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A History of Monastic Spirituality by Luc Brésard, English Translation by D A History of Monastic Spirituality by Luc Brésard, English translation by D. Hilda Wood OSB http://www.scourmont.be/studium/bresard/ Benedictine rules at http://www.osb.org/rb/text/toc.html#toc Introduction. 1. Our Purpose. 2. Presentation. 1. Prehistory. I. The Monastic Phenomenon. II. History and Prehistory. III. The Source of Christian Monasticism. 1. The Old Testament. 2. The Jewish Monks. 3. The Evangelical Call. 4. The Martyrs. 5. Origen. 2. Antony (251-356). I. Introduction. II. Athanasius and the Desert. III. The ‘Life of Antony.’ IV. In Conclusion. 3. The Mediterranean basin. Lower Egypt. Upper Egypt. Palestine. Syria. Asia Minor. North Africa. Rome. Gaul. British Isles. Conclusion. 4. The Monastic Rules. Classification. Their Length. Their Content. Different Emphases. The Word “Monk.” 5. Pachomius (292-346). I. The Pachomian Fire in Straw. II. The Life of Pachomius. III. Rules & Organisation of the Koinonia. IV. Pachomian Spirituality. V. Conclusion. 6. The Apophthegmata. I. The Literature of the Desert. II. The Apophthegmata. III. How are the Apophthegmata to be Read? IV. How are they to be Understood? V. Hesychasm. VI. Conclusion: Flowers of the Desert. 7. Evagrius (345-399). I. Scholarly Monasticism. II. The Life of Evagrius. III. The Works of Evagrius. IV. Evagrius’ Teaching V. Conclusion. Explanation of some terms. 8. Cassian (365-435). I. His Life. II. His Works. The Institutes. The Conferences. III. Conclusion: Synthesis of his Teaching. 9. Basil (328-378). I. Saint Basil and his Ascetical Writings. 2. The Origin and History of the Basilian Rules. 3. Structure of the Basilian Rules. II. the Moral Rules. III. The Little Asceticon. IV. The Communities of Women. V. Basil Complemented by Gregory of Nyssa. 10. Pseudo-Macarius. I. The Author and his Writings. 2) Was Macarius a Messalian? 3) His Writings. II. Macarius’ Doctrine. 3) Christ and the Holy Spirit. 4) Prayer. 11. Augustine (354-430). I. Saint Augustine’s Monastic Life. II. Augustine’s Rule. III. Other Monastic Writings. IV. Conclusion. 12. Western Monasticism. The Monks of Gaul. I. Central Gaul. II. Monasticism in Provence. The Monastic writings of Cesarius. III. Iberian Monasticism. IV. The Gallic Rules. Celtic Monasticism II. Saint Patrick & His Posterity. III. Saint Columban. Table of 2 Centuries in the History of Monasticism. 13. The Monks of Gaza (c. 500). I. The Desert of Gaza. II. the Spiritual Masters. III. Teaching. IV. Conclusion: Repose. 14. John Climacus (circa 580-680). I. His Life. II. His Writings. III. His Teaching. IV. Conclusion. By Way of Conclusion. Glossary. Introduction. 1. Our Purpose. This is a course on the history of monastic spirituality. Some terms used in this course: 1. History. History is the knowledge or the recounting of the past, the events of the past; it deals with facts relating to the evolution of a social group. It looks at a succession of men and women and the events through which they lived. It runs along a horizontal line. These events are past, the people are dead. In spite of their archeological interest or the examples and lessons they give, they are nevertheless dead and gone. 2. Spirituality This concerns the spiritual life, the life of the Holy Spirit within us. The Spirit of the Liv- ing God comes to dwell within us and to lead us to God. Here we have a vertical line constantly coming down to arouse our response to return to him. 3. History of Spirituality Here we have a convergence of the two lines, horizontal and vertical. More exactly, the horizontal line of history is brought to life at every moment by the movement of the living God who comes to live among men and women (“to play with the sons of men” as the book of Prov- erbs has it). To this movement of God there corresponds a free movement of men and women who can respond to him in two ways: a) In setting oneself free from everything which could be an obstacle to the work of God, renouncing the evil forces capable of limiting or annihilating this divine action. It is a combat, a struggle (= ascesis) leading to purification. b) In letting oneself be caught up in this movement of return to God, giving oneself to his action through availability, surrender, prayer. This is contemplation. Ascesis and contemplation are two movements linked together which we will come across con- stantly. To study the history of spirituality is then to try to understand the movement of God to- wards men and women and their response to god in the course of history, particularly through the 2 texts which have been handed down to us, texts written by people who have spent their lives close to God or who have written about it. There is no history without texts. These texts will draw for us the moral and spiritual profile of each of these witnesses to God, their response to the action of God, their way of going to God. We are not dealing with something dead as in history pure and simple, but with something very much alive. All the more alive as the same Spirit who has fashioned the different spiritual characters of the men and women whom we shall meet, is also within us to help us understand their teach- ing, the breath of life with which he has endowed them and their writings will transform us with a life-giving touch. It is the Spirit who will bring us into contact, and even into friendship with these men who are always present among us through their writings. 4. Monastic This third term simply indicates that we have made a choice in the history of spirituality. We will just think about monks, leaving on one side for the moment the Fathers of the Church who have little or nothing to tell us about the monastic life. For those among them who do say something in their writings, we will only give a brief presentation of their personality and look at what concerns monastic life alone in their works, leaving on one side what belongs to a course on Patrology. The purpose of this study of the history of monastic spirituality, then, is to make personal contact with the spirit which was at work in our Fathers in the faith, the first monks. It should be an apprenticeship to lectio divina. For St Benedict, the lectio which can “lead us to the summit of perfection,” is the Bible and the “holy Doctors,” among whom he names particularly the monks: the works of CASSIAN and BASIL (Rule ch.73). 2. Presentation. In this preamble explaining our purpose, first we state our OPTIONS: in this case spiritu- ality takes precedence of history. There are already ‘histories of monasticism’; we present a ‘His- tory of Monastic Spirituality.’ Then, we do not pretend to say everything that can be said on the subject. There is an ex- cellent document: ‘The study of the Fathers of the Church in priestly formation’ which is useful for the study of monks as well. It underlines: “the need to make a choice, considering the huge amount of material.” Among the four different ways which it suggests for presenting this “great quantity of material,” we have chosen “the monograph, which concentrates on some of the more representative of the Fathers, a method particularly adapted to teach in a concrete way how to approach them and study their thought.” This preamble also shows you the MANNER in which we will work: One part will be the presentation of the subject or the author, as we must place our first monks in their historical context in order to understand them; this will be fairly brief, as many other books deal with the history of monasticism. Mention will also be made of the principal works of the authors studied; but we will concentrate particularly on their teaching. To understand this, contact with texts is indispensable. It is through these above all that our Fathers speak to us and pass on the Spirit who dwelt in them. We will cite the texts on separate pages, giving their reference in the course. Thirdly, before it was published, this course was given to the novices at Cîteaux, dur- ing which mention was occasionally made of the Rule of St Benedict in the form of short exer- 3 cises. Identifying the sources as we go along helps to understand them better, and so to value them. Then, we thought it would be helpful to check the knowledge gained by revision at the end of each main subject. As the course is now being used by other monasteries, we have added, for the use of the tutors, the answers to the revision and the exercises on the Rule of St Benedict; and also some explanations of the texts, which do not pretend to be the only explanations! The PLAN followed tries to be both logical and chronological, but as monasticism ap- peared at the same time in several places, it is not possible to be completely chronological. After this Introduction, we study the Prehistory of monasticism (1), then the earliest preparation, before there were any texts. After the prehistory, we present the first text, which be- gins the history, the ‘Life of St Antony’ by Athanasius (2). Having established this landmark, the initial step, we take a look at what happened round the Mediterranean basin, the panorama of all the different kinds of monks who appeared in the fourth century (3). This ‘Bird’s-Eye View’ is followed by a few words on the Monastic Rules (4). Next we study the first of the ‘Mother’-Rules, with the first form of cenobitism led by Pachomius (5).
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