Praying the psalms with St Benedict 5C - Three models for praying without ceasing/3: St Benedict on good works

So far in this series we have looked at two theories on how 'praying without ceasing' can be realised: a literal interpretation, based on constant textual prayer, carried over even into talking in one's sleep; and a collective realisation of the ideal, where some pray on behalf of others when they need to take a break for sleep or other purposes.

There were, however, other, rather less literal interpretations of the various Scriptural texts taken by the Fathers as the basis for the Office and prayer such as Psalm 1, and today I want to start to look at St Benedict's particular take on the subject and the theological context from which it grew. [1]

Rome and ceaseless prayer?

Before looking at St Benedict's Rule itself, I think it is worth noting that some modern historians, seeing references to assiduous, continual or prayer 'day and night' in rules, monastic charters, and other literature relating to late antique monasticism, have argued that these references should be interpreted literally and broadly, especially for Gaul in the seventh century onwards, suggesting that the Agaune model in particular was much more influential than previously believed.

But there is fairly clear evidence for Rome and North Africa at least, and also I think for Gaul, that references to continuous prayer did not always refer to what we now call the laus perennis, or literally continuous adoration and/or liturgical prayer.

James McKinnon pointed out, for example, that in references to the agreements between monasteries offering prayers in Rome's basilical churches, where one manuscript of the Liber Pontificalis describes a monastery as offering prayer 'day and night', another manuscript variant offers instead a list of the specific hours said, namely Terce, Sext, None and Matins. [2]

In the Rule attributed to St Augustine, the instruction is to 'Be assiduous in prayer (Col 4:2), at the hours and times appointed'. [3]

For Gaul, studies of sermon collections beyond those of Caesarius, as well as more in depth scrutiny of some of the later rules, have made it clear that neither Caesarius' interpretation of monastic life (or that of Columbanus later), were not the only ones that prevailed. [4]

St Benedict on prayer

At least as far as St Benedict's Rule goes though, the rather less literal interpretation of the various Scriptural texts relating to prayer had a firm theological underpinning that I want to briefly explore briefly in this post.

This interpretation was grounded in the idea, I think, that ceaseless prayer is a state of mind rather than literal prayer; a state of mind, moreover, that should be manifested through active works and service as well as contemplation.

As for Arles and Agaune, St Benedict’s Rule views the Divine Office as an absolutely core obligation.  Indeed the Rule provides that it has to be fulfilled by each individual religious: the daily ‘pensum’ has to be carried out even if the monk is unable to make it to the monastery’s oratory for the official hours, (RB 50).

One of the clear contrasts between St Benedict's Rule and those of Caesarius of Arles, though, is that while Caesarius explicitly instructed his monks and nuns to strive to pray without ceasing, to pray day and night; and Agaune literally did that, St Benedict never uses either the Thessalonians quote or the other similar terms often employed in relation to Agaune and Arles such as assiduous, continuous or perpetual prayer.  Instead, in the liturgical section of the Rule, he arguably implies that ceaseless prayer is achieved symbolically, through the use of he number of day hours, since seven was generally interpreted to mean continously. [5]  Indeed, in his discussion of prayer in chapter 19, and again on the use of the monastery chapel in chapter 52, St Benedict stresses that prayer should be fervent rather than long, and in his tools of good works St Benedict instructs his monks not to pray without ceasing, but rather to ‘pray frequently’ (RB 4). And where the monks of Agaune had to deal with the psychological challenges that go with both long hours and shift-work; while the nuns of Arles had to be given techniques to use to help stay awake through long hours in chapel; St Benedict instead made a deliberate effort to provide a timetable, which, while certainly demanding, aimed at ensuring his monks are at least not too sleep deprived (RB 8&48).

Prayer and good works in St Benedict's Rule

One of the particular features of the Benedictine Rule is the number of references to the importance of good works: in the Prologue, for example, the would be monk is invited, in the words of Psalm 33, to turn away from evil and do good; to gird his loins with faith and the performance of good works.

In an earlier post, I noted that Caesarius of Arles suggested that the only good work a monk or nun needed to focus on was the Office and prayer. St Benedict, by contrast, supplies an entire chapter devoted to a list of good works, starting from the commandments, including the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, and much more.

Most intriguingly of all, St Benedict uses the phrase day and night, and continuously, so often used in early monastic sources as an allusion to Psalm 1's injunction to meditate on the law of the Lord day and night not in relation to the Office or prayer, but rather in relation to the tools of spiritual works.  The monastery, he says, is a workshop:

Behold these are the tools of the spiritual craft. If we employ them unceasingly day and night (die noctuque incessabiliter adimpleta), and on the Day of Judgement render account of them, then we shall receive from the Lord in return the reward which he himself has promised: Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, what God hath prepared for those that love him. (RB 4)

Psalm 1 and meditation day and night

One of the key verses often referred to in relation to monastic prayer was Psalm 1's key verses:

Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence: But his will is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he shall meditate day and night.

It was this verse of Psalm 1 that apparently inspired St Jerome to set off from Rome to Bethlehem to live out a monastic calling; and it was also cited in the Liber Pontificalis to describe Pope Damasus’ claimed institution of the office in the churches, basilicas and monasteries of Rome (in an entry dating from circa 530).

St Alexander the Sleepless, you will recall, focused on the phrase day and night as a reference to the pattern given to us by God's ordering of creation, and saw meditation as meaning prayer.  Another school of thought though, focused on the idea of the will being engaged on the law, and gave it a far more active interpretation. The Syriac writer Aphrahat (c. 280–c. 34), for example, in his Demonstration 4:16, states that  'a person should do the will of God, and that constitutes prayer'. [6]  And the approach St Benedict followed was perhaps most pithily of all summarised by Cassian's teacher Evagrius Ponticus  (345–399 AD) in his commentary on Psalm 1, namely:

He meditates constantly on the law of God, who is accomplishing good works. [7]

Evagrius was far from being alone in both the Eastern and Western traditions in the idea that meditation on the law was more about cultivating state of mind, a matter of faith demonstrated through works, rather than formal prayer as such.

Origen, for example, in his commentary on Psalm 1 said:

The blessed person meditates on the law of the Lord day and night, not as one who entrusts the words of the law to his memory without works, but as one who by meditating performs works consistent with it…. [8]

 And in his Treatise on prayer he argued that right action is how continuous prayer is manifested:

Now, since the performance of actions enjoined by virtue or by the commandments is also a constituent part of prayer, he prays without ceasing who combines prayer with right actions, and becoming actions with prayer. For the saying “pray without ceasing” can only be accepted by us as a possibility if we may speak of the whole life of a saint as one great continuous prayer. (ch 7) [9]

Similar sentiments can be found in SS Jerome, Hilary, Basil and Augustine.  St Hilary, for example, explicitly linked Psalm 1 and praying without ceasing.  How, he asks, can we literally pray without ceasing, or meditate day and night, given our bodily needs for food, sleep and so forth?

Meditation in the Law, therefore, does not lie in reading its words, but in pious performance of its injunctions; not in a mere perusal of the books and writings, but in a practical meditation and exercise in their respective contents, and in a fulfilment of the Law by the works we do by night and day, as the Apostle says: Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. The way to secure uninterrupted prayer is for every devout man to make his life one long prayer by works acceptable to God and always done to His glory: thus a life lived according to the Law by night and day will in itself become a nightly and daily meditation in the Law. [10]

St Benedict and the liturgy

It was this stream of theology, I want to suggest, rather than any economic imperatives, that impelled the balance St Benedict's sets up in his Rule between giving his monk's opportunities within the monastery to do good works through their service of each other and their hospitality to guests on the one hand, and their liturgical service and prayers on the other.

In drawing out this broader interpretation of how ceaseless prayer can be realised, though, I don't want to suggest for a moment that liturgical and formal and informal non-liturgical prayer were unimportant to St Benedict: quite the contrary. In the next post I will look specifically at that side of the balance.

Notes

[1] Gregory W. Woolfenden, Daily Liturgical Prayer: Origins and Theology (Liturgy, Worship and Society Series), Routlege, 2004, includes a useful compendium of these.

[2]  James McKinnon, The Advent Project: The Later Seventh-Century Creation of the Roman Mass Proper, University of California Press, 2000, pg 83.

[3] The Rule of St Augustine, ch 2.

[4] See in particular Lisa Kaaren Bailey, Christianity's Quiet Success The Eusebius Gallicanus Sermon Collection and the Power of the Church in Late Antique Gaul, University of Notre Dame Press, 2010.

[5] See the discussion by Fr Cassian Folsom on St Benedict's use of number symbolism: Praying without ceasing conferences

[6]   Sebastian P Brock, The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life (Cistercian Studies 101, 1987), pp21.  An online translation can be found here.

[7] Trans Luke Dysinger, Evagrius on the Psalms.

[8] Craig A. Blaising and Carmen S. Hardin, ed, Psalms 1 - 50, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Vol VII, pg 6.  For an online version, see Tertullian.

[9] William A. Curtis, Sacred Invocation: Origen on Prayer, available on Luke Dysinger website.

[10]  E.W. Watson and L. Pullan, trans,  Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 9. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1899.) Homily on Psalm 1.

Praying the psalms with St Benedict 5B - Three models for praying without ceasing /2: Perpetual prayer at Agaune

The martyrdom of St Maurice and the Theban legion
Source: wiki commons

In the last post in this series I talked about the monastery of St John of Arles, where the ideal held out was for each nun to literally pray without ceasing, even when sleeping; aided to achieve this through a Rule that sought to eliminate as many distractions as possible (through a strictly regimented life and severe restrictions on visitors),  and through long hours in church.

Today I want to look briefly at another interpretation of praying without ceasing, practiced at another monastery contemporary to St Benedict, namely that of St Maurice of Agaune, where the emphasis was on maintaining a regime of continuous prayer at the communal rather than individual level.

Literally praying without ceasing

Before we move on though, it is worth noting that although the literal interpretation of the injunction to pray without ceasing is largely (though not entirely) out of favour now, it had a well-established genealogy, and continued to have adherents long after St Benedict's time.

Its advocates could point to Scriptural precedents, such as the widow and Prophetess Anna, described by St Luke as never leaving the Temple, but instead serving God night and day with fasting and prayer (quæ non discedebat de templo, jejuniis et obsecrationibus serviens nocte ac die). [1]

And the practices of this school of spiritual theology - such as the continuous recitation of the psalter - were discussed not just in Cassian, the Lives of the Desert Fathers, the Canons of Hippolytus and other influential texts of early monastic literature, but also in writers such as St Clement of Alexandria, who saw the fixed hours of prayer such as Terce, Sext and None largely as props for those who had not yet achieved the state of continual prayer. [2]

Nor did this approach fall out of favour in the centuries that followed: many monastic saints lives, Benedictine and otherwise, from the seventh to tenth century showcased prodigious feats of psalter recitation: St Benedict Biscop, Bede the Venerable's teacher, for example, apparently recited the entire psalter twice daily in addition to singing the Office of his monastery. [3]

Continuous prayer as a corporate action

This literal approach to St Paul's injunction was, however, far from being the only interpretation of how to pray without ceasing (or to pray day and night, as Psalm 1 enjoined): a key alternative interpretation saw it being achieved not necessarily at the individual level, but rather through collective effort.

In particular, Agaune, a monastery dedicated to St Maurice and the martyred Theban legion, a group of soldiers who, according to the Vita by Eucherius, refused an order to slaughter their fellow Christians for refusing to offer sacrifices to the Emperor, instead laying down their weapons and allowing themselves to be first decimated, and ultimately all martyred. [4]

The monastery was refounded around 515 with the monks organised into several different choirs, which took turns to maintain the perpetual round of psalmody. [5]

Just how they organised themselves to do this remains speculative: all of the details of their practices date from a much later era, or from other monasteries that claimed to adopt their customs. We know though, that the monks were organised into five to nine units (turmae, terminology that echoed the military) or choirs, who maintained the psalmody in turn (with possibly all the monks attending the core six or seven hours, and the different shifts then filling in the gaps).

The roots of perpetual prayer

The Agaune model, on the face of it, seems quite different theologically either from that of Arles, which sought to aid the religious to achieve a state of literally continuous prayer, or that of St Benedict, who insisted that the individual monk fulfill his Office obligation individually each day, reciting it, if necessary, even if out working in the fields or absent from the monastery for some reason.

Instead it made the church, rather than the individual monk the locus of  perpetual prayer, to be maintained by a  newly created ‘monastic family’ (hoc est monachorum, familia locaretur), who, according to the Vita of the first three abbots, imitating heaven, would maintain the divine office day and night. [6]

There were certainly clear precedents in both Scripture and monastic tradition for this approach.  In the Old Testament it could point to the Temple traditions, such as the Levite families chosen to live in temple chambers to serve day and night (1 Parap 9:33); in he New Testament, the vigil maintained by the community of Jerusalem, praying for Peter while he was imprisoned (Acts 12: Oratio autem fiebat sine intermissione ab ecclesia ad Deum pro eo).  And in the monastic tradition, one of the Apophthemgmata Patriae tells the story of a monk who prayed as he worked in order to earn enough to support himself, and to pay someone to pray for him when he slept. [7]   

The angelic chorus

One of the intriguing points of distinction between this approach and the other models though, seems to me to be the way in which the Divine Office on earth is depicted as being linked to that of heaven.

St Benedict, of course, directs us to be mindful of the presence of the angels when praying the Office, and adjust our behaviour accordingly: the angels, not the monks, are the 'watchers', observing us. 

Clement of Alexander elevates the status of the ascetic somewhat higher, seeing the prayers of the perpetual prayer as serving to unite him to the angelic choir:

His sacrifices are prayers, and praises, and readings in the Scriptures before meals, and psalms and hymns during meals and before bed, and prayers also again during night. By these he unites himself to the divine choir, from continual recollection, engaged in contemplation which has everlasting remembrance. [8] 

The description of the Agaune model in the very early lives of the first three abbots, takes it one step further, for it is depicts the monks' choruses as explicitly imitating those of heaven (qui die noctuque caelestia imitantes, cantionibus divinis insisterent). [9]

Some historians have argued that Agaune's perpetual liturgy regime evolved naturally out of the Gallic tradition of long hours in church typified by the liturgy of Arles, in response to particular local concerns and issues. [10] The more obvious direct inspiration for this model, though, as others have pointed out, was that of the Sleepless monks of Constantinople that I discussed in a previous post, with their multiple repetitions of the angelic chorus recorded in the New Testament, and whose fame had certainly spread to the West by this time. [11]

All the same, their model must certainly have seemed a particularly good fit for a monastery dedicated to the maintenance of a shrine where the founding legend concluded that the soldiers, by their martyrdom, had been transformed members of the angelic choir:

Thus that whole angelic legion was murdered, which now, we believe, joins with legions of angels in heaven in always praising together the Lord God Sabaoth. [12]

Half a century later Gregory of Tours provided a story that nicely echoes this imagery, in the story of a young monk who died, to the great distress of his mother, who then spent her days weeping in the Church.  [13] Happily, St Maurice appeared to her and assured her that her son was still part of the chorus made up not just of the still living monks, but the dead among their number, as well as the entire Theban legion itself.  To prove this, he invited her to return the next morning at Lauds, and every subsequent day that she so desired for the rest of her life, so that she could (miraculously) hear his particular voice joining that of the other (still living) monks.

The angelic life

The idea of monks as imitators of the angelic life was not of course new, and was certainly not unknown in the West.  Monks were regularly compared to angels on the basis of their commitment to chastity, their dedication to prayer and contemplation, and in their quest for virtue.   And St Martin of Tours' brand of monasticism, for example, also seems to have joined in the rejection of manual work, something also part of the Agaune charism.

Indeed, the Preface to his Latin translation the Life of Pachomius by the Scythian monk Dionysius Exiguus in Rome in the first half of the sixth century provided an origin story for monasticism that held up just this image:

For when by the Lord's permission, the pagan Emperors rose up and brought savage and stormy persecutions against Christians everywhere...[monasteries grew up] practising abstinence as they renounced the world and adorned the secret places of solitude...They sought the quietness of solitude, and by looking for the joyous divine gift of their own salvation through faith, they have furnished an example to others of a more sublime and sacred life. Freed from all earthly cares, they emulated the holiness of the Angels while still living in this mortal flesh. [14] 

Still, this view of monastic life seems more characteristic of the spirituality of Syrian and Eastern monasticism than that which generally prevailed in the West.  Certainly neither the Rule of Caesarius of Arles nor that of St Benedict really play much on this concept, and St Gregory's Life of St Benedict more often depicts his disciples as sinners than angelic imitators or saints!

Rather, St Benedict's Rule depicts the monastic life as that of a group of sinners struggling  towards perfection, a life that is the ordinary Christian life lived intensively; differentiated from the lay life primarily by being lived in one place, and under obedience to an abbot and a rule.  In the next post, I will look at how St Benedict's particular take on praying  fits with this.

Notes

[1] Lk 2:36-8

[2] See in particular Cassian Conference 13; Canons of Hippolytus 27 (Egyptian c336-340) “When a man sleeps in his bed he must pray to God in his heart” (quoted by Taft, Liturgy of the Hours... pg 71).

[3] Bede, Life of Benedict Biscop in his Lives of the Wearmouth Abbots.

[4]  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. 

[5] There is an extensive literature on Agaune; for the most up-to-date and systematic treatments see in particular Anne-Marie Helvétius, L’abbaye de Saint-Maurice d’Agaune dans le haut Moyen Âge, 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 and 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.

[6] Vita abbatum Acaunensium (BHL 142), § 3, éd. B. KRUSCH, MGH, SSRM, III, Hanovre, 1896.

[7] Lives of the Desert Fathers, 

[8] Stromata bk 7, Chapter 7.

[9] BHL, op cit.

[10] For this view see in particular 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; 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.

[11] See Helvetius op cit. The fame of the Sleepless monks had spread to the West by this time - they maintained a regular correspondence with the Pope over assorted theological disputes in Constantinople the early sixth century, and delegations visited on a number of occasions.  The monastery's royal patron, Sigismund of Burgundy and or his episcopal advisors could well have encountered or heard of them either there, since he converted from Arianism during a visit to Rome, or in the course of Burgundy's attempts to negotiate a treaty with Constantinople to protect the Kingdom against the threat of invasion from Theodoric in Italy, or Clovis and his heirs in Gaul.

[12] See Eucherius, op cit.  There is also an anonymous passion of the Martyrs, available atg BHL 5730, available in translation by David Woods, The Passion of St. Maurice and the Theban Legion (BHL 5740); see also Eric Chevalley, La Passion anonyme de saint Maurice d'Agaune Edition critique*, dans Vallesia,VL (1990), pp. 37-120.

[13] Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria martyrum, ed. B. Krusch, MGH SRM 1.2: Gregorii Turonensis Opera. Teil 2: Miracula et opera minora. Editio nova lucisope expressa (Hanover, 1885), pp. 34–111 (at c. 74-75). Trans Raymond van Dam, LUP, 1988, pp 69-71.

[14]  http://www.vitae-patrum.org.uk/page11.html

Praying the psalms with St Benedict/3B - The drivers of liturgical diversity in late antiquity*

In the previous post in this series, I pointed out the huge diversity of late antique monastic and other forms of the Divine Office.

So what drove that diversity?

Drivers of diversity

One of the factors was almost certainly the variety of entrenched local traditions.

Scripture, politics and the influence of new ideas filtering in from the elsewhere may all also have played a role.

I want to suggest, however, that differing underlying theologies for monastic life was by far the most important factor.

First though, it is helpful to look at some of the others that have been suggested.

Local traditions?

One obvious source for a monastic Office the local form of the Office the founder of a monastery already knew.

Caesarius of Arles, for example, claimed to base the Offices he set out in his Rules for monks and nuns on the practice of the great monastery of Lerins (off the coast of Cannes). [1]

Similarly, St Benedict claimed the authority of the Church of Rome for his Lauds psalms and Old Testament canticle ordering. [2]

And many local Offices had, by the sixth century, clearly acquired the authority of long use.

A Synod of Tours held in 567, for example, described an Office that attempted to reconcile the competing claims of a Night Office of twelve psalms (presumably reflecting the influence of Cassian, or perhaps even St Benedict), and the traditions it associated with St Martin of Tours, by making twelve psalms a summer minimum, but the many more psalms associated with Gallic Offices, the rule for the rest of the year. [3]

Two centuries later, the Ratio de cursus, an anonymous treatise written before 767, went even further, claiming that the Benedictine Office was a Johnny-come-lately compared to both the Gallic Office, which it claimed had originated with St John the Evangelist, and the Irish Office his (probably Columbanian) house used, which he claimed originated with St Mark the Evangelist. [4]  Whether or not one thinks these claims had any historical merit, they do illustrate that entrenched traditions could be highly resistant to outside influences. [5]

The search for a perfect Office

Despite this, though, monastic Offices in St Benedict's time clearly were, in many cases, influenced by other forces.

One of the most intriguing stories about the process of developing a monastic Office, not least because it emphasises several of the other drivers that shaped particular forms of the Office, comes from the Life of Alexander the Sleepless, which was probably written in the second half of the fifth century. [6]

Alexander (died 430) originally learnt his craft in Syria, but travelled extensively, before ultimately ending up in Constantinople.  Along the way, he seems to have encountered and tried several  different forms of the Office.

Scripture mining or local traditions?

Initially he used the form of the Office that he had been taught during his monastic apprenticeship, praying Terce, Sext, None, and again in the night, an arrangement that reflected the various descriptions of prayer in the Book of Acts. [7]

St Alexander though, seems to have been something of a Scriptural fundamentalist: the Life tells us that he 'was scrupulously attentive to the things written in the God-inspired Scriptures and was adamant that not a single line of God's commandments should escape him'.  Accordingly, when he encountered an Office of seven times of prayer each day and night, justified by the text St Benedict also cites in the Rule, Psalm 118:64, he readily adopted it:

He saw that God his Master everywhere proclaims the number seven, as when he says, Seven times a day I praise you.  So he endeavoured to carry out this too, and did so by performing his prayers seven times a day and seven times at night. [8]

This regime, too, though, ultimately failed to satisfy him, as he wrestled with the question of how to satisfy the injunction to meditate on the law of God both day and night (Psalm 1:2).

Arriving at a particular charism 

Accordingly, the life tells us, for three years he sought a solution, 'that this too could be performed by him on earth, although it was the work of heavenly powers'. He certainly scoured Scripture for clues, the Life tells us; fasted; prayed, and petitioned God.  But intriguingly, it tells us he also studied the forms of the office used by others. And eventually he came to a solution, based on the order of creation itself:

Therefore he took as a teacher the Creator of the universe, and just as he imposed limits on His creation, so too did Alexander arrange his way of life, saying, My Christ in His creation allotted twenty-four hours for day and night; so let us also pass the course of the day and night with twenty-four services singing hymns to God....My master has made the days and nights increase in orderly fashion; so let us also ceaselessly offer hymns to Him in such an orderly arrangement...[9]

In order to actually accomplish, he settled on a system of monks working in shifts, and was, it seems, aimed at modelling the angelic life devoted to the pure praise and adoration of God above all.

The Office and the angelic life

St Alexander was not actually the first either to base his Office around the 24 hours of the day, or to instigate a 'laus perennis' (as the system of perpetual prayer was much later dubbed) - he had almost certainly encountered versions of it in his travels. [10]

To his office of hymns of praise, though, he added also an intercessory element, which must have added to its appeal to benefactors (essential since he also took literally the instruction to leave the provision of all food and other essentials to God):

Our Savior bids us forgive our fellow slaves their sins against us seventy times seven; so let us also raise our petitions to our good God on their behalf by making seventy-seven genuflections....So when the full liturgical sequence had been performed and the recitations and the repetitions kept and the services finished, then in addition he sang the hymn of the holy angels seventy-seven times both day and night, the one that goes Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. [11]

St Alexander's brand of monasticism emphasised the idea of monks living a life devoted to adoration of God that emulated that of the angels, reflected in giving primacy to prayer and in avoidance of any form of manual work, and his Office reflected that.

And that theology of prayer was almost extremely influential, including, almost certainly, in the adoption of a similar regime in the West at the Office of  Monastery of St Maurice of Agaune circa 515. [12]

Labourers

St Benedict's Rule, however famously does not fall into this same stream of monastic theology: the angels, in the Rule, are more often depicted as watching and reporting back to God on what the monks are up to; the monks as sinners needing to be punished for infractions.

Instead the saint provided two other exemplars for monastic life: the soldier and the labourer.

St Benedict's Rule opens with an invitation to enrol in Christ's army, and the differing concepts of the military metaphor for monasticism and their implications in this period are worth exploring further. [13]

But it is St Benedict's allusion to God's call for labourers (in the vineyard) that has traditionally attracted the most attention.

St Benedict certainly encouraged his monks to at least do some manual labour, even if that did not necessarily amount to economic self-sufficiency. [14]  But the claim that he simply shortened the day hours to accommodate the demands of manual labour misses, I think, some of the deeper theological underpinnings of St Benedict's approach to the Office which I hope to tease out in this series.

In particular, in the next post I want to look at one of the fundamental purposes of the Office, namely that of the pure praise and adoration of God.

Notes

[1] Rule of Caesarius of Arles, chapter 66.

[2]  RB 13:  Post quem alii duo psalmi dicantur secundum consuetudinem, id est...Nam ceteris diebus canticum unumquemque die suo ex prophetis sicut psallit ecclesia Romana dicantur.  Liturgists (following Callaewaert) tend to reject this particular claim, while insisting that St Benedict drew virtually everything else from the Roman Office.

[3] Synod of Tours, 567, Canon 19, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, Turnhout 1954 - , 148 A:202.

[4] Ratio de cursus qui fuerunt euis auctores, ed Semmler, in Hallinger, Initio Consuedutines Benedictiae.

[5] For a positive appraisal of its usefulness, see Constant Mews, Apostolic authority and Celtic liturgies: From the Vita Samsonis to the Ratio de Cursus in Lynette Olson, (ed), St Samson of Dol and the Earliest History of Brittany, Cornwall and Wales, Boyden Press, 2017; others though, such as Jesse Billett, have taken a different view.

[6] The translation quoted here is from the Life of St Alexander included as an appendix in Daniel Caner's Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity, University of California Press, 2002.

[7] That is, Pentecost (Acts 2) for Terce; St Peter (Acts 10) for Sext; and Peter and John at the temple (Acts 3) and Cornelius Acts 10) for Nones.

[8] Caner op cit, pg 266; Psalm 118:164.

[9] Caner op cit pg 269.

[10] An Office consisting of 24 psalms, one for each hour of the day and night is attested to in the Alexandrine fragment, and may have formed the basis of the Jerusalem Office (see Froyshov).  For early versions of the perpetual liturgy, see the discussion of the monasteries on the borders of the Euphrates, and St Sabas, in the early fifth century of Jahballaha in Jean-Marie Baguenard (ed and trans), Les moines acémètes: vies des saints Alexandre, Marcel et Jean Calybite, Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1988, pp 59-60.

[11] Caner op cit, pg 267.

[12]  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).

[13]  RB Prologue.  St Benedict's military imagery, for example in chapter 1 of the Rule, is one with a history going back to St Athanasius' depiction of St Antony, of  monks engaged in spiritual combat, an image reinforced by the very first psalm said in his Office each day, Psalm 3.

By contrast, the Theban Legion commemorated by the monastery of Agaune were depicted in their legends as soldiers who refused to fight, laying down their weapons and allowing themselves to be slaughtered rather than following an unjust order, and by virtue of this act transformed into members of the heavenly legion of martyrs depicted in the Book of Revelation devoted to the constant praise of God and calling for justice to be done for their deaths.

The idea of the soldier who refuses to fight for the (unjust) state was not unique to the Theban Legion; it is part of the story of St Martin of Tours as well, but is one that does not, on the face of it, that seems to fit well with the idea of a monastery of solider-monks engaged in the defence of  the state of Burgundy proposed by Albrecht Diem as the rationale for Agaune's perpetual liturgy 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).

[14] Prologue to the Rule: Ad te ergo nunc mihi sermo dirigitur, quisquis abrenuntians propriis voluntatibus, Domino Christo vero regi militaturus, oboedientiae fortissima atque praeclara arma sumis... St Benedict makes it clear in several places in the Rule that monks were unlikely to be entirely self-supporting (such as in the provisions for monks and their parents to donate land or goods to the monastery when they entered).  St Gregory's Life also mentions lay donors, both in the context of child oblates, and the later foundation of Terracina.

Praying the psalms with St Benedict 3A: Was there ever 'a' monastic Office? The diversity of the Office in late antiquity

One of the key questions about early monastic liturgy is just how much choice monastic founders such as St Benedict had when it came to selecting, adapting or designing their own Offices.

In the next few posts, I want to explore this issue briefly, looking at the dimensions of liturgical diversity, and some of the key drivers that are often suggested for this.

One correct form of the Office?

St John Cassian, in his Institutes (written circa 430 AD), insisted that once his monk was properly clothed, he should 'next learn the system of the canonical prayers and Psalms which was long ago arranged by the holy fathers in the East', intended to help the monk 'pray without ceasing' [1].

St Benedict and other monastic founders of his time had certainly read and absorbed Cassian's teachings, and they encouraged their disciples to do likewise. [2]

When it came to the liturgy though, it would seem that Cassian's insistence that there was one correct form of monastic Office seems to have fallen mostly on less fertile ground.

Cassian observed disapprovingly that in his time, pretty much every monastery had their own form of the Office:

For we have found that many in different countries, according to the fancy of their mind (having, indeed, as the Apostle says, a zeal, for God but not according to knowledge), have made for themselves different rules and arrangements in this matter...And in this way we have found different rules appointed in different places, and the system and regulations that we have seen are almost as many in number as the monasteries and cells which we have visited. [3]

At the day hours, Cassian observed, some used three psalms at each hour (his preferred model, based, he claimed, on the practice in Palestine); but others as many as six.  At the Night Office, he noted, many went well beyond the 'canonical' twelve psalms:

some have appointed that each night twenty or thirty Psalms should be said, and that these should be prolonged by the music of antiphonal singing, and by the addition of some modulations as well. Others have even tried to go beyond this number. Some use eighteen. [4]

Sixth century monastic liturgies

Although some have claimed that Cassian's liturgical dictates were extremely influential, the bulk of the evidence would seem to suggest otherwise, for almost a century later, it is evident that nothing had changed. [5]  The Office of  the Master, for example, which may represent early sixth century Roman region practice (though its date and location continue to be disputed), had a variable number of psalms in the night office, depending on the season. [6]  Similarly, a 567 Office of Tours involved up to 30 psalms a night,  [7] while the Office said by the nuns following the Rule of Caesarius of Arles involved six psalms at the day hours (or even twelve at times) and also went well beyond Cassian's numbers for the Night, saying up to 41 psalms each night in their proper office, as well as even more in the form of vigil 'fillers'. [8] And the Office of St Maurice of Agaune (circa 515) probably involved reciting at least the entire psalter (and probably more) every day. [9]

Dimensions of difference

The differences between these liturgies though, went far deeper than things like the number of psalms said, as the table [10] below illustrates.

Dimension	Differences
Number of times of prayer (‘hours’) said each day	2 (Egypt, Severinus, Fulgentius) to 24 (Constantinople’s sleepless monks)
Balance between the Book of Psalms and other Scriptural material	Almost entirely psalm based (Benedictine) vs largely (other) Scriptural readings (Pachomius, Arles)
Order of the psalmody	Mostly selective (Benedictine) vs mostly numerical order (Rule of the Master)
Use of non-Scriptural material	Benedictine uses hymns and Patristic readings; Caesarius of Arles specified hymns and readings from the acts of the martyrs; Rule of the Master and  Roman used neither hymns nor non-Scriptural readings.
Vigils	Caesarius of Arles specified regular all night vigils for his nuns; Benedict provides only for a somewhat longer form of the Night Office to be used on Sundays and feasts.
Obligation to say	Benedict makes it an individual responsibility – even when away from the monastery, the monk must say his ‘pensum’ of psalms.  By contrast at Agaune, the Office was a collective responsibility, fulfilled by shifts of monks working in turn.
Time spent on the Office	Benedictine 4-8hrs compared to 12-16 at Arles; and more at Agaune.
Performance methods	Benedictine/Roman – primarily antiphonal, with two choirs answering each other. Gaul – primarily responsorial, with soloist leading.
Variation with the natural seasons	Fixed structure Offices, with little or no variation, except in length of readings – Egyptian, Benedictine and later Roman vs Offices that lengthened as nights became longer in winter (Augustine, Arles, the Master, etc).
Variation with the liturgical seasons	Benedict: use of the Alleluia Arles: length of hours, hymns used, vigils
Prayer while working?	Egypt – yes; Arles – during ‘vigilia’ only; Benedictine – no.
Psalm cursus arrangement	(1) Same each day - all 150 (Sleepless monks/Agaune?) or selection repeated, eg early Alexandrine (2) Mostly fixed but some variable elements each day such as collects, psalm(s) for the day of the week for one or more hours, set psalms for feasts (3) Variable number of psalms at night office depending on season, so that psalms not fixed to a day of the week. (4) Offices that added extra psalms and other elements for Saturday and Sundays  - eg Arles (5) Fixed weekly psalm cycle (Benedictine)
No of psalms said at each hour	Benedictine - units of 3/4/7/12 (+2) depending on hour. Gaul – units of 6/12/18 depending on hour

In short, to paraphrase a contemporary commentator writing on the Jura monasteries, monks read Cassian and other monastic rules, but they followed their own, particularly when it came to the liturgy:

My discourse has caused me to touch on some of the institutions of the fathers as they were imitated by blessed Eugendus….In no way am I belittling, by a disdainful presumptuousness, the institutions of the holy and eminent Basil, bishop of the episcopal see of Cappodochia, or those of the holy fathers of Lerins and of Saint Pachomius, the ancient abbot of the Syrians [sic], or those of the venerable Cassian, formulated more recently.  But while we read these daily, we strive to follow those Condadisco... [11]

The drivers of diversity

What then drove these differences, and why did St Benedict settle on the particular ones he did?

In the mid twentieth century the consensus was that monasteries usually simply adopted the liturgies of their locality [12]; more recent studies though, have seen the differences as reflecting different underlying theological drivers. [13]

More on that in the next post in this series.

Notes

[1] John Cassian, The Twelve Books of John Cassian on the Institutes of the Coenobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults, Book II, C.S. Gibson (trans). Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 11. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894.)

[2] St Benedict paraphrased Cassian throughout the Rule, and prescribed the reading of his conferences and institutes (RB 43&73).

[3] Op cit, II.2

[4] Ibid.

[5]  In particular, Peter Jeffery, Psalmody and Prayer in Early Monasticism, in The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, January 2020, pp 122, argues that the monastic Rules of Caesarius of Arles reflect Cassian's model.  It is, on the face of it, hard to see how, given that the number of hours is not a conflation of Cassian's description of the Egyptian and Palestinian monastic Offices, but rather includes two additional hours (which Taft argued were Cathedral additions to Caesarius' Lerins model), and far from being based on the three/twelve psalm model Cassian advocated, uses six psalms at most of the day hours, and 18 as the base for the nocturns.  To describe this as 'an expansion' of Cassian's 3/12 model, rather than a continuation of the longstanding gallic practices Cassian had condemned seems a stretch.

[6] Adalbert de Vogue (ed), La Regle du Maitre, Sources Chretiennes, 105&106, Les Editions de Cerf, 1964.

[7] Synod of Tours, 567, Canon 19, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, Turnhout 1954 - 148 A:202.

[8] A de Vogue and J Courreau, trans and ed, Ouevres Monastique, vol 1, Sources Chretienne 345, Paris, 1988, pp 190ff.

[9] Very few details of Agaune's perpetual liturgy have actually been preserved, but for a survey of what is known, see Marcel Dietler, Laus perennis ou la psalmodie angélique à Saint-Maurice, Dans Echos de Saint-Maurice, 1965, tome 63, cahier spécial, p. 9-33'; P. Bernard, "La laus perennis d’Agaune dans la Gaule de l’antiquité tardive : état des questions et éléments d’un bilan, Sine musica nulla disciplina… Studi in onore di Giulio Cattin, dir. F. Bernabei et A. Lovato, Padoue, 2006, p. 39-69.

[10] In addition to the sources cited above see:
Egypt: Barsanuphius, Quaestiones et responsiones  F. Neyt and P. de Angelis-Noah, Barsanuphe et Jean de Gaza, Correspondence, tome I-II [Source Chrétiennes 426/427. Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1997-98]; TLG: 2851.001. Q. 125-170 based on: Letters from the Desert, Barsanuphius and John, A Selection of Questions and Responses, tr. & intr. by John Chryssavgis St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Popular Patristics Series, Ed. John Behr, New York 2003) (Questions and responses); Armand Veilleux, Pachomian Koinonia (4 vols), Cistercian Studies, 1989-1992.

Severinus (Danube region, eventually settled in Italy), see Eugippius, Life of Severinus).

(North Africa and Sicily): Augustine,  Ordo Monasterii; Fulgentius -  A. Isola (ed.), Anonymus. Vita S. Fulgentii episcopi, Turnhout, 2016 (Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina, 91F) and for an Englsh translation, Robert Eno (trans), Fulgentius: Selected Works vol 1, Fathers of the Church 95, Catholic University of America 1997.

[11] 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

[12] See for example Marilyn Dunn, “Mastering Benedict: Monastic Rules and Their Authors in the Early Medieval West”, English Historical Review 105 No. 416 (1990): 567-594 and “The Master and St Benedict: A Rejoinder”, English Historical Review, 107 No. 422 (1992): 104-111.

[13] There has, for example, been a vigorous debate on the source and purpose of the liturgy of Agaune, with three main camps.  Barbara Rosenwein argued it grew out of local liturgies, in response to the needs of the bishops involved (in Perennial Prayer at Agaune, in Monks and Nuns, Saints and Outcasts, Religion in Medieval Society, Essays in honor of Lester K Little, ed Sharon Farmer and Barbara H Rosenwein, Cornell UP, Ithaca and London, 2000, pp 37-56); Albrecht Diem has argued (unconvincingly in my view) that it similarly had local origins, but in the needs of Prince Sigismond of Burgungy (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). Anne-Marie Helvétius argues that it was largely an imported liturgy from Constantinople, for essentially political reasons (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),

Praying the Office with St Benedict 2: The Benedictine charism

The key thesis of this series is that the form of the Divine Office set out in the Rule is just as fundamental to the Benedictine charism as the other foundational documents of the Order, namely the Rule itself, and the life of St Benedict by St Gregory the Great (Book II of his Dialogues).

How integral is the Benedictine Office to the charism?

It is true of course, that St Benedict himself allowed for the possibility of other orderings of the psalms to be used [1], and that down the centuries many other forms of the Office have been used in conjunction with the other provisions of the Rule, not least in our own day.

And very different amounts of time have been devoted to the Office in different periods: the Carolingians added many extra prayers, and that trend was taken even further by the Cluniacs; in our time many monasteries devote very little time at all to formal communal prayer outside of the Mass.

These variations are, I think a reflection of a key aspect of the Rule itself, one of the reasons for its endurance: namely that there is so much buried spiritual treasure in it that it is very possible to emphasis different aspects of it; to adapt it to different times and situations; and even to use the Rule and/or Office in conjunction with other quite distinctive charisms (such as the Rule of Columbanus in the seventh century, some of the military orders of the Middle Ages and the Carthusians). Indeed, as other charisms and approaches to monasticism have arisen, many have been absorbed and incorporated into particular streams of Benedictine spirituality.

We should not outright reject the validity of these later developments down the centuries: the Holy Ghost blows as it will!  But there is, nonetheless, I think, a particular value in attempting to understand what St Benedict himself intended, or perhaps what God gifted to him, particularly in his design of his Office, since there is, I think, a certain validity to the view articulated by Laszlo Dobszay, that a particular form of the Office forms a particular type of monk. [2]

Challenging twentieth century takes on the Office

That said, let me say upfront by way of summary of this series, that we need, I think, to reject outright some key propositions propagated from the mid-twentieth century onwards, namely:

(1) The idea that there was one, settled form of mainstream monastic life by St Benedict's time.

Few, if any, monastic historians now, for example, would now accept Claude Peifer's claim in RB 1980, that despite the differences between the various monastic rules of the period, “the life actually lived in Western monasteries from the end of the fourth century up to the sixth seems to have been basically the same”. [3] Instead, historians are increasingly appreciating the great diversity of monasticism in this period. [4]

(2) The claim made by Dom Adalbert de Vogue that St Benedict's Office was a merely mechanistic adaptation of the Roman [5].

De Vogue argued that the Roman Office had already settled on its fixed weekly psalm cursus by St Benedict's time, and the saint's adaptation of it was forced by the needs of labour in the fields to support the monks.  There is absolutely no hard evidence to support this claim; instead it hangs on the elaborate reconstructions of the liturgists based on indirect evidence dating from several centuries after Benedict. [6]

(3) The view that Roman Office itself evolved in an essentially mechanistic way, rather than having its own historical, theological and Scriptural underpinnings.

Pascher in particular developed elaborate theories as to a process of evolution reducing the number of psalms said at Vespers. [7]

These propositions were, in large part, I think, driven by the historico-critical paradigm that dominated at the time. Today they are increasingly being challenged through careful examination of both the practical differences in the lives of monks and nuns of the time, and teasing out the differences in underlying theologies. [8]

Monastic diversity in the West in late antiquity: a story of three monasteries

One of the particularly intriguing lines of distinction between monasteries in St Benedict's time seems to have been the balance between liturgy, lectio and work.

St Benedict (c 485 - 540), for example, may be famous today for his injunction to put nothing before the Work of God (the Office), but in reality his Office took up only somewhere between 4-8 hours of the monastic day (estimates differ, and time spent in chapel also varied with the day of the week and feasts, though I would suggest the longer end of the spectrum is more likely than the four hours claimed by some contemporary commentators). [9]  St Benedict's monks lived a life that still allowed considerable time for lectio divina; and manual, intellectual or craft work, including providing hospitality to guests.

By contrast the nuns of the more or less contemporary monastery of Arles established by St Caesarius, whose rule was written between 510 and 535, are thought to have spent typically somewhere between 12 and 16 hours each day in choir [10].  They were strictly enclosed, and offered no hospitality for visitors, their Rule forbidding even the provision of meals for visiting bishops and other notables.  Even so, they still managed some (mostly communal while working) lectio, and work such as manuscript production and clothes manufacture.

The extent of diversity is even more starkly illustrated by the lives of the monks of the monastery of St Maurice of Agaune (in what is now the Swiss Alps), founded (or refounded) in 515, and which seems to have totally precluded any possibility of other work, as their lives were entirely devoted to the maintenance of a perpetual round of prayer, 24/7, using shifts of monks in succession [11].

The time spent on the Office in each of these communities clearly both constrained or permitted very different forms of religious life for the religious in them, and this was in turn reflected in the particular shapes of their offices, so before we start looking at St Benedict's particular form of the Office, I thought it would be useful context to look at some of the theological drivers for this diversity, on which more in the next post.

The three monasteries in summary

	St Maurice of Agaune	St John of Arles [12]	St Benedict
Location	Kingdom of Burgundy (Swiss Alps, near Geneva)	Arles, France [Gaul (Provence)]	Italy
Type	Relic site/royal foundation (Sigismund)	Urban/episcopal	Rural/lay
Foundation dates	[Refounded] c515	506 started building outside walls; 519 monastery built 534 Rule finalised	[C505-15 Abbot of Vicocaro] C505-25 Subiaco C529 Monte Cassino [?Plombariola] C545 Terracina [?c560 Lateran]
Founder/Benefactor	Prince (later King) Sigismund of Burgundy, aided by bishops Maximus, Avitus and others	Bishop Caesarius of Arles	Benedict (with assistance from lay benefactors?  Ecclesiastical approval??)
Founding abbots/abbesses	Hymnemodus	Caesaria (sister of Caesarius); Caesaria the Younger (niece of the bishop)	Benedict [Scholastica]
Dedications of monastery/church/chapels	St Maurice and the Theban legion	St John the Baptist,  St Martin of Tours St John the Evangelist,  Our Lady	St John the Baptist,  St Martin of Tours

The dimensions of difference

Over the next several posts I want to try and draw out the way the different charisms of these three groups of monasteries affected the forms of the Office that they each used. 

And there are four particular aspects of the liturgy that I want to focus in on to do this, namely the Office as a vehicle for the praise and adoration of God; for promoting prayer and meditation (and the objective of 'praying without ceasing'); the intercessory dimensions of the Office; and the location of the Office in sacred time.

Before doing this though, it is, perhaps, helpful to provide something of an overview of the dimensions and drivers of liturgical diversity in late antiquity, starting in the next part in this series, which you find here.

Notes

[1] RB 18: 22].  St Benedict's caveat on the possiblity of using other distibutions of the psalter is that all 150 psalms must be said each week:  Hoc praecipue commonentes ut, si cui forte haec distributio psalmorum displicuerit, ordinet si melius aliter iudicaverit, [23] dum omnimodis id adtendat ut omni hebdomada psalterium ex integro numero centum quinquaginta psalmorum psallantur, et dominico die semper a caput reprehendatur ad vigilias. [24] Quia nimis inertem devotionis suae servitium ostendunt monachi qui minus a psalterio cum canticis consuetudinariis per septimanae circulum psallunt, [25] dum quando legamus sanctos patres nostros uno die hoc strenue implesse, quod nos tepidi utinam septimana integra persolvamus.

[2] Laszlo Dobszay, Critical reflections on the Bugnini Liturgy, pg 8: "If it is true to say, Chorus facit monachum (Office in common makes the monk), then we may complete the proverb thus: Hic chorus facit hunc monachum (The order’s own  Office shapes the self-identity of the monk).”

[3]  In Timothy Fry (ed), RB 1980 The Rule of St. Benedict In Latin and English with Notes, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesotta: 1981, Claude Peifer claimed that despite the differences between the various monastic rules of the period, “the life actually lived in Western monasteries from the end of the fourth century up to the sixth seems to have been basically the same”.  (pg 85)

[4] For a more accounts of the attempt to develop a 'tradition', see Albrecht Diem, ‘Inventing the Holy Rule: Some Observations on the History of Monastic Normative Observance in the Early Medieval West,’ in Hendrik Dey and Elizabeth Fentress (eds.),Western Monasticism ante litteram: The Spaces of early monastic observance  (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp 53 – 84 and Conrad Leyser, Authority and asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great, Oxford :  Oxford University Press, 2000.

[5] See Adalbert De Vogue, SC La Règle de saint Benoît, commentaire doctrinal et spirituel, Vol 5, Éditions du Cerf, Paris, 1977.

[6] The most recent treatment of this issue relies on the claim that the arrangement of the 'de psalmiis' responsories, now used during Epiphanytide, and which use psalms more or less aligned to the Roman Matins cursus each day, were originally a prototype set  used throughout the year (see Lazlo Dobszay, the Divine Office in History, in Alcuin Reid, ed, T&T Clark Companion to Liturgy, Bloomsbury, 2016, pp  207- 235).  However the earliest references to the de psalmiis responsories dates from long after St Benedict's time, and there is every reason to think that their current arrangement changed over time (not least because of the inclusion of non-psalmic elements in the set). Moreover, the claim depends on the assumption that the psalms utilised were essentially selected randomly, for their fit to the curus.  In reality there are good reasons to think they were actually selected for their appropriateness to the season and readings therein (paper forthcoming). 

[7] A view developed primarily by Callaewaert and Pascher.  for a helpful discussion, see James McKinnon, The Origins of the Western Office in Margot E. Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer (ed), The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography, OUP, 2000, pp 63-73.

[8]  See in particular: Daniel Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity, University of California Press, 2002; Peter Brown, Treasure in Heaven The Holy Poor in Early Christianity, University of Virginia Press, 2016.

[9] Estimates of the amount of time spent on the Benedictine Office  in St Benedict's time vary wildly: Dom David Knowles estimated at least eight hours a day in his book The Benedictines; modern Benedictine commentators (perhaps less familiar with the full sung office?) such as Kardong suggest around four.

[10] Estimate from 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.

[11] There is a large literature on Agaune, but the most helpful and up-to-date treatment of  primary and secondary sources is 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.

[12] For Arles, the most important sources are the Rules for monks and nuns, in Caesarius of Arles, Oeuvres Monastique, de Vogue and Courreau ed and trans, 2 vols, Sources Chretienne 345, 398 and W. Klingshirn, Caesarius of Arles The Making of a Christian Community in Late Antique Gaul, Cambridge UP, 1994.  For a full listing of relevant studies see the online bibliography managed by W Klingshirn: https://arts-sciences.catholic.edu/academics/interdisciplinary/early-christianity/projects/caesarius-studies.html

*Note: Some of the material in this post and planned subsequent ones derive from a conference paper originally presented to the Australian Early Medieval Association in 2018.