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 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.