now we just finished the prologue or st benedict's rule and we plan to give attention to certain chapters but especially the first seven chapters you remember that rule is largely divided into two great sections the first is the what you might call the spiritual foundations in prologue and chapters ones we should
know
that's not exclusive because they're especially good things that an addict noted at the end of the rural it should have included but then most of the rest of the rule is organization has been just shut up and housing should be done in a particular way we wanted to do that first part especially that's the foundation on which every evening rest and
will get less attention to the second time much of it is the kind of detail that doesn't require a lot of commentary unless you have particular historical interest but we're trying to get the issue trump's
at the same time we want to do the about so we'll need to break into this treatment of the girl and a certain point and three five hours which you will be making at the time of profession for
i'd like to get as much of the foundation material in before the belgians we can i think if we see the reason for that the commitments or posterior to these
to the spiritual foundations they rested upon them when so it's good not to take their vows too much in the abstract but the build them into our understanding as decision as much as we can so i don't know at what point will cut off and get to the bible to be when stephen comes back not before them
because he was particularly interested in tuition
so right now i'd like to continue with the rural chapter one in the following chapters we can probably handle about one chapter each week i think as because when these first seven chapters you can even though someone like chapter seven asks for a great deal more com
and then
subjected to on the other
because it's not as if we have to determine the office of the island will be possible angle because what we're interested in is our our life this is a and that the role of the have it's important
and that will come up again and again and new
okay so chapter one is on the kinds of mumps you remember and there's a lot of background to this and it's good to go into the background a bit so that we don't look at the rule into simple minded of fashion so you see that the layers of the strata that are underneath it and the changes that have taken place let's take
the look first of all that are commodities constitution just because this business of the kind of monks has built right into our own structure isn't because it's one congregation in which the kinds of monks somehow player a central role unlike most benedict and communities which are
only accommodate one kind of mom
so we're sort of had it right in the middle of cation
could make amalgamation
the relevant texts which i'm going it goes with very quickly unless their questions are largely in this first chapter on the spiritual nature and theoretical structure and acknowledge kind of congregation it was want to remind you of the parts of to know them and hermitage it's numbers three through seven at you

hey
number three the commandments has been acknowledged congregation consists of hermitage as and monasteries
know hermitage is a characteristic element of the congregation and as such oriented spiritually balanced members that's a strong statement isn't it
making me hermitage the defining element it's got a lot more power and residents that might appear at first
because not only does the presence of the hermitage define the congregation but then that elements and how his post influence everything else they used to be stronger there was a point you may recall and
the constitution's put things in such a way that you weren't fully a commander a monk if you lived in the monastery and tell you into the hermitage and for hundreds of years the synovium was deliberately suppressed as it were your all kinds of things operating and you've got two ways of life into
the groups of monks interacting all kinds of polarities intentions instead of some of them very unfortunate movement does i think a good healthy balance now because you don't have this artificial insistence on the type of life that a person may not be quantum nor a great conquered contradictions french
since the beginning of this century when they had a collegio for per kids and then they were feeding them into the hermitage
you know without an acknowledgement of a possibility even have somebody legitimately living out their whole life in a monastery i'm only exaggerating but of the much the way it was so it it distorts everything when you have that kind of situation so i think that scares me that the president registered
asian has been melted and molded much more to the shape of reality then it was one hundred years ago and two hundred years you know when there is such a strong insistence on solitude and on a particular form of life as defining the vocation and then that form of i could be defined right down to the particular to
it's the collegio
like how number of students room on pretty on in years here the ages of some of our now are sort of generation of superiors your senator levin thirteen and not so that work is you can get more like private school or was it is but a school from math much
if the purpose for starting it was too
to finish vocations as i remember okay i think that the commandments were really limping at the beginning etc because they had these suppression only be just about wiped out and
some jesuit recommend it why don't you start out a minor seminary well just got a collegium and the real purpose was to bring those kids into the monastery into the monastic life
someone turned out to be patient or elsewhere
and maybe i'm sarah
not a religious a dog show
and it continued up until i put a lot of time by l a when when i went to italy and sixty two them are still guy
as a kid my ipad
i don't know quite tight yeah i've heard eleven and thirteen million and that's a little kids i'm not a good judge of age a kid as a kid from
they had something similar in the old days it wasn't the same wasn't a minor seminary but for just any only one of his big problems was it a remark how he was the reader at the hermitage
on christmas day or something like that or a solemnity and on these little kids came through looking up they were in the monastery envelope because they they were teaching kids and had kids there and i don't remember what the
you know what the rubric was what they call them how they categorized
but that was a much earlier phase in the early sixteen hundreds
fifteen
he's placed yeah much problem
goins cost of choice because and you may not come elderly yeah
excellent as nice as so true
and they had once a lot so was the place where they did most of that that's an old trappist monastery to take up
least few hundred years old i met near florence remember being open and i think they've they've gotten rid of that property quite a lot of guys but that was functioning and when we rather than
once lotsa
a big they closed it
and a lot of the monks of course were concerned with teaching taking care of the kid
in both hermitage in a monastery the monks attended the contemplative life liberal arts education and then they're going to put out here on how that's to be understood
and then they get to the distinction and discrimination between the two and the one monastic vocation in there are a different gift but the same spirit for this reason the mud maybe called to realize this vocation and either the hermitage your the monastery and notice how carefully that's been written
does it to legitimate location side-by-side know it's to parallel presentations he rather than one on top of the other but they want on top of the other or kind of show a mirror and a little later but at least there is this possibility solid they presented have a legitimate so you know the kind of it
michael commodities vocation for the whole of your life
in the monastery the moto jacket vocation day by day three union and charity with his feathers through obedience through own spirit of our tradition and then further notes of the monastic and the santa vehicle at number six numbers seven now
am
the commodities hermitage is situated between the cinematic and and critic ways of life keeps the best elements were both great white balance of solitude and life and kind of etc
although the herman remains united to his brothers and subject to the yoke of obedience he strides in solitary quiet to attain purity of heart and intimate union with god by means of greater modification and more intense messages for very much in line on the tradition and then it goes undetected about reclusive the further strain to shelter
and later on they also talk about other possible intense more and twenty solid to and other than recursion and that's a concession to the americans are
because conclusion is a rather alien think for us inclusion of everything has been shot in and that was the way it was done middle ages but or an american probably an australian to to live in the woods something like that you know where the sense of openness and i sense of rapport with nature
there's a lot more meaningful them to be warm in
the word the inclusion is not an entirely portion of any questions on that before we just go on r m and are being in cash and
this appeared for your reference genome
let's take a look at
chapter one of of st benedict's rule and then we'll look at the bathroom in the time and we have
once again benedict is remarkable for it's concise
we compared with a master
ha
chapter one the kinds of mobs that generic was manticore koran
there are clearly for kinds of monks first there are the center bites that is to say those who belong to a monastery where they serve under a rule and and haven't noticed the careful definition point after point monastery rule of three pillars of the synthetic collect
secondly niagara to how much you want to read that part one that's chapter one verse three screws five

you got it there a canaveral company in chapter one yet read a verse three
him
second very angry orleans will ever come through the test of them in a monster for a long time and have passed beyond cursed forever of monastic life
thanks to the help and guidance of men there are a are now train and fight against the devil a how to build up their strength and ago from a battle on to the ranks of their brothers to the central conrad of the desert
self reliant now without the support of another they are ready with god's help to grab a single have we
when the vices i'm buying online now just about everything we've read up to this point comes straight from the much the role of the masculine and cashman
i notice this vision of the solitary life with the image that's not a question of contemplation is it or not literally a question of interiority for a deeper experience with god that's not the language and all it's funny because it you externalized language of struggle with the devil
which i think it's pretty typical of egyptian and monasticism you don't hear a lot about contemplation egyptian monasticism you'll find any cash and then concussion they become workmen snap with himself by don't know he's going to kind of platonic patient to
it's a matter of struggling against the devil together with your brothers and then going out doing it alone
it certainly sounds grimly realistic not a romantic anything know
doesn't necessarily sound like much funding
now we get to the sheriff and want to read about this the ceremony
say that you have guys and test of time pumps who have not to guide them nairobi trial is cold and triumph and famous
and the character has such as name
still mile a world on their actions they create life gone by that function
two or three together or we provide adam shepherd they can themselves up and that shit out after all
the are is what they like to do whatever strikes their fancy
anything i've written to they call holly
the sky and considered for basement
most of us have a little of the virus from the share of items
otherwise known as of will
now they are the ones who don't have any abbott and they don't have any rule today and the gyro days you're going to be the ones who don't have any
monastery don't have any stability
hum he's very much abridged
has been abridged the masters
the thing i'm mia sara budge but it's the gyro date on which the master really goes to town really enjoyed
manera do you wanna be the rest for the family the are amongst called giant make who spend their by tricking a recent injury region thing as guests of three are working
always only moving never l and are slaves to their own and crows appetites in every way there are a satellite
that's very sober compared with the masters of street
it is better to keep silent and to speak of all these and then disgraceful way of life that has passed them by them with the help of the lord because she did you have a plan for the strong kind of sentiments so many like firmly returns to the track of his purpose which is to write a book percent of like that
what is your mom janice there's quite a bit of discussion and uncertainty about exactly what that means
does it mean that the individual santa bite is the strongest kind of market doesn't seem that possible does it have he said about the homage that comes precisely strength that distinguishes the hermits with them because they go out single handed instead of needing help with their brother so it seems like it's gotta mean something else maybe it means that they're the most secure kind of
monks because they have that out of their brethren and that the solitary life is more precarious from more dangerous maybe more people fail at it okay there's another possibility here which is that it simply means more numerous like numerically stronger the stronger tradition you might say
something like that
oh
but strong kind interpreted literally watching really to contradict completely what he said about the
okay let's take a look at cannot be antecedents that a good section
eighteen eighty from page three thirteen to about three twenty animals issue of the kinds of monks
so if you want to get the history straight i recommend that
how they start out with is the first discussion to the kind of much about three eighty one is council duchy on decay it up for learning
and then those st jerome
and it's better to use tokyo
when he talks about of anchorage rihanna's and then a third kind the bad guys are renderer
there are a degenerate kind of much of the february comment may sound like the ceremony
when he indulges himself with to a literary minute among them everything has done to effect and where the stage by a boots comedy clothing they say a great deal pay visits divergent a little the clergy
and whatever a feast day comes round get them from sick

how can understand accustomed to nothing
augusta augustan once he got each gotten three ways
and the basic commitment here always celibacy on notice the rb nineteen eighty treatment emphasizes that celibacy is the primary commitment and that's what defines monasticism dynamic arrested of the development and subdivisions take off from their first the solitary
and then the community people and then the third kind of the urban monks hussein accustomed and noticed that he had a particular interest in that because he had something like an urban and astros of infinity the canon german the clerics and live together
he's given credit for them
now we get to cash-in now cation is just underneath around
and the role of a nice day
the chin conference or team
i got the may have but these pages on the shelter trauma
passions conference eighteen chapters for true
through seven
he talks about the three kinds of monks from chapter for the anchorage the center bites and sarah bites you gotta have one kind of bad guy says sarah waiting
and then he's got a kind of miss about the origin of the of data collection collect the monastic like the historical myth which is that the original jerusalem community was very fervent and as i remember not reading it again right now
they possessed nothing himself okay they they are they gave up all their possessions and put everything in common so the center by it would be the people who preserve that original apostolic life intact
while decade in the rest of the church and the region way into katie's as is largely the coming of the gentile okay the dilution of the original fervent jewish tradition community through the the coming into bringing in a big impact
that's a theologically dangerous
kind of
not a principal
look like gotta do
and these is by the grace time went on were separated from the great mass of believers and because they abstain from marriage cut themselves off from intercourse with their kinsmen in the life of this world which are monks solitary from the strictness of their own the in solitary life now that's a neat way of facing the money
nasty club and which you'd make a monastic like the only genuine former of christian life and everybody else and that sort of decade
thank heaven isn't true
now goes up the son of bites the anchorage developed out from them with st paul and anthony the first tournament
and it's very much like what we saw in the rule of benedict here than that
they're gonna anchor writer with garage with yours because being by no means satisfied with that victory whereby they had trodden under foot the hidden snares of the devil are still living among men they were eager to fight with the devils and open conflict and a straightforward battle
and so feared not to penetrate and as three sessions of the desert
so they grew up with a single handed combat that with the devil it's very interesting isn't it to can take that perspective on the solitary like that particular way into defining and the herman
which we didn't we would never do today with movie
nowadays sure not your jesus didn't want even it's not so clear like the the forty years of the israelites in the desert and the exit exodus time it's not in those terms because actually the whole business of the devil is not clear very and not very common in the old testament is it it pops out on the gas pump
when was jesus comes on seen very average struggle especially in mark's gospel on
did you get around understand christian interpretation of temporary and this kind of in a christian a rash on the national pay
yes michael crabtree yeah and it's individualized now have
individualized and it's out in the open instead of being disguised no proof maximus confessor makes it interesting commentary
israel your continent were saying guys constantly threatening and eventually breaks and presume am i going to like the individual style trying to come on now check each
he's running a lot of complaints about traffic
you'll find it in there is about contemplation and and cashman later on especially originating from his preface to his conferences and that there he really stressed with the commemorative so he has a very much in mind but sometimes as in this story here he doesn't bring it up at all
i why it is it cause something that's only comply that mean
the silence and solitude and in that an apparent lack or one's own gardens begins to rhyme which might be number of sanctity
that it only happens to you can come to an experiment
i
it's almost definitely it for that it's almost as if it only happens the devil don't come out into the open when you're alone that changed when you're in those spaces and of course nature was not a also on a different way than it is by us okay good nature was was the daemon interesting places which is a christian hundred he had
push the the devil in a sense out into the print of wilderness sometimes they couldn't remember the about pagans and pagans in the people who live out in the rural areas you
and the christianity was in of religion like and surprising that
for us are lots of contradictions in that when we think of the city but they're very literal the fact they don't separate on what would you call the interior struggle from his externalized forms of the devil whether the life of st anthony or in the restaurant that literature that they real
lee seen these snake those things are really there
and we have to make a metaphor out of them a because of projections of the imagination or the psyche
under the life of anthony
someone should leverage even version of the bag various tossed by the devil of until they reach bike and blue

okay that's the beginning of this analytical life and of the and critic life and now he goes on about the disgusting and unfaithful kind of months where the ceremony will imitate an ios and sephora and the distinguishing think for cash about them is that they don't have any poverty okay that they still
word in order to take care of themselves in the future instead of semi trusting on touched you know nikos this can be a problem in a solitary life if you're in a community you need you will be taken care of but if you're living by yourself you've gotta worry about your on me so it's difficult to maintain that the right kind of trust in detachment in that situation

the terabytes the ones who have broken away from the congregations of the celebrates and each look after their own affairs
now you can so he's got bad santa bites and those are the sarah budge then he's got bad hermits when we doesn't give a name to
ah who are not yet cooked by the monastic formation and they go out on their own
so there's quite a neat logical scheme there and cation
yeah sure they are a fort sort of monks and he doesn't blame lately springing up the flatter themselves with the appearance in the form of anchorage
so they go to the they come from this and a been there long enough they look out for separate shells and wondering made by themselves alone
that is they are provoked by nobody they may be regarded by manage patient gentle and humble
some time
their faults are not merely not rooted up and actually growers
so he doesn't spend long on them but that turns up later it comes up in the role of the minister i use cash in the more contemplative mood talking about the movement from the santa monica life to the aeromedical to the solitary like this isn't in preface to the conferences remember he's already written the institute about this analytical
the institute's of the monasteries of of egypt and now he says i've been asked to write about the aeromedical life and the arithmetic of of com principles and and mentality and wherein justify an anchored in the harbor of silence a wide she opened out the me
so that i must venture to hand down for posterity some of the institute's and teachings of these great men and there's the hermit
for the bark of my slender abilities will be exposed to the dangers of a longer voyage on the deep in proportion of the anchorage by the grander than that of the synovial and the contemplation of god to which those inestimable men ever devoted themselves more sublime and ordinary practical life so that very much like catch and
in a lot of his other writings the contrasting of
the active life the ordinary a monastic life with the sublime contemplative life
no sounds very much like of average to
it is your as airport to assist our efforts by your pious prayers for few lessons sacred a subject that has to be treated in an untried but peaceful manner the literary bows and scrapes or kind of queries you should be imperiled by us or best are simplicity should lose itself in the depths of the subject matter
now let us therefore pass from what is visible to the eye and the external mode of life of the monks of which retreated in the form of books to the life of the inner man which is hidden from view and from the system of economical prove that our discourse mount to that continuance and unceasing for which the apostle and joins that whoever has through read
our former work already spiritual again name of jacob and son jacob the restaurant may now game the name of israel member jacobs no name the one who she's got so it's the movement from struggle to contemplation from external perished to unceasing prayer the heart and from the extra
colonel monastic manner that was to the interior and now he's equating all that was this woman from a community like to solitary so you're seeking he sees that was great depth and from kind of province your kind of there's kind of wholeness about that vision and the movement from santa vertical like to aeromedical however it also dangerous
because the movement from one form of lifetime in the form of life doesn't mean a spiritual a quantum leap like that doesn't
it what it almost sounds like as the movement from old testament new testament you find on the part doesn't from law to spirit from the exterior of the anterior natural
cash is pumping up a lot of theology and to hear you into this vision of the difference between the community like and need a solitary that but at the same time it speaks to the kind of experience that was in the solitary life most of my i mean there was contemplation there there was some
kind of luminosity here
this game i just church behind it can get you get carried away yeah and we can end up we did end up
credit eric
maya island and britons show
because you're always you're always upgrading my to think one thing is what would you call it the ideal course of development from china vertical why china vertical monk to have a solitary life a contemplative the opens up and blossoms that's one thing that ideal development which sometimes happens know that but then you're talking about two inch
the tution so when you idealized that institution as if it were essentially connected with that development becomes an enormous destruction and then you make this run over here inferior because it's tied to just best you know and then you make one servant to the other and you got very very ambitious mechanism
i'm afraid
so with cash in you're continually running into that thing of the ideal of sort of platonic idea and think it sounds a bit like from image to reality the whole platonic dualism which is a good thing but it it's it's also tricky and dangerous because it tends to distort reality so catch the beauty of cash and vision and in vr
elegy at a certain point forces you to ask the question does it conform to reality tours are danger to story now especially just in one humble reality
this idea of in one thing above the other and building ladders
any questions about that before they go on to take a look at the role of master is more fun there
i can't imagine how the master let himself go the way you do and this particular chat
after a while and the ornament a good forms of monks cm w want to hear more about his fellow man we're going around
exploiting their hosts
okay is even the title of the chapter and i used to be so kind as technical way out on his cheek the kind drink conduct in life of monks and monastery
now that's a weird i look for check
of monks have known there for kind first incentivize them and monasteries serve undergo and how exactly what kind of got basically read the second kind of the rights basically you got exactly the same competitive
the third kind of monks the sarah writers the worst it's not the worse because the jailbait and which gets them i would do better to call them still in the world and transition very much like what magnetic that now here's where it really go for me and he starts out by saying the fourth kind of monks we should not even be called that and about whom i would do but
or to keep silent and then it goes on for five pages
then to say anything at all geographies they spend their whole life as guests with me for they and is a movie it comes up to three or four days at a time there is and they pretended they been taken captive in there on pilgrimage you know and nobody will receive them they're outcasts and and then they stay for and to
oh until the food and drink start being
cut back over the leave lived go into effect meanwhile they're they're saddlebags or full of bread and food and a half now and poor donkey can hardly bear it about
because i know what business is this got being a monastic rule i can read
honey
and he's got a sympathetic a paragraph hear about the donkey and know there's either to the inches
here about the for donkey
after their pouches has been have been returned to them then airport donkey is called from the capture the poor thing was enjoying the past year after labor three track
no
what it is again been harnessed and loaded with various tunics and cows which their insolence has extorted from others or of which taking advantage of the occasion they have of their various posts
they make a show of wearing ragged clothing so that they can ask for a replacement
have that's that
and then at the end
he comes back after he's had his fun with the jarrow bags now according to our i esteem for the first kind of monks the senate bites service and probation and the will of god let us return to their rule now and then he's got a part on the teacher on the orders of teachers that if
the apostles prophets the apostle of them in the teachers in the abbot is in the line of the teachers and then that feeds right into chapter two which is about the characteristics of the other and that's in line with his idea is raining idea of the monasteries school of the phone service for you
ready to cut pattern the bug away has got a long treatment agree changes that benedick made and christian
the the mastic but i think it's a little over settlers from time
a little maybe too confident in some of the conclusions and the reasons for it
he says this chapter is playing one row having one purpose in the room and master and another purpose vehicle benedict but i think that maybe a little bit exaggerated
now for benedict it's not an introduction to chapter two on the attic cosmetic just cut out that link it's he doesn't end chapter one talking about teacher the other rather it's an introduction to the whole of israel introduction of the whole of remote of anything
if there's anything else we with
mentioned
to put rosella treatment i mean for you to the rb nineteen eighty pages three thirteen to treatment

it seems to be cation who introduced the idea of the synovium as a preparation for the hermetically the the hermits or the ones who have come out of the albion
i probably drew that from the practice in egypt
but there's no i'm sure definitely play again
he according to her
the vogue away
in both in the own the master and there will invented a community life doesn't have time a value on itself but as a preparation school the solitary combat goes beyond it
next time much do a chapter to all i can you have it and of course there you've got a lot of background in the constitution but i'd rather not
give much attention that constitution because by the rabbits going to be doing them for the to should be complimentary
and he for comments or questions on me on this chapter
it's important chapter and come up again and again especially when we go
kind of redefine our modern life vocation try to understand and the movement between community and solidarity extremely poor rest he needs to be deeply study
of course as we saw an article from the constitution as they come out which limited as a lot of community
especially nowadays i don't have it was no two hundred and three hundred years ago
it's very different person from a cartesian hurting in which the accent is a very strong and talented and there's virtually no concern of community it's almost i think as if the community
aspect just gave you a necessary respite refreshment
so you could return to the solitary in the basic solitary orientation recreations and things like that
we shouldn't have a psychological on
lot of these words my community i was wondering why them in these ancient sources yeah have yours more on the structure of my life rather than fraternal right
nourishing the psychological development graphic visual weekend thing last twenty years reader i was wondering towards and that or in mind just structural materials and i think arrested and that depends a lot on how they identify themselves and root themselves of the new testament first as the becoming of monasticism
using the word koinonia the holy kind of beard or itself is rooting at some itself in something which is neither i would say structural nor psychological but what would you call a biblical reality for a new testament reality that kind of he himself and the actually have passwords
which then expresses itself structure and expresses itself subjectively know anteriorly psychologically it might say but they had very little concern for the psychological itself which seems to me that is the egyptians and greeks as i'm mel's you take photographs and he's got an enormous psychological preoccupation
but still is different from ours and it's much less split from the from the outside
i get the feeling while we respect
immunities preparation for the solitary life we think in terms of in the community your work of the psychological stuff yet and i wonder whether that's how how everything from that might a problem
i think it's very different i think it's a very different perspective from there's and partly however because of the interpretive light near interpretive light was theological an hour's tends to be largely psychological okay but you may be talking about the same things another which things that they would think of his vices we might
think of it as psychological or emotional limitations or immaturity is just something like that new but they intended to more it seems to me in theology as immediately
and we've developed a space as it were a neutral space which psychology than comes in and but at the same time or theology lost its psychological grip you know something happens so the theology almost it's edges drive back leaving this naked area of humana
city with psychology and had to commit from the check out our point of the own try to deal with but in some way theology should be able to and spirituality and should be able to go into those areas but hours became retracted in some ways from withdrew from those areas abandoned
simply not realizing that it was doing anything but it's like the psyche itself on became excluded from one of them it was spirit and body and mind and body
there's a whole story here
so we're in that time or recovery now the recovery of the idea of the psyche which has its own imbalances
okay well thank you
next time chapter two
talking