Praying the Office with St Benedict 6C - The intercessory components of the Office

In the last two posts in this series I have argued from contextual material that at least in the three groups of monasteries considered here (Agaune, Arles and those of St Benedict) the whole Office was viewed as intercessory in character, given for the salvation of the whole world, and most particularly to those closest to the religious - including their fellow religious, family, friends, benefactors and wider community - in late antiquity.

Later periods would add specific prayers and psalms to the Office: these, I would suggest, simply made explicit and specific what had always been implicit, rather than representing a fundamental change in the orientation of monastic life: the key difference, perhaps was that the interests of Church and State were more obviously firmly aligned from the early middle ages onwards.

But even in late antiquity there were already a number of specific features of the Office that would have signalled its intercessory intent to those who said and heard it.

The angelic salutation

I have previously pointed to the use of the angelic salutation from St Luke 2:12 (Glory to God in the highest; peace and good will to men on earth) in the liturgy of the Sleepless monks. If we assume that Agaune's liturgy was either directly or indirectly influenced by that of the Sleepless monks, as suggested earlier in the series, it probably did include explicit intercessory components.

In particlar, the liturgy of the Sleepless Monks, according to the late fifth century life of St Alexander Aketemoi, raised petitions to God on behalf of their fellow Christians by by singing the angelic salutation and making seventy-seven genuflections each day. [1] It is worth noting that this canticle was also used in the Office of Arles, at Lauds on Sundays. [2]

The Pater Noster

The use of the Our Father (Pater Noster) at each hour of the Benedictine Office may have been intended to play a similar function. [3]

St Benedict specifically gives the abbot's recitation of the prayer aloud at Lauds and Vespers an interpretation directed at the internal operation of the monastery:

The purpose of this is the removal of those thorns of scandal, or mutual offence, which are wont to arise in communities.  For, being warned by the covenant which they make in that prayer, when they say Forgive us as we forgive, the brethren will cleanse their souls of such faults. [4] 

This sevenfold recitation of the prayer each day, then, echoes the same Scriptural injunction to forgive others seventy times seven claimed for St Alexander's use of the angelic salutation and genuflection, albeit within the community rather than more broadly.

 But St Benedict surely also had in mind the broader interpretation of the prayer as well, since it was at the core of virtually every patristic exposition on prayer. In particular, its opening petition – thy kingdom come – surely perfectly expresses what the religious is meant to pray for. Caesarius of Arles, for example, instructed his nuns:

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…[5]

St Benedict would surely have found this perfectly in tune with his own take on the prayer, not least since his favourite Church Father, Cyprian makes it clear that the reference to Our Father is a reminder that the prayer is intended to be collective, made on behalf of all Christians:

Before all things, the Teacher of peace and the Master of unity would not have prayer to be made singly and individually, as for one who prays to pray for himself alone. For we say not My Father, which art in heaven, nor Give me this day my daily bread; nor does each one ask that only his own debt should be forgiven him; nor does he request for himself alone that he may not be led into temptation, and delivered from evil. Our prayer is public and common; and when we pray, we pray not for one, but for the whole people, because we the whole people are one. [6]

Capitella, litanies and collects

I also noted earlier that the Arles Office included 'capitella', psalm verses collected together to cover particular intentions.

St Benedict doesn't include either collects (perhaps because of his Office's lay character) or capitella, but he does include the short litany 'Lord have mercy; Christ have mercy; Lord have mercy' as a conclusion to each hour. [7]

Towards heaven

The clearest signal (at least to Patristic eyes) of the intercessory nature of St Benedict’s Office though, is arguably embedded in number symbolism, programmed into its fundamental design.  

Modern eyes tend to be oblivious to the symbolism of the numbers included in Scripture and the liturgy.  Patristic writers, however, all saw deep meaning in the numbers mentioned in Scripture, and St Augustine in particular devoted extensive exegesis to it.

That St Benedict put considerable stock on this symbolism is suggested in the Rule and Office both explicitly, for example in his allusion to the 'sacred number seven' in his discussion of the number of day hours; and implicitly, for example in his discussion of the core of his spiritual theology in the first seven chapters of the Rule, and then description of the Office in the next twelve. [8]  

At the start of this series  I discussed one piece of symbolism employed by St Benedict, in the forty psalms said each day in the Office, a number that can be seen as symbolising our preparation for entering heaven.

A second important piece of number symbolism that I want to touch briefly on here is that associated with his insistence on saying all 150 psalms each week. [9]

Variable and fixed numbers of psalms in the Office

Although, as we saw earlier in the series, Cassian had insisted that the proper form of the monastic Office involved a fixed number of psalms each day (viz twelve at Vespers and Matins, and three at the little hours), in reality the more common form of the early Office, at least in the West, did not necessarily say the same number of psalms each day throughout the year.

Instead, the length of the Night office in particular varied with the seasons, and the number at the day hours could differ on Sundays and feasts.  The Office described by St Augustine's Rule (which may have reflected the practice of Rome in his time) took this form, as did that of Arles, that of the Master, and the Roman secular office described in the Liber Diurnis and used by suburbican bishops and in the tituli. [10] The logical consequence of the variable psalmody model was of course that the entire psalter was not said within any fixed period of time in the Office itself (though it may have been in private recitation).

It is unclear whether the Office Cassian advocated involved saying all of the psalms in the context of the Office itself in a particular period: the Egyptian and Palestinian Offices he described more likely used only a fixed selection of psalms said each day, with the remainder being said privately by the monk in his cell. [11]

In contrast, St Benedict's Rule (which may or may not reflect a recent contemporaneous change in the Roman basilican Office) provides us with the first documented insistence that all the psalms be said within a particular time period, viz a week. [12]

The sacred number 150

Patristic era writers supply several several explanations for the significance of the number of psalms, a favourite being it representing the Old creation/covenant (ie the seven days of creation) plus the eighth day of the New, and the link to the fifteen steps of the inner temple, which in turn symbolised the ascent to heaven in the corresponding Gradual Psalms. St Augustine, for example, specifically christened 150 assacred, by dint of the number of psalms. In his commentary on the '70 or 80 years of life' to which man can aspire (on Psalm 89), he drew a number of important connections:

Moreover, seventy and eighty years equal a hundred and fifty; a number which the Psalms clearly insinuate to be a sacred one. One hundred and fifty have the same relative signification as fifteen, the latter number being composed of seven and eight together: the first of which points to the Old Testament through the observation of the Sabbath; the latter to the New, referring to the resurrection of our Lord. Hence the fifteen steps in the Temple. Hence in the Psalms, fifteen songs of degrees. Hence the waters of the deluge overtopped the highest mountains by fifteen cubits: and many other instances of the same nature. [13]

But it is probably significant that it is one of St Benedict’s contemporaries, Cassiodorus, who expands on the link St Augustine made between the number of psalms and the Great Flood:

."..we have observed that through the Lord's generosity the earth was cleansed of its sins after one hundred and fifty days, when the flood covered the earth.  So the spiritual depth of the psalms with their perennial cleansing purifies the hearts of men until Judgment Day; and from this we experience a saving flood which washes clean our minds befouled with sins." [14]

The monk’s daily and weekly ‘pensum’ of psalms then, can be seen as penance done on behalf of the people to purge them of their sins, so that, as Psalm 94 daily reminded the monk, all might hear and respond to God’s call, and thus enter the promised land of heaven.

And perhaps there is another implicit link which I will come back to in due course, in the spreading of the psalms over seven days, to the idea best articulated by St John Chrysostom and recently highlighted by Benedict Anderson, that the liturgy is about effecting the repair of creation, damaged by the Fall. [15]

And you can find the next post in this series here.

Notes

[1] Daniel Caner's Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity, University of California Press, 2002, pp 267.


[2] (RC 69).

[3] RB 13 12-14 - Plane agenda matutina vel vespertina non transeat aliquando, nisi in ultimo per ordinem oratio dominica, omnibus audientibus, dicatur a priore..., [14] Ceteris vero agendis, ultima pars eius orationis dicatur, ut ab omnibus respondeatur: Sed libera nos a malo.

[4] Propter scandalorum spinas quae oriri solent, [13] ut conventi per ipsius orationis sponsionem qua dicunt: Dimitte nobis sicut et nos dimittimus, purgent se ab huiusmodi vitio. 

[5] RC 1: Ch 1, trans McCarthy, in La Corte and McMillan ed Regular Life, Monastic, Canonical and Mendicant Rules, pp 58-9).

[6]  Cyprian, Treatise IV, Robert Ernest Wallis (trans), Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886.

[7] RB 9: [10] Post hos, lectio apostoli sequatur, ex corde recitanda, et versus, et supplicatio litaniae, id est Kyrie eleison.   Similarly, see RB 12, 13, 17.

[8] Due to their reflection of the pattern of creation, both seven and twelve were interpreted as meaning completeness, fulfillment or universality, with twelve having a governmental connotation (due tothe twelve tribes of Israel/number of apostles, etc).  The start of the Office material in chpater 8 is symbolically important too, given its association with the eighth day and thus ushering in of the era of the new creation: and St Benedict reinforces the importance of the number by having his monks rise at the eighth hour of the night, and concluding the chapter with a reference to Lauds, which he makes an explicit celebration of the Resurrection each day.

[9] RB 18:[22] 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.

[10] Augustine's, Ordo Monasterii gives a number of psalms for the Night Office that varies between 12, 15 and 18 psalms; the Rule of the Master specifies 12 to 16; the Cautio Episcopi (in the Liber Diurnis), 3 or 4 on weekdays, and nine on Sundays.

[11] For a discussion of the evidence see Armand Veilleux, La Liturgie Dans Le Cenobitisme Pachomien Au Quatrieme Siecle,  (Studia Anselmiana 57); Herder, Rome 1968 and 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.

[12]  The liturgist's case for a shift to a fixed weekly psalm cursus of the Roman prior to St Benedict (rather than being a product of St Gregory's revamp) largely hangs on the claim that the 'de psalmiis' responsories, a set of psalm based responsories used in Epiphanytide, were selected to reflect the psalms used each day of the week at Matins, and were originally used throughout the year.  However, as the earliest evidence for the set dates from the seventh century (and the earliest listing of them as a set from the eighth), the strength of the case must be assessed as thin at the best.  But thisis a topic on which I plan t write more elsewhere!

[13] St Augustine's commentary on Psalm 89.  See also St Gregory the Great on Job chapter 35: "For by the number seven he expressed the present time, ‘which is passed by periods of seven days. But by the number ‘eight’ he designated eternal life, which the Lord made known to us by His resurrection...Hence it is, that the Temple is ascended with fifteen steps, in order that it may be learned by its very ascent that by seven and eight our worldly doings may be carefully discharged, and an eternal dwelling may be providently sought for. Hence also it is that, by increasing a unit to ten, the Prophet uttered a hundred and fifty Psalms."

[14]  Cassiodorus, commentary on Psalm 150, P. G. Walsh (trans), Explanations of the Psalms, vol 3, Ancient Christian Writers Series, Paulist Press, 1991, pp 466.

[15] Benedict Anderson, Et erant semper in templo: The Divine Office as Priestly Temple Service,  paper was originally delivered at the Fota XI International Liturgical Conference, July 7-9, 2018. 

Praying the Office with St Benedict/6B - St Benedict's Office as intercession

In the previous post I looked briefly at the intercessory context of late antique monasticism, including in relation to the monasteries of Agaune and Arles.  In this post I want to look more particularly at  the intercessory context for St Benedict's Rule and Office; in the next part I plan to look at the explicitly intercessory features of St Benedict's Office.

St Benedict and intercessory prayer

The Benedictine Rule makes clear that intercessory prayer is important.  

There are several references to prayers with the objective of the mutual support for the brethren of the monastery. [1]

And chapter 20 of the Rule, entitled on reverence in prayer (De reverentia orationis) which immediately follows the section on the liturgy, opens with key instructions on how to petition God:

If we wish to prefer a petition to men of high station, we do not presume to do it without humility and respect; how much more ought we to supplicate the Lord God of all things with all humility and pure devotion...[2]

But are these references all to prayer outside the Office, as some have argued, or do they also refer to the Office itself as a whole? [3]

The cultural and theological context we have already examined lends at least some support to the claim that at the very least, intercession was an important component of the Office and monastic life more generally.

Nor was this unique to Gaul and the East: there are numerous contemporary references for Rome and the surrounding regions that make it clear the intercessory function was an important consideration at the time, not least in justifying child oblation (or the near equivalent  consecration of girls as virgins, for example, for which there is an interesting contemporary literature on the value to family and state of this offering). [4]

Soldiers for Christ

Perhaps the most important cue to St Benedict's intercessory orientation though, lies in his depiction of prayer as the battlefield, and the monk as a soldier: the soldier, after all, fights not just for himself, but in an army, to defend the people. [5]

Rene Choi in particular has drawn out the way in which St Benedict depicts prayer as a battle against the ancient enemy, with the monks drawing support from each other, arrayed in choir as if lined up in ranks on the battlefield. [6]

And St Bede the Venerable later devoted considerable attention to drawing out the dual image of soldier and worker so integral to the Rule in his exposition of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, where the workforce alternated between guarding the walls of Jerusalem (and those within) and rebuilding them. [7]

The service of monks

There is one other important image in the Rule though, that is worth considering here, and that is the priestly, or ministerial role of the monk.

St Benedict makes several allusions to the ministerial role of monks - and he is clearly not referring to the ministerial priesthood since he makes it clear that only a few of the monks were expected to be priests in his time (RB 62).

There are, however, repeated references to the monk's service (servitutis) in the house of God starting from the Prologue, but especially in chapter 16, when talking about the hours of the Office.  He also warns the abbot, for example, of the terrible fate of Heli, priest of Silo (1 Samuel 2), for his failure to stop the corruption of his sons (RB 2).

Perhaps the most important, though, is in the very opening words of the Rule contain several important allusions to the book of Sirach, and introduce the important word servitutis, which St Benedict several times uses in relation to the Office:

Rule: Ausculta o fili,  praecepta magistri,  et  inclina aurem cordis tui et admonitionem pii patris libenter excipe et efficaciter comple; ut ad eum per obedientiae laborem redeas, a quo per inobedientiae desidiam recesseras.

Sirach: Fili, accedens ad servitutem Dei sta in justitia et timore, et præpara animam tuam ad tentationem. 2  Deprime cor tuum, et sustine: inclina aurem tuam, et suscipe verba intellectus: et ne festines in tempore obductionis. [8]

'Servitutis' is most often used, in Scripture to refer to slave, or hard labour, especially the slavery of the Hebrews in Egypt, from which they were freed under Moses.  Only twice in the Old Testament, is it used in a more positive sense to mean ministry or service: aside from in Sirach, it is used in the book of Wisdom to Aaron's urgent intercessory prayer at Moses' urging, on behalf of the people in the face of God's killing anger.  In the Rule, though, St Benedict mostly uses the word consistently in the way it is used in Sirach and Wisdom, to mean the service of God. [9]

St Benedict and Bede on the efficacy of prayer

I noted above that it is sometimes argued that Chapter 20 of the Rule, on reverence in prayer, is about prayer outside of the Divine Office rather than including it.

That chapter argues that it is fervour - that is, humility, purity of heart and tears of compunction - not the length of the prayer or words that are important.  St Benedict argues that 'Our prayer, therefore, ought to be short and pure'.

While it is certainly possible that St Benedict is talking only about prayer outside the Office, the context of the two other, much longer, monastic offices I've been discussing in this series at the very least suggest that the chapter can also be read as a defence of his much shorter Office. [10]

That the issue was still live two centuries later is suggested by an interesting commentary of St Bede the Venerable on the Epistle of James. In particular, St James 5:16-18 points to the value of the 'assiduous' or continuous prayer, and gives the example of the trial by liturgical prayer between Elijah and the priests of Baal (3 Kings 18), where both set up sacrifices to their respective gods, but only Elijah is able to call up fire so that the holocaust is effected, and the drought is broken.

St Bede, in his commentary on the epistle, drew out the contrast between the long, loud and continuous - but ultimately fruitless - prayer of the priests of Baal, and Elijah's own short sharp prayers which gave instant results:

He illustrates by an appropriate example how much the unremitting prayer of the righteous person can accomplish, when Elijah by praying only once closed up the heavens for such a long time, kept showers away from the earth, denied fruits to mortals, and again, when he wished, when he ascertained that it was time...he prayed only once and restored the fruits of water which he had denied to the earth. [11]

It is worth noting, too, that Bede was obviously aware that the aftermath of the divinely given fire that effects the holocaust, Elijah instructed the King to go up the hill and watch for rain seven times, echoing the number of day hours - and on the seventh he sees the cloud heralding the saving rain.

May our prayers in this current crisis of pestilence be equally fervent and effective!

And for the next post in this series, continue on here.

Notes

[1] St Benedict, for example, insists on prayers for those making profession; the weekly servers and readers; those travelling outside the monastery; and monks who have been excommunicated for example (RB 28, 35, 38, 58, 67).  And as Choi has pointed out, the description of the cenobite in chapter one of the Rule is predicated on the mutual support necessary for prayer: Monachorum quattuor esse genera manifestum est.  Primum coenobitarum, hoc est monasteriale, militans sub regula vel abbate. Deinde secundum genus est anachoritarum, id est eremitarum, horum qui non conversationis fervore novicio, sed monasterii probatione diuturna, qui didicerunt contra diabolum multorum solacio iam docti pugnare,  et bene exstructi fraterna ex acie ad singularem pugnam eremi, securi iam sine consolatione alterius, sola manu vel brachio contra vitia carnis vel cogitationum, Deo auxiliante, pugnare sufficiunt.

[2] RB 20.1-2: Si, cum hominibus potentibus volumus aliqua suggerere, non praesumimus nisi cum humilitate et reverentia, quanto magis Domino Deo universorum cum omni humilitate et puritatis devotione supplicandum est.

[3]  See for example Terrance Kardong, Benedict's Rule: A Translation and Commentary, Liturgical Press, 1996, largely following De Vogue.

[4] RB 59.  See Kim Bowes, Private worship, public values, and religious change in late antiquity, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

[5] Prologue .3: Ad te ergo nunc mihi sermo dirigitur, quisquis abrenuntians propriis voluntatibus, Domino Christo vero regi militaturus, oboedientiae fortissima atque praeclara arma sumis.

[6] Renie Choi, Intercessory Prayer and the Monastic Ideal in the Time of the Carolingian Reforms, Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).  Choi points particularly to the implications of St Benedict's discussion of the distinction between hermits and coenobites in chapter 1 of the Rule, with its description of the battleline of brothers.

[7] Bede, On Ezra and Nehemiah, trans Scott deGregorio, Liverpool University Press, 2012.


[8] Prologue to the Rule: Hearken, my son, to the precepts of the master and incline the ear of thy heart; freely accept and faithfully fulfil the instructions of a loving father, that by the labour of obedience thou mayest return to him from whom thou hast strayed by the sloth of disobedience. To thee are my words now addressed, whosoever thou mayest be that renouncing thine own will to fight for the true King, Christ, dost take up the strong and glorious weapons of obedience.

Sirach 2: Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation.  [Humble] thy heart, and endure: incline thy ear, and receive the words of understanding: and make not haste in the time of clouds [calamity/disaster].  Wait on God with patience: join thyself to God, and endure, that thy life may be increased in the latter end.  Take all that shall be brought upon thee: and in thy sorrow endure, and in thy humiliation keep patience.  For gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation. Believe God, and he will recover thee: and direct thy way, and trust in him. Keep his fear, and grow old therein (Douay-Rheims translation).

[9] The word occurs in Pr 45 (ergo nobis dominici schola servitii), 2:18 ( Non convertenti ex servitio praeponatur ingenuus, nisi), RB2:20 (sub uno Domino aequalem servitutis militiam baiulamus), 5:3 (  Propter servitium sanctum quod professi sunt) in relation to monastic life more generally; and in 16:2, 18:24, 49:4, 50:4 in relation to the Office.

[10] St Benedict himself contrasts his Office with that 'of our holy fathers [who] strenuously fulfilled in a single day what I pray that we lukewarm monks may perform in a whole week'. (RB 18).

[11] David Hurst (trans), Bede the Venerable: Commentary on the Seven Catholic Epistles, Cistercian Publications, 1985.

Praying the psalms with St Benedict/6A: The Office as intercession

 In the last part  of this series on St Benedict's approach to the psalms I talked about the Office as the supreme good work of the monk, necessary at the very least as a foundation for his other manifestations of faith in works.

But there is another reason, I think, why late antique monastic thought considered the Office, at the very least, the most important of the good works the monk could do, and that lies in its intercessory power.

Is the monastic Office inherently intercessory?

The modern theological view, articulated for example, in Sacrosanctum Concilium, is that the Divine Office is inherently intercessory, an exercise, like the Mass, of the priesthood of Christ:

Christ Jesus, high priest of the new and eternal covenant, taking human nature, introduced into this earthly exile that hymn which is sung throughout all ages in the halls of heaven. He joins the entire community of mankind to Himself, associating it with His own singing of this canticle of divine praise. For he continues His priestly work through the agency of His Church, which is ceaselessly engaged in praising the Lord and interceding for the salvation of the whole world. She does this, not only by celebrating the eucharist, but also in other ways, especially by praying the divine office. [1] 

Although the modern office certainly includes prayers for specific intentions, this summary makes it clear, I think, that the intercessory power of the Office does not rest solely in those specific parts of it, but rather in the work as a whole.

Historians and liturgists, however, following Baumstark, have often argued that one of the key distinctions between earlier and later monastic liturgies is their intercessory orientation. [2] Many liturgists, for example, have argued that the early monastic office, in contrast to that of the cathedral, was primarily meditative in character, directed at personal transformation rather than having a strong ecclesial and intercessory dimension. [3]

Intercessory monasticism, it is frequently argued, was a rather later development, above all epitomized by the ‘powerhouses of prayer’ of the Carolingian period, dedicated above all to praying for the intentions of their founders, family, benefactors and the State. [4] This transformation, it is often claimed, necessitated the addition of special sets of psalms and prayers over and above the core Office set out in St Benedict’s Rule, for various specific intentions.

So the question I want to discuss in this post is, is the modern view of the Office, as inherently intercessory, anachronistic when applied to the sixth century Office of St Benedict?

I want to suggest that the answer is no.

The duty to pray for family, benefactors, city and the state?

The first point to note is that monks and nuns in late antiquity, as laypeople, shared in the general duties of all Christians, and that included the duty of intercessory prayer.

In a recent treatment of this subject, Renie Choi, for example, has convincingly shown that intercessory prayer for the State, for example, was always part of the monastic paradigm at least to some degree, in keeping with the general duty of Christians. [5] In 1 Timothy 2, after all, St Paul instructs that:

I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men: For kings, and for all that are in high station: that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety and chastity.

Early Christians took this instruction seriously, as Tertullian, for example made clear in his Apologia:

For we offer prayer for the safety of our princes to the eternal, the true, the living God, whose favour, beyond all others, they must themselves desire...Without ceasing, for all our emperors we offer prayer. We pray for life prolonged; for security to the empire; for protection to the imperial house; for brave armies, a faithful senate, a virtuous people, the world at rest, whatever, as man or Cæsar, an emperor would wish. [6]

A propitious offering?

More fundamentally, there is plentiful evidence to support the claim that although explicit prayers for particular intentions were undoubtedly used at times, the life - and especially the primary work of monks, the Office - was viewed as inherently intercessory in character in late antiquity.  

Justinian's Novel 133, for example, which justified his regulation of monastic life in the Empire on the basis of the benefits that flowed from the monk's holy lives and prayer:

For if the monks offer prayers to God with pure hands and unstained minds, it is clear that the army will fare well and cities will flourish—for when God is propitious and well-disposed, how could it be that the greatest peace and complete observance of the laws would not exist—the earth will bear the fruits and the sea will yield its products, these prayers conciliating the benevolence of God in favor of the whole empire...[7]

The Office of St John of Arles, for example, almost certainly included some explicitly intercessory components, in the form of the ‘capitella’, or selected psalm verses used to conclude the various hours. [8] It is clear though that Caesarius of Arles regarded not just the capitella, but the whole of the Office as intercessory.  At the end of the Rule, for example, he says:

I beseech and supplicate you before our Lord God, O most dutiful sisters...that by your charitable intercession keep watch for us day and night [ut pro nobis diebus ac noctibus intercession uestrae caritatis inuigilet] and in public prayer through your holy supplication, obtain, in solemnities by day or vigils by night, that your petition…for faults are not amended unless he remits them through the prayers of the saints...[9] 

In part, of course, this springs from the very nature of the core of the Office, the psalter, since so many of the psalms contain pleas for help, not just for the individual, but the for the people as a whole.

Heresy and monasticism

But as for the early christians under Roman rule, the difficulty many monasteries faced in late antiquity was that their most fundamental prayer for the state was surely not for its maintenance, but for its conversion, or in some cases, their own protection from the State itself: they could hardly pray for intentions often at odds with the faith.

When the young monk, later bishop, St Fulgentius arrived in Rome from North Africa in 500, for example, having been turned back from his Cassian-inspired trip to Egypt by the threat of the monophysite heresy that had infected the monks there, he was horrified to find the holy city feting the (one and only) visit of the Arian Ostrogoth Emperor Theodoric the Great. [10]  He hastily cut short his trip, stopping only to take in the martyr sites and do a quick round of the Roman monasteries.  Instead of learning more of monasticism as he had hoped, he returned to a life playing cat and mouse (coupled with long periods of exile in Sicily) with the Arian rulers of his own territory.

Around the same time, the young St Benedict also fled Rome, first for  a religious community at Affile, and the Subiaco, the former summer palace of the great persecutor-Emperor Nero.  Whether Benedict fled Rome for the same reasons as Fulgentius, or it was other events (such as the pagan revels of his fellow students, who ran naked through the streets of Rome to celebrate an old feast, clerical celibacy scandals, or worst of all, the violent Laurentian schism) that propelled him, the symbolism of twelve monasteries rising on the ruins of the old palace was surely a clear statement. [11]  In both cases, they may have prayed for the State, but for its salvation, for the coming of the new kingdom, rather than for the secular aims of the current regime.

The case of Arles

Caesarius of Arles, as a Catholic bishop in a territory mostly governed by Arians, had a far more ambivalent and attimes deeply strained set of political relationships to juggle, not least because the city was beseiged and changed hands several times during this period: indeed, the first monastery built outside the walls for his nuns was destroyed before it could be completed, and then had to be rebuilt in a safer location, within the walls.

The Life of St Caesarius commissioned by the nuns of St John's shortly after his death suggests that he solved the problem, at least in part, by focusing the monastery on the city itself, rather than its changing (and mostly heretical) overlords.  In particular, the Life explicitly claimed that the foundation was inspired by the desire for intercession for the city:

The man of God formulated the idea by divine inspiration from the ever-reigning Lord that the Church of Arles should be adorned and the city protected not only with countless troops of clergy but also by choirs of virgins. [12] 

The Rule written for the nuns similarly refers to the nun’s role in praying ‘for all the people’. [13]  

The case of Agaune

The monastery of Agaune is a particularly interesting case because unlike Arles or Subiaco, the monastery could, in theory at least, support the state, since its principal patron, Prince later King Sigismond, had converted from Arianism to Catholicism some time before he provided the funding to the monastery.

What is more hotly contested, however, just how far its intentions went so far as the connection to its secular rulers is concerned.

It is certainly clear both from correspondence of the time and the early Lives of the monasteries Abbots, that the bishops of Burgundy played a major role in supervising the foundation, and approving its constitutions. [14]

The funding for it, though, came from Sigismond, and a rather later (but on the whole plausible) life of Sigismond claims the idea of having a number of choirs maintaining a perpetual liturgy was his (inspired by a conversation with the martyrs on how to get them onside for his future rule).[15]

Still, there is after all, on the face of it, nothing inherently intercessory about a regime of twenty-four hours a day:  if it was Sigismond's idea, he could still have been motivated by strategic considerations as much as anything else. [16] And more importantly, perhaps, the constant singing of praise to God fits well with Eucherius of Lyon’s Passio which depicts the martyrs of Agaune as transformed into an angelic legion, gathered around God’s throne, devoted to his praise and adoration rather than intercession as such. [17]

There was of course some intercessory focus: in a sermon for the dedication of the monastery of Agaune, Bishop Avitus referred to the monk's prayers as a force for good for the region:

 You flee the world to be sure, but you pray for it, even though the saeculum has been shut out by you the act of which…may your sacred vigil keep watch over all, by which…May our Gaul flourish; let the world long for what [this] place has brought forth...Today let there begin an eternity for devotion and dignity for the region, with these men praising God in the present world, who will praise him equally in future. [18]

That intention of praying for the region though, seems to me a long way short of the claims made for it by Albrecht Diem, who has argued that the whole purpose of the foundation was to pray for the state of Burgundy, and particularly for its King, and that the militaristic language of the psalter would have taken on a whole new dimension in this light. [19] 

The choice of the monastery’s first Abbot seems particularly telling in this regard. According to his Vita, Hymnemodus had been a courtier to Sigismund’s Arian father, Gundobad, but had left the court to become a monk at Grigny.  The monks, though, were so afraid of possible retribution that they refused to accept him, so he became a hermit instead; it was only many years later that he was elected the monastery’s abbot, and then subsequently transferred to Agaune.  His Vita makes it clear that he saw a clear separation between what was owed to God, and what to the king, a distinction that would have become important in the event, given an early falling out between Sigismond and his bishops not long after became king. [20]  More importantly it was Hymnemodus, according to the Vita, who had already demonstrated his commitment to God over mammon, who set about recruiting the number of monk’s necessary to maintain a perpetual round of prayer, and presumably to organize and design its liturgy.

And Bishop Avitus' sermon at the monastery's dedication seems to have been designed to reinforce this eschatological orientation for its efforts: its perpetual liturgy, he argued, fitted perfectly with that described in the Book of Revelation, the future world to come after the descent of the jewel encrusted New Jerusalem, a place in which there would be no night:

Whose entry is not shut at night, because it has no night, whose doors are always wide open to the just, but inaccessible to the impious…[21]  

Intercession for friends, family and the state clearly were already important though, in this time, and I want to look at some of these in the context of the Benedictine Office in the next post. 

Notes

[1] Constitution On The Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, 83.

[2] A. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, rev ed  B. Botte, trans F L Cross, Westminster, 1958, pp 111 ff.

[3] For a critical review of the distinction, with an extensive bibliogrpahy, see Stig Simeon R. Frøyshov, The Cathedral–Monastic Distinction Revisited Part I: Was Egyptian Desert Liturgy a Pure Monastic Office?, Studia Liturgica 37 (2007), 198-216.

[4] The paradigm is breaking down however.  Renie Choi, in Intercessory Prayer and the Monastic Ideal in the Time of the Carolingian Reforms, OUP, 2016, provides a somewhat more nuanced account of the development of intercessory prayer as a core element of monastic spirituality; and Albrecht Diem as argued that Agaune actually represents the first example of this type of foundation, in Who is Allowed to Pray for the King? Saint-Maurice d’Agaune and the Creation of a Burgundian Identity, in Post-Roman Transitions: Christian and Barbarian Identities in the Early Medieval West, Walter Pohl and Gerda Heydemann (eds), pp. 47-88, Brepol 2014.

[5] ibid.

[6]  Apology chapter 30: Nos enim pro salute imperatorum deum invocamus aeternum, deum verum, deum vivum, quem et ipsi imperatores propitium sibi praeter ceteros malunt...precantes sumus semper pro omnibus imperatoribus. illis prolixam, imperium securum, domum tutam, exercitus fortes, senatum fidelem, populum probum, orbem quietum, quaecunque hominis et Caesaris vota sunt...

[7]  Fred H. Blume, Annotated Justinian Code, 2nd ed, 2018.

[8] Rule for Virgins of Caesarius of Arles (RC), ch 40.2. For the full text of the Rule see Caesarius of Arles, Oeuvres Monastique, de Vogue and Courreau ed and trans, 2 vols, Sources Chretienne 345, pp 190ff, ch 66.

[9] ibid, ch 72.  The translation is by Maria Caritas McCarthy, reproduced in Daniel Marcel Le Corte and Douglas J McMillan (eds) Regular Life: Monastic, Canonical, and Mendicant Rules (TEAMS Documents of Practice), 2nd ed, Toronto, 2004.

[10] Robert Eno (trans), Life of Fulgentius, in Fulgentius: Selected Works vol 1, Fathers of the Church 95, Catholic University of America 1997.

[11] Gregory the Great, Dialogues II, chapters 1-3.

[12] Caesarius of Arles: Life, Testament, Letters, trans Klingshirn, LUP, 1994, Life, Bk I:28.

[13] Rule for Virgins of Caesarius of Arles (RC), ch 40.2. For the full text of the Rule see Caesarius of Arles, Oeuvres Monastique, de Vogue and Courreau ed and trans, 2 vols, Sources Chretienne 345, pp 190ff.

[14] On the case for the bishops as the prime instigators of the foundation, see B. Rosenwein, ‘Perennial Prayer at Agaune’, in S. Farmer and B. Rosenwein (eds), Monks and Nuns, Saints and Outcasts: Religion in Medieval Society (Ithaca, 2000), pp. 37–56; see also Vita abbatum Acaunensium (BHL 142), § 3, éd. B. KRUSCH, MGH, SSRM, III, Hanovre, 1896.

[15] On Sigismond's Vita, see Claire Maître, De saint-maurice d’agaune à saint-denis-en-france :La louange ininterrompue, Fruit d’une volonté politique? ,Revue Mabillon, n.s., t. 21 (= t. 82), 2010, p. 5-36.

[16] See Anne-Marie Helvétius, L’abbaye de Saint-Maurice d’Agaune dans le haut Moyen Âge, in Autour de saint Maurice. Actes du colloque Politique, société et construction identitaire : autour de saint Maurice, 29 septembre-2 octobre 2009, Besançon (France )- Saint-Maurice (Suisse), dir. N. BROCARD, F. VANNOTTI et A. WAGNER, Fondation des Archives historiques de l’abbaye de Saint-Maurice, 2012, p. 113-131.

[17] Eucherius of Lyons, The Passion of the Martyrs of Agaune (translation in the appendix of Tim Vivian, Kim Vivian and Jeffrey Russell trans, The Life of the Jura Fathers The Life of the Holy Fathers Romanus, Lupicinus , and Eugendus, Abbots of the Monasteries in the Jura Mountains...,  Cistercian Studies Series no 178, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, 1999,  Studies Series 178); for the latin text see Passio Acaunensium martyrum, BHL-5737.

[18] Danuta Shanzer and Ian Wood (ed and trans), Avitus of Vienne: Letters and Selected Prose, LUP, 2002, pp 380.

[19] Albrecht Diem, Who is Allowed to Pray for the King? Saint-Maurice d’Agaune and the Creation of a Burgundian Identity, in Post-Roman Transitions: Christian and Barbarian Identities in the Early Medieval West, Walter Pohl and Gerda Heydemann (eds), pp. 47-88, Brepol 2014.

[20] Op cit. The key part of the Vita says: Sanctus igitur Hymnemodus natione quidem barbarus , sed morum benignitate modestus , ita inmunis ab omni feritate beneficio divinitatis effectus est , ut sub habitu saeculari iugum Christi blanda clementiae libertate portaret . Hic dum in aula regali sedulus famulator regiae potestati adsisteret hac tota mentis integritate commissum sibi ministerium adimpleret. Reddebat iuxta Salvatoris praeceptum , quae Dei erant Deo ; regi quoque inoffense debitum servitii e exhibebat. Nam cum , fervente spiritu, perfectae religionis intrinsecus maturasset consilium, mundanis spretis in lecebris et pompa tumentium potestatum dispecta, festinus  in monasterium Grenencense expetiit...

When he became King in 516 Sigismund quickly alienated many of his subjects through a bitter dispute with his bishops over their excommunication of one of his courtiers, leading him to exile most of his Catholic bishops for an extended period.  His subsequent murder of his eldest son precipitated attacks from both the Franks and Ostrogoths, culminated in the death of both him and his family at their hands in 523 (though he was later deemed a martyr).  The Kingdom itself did not survive him all that long as a separate entity: it was incorporated into Frankish territories in 534.

[21] Avitus letters...opcit; It is worth noting that the editors see this passage as a reference to Aen 6.127 and the gates of the Virgilian underworld, but Apocalypse 22 seems the more important allusion in the light of what follows, viz, Christ is its foundation, faith its frame, a wall its crown, a pearl its gates, gold its street, a lamb its light, its chorus the church.  Caesarius and other contemporaries such as Cassiodorus interpreted Revelation 22 not literally, but as depicting the Church inaugurated by Christ.

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 model of St Basil, with its emphasis on good works, and the line of exegesis sumarised by St Augustine, who, rather than insisting on the monk or nun be constantly ruminating on Scripture while they worked, ate, or even slept, provided an alternative solution to the problem by defining good works as prayer:

Praise the Lord, you say to your neighbour, he to you: when all are exhorting each other, all are doing what they exhort others to do. But praise with your whole selves: that is, let not your tongue and voice alone praise God, but your conscience also, your life, your deeds. For now, when we are gathered together in the Church, we praise: when we go forth each to his own business, we seem to cease to praise God. Let a man not cease to live well, and then he ever praises God....But God has willed that it should be in your choice for whom you will prepare room, for God, or for the devil: when you have prepared it, he who is occupant will also rule.  Therefore, brethren, attend not only to the sound; when you praise God, praise with your whole selves: let your voice, your life, your deeds, all sing. [1]

But in saying this, I don't want to suggest, as some have done, either that the Office (or at least the psalmic component of it), was not actually seen as constituting prayer at all (a theory propounds by some in the past); nor do I want to suggest that the Office does not play an absolutely crucial role in sustaining our ability to, as Psalm 1 puts it, 'meditate on the law of the Lord day and night.'

It is quite clear, I think, that  even though St Benedict took a much wider view of what constituted  good works appropriate to a monastic than others of his time such as Caesarius of Arles, the Divine Office was, for him, clearly the supreme good work: what after all could be preferred or put before the good work that is the Work of God. [2]?

Is the Office prayer at all?!

Before I go on, I thought I should briefly touch on the argument, popular in the 1970s and which still has its advocates today [3], following the work of Gabriel Bunge and others, that in late antiquity singing the psalms was not seen as prayer as such; instead the psalms were viewed as as akin to other Scriptural readings, that had to be turned into prayer through pauses between psalms, use of psalm collects, and other such devices. [4]

It is certainly true that some of St Benedict's contemporaries employed practices that have been seen as fitting this model. Most of the psalmody at the monastery of Arles that we have briefly looked at, for example, was responsorial rather than antiphonal; psalm collects do seem to have been employed there; and Scripture reading in general featured much more heavily in the Arles Office than in the Roman or Benedictine. [5]

But even if these practices reflect a view of psalms more as Scripture than as the prayerbook of the Church (a view I rather doubt), it was certainly not the only tradition.

 Athanasius' famous Letter to Marcellinus for example, makes it clear that the psalter not only services as Scripture and a personal spiritual guide, but also gives us words we can use as our own prayers, identifying particular ones as appropriate to our various needs.

Similarly St Basil the Great, in his sermon on Psalm 1, highlights not only their ability to teach us doctrine; to calm and soothe out souls; but also represent a means of asking for help, and bind us together:

A psalm forms friendships, unites those separated, conciliates those at enmity. Who, indeed, can still consider as an enemy him With whom he has uttered the same prayer to God? So that psalmody, bringing about choral singing, a bond, as it were, toward unity, and joining the people into a harmonious union of one choir, produces also the greatest of blessings, charity. A psalm is a city of refuge from the demons; a means of inducing help from the angels, a weapon in fears by night, a rest from toils by day, a safeguard for infants, an adornment for those at the height of their vigor, a consolation for the elders, a most fitting ornament for women... [6]

And it is this tradition, I would suggest, that St Benedict's Office follows: the psalmody is antiphonal, not responsorial; there is no mention of pauses or prostrations between psalms; nor is there any mention of psalm collects. [7]

The psalms, it is true, had a special status in St Benedict's Office, but I don't think we should assume, as some argue, that Chapter 20 of the Rule, on prayer, is only referring to prayer outside the Office. [8]  Rather, it seems to me that St Benedict's comments on the importance of reverence, fervour, and short but pure prayer, is something of a defence of his Office in the face of  other contemporary traditions, as well as instruction on prayer more generally.

Short but fervent?

That emphasis on frequent, rather than literally continual prayer becomes even clearer if one compares the Benedictine Office to the two other contemporary Offices we've talked about in this series, those of Agaune and Arles.

The table below shows just how much shorter the Benedictine Office is compared to that of the two contemporary offices we've been looking at: the Benedictine is around half the length of that of Arles, and a third of that of Agaune.

As a consequence, the Benedictine psalter spread the psalms over a much longer period, a week compared to the day or couple of days of the others.

Moreover, St Benedict's Office wasn't just lighter on psalmody; at least compared to the Arles Office, it seems to have been much lighter on Scripture reading as well.

Table: The liturgies of the three monasteries [9]

	Agaune	Arles	Benedictine
Foundation details	Monks Royal foundation (Sigismond) Dedicated to St Maurice and the Theban legion. Located in Burgundy. Refounded c515.	Nuns (though similar rule for monks). Episcopal foundation (Caesarius of Arles). Dedicated to St John the Evangelist and St John the Baptist. Located in Gaul (Ostrogoth Kingdom), c510.	Monks (and nuns). Lay foundation (St Benedict with lay patrons). MC dedicated to St Martin of Tours and St John the Baptist. Located in Italy. Foundation dates Subiaco c505, Monte Cassino, c529;  ?Plombariola;  Terracina, c545.
Length of Office	24/7 in shifts	12-16 hours per day	4-8 hrs per day
Extended/all night vigils	Always	Yes – Fridays and Saturdays, feasts; some seasons	No
Psalter said over…	Day+	?2-3 days, depending on season	Week
Psalms per day	Unknown – estimated 450?	60-80+	40
Psalm order	Unknown	Some fixed psalm for each hour; at Vigils, numerical order	Selected for each hour
Scriptural readings (other than psalms)	Unknown	Readings at all of the hours except lucernarium + vigils of readings interspersed with prayers and psalms Sat&Sun plus winter.	Scripture light – short verse only at all hours except Night Office on Sundays and winter weekdays. Summer weekdays:  short verses at all hours only Winter: three readings and responsories at weekday Nocturns
Hymns, antiphons, prayers	yes	yes	Yes – but no collects
Divided into x ‘hours’ per day	[?7]	[7-9] Nocturns/Vigils, Lauds, Prime (S&S only), Terce, Sext, None, Lucernarium, Duodecima,	8 – Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, Compline

Liturgy sustains us

One possible explanation for St Benedict's very different balance between liturgy and other good works to Agaune and Arles lies perhaps in St Augustine's argument that liturgy is needed to sustain us as we do good works.  And in St Augustine's view, the amount of time needed for formal prayer is not minimal or minimalist.  In Letter 130 the saint explained:

When we cherish uninterrupted desire along with the exercise of faith and hope and charity, we pray always. 

But at certain stated hours and seasons we also use words in prayer to God, that by these signs of things we may admonish ourselves, and may acquaint ourselves with the measure of progress which we have made in this desire, and may more warmly excite ourselves to obtain an increase of its strength. 

For the effect following upon prayer will be excellent in proportion to the fervour of the desire which precedes its utterance. And therefore, what else is intended by the words of the apostle: Pray without ceasing, than, Desire without intermission, from Him who alone can give it, a happy life, which no life can be but that which is eternal? This, therefore, let us desire continually from the Lord our God; and thus let us pray continually. 

But at certain hours we recall our minds from other cares and business, in which desire itself somehow is cooled down, to the business of prayer, admonishing ourselves by the words of our prayer to fix attention upon that which we desire, lest what had begun to lose heat become altogether cold, and be finally extinguished, if the flame be not more frequently fanned. 

Completeness...

There was also a certain symbolism in St Benedict's insistence on praying seven times a day (and again in the night), given the association between the 'sacred number seven', as meaning completeness due to the connection (which the saint alludes to in his explanation) to the number of days of creation, and eight, as symbolism the new age inaugurated by Christ. [10] St Augustine, for example, interpreted seven times as signifying continuously or always:

For whence is that which is said, seven times in a day will I praise you? Does a man sin who does not praise the Lord so often? What then is seven times will I praise, but I will never cease from praise? For he who says seven times, signifies all time. [11]

In the next post I will explore the importance of short but fervent prayer more, in the context of the Office and intercessory prayer.

Notes

[1] St Augustine, Expositions on the Pslams, Psalm 148, J.E. Tweed, trans, From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 8. Edited by Philip Schaff. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888.

[2] RB 43.3: Ergo nihil operi Dei praeponatur.

[3]  See for example Columba Stewart, Benedictine Monasticism and Mysticism in Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism, 2013.

[4] Gabriel Bunge, Earthen Vessels: The Practice of Personal Prayer According to the Patristic Tradition, trans Michael J Miller, Ignatius Press 2002 (original  German ed, 1996).

[5] See chapters 66-68 of the Rule for nuns of Caesarius of Arles (for the full text of the Rule itself, see Caesarius of Arles, Oeuvres Monastique, de Vogue and Courreau ed and trans, 2 vols, Sources Chretienne 345, 398).

[6] St Basil the Great, Exegetical Homilies, Sr Agnes Clare Way, trans, Fathers of the Church no 46, Homily on Psalm 1.

[7] Joseph Dyer, in the The Singing of Psalms in the Early-Medieval Office, Speculum, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Jul., 1989), pp. 535-578 (and subsequent articles) argued that the switch to unison singing and alternating choirs happened rather later than Benedict's time.  More recent studies, however, have challenged this view, pointing to descriptions of alternating choirs in the sixth century monastic literature, including in St Gregory's Dialogues (IV:15), and in the Rule of Paul and Stephen.

[8]  See in particular Adalbert De Vogue, The Rule Of Saint Benedict: A Doctrinal and Spiritual Commentary (Cistercian Studies) 1999.

[9]  Based on the Rule of St Benedict, chapters 8-19; Rule of Caesarius of Arles, chapters 66-72; Laurent Ripart, De lérins à agaune: Le monachisme rhodanien reconsidéré, in Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, Monachesimi d’oriente e d’occidente nell’alto medioevo, Spoleto, 2016, pp123-193.

[10] St Benedict cites two verses of Psalm 118 in support of his construction of the hours in  RB 16: Ut ait propheta: septies in die laudem dixi tibi. Qui septenarius sacratus numerus a nobis sic implebitur...quia de his diurnis horis dixit: Septies in die laudem dixi tibi. [4] Nam de nocturnis vigiliis idem ipse propheta ait: Media nocte surgebam ad confitendum tibi.Ergo his temporibus referamus laudes Creatori nostro super iudicia iustitiae suae...

[11] Sermon 45.

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 symbollically, 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