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“In fact he wrote a Rule for the monks, which
was significant in the discretion and transparency of its provisions. If
someone wished to find out more about the habits and life of this man of God,
all of this is contained in this Rule, of which he was a living exponent,
because the saint could not live differently from his teachings”. This is
all that Gregory the Great, first and greatest biographer of Benedict, wrote
about the Regula in his Dialogues.
The origins
According to
tradition it was in 534 when Benedict decided to compile an “instruction book”
for the monks of Cassino, which was known as the Regula or Rule of St. Benedict
(Regula Benedicti), not to be
confused with the Benedictine motto “ora et labora” from the 1700s. However, as
can be seen from certain evidence in the text, the current version of the work
is probably the result of corrections and additions incorporated over time,
with the benefit of experience.
The sources
As he drew up
the Rule, Benedict, as has become apparent from recent studies, took
inspiration from the existing literary documents (lives, dialogues, rules,
letters, sermons) of the time, based on a monastic experience that had already
been widespread across the Mediterranean basin for the previous two centuries.
In particular, there is now no doubt of the debt owed by Benedict to the rule
written by the bishop Cesario of Arles (around 470 - 542) and to the Regula Magistri, an Italian text
probably written in one of the monasteries to the south of Rome some time after
the year 500 by an unknown abbot, which made the biggest contribution to that
of Benedict. This “appropriation” of the work of others, which would today be
considered as plagiarism, was actually seen by medieval writers as a sign of
humility and respect towards another
important man of God. St. Benedict is not therefore to be considered a solitary
monastic legislator, but instead as a representative of the school of ascetic
teachings that spread throughout Italy
in the VI century, with its roots in Egypt.
Diffusion of the Rule
Though
it has been confirmed that there were other Rules in the Benedictine Middle
Ages, it was the Regula of Benedict that over the centuries achieved
recognition across Western Europe. Circulation
of the Regula was promoted by the biography of Benedict written by St. Gregory
the Great, who not only introduced Benedict and his Rule, but also the
intrinsic merits of the work itself.
Written
in lingua vulgaris, the Latin
language spoken and written in Southern Europe
in the VI century, the Benedictine Regula, with its requirements for order,
stability and the balance between work and prayer, soon imposed itself on all
of Western monasticism and was adopted by all the European monasteries.
The available versions
Many
manuscripts of the Regula have been handed down to the present day and are now
housed in libraries across Europe. The most
ancient of these – even if not the most authoritative – is an English book from
the year 750 now housed in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. But the most precious copy is a
manuscript in the library of San Gallo. Compiled at Aquisgrana in the first
years of the IX century, this document was transcribed from a codex that
Charlemagne had received from Teodemaro, the abbot of Monte Cassino, in reply
to his request for an authentic copy of the Regula. It is believed that the
document sent to Charlemagne had been copied in Cassino from a manuscript written by St. Benedict himself.
Structure and content
The
Regula of St. Benedict consists of a prologue and seventy-three chapters: the
monasteries that apply the rule are known as the Benedictines.
It constitutes a detailed practical guide for the running of a coenobitic
community founded on four inspiring principals: common prayer, personal prayer,
study (of the Holy Scriptures but also of science and art), and work. In the
Regula the monks and the abbot can find a written and supreme code containing
the principles of obedience and humility at the base of monastic life, the
prescriptions of the daily rhythm of life, with the different prayer times, the
hours for sleeping and working, indications for resolving constitutional issues
such as the election of an abbot and the punishments for not observing monastic
discipline.
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