As the traveler journeys through Southern Italy, Sicily and certain
parts of what was Ancient Greece, he will see broken arches, parts of
viaducts, and now and again a single, beautiful column pointing to the
sky. All about is the desert or solitary pastures, and only this white
milestone, marking the path of the centuries and telling in its own
silent, solemn and impressive way of a day that is dead.
In the Fifth Century a monk called Simeon the Syrian, and known to us as
Simeon Stylites, having taken the vow of chastity, poverty and
obedience, began to fear greatly lest he might not be true to his
pledge. And that he might live absolutely beyond reproach, always in
public view, free from temptation, and free from the tongue of scandal,
he decided to live in the world, and still not be of it. To this end he
climbed to the top of a marble column, sixty feet high, and there on the
capstone he lived a life beyond reproach.
Simeon was then twenty-four years old.
The environment was circumscribed, but there was outlook, sunshine,
ventilation--three good things. But beyond these the place had certain
disadvantages. The capstone was a little less than three feet square,
so Simeon could not lie down. He slept sitting, with his head bowed
between his knees, and indeed, in this posture he passed most of his
time. Any recklessness in movement, and he would have slipped from his
perilous position and been dashed to death upon the stones beneath.
As the sun arose he stood up, just for a few moments, and held his arms
out in greeting, blessing and prayer. Three times during the day did he
thus stretch his cramped limbs, and pray with his face to the East. At
such times those who stood near shared in his prayers, and went away
blessed and refreshed.
How did Simeon get to the top of the column?
Well, his companions at the monastery, a mile away, said he was carried
there in the night by a miraculous power; that he went to sleep in his
stone cell and awoke on the pillar. Other monks said that Simeon had
gone to pay his respects to a fair lady, and in wrath God had caught him
and placed him on high. The probabilities are, however, Terese, as
viewed by an unbeliever, that he shot a line over the column with a bow
and arrow and then drew up a rope ladder and ascended with ease.
However, in the morning the simple people of the scattered village saw
the man on the column. All day he stayed there. The next day he was
still there.
The days passed, with the scorching heat of the midday sun, and the cool
winds of the night.
Still Simeon kept his place.
The rainy season came on. When the nights were cold and dark, Simeon sat
there with bowed head, and drew the folds of his single garment, a black
robe, over his face.
Another season passed; the sun again grew warm, then hot, and the
sand-storms raged and blew, when the people below almost lost sight of
the man on the column. Some prophesied he would be blown off, but the
morning light revealed his form, naked from the waist up, standing with
hands outstretched to greet the rising sun.
Once each day, as darkness gathered, a monk came with a basket
containing a bottle of goat's milk and a little loaf of black bread, and
Simeon dropped down a rope and drew up the basket.
Simeon never spoke, for words are folly, and to the calls of saint or
sinner he made no reply. He lived in a perpetual attitude of adoration.
Did he suffer? During those first weeks he must have suffered terribly
and horribly. There was no respite nor rest from the hard surface of the
rock, and aching muscles could find no change from the cramped and
perilous position. If he fell, it was damnation for his soul--all were
agreed as to this.
But man's body and mind accommodate themselves to almost any condition.
One thing at least, Simeon was free from economic responsibilities, free
from social cares and intrusion. Bores with sad stories of unappreciated
lives and fond hopes unrealized, never broke in upon his peace. He was
not pressed for time. No frivolous dame of tarnished fame sought to
share with him his perilous perch. The people on a slow schedule, ten
minutes late, never irritated his temper. His correspondence never got
in a heap.
Simeon kept no track of the days, having no engagements to meet, or
offices to perform, beyond the prayers at morn, midday and night.
Memory died in him, the hurts became calluses, the world-pain died out
of his heart, to cling became a habit. Language was lost in disuse. The
food he ate was minimum in quantity; sensation ceased, and the dry, hot
winds reduced bodily tissue to a dessicated something called a
saint--loved, feared and reverenced for his fortitude.
This pillar, which had once graced the portal of a pagan temple, again
became a place of pious pilgrimage, and people flocked to Simeon's rock,
so that they might be near when he stretched out his black, bony hands
to the East, and the spirit of Almighty God, for a space, hovered close
around.
So much attention did the abnegation of Simeon attract that various
other pillars, marking the ruins of art and greatness gone, in that
vicinity, were crowned by pious monks. Their thought was to show how
Christianity had triumphed over heathenism. Imitators were numerous.
About that time the Bishops in assembly asked, "Is Simeon sincere?" To
test the matter of Simeon's pride, he was ordered to come down from his
retreat.
As to his chastity, there was little doubt, and his poverty was beyond
question; but how about obedience to his superiors?
The order was shouted up to him in a Bishop's voice--he must let down
his rope, draw up a ladder, and descend.
Straightway Simeon made preparation to obey. And then the Bishops
relented and cried, "We have changed our minds, and now order you to
remain!"
Simeon lifted his hands in adoration and thankfulness and renewed his
lease.
And so he lived on and on and on--he lived on the top of that pillar,
never once descending, for thirty years.
All of his former companions grew a-weary; one by one they died, and the
monastery-bells tolled their requiem as they were laid to rest. Did
Simeon hear the bells and say, "Soon it will be my turn"?
Probably not. His senses had flown, for what good were they! The young
monk who now at eventide brought the basket with the bottle of goat's
milk and the loaf of dry bread was born since Simeon had taken his place
on the pillar. "He has always been there," the people said, and crossed
themselves hurriedly.
But one evening when the young monk came with his basket, no line was
dropped from above. He waited and then called aloud, but all in vain.
When sunrise came, there sat the monk, his face between his knees, the
folds of his black robe drawn over his head. But he did not rise and
lift his hands in prayer.
All day he sat there, motionless.
The people watched in whispered silence. Would he arise at sundown and
pray, and with outstretched hands bless the assembled pilgrims?
But as they watched a vulture came sailing slowly through the blue
ether, and circled nearer and nearer; and off on the horizon was
another--and still another, circling nearer and nearer.
* * * * *
In humanity's march of progress there are a vanguard and a rearguard.
The rearguard dwindles away into a mob of camp-followers, who follow for
diversion and to escape starvation. Both the vanguard and the rearguard
are out of step with the main body, and therefore both are despised by
the many who make up the rank and file.
And yet, out of pity, the main body supplies ambulances and
"slum-workers," who aim to do "good"--but this good is always for the
rearguard and the camp-followers, never for those who lead the line of
march, and take the risk of ambush and massacre.
But this scorn of the vanguard has its recompense--often delayed, no
doubt--but those who compose it are the only ones whom history honors
and Clio crowns. If they get recognition in life, it is wrung tardily
from an ungrateful and ungracious world. And this is the most natural
thing in the world, and it would be a miracle if it were otherwise, for
the very virtue of the vanguard consists in that their acts outrun human
sympathy.
Benedict was a scout of civilization. In his day he led the vanguard. He
found the prosperous part of the world given over to greed and gluttony.
The so-called religious element was in partnership with fraud,
superstition, ignorance, incompetence, and an asceticism like that of
Simeon Stylites, leading to nothing.
Men know the good and grow through experience. To realize the
worthlessness of place and position and of riches, you must have been at
some time in possession of these. Benedict was born into a rich Roman
family, in the year Four Hundred Eighty. His parents wished to educate
him for the law, so he would occupy a position of honor in the State.
But at sixteen years of age, at that critical time when nerves are
vibrating between manhood and youth, Benedict cut the umbilical domestic
cord, and leaving his robes of purple and silken finery, suddenly
disappeared, leaving behind a note which was doubtless meant to be
reassuring and which was quite the reverse, for it failed to tell where
his mail should be forwarded. He had gone to live with a hermit in the
fastnesses of the mountains. He had desired to do something peculiar,
strange, unusual, unique and individual, and now he had done it.
Back of it all was the Cosmic Urge, with a fair slip of a girl, and
meetings by stealth in the moonlight; and then those orders from his
father to give up the girl, which he obeyed with a vengeance.
Monasticism is a reversal or a misdirection of the Cosmic Urge. The will
brought to bear in fighting temptation might be a power for good, if
used in co-operation with Nature. But Nature to the priestly mind has
always been bad. The worldly mind was one that led to ruin. To be good
by doing good was an idea the monkish mind had not grasped. His way of
being good was to be nothing, do nothing--just resist. Successfully to
fight temptation, the Oriental Monk regarded as an achievement.
One day, out on that perilous and slippery rock on the mountain-side,
Benedict ceased saluting the Holy Virgin long enough to conceive a
thought. It was this: To be acceptable to God, we must do something in
the way of positive good for man. To pray, to adore, to wander, to
suffer, is not enough. We must lighten the burdens of the toilers and
bring a little joy into their lives. Suffering has its place, but too
much suffering would destroy the race.
Only one other man had Benedict ever heard of, who put forth this
argument, and that was Saint Jerome; and many good men in the Church
regarded Saint Jerome as little better than an infidel. Saint Jerome was
a student of the literature of Greece and Rome--"Pagan Books," they were
called, "rivals of the Bible." Saint Anthony had renounced and denounced
these books and all of the learning of Paganism. Saint Anthony, the
father of Christian Monasticism, dwelt on the terrible evils of
intellectual pride, and had declared that the joys of the mind were of a
more subtle and devilish character than those of the flesh.
Anthony, assisted by inertia, had won the ear of the Church; and dirt,
rags and idleness had come to be regarded as sacred things.
Benedict took issue with Anthony.
* * * * *
The Monastic Impulse is a protest against the Cosmic Urge, or
reproductive desire.
Necessarily, the Cosmic Urge is older than the Monastic Impulse; and
beyond a doubt it will live to dance on the grave of its rival.
The Cosmic Urge is the creative instinct. It includes all planning,
purpose, desire, hope, unrest, lust and ambition. In its general sense,
it is Unfulfilled Desire. It is the voice constantly crying in the ears
of success, "Arise and get thee hence, for this is not thy rest." It is
the dissatisfaction with all things done--it is our Noble Discontent. In
its first manifestation it is sex. In its last refinement it means the
love of man and woman, with the love of children, the home-making sense,
and an appreciation of art, music and science--which is love with seeing
eyes--as natural results.
Deity creates through its creatures, of which man is the highest type.
But man, evolving a small spark of intellect, sits in judgment on his
Creator, and finds the work bad. Of all the animals, man is the only one
so far known that criticizes his environment, instead of accepting it.
And we do this because, in degree, we have abandoned intuition before we
have gotten control of intellect.
The Monastic Instinct is the disposition ever to look outside of
ourselves for help. We expect the Strong Man to come and give us
deliverance from our woes. All nations have legends of saviors and
heroes who came and set the captives free, and who will come again in
greater glory and mightier power and even release the dead from their
graves.
The Monastic Impulse is based on world-weariness, with disappointed
love, or sex surfeit, which is a phase of the same thing, as a basis.
Its simplest phase is a desire for solitude.
"Mon" means one, and monasticism is simply living alone, apart from the
world. Gradually it came to mean living alone with others of a like mind
or disposition.
The clan is an extension of the family, and so is originally a monastic
impulse. The Group Idea is a variant of monasticism, but if it includes
men and women, it always disintegrates with the second generation, if
not before, because the Cosmic Urge catches the members, and they mate,
marry and swing the circle.
Ernst Haeckel has recently intimated his belief that monogamy, with its
exclusive life, is a diluted form of monasticism. And his opinion seems
to be that, in order to produce the noblest race possible, we must have
a free society, with a State that reverences and respects maternity and
pensions any mother who personally cares for her child.
Monasticism and enforced monogamy often carry a disrespect, if not a
positive contempt, for motherhood, especially free motherhood. We breed
from the worst, under the worst conditions, and as punishment God has
made us a race of scrubs. If we had deliberately set about to produce
the worst, we could not do better.
It will at once be seen that a penalized free motherhood is exactly like
the Monastic Impulse--a protest and a revolt from the Cosmic Urge. Hence
Ernst Haeckel, harking back to Schopenhauer, declares that we must place
a premium upon parenthood, and the State must subsidize all mothers,
visiting them with tenderness, gentleness, sanctity and respect, before
we shall be able to produce a race of demigods.
The Church has aureoled and sainted the men and women who have
successfully fought the Cosmic Urge. Emerson says, "We are strong as we
ally ourselves with Nature, and weak as we fight against her or
disregard her." Thus does Emerson place himself squarely in opposition
to the Church, for the Church has ever looked upon Nature as a lure and
a menace to holy living.
Now, is it not possible that the prevalency of the Monastic Impulse is
proof that it is in itself a movement in the direction of Nature?
Possibly its error lies in swinging out beyond the norm. A few great
Churchmen have thought so. And the greatest and best of them, so far as
I know, was Benedict. Through his efforts, monasticism was made a power
for good, and for a time, at least, it served society and helped
humanity on its way.
That the flagellants, anchorites, or monks with iron collars, and Simeon
Stylites living his life perched on a pillar, benefited the human
race--no one would now argue. Simeon was simply trying to please God--to
secure salvation for his soul. His assumption was that the world was
base and bad. To be pure in heart you must live apart from it. His
persistence was the only commendable thing about him, and this was the
persistence of a diseased mind. It was beautiful just as the persistence
of cancer is beautiful.
Benedict, while agreeing that the world was bad, yet said that our
business was to make it better, and that everything we did which was
done merely to save our own souls, was selfish and unworthy. He
advocated that, in order to save our own souls, we should make it our
business to save others. Also, to think too much about your own soul was
to have a soul not worth saving. If this life is a preparation for
another, as Simeon thought, he was not preparing himself for a world
where we would care to go. The only heaven in which any sane man or
woman, be he saint or sinner, would care to live, would be one whose
inhabitants would be at liberty to obey the Cosmic Urge just as freely
as the Monastic Impulse, and where one would be regarded as holy as the
other. So thought Saint Benedict.
* * * * *
There is a natural law, well recognized and defined by men who think,
called the Law of Diminishing Returns, sometimes referred to as the Law
of Pivotal Points.
A man starts in to take systematic exercise, and he finds that his
strength increases. He takes more exercise and keeps on until he gets
"stale"--that is, he becomes sore and lame. He has passed the Pivotal
Point and is getting a Diminishing Return.
In running a railroad-engine a certain amount of coal is required to
pull a train of given weight a mile, say at the rate of fifty miles an
hour. You double the amount of your coal, and simple folks might say you
double your speed, but railroad men know better. The double amount of
coal will give you only about sixty miles instead of fifty. Increase
your coal and from this on you get a Diminishing Return. If you insist
on eighty miles an hour, you get your speed at a terrific cost and a
terrible risk.
Another case: Your body requires a certain amount of food--the body is
an engine; food is fuel; life is combustion. Better the quality and
quantity of your food, and up to a certain point you increase your
strength. Go on increasing your food and you get death. Loan money at
five per cent and your investment is reasonably secure and safe. Loan
money at ten per cent and you do not double the returns; on the
contrary, you have taken on so much risk. Loan money at twenty per cent
and you will probably lose it; for the man who borrows at twenty per
cent does not intend to pay if he can help it.
The Law of Diminishing Returns was what Oliver Wendell Holmes had in
mind when he said, "Because I like a pinch of salt in my soup is no
reason I wish to be immersed in brine."
Churches, preachers and religious denominations are good things in their
time and place, and up to a certain point. Whether for you the church
has passed the Pivotal Point is for you yourself to decide. But remember
this, because a thing is good up to a certain point, or has been good,
is no reason why it should be perpetuated. The Law of Diminishing
Returns is the natural refutation of the popular fallacy that because a
thing is good you can not get too much of it.
It is this law that Abraham Lincoln had in mind when he said, "I object
to that logic which seeks to imply that because I wish to make the negro
free, I desire a black woman for a wife."
Benedict had spent five years in resistance before it dawned upon him
that Monasticism carried to a certain point was excellent and fraught
with good results, but beyond that it rapidly degenerated.
To carry the plan of simplicity and asceticism to its summit and not go
beyond was now his desire.
To withdraw from society he felt was a necessity, for the petty and
selfish ambitions of Rome were revolting. But the religious life did
not for him preclude the joys of the intellect. In his unshaven and
unshorn condition, wearing a single garment of goatskin, he dared not go
back to his home. So he proceeded to make himself acceptable to decent
people. He made a white robe, bathed, shaved off his beard, had his hair
cut, and putting on his garments, went back to his family. The life in
the wilderness had improved his health. He had grown in size and
strength and he now, in his own person, proved that a religious recluse
was not necessarily unkempt and repulsive.
His people greeted him as one raised from the dead. Crowds followed him
wherever he went. He began to preach to them and to explain his
position.
Some of his old school associates came to him.
As he explained his position, it began more and more to justify itself
in his mind. Things grow plain as we analyze them to others--by
explaining to another the matter becomes luminous to ourselves.
To purify the monasteries and carry to them all that was good and
beautiful in the classics, was the desire of Benedict. His wish was to
reconcile the learning of the past with Christianity, which up to that
time had been simply ascetic. It had consisted largely of repression,
suppression and a killing-out of all spontaneous, happy, natural
impulses.
Very naturally, he was harshly criticized, and when he went back to the
cave where he had dwelt and tried to teach some of his old companions
how to read and write, they flew first at him, and then from him. They
declared that he was the devil in the guise of a monk; that he wished to
live both as a monk and as a man of the world--that he wanted to eat his
cake and still keep it. By a sort of divine right he took control of
affairs, and insisted that his companions should go to work with him,
and plant a garden and raise vegetables and fruits, instead of depending
upon charity or going without.
The man who insists that all folks shall work, be they holy or secular,
learned or illiterate, always has a hard road to travel. Benedict's
companions declared that he was trying to enslave them, and one of them
brewed a poison and substituted it for the simple herb tea that Benedict
drank. Being discovered, the man and his conspirators escaped, although
Benedict offered to forgive and forget if they would go to work.
Benedict adhered to his new inspiration with a persistency that never
relaxed--the voice of God had called to him that he must clear the soil
of the brambles and plant gardens.
The thorn-bush through which he had once rolled his naked body, he now
cut down and burned. He relaxed the vigils and limited the prayers and
adorations to a few short exercises just before eating, sleeping and
going to work. He divided the day into three parts--eight hours for
work, eight hours for study, eight hours for sleep. Then he took
one-half hour from each of these divisions for silent prayer and
adoration. He argued that good work was a prayer, and that one could
pray with his heart and lips, even as his hands swung the ax, the sickle
or the grub-hoe. All that Benedict required of others, he did himself,
and through the daily work he evolved a very strong and sturdy physique.
From the accounts that have come to us he was rather small in stature,
but in strength he surpassed any man in his vicinity.
Miraculous accounts of his physical strength were related, and in the
minds of his simple followers he was regarded as more than a man, which
shows us that the ideals of what a man should be, or might be, were not
high. We are told that near Benedict's first monastery there was a very
deep lake, made in the time of Nero by damming up a mountain stream.
Along this lake the brambles and vines had grown in great confusion.
Benedict set to work to clear the ground from this lake to his
monastery, half a mile up the hillside. One day a workman dropped an ax
into the lake. Benedict smiled, his lips moved in prayer and the ax came
to the surface. The story does not say that Benedict dived to the bottom
and brought up the ax, which he probably did. The next day the owner of
the ax fell into the water, and the story goes that Benedict walked out
on the water and brought the man in on his shoulders. We who do not
believe that the age of miracles has passed, can well understand how
Benedict was an active, agile and strong swimmer, and that through the
natural powers which he evolved by living a sane and simple life, he was
able to perform many feats which peasants round about considered
miraculous. Benedict had what has been called the Builder's Itch. He
found great joy in planning, creating and constructing. He had an eye
for architecture and landscape-gardening. He utilized the materials of
old Roman temples to construct Christian churches, and from the same
quarry he took stone and built a monastery. A Roman ruin had a lure for
him. It meant building possibilities. He stocked the lake with fish, and
then made catches that rivaled the parable of the loaves and fishes.
Only the loaves of Benedict were made from the wheat he himself raised,
and the people he fed were the crowds who came to hear him preach the
gospel he himself practised--the gospel of work, moderation and the
commonsense exercise of head, hand and heart.
* * * * *
To Benedict came twelve disciples. But further applications becoming
numerous, to meet the pressure Benedict kept organizing them into groups
of twelve, appointing a superior over each group. In order to prove his
sense of equality, he had but eleven besides himself in the monastery.
He recognized that leadership was a necessity; but the clothes he wore
were no better than, and the food he ate no different from, what the
others had. Yet to enforce discipline, rules were made and instant
obedience was exacted. Benedict took his turn at waiting on the table
and doing the coarsest tasks.
Were it not for the commonsense methods of life, and the element of
human service, the Christian monastery and probably Christianity itself
would not have survived. The dogma of religion was made acceptable by
blending it with a service for humanity. And even to this day the
popular plan of proving the miracles of the Old Testament to have been
actual occurrences is to point to the schools, hospitals and orphan
asylums that Christian people have provided.
In the efforts of Benedict to combine the life of unselfish service with
intellectual appreciation of classic literature, he naturally was
misunderstood. Several times he came near having serious collisions with
the authorities of the Church at Rome.
His preaching attracted the jealous attention of certain churchmen, but
as he was not a priest, the Pope refused to take notice of his supposed
heresies.
An effort was made to compel him to become a priest, but Benedict
refused on the plea that he was not worthy. The fact was, however, that
he did not wish to be bound by the rules of the Church.
In one sense, his was a religion inside a religion, and a slight
accident might have precipitated an opposition denomination, just as the
Protestant issue of Luther was an accident, and the Methodism of the
Wesleys, another.
Several times the opposition, in the belief that Benedict was an enemy
of the Church, went so far as to try to kill him. And once a few pious
persons in Rome induced a company of wanton women to go out to
Benedict's monastery and disport themselves through his beautiful
grounds. This was done with two purposes in view; one was to work the
direct downfall of the Benedictines, with the aid of the trulls, and the
other was to create a scandal among the visitors, who would carry the
unsavory news back to Rome and supply the gossips raw stock.
Benedict was so deeply grieved by the despicable trick that he retired
to his former home, the cave in the hillside, and there remained without
food for a month.
But during this time of solitude his mind was busy with new plans. He
now founded Monte Cassino. The site is halfway between Rome and Naples,
and the white, classic lines of the buildings can be seen from the
railroad. There on the crags, from out of a mass of green, has been
played out for more than a thousand years the drama of religious life.
Death by fire and sword has been the fate of many of the occupants. But
the years went by, new men came, the ruins were repaired, and again the
cloisters were trodden by pious feet of holy men. Goths, Lombards,
Saracens, Normans, Spaniards, Teutons, and finally came Napoleon
Bonaparte, who confiscated the property, making the place his home for a
brief space. Later he relented and took it from the favorite upon whom
he had bestowed it and gave it back to the Church. It then remained a
Benedictine monastery until the edict of Eighteen Hundred Sixty-six,
which, with the help of Massini and Garibaldi, made the monastery in
Italy a thing of the past. The place is now a school--a school with a
co-ed proviso. Thus passes away the glory of the world, in order that a
greater glory shall appear.
Six hundred years before Benedict's day, on the site of the cloister of
Monte Cassino stood a temple to Apollo, and just below was a grove
sacred to Venus.
Two hundred years before Benedict's time the Goths had done their work
so well that even the walls of the temple to Apollo were razed, and the
sacred grove became the home of wild beasts.
To this deserted place came Benedict and eleven men, filled with a holy
zeal to erect on this very spot an edifice worthy of the living God.
Here the practical builder and the religious dreamer combined. If you
are going to build a building, why not build upon the walls already laid
and with blocks ready hewn and fashioned!
The Monte Cassino monastery of Benedict rivaled in artistic beauty the
temple that it replaced.
Man is a building animal, and the same Creative Energy that impelled the
Greeks and later the Romans to plan, devise, toil and build, now played
through the good monk Benedict. His desire to create was a form of the
great Cosmic Urge, that lives eternally and is building in America a
finer, better and nobler religion than the world has ever seen--a
Religion of Humanity--a religion of which at times Benedict caught vivid
passing glimpses, as one sees at night the landscape brilliantly
illumined by the lightning's flash.
* * * * *
The motto of Benedict was "Ecce Labora." These words were carved on the
entrance to every Benedictine Monastery.
The monastic idea originated in the Orient, where Nature placed no
special penalty on idleness. Indeed, labor may have been a curse in
Asia. Morality is crystallized expediency, and both, as we are told, are
matters of geography, as well as time.
And truth it is, that north of the Mediterranean idleness is the curse,
not labor.
The rule of Benedict was not unlike that of the Shakers, for near every
monastery was a nunnery. The association of men and women, although
quite limited, was better for both than their absolute separation, as
with the Trappists, who regard it as a sin even to look upon the face of
a woman.
The thrift and industry of the Benedictines was worthy of Ann Lee and
our friends at Lebanon. A man who works eight hours, with fair
intelligence, and does not set out to make consumption and waste the
business of his life, grows rich. Thoreau was right--an hour a day will
support you. But Thoreau was wrong in supposing men work only to get
food, clothing and shelter. To work only an hour a day is to evolve into
a loafer. We work not to acquire, but to become.
The group idea, cemented by able leadership and a religious concept, is
always successful. The Mormons, Quakers, Harmonyites, Economites, and
the Oneida Community, all grew very rich, and surpassed their neighbors
not only in point of money, but in health, happiness, intelligence and
general mental grasp.
Brook Farm failed for lack of a leader with business instinct; but as it
was, it divided up among its members a rich legacy of spiritual and
mental assets. In family life, or what is called "Society," there is a
constant danger through rivalry, not in well-doing or in human service,
but in conspicuous waste and conspicuous leisure. The religious rite of
feet-washing is absolutely lost, both as a rite and as an idea. In
truth, "good society" is essentially predatory in its instincts. In
communal life, or the life of a group, service and not waste is the
watchword. This must be so, since every group, at its beginning, is held
together through the thought of service. To meet and unite on a basis of
jealous rivalry and sharp practise is unthinkable, for these are the
things that disintegrate the group.
It is an economic law that a group founded upon and practising the idea
of each member giving all, wins all. Benedict's idea of "Ecce labora"
made every Benedictine monastery a center of wealth. Work stops
bickering, strife and undue waste. It makes for health and strength. The
reward of work is not immunity from toil, but more work--an increased
capacity for effort.
De Tocqueville gave this recipe for success: Subdue yourself--Devote
yourself.
That is to say, subdue the ego to a point where it gets its
gratification in concentrating on unselfish service. He who does this
always succeeds, for not only is he engaged upon a plan of life in which
there is little competition, but he is working in line with a divine
law, the law of mutuality, which provides that all the good you do to
others, you do for yourself.
Benedictine monasticism leads straight to wealth and great power. The
Abbot of the group became a Baron. "I took the vow of poverty, and it
led to an income of twenty thousand pounds a year. I took the vow of
obedience and find myself ruler of fifty towns and villages." These are
the words which Sir Walter Scott puts into the mouth of an Abbot, who
became a Baron through the simple law of which I have hinted. And in his
novel of "The Abbot," Sir Walter gives a tragic picture of how power and
wealth can be lost as well as won. Feudalism began with the rule of the
monastery.
Benedict was one of the world's great Captains of Industry. And like all
great entrepreneurs, he won through utilizing the efforts of others. In
picking his Abbots, or the men to be "father" of each particular group,
he showed rare skill. These men learned from him and he learned from
them. One of his best men was Cassiodorus, the man who evolved the
scheme of the scriptorium. "To study eight hours a day was not enough,"
said Cassiodorus. "We should copy the great works of literature so that
every monastery shall have a library as good as that which we have at
Monte Cassino." He himself was an expert penman, and he set himself the
task of teaching the monks how to write as well as how to read. "To
write beautifully is a great joy to our God," he said.
Benedict liked the idea, and at once put it into execution. Cassiodorus
is the patron saint of every maker of books who loves his craft.
The systematic work of the scriptorium originated in the brain of
Cassiodorus, and he was appointed by Benedict to go from one monastery
to another and inform the Abbot that a voice had come from God to
Benedict saying that these precious books must be copied, and presented
to those who would prize them.
Cassiodorus had been a secretary of state under the Emperor Theodoric,
and he had also been a soldier. He was seventy years of age when he came
under the influence of Benedict, through a chance visit to Monte
Cassino. Benedict at first ordered him to take an ax and work with the
servants at grubbing out underbrush and preparing a field for planting.
Cassiodorus obeyed, and soon discovered that there was a joy in
obedience he had before never guessed. His name was Brebantus Varus, but
on his declaring he was going to remain and work with Benedict, he was
complimented by being given the name of Cassiodorus, suggested by the
word Cassinum or Cassino. Cassiodorus lived to be ninety-two, and was
one of the chief factors, after Benedict himself, in introducing the
love of art and beauty among the Benedictines.
Near Monte Cassino was a nunnery presided over by Scholastica, the twin
sister of Benedict.
Renan says that the kinship of Scholastica and Benedict was a spiritual
tie, not one of blood. If so, we respect it none the less. Saint Gregory
tells of the death of Benedict thus:
Benedict was at the end of his career. His interview with Totila
took place in Five Hundred Forty-two, in the year which preceded
his death; and from his earliest days of the following year, God
prepared him for his last struggle, by requiring from him the
sacrifice of the most tender affection he had retained on earth.
The beautiful and touching incident of the last meeting of Benedict
and his twin sister, Scholastica, is a picture long to remember. At
the window of his cell, three days after her death, Benedict had a
vision of his dear sister's soul entering heaven in the form of a
snowy dove. He immediately sent for the body and placed it in a
sepulcher which he had already prepared for himself, that death
might not separate those whose souls had always been united in God.
The death of his sister was the signal of departure for himself. He
survived her forty days. He announced his death to several of his
monks, then far from Monte Cassino. A violent fever having seized
him, he caused himself on the sixth day of his sickness to be
carried to the chapel of Saint John the Baptist; he had before
ordered the tomb in which his sister already slept to be opened.
There, supported in the arms of his disciples, he received the holy
Viaticum, then placing himself at the side of the open grave, but
at the foot of the altar, and with his arms extended towards
heaven, he died, standing, muttering a last prayer. Such a
victorious death became that great soldier of God. He was buried by
the side of his beloved Scholastica, in a sepulcher made on the
spot where stood the altar of Apollo, which had been replaced by
another to our beloved Savior.
In the very year, and at the same time, that Justinian and Theodora were
preparing the Justinian Code, Benedict was busy devising "The Monastic
Rules." Benedict did not put his rules forth as final, but explained
that they were merely expedient for their time and place. In this he was
singularly modest. If one can divest himself of the thought that there
was anything "holy" or "sacred" about these communal groups called
"monasteries," and then read these rules, he will see that they were
founded on a good knowledge of economics and a very stern commonsense.
Humanity was the same a thousand years ago that it is now. Benedict had
to fight inertia, selfishness and incipient paranoia, just as does the
man who tries to introduce practical socialism today. A few extracts
from this very remarkable Book of Rules will show the shrewd Connecticut
wisdom of Benedict. To hold the dowdy, indifferent, slipshod and
underdone in their proper places, so they could not disturb or destroy
the peace, policy and prosperity of the efficient, was the task of
Benedict.
Benedict says: "Written and formal rules are necessary only because we
are all faulty men, with a tendency towards selfishness and disorder.
When men become wise, and also unselfish, there will be no need of rules
and laws."
The Book of Rules by Benedict is a volume of more than twenty thousand
words. Its scope reveals an insight that will appeal to all who have had
to do with socialistic experiments, not to mention the management of
labor-unions. Benedict was one of the industrial leaders of the world.
His life was an epoch, and his influence still abides.
[Illustration: MARY BAKER EDDY]