Given that today is the feast of St Benedict, I thought this would be a good moment to tease out a few key points on the relationship of the Divine Office in St Benedict's Rule to ceaseless prayer.
Good works as prayer
In the last post in this series I suggested that St Benedict generally talks mostly about frequent, or short and fervent prayer, rather than continuous prayer, as the objective of the monk; and followed a line of Scriptural interpretation that interpreted 'prayer' very broadly, as a state of mind as much as a formal act, so that prayer encompasses, even requires good works beyond formal and informal prayer.
It is quite clear, I think, that even though St Benedict took a much wider view of what constituted good works appropriate to a monastic than others of his time such as Caesarius of Arles, the Divine Office was, for him, clearly the supreme good work: what after all could be preferred or put before the good work that is the Work of God. [2]?
Is the Office prayer at all?!
Before I go on, I thought I should briefly touch on the argument, popular in the 1970s and which still has its advocates today [3], following the work of Gabriel Bunge and others, that in late antiquity singing the psalms was not seen as prayer as such; instead the psalms were viewed as as akin to other Scriptural readings, that had to be turned into prayer through pauses between psalms, use of psalm collects, and other such devices. [4]
It is certainly true that some of St Benedict's contemporaries employed practices that have been seen as fitting this model. Most of the psalmody at the monastery of Arles that we have briefly looked at, for example, was responsorial rather than antiphonal; psalm collects do seem to have been employed there; and Scripture reading in general featured much more heavily in the Arles Office than in the Roman or Benedictine. [5]
But even if these practices reflect a view of psalms more as Scripture than as the prayerbook of the Church (a view I rather doubt), it was certainly not the only tradition.
Athanasius' famous Letter to Marcellinus for example, makes it clear that the psalter not only services as Scripture and a personal spiritual guide, but also gives us words we can use as our own prayers, identifying particular ones as appropriate to our various needs.
Similarly St Basil the Great, in his sermon on Psalm 1, highlights not only their ability to teach us doctrine; to calm and soothe out souls; but also represent a means of asking for help, and bind us together:
The psalms, it is true, had a special status in St Benedict's Office, but I don't think we should assume, as some argue, that Chapter 20 of the Rule, on prayer, is only referring to prayer outside the Office. [8] Rather, it seems to me that St Benedict's comments on the importance of reverence, fervour, and short but pure prayer, is something of a defence of his Office in the face of other contemporary traditions, as well as instruction on prayer more generally.
Short but fervent?
That emphasis on frequent, rather than literally continual prayer becomes even clearer if one compares the Benedictine Office to the two other contemporary Offices we've talked about in this series, those of Agaune and Arles.
The table below shows just how much shorter the Benedictine Office is compared to that of the two contemporary offices we've been looking at: the Benedictine is around half the length of that of Arles, and a third of that of Agaune.
As a consequence, the Benedictine psalter spread the psalms over a much longer period, a week compared to the day or couple of days of the others.
Moreover, St Benedict's Office wasn't just lighter on psalmody; at least compared to the Arles Office, it seems to have been much lighter on Scripture reading as well.
Liturgy sustains us
One possible explanation for St Benedict's very different balance between liturgy and other good works to Agaune and Arles lies perhaps in St Augustine's argument that liturgy is needed to sustain us as we do good works. And in St Augustine's view, the amount of time needed for formal prayer is not minimal or minimalist. In Letter 130 the saint explained:
Notes
[1] St Augustine, Expositions on the Pslams, Psalm 148, J.E. Tweed, trans, From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 8. Edited by Philip Schaff. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888.
[2] RB 43.3: Ergo nihil operi Dei praeponatur.
[3] See for example Columba Stewart, Benedictine Monasticism and Mysticism in Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism, 2013.
[4] Gabriel Bunge, Earthen Vessels: The Practice of Personal Prayer According to the Patristic Tradition, trans Michael J Miller, Ignatius Press 2002 (original German ed, 1996).
[5] See chapters 66-68 of the Rule for nuns of Caesarius of Arles (for the full text of the Rule itself, see Caesarius of Arles, Oeuvres Monastique, de Vogue and Courreau ed and trans, 2 vols, Sources Chretienne 345, 398).
[6] St Basil the Great, Exegetical Homilies, Sr Agnes Clare Way, trans, Fathers of the Church no 46, Homily on Psalm 1.
[7] Joseph Dyer, in the The Singing of Psalms in the Early-Medieval Office, Speculum, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Jul., 1989), pp. 535-578 (and subsequent articles) argued that the switch to unison singing and alternating choirs happened rather later than Benedict's time. More recent studies, however, have challenged this view, pointing to descriptions of alternating choirs in the sixth century monastic literature, including in St Gregory's Dialogues (IV:15), and in the Rule of Paul and Stephen.
[8] See in particular Adalbert De Vogue, The Rule Of Saint Benedict: A Doctrinal and Spiritual Commentary (Cistercian Studies) 1999.
[9] Based on the Rule of St Benedict, chapters 8-19; Rule of Caesarius of Arles, chapters 66-72; Laurent Ripart, De lérins à agaune: Le monachisme rhodanien reconsidéré, in Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, Monachesimi d’oriente e d’occidente nell’alto medioevo, Spoleto, 2016, pp123-193.
[10] St Benedict cites two verses of Psalm 118 in support of his construction of the hours in RB 16: Ut ait propheta: septies in die laudem dixi tibi. Qui septenarius sacratus numerus a nobis sic implebitur...quia de his diurnis horis dixit: Septies in die laudem dixi tibi. [4] Nam de nocturnis vigiliis idem ipse propheta ait: Media nocte surgebam ad confitendum tibi.Ergo his temporibus referamus laudes Creatori nostro super iudicia iustitiae suae...
[11] Sermon 45.
Good works as prayer
In the last post in this series I suggested that St Benedict generally talks mostly about frequent, or short and fervent prayer, rather than continuous prayer, as the objective of the monk; and followed a line of Scriptural interpretation that interpreted 'prayer' very broadly, as a state of mind as much as a formal act, so that prayer encompasses, even requires good works beyond formal and informal prayer.
In this he was surely following the monastic model of St Basil, with its emphasis on good works, and the line of exegesis sumarised by St Augustine, who, rather than insisting on the monk or nun be constantly ruminating on Scripture while they worked, ate, or even slept, provided an alternative solution to the problem by defining good works as prayer:
Praise the Lord, you say to your neighbour, he to you: when all are exhorting each other, all are doing what they exhort others to do. But praise with your whole selves: that is, let not your tongue and voice alone praise God, but your conscience also, your life, your deeds. For now, when we are gathered together in the Church, we praise: when we go forth each to his own business, we seem to cease to praise God. Let a man not cease to live well, and then he ever praises God....But God has willed that it should be in your choice for whom you will prepare room, for God, or for the devil: when you have prepared it, he who is occupant will also rule. Therefore, brethren, attend not only to the sound; when you praise God, praise with your whole selves: let your voice, your life, your deeds, all sing. [1]
But in saying this, I don't want to suggest, as some have done, either that the Office (or at least the psalmic component of it), was not actually seen as constituting prayer at all (a theory propounds by some in the past); nor do I want to suggest that the Office does not play an absolutely crucial role in sustaining our ability to, as Psalm 1 puts it, 'meditate on the law of the Lord day and night.'It is quite clear, I think, that even though St Benedict took a much wider view of what constituted good works appropriate to a monastic than others of his time such as Caesarius of Arles, the Divine Office was, for him, clearly the supreme good work: what after all could be preferred or put before the good work that is the Work of God. [2]?
Is the Office prayer at all?!
Before I go on, I thought I should briefly touch on the argument, popular in the 1970s and which still has its advocates today [3], following the work of Gabriel Bunge and others, that in late antiquity singing the psalms was not seen as prayer as such; instead the psalms were viewed as as akin to other Scriptural readings, that had to be turned into prayer through pauses between psalms, use of psalm collects, and other such devices. [4]
It is certainly true that some of St Benedict's contemporaries employed practices that have been seen as fitting this model. Most of the psalmody at the monastery of Arles that we have briefly looked at, for example, was responsorial rather than antiphonal; psalm collects do seem to have been employed there; and Scripture reading in general featured much more heavily in the Arles Office than in the Roman or Benedictine. [5]
But even if these practices reflect a view of psalms more as Scripture than as the prayerbook of the Church (a view I rather doubt), it was certainly not the only tradition.
Athanasius' famous Letter to Marcellinus for example, makes it clear that the psalter not only services as Scripture and a personal spiritual guide, but also gives us words we can use as our own prayers, identifying particular ones as appropriate to our various needs.
Similarly St Basil the Great, in his sermon on Psalm 1, highlights not only their ability to teach us doctrine; to calm and soothe out souls; but also represent a means of asking for help, and bind us together:
A psalm forms friendships, unites those separated, conciliates those at enmity. Who, indeed, can still consider as an enemy him With whom he has uttered the same prayer to God? So that psalmody, bringing about choral singing, a bond, as it were, toward unity, and joining the people into a harmonious union of one choir, produces also the greatest of blessings, charity. A psalm is a city of refuge from the demons; a means of inducing help from the angels, a weapon in fears by night, a rest from toils by day, a safeguard for infants, an adornment for those at the height of their vigor, a consolation for the elders, a most fitting ornament for women... [6]And it is this tradition, I would suggest, that St Benedict's Office follows: the psalmody is antiphonal, not responsorial; there is no mention of pauses or prostrations between psalms; nor is there any mention of psalm collects. [7]
The psalms, it is true, had a special status in St Benedict's Office, but I don't think we should assume, as some argue, that Chapter 20 of the Rule, on prayer, is only referring to prayer outside the Office. [8] Rather, it seems to me that St Benedict's comments on the importance of reverence, fervour, and short but pure prayer, is something of a defence of his Office in the face of other contemporary traditions, as well as instruction on prayer more generally.
Short but fervent?
That emphasis on frequent, rather than literally continual prayer becomes even clearer if one compares the Benedictine Office to the two other contemporary Offices we've talked about in this series, those of Agaune and Arles.
The table below shows just how much shorter the Benedictine Office is compared to that of the two contemporary offices we've been looking at: the Benedictine is around half the length of that of Arles, and a third of that of Agaune.
As a consequence, the Benedictine psalter spread the psalms over a much longer period, a week compared to the day or couple of days of the others.
Moreover, St Benedict's Office wasn't just lighter on psalmody; at least compared to the Arles Office, it seems to have been much lighter on Scripture reading as well.
Table: The liturgies of the three monasteries [9]
Agaune
|
Arles
|
Benedictine
|
|
Foundation details
|
Monks
Royal foundation (Sigismond)
Dedicated to St Maurice and the Theban
legion.
Located in Burgundy.
Refounded c515.
|
Nuns (though similar rule for monks).
Episcopal foundation (Caesarius of Arles).
Dedicated to St John the Evangelist and St John the Baptist. Located in Gaul (Ostrogoth Kingdom), c510. |
Monks (and nuns).
Lay foundation (St Benedict with lay
patrons).
MC dedicated to St Martin of Tours and St
John the Baptist.
Located in Italy. Foundation dates Subiaco c505, Monte Cassino, c529; ?Plombariola; Terracina, c545. |
Length of Office
|
24/7 in shifts
|
12-16 hours per day
|
4-8 hrs per day
|
Extended/all night vigils
|
Always
|
Yes – Fridays and Saturdays, feasts; some
seasons
|
No
|
Psalter said over…
|
Day+
|
?2-3 days, depending on season
|
Week
|
Psalms per day
|
Unknown – estimated 450?
|
60-80+
|
40
|
Psalm order
|
Unknown
|
Some fixed psalm for each hour; at Vigils, numerical order
|
Selected for each hour
|
Scriptural readings (other than psalms)
|
Unknown
|
Readings at all of the hours except lucernarium + vigils of readings
interspersed with prayers and psalms Sat&Sun plus winter.
|
Scripture light – short verse only at all hours except Night Office on
Sundays and winter weekdays. Summer weekdays:
short verses at all hours only
Winter: three readings and responsories at weekday Nocturns
|
Hymns, antiphons, prayers
|
yes
|
yes
|
Yes – but no collects
|
Divided into x ‘hours’ per day
|
[?7]
|
[7-9] Nocturns/Vigils, Lauds, Prime (S&S only), Terce, Sext, None,
Lucernarium, Duodecima,
|
8 – Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, Compline
|
Liturgy sustains us
One possible explanation for St Benedict's very different balance between liturgy and other good works to Agaune and Arles lies perhaps in St Augustine's argument that liturgy is needed to sustain us as we do good works. And in St Augustine's view, the amount of time needed for formal prayer is not minimal or minimalist. In Letter 130 the saint explained:
When we cherish uninterrupted desire along with the exercise of faith and hope and charity, we pray always.
But at certain stated hours and seasons we also use words in prayer to God, that by these signs of things we may admonish ourselves, and may acquaint ourselves with the measure of progress which we have made in this desire, and may more warmly excite ourselves to obtain an increase of its strength.
For the effect following upon prayer will be excellent in proportion to the fervour of the desire which precedes its utterance. And therefore, what else is intended by the words of the apostle: Pray without ceasing, than, Desire without intermission, from Him who alone can give it, a happy life, which no life can be but that which is eternal? This, therefore, let us desire continually from the Lord our God; and thus let us pray continually.
But at certain hours we recall our minds from other cares and business, in which desire itself somehow is cooled down, to the business of prayer, admonishing ourselves by the words of our prayer to fix attention upon that which we desire, lest what had begun to lose heat become altogether cold, and be finally extinguished, if the flame be not more frequently fanned.
Completeness...
There was also a certain symbolism in St Benedict's insistence on praying seven times a day (and again in the night), given the association between the 'sacred number seven', as meaning completeness due to the connection (which the saint alludes to in his explanation) to the number of days of creation, and eight, as symbolism the new age inaugurated by Christ. [10] St Augustine, for example, interpreted seven times as signifying continuously or always:
There was also a certain symbolism in St Benedict's insistence on praying seven times a day (and again in the night), given the association between the 'sacred number seven', as meaning completeness due to the connection (which the saint alludes to in his explanation) to the number of days of creation, and eight, as symbolism the new age inaugurated by Christ. [10] St Augustine, for example, interpreted seven times as signifying continuously or always:
For whence is that which is said, seven times in a day will I praise you? Does a man sin who does not praise the Lord so often? What then is seven times will I praise, but I will never cease from praise? For he who says seven times, signifies all time. [11]
In the next post I will explore the importance of short but fervent prayer more, in the context of the Office and intercessory prayer.Notes
[1] St Augustine, Expositions on the Pslams, Psalm 148, J.E. Tweed, trans, From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 8. Edited by Philip Schaff. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888.
[2] RB 43.3: Ergo nihil operi Dei praeponatur.
[3] See for example Columba Stewart, Benedictine Monasticism and Mysticism in Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism, 2013.
[4] Gabriel Bunge, Earthen Vessels: The Practice of Personal Prayer According to the Patristic Tradition, trans Michael J Miller, Ignatius Press 2002 (original German ed, 1996).
[5] See chapters 66-68 of the Rule for nuns of Caesarius of Arles (for the full text of the Rule itself, see Caesarius of Arles, Oeuvres Monastique, de Vogue and Courreau ed and trans, 2 vols, Sources Chretienne 345, 398).
[6] St Basil the Great, Exegetical Homilies, Sr Agnes Clare Way, trans, Fathers of the Church no 46, Homily on Psalm 1.
[7] Joseph Dyer, in the The Singing of Psalms in the Early-Medieval Office, Speculum, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Jul., 1989), pp. 535-578 (and subsequent articles) argued that the switch to unison singing and alternating choirs happened rather later than Benedict's time. More recent studies, however, have challenged this view, pointing to descriptions of alternating choirs in the sixth century monastic literature, including in St Gregory's Dialogues (IV:15), and in the Rule of Paul and Stephen.
[8] See in particular Adalbert De Vogue, The Rule Of Saint Benedict: A Doctrinal and Spiritual Commentary (Cistercian Studies) 1999.
[9] Based on the Rule of St Benedict, chapters 8-19; Rule of Caesarius of Arles, chapters 66-72; Laurent Ripart, De lérins à agaune: Le monachisme rhodanien reconsidéré, in Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, Monachesimi d’oriente e d’occidente nell’alto medioevo, Spoleto, 2016, pp123-193.
[10] St Benedict cites two verses of Psalm 118 in support of his construction of the hours in RB 16: Ut ait propheta: septies in die laudem dixi tibi. Qui septenarius sacratus numerus a nobis sic implebitur...quia de his diurnis horis dixit: Septies in die laudem dixi tibi. [4] Nam de nocturnis vigiliis idem ipse propheta ait: Media nocte surgebam ad confitendum tibi.Ergo his temporibus referamus laudes Creatori nostro super iudicia iustitiae suae...
[11] Sermon 45.
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