Praying the psalms with St Benedict 5D - St Benedict on the liturgy as prayer Pt 2

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.

In this he was surely following the monastic models of St Basil, with its emphasis on good works; and the line of exegesis suggested 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 psalm 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 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:

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 Psalms, 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.

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 5A: Three models for 'praying without ceasing'/1: The drousing virgins of Arles

When the twentieth century liturgists and historian Dom Adalbert de Vogue looked at the purpose of the monastic Office, he argued that its purpose was not, above all praise and adoration on behalf of all Christians, as I argued was the case in the previous post, but was rather, consistent with the monastic versus cathedral office distinction so beloved of the twentieth century liturgiologists, fundamentally about fostering personal prayer and meditation.  Above all, he and others argued, the monastic Office aimed to help the monk fulfill the injunction to 'pray without ceasing', above all through a constant recitation of the psalter.[1] 

Subsequent work has somewhat modified this picture: the hermits of Egypt who Cassian visited had a communal liturgy only on Sundays, and then consisting only of the hours of Vespers and Matins, with twelve psalms each.  While the monk may have said some form of Office each day, in the model that Cassian advocated, most prayer took a non-liturgical form, in the repetition of the psalter as the monk worked;  rumination on Scripture during the day; and the repetition of the invocation 'Deus in adjutorium meum intende...

Nonetheless, critiques by Dom Armand Veilleux (whose book on fourth century monastic liturgy effectively demolished the takes on Cassian and Pachomian practices promoted by Baumstark and his disciples) and others notwithstanding, the liturgists continue to insist that the monastic Office did not have an ecclesial dimension, but was directed purely at individual meditation. [2]  

The claim that St Benedict subscribed to a very literal interpretation of the injunction to pray without ceasing, and the total rejection of an ecclesial dimension to the monastic Office, has had, I think, dire consequences on twentieth and twenty-first century monasticism, so it is worth taking a much closer look at this issue.  My own view, as I hope to show as this series unfolds, is that this is really a case of 'both/and': both the monastic and non-monastic liturgies were, from the beginning intended to be both ecclesial and foster individual devotion.  

In this post I plan to provide something of an overview of the debate, and take a look at the Rule of Arles in this regard.  In the next two posts, I will look at Agaune and the Benedictine traditions respectively.

What does it mean to pray without ceasing?

There are several difficulties with the view that the Benedictine Office is directed at the aim of literally praying without ceasing, as many others have pointed out - not least that, in stark contrast to some of the other rules of the time such as that of Caesarius of Arles, the Benedictine Rule never actually quotes this Scriptural injunction.  Nor does it instruct monks to recite the psalms or pray while working, or provide for spiritual reading during manual labour (as Caesarius of Arles Rule does) for example. [3]

All the same, St Benedict does, as we shall see, allude to one of the related Scriptural formulas on continuous prayer, noted in the previous post, namely Psalm 1's description of the blessed man who meditates the law of the Lord day and night. And others have suggested that it is not so much that St Benedict did not implicitly have this injunction in mind, but rather that he interpreted it rather more symbolically (the seven repetitions of O God come to my aid, for example, meaning completeness) than literally for each individual monk or nun. [4]

In fact, I would suggest, though, that the most fundamental issue is just what the formula really means, and in the foundation documents of the  monasteries of St Benedict and his contemporaries, one can find, I think, at least three competing interpretations of what it means to pray without ceasing.

It is these different interpretations that I want to start teasing out over the next few posts, as one of the key forces that shaped the particular form of the Benedictine office, and differentiated it from others.

St John Cassian on praying without ceasing

Dom De Vogue's argument was basically that St Benedict instructed his monks to read the Institutes and Conferences of St John Cassian, and Cassian, in his conferences argued that the injunction (from 1 Thess 5:17) should be fulfilled literally.

It is true that Cassian urged the monk to learn as much Scripture by heart as possible, in order that it might constantly be turned over in his mind.  He also urged them to repeat the formula that opens the day hours of the Benedictine office ‘O God come to my aid, O Lord make haste to help me’, not just seven times a day, as St Benedict instructed, but continuously:

We must then ceaselessly and continuously pour forth the prayer of this verse, in adversity that we may be delivered, in prosperity that we may be preserved and not puffed up. Let the thought of this verse, I tell you, be conned over in your breast without ceasing. Whatever work you are doing, or office you are holding, or journey you are going, do not cease to chant this. When you are going to bed, or eating, and in the last necessities of nature, think on this. This thought in your heart maybe to you a saving formula, and not only keep you unharmed by all attacks of devils, but also purify you from all faults and earthly stains, and lead you to that invisible and celestial contemplation, and carry you on to that ineffable glow of prayer, of which so few have any experience. [5]

Memorization of Scripture, and most especially the psalms, certainly remained a key element of the monastic way of life for many centuries.

It is less obvious though, that St Benedict put quite the same emphasis on this, as opposed to active study of Scripture, as Cassian had though, in contrast to some of the other monasteries of his time. [6]

The nuns of Arles: waiting for the bridegroom

One of the key monasteries I mentioned in an earlier post was that of the nuns of Arles (founded circa 510), and it is worth starting with them on praying without ceasing, for its foundations documents are the only one of the three to explicitly refer to the injunction to Cassian's teaching on this subject, and to interpret it literally.

In chapter 21 of the Rule, Caesarius instructed the nuns to:

Set yourselves to praying without a break [sine intermissione], in accordance with that injunction of the Evangelist: pray all the time in order to be held worthy, and the apostle said: pray without ceasing. [7]

To understand where Caesarius was coming from on this, it is worth contrasting the opening paragraphs of St Benedict's and St Caesarius of Arles' Rules.  St Benedict famously opens his Rule with a call for the monk to enlist as a soldier of Christ, and to heed God's call for workers (for the vineyard). [8]

The Rule constructed for the nuns of Arles draws instead on another common monastic exemplar (employed in the monastic literature for both men and women), namely that of the wise virgins, waiting  with lamps burning and a good supply of oil, for the arrival of the bridegroom (Matthew 23). [9]

Bishop Caesarius explained the relevant of the image in the opening paragraphs of his Rule:

Because the Lord in his mercy has deigned to inspire and aid us to found a monastery for you, we have set down spiritual and holy counsels for you as to how you shall live in the monastery according to the prescriptions of the ancient Fathers.  That, with the help of God, you may be able to keep them as you abide unceasingly in your monastery cell, implore by assiduous prayer [assiduis orationibus] the visitation of the Son of God...Hence I ask you, consecrated virgins and souls dedicated to God, who, with your lamps burning, await with secure consciences the coming of the Lord, that, as you know I have labored in the constructing of a monastery for you, you beg by your holy prayers to have me made a companion of your journey; so that when you happily enter the kingdom with the holy and wise virgins, you may, by your suffrages, obtain for me that I may not remain outside with the foolish.… [10]

The good works of religious

One of the most common interpretations of the oil of the virgins was that it represented good works. [11]

But for Caesarius (in stark contrast to St Benedict's Rule), prayers and vigils - provided they were done for the right reasons - were the only good works religious needed to undertake.  In one of his sermons to monks, for example, he said:

you fulfill everything by your deeds…am I to give you advice to give generous alms when I know that out of love of Christ you have rejected all the wealth of the world, and when I see that you have given the Lord not only all your possessions but your very selves?...Do I dare to say that your holy selves should not be occupied with idle gossip, when I know that you are busy with reading and prayer, and that you meditate on the law of God by day and by night?  Only this one thing remains, then, dearest brethren, since the Lord has deigned to gather you and put you in a holy monastery as in a haven of rest and refreshment as if in some part of paradise.  By your continuous prayers may you strive to obtain for us that we who are ceaselessly tossed about by the waves of the world…[12]

The nuns had, moreover, a model to emulate in their founder-bishop, for the Vita commissioned by the sisters after Caesarius’ death claimed that:

He had him [God] in his heart not only in prayer and entreaty, but also at meals and on journeys, in conversation and in solitude, and in prosperity and adversity; even in his sleep he always had him with him.  Indeed, we ourselves and our fellow servants who stayed in his cell know what we are talking about.  Between interruptions in his sleep that his age not only required but also sometimes demanded because of sickness - his spirit being ever vigilant - he used to say, 'Come now, speak', as though he were advising someone to recite a psalm.  No one doubts that he used to sing psalms spiritually with the saints or that he certainly fulfilled that saying of the prophet, 'I sleep, and my heart remains on watch'.  [13]

The liturgy of Arles

The Arles liturgy was steeped in this theology.  

Seilac and McCrane have pointed out that one particularly notable feature of Caesarius’ discussion of the liturgy in the Rule for Nuns is that, although he drew on the (much earlier) Augustinian Rule's liturgical prescriptions when writing the text, he explicitly modified them so as to be more consistent with Cassian: where Augustine wrote 'be assiduous in prayer at the scheduled times and hours', Caesarius substituted "persevere in prayer without ceasing".  He also replaced Augustine's warning not to disturb those who wish to pray in the oratory with two scriptural invitations to pray without ceasing; and admonishes the nuns to always ruminate on something from Scripture. [14]

As the table below indicates, Caesarius required the nuns to nuns recite an enormous number of psalms each day. [15] They also read a large quantity of Scripture each week, both through formal lectio divina; Scriptural readings while they worked; and above all in the liturgy itself. [16] Each Saturday and Sunday night, for example, they said several ‘vigilia’, blocks of readings, prayers and psalms in addition to the core hours. [17]  And if they were struggling to stay awake, they were urged to stand up in order to fight off fatigue. [18]

Office design elements	Arles
‘Hours’	[7-9] Nocturns/Vigils, Lauds, Prime (S&S only), Terce, Sext, None, Lucernarium, Duodecima,
Estimated length of liturgy each day	12-16 hours per day
Extended/all night vigils	Yes – Fridays and Saturdays, feasts; some seasons
Psalter said over…	2-3 days, depending on season
Psalms per day	60-80+
Psalm order	Some fixed psalm for each hour; at Vigils, numerical order
Scriptural readings (other than psalms)	Scripture heavy - Readings at all of the hours except lucernarium + vigils of readings interspersed with prayers and psalms Sat&Sun plus winter.
Hymns, antiphons, prayers	yes
Explicitly intercessory elements	Capitella (psalm verse selections for particular intentions)

The Arles Rule was not though, the only Rule to attempt to legislate for perpetual prayer, and in the next post in this series I plan to look briefly at another regime that stood in contrast to St Benedict's, and that I think also helps to illuminate it, namely that of Agaune.

Notes

[1]  See Adalbert de Vogue, The Rule Of Saint Benedict: A Doctrinal and Spiritual Commentary (Cistercian Studies) (vol 1), 1983.  For a reassessment of the validity of the cathedral-monastic distinction 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.

[2] Armand Veilleux, La Liturgie Dans Le Cenobitisme Pachomien Au Quatrieme Siecle,  (Strrdia Anselmiana 57); Herder, Rome 1968. For a more recent restatement of the liturgists position see Terrance G Kardong, Benedict's Rule Atranslation and Commentary, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 1996,  See especially pp 209-217.

[3] Caesarius of Arles, Rule for Virgins, chapters 20-22.

[4] see in particular Fr Cassian Fulsom, Pray without ceasing.

[5]  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, Conference 10, ch 10.

[6] Only the short, repeated readings of St Benedict's Office are done from memory for example, and the Matins readings are read from the book except for the short weekday readings of summer (see in particular RB 9: 5, 8 - Quibus dictis, dicto versu, benedicat abbas et, sedentibus omnibus in scamnis, legantur vicissim a fratribus in codice super analogium tres lectione...Codices autem legantur in vigiliis divinae auctoritatis...10:1 ...excepto quod lectiones in codice, propter brevitatem noctium, minime legantur, sed pro ipsis tribus lectionibus una de veteri testamento memoriter dicatur; RB 12, on Lauds, says: Inde benedictiones et laudes, lectionem de Apocalypsis una ex corde...).  The time between Matins and Lauds in winter is allocated to memorization of the psalms and lessons for those who needed it (RB 8: Quod vero restat post vigilias a fratribus qui psalterii vel lectionum aliquid indigent meditationi inserviatur.), but this is separate for the time generally allocated to lectio divina (set out RB 48).

St Benedict also explicitly provided for the reading of the commentaries on the books, which may have reflected a more intellectual approach to Scripture in Italy more generally: his contemporary Cassiodorus, for example, lists out the appropriate commentaries to use of the monks of his Vivarium in his Institutes.

By way of contrast, there is no reference at all in the Rule of Caesarius to the reading of the Fathers, and the nuns of Arles were required to do more substantial readings from Scripture at several of the hours.  The eighteen readings of their Friday night vigil from Easter to Pentecost were to be said from memory. (RC66)

[7] Rule for nuns of Caesarius of Arles, chapter 21.  The full Latin text of the Rule, along with a french translation can be found in A de Vogue and J Courneau (trans and ed), Caesarius D'Arles, Oeuvres Monastique, Sources Chretienne 345, Paris, 1988, vol 1, pp 190 ff.  An English translation can in theory (though the book is very rare) be found in Maria Caritas McCarthy, The Rule for Nuns of St. Caesarius of Arles, Volume 16 of Studies in mediaeval history: New series, Catholic University of America, 1960.

[8]  Prologue.3,14: Ad te ergo nunc mihi sermo dirigitur, quisquis abrenuntians propriis voluntatibus, Domino Christo vero regi militaturus, oboedientiae fortissima atque praeclara arma sumis...Et quaerens Dominus in multitudine populi cui haec clamat operarium suum, iterum dicit.

[9]  For earlier treatments of the wise virgins as a monastic exemplar for men, see for example Aphrahat Demonstration 6 (on monks): "Whosoever is invited to the Bridegroom, let him prepare himself. Whosoever has lighted his lamp, let him not suffer it to go out. Whosoever is expectant of the marriage-cry, let him take oil in his vessel; and Oresius in  Pachomian Koinonia 3, Instructions, Letters, and Other Writings Of Saint Pachomius And His DisciplesTranslated and annotated by Armand Veilleux OCSO.  The image was a staple for female monasticism, cited in numerous treatments of the subject.

[10] Ch 1, trans McCarthy, in La Corte, Daniel Marcel, and Douglas J. McMillan. Regular Life: Monastic, Canonical, and Mendicant Rules, Second Edition. Series: TEAMS Documents of Practice Series. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2004, pp 58-9.

[11] Caesarius set this out himself in Sermon 156, which drew heavily on St Augustine's interpretation of the text: St Caesarius, Sermons, trans Mary Magdeleine Mueller, Fathers of the Church, 3 vols (31, 47, 66).  See also the discussion in Derek A. Olsen, Reading Matthew with Monks: Liturgical Interpretation in Anglo-Saxon England. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2015, pp228-9.

[12] ibid, Sermon 234.

[13] Caesarius of Arles: Life, Testament, Letters, trans W Klingshirn, Liverpool University Press, 1994, Bk II ch 5.

[14]  Colleen Maura McGrane, The rule of virgins: the evolution of enclosure, ABR 59:4 - DEC. 2008, drawing on L. de Rodorel de Seilhac, L’Utilisation par S. Césaire d’Arles de la règle de S. Augustin. Étude de terminologie et de doctrine monastiques (Rome, 1974).

[15] The liturgical provisions of the Rule are contained in chapters 66-70.

[16]  All the hours have at least 2 or 3 readings except Lauds (which is followed by lectio for two hours) and Lucernarium (followed immediately by duodecima).  On reading while at work, see chapter 20.

[17] On the vigils, see RC chs 66, 68, 69.

[18] RC 15.

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),