On the Kinds of Monks

Benedict presents the Rule Image via Wikipedia

As we finish the Prologue of St. Benedict’s Rule, the first chapter presents us with the typology of monks. We know immediately that there are good monks and bad monks, and that we want to be among the good monastics. The description of the sarabaites and the gyrovagues are so negative – even disgusting – that we want to do everything we can to avoid being classified with them.

Why include the bad monks?

It certainly seems odd to begin a monastic rule with brief descriptions of the “good” kind of monks and longer, emotionally powerful descriptions of the “bad” kind of monks. No one considers joining a monastery or adopting a monastic rule with the intention of being a “bad” monk! When I read Chapter 1 in light of the Prologue that we just finished, however, it makes more sense.

In the Prologue, Benedict clearly sees the monastic way of life in contrast to spiritual sloth or haphazard attention to God’s commandments. In Chapter 1, he makes it very clear that simply living in the monastery or making monastic promises does not guarantee that a person will grow in holiness. The descriptions of the “bad” monks are evidence of the need for what he is offering: a Rule that also defines responsibility within the community for upholding fervor for its practice.

Sarabaites and Gyrovagues

Were there really many monasteries and monks with completely slipshod practice, or wanderers imposing on hospitality throughout the land? Benedict’s biography, written by St. Pope Gregory the Great, describes at least one monastery of lazy monks. However, I think Benedict wrote this Chapter for his own monks, and for us, not so that we could exclude the “bad” monks from our communities – but so that we can recognize them in ourselves.

Over the length of a monastic life time, a person is likely to become slipshod in her practice or perhaps overly involved in a ministry or work that takes her away from the community life. I have certainly experienced both of these spiritual swamps; it is hard to recognize them and harder still to get out of them. If Benedict intended his Rule to be read regularly in community, this chapter would repeatedly confront each member of the community with the contrasting descriptions: am I living as one of the “strong” monks who build this community, or as a selfish sarabaite or a slapdash gyrovague?

Benedict also guards against the form of spiritual hubris that leads one to believe she would do better without the community – as a hermit. Just when a community is being most effective – when it highlights one’s shortcomings  – the idea that one could be more prayerful and calm and at peace as a hermit is likely to take hold. Acting on that idea can be spiritually destructive if it amplifies the spiritual shortcomings that are already evident. In his Rule, Benedict does not forbid or degrade the solitary monastic life. He simply identifies it for what it is:  a difficult and advanced spiritual practice not for beginners.  It makes sense only after a well lived cenobitic life.

How We Live The Rule of Benedict

What can we take away from Chapter 1? In addition to a warning against falling into spiritual sloth and wandering, Benedict gives us a clear statement that spiritual growth is not self-guided. Left to our own devices, we may well deceive ourselves about our spiritual state.  Yet he moderates the desert tradition of obedience to a single Abba: the monastic should be obedient to a Rule as well as to an Abbot, each tempering the authority of the other. The Rule should guide our actions, the Abbot and our fellow monastics should help us to live it better, and we owe a similar responsibility to them. Benedict is building a fence around our spiritual lives. Inside these guide rails, we choose our own actions and go about our work, both spiritual and temporal. When distraction or laziness or self-will would draw us outside, the Rule, the Abbot and the community guide us back inside.

So we end Chapter 1 with the recognition that we are, each of us, a sarabaite or a gyrovague– at least potentially. In the rest of the Rule, Benedict tells us how to avoid those despicable outcomes.

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