all lamenting over the destruction impending upon the city and clad in the same attire, no one could be marked out by anyone as making a display—because, unless there be an insolent diversity, uniformity gives no offense.

There are, moreover, certain things in the very dress of the Egyptians which are suited not so much to the care of the body as to a pattern of conduct, so that the observance of simplicity and innocence may be maintained even in the very quality of the clothing. For they wear day and night, without ceasing, very small hoods reaching down to the borders of the neck and shoulders, which cover only the head—so that, namely, they may be admonished, even by the imitation of the very covering, continually to guard the innocence and simplicity of little children. These, having returned to infancy in Christ, at all hours sing with affection and virtue: 'O Lord, my heart is not exalted, neither are my eyes lofty; neither have I walked in great matters, nor in things too wonderful for me. If I was not humble in mind,'

'but exalted my soul, then let me be as a weaned child upon its mother.' Clothed also with linen tunics which scarcely reach to the ends of the elbows, they carry the rest of their arms bare, so that the cutting-off of the sleeves may suggest that they have their acts and works of this world cut away, and the garment of the linen covering may teach that they are mortified to every earthly manner of life; and that through this they may hear the Apostle daily saying to them: 'Mortify your members which are upon the earth'; that same attire also protesting: 'For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God'; and: 'Yet now it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me; and to me the world is crucified, and I to the world.'

They wear also double cords woven of woolen thread, which the Greeks call analaboi, but which we may call under-girdles or bands, or properly arm-supports (rebracchiatoria). These, descending over the top of the neck and dividing on either side of the throat, encompass the hollows of both armpits and gird them up on this side and on that, so that, constricting the breadth of the garment, they may draw it in and fasten it close to the body; and thus, with their arms bound up, they may be rendered active and unimpeded for every work, striving to fulfill with all their might that precept of the Apostle: 'For these hands have ministered not only to me, but also to those who were with me.'

'Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought, but in labor and toil, working night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you'; and: 'If any will not work, neither let him eat.' After these things, with a narrow little cloak, pursuing both the humility of the garb and the cheapness of the price and economy, they cover their necks together with their shoulders; these are called mafortes, both in our speech and in theirs; and thus they avoid at once both the expense and the ostentation of the planeticae and byrri (traveling-cloaks). The last item of their attire is a goatskin, which is called a melotis or wallet, and a staff, which they carry in imitation of those who prefigured the pattern of this profession already in the Old Testament.

Concerning these the Apostle says: 'They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and in the caverns of the earth.' Yet this attire of goatskin signifies that they, having mortified all the wantonness of carnal passions, ought to stand fast in the utmost gravity of virtues, and that nothing wanton or hot-blooded of youth and of former levity should remain in their body. For that these same men carried a staff, Elisha too—who is one of them—teaches, when he says to Gehazi his servant, sending him to raise up the woman's son: 'Take my staff and go, run, lay it upon the face of the boy, and he shall live.'

Indeed the prophet would not have given it to him to carry, had he not been accustomed continually to bear it in his own hand. The carrying of this staff spiritually admonishes them that they ought never to go about unarmed among so many barking dogs of the vices and the invisible beasts of spiritual wickednesses (concerning which blessed David, seeking to be delivered, says: 'Deliver not, O Lord, to the beasts the soul that confesses to you'), but rather to beat back those that assail them with the sign of the cross and to drive them further off, and to extinguish those that rage against them by the continual remembrance of the Lord's Passion and by imitation of that mortification.

But as for footwear, refusing it as forbidden by the Gospel precept, whenever bodily weakness, or the morning cold of winter, or the fervent heat of midday demands it, they protect their feet with sandals only; interpreting that the use of these is signified by the Lord's permission, so that, if while set in this world we are by no means able to be wholly stripped of the care and anxiety of this flesh, nor are we able to be entirely loosed from it, we may at least, by a light occupation and slight entanglement, provide for the necessity of the body—and lest we suffer the feet of our soul (which ought always to be ready, unencumbered for the spiritual course and for preaching the peace of the Gospel—with which, after the fragrance of Christ's ointments, we run, and of which David says: 'I have run in thirst,' and Jeremiah:

'But I have not toiled in following you') be entangled with the deadly cares of this world—thinking, namely, of those things which pertain not to supplying the necessity of nature, but to superfluous and harmful pleasure. This we shall fulfill if, according to the Apostle, we make not provision for the flesh in its lusts. Yet although they use these sandals lawfully, as things permitted by the Lord's command, they nevertheless by no means allow them to cling to their feet when they draw near to celebrate or to receive the most holy Mysteries; deeming that even according to the letter that ought to be observed which is said to Moses, or to Joshua the son of Nun: 'Loose the latchet of your sandal,'

'for the place on which you stand is holy ground.' Let these things be said, lest we should seem to have passed over anything concerning the dress of the Egyptians. For the rest, only those things are to be maintained by us which the situation of the places or the custom of the province admits. For neither does the harshness of winter permit us to be content with sandals, or with tunics, or with a single garment; and the covering of a very small hood, or the wearing of a sheepskin, would furnish to those who see it derision rather than any edification.

Wherefore we judge that those things only, which we have mentioned above, and which are suited both to the humility of our profession and to the quality of the climate, are to be sought after by us also, so that the whole sum of our dress may consist not in novelty of habit—which might bring a stumbling-block to the men of this world—but in an honorable meanness. Clothed therefore with these garments, let the soldier of Christ know that he is first for this reason fortified with the constriction of the girdle: that he may go about, not only prompt in mind, but also ever unencumbered by the very habit, for all the uses and works of the monastery. For he will be proved so much the more fervent in spiritual progress and in the knowledge of divine things by the purity of his heart, the more devoted he shall be to the zeal of obedience and of labor.

Secondly, let him know that in the very habit of the girdle there lies no small mystery required of him. For the girding of the loins and the encircling of a dead skin signifies that he carries about the mortification of those members in which the seed-beds of lust and wantonness are contained; understanding that the Gospel command, which says, 'Let your loins be girded,' is by the apostolic interpretation ever pressed upon him: namely, 'Mortify your members which are upon the earth—fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence.'

And for this reason we read in the Holy Scriptures that those only were girded with a girdle in whom the seed-beds of sexual union are found extinguished, and who sing forth in deed and in virtue that saying of blessed David: 'For I am become like a bottle in the frost'—inasmuch as, the flesh of the vices being scraped away to the very marrow, they stretch out by the strength of the spirit the deadened skin of the outer man.

And therefore he significantly added 'in the frost,' because, namely, they were by no means content with the mortification of the heart alone, but had also the motions of the outer man and the very incentives of nature frozen fast by the frost of continence coming upon them from without—no longer sustaining, according to the Apostle, any reign of sin in their mortal body, nor bearing flesh that wars against the spirit. ON THE CANONICAL MANNER OF THE NIGHTLY PRAYERS AND PSALMS. CHAPTERS. I. On the canonical manner of the nightly prayers and psalms. II. On the diversity of number appointed for the singing of psalms throughout the various provinces. III. On the observance of a uniform rule throughout all Egypt, and on the choosing of those who are set over the brethren. IV.

That throughout Egypt and the Thebaid the number of twelve psalms is observed. V. On the number of twelve psalms received by the tradition of an angel. VI. On the custom of the twelve prayers. VII. On the discipline of prayer. VIII. On the prayer that follows after the psalm. IX. On the state of prayer, concerning which a fuller instruction is reserved for the Conferences of the elders. X. With how great silence and brevity the prayers are gathered up among the Egyptians. XI. By what discipline the psalms are said among the Egyptians. XII. Why, while one chants, the rest sit in the assembly; and with what zeal they afterward prolong their vigils in their cells until dawn. XIII. Why it is not fitting to sleep after the night office. XIV.

In what manner they exercise the work of their hands and prayers together in their cells. XV. By what law of modesty each one returns to his cell after the dismissal of the prayers, and to what rebuke he is subject who does otherwise. XVI. That it is lawful for no one to pray with him who has been suspended from prayer. XVII. That he who rouses the brethren for prayer ought to admonish them at the accustomed hour. XVIII. That from the evening of the Sabbath until the evening of the Lord's Day the knees are not bent, nor throughout all the days of Pentecost (the fifty days). Girded therefore with this double girdle of which we have spoken, let the soldier of Christ meanwhile take note what is the manner of the canonical prayers and psalms anciently appointed by the holy fathers in the regions of the East.

But concerning the quality of these, or in what manner we may be able to pray without ceasing, according to the Apostle's saying, we shall set forth in their proper places—as much as the Lord shall grant—when we have begun to expound the Conferences of the elders. For we have found that many throughout other regions, according to the capacity of their own mind—having indeed, as the Apostle says, a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge—have set up for themselves diverse forms and rules concerning this matter. For some have decreed that twenty or thirty psalms, and these prolonged by the melodies of antiphons and by the addition of certain modulations, ought to be said each night; others have attempted even to exceed this measure; some, eighteen.

And in this way we have come to know that in various places a different canon was instituted; and we have seen almost as many forms and rules adopted as we have beheld monasteries and cells. There are those to whom it seemed good that even in the daily offices of prayer—that is, at Terce, Sext, and None—according to the number of the hours in which these acts of homage are rendered to God, the number of psalms and prayers should be made equal; to some it seemed good that six should be assigned to each of the day's assemblies.

Wherefore I think it necessary to bring forward into the midst the most ancient constitution of the fathers, which to this day is observed by the servants of God throughout all Egypt, so that the raw infancy of a new monastery, unpracticed in Christ, may rather be imbued with the most venerable institutions of the most ancient fathers. And so throughout all Egypt and the Thebaid, where the monasteries are established not according to the choice of each one renouncing the world, but by the successions and traditions of the elders continue even to the present day, or are founded destined to endure, we have seen that a lawful manner of prayers is retained in the evening assemblies and the nightly vigils.

For no one is permitted to preside over an assembly of the brethren, nor even over his own self, before he is rendered a stranger not only to all his own possessions, but until he also acknowledges that he is not even lord of himself, nor has power over himself.