To him who is specially hers, she who is singularly his.
Or: To the lord especially, she who is singularly his.1
I would not want to give you cause for finding me disobedient in anything, so I have set the bridle of your injunction on the words which issue from my unbounded grief; thus in writing at least I may moderate what it is difficult or rather impossible to forestall in speech. For nothing is less under our control than the heart – having no power to command it we are forced to obey. And so when its impulses move us, none of us can stop their sudden promptings from easily breaking out, and even more easily overflowing into words which are the every-ready indications of the heart’s emotions: as it is written, ‘A man’s words are spoken from the overflowing of the heart.’2 I will therefore hold my hand from writing words which I cannot restrain my tongue from speaking; would that a grieving heart would be as ready to obey as a writer’s hand! And yet you have it in your power to remedy my grief, even if you cannot entirely remove it. As one nail drives out another hammered in,3 a new thought expels an old, when the mind is intent on other things and forced to dismiss or interrupt its recollection of the past. But the more fully any thought occupies the mind and distracts it from other things, the more worthy should be the subject of such a thought and the more important it is where we direct our minds.
And so all we handmaids of Christ, who are your daughters in Christ, come as suppliants to demand of your paternal interest two things which we see to be very necessary for ourselves. One is that you will teach us how the order of nuns began and what authority there is for our profession. The other, that you will prescribe some Rule for us and write it down, a Rule which shall be suitable for women, and also describe fully the manner and habit of our way of life, which we find was never done by the holy Fathers. Through lack and need of this it is the practice today for men and women alike to be received into monasteries to profess the same Rule, and the same yoke of monastic ordinance is laid on the weaker sex as on the stronger.
At present the one Rule of St Benedict4 is professed in the Latin Church by women equally with men, although, as it was clearly written for men alone, it can only be fully obeyed by men, whether subordinates or superiors. Leaving aside for the moment the other articles of the Rule: how can women be concerned with what is written there about cowls, drawers or scapulars?5 Or indeed, with tunics or woollen garments worn next to the skin, when the monthly purging of their superfluous humours must avoid such things? How are they affected by the ruling for the abbot, that he shall read aloud the Gospel himself and afterwards start the hymn?6 What about the abbot’s table, set apart for him with pilgrims and guests? Which is more fitting for our religious life: for an abbess never to offer hospitality to men, or for her to eat with men she has allowed in? It is all too easy for the souls of men and women to be destroyed if they live together in one place, and especially at table, where gluttony and drunkenness are rife, and wine which leads to lechery7 is drunk with enjoyment. St Jerome warns us of this when he writes to remind a mother and daughter that ‘It is difficult to preserve modesty at table.’8 And the poet himself, that master of sensuality and shame, in his book called The Art of Love describes in detail what an opportunity for fornication is provided especially by banquets:
When wine has sprinkled Cupid’s thirsty wings
He stays and stands weighed down in his chosen place …
Then laughter comes, then even the poor find plenty,
Then sorrow and care and wrinkles leave the brow …
That is the time when girls bewitch men’s hearts,
And Venus in the wine adds fire to fire.9
And even if they admit to their table only women to whom they have given hospitality, is there no lurking danger there? Surely nothing is so conducive to a woman’s seduction as woman’s flattery, nor does a woman pass on the foulness of a corrupted mind so readily to any but another woman; which is why St Jerome particularly exhorts women of a sacred calling to avoid contact with women of the world.10 Finally, if we exclude men from our hospitality and admit women only, it is obvious that we shall offend and annoy the men whose services are needed by a convent of the weaker sex, especially if little or no return seems to be made to those from whom most is received.
But if we cannot observe the tenor of this Rule, I am afraid that the words of the apostle James may be quoted to condemn us also: ‘For if a man keeps the whole law but for one single point, he is guilty of breaking all of it.’ That is to say, although he carries out much of the law he is held guilty simply because he fails to carry out all of it, and he is turned into a law-breaker by the one thing he did not keep unless he fulfilled all the law’s precepts. The apostle is careful to explain this at once by adding: ‘For the One who said “Thou shalt not commit adultery” said also “Thou shalt not commit murder.” You may not be an adulterer, but if you commit murder you are a law-breaker all the same.’11 Here he says openly that a man becomes guilty by breaking any one of the law’s commandments, for the Lord himself who laid down one also laid down the other, and whatever commandment of the law is violated, it shows disregard of him who laid down the law in all its commandments, not in one alone.
However, to pass over those provisions of the Rule which we are unable to observe in every detail, or cannot observe without danger to ourselves: what about gathering in the harvest – has it ever been the custom for convents of nuns to go out to do this, or to tackle the work of the fields? Again, are we to test the constancy of the women we receive during the space of a single year, and instruct them by three readings of the Rule,12 as it says there? What could be so foolish as to set out on an unknown path, not yet defined, or so presumptuous as to choose and profess a way of life of which you know nothing, or to take a vow you are not capable of keeping? And since discretion is the mother of all the virtues and reason the mediator of all that is good, who will judge anything virtuous or good which is seen to conflict with discretion and reason? For the virtues which exceed all bounds and measure are, as Jerome says, to be counted among vices.13 It is clearly contrary to reason and discretion if burdens are imposed without previous investigation into the strength of those who are to bear them, to ensure that human industry may depend on natural constitution. No one would lay on an ass a burden suitable for an elephant, or expect the same from children and old people as from men, the same, that is, from the weak as from the strong, from the sick as from the healthy, from women, the weaker sex, as from men, the stronger one. The Pope St Gregory was careful to make this distinction as regards both admonition and precept in the twenty-fourth chapter of his Pastoral Rule:14 ‘Therefore men are to be admonished in one way, women in another; for heavy burdens may be laid on men and great matters exercise them, but lighter burdens on women, who should be gently converted by less exacting means.’
Certainly those who laid down rules for monks were not only completely silent about women but also prescribed regulations which they knew to be quite unsuitable for them, and this showed plainly enough that the necks of bullock and heifer should in no sense be brought under the same yoke of a common Rule, since those whom nature created unequal cannot properly be made equal in labour. St Benedict, who is imbued with the spirit of justice in everything, has this discretion in mind when he moderates everything in the Rule according to the quality of men or the times, so that, as he says himself at one point, all may be done in moderation.15 And so first of all, starting with the abbot himself, he lays down that he shall preside over his subordinates in such a way that (he says)
he will accommodate and adapt himself to them all in accordance with the disposition and intelligence of each individual. In this way he will suffer no loss in the flock entrusted to him but will even rejoice to see a good flock increase … At the same time he must always be conscious of his own frailty and remember that the bruised reed must not be broken … He must also be prudent and considerate, bearing in mind the good sense of holy Jacob when he said: ‘If I drive my herds too hard on the road they will all die in a single day.’ Acting on this, and on other examples of discretion, the mother of the virtues, he must arrange everything so that there is always what the strong desire and the weak do not shrink from.16
Such modification of regulations is the basis of the concessions granted to children, and the old and the weak in general, of the feeding of the lector or weekly server in the kitchen before the rest,17 and in the monastery itself, the provision of food and drink in quality or quantity adapted to the diversity of the people there. All these matters are precisely set out in the Rule. He also relaxes the set times for fasting according to the season or the amount of work to be done, to meet the needs of natural infirmity. What, I wonder, when he adapts everything to the quality of men and seasons, so that all his regulations can be carried out by everyone without complaint – what provision would he make for women if he laid down a Rule for them like that for men? For if in certain respects he is obliged to modify the strictness of the Rule for the young, the old and weak, according to their natural frailty or infirmity, what would he provide for the weaker sex whose frailty and infirmity is generally known?
Consider then how far removed it is from all reason and good sense if both women and men are bound by profession of a common Rule, and the same burden is laid on the weak as on the strong. I think it should be sufficient for our infirmity if the virtue of continence and also of abstinence makes us the equals of the rulers of the Church themselves and of the clergy who are confirmed in holy orders, especially when the Truth says: ‘Everyone will be fully trained if he reaches his teacher’s level.’18 It would also be thought a great thing if we could equal religious laymen; for what is judged unimportant in the strong is admired in the weak. In the words of the Apostle: ‘My strength is made perfect in weakness.’19 But lest we should underestimate the religion of the laity, of men like Abraham, David and Job, although they had wives, Chrysostom reminds us20 in his seventh sermon on the Letter to the Hebrews:
There are many ways whereby a man may struggle to charm that beast. What are they? Toil, study, vigils. ‘But what concern are they of ours, when we are not monks?’ Do you ask me that? Rather, ask Paul, when he says: ‘Be watchful in all tribulation and persevere in prayer’ and ‘Give no more thought to satisfying the bodily appetites.’21 For he wrote these things not only for monks but for all who were in the cities, and the layman should not have greater freedom than the monk, apart from sleeping with his wife. He has permission for this, but not for other things; and in everything he must conduct himself like a monk. The Beatitudes too, which are the actual words of Christ, were not addressed to monks alone, otherwise the whole world must perish … and he would have confined the things which belong to virtue within narrow limits. And how can marriage be honourable22 when it weighs so heavily on us?
From these words it can easily be inferred that anyone who adds the virtue of continence to the precepts of the Gospel will achieve monastic perfection. Would that our religion could rise to this height – to carry out the Gospel, not to go beyond it, lest we attempt to be more than Christians! Surely this is the reason (if I am not mistaken) why the holy Fathers decided not to lay down a general Rule for us as for men, like a new law, nor to burden our weakness with a great number of vows; they looked to the words of the Apostle: ‘Because law can bring only retribution; but where there is no law there can be no breach of law.’ And again, ‘Law intruded to multiply law-breaking.’23 The same great preacher of continence also shows great consideration for our weakness and appears to urge the younger widows to a second marriage, when he says: ‘It is my wish, therefore, that young widows shall marry again, have children and preside over a home. Then they will give no opponent occasion for slander.’24 St Jerome also believes this to be salutary advice, and tells Eustochium of the rash vows taken by women, in these words: ‘But if those who are virgins are still not saved, because of other faults, what will become of those who have prostituted the members of Christ and turned the temple of the Holy Spirit into a brothel? It were better for a man to have entered matrimony and walked on the level than to strain after the heights and fall into the depths of hell.’25 St Augustine too has women’s rashness in taking vows in mind when he writes to Julian in his book On the Continence of Widows: ‘Let her who has not begun, think it over, and her who has made a start, continue. No opportunity must be given to the enemy, no offering taken from Christ.’26
Consequently, canon law has taken our weakness into account, and laid down that deaconesses must not be ordained before the age of forty, and only then after thorough probation, while deacons may be promoted from the age of twenty. And in the monasteries there are those called the Canons Regular of St Augustine who claim to profess a certain rule and think themselves in no way inferior to monks although we see them eating meat and wearing linen. If our weakness can match their virtue, it should be considered no small thing. And Nature herself has made provision for our being safely granted a mild indulgence in any kind of food, for our sex is protected by greater sobriety. It is well known that women can be sustained on less nourishment and at less cost than men, and medicine teaches that they are not so easily intoxicated. And so Macrobius Theodosius in the seventh book of his Saturnalia notes that:
Aristotle says that women are rarely intoxicated, but old men often. Woman has an extremely humid body, as can be known from her smooth and glossy skin, and especially from her regular purgations which rid the body of superfluous moisture. So when wine is drunk and merged with so general a humidity, it loses its power and does not easily strike the seat of the brain when its strength is extinguished.
Again:
A woman’s body which is destined for frequent purgations is pierced with several holes, so that it opens into channels and provides outlets for the moisture draining away to be dispersed. Through these holes the fumes of wine are quickly released. By contrast, in old men the body is dry, as is shown by their rough and wrinkled skin.27
From this it can be inferred how much more safely and properly our nature and weakness can be allowed any sort of food and drink; in fact we cannot easily fall victims to gluttony and drunkenness, seeing that our moderation in food protects us from the one and the nature of the female body as described from the other. It should be sufficient for our infirmity, and indeed, a high tribute to it, if we live continently and without possessions, wholly occupied by service of God, and in doing so equal the leaders of the Church themselves in our way of life or religious laymen or even those who are called Canons Regular and profess especially to follow the apostolic life.
Finally, it is a great sign of forethought in those who bind themselves by vow to God if they perform more than they vow, so that they add something by grace to what they owe. For the Truth says in his own words: ‘When you have carried out all your orders, say “We are useless servants and have only done our duty.”’28 Or, in plain words, ‘We are useless and good for nothing, and deserve no credit, just because we were content only to pay what we owed and added nothing extra as a gift.’ The Lord himself, speaking in a parable, says of what should be freely added: ‘But if you give more in addition, I will repay you on my return.’29
If indeed many of those who rashly profess monastic observance today would pay more careful attention to this, would consider beforehand what it is that they profess in their vows, and study closely the actual tenor of the Rule, they would offend less through ignorance, and sin less through negligence. As things are, they all hurry almost equally indiscriminately to enter monastic life: they are received without proper discipline and live with even less, they profess a Rule they do not know and are equally ready to despise it and set up as law the customs they prefer. We must therefore be careful not to impose on a woman a burden under which we see nearly all men stagger and even fall. We see that the world has now grown old, and that with all other living creatures men too have lost their former natural vigour: and, in the words of the Truth, amongst many or indeed almost all men love itself has grown cold.30 And so it would seem necessary today to change or to modify those Rules which were written for men in accordance with men’s present nature.
St Benedict himself was also well aware of this need to discriminate, and admits that he has so tempered the rigour of monastic strictness that he regards the Rule he has set out, in comparison with earlier institutes, as no more than a basis for virtuous living and the beginning of a monastic life. He says that ‘We have written down this Rule in order that by practising it we may show that we have attained some degree of virtue and the rudiments of monastic observance. But for anyone who would hasten towards perfection of the monastic life, there are the teachings of the holy Fathers, observance of which may lead a man to the summit of perfection.’ And again, ‘Whoever you are, then, who hasten to the heavenly kingdom, observe, with Christ’s help, this minimum Rule as a beginning, and then you will come finally to the higher peaks of doctrine and virtue, under the protection of God.’31 He also says specifically that whereas we read that the holy Fathers of old used to complete the psalter in a single day, he has modified psalmody for the lukewarm so as to spread the psalms over a week; the monks may then be content with a smaller number of them, as the clergy are.32
Moreover, what is so contrary to the religious life and peace of the monastery as the thing which most encourages sensuality and starts up disturbances, which destroys our reason, the very image of God in us, whereby we are raised above the rest of creation? That thing is wine, which the Scriptures declare to be the most harmful of any form of nourishment, warning us to beware of it. The wisest of wise men refers to it in Proverbs in these words:
Wine is reckless and strong drink quarrelsome; no one who delights in it grows wise … Who will know woe, as his father will, and quarrels, brawls, bruises without cause and bloodshot eyes? Those who linger late over their wine, and look for ready-mixed wine. Do not look at the wine when it glows and sparkles in the glass. It goes down smoothly, but in the end it will bite like a snake and spread venom like a serpent. Then your eyes will see strange sights, and your mind utter distorted words; you will be like a man sleeping in mid-ocean, like a drowsy helmsman who has lost his rudder, and you will say: ‘They struck me and it did not hurt, dragged me off and I felt nothing. When I wake up I shall turn to wine again …’33
And again:
Do not give wine to kings, O Lemuel, never to kings, for there is no privy council where drinking prevails. If they drink they may forget what they have decreed and neglect the pleas of the poor for their sons.34
In Ecclesiasticus too it is written: ‘Wine and women rob the wise of their wits and are a hard test for good sense.’35 Jerome himself also, when writing to Nepotian about the life of the clergy, and apparently highly indignant because the priests of the Law abstain from anything which could intoxicate them and surpass our own priests in such abstinence, says:
Never smell of wine, lest you hear said of you those words of the philosopher: ‘This is not offering a kiss but proffering a cup.’ The Apostle equally condemns priests who are given to drink, and the Old Law forbids it: ‘Those who serve the altar shall not drink wine nor strong drink.’ By ‘strong drink’ in Hebrew is understood any drink which can intoxicate, whether produced by fermentation, or from apple juice, or from honey-comb which has been distilled into a sweet, rough drink, or when the fruit of the date palm is pressed into liquid, or water is enriched with boiled grain. Whatever intoxicates and upsets the balance of the mind, shun it like wine.36
See how what is forbidden kings to enjoy is wholly denied to priests, and is known to be more dangerous than any food. And yet so spiritual a man as St Benedict himself is compelled to allow it to monks as a sort of concession to the times in which he lived. ‘Although,’ he says, ‘we read that wine is no drink for monks, yet because nowadays monks cannot be persuaded of this, etc.’37 He had read, if I am not mistaken, these passages in the Lives of the Fathers:
Certain people told abba Pastor that a particular monk drank no wine, to which he replied that wine was not for monks.
And further on:
There was once a celebration of the Mass on the Mount of abba Antony, and a jar of wine was found there. One of the elders took a small vessel, carried a cupful to abba Sisoi and gave it to him. He drank once, and a second time he took it and drank, but when it was offered a third time he refused, saying ‘Peace, brother, do you not know it is Satan?’
It is also said of abba Sisoi:
His disciple Abraham then asked, ‘If this happens on the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day in church, and he drinks three cups, is that too much?’ ‘If it were not Satan,’ the old man replied, ‘it would not be much.’38
On the question of meat: where, I ask you, has this ever been condemned by God or forbidden to monks? Look, pray, and mark how of necessity St Benedict modifies the Rule on this point too (though it is more dangerous for monks and he knew it was not for them), because in his day it was impossible to persuade monks to abstain from meat. I would like to see the same dispensation granted in our own times, with a similar modification regarding matters which fall between good and evil and are called indifferent, so that vows would not compel what cannot now be gained by persuasion. If concession were made without scandal on neutral points, it would be enough to forbid only what is sinful. Thus the same dispensations could be made for food as for clothing, so that provision could be made of what can be purchased more cheaply, and, in everything, necessity not superfluity could be our consideration. For things which do not prepare us for the Kingdom of God or commend us least to God call for no special attention. These are all outward works which are common to the damned and elect alike, as much to hypocrites as to the religious.39 For nothing so divides Jew from Christian as the distinction between outward and inner works, especially since between the children of God and those of the devil love alone distinguishes: what the Apostle calls the sum of the law and the object of what is commanded.40 And so he also disparages pride in works in order to set above it the righteousness of faith, and thus addresses Jewry:
What room then is left for human pride? It is excluded. And on what principle? Of works? No, but through the principle of faith. For our argument is that a man is justified by faith without observances of the law.
And again:
For if Abraham was justified by works, then he has a ground for pride, but not before God: for what does Scripture say? ‘Abraham put his faith in the Lord and that faith was counted to him as righteousness.’
Once more:
But if without any work he simply puts his faith in him who makes a just man of the sinner, then his faith is indeed ‘counted as righteousness’ according to God’s gracious plan.41
The Apostle also allows Christians to eat all kinds of food and distinguishes from it those things which count as righteous. ‘The Kingdom of God,’ he says, ‘is not eating and drinking, but justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit … Everything is pure in itself, but anything is bad for the man who gives offence by his eating. It is a good thing not to eat meat and not to drink wine, nor to do anything which may offend or scandalize or weaken your brother.’42 In this passage there is no eating of food forbidden, only the giving of offence by eating, because certain converted Jews were scandalized when they saw things being eaten which the Law had forbidden. The apostle Peter was also trying to avoid giving such offence when he was seriously rebuked and wholesomely corrected, as Paul himself recounts in his letter to the Galatians.43 Paul also writes to the Corinthians: ‘Certainly food does not commend us to God,’ and again: ‘You may eat anything sold in the meat market … The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.’44 To the Colossians he says: ‘Allow no one therefore to take you to task about what you eat or drink,’ and later on, ‘If you died with Christ and passed beyond the elements of this world, why do you behave as though still living the life of the world? “Do not touch this, do not taste that, do not handle the other” – these are all things which perish as we use them, all based on the injunctions and teaching of men.’45 The elements of the world are what he calls the first rudiments of the law dealing with carnal observances, in the practice of which, as in learning the rudiments of letters, the world, that is, a people still carnal, was engaged. But those who are Christ’s own are dead as regards these rudiments or carnal observances, for they owe them nothing, as they no longer live in this world among carnal people who pay heed to forms and distinguish or discriminate between certain foods and similar things, and so say ‘Do not touch this or that.’ For such things when touched or tasted or handled, says the Apostle, are destructive to the soul in the act of using them for some purpose only in accordance with the precepts and teaching of men, that is, of carnal beings who interpret the law in a worldly sense and not in the way of Christ or of his own.
When Christ sent his apostles out to preach, at a time when it was even more necessary to avoid any scandal, he allowed them to eat any kind of food, so that wherever they might be shown hospitality they could live like their hosts, eating and drinking what was in the house.46 Paul certainly foresaw through the Holy Spirit that they would fall away from this, the Lord’s teaching and his own, and wrote on the subject to Timothy:
The Spirit says expressly that in after-times some will desert from the faith and give their minds to subversive doctrines inspired by devils who speak lies in hypocrisy … They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from certain foods, though God created them to be enjoyed with thanksgiving by believers who have inward knowledge of the truth. For everything that God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected when it is taken with thanksgiving, since it is hallowed by God’s own word and by prayer. By offering such advice as this to the brotherhood you will prove a good servant of Jesus Christ, bred in the precepts of our faith and of the sound instruction which you have followed.47
But if anyone turns his bodily eye to the display of outward abstinence, he would then prefer John and John’s disciples wasting away through excessive fasting, to Christ and his disciples: and indeed, John’s disciples who were apparently still following Jewish custom in outward matters grumbled against Christ and his disciples, and even questioned the Lord himself: ‘Why is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting but yours are not?’48 In examining this passage and determining the difference between virtue and exhibition of virtue, St Augustine concludes that as regards outward matters, works add nothing to merit. In his book On the Good of Marriage he says that:
Continence is a virtue not of the body but of the soul. But the virtues of the spirit are displayed sometimes in works, sometimes in natural habit, as when the virtue of martyrs has been seen in their endurance of suffering. Also, patience was already in Job; the Lord knew this and gave proof of knowing it, but he made it known to men through the ordeal of Job’s testing.49
And again:
So that it may truly be better understood how virtue may be in natural habit though not in works, I will quote an example of which no Catholic is in doubt. That the Lord Jesus, in the truth of the flesh, was hungry and thirsty and ate and drank, no one can fail to know who is faithful to his Gospel. Yet surely the virtue of continence was as great in him as in John the Baptist? ‘For John came neither eating nor drinking and men said he was possessed. The Son of man came eating and drinking and they said, “Look at him, a glutton and a drinker, a friend of taxgatherers and sinners!”’ After which he added, ‘And yet God’s wisdom is proved right by its own children,’50 for they see that the virtue of continence ought always to exist in natural habit but is shown in practice only in appropriate times and seasons, as was the virtue of endurance in the holy martyrs … And so just as the merit of endurance is not greater in the case of Peter who suffered martyrdom than in John who did not, so John who never married wins no greater merit for continence than Abraham who fathered children, for the celibacy of the one and the marriage of the other both fought for Christ in accordance with the difference of their times. Yet John was continent in practice as well, Abraham only as a habit. At the time after the days of the Patriarchs, when the Law declared a man to be accursed if he did not perpetuate his race in Israel, a man who could have continence did not reveal himself, but even so, he had it.51 Afterwards ‘the term was completed’ when it could be said, ‘Let the man accept it who can’;52 and if he can, put it into practice, but if he does not wish to do so, he must not claim it untruthfully.53
From these words it is clear that virtues alone win merit in the eyes of God, and that those who are equal in virtue, however different in works, deserve equally of him.
Consequently, those who are true Christians are wholly occupied with the inner man, so that they may adorn him with virtues and purify him of vices, but they have little or no concern for the outer man. We read that the apostles themselves were so simple and almost rough in their manner even when in the company of the Lord, that they were apparently forgetful of respect and propriety, and when walking through the cornfields were not ashamed to pick the ears of corn54 and strip and eat them like children. Nor were they careful about washing their hands before taking food; but when they were rebuked by some for what was thought an unclean habit, the Lord made excuses for them, saying that ‘To eat without first washing his hands does not defile a man.’ He then added the general ruling that the soul is not defiled by any outward thing but only by what proceeds from the heart, ‘wicked thoughts, adultery, murder’55 and so on. For unless the spirit be first corrupted by evil intention, whatever is done outwardly in the body cannot be a sin. He also rightly says that even adultery or murder proceed from the heart and can be perpetrated without bodily contact, as in the words: ‘If a man looks upon a woman with a lustful eye he has already committed adultery with her in his heart,’ and ‘Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.’ Such acts are not necessarily committed by contact with or injury to the body, as when, for instance, a woman is violently assaulted or a judge compelled in justice to kill a man. ‘No murderer’, it is written, ‘has a place in the Kingdom of Christ and of God.’56
And so it is not so much what things are done as the spirit in which they are done that we must consider, if we wish to please him who tests the heart and the loins and sees in hidden places, ‘who will judge the secrets of men’, says Paul, ‘in accordance with my gospel’,57 that is, according to the doctrine of his preaching. Consequently, the modest offering of the widow, which was two tiny coins worth a farthing,58 was preferred to the lavish offerings of all the rich by him of whom it is said that he has no need of any possessions, and who takes pleasure in the offering because of the giver, rather than in the giver because of his offering: as it is written ‘The Lord received Abel and his gift with favour,’59 that is, he looked first at the devotion of the giver and was pleased with the gift offered because of him. Such devotion of the heart is valued the more highly by God the less it is concerned with outward things, and we serve him with greater humility and think more of our duty to him the less we put our trust in outward things. The Apostle too, after writing to Timothy on the subject of a general indulgence about food, as I said above, went on to speak of training the body: ‘Keep yourself in training for the practice of religion. The training of the body brings limited benefit, but the benefits of religion are without limit, since it holds promise not only for this life but for the life to come.’60 For the pious devotion of the mind to God wins from him both what is necessary in this life and things eternal in the life to come. By these examples are we not surely taught to think as Christians, and like Jacob to provide for our Father a meal from domestic animals and not go after wild game with Esau,61 and act the Jew in outward things? Hence the verse of the Psalmist: ‘I have bound myself with vows to thee, O God, and will redeem them with due thank-offerings.’62 To this add the words of the poet: ‘Do not look outside yourself.’63
There are many, indeed innumerable testimonies from the learned, both secular and ecclesiastic, to teach us that we should care little for what is performed outwardly and called indifferent, otherwise the works of the Law and the insupportable yoke of its bondage, as Peter calls it,64 would be preferable to the freedom of the Gospel and the easy yoke and light burden of Christ. Christ himself invites us to this easy yoke and light burden in the words: ‘Come to me, all you whose work is hard, whose load is heavy …’65 The apostle Peter also sharply rebuked certain people who were already converted to Christ but believed they should still keep to the works of the Law, as it is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles: ‘My brothers … why do you provoke God by laying on the shoulders of these converts a yoke which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear? No, we believe that it is by the grace of the Lord Jesus that we are saved, and so are they.’66
Do you then also, I beg you, who seek to imitate not only Christ but also this apostle, in discrimination as in name, modify your instructions for works to suit our weak nature, so that we can be free to devote ourselves to the offices of praising God. This is the offering which the Lord commends, rejecting all outward sacrifices, when he says: ‘If I am hungry I will not tell you, for the world and all that is in it are mine. Shall I eat the flesh of your bulls or drink the blood of he-goats? Offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon me in time of trouble and I will come to your rescue, and you shall honour me.’67
We do not speak like this with the intention of rejecting physical labour when necessity demands it, but so as not to attach importance to things which serve bodily needs and obstruct the celebration of the divine office, particularly when on apostolic authority the special concession was granted to devout women of being supported by services provided by others rather than on the result of their own labour. Thus Paul writes to Timothy: ‘If any among the faithful has widows in the family, he must support them himself: the Church must be relieved of the burden, so that it may be free to support those who are widows in the full sense.’68 By widows in the full sense he means all women devoted to Christ, for whom not only are their husbands dead but the world is crucified and they too to the world. It is right and proper that they should be supported from the funds of the Church as if from the personal resources of their husbands. Hence the Lord provided his mother with an apostle to care for her instead of her own husband, and the apostles appointed seven deacons, or ministers of the Church, to minister to devout women.69
We know of course that when writing to the Thessalonians the Apostle sharply rebuked certain idle busybodies by saying that ‘A man who will not work shall not eat’, and that St Benedict instituted manual labour for the express purpose of preventing idleness.70 But was not Mary sitting idle in order to listen to the words of Christ, while Martha was working for her as much as for the Lord and grumbling rather enviously about her sister’s repose, as if she had to bear the burden and heat of the day alone?71 Similarly today we see those who work on external things often complaining as they serve the earthly needs of those who are occupied with divine offices. Indeed, people often protest less about what tyrants seize from them than about what they are compelled to pay to those whom they call lazy and idle, although they observe them not only listening to Christ’s words but also busily occupied in reading and chanting them. They do not see that it is no great matter, as the Apostle says, if they have to make material provision for those to whom they look for things of the spirit,72 nor is it unbecoming for men occupied with earthly matters to serve those who are devoted to the spiritual. That is why the ministers of the Church were also granted by the sanction of the Law this salutary concession of freedom through leisure, whereby the tribe of Levi should have no patrimony in the land, the better to serve the Lord, but should receive tithes and offerings from the labour of others.73
As regards fasts, which Christians hold to be abstinence from vices rather than from food, you must consider whether anything should be added to what the Church has instituted, and order what is suitable for us.
But it is chiefly in connection with the offices of the Church and ordering of the psalms that provision is needed, so that here at least, if you think fit, you may allow some concession to our weakness, and when we recite the psalter in full within a week it shall not be necessary to repeat the same psalms. When St Benedict divided up the week according to his view, he left instructions that others could order the psalms differently, if it seemed better to do so,74 for he expected that with passage of time the ceremonies of the Church would become more elaborate, and from a rough foundation would arise a splendid edifice.
Above all, we want you to decide what we ought to do about reading the Gospel in the Night Office.75 It seems to us hazardous if priests and deacons, who should perform the reading, are allowed among us at such hours, when we should be especially segregated from the approach and sight of men in order to devote ourselves more sincerely to God and to be safer from temptation.
It is for you then, master, while you live, to lay down for us what Rule we are to follow for all time, for after God you are the founder of this place, through God you are the creator of our community,76 with God you should be the director of our religious life. After you we may perhaps have another to guide us, one who will build something upon another’s foundation, and so, we fear, he may be less likely to feel concern for us, or be less readily heard by us; or indeed, he may be no less willing, but less able. Speak to us then, and we shall hear. Farewell.