In the last part of this series on St Benedict's approach to the psalms I talked about the Office as the supreme good work of the monk, necessary at the very least as a foundation for his other manifestations of faith in works.
But there is another reason, I think, why late antique monastic thought considered the Office, at the very least, the most important of the good works the monk could do, and that lies in its intercessory power.
Is the monastic Office inherently intercessory?
The modern theological view, articulated for example, in Sacrosanctum Concilium, is that the Divine Office is inherently intercessory, an exercise, like the Mass, of the priesthood of Christ:
Christ Jesus, high priest of the new and eternal covenant, taking human nature, introduced into this earthly exile that hymn which is sung throughout all ages in the halls of heaven. He joins the entire community of mankind to Himself, associating it with His own singing of this canticle of divine praise. For he continues His priestly work through the agency of His Church, which is ceaselessly engaged in praising the Lord and interceding for the salvation of the whole world. She does this, not only by celebrating the eucharist, but also in other ways, especially by praying the divine office. [1]
Although the modern office certainly includes prayers for specific intentions, this summary makes it clear, I think, that the intercessory power of the Office does not rest solely in those specific parts of it, but rather in the work as a whole.
Historians and liturgists, however, following Baumstark, have often argued that one of the key distinctions between earlier and later monastic liturgies is their intercessory orientation. [2] Many liturgists, for example, have argued that the early monastic office, in contrast to that of the cathedral, was primarily meditative in character, directed at personal transformation rather than having a strong ecclesial and intercessory dimension. [3]
Historians and liturgists, however, following Baumstark, have often argued that one of the key distinctions between earlier and later monastic liturgies is their intercessory orientation. [2] Many liturgists, for example, have argued that the early monastic office, in contrast to that of the cathedral, was primarily meditative in character, directed at personal transformation rather than having a strong ecclesial and intercessory dimension. [3]
Intercessory monasticism, it is frequently argued, was a rather later development, above all epitomized by the ‘powerhouses of prayer’ of the Carolingian period, dedicated above all to praying for the intentions of their founders, family, benefactors and the State. [4] This transformation, it is often claimed,
necessitated the addition of special sets of psalms and prayers over and above
the core Office set out in St Benedict’s Rule, for various specific intentions.
So the question I want to discuss in this post is, is the modern view of the Office, as inherently intercessory, anachronistic when applied to the sixth century Office of St Benedict?
I want to suggest that the answer is no.
I want to suggest that the answer is no.
The duty to pray for family, benefactors, city and the state?
The first point to note is that monks and nuns in late antiquity, as laypeople, shared in the general duties of all Christians, and that included the duty of intercessory prayer.
In a recent treatment of this subject, Renie Choi, for example, has convincingly shown that intercessory prayer for the State, for example, was always part of the monastic paradigm at least to some degree, in keeping with the general duty of Christians. [5] In 1 Timothy 2, after all, St Paul instructs that:
The first point to note is that monks and nuns in late antiquity, as laypeople, shared in the general duties of all Christians, and that included the duty of intercessory prayer.
In a recent treatment of this subject, Renie Choi, for example, has convincingly shown that intercessory prayer for the State, for example, was always part of the monastic paradigm at least to some degree, in keeping with the general duty of Christians. [5] In 1 Timothy 2, after all, St Paul instructs that:
I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men: For kings, and for all that are in high station: that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety and chastity.
Early Christians took this instruction seriously, as Tertullian, for example made clear in his Apologia:
More fundamentally, there is plentiful evidence to support the claim that although explicit prayers for particular intentions were undoubtedly used at times, the life - and especially the primary work of monks, the Office - was viewed as inherently intercessory in character in late antiquity.
Justinian's Novel 133, for example, which justified his regulation of monastic life in the Empire on the basis of the benefits that flowed from the monk's holy lives and prayer:
Heresy and monasticism
But as for the early christians under Roman rule, the difficulty many monasteries faced in late antiquity was that their most fundamental prayer for the state was surely not for its maintenance, but for its conversion, or in some cases, their own protection from the State itself: they could hardly pray for intentions often at odds with the faith.
When the young monk, later bishop, St Fulgentius arrived in Rome from North Africa in 500, for example, having been turned back from his Cassian-inspired trip to Egypt by the threat of the monophysite heresy that had infected the monks there, he was horrified to find the holy city feting the (one and only) visit of the Arian Ostrogoth Emperor Theodoric the Great. [10] He hastily cut short his trip, stopping only to take in the martyr sites and do a quick round of the Roman monasteries. Instead of learning more of monasticism as he had hoped, he returned to a life playing cat and mouse (coupled with long periods of exile in Sicily) with the Arian rulers of his own territory.
Around the same time, the young St Benedict also fled Rome, first for a religious community at Affile, and the Subiaco, the former summer palace of the great persecutor-Emperor Nero. Whether Benedict fled Rome for the same reasons as Fulgentius, or it was other events (such as the pagan revels of his fellow students, who ran naked through the streets of Rome to celebrate an old feast, clerical celibacy scandals, or worst of all, the violent Laurentian schism) that propelled him, the symbolism of twelve monasteries rising on the ruins of the old palace was surely a clear statement. [11] In both cases, they may have prayed for the State, but for its salvation, for the coming of the new kingdom, rather than for the secular aims of the current regime.
The case of Agaune
The monastery of Agaune is a particularly interesting case because unlike Arles or Subiaco, the monastery could, in theory at least, support the state, since its principal patron, Prince later King Sigismond, had converted from Arianism to Catholicism some time before he provided the funding to the monastery.
What is more hotly contested, however, just how far its intentions went so far as the connection to its secular rulers is concerned.
It is certainly clear both from correspondence of the time and the early Lives of the monasteries Abbots, that the bishops of Burgundy played a major role in supervising the foundation, and approving its constitutions. [14]
The funding for it, though, came from Sigismond, and a rather later (but on the whole plausible) life of Sigismond claims the idea of having a number of choirs maintaining a perpetual liturgy was his (inspired by a conversation with the martyrs on how to get them onside for his future rule).[15]
Still, there is after all, on the face of it, nothing inherently intercessory about a regime of twenty-four hours a day: if it was Sigismond's idea, he could still have been motivated by strategic considerations as much as anything else. [16] And more importantly, perhaps, the constant singing of praise to God fits well with Eucherius of Lyon’s Passio which depicts the martyrs of Agaune as transformed into an angelic legion, gathered around God’s throne, devoted to his praise and adoration rather than intercession as such. [17]
That intention of praying for the region though, seems to me a long way short of the claims made for it by Albrecht Diem, who has argued that the whole purpose of the foundation was to pray for the state of Burgundy, and particularly for its King, and that the militaristic language of the psalter would have taken on a whole new dimension in this light. [19]
The choice of the monastery’s first Abbot seems particularly telling in this regard. According to his Vita, Hymnemodus had been a courtier to Sigismund’s Arian father, Gundobad, but had left the court to become a monk at Grigny. The monks, though, were so afraid of possible retribution that they refused to accept him, so he became a hermit instead; it was only many years later that he was elected the monastery’s abbot, and then subsequently transferred to Agaune. His Vita makes it clear that he saw a clear separation between what was owed to God, and what to the king, a distinction that would have become important in the event, given an early falling out between Sigismond and his bishops not long after became king. [20] More importantly it was Hymnemodus, according to the Vita, who had already demonstrated his commitment to God over mammon, who set about recruiting the number of monk’s necessary to maintain a perpetual round of prayer, and presumably to organize and design its liturgy.
And Bishop Avitus' sermon at the monastery's dedication seems to have been designed to reinforce this eschatological orientation for its efforts: its perpetual liturgy, he argued, fitted perfectly with that described in the Book of Revelation, the future world to come after the descent of the jewel encrusted New Jerusalem, a place in which there would be no night:
For we offer prayer for the safety of our princes to the eternal, the true, the living God, whose favour, beyond all others, they must themselves desire...Without ceasing, for all our emperors we offer prayer. We pray for life prolonged; for security to the empire; for protection to the imperial house; for brave armies, a faithful senate, a virtuous people, the world at rest, whatever, as man or Cæsar, an emperor would wish. [6]A propitious offering?
More fundamentally, there is plentiful evidence to support the claim that although explicit prayers for particular intentions were undoubtedly used at times, the life - and especially the primary work of monks, the Office - was viewed as inherently intercessory in character in late antiquity.
Justinian's Novel 133, for example, which justified his regulation of monastic life in the Empire on the basis of the benefits that flowed from the monk's holy lives and prayer:
For if the monks offer prayers to God with pure hands and unstained minds, it is clear that the army will fare well and cities will flourish—for when God is propitious and well-disposed, how could it be that the greatest peace and complete observance of the laws would not exist—the earth will bear the fruits and the sea will yield its products, these prayers conciliating the benevolence of God in favor of the whole empire...[7]
The Office of St John of Arles, for example, almost certainly included some explicitly intercessory components, in the form of the ‘capitella’, or selected psalm verses used to conclude the various hours. [8] It is clear though that Caesarius of Arles regarded not just the capitella, but the whole of the Office as intercessory. At the end of the Rule, for example, he says:
I beseech and supplicate you before our Lord God, O most dutiful sisters...that by your charitable intercession keep watch for us day and night [ut pro nobis diebus ac noctibus intercession uestrae caritatis inuigilet] and in public prayer through your holy supplication, obtain, in solemnities by day or vigils by night, that your petition…for faults are not amended unless he remits them through the prayers of the saints...[9]
In part, of course, this springs from the very nature of the core of the Office, the psalter, since so many of the psalms contain pleas for help, not just for the individual, but the for the people as a whole.Heresy and monasticism
But as for the early christians under Roman rule, the difficulty many monasteries faced in late antiquity was that their most fundamental prayer for the state was surely not for its maintenance, but for its conversion, or in some cases, their own protection from the State itself: they could hardly pray for intentions often at odds with the faith.
When the young monk, later bishop, St Fulgentius arrived in Rome from North Africa in 500, for example, having been turned back from his Cassian-inspired trip to Egypt by the threat of the monophysite heresy that had infected the monks there, he was horrified to find the holy city feting the (one and only) visit of the Arian Ostrogoth Emperor Theodoric the Great. [10] He hastily cut short his trip, stopping only to take in the martyr sites and do a quick round of the Roman monasteries. Instead of learning more of monasticism as he had hoped, he returned to a life playing cat and mouse (coupled with long periods of exile in Sicily) with the Arian rulers of his own territory.
Around the same time, the young St Benedict also fled Rome, first for a religious community at Affile, and the Subiaco, the former summer palace of the great persecutor-Emperor Nero. Whether Benedict fled Rome for the same reasons as Fulgentius, or it was other events (such as the pagan revels of his fellow students, who ran naked through the streets of Rome to celebrate an old feast, clerical celibacy scandals, or worst of all, the violent Laurentian schism) that propelled him, the symbolism of twelve monasteries rising on the ruins of the old palace was surely a clear statement. [11] In both cases, they may have prayed for the State, but for its salvation, for the coming of the new kingdom, rather than for the secular aims of the current regime.
The case of Arles
Caesarius of Arles, as a Catholic bishop in a territory mostly governed by Arians, had a far more ambivalent and attimes deeply strained set of political relationships to juggle, not least because the city was beseiged and changed hands several times during this period: indeed, the first monastery built outside the walls for his nuns was destroyed before it could be completed, and then had to be rebuilt in a safer location, within the walls.
Caesarius of Arles, as a Catholic bishop in a territory mostly governed by Arians, had a far more ambivalent and attimes deeply strained set of political relationships to juggle, not least because the city was beseiged and changed hands several times during this period: indeed, the first monastery built outside the walls for his nuns was destroyed before it could be completed, and then had to be rebuilt in a safer location, within the walls.
The Life of St Caesarius commissioned by the nuns of St John's shortly after his death suggests that he solved the problem, at least in part, by focusing the monastery on the city itself, rather than its changing (and mostly heretical) overlords. In particular, the Life explicitly claimed that the foundation was inspired by the desire for intercession for the city:
The man of God formulated the idea by divine inspiration from the ever-reigning Lord that the Church of Arles should be adorned and the city protected not only with countless troops of clergy but also by choirs of virgins. [12]
The Rule written for the nuns similarly refers to the nun’s role in praying ‘for all the people’. [13]
The monastery of Agaune is a particularly interesting case because unlike Arles or Subiaco, the monastery could, in theory at least, support the state, since its principal patron, Prince later King Sigismond, had converted from Arianism to Catholicism some time before he provided the funding to the monastery.
What is more hotly contested, however, just how far its intentions went so far as the connection to its secular rulers is concerned.
It is certainly clear both from correspondence of the time and the early Lives of the monasteries Abbots, that the bishops of Burgundy played a major role in supervising the foundation, and approving its constitutions. [14]
The funding for it, though, came from Sigismond, and a rather later (but on the whole plausible) life of Sigismond claims the idea of having a number of choirs maintaining a perpetual liturgy was his (inspired by a conversation with the martyrs on how to get them onside for his future rule).[15]
Still, there is after all, on the face of it, nothing inherently intercessory about a regime of twenty-four hours a day: if it was Sigismond's idea, he could still have been motivated by strategic considerations as much as anything else. [16] And more importantly, perhaps, the constant singing of praise to God fits well with Eucherius of Lyon’s Passio which depicts the martyrs of Agaune as transformed into an angelic legion, gathered around God’s throne, devoted to his praise and adoration rather than intercession as such. [17]
There was of course some intercessory focus: in a sermon for the dedication of the monastery of Agaune, Bishop Avitus referred to the monk's prayers as a force for good for the region:
You flee the world to be sure, but you pray for it, even though the saeculum has been shut out by you the act of which…may your sacred vigil keep watch over all, by which…May our Gaul flourish; let the world long for what [this] place has brought forth...Today let there begin an eternity for devotion and dignity for the region, with these men praising God in the present world, who will praise him equally in future. [18]
That intention of praying for the region though, seems to me a long way short of the claims made for it by Albrecht Diem, who has argued that the whole purpose of the foundation was to pray for the state of Burgundy, and particularly for its King, and that the militaristic language of the psalter would have taken on a whole new dimension in this light. [19]
The choice of the monastery’s first Abbot seems particularly telling in this regard. According to his Vita, Hymnemodus had been a courtier to Sigismund’s Arian father, Gundobad, but had left the court to become a monk at Grigny. The monks, though, were so afraid of possible retribution that they refused to accept him, so he became a hermit instead; it was only many years later that he was elected the monastery’s abbot, and then subsequently transferred to Agaune. His Vita makes it clear that he saw a clear separation between what was owed to God, and what to the king, a distinction that would have become important in the event, given an early falling out between Sigismond and his bishops not long after became king. [20] More importantly it was Hymnemodus, according to the Vita, who had already demonstrated his commitment to God over mammon, who set about recruiting the number of monk’s necessary to maintain a perpetual round of prayer, and presumably to organize and design its liturgy.
And Bishop Avitus' sermon at the monastery's dedication seems to have been designed to reinforce this eschatological orientation for its efforts: its perpetual liturgy, he argued, fitted perfectly with that described in the Book of Revelation, the future world to come after the descent of the jewel encrusted New Jerusalem, a place in which there would be no night:
Whose entry is not shut at night, because it has no night, whose doors are always wide open to the just, but inaccessible to the impious…[21]
Intercession for friends, family and the state clearly were already important though, in this time, and I want to look at some of these in the context of the Benedictine Office in the next post.
Notes
[1] Constitution On The Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, 83.
[2] A. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, rev ed B. Botte, trans F L Cross, Westminster, 1958, pp 111 ff.
[3] For a critical review of the distinction, with an extensive bibliogrpahy, see Stig Simeon R. Frøyshov, The Cathedral–Monastic Distinction Revisited Part I: Was Egyptian Desert Liturgy a Pure Monastic Office?, Studia Liturgica 37 (2007), 198-216.
[4] The paradigm is breaking down however. Renie Choi, in Intercessory Prayer and the Monastic Ideal in the Time of the Carolingian Reforms, OUP, 2016, provides a somewhat more nuanced account of the development of intercessory prayer as a core element of monastic spirituality; and Albrecht Diem as argued that Agaune actually represents the first example of this type of foundation, in Who is Allowed to Pray for the King? Saint-Maurice d’Agaune and the Creation of a Burgundian Identity, in Post-Roman Transitions: Christian and Barbarian Identities in the Early Medieval West, Walter Pohl and Gerda Heydemann (eds), pp. 47-88, Brepol 2014.
[5] ibid.
[6] Apology chapter 30: Nos enim pro salute imperatorum deum invocamus aeternum, deum verum, deum vivum, quem et ipsi imperatores propitium sibi praeter ceteros malunt...precantes sumus semper pro omnibus imperatoribus. illis prolixam, imperium securum, domum tutam, exercitus fortes, senatum fidelem, populum probum, orbem quietum, quaecunque hominis et Caesaris vota sunt...
[7] Fred H. Blume, Annotated Justinian Code, 2nd ed, 2018.
[8] Rule for Virgins of Caesarius of Arles (RC), ch 40.2. For the full text of the Rule see Caesarius of Arles, Oeuvres Monastique, de Vogue and Courreau ed and trans, 2 vols, Sources Chretienne 345, pp 190ff, ch 66.
[9] ibid, ch 72. The translation is by Maria Caritas McCarthy, reproduced in Daniel Marcel Le Corte and Douglas J McMillan (eds) Regular Life: Monastic, Canonical, and Mendicant Rules (TEAMS Documents of Practice), 2nd ed, Toronto, 2004.
[10] Robert Eno (trans), Life of Fulgentius, in Fulgentius: Selected Works vol 1, Fathers of the Church 95, Catholic University of America 1997.
[11] Gregory the Great, Dialogues II, chapters 1-3.
[12] Caesarius of Arles: Life, Testament, Letters, trans Klingshirn, LUP, 1994, Life, Bk I:28.
[13] Rule for Virgins of Caesarius of Arles (RC), ch 40.2. For the full text of the Rule see Caesarius of Arles, Oeuvres Monastique, de Vogue and Courreau ed and trans, 2 vols, Sources Chretienne 345, pp 190ff.
[14] On the case for the bishops as the prime instigators of the foundation, see B. Rosenwein, ‘Perennial Prayer at Agaune’, in S. Farmer and B. Rosenwein (eds), Monks and Nuns, Saints and Outcasts: Religion in Medieval Society (Ithaca, 2000), pp. 37–56; see also Vita abbatum Acaunensium (BHL 142), § 3, éd. B. KRUSCH, MGH, SSRM, III, Hanovre, 1896.
[15] On Sigismond's Vita, see Claire Maître, De saint-maurice d’agaune à saint-denis-en-france :La louange ininterrompue, Fruit d’une volonté politique? ,Revue Mabillon, n.s., t. 21 (= t. 82), 2010, p. 5-36.
[16] See Anne-Marie Helvétius, L’abbaye de Saint-Maurice d’Agaune dans le haut Moyen Âge, in Autour de saint Maurice. Actes du colloque Politique, société et construction identitaire : autour de saint Maurice, 29 septembre-2 octobre 2009, Besançon (France )- Saint-Maurice (Suisse), dir. N. BROCARD, F. VANNOTTI et A. WAGNER, Fondation des Archives historiques de l’abbaye de Saint-Maurice, 2012, p. 113-131.
[17] Eucherius of Lyons, The Passion of the Martyrs of Agaune (translation in the appendix of Tim Vivian, Kim Vivian and Jeffrey Russell trans, The Life of the Jura Fathers The Life of the Holy Fathers Romanus, Lupicinus , and Eugendus, Abbots of the Monasteries in the Jura Mountains..., Cistercian Studies Series no 178, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, 1999, Studies Series 178); for the latin text see Passio Acaunensium martyrum, BHL-5737.
[18] Danuta Shanzer and Ian Wood (ed and trans), Avitus of Vienne: Letters and Selected Prose, LUP, 2002, pp 380.
[19] Albrecht Diem, Who is Allowed to Pray for the King? Saint-Maurice d’Agaune and the Creation of a Burgundian Identity, in Post-Roman Transitions: Christian and Barbarian Identities in the Early Medieval West, Walter Pohl and Gerda Heydemann (eds), pp. 47-88, Brepol 2014.
[20] Op cit. The key part of the Vita says: Sanctus igitur Hymnemodus natione quidem barbarus , sed morum benignitate modestus , ita inmunis ab omni feritate beneficio divinitatis effectus est , ut sub habitu saeculari iugum Christi blanda clementiae libertate portaret . Hic dum in aula regali sedulus famulator regiae potestati adsisteret hac tota mentis integritate commissum sibi ministerium adimpleret. Reddebat iuxta Salvatoris praeceptum , quae Dei erant Deo ; regi quoque inoffense debitum servitii e exhibebat. Nam cum , fervente spiritu, perfectae religionis intrinsecus maturasset consilium, mundanis spretis in lecebris et pompa tumentium potestatum dispecta, festinus in monasterium Grenencense expetiit...
When he became King in 516 Sigismund quickly alienated many of his subjects through a bitter dispute with his bishops over their excommunication of one of his courtiers, leading him to exile most of his Catholic bishops for an extended period. His subsequent murder of his eldest son precipitated attacks from both the Franks and Ostrogoths, culminated in the death of both him and his family at their hands in 523 (though he was later deemed a martyr). The Kingdom itself did not survive him all that long as a separate entity: it was incorporated into Frankish territories in 534.
[21] Avitus letters...opcit; It is worth noting that the editors see this passage as a reference to Aen 6.127 and the gates of the Virgilian underworld, but Apocalypse 22 seems the more important allusion in the light of what follows, viz, Christ is its foundation, faith its frame, a wall its crown, a pearl its gates, gold its street, a lamb its light, its chorus the church. Caesarius and other contemporaries such as Cassiodorus interpreted Revelation 22 not literally, but as depicting the Church inaugurated by Christ.
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