One yet two: Monastic Tradition, East and West, Orthodox-Cistercian Symposium

Table of contents :
Introduction 1
Opening 9
Orthodoxy - Yesterday and Today
Proceedings 13
Papers
Silence in Prayer: The Meaning of Hesychia 22
Archimandrite Kallistos Ware
The Fool for Christ’s Sake in Monasticism,
East and West 48
John Saward
Pseudo-Dionysius 81
George Every
Symeon the New Theologian and the Way of Tears 95 Sister Sylvia Mary csmv
Saint Tikhon Zadonsky 120
Nadejda Gorodetsky
The Spiritual Teaching of Staretz Silouan 143
Hieromonk Symeon
The Cistercian Tradition
Proceedings 157
Papers
The Cistercians and the Eastern Fathers 168
Aelred Squire op
The Desert Myth: Reflections on the Desert Ideal in Early Cistercian Monasticism 183
Benedicta Ward slg
Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians 200
Bernard McGinn
The Use of Greek Sources by William of St Thierry Especially in the Enigma fidei 242
John D. Anderson
William of St Thierry and the Greek Fathers:
Evidence from Christology 254
E. Rozanne Elder
Man as the Image of God in the Works of William of St Thierry 267
Anne Saword ocso
Mundicia cordis: A Study of the Theme of Purity of Heart in Hugh of Pontigny and the Fathers of the Undivided Church 304
Nicholas Groves
Hesychasm in the English Cistercians of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries 332
Hilary Costello ocso
Image and Likeness: The Doctrine of John of Ford 352 Edmund Mikkers ocso
One Yet Two
Proceedings 359
Papers
Early Citeaux and the East 373
Bede Lackner o cist
Proposed Inventory for the Greek Fathers
in the Library of Clairvaux 401
Ferruccio Gastaldelli
The Cistercians in the Crusade States 405
Bernard Hamilton
The Eastern Monastic Fathers and
the Reform of Ranee 423
Chrysogonus Waddell ocso
Thomas Merton and the Christian East 440
John Eudes Bamberger ocso
Bread in the Wilderness:
The Monastic Ideal in Thomas Merton
and Paul Evdokimov 452
Rowan Williams
Monastic Life and Unity in Christ 474
A. M. Allchin
Summary Report 487
Message to the World Council of Churches and
the Secretariat for Christian Unity 494
List of Participants 497
List of Papers 504
List of Abbreviations 507

Citation preview

CISTERCIAN STUDIES SERIES: NUMBER TWENTY-NINE

ONE YET TWO MONASTIC TRADITION EAST AND WEST

Orthodox - Cistercian Symposium Oxford University I !

26 August - 1 September 1973

edited by M Basil Pennington ocso

CISTERCIAN PUBLICATIONS Kalamazoo, Michigan 1976

CISTERCIAN STUDIES SERIES

Cistercian Symposia Publications

CS 3

The Cistercian Spirit: A Symposium in Honor of Thomas Merton (1970)

CS 12

Rule and Life:

CS 21

Contemplative Community:

A Symposium (1971) A Symposium

(1972)

CONTENTS

Introduction

1

Opening

9

Orthodoxy - Yesterday and Today Proceedings

13

Papers Silence in Prayer: The Meaning of Hesychia Archimandrite Kallistos Ware

22

The Fool for Christ’s Sake in Monasticism, East and West John Saward

48

Pseudo-Dionysius

81

George Every Symeon the New Theologian and the Way of Tears

95

Sister Sylvia Mary csmv Saint Tikhon Zadonsky

120

Nadejda Gorodetsky The Spiritual Teaching of Staretz Silouan Hieromonk Symeon

143

The Cistercian Tradition Proceedings

157

Papers The Cistercians and the Eastern Fathers Aelred Squire op The Desert Myth: Reflections on the Desert Ideal in Early Cistercian Monasticism Benedicta Ward slg Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians Bernard McGinn

168

183

200

The Use of Greek Sources by William of St Thierry Especially in the Enigma fidei John D. Anderson

242

William of St Thierry and the Greek Fathers: Evidence from Christology E. Rozanne Elder

254

Man as the Image of God in the Works of William of St Thierry Anne Saword ocso

267

A Study of the Theme of Purity of Heart in Hugh of Pontigny and the Fathers of the Undivided Church 304 Nicholas Groves

Mundicia cordis:

Hesychasm in the English Cistercians of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries Hilary Costello ocso Image and Likeness: The Doctrine of John of Ford Edmund Mikkers ocso

332

352

One Yet Two Proceedings

359

Papers Early Citeaux and the East Bede Lackner o cist Proposed Inventory for the Greek Fathers in the Library of Clairvaux

373

401

Ferruccio Gastaldelli The Cistercians in the Crusade States Bernard Hamilton The Eastern Monastic Fathers and the Reform of Ranee

405

423

Chrysogonus Waddell ocso Thomas Merton and the Christian East John Eudes Bamberger ocso Bread in the Wilderness: The Monastic Ideal in Thomas Merton and Paul Evdokimov

440

452

Rowan Williams Monastic Life and Unity in Christ

474

A. M. Allchin Summary Report

487

Message to the World Council of Churches and the Secretariat for Christian Unity

494

List of Participants

497

List of Papers

504

List of Abbreviations

507

INTRODUCTION

I

T WAS AN UNUSUAL GROUP that gathered at Oxford in the late summer of 1973. It was said to be the most colorful meeting of the year. The flowing robes of the monks and nuns, hierarchs and ecclesiastics seemed to call the medieval buildings back to their more pristine period. There were hermits who came in from their solitudes, monks from their island monasteries; nuns who had come out of their enclosures, as well as professors and graduate students from the bustling campuses of America and the more prestegious sanctuaries of British learning. There were representa¬ tives from the other side of the equator, from Africa, Australia and South America. All the continents were represented and some twenty-four nations. They had been called together explicitly to achieve one purpose; they did in fact achieve several, and some of these with perhaps far reaching effects. This was the fourth in a series of Symposia sponsored by American Cistercians as a part of their renewal program.1 In response to the Second Vatican Council they were seeking to enter more fully into the spirit and aims of their founders, to 1.

The first was held at St Joseph’s Abbey, Spencer, in February, 1969,

on the theme:

“The Cistercian Spirit.’’

The following year a larger group

met at the Abbey of the Holy Spirit, Conyers, Georgia, to discuss “The Role of the Rule in Cistercian Life.’’

In the spring of 1972 the Third Symposium

took place at the Abbey of Notre Dame du Lac near Montreal. the question of “Contemplative Community.”

1

It explored

Introduction

2

bring them to today’s world.2 The hope was that the spirit which animated the early Cistercians and the goals they set before themselves were greatly and consciously influenced by the rich monastic traditions of the Christian East. The out¬ come of the Symposium amply verified the truth of this pre¬ sumption. What is more, it brought today’s Cistercians into a renewed contact with the Orthodox who are still living that vital tradition and opened the way for many more fruitful en¬ counters. This, of course, was not something wholly unpre¬ cedented. There have been meetings in France.3 But for English-speaking Cistercians around the world, among whom there has been a phenomenal growth and expansion during the past few decades, this was a new beginning. The broader and more profound significance of the meeting was on the plane of Christian ecumenism.4 As the World Council of Churches is threatened with getting bogged down in social action, and many other ecumenical meetings stop short at intellectualized statements, however important they 2.

The Second Vatican Council had told monks:

“It serves the best

interests of the Church for communities to have their own special character and

purpose.

Therefore loyal

recognition

and

safekeeping

should

be

accorded to the spirit of founders, as also to all the particular goals and wholesome traditions which constitute the heritage of each community.” And it added: “All communities should participate in the life of the Church.

According to

its

individual

character,

each

should make its own and foster in every possible way the enterprises and objectives of the Church ...” and "Com¬ munities should promote among their members a suitable awareness of contemporary human needs of the Church." 3.

conditions and of the

[Perfectae caritatis, no. 2).

See, e.g., M. Standaert, “Oecumenisme et monasteres,” Collectanea

Cisterciensia 27 (1965) 224-235 (reporting a meeting at Chevetogne, June

21-3, 1965); idem, 30 (1968) 190-194 (meeting at Liguge, July 5-6, 1968); R. A. Batteman & M. A. Houdart, “Oecumenisme monastique,” Collectanea Cisterciensia 29 (1967) 223-238 (reporting a

Tournai, April 3-8, 1967.

meeting at Ramegnies-Chin,

However, never before has a monastic meeting in

the West had such a large representation of Orthodox. 4.

This

Emilianos,

was the

underlined

Ecumenical

by

messages

Patriarch’s

received

liason

at the

from World

Metropolitan Council

of

Introduction

3

are, there was need for a meeting which could strongly remind the Churches of the profound unity that has always existed and continues to exist among all Christians on the deeper levels of spiritual search and the experience of God in Christ Jesus. The Message of the Oxford Symposium to the World Council of Churches and the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity,5 if attended to, can bring to the ecumenical movement new serenity, depth and peace as well as a signifi¬ cant impulsion forward toward its goal. Besides the principles, Orthodox and Cistercians, the meeting was greatly enriched by the very active presence of Anglicans and representatives of other Christian Churches, as well as men and women from other Roman Catholic orders and an articulate and dedicated laity. The ecumenical out¬ reach was all-embracing. There were also a few men and women from no Church. They had come to the dialogue to hear what monasticism had to say, if anything, to the world today in the midst of its many crises. The Message does address a brief word of hope to them, but truly another Sym¬ posium, or a series of Symposia, needs to address itself to this very important issue. Methodology

The way the Symposium was organized is quite interesting and proved quite effective.

Some thirty-six monastics and

Churches (“Monasticism can render in our days inestimable services to present day society and to a frustrated theology.

It can remind us of the

spiritual dimensions which avoid a conceptual approach to religion, evapora¬ ting the discipline, the mustery and the askesis.

Thus askesis can become a

common ground for common research, for a common endeavor for an authentic renewal and return to healthy spirituality.”), Archbishop Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury (“Nothing is more important than the drawing together of the spirituality of the East and West in the search for that unity which is to be found in the depths of prayer and spirituality.”) and John Cardinal Willebrands, President of the Secretariate for Promoting Christian Unity (“There can be no question of the great value in the search for renewal and unity of such a return to historical sources coupled with an examination of the role which the contemplative life has to play in the world today.”). 5.

This can be found at the end of this volume.

Introduction

4

scholars were invited to prepare background papers. Another form of “ecumenism” was engaged in here in the dialogue between monastic wisdom and academic scholarship. Indeed, in the course of the six days of intense discussion, perhaps the greatest tension was experienced in this particular dia¬ logue, certainly much more than in the dialogue between the different ecclesial traditions. In their approach to reality the monks of the West found themselves much closer to their Eastern brethren than to the Western academicians. But the complementarity of these two approaches undoubtedly greatly enriched the fruits of the Symposium and the lives of the participants.6 It is impossible to publish all the papers in a single volume. We have tried to select a good cross section of them, choosing those that seemed to enter most into the actual dis¬ cussions at the Symposium.7 Even within this limited selection you will find a very rich variety. The papers were sent to the participants of the Symposium months in advance so that they would have ample time to study them. Each day of the Symposium was dedicated to a particular theme and chaired by a moderator particularly qualified in the specific area. A certain group of the papers were 6.

I should like to quote here the first paragraph of an assesment of the

Symposium written by Professor Bernard Hamilton of the University of Nottingham: I am a Roman Catholic layman and a medieval historian and accepted the invitation to attend the Symposium chiefly because I wanted the opportunity to meet and talk with scholars from other countries working in the same field as myself. This I was able to do, which was helpful in many ways. But what distinguished this conference from similar academic gatherings was that all the matters discussed, even problems of detailed textual criticism, were approached primarily as aspects of the spiritual life. 1 found this specially valuable because it has helped me to set my own work more firmly in its religious context as part of the Christian life. 7.

A full list of the papers as well as indications as to where they have

been or will be published can be found at the end of this volume, pp. 504 506.

Introduction

5

assigned as background for the day and the Chairperson made a summary presentation of them at the beginning of the day. A panel, composed of the authors and a few others with particular competence, then discussed the papers and their significance for the basic theme of the Symposium: the rela¬ tionship of the Cistercian tradition to the Eastern Christian monastic tradition. In the afternoon the whole Symposium divided into small groups, with one or two panelists in each group, to explore the matter in greater depth. Finally, in the evening, the secretaries of each small group reported to the general assembly and then there was animated general discussion until the Chairperson reluctantly called the day’s labors to a halt. o Throughout the Symposium a “conclusions” committee was at work trying to pull the whole thing together. The summary report at the end of this volume is the fruit of their midnight labors. It was initially presented to the general assembly on Friday evening for criticism and comment, and was finally accepted with unanimity by the Symposium par¬ ticipants in the closing session on Saturday. Its simplicity belies the immense amount of labor, fraternal collaboration and even struggle that went into its expression of consensus. One problem certainly was not overcome — that of language. Couched in terms more common to the monastic vocabulary of the West, it requires an effort on the part of our Orthodox brothers to identify with it. Certainly neither this summary report nor the more ample reporting of the proceedings found in this volume can gather up the whole of the wealth of wisdom and knowledge that was shared in the course of this immensely rich week. A number of other reports of the Symposium have been pub¬ lished, each one complementary to the others, each expressing the joy and disappointments of the respective 8.

The Conclusion Committee was composed of Abbot Armand Veilleux,

Dom Augustine Roberts, Hieromonk Symeon, Fr Martin Smith and Sister Anne Saword.

Introduction

6 authors.9

But reports will never convey what was most

valuable in the event. Besides the sharing of thoughts and insights there was the sharing of self and life as we all benefitted from the warm, quiet and congenial hospitality of Mansfield College. But even more significant was the sharing in God’s love in common morning and evening prayer and daily Eucharistic Liturgy. The opening and closing Liturgy was celebrated according to the Cistercian rite. Bishop Peter Walker con¬ ducted a pontifical Anglican Liturgy on the third day. And on another day Dr Gordon Rupp, the Methodist representative on the Central Commission of the World Council of Churches, brought the Word of God to us in the course of an Anglican Concelebration. All of this in a Chapel of the United Reformed Church. On several occasions we went to the Pan-Orthodox Church for Vespers or Liturgy concelebrated by priests from various Eastern rites and a Pontifical Liturgy presided over by Bishop Antonie Plamadeala, Auxiliary to Patriarch Justinian of Rumania. But the high point was experienced on the last evening when the Cistercians were invited to conduct a service in the Orthodox Church and their ancient Salve Regina was echoed by an equally ancient Russian hymn in honor of the Virgin under whose patronage the whole Symposium had proceeded. There were many significant side events such as the recep¬ tions by the Orthodox Community and by the Sisters of the Love of God at Fairacres; a slide presentation of daily life in a Greek monastery — St John’s on Patmos; a visit to St John’s College, formerly St Bernard’s, the Cistercian College in Oxford. All in all it led to a very full schedule, a full week, a very full and enriching experience. 9.

To note a few of them: 1) Sr Elizabeth Oxenham, “The Golden Butterfly:

Symbols and the

Oxford Symposium’' in Hallel 2, no. 1 (July 1974) 70-83. Fr Hilary Costello, “The Orthodox-Cistercian Symposium at Oxford” in Citeaux 24 (1973) 303-308. 2) Sr Anne Saword,

“More About the Symposium"

Studies' 8 [1973] 265-272.

in Cistercian

Introduction

7

The “East”

Throughout the Symposium, in the Reports, and in this volume, we have often spoken of “the East.’’ It perhaps would have been better if we had not. First of all, because there are more and more Orthodox in the West, and happily they are bringing their monastic traditions with them. The West can only profit by such implantations and we should do everything we can to foster and encourage them. But also, today “East” tends to bring to mind primarily the Far East. This “East,” too, has an ancient and great monastic tradi¬ tion. In his paper, “Monasticism and One World,’’ and in his opening talk, Fr Jean Leclercq osb placed our common Christian monasticism in a fuller context and pointed out the many similarities that enable it to identify in some real way with the monasticism of Buddhism and Hinduism. Orthodox and Cistercians cannot forget this larger context and within it realize more fully their oneness as Christian monks. Also, we are made aware that there is profit to be gained from broad¬ ening our dialogue. Already in many places and in many ways the Cistercians are in contact with the non-Christian monasticism of the Far East, but this dialogue has yet to profit by a Symposium similar to that celebrated at Oxford. I wish to express again my thanks, first of all to God, from whom comes the grace and power for all good; to the organi¬ zing committee; Canon A. M. Allchin of Canterbury, Archi¬ mandrite Kaliistos of Patmos, and Sister Benedicta and all the Sisters of the Love of God who did so much to make the Symposium a reality; to the Dean and staff of Mansfield; and Br Bernardine Schellenberger, “Briider mit dem gleichen Erbe” in Erbe und Auftrag 50 (1974) 62-64.

The Rev Martin Smith, “A Report on the Orthodox-Cistercian Sym¬ posium, 1973” in Sobomost 6 (1973) 596-602. Br Francis Smyth, “Orthodox-Cistercian Symposium, Oxford, 1973” in Halle! 1 (1973) 78-84, 3) Fr Chrysogonus Waddell, “A Homily by Father Jean Leclercq. Orthodox-Cistercian Symposium, Oxford, August 27, 1973” in Liturgy 7 (1973) 61-65.

Sr Benedicta Ward, “Orthodox-Cistercian Symposium” in Fairacres Chronicle 6 (1973) 16-20.

8

Introduction

to all who participated in the Symposium. The Oxford Symposium might be said to have been an en¬ couraging experience for the Cistercians and all monks, reaf¬ firming the significance of monastic life for the Churches and for the world. It opened up new avenues of sharing, contact and appreciation. Yet all of these underlined the fact that the monk can be of value to the Church and the world only if he is what he is supposed to be. And to do that he must go apart from the world and even in some sense from the Church and forget all these things, all these contacts, to go into his deepest self where he will find not self but God. But there he will find in God, the Church, all men, and especially his brother monks as he more fully comes into a lived realiza¬ tion of his monastic identity.

M. Basil Pennington ocso

OPENING

O

N 29 MAY, 1453, the liturgy was celebrated for the last time in the great Cathedral of Holy Wisdom in Constantinople. The Emperor partook of the sacri¬ fice and then went out to man the walls, where he died in the defense of the Holy City. In that hour of peril Orthodox and Roman Catholics stood side by side at the altar. In the face of peril they set aside their differences and emphasized their essential oneness in Christ. Today the followers of Christ certainly are faced with even greater perils, greater chal¬ lenges, and it is imperative that we give to mankind a com¬ mon witness of the love of Christ. This is indeed an extraordinary gathering here at Oxford. We come from the five continents and more than twenty dif¬ ferent nations. Many of you play very significant roles in society and in that society which is the Body of Christ. I should perhaps have begun with a formal address to the various dignitaries. But I have deliberately avoided that. For I hope that during this particular symposium we can forget those things which pertain to our more superficial selves and share our deeper selves, the persons who have been baptized into Christ. This is our glory —to be members of Christ. We meet as members of the one Body. This is not to deny that we each come with our own par¬ ticular past, our own culture, our own scholarship, our own relative spiritual depth. Hopefully in all these areas we will be able to enrich one another.

But most of all, may there be 9

ORTHODOXY - YESTERDAY AND TODAY

ORTHODOXY—YESTERDAY AND TODAY

M

ONDAY, THE FIRST FULL DAY of the Sympo¬ sium, was given over to the presentation of the Orthodox tradition—or rather, the early tradition of the undivided Church and its living presence in Orthodoxy today. The background papers for this day’s discussion spanned the centuries, from the second to the twentieth. The chairman for the day, Archimandrite Kallistos Ware of St John’s Monastery, Patmos, summed them up most briefly. Metropolitan Emilianos’ presentation of “The Monk and Death’’ showed that basically what is true of the monk is true of the Christian, that the monk is not a class apart but is in a sense the Christian par excellence, exemplifying the vocation of all — a life according to the Gospels. Two papers explored the theologizing on this reality in the way most proper to the monks of the East, i.e., apophatic theology. Nicholas Gendle’s paper on St Ireneus1 showed the antiquity of the apophatic tradition, something that pre-dated Dionysius and Gregory of Nyssa and that has Biblical roots. George Every’s study, “Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite,”2 was especially important for the Symposium because Diony¬ sius is an important Eastern source for the Cistercian Fathers. 1.

“Gloria Dei vivens homo:

vita hominis Visio Dei.

A Study of the

Mystical Theology of St Irenaeus of Lyons,” published in The Thomist.39 (1975) 185-197. 2.

See below, pp. 81 - 94.

13

Orthodoxy - Yesterday and Today

14

The prayer or spiritual way most characteristic of the monk of the East is hesychia, a practical application of apophatic theology to the life of prayer. Father Kallistos himself gave a beautiful presentation of this in his paper, “Silence in Prayer.’’3 Two Western psychologists, Dr John Meaney and Br Anthony Ipsaro, esc, both of Notre Dame University, ex¬ plored this way of prayer, especially the relation of the body to the soul—the place of the body in prayer: psychosomatic techniques.4 The Eastern Christian sees this participation of the body in prayer as a certain anticipation of the resurrection. Sr Sylvia Mary’s paper, “Symeon the New Theologian and the Way of Tears,’’5 is a corollary of this; though it might be questioned whether the gift of tears is meant for all or only a few. It is not common in the Cistercian tradition, and yet not wholly absent. What is the relation of the man of prayer to the everyday world? Fr John Saward, drawing parallels from the West, pointed to an Eastern answer in his paper: “The Fool for Christ in East and West.’’6 He is a stranger to the world, challenging it, yet linked to it by true Christian compassion. Another response to this question is that of alternation, ex¬ emplified in the life of St Tikon, the eighteenth-century bishop who became a recluse.7 As witness to the happy and precious reality that what we are speaking of here is not something of a long-lost past, but an ever present gift, Hieromonk Symeon, of St John the Baptist Monastery (Talleshunt Knights, Essex) and a spiritual son of Father Sophrony, who was in his turn a spiritual son of Staretz Silouan, presented twentieth-century Athonite. 8 3. 4.

a

beautiful

paper

on

this

See Below, pp. 22 - 47. "Depth

Psychology

and the

Experience of Hesychast

Prayer,”

to

appear in a forthcoming book. 5.

See below, pp. 95 - 119.

6.

See below, pp. 48 - 80.

7.

See below, Nadejda Gorodetsky, "Saint Tikhon Zadonsky,” pp. 120 -

142. 8.

See below, “The Spiritual Teaching of Staretz Silouan,” pp. 143 - 154.

Orthodoxy

-

Yesterday and Today

15

Three Themes These very rich papers opened the way to limitless avenues of spiritual enrichment. But Archimandrite Kallistos, to focus the day’s discussions, extracted three themes: a) The desert and the city, monasticism and the world. The monk is separated from all and joined to all. How? b) Charism and institution: the problem of monastic struc¬ tures, the place of monastic rules and orders and the place of the holy man. c) Monastic theology and academic theology. In actual fact, the papers lead more to a discussion of apophatic theology on the first day. However, on the following day we were to experience a certain actual confron¬ tation of the two different theological approaches.

Apophatic Theology In his introduction Fr Kallistos developed at some length the qualities of monastic theology, taking as his starting point the words of Evagrius Ponticus: If you are a theologian you will pray in truth and if you pray in truth you are a theologian. Primitive or monastic theology is a thing of personal experience. It flows out of a life of prayer and worship, as we can see exemplified in the lives of Symeon the New Theo¬ logian and the Staretz Silouan. This was the type of theology that characterized the Cistercian Fathers. And it is what the world seeks and needs today: men who can speak with authority flowing from experience. It is not intellectual argu¬ ment but authenticity that speaks. The monk may express himself in writing but he says more by what he is. If the Cistercians stand out as being at one with the Eastern tradition in this, when it comes to apophatism there is a difference. As George Every pointed out, there are what we could call two kinds of apophatic theology. There is an intellectual apophatism which is simply a check on the use of language. A positive statement about God is made and then it is negated. This is still a conceptual thing, auxiliary to science. On the other hand, Eastern apophatism is simply an affirmation of the total impossibility of affirming anything of

16

Orthodoxy

-

Yesterday and Today

God, flowing from an immediate experience of him and a mystical union with him. It is a theology of union. Both of these are found among the Cistercian Fathers; the latter more commonly, the former more especially in Isaac of Stella. Yet more generally the approach of the early Cistercians is cataphatic; it is a theology of light, stressing the divine attributes and the humanity of Christ as the place where the Word dwells. The Monk and the World

The greatest part of the day’s discussion centered around the monk's relation to the world. World, of course, can be understood according to various senses. There is the escha¬ tological outlook of the New Testament which sees “this world” as opposed to the world to come. This is the world which hates Christ and his followers; this is the world which the monk withdraws from and challenges. But then there is the physical world, the community of mankind, and toward this world the monk draws close, in his own special way. As Thomas Merton expressed it, the monk in his prayer plunges into the heart of the world, listening to all the voices and cries of mankind which no one else has time to hear. Some spoke of a monasticism in the world, an interiorized monasticism. But others felt uncomfortable with this termin¬ ology, though agreed that there are indeed those who seek aloneness in the world just as in monastic community. In¬ deed in Orthodoxy today in some of the communist countries, this is the only possible way. But this monasticism in the world needs in some way to be bound up with actual monastic communities; there needs to be a dialectic between the two. Orthodoxy seems to have always been aware of this. The line between the monk and nun and the layman is not always strongly visible. Examples of this were given. The recently emerging monasticism among the Anglicans and the European Protestants, a gift of the Holy Spirit, seems to be endowed with an intuitive understanding of this relationship between monasticism and the Christian in the world living the life of contemplation. In

Orthodoxy

-

Yesterday and Today

17

the West in the Middle Ages there was a deep relation be¬ tween the monastery and the Church and community.

But in

large measure it has disappeared and solitude has given way to isolation. There is a need to rediscover the true relation. The recent changes among the Cistercians are moves in this direction. It is necessary to create a monastic culture which expresses for modern man the values found in the simple pri¬ mitive desert life and to find the structures which will help keep these alive. This opening to the world has its dangers but this is a risk that the Second Vatican Council has asked of monks, that they be open to the world to bear witness to it of the monastic way to live the Gospel. But one of the Orthodox pointed out that care must be taken; the direction is crucial. Monks must bring the world toward the monastic ideal; never the reverse. The world will ever need that ascetic life of the monk which creates a solitude where God’s presence is experienced in a sufficiently human way that it can be communicated to others. And there will always be the weak who can be faith¬ ful to the divine call only in such a supportive environment. Furthermore, the monks in their solitude give a much needed witness to the unity of man with nature and environment — that through the Incarnation and the action of the Holy Spirit every place can become beautiful. The way the Cistercians have traditionally done this is distinctive. The solution of alternation is also a valid response to the question of the monk’s relation to the world. Westerners are sometimes baffled by Orthodox monks who carry on many roles in the Church, but in Orthodoxy there is no celibate secular clergy. Every man consecrated to celibacy is sup¬ ported by a monastic family. Some of those present bore witness to the meaningfulness of the alternation between time in their monasteries and time abroad in active apostolic work. As all the Western monks present were from what the West calls strictly contemplative communities, the witness of such alternation in the West was not brought out in the discussion. But when the monk does go out into the world he does not

18

Orthodoxy - Yesterday and Today

leave askesis behind—he cannot; this is too essential to his life. But in part it takes another form, that of life for others, giving self, renouncing for others, working for others, being a servant. But fundamentally, askesis is the struggle with the demon, and this can never be replaced or avoided by the Christian monk. This is a service monasticism can give to the world more than social action. Because of the unity of man¬ kind any spiritual victory over hell and darkness has trans¬ human repercussions like the victory of Christ for all men. But the primary aim of askesis is always to embrace Christ. Just as the true icon painter must die to self in order at every moment to paint in the tradition of the Church and out of her vision, so man must die to self every moment to think and act in oneness with Christ. Christian Incarnationalism

In this context Dr Zernov raised the important and relevant question of the monk’s attitude toward the body. In the Christian religion the body is exalted to the greatest honor by the incarnation and the ascension. In the charismatic, the spiritualized, or Spirit-filled, the physical appearance shows forth his grace. Yet in monastic tradition there has been a certain effort to subdue the body, cover it, reduce its power. In the present evolving attitude toward the body in the secular world two opposite tendencies can be perceived: on the one hand the cultivation of the physical body as such, and on the other, an emphasis on psychic powers. Monasticism has the task to teach the right attitude toward the body. Monks should be experts, knowing well the importance of fasting and other observances, of training the body, and the importance of integration, of oneness in man’s life. The Jesus Prayer

Especially in the Jesus Prayer where it is fully lived is the participation of the body in the work of salvation experienced. Every psychological activity has its physical complement, and there is a reciprocal effect. Fasting, vocal prayer and sac¬ ramental Communion, along with specific practices, lead to interiorization.

But there is danger in unwise use of some of

Orthodoxy - Yesterday and Today

19

these. That is why the full practice of the Jesus Prayer is not ordinarily taught in writing, but one is carefully guided into it by an experienced spiritual father. This is not to say the Jesus Prayer is something for only a special few. It cannot be directly equated with the prayer of quiet which is a mystical state that is perhaps fairly rare. The Prayer of Jesus is for all Christians; it is useful at every stage of the spiritual life. On entering a monastery it is the first prayer given to the novice to use as he goes about the day. But there are many levels and degrees of fullness, leading to continual prayer, the prayer of the heart, self-acting prayer, where one no longer makes any effort to say the Prayer—the Prayer says itself within the Christian. If the initial movement of the Prayer is almost exclusively an inward one, at a certain point an outward movement begins to develop. One senses more and more the unity of all, the image of God in all men and in this the meeting and interpenetration of all in life and prayer. There was a great deal of interest, especially among the Westerners, to learn more of the Prayer of Jesus and this participation or integration of the body in prayer. They especially wanted to take advantage of the presence of a monk who was a psychiatrist and the two other psychologists who had some experience with the Prayer of Jesus. To satis¬ fy this desire, a special session was arranged later in the program. It is noteworthy though, that the Orthodox were not particularly interested in the psychological explanation; they were simply concerned with the practice, relying on the traditional wisdom of the spiritual father. However, many of the insights of depth psychology in regard to the level where the spirit is influenced by and acted upon by the symbolic functions of the body are not new. As Abbot John Eudes pointed out, they can be found in Evagrius Ponticus, Basil and Symeon the New Theologian. On Mount Athos the liturgy takes two main forms:

there is

the standard form found in the big monasteries and sketes where the whole divine office is chanted, but among the hermits and in some sketes, only a part of the office is said.

20

Orthodoxy - Yesterday and Today

Among these latter, the office is replaced by the Jesus Prayer. Originally it was a question of hermits who could not read. There were precise regulations as to what was neces¬ sary to fulfill the office obligation with the Prayer, but most hermits did not take them too literally. As a community or group grows, the use of the office increases because the in¬ creasing number makes the Jesus Prayer together difficult, but it is still used at work and in the cell apart from the times of the offices. Charism and Institution

The growth of a community also brings to the fore the question of the relationship between charism and institution. Bishop Antonie spoke at length on this. The charismatic is the saint, the wonder worker, the man with spiritual power (though not necessarily Pentecostal.) He may be an abbot, or a simple monk, or a layman — like the Pilgrim. If he is a monk he lives in a cell. He may or may not be a priest, he may or may not be a spiritual father. He prays according to a canon which he might have received from a spiritual father or might have composed himself. He may attend some services or not. He may be educated or not, but he can speak of God with anyone. He may eat in the common refectory or not. He practices askesis in regard to sleep, food and services, always fighting for the purification of the body. He feels himself to be free. He can work with others in the com¬ munity but still feels himself to be alone as in a desert because the desert is within him. That is why he needs no organized silence. The Orthodox monastery is not readily identified with an institution or society, nor is there any sharp line drawn between called an rule, but tradition,

contemplative and active. A monastery can be institution in so far as it is organized according to a the monk feels free within the rule, which is the the example of the fathers, and the writings of the

Fathers of the East and the West. If there is no charismatic father in the community, the tradition serves as spiritual father and will give birth to the charismatic.

But ordinarily

Orthodoxy - Yesterday and Today

each monk has his spiritual father.

21

At Patmos, for example,

each novice is given an “old man,” usually a layman, when he enters. He waits on him and the elder guides him. When the novice comes in the evening to say “good night’’ to the elder he speaks of the day; there is usually a “manifestation of thoughts,” and the elder advises, and admonishes and consoles. So in fact there is no great distinction, certainly no contradiction between institution and charism in Orthodox monasticism. This does not mean all is disorganized or that no demands are put on the monk. The tradition includes a spiritual program which has its rigor, but within this the monk is free. He is not obliged to obey the program under pain of sin in each instance. Orthodoxy does have considerable canon law governing monastic life, but for the most part the monks know little of this—it is a matter for the experts. However, some points are sometimes carried out with a certain rigidity; as for example the exclusion of the female from Mount Athos. But in other places circumstances demand another interpre¬ tation, as for example at Talleshunt Knights where the monks and nuns share much of the life in church and refectory. There is more variety in the different Orthodox traditions than Westerners usually suspect. However the Liturgy, the great school of Christian holiness, remains practically unchangeable. The hour had grown late; it was a long day of discussion beautifully complemented by an immersion in Orthodox life at the first vespers of the Feast of the Dormition of the Holy Virgin, the Theotokos. All felt as Archimandrite Ware did, when he said, “I think, with reluctance, the time has come for us to close.”

SILENCE IN PRAYER The Meaning of Hesychia

Divine truth does not consist in talk but in silence, in remaining within the heart by long suffering. The Book of the Poor in Spirit

...Jesus Christ, the Word that came out of silence. St Ignatius of Antioch

O

NE OF THE STORIES in the Sayings of the Desert I Fathers describes a visit by Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, to the monks of Scetis. Anxious to impress their distinguished guest, the assembled brethren appealed to Abba Pambo: “Say something to the Archbishop that he may be edified.” And the old man replied, “If he isn’t edified by my silence, then he won’t be edified by my words.”1 2 It is a story which indicates the extreme importance attached by the Desert tradition to hesychia, the quality of stillness or silence. “God has chosen hesychia above all other virtues,” it is affirmed elsewhere in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers.2

As St Nilus of Ancyra insists, “It is impos-

1. Apophthegmata Patrum [AP], Theophilus 2; PG 65:197D. 2.

Peri logismon 21. ed. J.-C. Guy, “Un dialogue monastique inedit,”

Revue dAscetique et de Mystique 33 (1957)

180; tr. J.-C. Guy, Les Apophtegmes des Peres du Desert. Collection Spirituality Orientale 1 (Begrolles: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1966) p. 413.

22

Silence in Prayer:

The Meaning of Hesychia

23

sible for muddy water to grow clear if it is constantly stirred up; and it is impossible to become a monk without hesychia,”3 Hesychia means, however, far more than merely refraining from outward speech. It is a term that can be interpreted at many different levels. Let us try to distinguish the main senses, working from the more external to the more inward. (1) Hesychia and Solitude. In the earliest sources, the term “hesychast” (f|auxoccrrr|s) and its related verb usually denote a monk living in solitude, a hermit as opposed to the member of a coenobium. This sense is found already in Evagrius of Pontus (fourth century)4 and in Nilus and Palladius (early fifth century). 5 6 It occurs also in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers,6 Cyril of Scythopolis,7 John Moschus,8 Barsanuphius,9 and in the legislation of Justinian.10 Hesychia con¬ tinues to be used with this meaning in later authors such as St Gregory of Sinai (t 1346).11 On this level, the term refers primarily to a man’s relationship in space with other men. This is the most external of the various senses. (2) Hesychia, the Spirituality of the Cell. "Hesychia,'' says Abba Rufus in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, “is to sit in 3. 4.

Institutio ad monachos; PG 79:1236B. De oratione

107,

111;

PG 79:1192A,C.

tr. J. E. Bamberger,

The

Praktikos — Chapters on Prayer, CS 4 (Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications,

1970) pp. 73-74. 5.

Nilus, Ep.

iv, 1 and 17; PG 79:541C and 557D; De monachorum

praestantia 1; PG 79:1061A; Palladius,

Vita Chrysostomi 8, ed. Coleman—

Norton, p. 50, 6. 6.

A P, Antony 34, PG 65:85D; Elias 8; 185A: this is relatively late—

probably from the 6th century — since it refers to a monk in the community of St Sabas in Palestine; Poemen 90 344A. 7.

Vita Sabae 21, ed. Schwartz, p. 105, 19.

8.

Pratum 52; PG 87:2908A.

9.

Quaest et resp.,

ed. Schoinas, 164; ed. Regnault and Lemaire, 68.

Here we find the doublet 'eyKAeicjTOi kcxi r)cruxotCTTai. 10.

Novella 5, 3 (AD535), ed. von Lingenthal, p. 63, 17:

this speaks of

avocxwpr|Tas Kai r|auxacrT«S- For the same usa8e of hesychia compare the Council in Trullo (AD 692), canon 41. 11.

Quomodo oporteat sedere 5; PG 150:1333D).

24

Archimandrite Kallistos Ware

your cell with fear and in the knowledge of God, abstaining entirely from rancour and vainglory. Such hesychia is the mother of all the virtues and guards the monk from the fiery arrows of the enemy.” Rufus goes on to connect hesychia with the remembrance of death, and he concludes by saying: ‘‘Be vigilant (vrjtpe) over your own soul.”12 Hesychia is thus associated with another key term in the Desert tradition, nipsis. spiritual sobriety or vigilance.

When hesychia is linked in this way with the cell, the term still refers to the external situation of the hesychast in space, but its meaning is at the same time more inward and spiritual. The hesychast, in the sense of one who remains with watchful vigilance in his cell, need not always be a solitary but can be equally a monk living in community. The hesychast, then, is one who obeys the injunction of Abba Moses, ‘‘Go and sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.”13 He bears in mind the advice which Arsenius gave to a monk who wished to perform works of mercy. ‘‘Someone said to Arsenius, ‘My thoughts trouble me, saying. You cannot fast or labor; at least go and visit the sick, for this also is a form of love.’ The old man, recognizing the seeds sown by the demons, said to him:

‘Go — eat

and drink and sleep without doing any work; only do not leave your cell.’ For he knew that to remain patiently in the cell brings a monk to the true fulfillment of his calling.”14 The link between hesychia and the cell is clearly stated in a famous saying of St Antony of Egypt: ‘‘Fishes die if they tarry on dry land; and in the same way monks, if they linger outside their cell or pass their time with men of the world, lose the pitch of their hesychia.”15 The monk who remains within his cell is like the string of a well-tuned instrument. Hesychia keeps him in a state of alertness; if he lingers 12.

AP, Rufus 1; PG 65:389BC.

13.

AP, Moses 6; PG 65:284C.

14.

AP, Arsenius 11; PG 65:89C.

15. AP, Antony 10; PG 65:77B.

Compare Heirax 1;PG 65:232D.

For the connection between hesychia and

the cell, see also Evagrius, Rerum monachalium rationes 8; PG 40:1260C.

Silence in Prayer:

The Meaning of Hesychia

25

outside the cell, his soul grows limp and flabby. The cell, understood as the outward framework of hesychia, is envisaged above all as a workshop of unceasing prayer. The monk’s chief activity, while remaining still and silent within his cell, is the constant remembrance of God (uvr||jr| 0eou), accompanied by a sense of compunction and mourning (tte'vOos). “Sit in your cell,” says Abba Ammonas to an old man who proposes to adopt some ostentatious form of asceticism. “Eat a little every day and have the words of the publican ever in your heart. Then you can be saved.’’16 The words of the publican, “God, be merciful to me a sinner’’ (Lk 18:13), are closely parallel to the formula of the Jesus Prayer, as found from the sixth century onwards in Barsanuphius, the Life of Abba Philemon and other sources. We shall return in due course to the subject of hesychia and the Invocation of the Name. The enclosure of the monastic cell and the name of Jesus are explicitly linked in a statement by John of Gaza about his fellow hermit Barsanuphius: “The cell in which he is enclosed alive as in a tomb, for the sake of the Name of Jesus, is his place of repose; no demon enters there, not even the prince of demons, the devil. It is a sanctuary, for it contains the dwelling place of God.”17 For the hesychast, then, the cell is a house of prayer, a sanctuary and place of meeting between man and God. All this is strikingly expressed in the saying, “The monk’s cell is the furnace of Babylon, in which the three children found the Son of God; it is the pillar of cloud, from which God spoke to Moses.”18This notion of the cell as a focus of the shekinah is reflected in the words of a contemporary Coptic hermit, Abuna Matta al-Maskin. When asked if he ever thought of going on pilgrimage to the Holy Places, he replied: “Jeru¬ salem the Holy is right here, in and around these caves; for what else is my cave, but the place where my Savior Christ 16.

AP, Ammonas 4; PG 65:120C.

17.

Quaest et resp., ed. Schoinas, 73; ed. Regnault and Lemaire, 142.

18. AP, anonymous collection, ed. F. Nau 206, Revue de I'Orient chretien 13 (1908) 279; tr. J.-C. Guy, Les Apophtegmes des Peres du Desert, 74, p. 350.

26

Archimandrite Ka/listos Ware

was born; what else is my cave, but the place where my Savior Christ was taken to rest; what else is my cave, but the place from where he most gloriously rose again from the dead. Jerusalem is here, right here, and all the spiritual riches of the Holy City are found in this wadi.”19 In all this we are moving steadily from the external to the inward sense of hesychia. Interpreted in terms of the spirituality of the cell, the word signifies not only an outward and physical condition but a state of soul. It denotes the attitude of one who stands in his heart before God. “The principal thing,” states Bishop Theophan the Recluse (1815 1894), “is to stand before God with the mind in the heart, and to go on standing before him unceasingly day and night, until the end of life.”20 That is precisely what the stillness and silence of his cell signify to the hesychast. (3) Hesychia and the “Return into Oneself." This more inward understanding of hesychia is plainly emphasized in the classic designation of the hesychast supplied by St John Climacus (t ca 649): “The hesychast is one who strives to confine his incorporeal being within his bodily house, para¬ doxical though this may sound.”21 The hesychast, in the true sense of the word, is not someone who has journeyed out¬ wardly into the desert, but someone who has embarked upon the journey inwards into his own heart; not someone who cuts himself off physically from others, shutting the door of his cell, but someone who “returns into himself,” shutting the door of his mind. “He came to himself,” it is said of the prodigal son (Lk 15:17); and this is what the hesychast also does. He responds to Christ’s words, “The Kingdom of God is within you” (Lk 17:21), and seeks to “guard the heart with all watchfulness” (Pr 4:23). Reinterpreting our original de¬ finition of the hesychast as a solitary living in the desert, we 19.

Otto Meinardus, “The Hermits of Wadi Rayan,” Studio Orientalia

Christiana. Collectanea 11 (Cairo, 1966) 308.

20. Cited in Igumen Chariton of Valamo, The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology, tr. E. Kadloubovsky and E. M. Palmer (London 1966) p. 63.

21.

Scala 27; PG 88:1097B.

Silence in Prayer:

The Meaning of Hesychia

27

may say that solitude is a state of soul, not a matter of geo¬ graphical location, and that the real desert lies within the heart. The “return into oneself” is finely described by St Basil the Great (t379) and St Isaac the Syrian (seventh century). “When the mind is no longer dissipated amidst external things," writes Basil, “nor dispersed across the world through the senses, it returns to itself; and by means of itself it ascends to the thought of God.”22 “Be at peace with your own soul," urges Isaac, “then heaven and earth will be at peace with you. Enter eagerly into the treasure house that is within you, and so you will see the things that are in heaven; for there is but one single entry to them both. The ladder that leads to the Kingdom is hidden within your soul. Flee from sin, dive into yourself, and in your soul you will discover the stairs by which to ascend.”23 At this point in our argument it will be helpful to pause briefly and to distinguish with greater precision between the external and inward senses of the word hesychia,24 Three levels are indicated in a famous apophthegma of Abba Arsenius. While still tutor to the imperial children in the palace, Arsenius prayed to God, “Show me how to be saved." And a voice came to him, “Arsenius, flee from men and you will be saved.” He withdrew into the desert and became a solitary; and then he prayed again in the same words. This time the voice said: “Arsenius, flee, keep silent (aiwira) be still (pouxo^s), for these are the roots of sinless¬ ness.”25 Flee from men, keep silent, be still: 22.

such are the three

Ep. 2; PG 32:228A.

23. Mystic Treatises by Isaac of Nineveh, translated from Bedjan’s Syriac text by A. J. Wensinck (Amsterdam, 1923), p. 8 (translation adapted). 24.

In what follows, I am much indebted to the fundamental study of I.

Hausherr, “L’hesychasme. Periodica 22 (1956):

Etude de spiritualite,” Orientalia Christiana

5-40, 247-85, especially pp. 18ff. This essay is reprinted

in the collected volume of Fr Hausherr’s writings,

Hesychasme et Priere,

Orientalia Christiana Analecta 176 (Rome, 1966) 163-237.

25.

AP, Arsenius 1, 2; PG 65:88BC.

28

Archimandrite Kallistos Ware

degrees of hesychia. The first is spatial, to “flee from men’’ externally and physically. The second is still external, to “keep silent,” to desist from outward speech. Neither of these things can by itself make a man into a real hesychast; for he may be living in outward solitude and may keep his mouth closed, and yet inwardly he may be full of restlessness and agitation. To achieve true stillness it is necessary to pass from the second level to the third, from external to interior hesychia, from the mere absence of speech to what St Ambrose of Milan terms negotiosum silentium,28 active and creative silence. The same three levels are distinguished by St John Climacus: “Close the door of your cell physically, the door of your tongue to speech, and the inward door to the evil spirits.”27 This distinction between the levels of hesychia has important implications for the relationship of the hesychast to society. A man may accomplish the visible and geographic flight into the desert and in his heart still remain in the midst of the city; conversely, a man may continue physically in the city and yet be a true hesychast in his heart. What matters is not the Christian’s spatial position but his spiritual state. It is true that some writers in the Christian East, most notably St Isaac the Syrian, have come close to maintaining that inward hesychia cannot exist without external solitude. But such is far from being the universal view. There are stories in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers where laymen, fully committed to a life of active service in the world, are compared with hermits and solitaries; a doctor in Alexandria, for instance, is regarded as the spiritual equal of St Antony the Great himself.28 St Gregory of Sinai refused to tonsure one of his disciples named Isidore, but sent him back from Mount Athos to Thessalonika, to act as exemplar and guide

26.

De Officiis I, iii (9); PL 16:26B.

27.

Scala 27; PG 88:1100A.

28.

AP. Antony 24; PG 65:84B.

Silence in Prayer:

The Meaning of Hesychia

there to a circle of lay people.

29

Gregory could scarcely have

done this had he regarded the vocation of an urban hesychast as impossible. St Gregory Palamas insisted in the most un¬ ambiguous fashion that the command of St Paul, “Pray with¬ out ceasing” (I Th. 5:17), applies to all Christians without exception.30 In this connection it should be remembered that, when Greek ascetic writers such as Evagrius or St Maximus the Confessor use the terms “active life” and “contemplative life,” the “active life” signifies for them not the life of direct service to the world — preaching, teaching, social work and the like — but the inward struggle to subdue the passions and acquire the virtues. Using the phrase in this sense, it may be said that many hermits, and many religious living in strict enclosure, are still predominantly concerned with the “active life.” By the same token, there are men and women fully devoted to a life of service in the world who yet possess prayer of the heart; and of them it may justly be said that they are living the “contemplative life.” St Symeon the New Theologian (t 1022) insists that the fullness of the vision of God is possible “in middle of cities” as well as “in mountains and cells.” Married people, so he believed, with secular jobs and children, burdened with the anxieties of run¬ ning a large household, may yet ascend to the heights of contemplation; St Peter had a mother-in-law, yet the Lord called him to climb Tabor and behold the glory of the Trans¬ figuration.31 The criterion is not the external situation but the inward reality. Just as it is possible to live in the city and yet to be a hesychast, so there are some whose duty it is to be constantly 29.

Patriarch Philotheos, Vita Isidori 22, ed. A. Papadopoulos-Keramevs,

Zapiski Istoriko - Filologicheskago Fakul'teka Imperatorskago S.-Peterburgskago Universiteta, 76 (St Petersburg, 1905) 77, 21-26.

30. Patriarch Philotheos, Encomium S. Gregorii Thessalonicensis: PG 151: 573B-574B. 31. Catecheses

V, 122-141; VI, 153-61, ed. Krivocheine, Sources chre-

tiennes 96: 386-8; 104:26-28.

30

Archimandrite Kallistos Ware

talking and who yet are silent inwardly. In the words of Abba Poemen, “One man appears to be keeping silent and yet condemns others in his heart: such a person is speaking all the time. Another man talks from morning till evening and yet keeps silent; that is, he says nothing except what is helpful to others.”32 This applies exactly to the position of startsi such as St Seraphim of Sarov and the spiritual fathers of Optino in nineteenth century Russia; compelled by their vocation to receive an unending stream of visitors — dozens and even hundreds in a single day — they did not thereby forfeit their inward hesychia. Indeed, it was precisely because of this inward hesychia that they were enabled to act as guides to others. The words that they spoke to each visitor were words of power because they were words that came out of silence. In one of his answers, John of Gaza made a clear distinc¬ tion between inward and outward silence. A brother living in community, who found his duties as monastic carpenter a cause of disturbance and distraction, asked whether he should become a hermit and “practice the silence of which the Fathers speak.” John did not agree to this. “Like most people,” he replied, “you do not understand what is meant by the silence of which the Fathers speak. Silence does not consist in keeping your mouth shut. A man may speak ten thousand useful words, and it is counted as silence; another speaks a single unnecessary word, and it is counted as a breach of the Lord’s commandment: ‘You shall give account in the day of judgment for every idle word that comes out of your mouth.’ (Mt 12:32) ”33 (4) Hesychia and Spiritual Poverty. Inward stillness, when interpreted as a guarding of the heart and a return into oneself, implies a passage from multiplicity to unity, from diversity to simplicity and spiritual poverty. To use the terminology of Evagrius, the mind must become “naked.” 32.

AP. Poemen 27; PG 65:329A.

33.

Barsanuphiusand John, Quaest. et resp. 554 (in the numbering both of

Schoinas and of Regnault and Lemaire).

Silence in Prayer:

The Meaning of Hesychia

31

This aspect of hesychia is made explicit in another definition provided by St John Climacus: “Hesychia is a laying aside of thoughts.”34 Here he is adapting an Evagrian phrase, “Prayer is a laying aside of thoughts.”35 Hesychia involves a progressive self-empyting, in which the mind is stripped of all visual images and man-made concepts, and so contemplates in purity the realm of God. The hesychast, from this point of view, is one who has advanced from praxis to theoria, from the active to the contemplative life. St Gregory of Sinai con¬ trasts the hesychast with the praktikos, and goes on to speak of ”... the hesychasts who are content to pray to God alone within their heart and to abstain from thoughts.”36 The hesychast, then, is not so much one who refrains from meet¬ ing and speaking with others, as one who in his life of prayer renounces all images, words and discursive reasoning, who is “lifted above the senses into pure silence.” 37 This “pure silence,” although it is termed “spiritual poverty,” is far from being a mere absence or privation. If the hesychast strips his mind of all man-made concepts, so far as this is possible, his aim in this “self-noughting” is altogether constructive — that he may be filled with an all-embracing sense of the Divine Indwelling. The point is well made by St Gregory of Sinai: “Why speak at length? oo Prayer is God, who works all things in men.” Prayer is God; it is not primarily something which I do but something which God is doing in me— “... not I, but Christ in me” (Ga 2:20). The hesychast program is exactly delineated in the words of the Baptist concerning the Messiah, “he must in¬ crease, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:30). The hesychast ceases from his own activity, not in order to be idle, but in order to 34.

Scala 27; PG 88:1112A.

The phrase is repeated by St Gregory of

Sinai, Quomodo oporteat sedere 5; 35.

PG 150:1333B.

De oratione 70; PG 79:1181C; CS 4:66.

36.

Quomodo oporteat sedere 5; PG 150:1333B.

37.

The Book of the Poor in Spirit,

1954) p. 151. 38.

Capita 113; PG 150:1280A.

II iii, 2; ed. C. F. Kelley (London,

32

Archimandrite Kallistos Ware

enter into the activity of God.

His silence is not vacant and

negative —a blank pause between words, a short rest before resuming speech—but intensely positive: an attitude of alert attentiveness, of vigilance, and above all of listening. The hesychast is par excellence the one who listens, who is open to the presence of Another: “Be still and know that I am God’’ (Psalm 45 [46]: 11). In the words of St John Climacus, “The hesychast is one who cries out plainly, ‘O God, my heart is ready’ (Ps 56 [57]:8); the hesychast is one who says, ‘I sleep, but my heart keeps vigil’ (Song 5:2).’’ 39 Returning into himself, the hesychast enters the secret chamber of his own heart in order that, standing there before God, he may listen to the wordless speech of his Creator. “When you pray,’’ observes a contemporary Orthodox writer in Finland, “you yourself must be silent; let the prayer speak’’40—more exactly, let God speak. “Man ... should always remain silent and let God alone speak.’’41 That is what the hesychast is aiming to achieve. therefore denotes the transition from “my” prayer to the prayer of God working in me — to use the terminology of Bishop Theophan, from “strenuous” or “laborious” prayer to the prayer that is “self-acting” or “self-impelled.” True inner silence or hesychia, in the deepest sense, is identical with the unceasing prayer of the Holy Spirit within us. As St Isaac the Syrian expresses it, Hesychia

“When the Spirit makes his dwelling-place in a man, he does not cease to pray, because the Spirit will constantly pray in him. Then, neither when he sleeps nor when he is awake, will prayer be cut off from his soul; but when he eats and when he drinks, when he lies down or when he does any work, even when he is immersed in sleep, the perfumes of prayer will breathe in his heart spontaneously.” 42 39.

Scala 27; PG 88:1100A.

40.

Tito Colliander, The Way of the Ascetics (London, 1960) p. 79.

41.

The Booh of the Poor in Spirit, II, iii, 2; ed. Kelley, p. 151.

42.

Mystic Treatises, tr. Wensinck, p. 174.

Silence in Prayer:

The Meaning of Hesychia

33

Elsewhere St Isaac likens this entry into self-acting prayer to a man’s passing through a door after the key has been turned in the lock, and to the silence of servants when the master arrives in their midst. “The movements of the tongue and heart during prayer are keys,’’ he writes. “What comes afterwards is the entering into the treasury. At this point every mouth and tongue falls silent. The heart, the treasurer of the thoughts, the mind, the governor of the senses, and the daring spirit, that swift bird, together with all their resources and powers and persuasive intercessions — all these must now stand still: for the Master of the house has come.43 Understood in these terms, as an entering into the life and the activity of God, hesychia is something which during this present age men can achieve only to a limited and imperfect degree. It is an eschatological reality, reserved in its fullness for the Age to Come. In the words of St Isaac, “Silence is a symbol of the future world.’’44 Hesychia and the Jesus Prayer

In principle, hesychia is a general term for inward prayer, and embraces a variety of more specific ways of praying.45 In practice, however, the majority of Orthodox writers in recent centuries use the word to designate one spiritual path in par¬ ticular: the invocation of the Name of Jesus. Occasionally, although with less justification, the term “hesychasm” is employed in a yet more restricted sense to indicate the physical technique and breathing exercises which are sometimes used in conjunction with the Jesus Prayer.46 The 43.

Ibid., p. 112.

44.

Ibid., p. 315.

45. Compare, for example, the definition given by P. Adnes: “Hesychasm may be defined as a spiritual system, essentially contemplative in orienta¬ tion, which regards man’s perfection as consisting in union with God by means of prayer or perpetual prayerfulness.” — article on “Hesychasme,” DS 7 (Paris, 1969) 384. 46.

This is wide enough to include many things.

Palamas and the other hesychast masters regard the physical technique

(control of the breathing, inward “exploration,” etc.) as no more than

Archimandrite Kallistos Ware

34

association of hesychia with the Name of Jesus — and so it would seem, with the breathing — is found already in St John Climacus: “Hesychia is to stand before God in unceasing worship. Let the remembrance of Jesus be united to your breathing, and then you will know the value of hesychia.’ What is the relationship between the Jesus Prayer and hesychia? How does the invocation of the Name help in establishing the kind of inner silence that has just been described? Prayer, it was said, is a “laying aside of thoughts,’’ a re¬ turn from multiplicity to unity. Now anyone who makes a serious effort to pray inwardly, standing before God with the mind in the heart, becomes immediately conscious of his in¬ ward disintegration — of his powerlessness to concentrate himself in the present moment, in the Kairos. Thoughts move restlessly through his head, like the buzzing of flies (Bishop Theophan) or the capricious leaping of monkeys from branch to branch (Ramakrishna). This lack of concen¬ tration, this inability to be here and now with the whole of our being, is one of the most tragic consequences of the Fall. What is to be done? The Eastern Orthodox ascetic tradition distinguishes two main methods of overcoming “thoughts.’’ The first is direct, to “contradict” our logismoi, to meet them face to face, attempting to expel them by an effort of will. Such a method, however, may well prove an accessory, serviceable to some but by no means obligatory or indispen¬ sable.

The Jesus Prayer can be practiced in its fullness without any bodily

exercises at all.

It is thus a misnomer to refer to these exercises as “the

hesychast method of prayer.”

This is a blunder of which the illustrious Fr

Hausherr, among others has been guilty.

On the physical technique, see T.

(Kallistos) Ware, “Introduction,” Igumen Chariton, The Art of Prayer, pp. 34-36; J. Gouillard, "A note on the Prayer of the Heart,” in J.-M. Dechanet, Christian Yoga (Perennial Library; New York, 1972) pp. 217-30.

47. 48.

Scala 27; PG 88:1112C.

I take these two similes from the article of Dr Andre Bloom (now

Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh), “Contemplation et ascese: contribution orthodoxe,” in Technique et contemplation (Etudes Carmelitaines, no. 28: Bruges, 1949) pp. 49-67.

This is an inportant discussion of the various

physical centres in a man and their implications for the spiritual life.

Silence in Prayer:

The Meaning of Hesychia

35

counter-productive. When violently suppressed, our fantasies tend to return with increased force. Unless we are extremely sure of ourselves, it is safer to employ the second method, which is oblique. Instead of fighting our thoughts directly and seeking to drive them out by an effort of will, we can seek to turn our attention away from them and to look elsewhere. Our spiritual strategy in this way becomes positive instead of negative: our immediate objective is not to empty our mind of what is evil but rather to fill it with what is good. It is this second method that is recommended by Barsanuphius and John of Gaza. “Do not contradict the thoughts suggested by your enemies,” they advise, “for that is exactly what they want and they will not desist. But turn to the Lord for help against them, laying before him your own helplessness; for he is able to expel them and to reduce them to nothing.” 49 It is surely evident to each one of us that we cannot halt the inward flow of images and thoughts by a crude exertion of will-power. It is of little or no value to say to ourselves, “Stop thinking”; we might as well say, “Stop breathing.” “The rational mind cannot rest idle,” insists St Mark the Monk.50 How then are we to achieve spiritual poverty and inner silence? Although we cannot make the never-idle in¬ telligence desist altogether from its restlessness, what we can do is to simplify and unify its activity by continually repeating a short formula of prayer. The flow of images and thoughts will persist, but we shall be enabled gradually to detach our¬ selves from it. The repeated invocation will help us to “let go” the thought presented to us by our conscious or sub¬ conscious self. This “letting go” seems to correspond to what Evagrius had in view when he spoke of prayer as a “laying aside” of thoughts — not a savage conflict, not a ruthless campaign of furious aggression, but a gentle yet persistent act of detachment. Such is the ascetic psychology 49.

Quaest et resp., ed. Schoinas, 91; ed. Regnault and Lemaire, 166.

50.

De paen. 11; PG 65:981B.

given inaccurately in Migne.

1 have emended the Greek text, which is

Archimandrite Kallistos Ware

36

presupposed in the use of the Jesus Prayer. The Invocation of the Name helps to focus our disintegrated personality upon a single point. “Through the remembrance of Jesus Christ,” writes Philotheos of Sinai (?9th —10th century), “gather together your scattered mind.”51 The Jesus Prayer is to be seen as an application of the second or oblique method of combatting thoughts: instead of trying to obliterate our corrupt or trivial imaginings by a direct confrontation, we turn aside and look at the Lord Jesus; instead of relying on our own power, we take refuge in the power and grace that act through the Divine Name. The repeated invocation helps us to “let go” and to detach ourselves from the ceaseless chattering of our logismoi. We concentrate and unify an ever-active mind by feeding it with a single thought, by nour¬ ishing it on a spiritual diet that is at once rich yet exceedingly simple. “To stop the continual jostling of your thoughts,” says Bishop Theophan, “you must bind the mind with one thought, or the thought of One only”52 —the thought of the Lord Jesus. In the words of St Diadochus of Photice (5th century), “When we have blocked all the outlets of the mind by means of the remembrace of God, then it requires of us at all costs some task which will satisfy its need for activity. Let us give it then as its sole activity the prayer,‘Lord Jesus..’.”53 Such in outline is the manner whereby the Jesus Prayer can be used to establish hesychia within the heart. Two im¬ portant consequences follow. First, to achieve its purpose the invocation should be rhythmical and regular, and in the case of an experienced hesychast — though not of the beginner, who needs to proceed with caution —it should be as uninter¬ rupted and continuous as possible. External aids, such as the use of a prayer-rope (komvoschoinion, tchotki) and the control of the breathing, have as their main purpose precisely the es¬ tablishment of a regular rhythm. In the second place, during the recitation of the Jesus 51.

Capita 27; Philokalia, vol. ii (Athens 1958) p. 283.

52.

The Art of Prayer, p. 97.

53.

De perfect,

spir. 59; ed. des Places, p. 119, 1-5.

Silence in Prayer:

The Meaning of Hesychia

37

Prayer the mind should be so far as possible empty of mental pictures. For this reason, it is best to practice the Prayer in a place where there are few if any outward sounds; it should be recited in darkness or with the eyes closed, rather than before an icon illuminated by candles or a votive lamp. Staretz Silouan of Mount Athos (1866-1938), when saying the Prayer, used to stow his clock away in the cupboard in order not to hear its ticking, and then pulled his thick woolen monastic cap over his eyes and ears.54 While visual images will inevitably arise within us as we pray, they are not to be deliberately encouraged. The Jesus Prayer is not a form of discursive meditation on incidents in the life of Christ. Those who invoke the Lord Jesus should have in their hearts an intense and burning conviction that they stand in the immediate presence of the Saviour, that he is before them and within them, that he is listening to their invocation and replying in his turn. This consciousness of God’s presence should not, however, be accompanied by any visual concept, but should be confined to a simple conviction or feeling. As St Gregory of Nyssa (f395) puts it, “The Bridegroom is present but he is not seen.”55 Prayer and Action Hesychia, then, involves a separation from the world — a separation either external or inward, and sometimes both at once: external through flight into the desert; internal through the “return into oneself” and the “laying aside of thoughts.

To quote the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, “Unless a man says in his heart, I alone and God are in the world, he will have no rest.”55 “Alone to the Alone :5^ but is this not 54.

Archimandrite Sophrony,

(London, 1958) pp. 40-41.

The Undistorted Image:

Staretz Silouan

But St Maximus of Kapsokalyvia (14th century)

said the Jesus Prayer in front of an icon of the Mother of God: Theophanes, Vita 15; ed. E. Kourilas and F. Halkin, Analecta Bollandiana 54 (1936) 85,

9-17. 55. 56.

Comm, in Cant xi; PG 44:1001B; ed. Langerbeck, p. 324, 8-9. AP. Alonius 1; PG 65:133A.

57. Cf. Plotinus, Enneads VI, ix, 11; ed. Henry and Schwyzer, p. 328, 51.

Archimandrite Kallistos Ware

38

selfish, a rejection of the spiritual value of the material crea¬ tion and an evasion of our responsibility towards our fellow men? When the hesychast shuts his eyes and ears to the outside world, as Fr Silouan did in his cell on Mount Athos, what positive and practical service is he rendering to his neighbor? Let us consider this problem under two main aspects.

In

the first place, is hesychasm guilty of the same distortions as Quietism in the seventeeth-century West? Hitherto we have deliberately refrained from translating hesychia as “quiet,” because of the suspect sense attached to the term “quietist.” Is the hesychast in fact upholding the same standpoint as the quietist? In the second place, what is the attitude of the hesychast to his environment, whether physical or human? What practical use is he to others? “The fundamental principle of Quietism,” it has been said, “is its condemnation of all human effort. According to the Quietists, man, in order to be perfect, must attain complete passivity and annihilation of will, abandoning himself to God to such an extent that he cares neither for heaven nor hell, nor for his own salvation ... The soul consciously refuses not only all discursive meditation by any distinct act such as desire for virtue, love of Christ or adoration of the Divine Persons, but simply rests in the presence of God in pure faith ... Once a man has attained to [the height of perfection], sin is impossible.”58 If this is Quietism, then the hesychast tradition is definitely not quietist. Hesychia signifies not passivity but vigilance (nipsis), “not the absence of struggle but the absence of un¬ certainty and confusion.”59 Even though a hesychast may have advanced to the level of theoria or contemplation, he is still required to struggle at the level of praxis or action, striving with positive effort to acquire virtue and to reject 58.

F. L. Cross, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Lon¬

don, 1963), p. 1133.

It is, of course, beyond the scope of this paper to dis¬

cuss how far this is in fact a just description of the viewpoint of de Molinos, Mme. Guyon and Fenelon. 59.

A. Bloom, “Contemplation et ascese,” art. cit., p. 54.

Silence in Prayer:

The Meaning of Hesychia

39

vice. Praxis and theoria, the active and the contemplative life in the sense defined earlier, should be envisaged not as al¬ ternatives, nor yet as two stages, chronologically successive— the one ceasing when the other begins — but rather as two interpenetrating levels of spiritual experience, present simul¬ taneously in the life of prayer. Everyone is required to fight on the level of praxis to the end of his life. This is the clear teaching of St Antony of Egypt: “A man’s chief task is to be mindful of his sins in God’s sight, and to expect temptation until his last breath.... He who sits in the desert as a hesychast has escaped from three wars: hearing, speaking, seeing; but against one thing he must continually struggle — the warfare in his own heart.”60 It is true that the hesychast, like the quietist, does not use discursive meditation in his prayer. But although hesychia involves a “letting go” or “laying aside” of thoughts and images, this does not imply on the hesychast’s part an attitude of “complete passivity” nor an absence of “any dis¬ tinct act such as ... love of Christ.” The “letting go” of evil or trivial logismoi during the saying of the Jesus Prayer, and their replacement with the one thought of the Name, is not passivity but in itself a positive way of controlling our thoughts. The invocation of the Name is certainly a form of “resting in the presence of God in pure faith,” but it is at the same time marked by an active love for the Savior and an acute longing to share ever more fully in the divine life. Readers of the Philokalia cannot but be struck by the warmth of devotion displayed by hesychast authors, by the sense of immediate and personal friendship for “my Jesus.” This note of personal vividness is especially apparent in Hesychios of Vatos (?9th—10th century). Unlike the quietist, the hesychast makes no claim to be sinless or impervious to temptation. The apatheia or “dispassion” of which Greek ascetic texts speak is not a state of passive indifference and insensibility, still less a condition in which sinning is impossible. “Apatheia," states St Isaac the 60.

AP, Antony, 4 and 11; PG 65:77A,C.

40

Archimandrite Kallistos Ware

Syrian, “does not consist in no longer feeling the passions but in not accepting them.”6) As St Antony insists, man must “expect temptation until his last breath,” and with the temp¬ tation there goes always the genuine possibility of falling into sin. “The passions remain alive,” states Abba Abraham, “but they are bound by the Saints.”62 When an old man claims, “I have died to the world,” his neighbor gently rejoins, “Do not be so confident, brother, until you depart from the body. You may say, ‘I have died,’ but Satan has not died.”62 In Greek writers from Evagrius onwards, apatheia is closely linked with love, which indicates the positive and dynamic content of the term “dispassion.” In its basic essence, it is a state of spiritual freedom, in which man is able to reach out toward God with ardent longing. It is “no mere mortification of the physical passions of the body but its new and better energy”;64 “it is a state of soul in which a burning love for God and man leaves no room for selfish and animal passions.”65 To denote its dynamic character, St Diadochus uses the expressive phrase “the fire of apatheia."66 All this shows the gulf between hesychasm and quietism. To come now to the second question: accepting that the hesychast way of prayer is not “quietist” in a suspect and heretical sense, how far is it negative in its view of the material world and anti-social in its attitude toward men? The difficulty may be illustrated from a story in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers about three friends who become monks. As his ascetic labor the first adopts the task of peace-maker, 61.

Mystic Treatises, tr. Wensinck, p. 345.

62. AP, Abraham 1; PG 65:132B. 63. AP, anonymous collection, ed. Nau, 266, Revue de VOrient chretien 14 (1909) 369-70; tr. Guy, 134, p. 370. 64.

Fr (now Archbishop) Basil Krivosheine, The Ascetic and Theological

Teaching of Gregory Palamas, reprint from The Eastern Churches Quarterly (London, 1954) p. 5.

65.

Archimandrite Lazarus Moore, in St John Climacus, The Ladder of

Divine Ascent (London, 1959) p. 51, note 3.

66.

De perfect, spir. 17; ed. des Places, p. 94, 3.

Silence in Prayer:

The Meaning of Hesychia

41

seeking to reconcile those who go to law against one another. The second cares for the sick, and the third goes into the desert to become a solitary. After a time the first two grow utterly weary and discouraged. However hard they struggle they are physically and spiritually incapable of meeting all the demands placed upon them. Close to despair, they go to the third monk, the hermit, and tell him about their troubles. At first he is silent. After a while he pours water into a bowl and says to the others, “Look." The water is murky and turbulent. They wait for some minutes. The hermit says, “Look again." The sediment has now sunk to the bottom and the water is entirely clear; they see their own faces as in a mirror. “That is what happens,” says the hermit, “to someone who lives among men: because of the turbulence he does not see his own sins. But when he has learnt to be still, above all in the desert, he recognizes his own faults."67 So the story ends. We are not told how the first two monks applied the hermit’s parable. Perhaps they both returned to the world, resuming their previous work but at the same time taking back with them something of the hesychia of the desert. In that case, they interpreted the words of the third monk to mean that social action by itself is not enough. Un¬ less there is a still center in the middle of the storm, unless a man in the midst of all his activism preserves a secret room in his heart where he stands alone before God, then he will lose all sense of spiritual direction and be torn in pieces. Doubtless this is the moral which most readers in the twen¬ tieth century would be inclined to draw —that all of us must be, in some measure, hermits of the heart. But was this the original intention of the story? Probably not. It is far more likely that it was intended as propaganda for the eremitic life in the more literal and geographical sense. And this raises at once the whole question of the apparent selfishness and negativity of this type of contemplative prayer. What, then, is the true relationship of the hesychast to society? 67. AP, anonymous collection, ed. Nau, 134, Revue de VOrient chretien 13 (1908) 47; tr. Guy, 2, pp. 319-20.

Archimandrite Kallistos Ware

42

It must be admitted at once that, alike in the hesychast movement of the fourteenth century, in the hesychast renaissance of the eighteenth century, and in contemporary

Orthodoxy, the chief centers of hesychast prayer have been the small sketes, the hermitages housing only a handful of brethren, living as a small and closely integrated monastic family hidden from the world. Many hesychast authors express a definite preference for the skete over the fully organized coenobium: life in a large community is con¬ sidered too distracting for the intense practice of inward prayer. But, if the outward setting of the skete is considered ideal, few would go so far as to claim that it enjoys an exclusive monopoly. Always the criterion is not a man’s exterior con¬ dition but his inward state. Certain external settings may prove more favorable than others for interior silence; but there is no situation whatever which renders interior silence altogether impossible. St Gregory of Sinai, as we have seen, sent his disciple Isidore back into the world; many of his closest companions on Mount Athos and in the desert of Paroria became patriarchs and bishops, leaders and admin¬ istrators of the Church. St Gregory Palamas, who taught that continual prayer is possible for every Christian, himself concluded his life as archbishop of the second largest city in the Byzantine Empire. z. o

The layman Nicolas Cabasilas (14th century), a civil servant and courtier who was the friend of many leading hesychasts, maintains with great emphasis: “And everyone should keep their art or profession. The general should continue to command; the farmer to till the land; the artisan to practice his craft. And I will tell you why. It is not necessary to retire into the desert, to take unpalatable food, to alter one’s dress, to compromise one’s health, or to do anything unwise, because it is quite possible to remain in one’s own home without giving up all one’s possessions, and yet to practice 68.

See pp. 28-29 supra.

Silence in Prayer:

The Meaning of Hesychia

43

continual meditation.”69 In the same spirit, St Symeon the New Theologian insists that the ‘‘highest life” is the state to which God calls each one personally: ‘‘Many people canonize the eremitic life, others the life in a monastic community, or else that of government, instruction, education, or church ad¬ ministration.... Yet I would not prefer any one of these to the rest, nor would I exalt one form and depreciate another. But in every situation and activity, it is the life for God and ac¬ cording to God which is truly blessed.”70 The way of hesychia, then, lies open to all: the one thing needful is inner silence, not outer. And though this inner silence presupposes the ‘‘laying aside” of images in prayer, the final effect of this negation is to assert with fresh vividness the ultimate value of all things and all persons in God. The way of negation is at the same time the way of super-affirmation. This point emerges very plainly from The Way of a Pilgrim. The anonymous Russian peasant who is the hero of this tale finds that the constant repetition of the Jesus Prayer transfigures his relationship with the material creation around him, changing all things into a sacrament of God’s presence and rendering them transparent. ‘‘When ... I prayed with all my heart,” he writes, ‘‘everything around me seemed delightful and marvellous. The trees, the grass, the birds, the earth, the air, the light seemed to be telling me that they existed for man’s sake, that they witnessed to the love of God for man, that everything proved the love of God for man, that all things prayed to God and sang his praise. Thus it was that I came to understand what The Philokalia calls ‘the knowledge of the speech of all creatures.’ ... I felt a burning love for Jesus Christ and for all God’s creatures.”71 69. De vita in Christo vi; PG 150:657-9, quoted in J. M. Hussey, “Symeon the New Theologian and Nicolas Cabasilas:

Similarities and Contrasts in

Orthodox Spirituality,” Eastern Churches Review 4 (1972) 139.

Some have

thought that, by “meditation,” Nicolas means specifically the Jesus Prayer; Prof Hussey prefers to give the phrase a wider application. 70.

Capita iii, 65; ed. Darrouzes, p. 100, 9-16.

71. The Way of a Pilgrim, tr. R. M. French (London, 1954) pp. 31-32, 41.

Archimandrite Kallistos Ware

44

Equally, the Invocation of the Name transforms the Pilgrim’s relationship with his fellow men: “Again I started off on my wanderings. But now I did not walk along as before, filled with care. The Invocation of the Name of Jesus gladdened my way. Everybody was kind to me, it was as though everyone loved me. ... If anyone harms me I have only to think, ‘How sweet is the Prayer of Jesus!’ and the injury and anger pass away and I forget it all.’’72 Further evidence of the world-affirming nature

of

hesychia is to be found in the central position assigned by the

hesychasts to the mystery of the Transfiguration. Metro¬ politan Anthony (Bloom) gives a striking description of two icons of the Transfiguration which he saw in Moscow, the one by Andrei Rublev and the other by Theophan the Greek. “The Rublev icon shows Christ in the brilliancy of his daz¬ zling white robes which cast light on everything around. This light falls on the disciples, on the mountains and the stones, on every blade of grass. Within this light, which is ... the divine glory, the divine light itself inseparable from God, all things acquire an intensity of being which they could not have otherwise; in it they attain to a fullness of reality which they can have only in God.’’ In the other icon “the robes of Christ are silvery with blue shades, and the rays of light falling around are also white, silvery and blue. Everything gives an impression of much less intensity. Then we discover that all these rays of light falling from the Divine Presence ... do not give relief but give transparency to things. One has the im¬ pression that these rays of divine light touch things and sink into them, penetrate them, touch something within them so that from the core of these things, of all things created, the same light reflects and shines back as though the divine life quickens the capabilities, the potentialities, of all things and makes all reach out towards itself. At that moment the escha¬ tological situation is realized and, in the words of St Paul, ‘God is all and in all.’ ”73 72.

Ibid., pp. 17-18.

73.

“Body and Matter in Spiritual Life,” in A. M. Allchin, ed. Sacrament

Silence in Prayer:

The Meaning of Hesychia

45

Such is the double effect of the Transfiguration glory: to make each thing and each person stand out in full dis¬ tinctiveness, in its or his unique and unrepeatable essence; and at the same time to make each thing and each person transparent, to reveal the divine presence beyond and within them: A man that looks on glasse On it may stay his eye; Or if he pleaseth, through it passe, And then the heav’n espie.74 The same double effect is produced by hesychia. The prayer of inward silence is not world-denying but world-em¬ bracing. It enables the hesychast to look beyond the world toward the invisible Creator; and so it enables him to return back to the world and see it with new eyes. To travel, it has been often said, is to return to our point of departure and to see our home afresh as though for the first time. This is true of the journey of prayer, as of other journeys. The hesychast, far more than the sensualist or the materialist, can appreciate the value of each thing, because he sees each in God and God in each. It is no coincidence that, in the Palamite controversy of the fourteenth century, St Gregory and his hesychast sup¬ porters were concerned to defend precisely the spiritual po¬ tentialities of the material creation and, in particular, of man’s physical body. Such, in brief, is the answer to those who see hesychasm as negative and dualist in its attitude to the world. The hesy¬ chast denies in order to reaffirm; he withdraws in order to return. In a phrase which sums up the relationship between the hesychast and society, between inner prayer and outward action, Evagrius of Pontus remarks: “A monk is one who is separated from all and united to all.”75 The hesychast makes and Image:

Essays in the Christian Understanding of Man (The Fellowship

of St Alban and St Sergius:

London, 1967) pp. 40-41.

74.

George Herbert, The Elixir.

75.

De oratione 124, PG 79:1193C; CS 4:76.

46

Archimandrite Kallistos Ware

an act of separation—externally, by retiring into solitude; in¬ wardly, by the “laying aside of thoughts” — yet the effect of this flight is to join him to them more closely than ever before, to make him more deeply sensitive to the needs of others, more sharply conscious of their hidden possibilities. This is seen most strikingly in the case of the great startsi. Men such as St Antony of Egypt or St Seraphim of Sarov lived for whole decades in all but total silence and physical isolation. Yet the ultimate effect of this isolation was to confer on them clarity of vision and an exceptional compassion. Precisely because they had learned to be alone, they could instinctively identify themselves with others. They were able to discern immediately the deep characteristics of each man, perhaps speaking to him only two or three sentences; but those few words were the one thing that at that particular juncture he needed to be told. St Isaac the Syrian says that it is better to acquire purity of heart than to convert whole nations of heathen from error. 76 Not that he despises the work of the apostolate; he means merely that unless and until a man has gained some measure of inward silence, it is improbable that he will succeed in con¬ verting anybody to anything. The point is made less para¬ doxically by Ammonas, the disciple of Antony (4th century): “Because they had first practiced profound hesychia, they possessed the power of God dwelling within them; and then God sent them into the midst of men.”77 And even if many solitaries are never in fact sent back into the world as apostles or startsi, but continue the practice of inner silence throughout their life, totally unknown to others, that does not mean that their hidden contemplation is useless or their life wasted. They are serving society not by active works but by prayer, not by what they do but by what they are, not exter-

76.

Mystic Treatises, ed. Wensinck, p. 32.

77.

Ep. i; ed. F. Nau, Patrologia Orientalis 11 (1915) 433, 4-5.

Silence in Prayer:

nally but existentially.

The Meaning of Hesychia

47

They can say, in the words78 of St

Macarius of Alexandria, “I am guarding the walls.”

Archimandrite Kallistos Ware

St John’s Monastery, Patmos

78.

Palladius, Hist. Laus. 18; ed. Butler, p. 58, 11.

THE FOOL FOR CHRIST’S SAKE IN MONASTICISM, EAST AND WEST

F

ROM THE BEGINNING one of the commonest de¬ signations of the monastic life has been “apostolic.” Monasticism has been seen as a way of realizing the life of the first Christians as described in the Acts of the Apostles. Whatever form the religious life has taken, whether it be in community or solitude, in active service or enclosure, the intensity and whole-heartedness of the apostles’ following of Christ have been a constant inspiration. This paper will be concerned with one element in the life of the apostles that is sometimes overlooked but is of great im¬ portance, especially in the development of monasticism: folly for Christ’s sake. Indeed, for at least one of the Fathers it was this which constituted the true greatness of the apostle Paul. According to St John Chrysostom, we venerate St Paul not for his strength and grandeur but for his vulnerability and folly, his capacity for sharing the sufferings of others. Paul himself we admire on this account, not for the dead whom he raised, nor for the lepers whom he cleansed, but because he said, “If anyone is weak, do I not share their weakness? If anyone is made to stumble, does my heart not blaze with indigna-

48

The Fool for Christ 's Sake

49

tion?” ... He nowhere boasts of his own achieve¬ ments where it is not relevant; but if he is forced to, he calls himself a fool. If he ever boasts, it is of weaknesses, wrongs, of greatly sympathizing with those who are injured.1 Throughout the Corinthian correspondence Paul speaks of his special share in the folly and weakness of Christ Crucified, and at 1 Co 4:9ff. makes it clear that this is the mark of the true apostle. For it seems to me God has made us apostles the most abject of mankind. We are like men con¬ demned to death in the arena, a spectacle to the whole universe—angels as well as men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, while you are such sensible Christians. We are weak; you are so powerful. We are in disgrace; you are honored. To this day we go hungry and thirsty and in rags; we are roughly handled; we wander from place to place; we wear ourselves out working with own hands. They curse us, and we bless; they persecute us, and we submit to it; they slander us, and we humbly make our appeal. We are treated as the scum of the earth, the dregs of humanity, to this very day (NEB). In the Christian Church there have been those who have been called to be “fools for Christ’s sake,’’ who have responded to the apostle’s command, “if there is anyone among you who fancies himself wise — wise, I mean, by the standards of this passing age — he must become a fool to gain true wisdom” (ICo 3:18). In what follows I shall attempt to describe this mysterious vocation and its relation to monasticism in both East and West. I hope to show that folly in Christ, though it is a special vocation requiring a definite gift of the Holy Spirit, has implications for the lives of all Christians. Both monasticism and folly for Christ’s sake 1.

Horn. 32 in 1 Cor; PG 61:275-6.

50

John Saward

will be seen to have a sacramental function: the consecration of a part reveals the destiny of the whole. The lives of the monk and of the fool show us that the Gospel must be preached as a challenge to the world, and that we must do nothing to minimize or eliminate that challenge. Folly for Christ's Sake:

General Characteristics

Before describing the historical development of folly for Christ’s sake, I think it will be useful to offer some general criteria for its assessment. In so doing, I shall be dependent primarily on modern Eastern Orthodox sources. The reason for this is not, as is sometimes thought, that folly for Christ’s sake is a purely Eastern phenomenon. It is simply that only in the Orthodox tradition has folly been recognized by the Church as a true form of sanctity, for which there can be definite theological criteria. The Eastern Orthodox view pro¬ vides us with a conceptual framework for our theological understanding of folly in Christ. Thus in the East “Fool for Christ’s Sake” is an hagiographical category of the same kind as “Martyr” or “Virgin” and has its proper liturgical material. The most important element in folly for Christ’s sake is the eschatological, the conflict between the sensibility, values and structures of this present world and those of the world to come. This is certainly the only context in which we can understand St Paul's account of pcopia in 1 Co l:18ff. It is in the eyes of the world and of the powers which control it that the word of the cross appears as “folly.” The Gospel if folly to “the debater of this age” (v. 20), to “the wisdom of the world” (v. 20), “to Gentiles” (v. 23). It is the man wise “by the standards of this passing age” (1 Co 3:18) who must become foolish. The Gospel is the source of true and lasting wisdom and makes foolish the apparent wisdom of the present world. The folly of the cross is the wisdom of the world to come. As a Greek theologian has expressed it recently: The fool is the charismatic man who has direct ex-

The Fool for Christ’s Sake

51

perience of the new reality of the Kingdom of God and undertakes to demonstrate in a prophetic way the antithesis of this present world with the world of the Kingdom.2 One of the most frequently encountered eschatological motifs in the lives of the fools is the quest for a lost country, for a true homeland. The fool is a pilgrim who never settles any¬ where in this present world but wanders like the pilgrim people in the wilderness, looking for God’s promised land. It is a remarkable fact that the holy fools of both East and West are always thought to be foreigners: in the West, they are Scythians; in Russia, they are Germans.3 The holy fool is indeed the incarnation of the folly of the cross and reveals a folly which is true of Christianity as such vis-a-vis the world. Nevertheless, he is also a fool in the eyes of the rest of the Church. This is the point of Paul’s contrast between himself, “the fool for Christ’s sake,” and the Corin¬ thians, “such sensible Christians.” Of course, we have only to look at the rest of the Corinthian correspondence to see the irony of this latter statement, but that is not the point. The fool shows up the destructive folly of those who have aban¬ doned the life-giving folly of the cross for the delusive wisdom of the world. (The fools) appear outside the Christian establish¬ ment which has compromised with the agreed criteria and sensibility of the world and which measures the regeneration of man and new life with the yard-stick of ethical deontology and public decency.4

2.

Christos Yannaras, “The Fools for Christ’s Sake and the Denial of

Objective Ethics,” 3.

Christian Symposium 4 (Athens, 1970) p. 65 (In Greek).

See the article by Frangois Vandenbroucke, “Fous pour le Christ,” DS

5 (Paris, 1963) 757.

I must at this stage acknowledge my debt to this

excellent piece of scholarship. 4.

Yannaras, p. 65.

52

John Saward

But the fool is not a schismatic. He belongs to, and is ul¬ timately recognized by, the Church, and this recognition begins with the cultus of the fool after his death, the venera¬ tion of his relics by humble believers. The fool for Christ’s sake has this much in common with the court jester of the Middle Ages: he judges the social group to which he himself belongs. The fool is always a prophet and clairvoyant. This is the explanation of many of the moral outrages which he commits. The saint who has renounced all appearances of reason and morality is capable, by virtue of a special clairvoyance, of discovering and denouncing all forms of pious hypocrisy, all false virtues which conceal a profound vice.5 The fool for Christ’s sake penetrates the facade of bourgeois respectability which those who are conformed to this world use to hide their disloyalty to the Gospel. By his words and actions the fool reminds the Church of the terrible goodness of God which transcends man’s attempts to absolutize his own conceptions of righteousness by means of the law. The fool confronts man with his true self beneath the layers of self-deception. In his very acts of madness, in his jokes (like the fools of medieval kings), he manages to teach people the bitter truth of their inner selves, and through these strange lessons confirmed by miracles and, particularly, by fulfilled prophecies some people are converted.6 The absurdity and madness of the fool for Christ’s sake is a sign of the distance between new life in Christ, the life of the poor in spirit, and life in this world, the life of the old man, 5. E. Behr Sigel, “Les fous pour le Christ et la saintete laique l’ancien Russie,” Irenikon 15 (1936) 536.

dans

6. G. P. Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 1966) 2:320.

The Fool for Christ 's Sake

of the possessive, alienated ego.

53

The fool has obeyed the

apostle’s words: “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:2). The fool has unlearned the wisdom of this world, he has exorcised Satan from his inner self, he has taken conversion deep into his heart, and in his inmost being he is remade. But the newness of this transformed existence is a shock and scandal to the old order, to those who do not see that “the form of this world is passing away” (1 Co 7:31), and so the fool is dismissed contemptuously as “the scum of the earth, the dregs of humanity.” The fools for Christ’s sake try to love with the love of Christ. They love the outcasts of society—the poor, the sick, and the immoral. And this is more than paternalistic bene¬ volence; it involves total identification — the fool in Christ becomes one of the wretched of the earth to whom Christ preached the good news; he becomes in his behavior like a little child, for to such belongs the Kingdom. In nearly all the lives of the fools there are stories of their keeping com¬ pany with the poor, with beggars and with prostitutes. The fool humbles himself before those whom society most despises and rejects, and he mercilessly attacks the rich and powerful, denouncing their oppression of the poor, and on occasions destroying their property. The most important characteristic of the fools, the basis and inspiration of all that they do and are, is identity with Christ Crucified, their participation in the poverty, nakedness, humiliation and abandonment of the Lord, and here the spirit of folly for Christ’s sake comes close to the spirit of martyrdom. The basis of this podvig ... is the awareness of the soul’s terrible responsibility toward God, an aware¬ ness which prevents the fool from enjoying the good things of this world and makes him suffer and be crucified with Christ. The essence of this podvig consists in taking voluntarily on oneself humiliations and insults, in order to increase

John Saward

54

humility, meekness and kindness of heart, and so to develop love, even for one’s enemies and persecutors.7 8 This, then, very schematically, is folly for Christ’s sake.

In

the next section 1 shall attempt to give flesh and blood to these general remarks by outlining the history of the fools in East and West. As a preliminary, it might be useful to discuss the basic terminology of folly. St Paul’s word pcopog does not occur very frequently in the Septuagint but where it does, it is clearly insulting: for example, at Jr 5:21, where the house of Jacob is denounced as pcopog Kod aKapSiog. At Is 44:25, however, there is a usage closely paralleling Paul’s:

ano aTpe pcov ppo vi p° 05 ei s tcx oTn’uco Kai Tqv (3o vA

yvauTccvpoopeucov.

God’s intervention in history, when he

makes Cyrus his anointed instrument for the deliverance of his people, goes quite contrary to all human expectation, is in defiance of the wisdom of the world, and yet corresponds to the fact that he is the redeemer and creator. New

Testament,

there

is

an

intersting

Turning to the passage

in

St

Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus says that “whoever says ‘you fool’ ( pcope )shall be liable to the hell of fire’’ (5:22).

It may

be that behind this lies the Rabbinic thought, “Better that I be called a fool all my days than that I should be made a Q

godless man before God even for an hour.’’

To call a man

pcopog is to place oneself within the ranks of the accusers and

insulters, who see the Gospel of Christ as wicked madness. The Pauline word is not retained in the Greek tradition of folly.

The most important word here is crdAo5, with its con¬

notations of one who agitates, causes trouble and tumult. This development may be due to association with the Syriac sakla used to translate pcopog

at 1 Co 4:10.

The Russian

yourodivyo means “miserable wretch,’’ “monstrous thing.”

7.

I. Kologrivof, Essai sur la saintete en Russie (Bruges. 1953) p. 261.

8.

Eduyoth 5, 6; Danby, The Mishnah (Oxford, 1933) p. 432.

The Fool for Christ's Sake

55

Fools for Christ 's Sake in the East

The first Greek oah 05 to be venerated as such was St Symeon, whose life was written by the very accomplished Leontius of Neapolis.9 According to Leontius, Symeon’s life was, in the eyes of the world, one of complete madness and immorality. He was constantly committing indecent and pre¬ posterous acts, causing scandals in church, publicly eating sausages on Good Friday, destroying merchandise in the market, dancing with prostitutes and spending nights in their houses. But Symeon’s folly comes as the climax to a life of asceticism. He comes from the desert to begin a senseless life of lunacy, not as a reaction against the life of prayer, but as its consummation, as the revelation of the challenge to the world brought by unity with Christ Crucified. Symeon has learned the terrible goodness of the Lord in silence and solitude and now comes to share it with the wretched of the earth in the streets, taverns and brothels of the city. And the strength which supports Symeon in his wild life of folly, in his dances with harlots and his fellowship with the depraved, is the apatheia of the wilderness, which is not a crude insen¬ sitivity to physical stimulation, but an emancipation of the senses whereby man ceases to be an automaton, a victim of compulsive behavior, and becomes sovereignly free in his re¬ lations with others, refusing to see them as objects of pos¬ session and exploitation.10 The fools first appear in Russia in the fourteenth century and become less common after the seventeenth century, although they have never completely died out in Orthodoxy and persist to this day. The first Russian fool was St Procopius of Ustyug (13th century), who was “of the Western countries, of the Latin tongue, of the German land,” in other words a foreigner and Roman Catholic.11 Other fools thought 9.

PG 93:1669-1748.

10.

For the interesting episode of the thermal baths, see PG 93:1713BC.

11.

For references to the various “Lives” of the fools, see the articles

already cited and the article on folly for Christ’s sake in Brochaus’s Russian Encyclopaedia, 41 (St Petersburg, 1904).

John Saward

56

to be foreigners include Isidore (tl424) and the sixteenth century John the Hairy, on whose sepulchre until compara¬ tively recently a Latin psalter was to be seen. Procopius’ life was spent in wandering from town to town, across the plains, through the forests, looking for a mysterious country, the lost homeland. He sought the company only of the poor and scorned the rich. He walked naked and slept in the porches of churches. During the day his life was one of complete imbecility; the night he spent entirely in prayer. The greatest era of the fools in Russia was the sixteenth century. Nearly all travellers to Russia at this time mention them, including the Englishman, Giles Fletcher.12 The most greatly venerated of these sixteenth century fools is St Basil the Blessed (T1552). He led the life of a vagabond and walked naked through the streets of Moscow. He destroyed or stole the merchandise of dishonest traders, threw stones at the houses of respectable people and bathed with tears those of sinners. One of his most monstrous acts was to destroy a much venerated icon of Our Lady. This outraged the people, but he saw what they could not see: underneath the image of the Mother of God was painted the image of the devil. Basil had a special vocation to unmask the devil wherever he tried to hide himself, even when it meant challenging the authority of princes. Basil was fearless in his denunciation of injustice and oppression. On one occasion he offered Tsar Ivan the Terrible a meal of raw meat. When Ivan refused, Basil showed him in the sky the souls of the victims of Novgorod, whom Ivan had butchered and who now went before him into heaven. It is the prophetic denunciation of injustice that par¬ ticularly attracts the attention of Dr Fletcher: Among others at this time they have one at Mosko that walketh naked about the streetes, and inveyeth commonly against the state and govern¬ ment, especially against the Godonoes, that are thought at this time to bee great oppressours of that commonwealth.13 12.

“Of the Russe Common Wealth,” ed. E. A. Bond (London, 1856).

The Fool for Christ's Sake

57

Folly for Christ’s sake lies deep in Russian spirituality. Fools and the theme of folly appear in a great deal of Russian literature: for example, in Pushkin’s Boris Gudunov, Tol¬ stoy’s Infancy, Adolescence, and Youth, and above all in the writing of Dostoievsky, where in the figure of the idiot, Prince Myshkin, we have the compassionate folly of the yourodivyi,14 The Orthodox tradition of folly for Christ’s sake is adequate answer to those who say that the Orthodox do not have a mysticism of the Passion and have subordinated the word of the cross to a triumphalistic proclamation of the resurrection. On the contrary, folly is but one aspect of a profound and still vital tradition in Russian thought — the humiliated Christ. The fools follow St Paul in “completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions’’ (Col 1:24), in sharing in the Lord’s death that they may “know him and the power of his resurrection’’ (Ph 3:10). (The fool) is a poor, inadequate being, deserving of jest and even brutality ... But the memory of the Cross and of the Crucified, the memory that He was slapped, spat upon and scourged, lives in his heart and compels him for Christ’s sake to endure at every moment disgrace and persecution. Thus it is that certain yourodivyi believed themselves to be liberated from the most elementary duties towards society, its conventions and customs.15 Fools for Christ's Sake in the West

The West, too, has its fools for Christ’s sake, and, if some of the Russian accounts are to be believed, it was in the West that folly in Christ first appeared. Probably the earliest 13. 14.

Ibid., p. 117f.

See H. U.

Herrlichkeit. Eine

von Balthasar, “Der Christ als Idiot. theololgische Asthetik.

Dostojewskij,”

vol. iii/1 (Einsiedeln, 1965) pp.

535ff. 15.

Kologrivof, op. cit., p. 262. For the theme of the humiliated Christ,

see N. Gorodetsky, (London, 1938).

The Humiliated Christ in Modem

Russian

Thought

58

John Saward

western fool was one whom Gregory of Tours calls “the deacon Vulfolaic,’’ more commonly known as St Walfroy, one of the few known western stylites, who lived in the Ardennes in the sixth century in a state close to savagery. On one occasion, he received a visit from a group of bishops, who said, “The way which thou followest is not the right way; nor shalt thou, in thine obscurity, be compared to Symeon of Antioch, the Stylite. The situation of this place will not suffer thee to endure this torment. Come down rather, and dwell among the brethren whom thou hast gathered round thee.”16 It is possible that some form of folly for Christ’s sake existed in early Christian Ireland and may have been one element in Celtic monasticism. There is, for example, the story of King Suibhne, who went mad at the battle of Magh Rath in AD 637 and became a holy imbecile endowed with special powers of poetry and clairvoyance.17 Another parallel between Irish Christianity and folly in Christ (at least in its Russian form) is the love of wandering, peregrinatio, the insight that the Christian is a pilgrim, an exile and stranger, constantly looking for the Kingdom of God, or— as the Celtic monks expressed it — “seeking the place of one’s resurrec¬ tion.” This was the inspiration behind the travels of St Columba, who left Ireland for Britain, according to Adamnan, pro Christo peregrinari volens)8

It was not until the thirteenth century, however, that we encounter the most developed form of western folly for Christ’s sake — that to be found in the Franciscan tradition. One of the most typical examples of the folly of St Francis himself occurs in the account in the Speculum perfectionis of the Pentecost chapter of 1222. Five thousand friars attended, including the most learned members of the order. The most urgent item on the agenda was whether Francis could be 16. Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks viii, 15; tr. O. M. Dalton, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1927) 2:341. 17.

See J. G. O’Keeffe, Buile Shuibhne (London, 1913).

18.

N. Chadwick, The Celts (Harmondsworth, 1970) p. 206.

The Fool for Christ ’s Sake

59

entrusted with the writing of the Rule. Some argued that it would be preferable to adopt the rule of one of the existing orders, as the Dominicans had done. And so pressure was put on Cardinal Ugolino by one group of learned brothers to persuade Francis to follow the same course. St Francis replied thus: My brothers, my brothers, God has called me by the way of simplicity and humility, and he has shown me this way in truth for me and for those who want to believe in me and imitate me. And I do not want you to mention to me any other Rule, neither that of St Benedict, nor of St Augustine, nor of St Bernard, nor any other major form of living (formam vivendi — “life style’’?) except the one which has been mercifully shown and given to me by the Lord. And the Lord told me that he wanted me to be a new fool in this world (novellum pazzum in hoc mundo); and he did not want to lead us by any other way than by that learning {per istam scientiam.)

But by your learning and wisdom

{per vestram scientiam et sapientiam) God will con¬

found you.19 In the life of St Francis the general characteristics are obvious hagiographical walking naked, the patient

and his followers we find most of of folly for Christ’s sake. There similarities—the outrageous acts, endurance of humiliation and con¬

tempt — but the most important resemblances between Franciscan and Eastern folly are the result of the attempt of both traditions to obey the Lord’s commands without com¬ promise or conformity to this world and to share in the deepest way possible in the sufferings of Christ Crucified. Three very important texts for the first Franciscans are: “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me’’ (Mt 19:21); the Lord’s command to the disciples 19.

Spec. perf. 68; ed. P. Sabatier, 2 vols. (Manchester, 1928) l:190f.

John Saward

60

to take nothing for their journey—neither stick nor purse nor shoes nor money (Mt 10:9f); and “if any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’’ (Mt 8:34).20 For St Francis himself this taking up of the cross, this total obedience to and identification with the Crucified, was consummated in his receiving the stigmata, the marks of the precious wounds in his own body. Similarly, he attempted to obey Christ’s teaching about poverty literally and without compromise. Poverty for the Franciscan, as for the Russian or Greek fool, is a true spiritual and physical dispossession, a following of “the life and poverty of Jesus Christ’’ himself.21 Orthodox writers sometimes express their misgivings at the kind of Passion mysticism encountered in Franciscan writings and claim that it involves a neglect of the Resurrection. Their fears might be allayed, however, if they could see that Franciscan identity with the Crucified has the same challen¬ ging, prophetic function as the preoccupation with the Humil¬ iated Christ in Russian thought.22 Furthermore, both traditions explore the perilous path of folly for Christ’s sake. Thus the Stabat Mater (often regarded as typical western Passion mysticism) is now generally ascribed to the Francis¬ can Iacopone da Todi (1228-1306), who has given us one of the most beautiful expressions of folly for Christ’s sake in his poem, Come e somma sapienzia essere reputato pazo per Vamor de Christ (“That it is the highest wisdom to be thought mad for the love of Christ’’): Sense and nobleness it seems to me to go mad for the beautiful Messiah. It seems to me great wisdom in a man if he wishes to go mad for God, in Paris there has never been seen such great philosophy as this. Whoever goes mad for Christ seems afflicted and in tribulation; 20. 21.

Opuscula S. Patris Francisci (1904) p. 76.

See, for example, Fioretti 2.

22.

See Gorodetsky, The Humiliated Christ, passim.

The Fool for Christ 's Sake

61

but he is an exalted master of nature and theology. Whoever goes mad for Christ certainly seems crazy to people; it seems he is off the road to anyone without experience of the state. Whoever wishes to enter this school will discover new learning; he who has not experienced madness does not yet know what it is. Whoever wishes to enter this dance will find unbounded love; a hundred days’ indulgence to whoever reviles him. But whoever goes seeking honor is not worthy of his love, for Jesus remained on the cross between two thieves. But whoever seeks in humility will, I am sure, arrive quickly; let him not go to Bologna to learn another doctrine.23 The early fourteenth century sees several western fools, including the Spanish Franciscan, Ramon Lull, “The Fool of Love” (fl316), and Blessed John Colombini (1304 - 1367). But, as in Russia, it is the sixteenth century that sees the greatest number of fools in Christ in the West. Significantly, the most well known are founders of religious orders. For example, St John of God (1495 - 1550: almost a direct con¬ temporary of St Basil the Blessed), who after conversion ran round Granada tearing his hair and beating his chest, pleading for mercy, was committed to a lunatic asylum, but spent the rest of his life in the service of the sick and poor, founding an order for that purpose. Then there is the amazing figure of St Philip Neri (1515 - 1595), who was for Rome much of what Basil the Blessed was for Moscow. 23.

Iacopone da Todi, Laudi. ed. F. Ageno (Florence, 1953) p. 341 f.

also E. Underhill, Jacopone da Todi.

Poet and Mystic 1228-1306.

Biography (London, Toronto & New York, 1919).

See

A Spiritual

62

John Saward

Much of Philip’s folly is that of the court jester.

On one

occasion, he shaved off half his beard; on another, he put his coat inside out over his cassock, cocked his biretta alia brava and walked past the Blessed Sacrament without genuflecting. The motive of this eccentric behavior was the Gospel, and above all the Lord’s command to become like little children. Moreover, as with the Russian fools, it was accompanied by a keen prophetic sense of justice and human rights.

It was St

Philip who organized a petition to prevent gypsies being rounded up and used as galley slaves for the fleet which Pius V had mustered to sail against the Turks.24

One of the

greatest sons of the Oratory has summarized the spirit of its founder thus: Things which other saints have allowed in themselves, or rather have felt a duty, he could not abide. He did not ask to be opposed, to be maligned, to be persecuted, but simply to be over¬ looked, to be despised.... He took great pleasure in being undervalued and made little of, according to the Apostle’s sentiment, “If any man among you seem to be wise, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.’’ 25

Folly for Christ’s sake also appears in the Jesuit tradition. In his Spiritual Exercises St Ignatius Loyola writes movingly of true humility and poverty in spirit: I desire to be poor along with Christ in poverty rather than rich, to be insulted along with Christ so grossly insulted, rather than to be thought well of: 24.

For details, see M. Trevor, Apostle of Rome.

A life of Philip Neri

(London, 1966); and L. Pennelle L. Bordet, Saint Philippe Neri et la societe Romaine de son temps 1515-1595 (Paris, 1929).

25.

J. H. Newman, The Mission of St Philip Neri.

An instruction

delivered in substance in the Birmingham Oratory in Jaunuary 1850 and at subsequent times (Rome, 1901) p. 40f.

The Fool for Christ 's Sake

63

I would rather be thought a helpless fool for the sake of Christ who was so treated, rather than to be thought wise and clever in the world’s eyes.26 Within a very short time after the writing of these words a French Jesuit, Jean-Joseph Surin (1600 - 1665), the exorcist at Loudun, had experienced what was believed to be some form of psychological illness and for twenty years suffered the most terrible mental and spiritual anguish. He wrote as follows: To this world I want to appear as a savage Who defies its most severe laws. I wish only to imitate the folly Of Jesus who once on the cross Freely gave up honor and life, Abandoning all to win his beloved. These words are a fitting summary of the spirit of folly for Christ’s sake in both East and West. Folly for Christ ’s Sake and Monasticism Some Historical Remarks

The two hagiographical sections, together with my previous schematic presentation of folly, give us grounds for believing that we have here a definite, unified form of sanctity in both East and West. My subject, however, is not the general character of folly but the fool in monasticism in East and West. In the next section I shall sketch the historical con¬ nection between folly and monasticism, leading up to a con¬ sideration of its importance in Cistercian spirituality. As we have already seen, the first Greek fool was one who came from the desert to the city. This physical movement is not reproduced in the lives of all the other saloi but it does represent a tension between “world” and “wilderness” which is found either in the lives of the fools themselves or in 26. 27.

167; tr. Thomas Corbishley (London, 1963) p. 59f. Cited in Lologrivof, Essai, p. 272. Surin’s poetry has been collected

and edited by Etienne Catta (Paris, 1957).

John Saward

64

their relations with monks.

It may well be that the desert

was the birthplace of the tradition which sees folly as a definite vocation and gift of the Holy Spirit. Going into the desert was an expression of the desire to “unlearn” the sen¬ sibility of this present evil age, to be remade in body, mind and spirit, to become truly and without compromise a new humanity in Christ. For example, in the Apophthegmata patrum we are told of the Desert Father Ammon who was despised as a fool by a certain woman. He said to her, “So many years I have spent in solitude to acquire this folly. Should I lose it today just for you?”28 There is also a story of a nun at Tabennesis in a monastery of Pachomius who was considered mad by all the sisters. She never sat at table, never partook of a piece of bread, but wiping up the crumbs from the tables and washing the kitchen pots, she was con¬ tent with what she got in this way.29 One day the holy Staretz Pitirim visited the sisters and said that he wanted to see the whole community. But when they all assembled, he was not satisfied; he felt sure that one was missing. They said that there was only one other—a mad one. Pitirim ordered them to bring her to him, and so the sisters went off and dragged her in from the kitchen. When she entered, Father Pitirim fell at her feet and said, “Bless me!” She also likewise fell at his feet and said, “Bless me, master.” They were all amazed and said to him, “Father, do not let her insult you, she is mad.” But Pitirim said to them all, “You are mad. For she is mother both of me and you...and I pray to be found worthy of her in the day of judgment.” 20 Anyone who enters the desert to pray has followed in the apostles’ footsteps in rejecting the wisdom of this world and 28.

PG 65:121C.

29. Palladius, Historia Lausiaca 34; ed. C. Butler, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1904), 2:88; PG 34:1106A. 30.

Ibid., p. 99; 1107 AB.

The Fool for Christ's Sake

65

embracing the heavenly wisdom of the cross. His action must appear foolish to the world and to those who are conformed to it. But also, as we can now see from the story of the nun of Tabennesis, it may appear foolish to one’s fellow monks as well. This “folly-within-folly” is the beginning of the tradition of holy salia as such. Its inspiration is the wisdom of the desert but it is not confined to that life and may well appear outside it. Nevertheless, the desert life is intended to lead to the folly of the cross, even if it requires the occasional fool in Christ to remind it of that fact! We find the same desert spirit of folly in western monasticism of a later period. In the Rule of St Benedict we are told that the seventh degree of humility for a monk is that “he should not only in his speech declare himself to be lower and more insignificant (uiliorem) than everyone else, but also should in his inmost heart believe it, humbling himself and saying with the prophet: But I am a worm and no man, a byword to all men and the laughing-stock of the people.’’ 31 However, the Rule’s awareness of the importance of folly has not always been able to contain those who are called to practise it. One Benedictine fool was St Peter Urseol (t987), who was a monk in Roussillon. He entered the monastery with bare feet and walking “like a quadruped.’’ However, he found the offices repugnant and left to live as a hermit.32 St Peter Damian, in his De sancta simplicitate, keeps the tradition alive when he says that God wants to convert the world per viros idiotas ac simplices, and he mentions some who, like St Benedict himself, were called ad sapientem Christi stultitiam. Fools and Cistercians If it is right to see the development of Cistercianism not simply as a negative reaction to the decadence of Cluny but as a true ressourcement, a return to primitive monasticism 31.

Ch. 7; CSEL 85:49; PL 66:374.

32.

L. d’Achery & J. Mabillon, Acta S. 0. S. Ben. 7:856.

33.

PL 145:699A.

John Saward

66

and, above all, to the faithful observance of the Rule of St Benedict, then one would suppose that the theme of folly, which seems to emerge in so much monasticism of the early period, would appear here also. I would now like to argue that, although we do not have a wealth of evidence for folly for Christ’s sake in the Cistercian order as we do in the case of the early Franciscans, we do find frequent testimonies to the ideals of folly in Christ and many of the general charac¬ teristics mentioned at the beginning of this paper. On the hagiographical level, Simone Roisin has produced many examples of acts and dispositions among thirteenthcentury Cistercians which resemble some of the general char¬ acteristics above. Prophetic clairvoyance, for example, is particularly common among Cistercians of this period. Simon d’Aulne possessed amazing powers of perception, on one occasion making a man confess to a crime committed thirteen years previously. Like St Basil the Blessed, Simon could dis¬ cern evil spirits in unlikely places and on one occasion saw the devil rejoicing that a nun had allowed herself to be trap¬ ped into evil.34 These hagiographical details, however, do not really help us to appreciate the place of folly in Cistercian spirituality. Rather we must look closely at the intentions of the founders of the order, and, firstly and most importantly, we must con¬ sider what poverty of spirit came to signify for the early Cis¬ tercian Fathers. According to William of St Thierry, from the very beginning the distinctive ideal of Clairvaux was life in paupertate spiritus?5 Roger of Byland, one of the early English Cistercians, could write as follows to a prospective postulant: Poor we follow the poor Christ, so that we may learn to serve him with minds that are free. We work, we fast, we keep vigil, we pray; Christ does 34. XHIe

35.

S. Roisin, L'hagiographie Cistercienne dans siecle (Louvain & Brussels, 1947) p. 188. Vita prima S. Bernardi

1, 18; PL 185:237.

le

diocese de Liege

au

67

The Fool for Christ 's Sake

not ask for gold and silver from us — only that we love him with a pure heart and body. 36 The first Cistercians embraced poverty — physical poverty and poverty of spirit — not because of some abstract ascetical necessity, but, as with the Franciscans and the Orthodox fools, because of their understanding of Christ’s demands on his disciples and of his proclamation of good news to the poor. The original aim of the founders of the Cistercian order was for the monk to become really one of the anawim, one of the poor, voluntarily stripped of everything. As Dom Jean Leclercq has put it, the first Cistercians felt themselves called “not only to be poor, but to feel it, to experience it.”37 Like the saloi, they felt they had to know the poverty and naked¬ ness of Christ in their inmost being, in the depths of their hearts, and trust in God alone. Cistercian spirituality sees the monk’s physical poverty as a sign of that total disposses¬ sion that death of the acquisitive ego, which Jesus tells us is the only way to eternal life.

It is a “letting go” of every

security, including the security of the wisdom of this world. The Christian must be poor in spirit, simple in heart, foolish in the eyes of the world. William of St Thierry speaks thus: The wealth of the poor in spirit who seek God is simplicity of heart. They perform with constancy what is commanded, await with strong faith what is promised, anticipate in the certainty of hope what is awaited and therefore think of God in goodness. They set not their minds on high things but con¬ descend to the lowly; they neither refuse the Lord’s yoke nor kick against the goad of his discipline. All this is far from the spirit of the world and its ped36.

“Roger of Byland’s Letter to a Young Scholar,” ed. C. H. Talbot,

ASOC 7 (1951) 218f.

37.

“The Intentions of the Founders of the Cistercian Order,” The

Cistercian Spirit.

A Symposium.

In Memory of Thomas Merton,

Basil Pennington ocso CS 3 (Cistercian Publications: 123.

ed. M.

Spencer, MA, 1970) p.

John Saward

68

dling wisdom, Assyrian eloquence.38

conceit

and

ornamental

The life of the poor in spirit is the life of love, a love which is liberated by, and imitates, Christ’s love of mankind. William tells us that this love, when judged by the standards of this world, is mad. Chapter three of his treatise De natura et dignitate amoris is entitled “Of that holy madness of love (sancta quadam amoris insania) required of a truly religious man.’’39 Love for William involves excessus, going out of one’s self, breaking the crippling confines of the sinful ego and being remade in poverty of spirit and simplicity of heart. He quotes 2 Co 5:13 “if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.” The madness of charity is eschatological: the insania of love is the insania of those who, though desiring ardently to be with Christ, out of obedience and love of the brethren are placed in this present saeculum.40 The source of all our love is the mad love of God for man, and William tells us how language breaks down before the weakness and folly of an incarnate God. When we come to him, we act wisely; when he comes to us, he is thought to be mad by the proud. And whenever we come to him, we become healthy; when he comes to us, he is like one who is weak. But what is mad for God is wiser than men; and what is weak, is stronger than men.41 This is why God chooses weak, foolish men to be his servants. Christ chose uneducated fishermen to be his dis¬ ciples, men “ignorant of the liberal arts and of everything appertaining to worldly learning, rough men, unfamiliar with grammar, not trained in dialectic.” 42 38. CF 7 39. 40. 41. 42.

Cant. 1, 5, 67; et:

Columba Hart, “Exposition on the Song of Songs,” (Cistercian Publications: Spencer, MA, 1970) p. 54f. PL 184:383D. Ibid.. 384B.

Aenig\ PL 180:402D (et: CF 9 [1974] p. 45). Ibid.. 40ID (CF 9, p. 43).

The Fool for Christ's Sake

69

The folly and weakness of our love is a participation in the folly and weakness of the Crucified. Our unity with him is the basis of our love. In passionate language William des¬ cribes how some souls strive to break the limits of their humanity in order to share in the Passion of the Lord: The temporal works of the Lord become, in the heart of the believer, amazing mysteries of eternity (aetemitatis mira ... sacramenta), wonders which stir him to imitate the same sufferings. That is why the one who loves as much as he can yearns to love more than human weakness will allow him, and to suffer for Christ more than weak humanity will permit. That happens when ... the faithful man sanctifies the Lord Jesus in his heart, and the Lord himself is sanctified by him.43 There are some striking similarities here between William and Eastern theology. Both St Maximus the Confessor and Nicholas Cabasilas speak of the “mad love” of God for man, a love which is not remote benevolence but a profound iden¬ tification with the suffering of man.44 For both the Cistercian and the Greek Fathers the love of God for man, which liberates both man’s love of God and fraternal charity, cannot be assessed by the criteria and cal¬ culations of this world and is not restricted by the inhibitions of the old man, but involves excess, foolish intensity. As Gilson has shown, this Cistercian excessus is related to a perspective of Greek theology found in St Maximus and before him in St Gregory of Nyssa.45 Thus when the latter speaks of mystical love, he speaks of ecstasy, inebriation, the passion of love, sleep, madness. The ecstasy of Abraham is described as follows: 43.

Spec 54;

PL 180:387D-388A.

44.

For an excellent meditation on this idea, together with references to

Maximus and Cabasilas, see O. Clement

Questions sur I'homme (Paris,

1972) pp. 45ff. 45.

E. Gilson, La theologie mystique de S. Bernard (Paris, 1934) pp. 40ff.

John Saward

70

After this ecstasy which came upon him as a result of these lofty visions, Abraham returned once more to his human frailty: “I am,” he admits, ‘‘dust and ashes,” that is, mute, inert, incapable of explaining rationally the good that his mind has seen.46 Even more striking than this conception of excessus and insania, which has obvious connections with the spirituality of folly, is the profound Cistercian understanding of our sharing in the Passion of our Lord. As has been said, this was char¬ acteristic of the fool in Christ in both East and West, and it brings together in an interesting way three apparently disparate traditions — the Franciscan, the Cistercian, and the Eastern Orthodox. All three have a theology of kenosis, not as a ‘‘Christological theory,” but as a way of exploring the inner reality of the Incarnation. Thus Guerric of Igny, in a Christmas homily, speaks of the wonder of God’s sharing in the weakness and foolishness of childhood, a motif that has already been seen to occur frequently in the folly tradition. Unto us therefore a little child is born, and ‘‘emptying out” his majesty God has taken on him¬ self not merely the earthly body of mortal men but even the weakness and insignificance of children. O blessed childhood, whose weakness and foolish¬ ness is stronger and wiser than any man; for it is the strength and wisdom of God that does his work in us, does the work of God in man.47 For Guerric, ‘‘folly for Christ’s sake” is not mere rhetoric, a felicitous turn of phrase. No, the folly which is divine wisdom involves a deliberate rejection of the wisdom of the world, the ideologies and conceptual systems which enslave man. It is important not to underestimate the passion and vigor with which the Cistercian Fathers express this idea; 46.

Contra Eun.

12; PG 45:941B; ed. W. Jaeger (Leiden, 1960), p. 253.

47.

Guerric of Igny, Lturgical Sermons.

Introduction and translation by

Monks of Mount S. Bernard Abbey, CF 8 and 32 (Cistercian Publications, Spencer, MA, 1971-2) 8:32.

71

The Fool for Christ's Sake

indeed it may sometimes alarm us.

Consider, for example,

the violence of St Bernard — the vehemence of his criticisms of Cluny, his attacks on Abelard, and so on. Why is it that St Bernard uses such extreme language in his rejection of “moderate monastic humanism”? According to Louis Bouyer, the reason is that “he saw and denounced with biting clarity the perpetual risk of sinking from that ‘humanism’ into a bourgeois unawareness of the foolishness of the cross.”

Thus in one of his longest letters, the

eighty-seventh, St Bernard describes himself as a ioculator and saltator, one of those professional entertainers who perform such outrageous tricks as walking on their hands. He takes part in a “joyous game” (ludus iucundus), as did the Apostle who said, “We have been made a spectacle to angels and to men.” Jean Leclercq has written most beauti¬ fully and perceptively on this letter and its Sitz-im-Leben. He has shown that Bernard directs against himself the irony and satire of the “vocabulary of jest” that was used by both sides in the Abelard controversy to insult their opponents. 49 Bernard thus transforms a term of abuse into a religious paradox and rejoices in his role as the “jester of God.” If it is true that Bernard’s language is “extreme,” “vehement” or “violent,” then it is also true that it is language which he is prepared to turn back on himself in a most moving expression of humility and folly for Christ’s sake. This vision of holy folly is one of the greatest achievements of St Bernard and the Cistercian tradition and one which we must preserve if we are to remain faithful to the Gospel.

48. 49.

L. Bouyer, The Cistercian Heritage (London, 1958) p. 29. Jean Leclercq, “Le Theme de la jonglerie chez S. Bernard et ses

contemporains,” Rev. Hist.

Spir.

48 (1972) 385-400.

For a fascinating

account of the jester motif in illuminated manuscripts, see also his Ioculator et saltator:

S.

Translatio Studii.

Bernard et l’image du jongleur dans les manuscripts,” Manuscript and Studies honoring Oliver L. Kapsner, osb,

ed. J. G. Plante (Collegeville, MN, 1973) pp. 124-146. can be found in Migne, PL 182:211-217.

The text of letter 87

It will also be found in the forth¬

coming vol 7 of the critical edition of S. Bemardi opera.

John Saward

72

The History of Folly Considered

Folly for Christ’s sake forces us to revise our most funda¬ mental ways of understanding reality. In particular, it makes us question our passive acceptance of the definitions of sanity and madness, of wholeness and inadequacy, offered to us by our culture. To fully appreciate this, we must look in more detail at a specific historical period — the sixteenth century — which was a major turning-point in the history of folly. By examining the psychological and social developments in one particular cultural epoch, we may reach a better under¬ standing of the way in which folly for Christ’s sake reacts against the wisdom of this world. The sixteenth century was the century of St Basil the Blessed, St John of God and St Philip Neri — all in different ways fools in Christ. The late fifteenth and early sixteenth century was also a time which saw the publication of a whole series of works on folly — Erasmus’ Moriae encomium and Flayder’s Moria rediviva being among the most notable. About this time also we have the “ships of fools,’’ pilgrimage boats with cargoes of madmen in search of their sanity, which appear in Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff and Jesse Bade’s Stultiferae naviculae scaphae fatuarum mulierum. It is the century of the “radical reformers,” those extremists rejected by both Catholics and Protestants, who took up the challenge to become like little children, to give up wealth and be iden¬ tified with the poor. The late middle ages and early sixteenth century saw a great celebration of folly — not only folly for Christ’s sake, but also that of the court-fool, the buffoon and jester.50 But towards the end of the sixteenth century and then throughout to die, although lingered on “in Russia.” 51 But 50.

the seventeenth century the tradition seems it is interesting to note that the court fools more backward countries of Europe such as in the West both profane and sacred folly

The definitive study of folly is Enid Welsford, The Fool.

His Social

and Literary> History (London, 1935), which includes painstakingly detailed

chapters on the various kinds of buffoons, court-fools, harlequins, clowns, and jesters. 51.

Ibid.. p. 182.

The Fool for Christ's Sake

73

appear to die in the seventeenth century, despite the appearance of one or two fools such as the remarkable St Benedict-Joseph Labre (fl783).5^ But why should this be? Why should the sixteenth century prove to be such a turningpoint in the history of folly? A partial answer can be found in our own English cultural tradition in William Shakespeare’s King Lear. In claiming this, I depend very much on John F. Danby’s brilliant but neglected Shakespeare's Doctrine of Nature,53 According to Danby, the conflict between the Lear party, on the one hand, and Edmund, Goneril and Regan, on the other, is a conflict between two visions of man, a conflict which, at the end of the sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth and beyond, was to rage relentlessly. The Lear party, according to Danby, have the medieval vision of man found in St Thomas Aquinas and preserved in Anglican theology by Richard Hooker: a vision of unity, co-operation and harmony between man and God, man and the universe, man and man, a vision which “assumes as the absolute shape for man an image of tenderness, comfort, generosity, charity, courtesy, gratitude.”54 Nature, on this view, is a structure ascending from primordial matter up to God, rational, benevolent, and bound to God. It is a vision of the community of mankind in which man only realizes himself in fellowship with his brothers and in harmony with the universe. Edmund, on the other hand, according to Danby, represents the new man of the seventeenth century, the possessive individualist who has ceased to be a co-operative member of a great community: “I would be that I am had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.” Edmund belongs

to the

new

age of scientific

inquiry and individual development,ofIbureaucratic

52. See the study of P. Doyere, Saint Benoit-Joseph Labre, ermite pelerin (Paris, 1948). 53.

London, 1949.

54.

Ibid., p. 28.

John Saward

74

organization and social regimentation, the age of mining and merchant venturing, of monopoly and Empire-making, the age of the sixteenth century and after: an age of competition, suspicion, glory.55 If Hooker is the philosopher of the redeemed Lear, Hobbes is Edmund’s inspiration. King Lear is a heart-felt protest at, and a most remarkable prophecy of, the rise of this destruc¬ tive, individualistic view of man. It is a re-affirmation of the Christian view of the divine/human relation and of the solidarity of mankind. How does all this relate to our concern with folly? It must be noted that the Edmund party is not caricatured. Edmund is not a devil. He is a normal, sensible, reasonable fellow. Edmund, Goneril and Regan are not monsters. On the contrary, Shakespeare is at pains to make them eminently normal people. They are normal in the sense that they behave as we unfortunately expect people to behave. They are normal also in that the kind of behavior they exhibit was coming to be regarded as standard behavior.... Shakes¬ peare in fact even goes further than this. Goneril and Regan are not only eminently normal. They are also eminently respectable. They are the unco’ guid in the play.56 The Edmund party is perfectly adjusted to a corrupt society and its impoverished view of man. In the eyes of that society the Christian affirmation of unity and fellowship must seem madness, and indeed only if the risk of madness is taken can the values of compassion and love be preserved. This is the insight of the play: it is only by going mad, by an extreme process of purification and unlearning, that Lear comes to a true knowledge of the human condition. At the beginning of the play the court fool says to his master, “Thou wouldst make a good fool,’’ and at the end that comes true. The 55.

Ibid., p. 46.

56.

Ibid., p. 42f.

The Fool for Christ 's Sake

75

King, having lost everything, including his wits, has now himself become the Fool. And this folly brings with it sympathy, “fellow-feeling.” As Lear’s agony begins and he feels his sanity threatened, he becomes gradually aware of the sufferings of others. My wits begin to turn.... Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart That’s sorry yet for thee. As Lear’s brain reels, his sympathies expand. Edmund, Goneril and Regan in their “normality” break all human ties, every kind of relationship and affection. Lear in his madness realizes all men are one in pain. Take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou may’st shake the superflux to them, And shew the heavens more just. Enid Welsford, in her study of folly, has reminded us what was lost with the disappearance of the fool. The fool belonged essentially to a society “shaped by belief in Divine order, human inadequacy, efficacious ritual” and so has no place “in a world increasingly dominated by the notions of the puritan, the scientist, and the captain of industry.” For strange as it may seem the fool in cap and bells can only flourish among people who have sacra¬ ments, who value symbols as well as tools_ Scientific enlightenment is good, yet it would also be good to regain the sense of glory, which does somehow seem to be connected with humility, and the acceptance of limitation.57 But surely, it might be argued, in the face of such harsh “normality” as developed in the seventeenth century, the fool should have become more extreme, more conspicuous. That is true, but now only in the strength of the Holy Spirit can he survive, for all the old cultural supports have been 57.

Welsford, The Fool, p. 193.

John Saward

76

swept away. No longer is the fool, whether sacred or profane, the guardian of truth, the prophet hated but respected. Instead, he becomes a “medical case” to be cured. For another characteristic of the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth is the development of psychiatry and the asylum. No longer are there ships of fools to be revered in silence as they sail down the Rhine; no longer are there shrines of holy fools as there were once at Gheel. Now there are hospitals and madhouses, where the interest is in con¬ finement and discipline rather than embarcation on a voyage towards true sanity. Moreover, the hospitals are that only in name. Michel Foucault, who has documented the connections betweenIthe death of folly and the rise of psychiatry, says of the Hopital General in Paris (set up in the seventeenth century): It is ... a sort of semi-judicial structure, an administrative entity which, along with the already instituted powers, and outside of the courts, judges and executes.58 The Hopital General in Paris was an official, political form of repression, directly linked with the royal power and civil authority. One of the main forms of “madness” it had to combat was what was anathema to the new bourgeois con¬ sciousness: idleness, refusing to work. Labor in the houses of confinement thus assumed its ethical meaning: since sloth had become the absolute form of rebellion, the idle would be forced to work, in the endless leisure of a labor without utility or profit.59 The relevance of this discussion of the climax, repression, and disappearance of folly, both sacred and profane, is that it reminds us that to speak of folly for Christ’s sake, in the monastic or any other context, is not inflated rhetoric, a turn 58.

M. Foucault, Madness and Civilization.

Age of Reason, tr. (London, 1965) p. 40.

59.

Ibid., p. 57.

A History of Insanity in the

The Fool for Christ's Sake

77

of phrase which can be used even of the most comfortable, conformist Christianity. When we speak of fools being mad “in the eyes of the world,’’ we must remind ourselves, as we can see from the sixteenth century developments, that “the world” had concrete, historical reality. It was according to the standards of the current fashion, the contemporary sensibility, the secular mind, that the fools in Christ were mad. It is often said that the fools for Christ’s sake were not really mad; their madness was only feigned. Having surveyed the evidence, we can now begin to see what a strange assertion this is. For it assumes as absolute some already available definition of what “madness” really is and what the normal man is like. The whole point of the fools is that they show us what true sanity and wisdom are; they show us that we cannot absolutize the criteria of wholeness of life which this present world offers, “for it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him” (1 Jn 3:2). Our humanity is a mystery which we are still exploring. To the world, the fools “really” were mad; to God, they “really” were wise. The relativism of our criteria of madness and sanity has been succinctly described by Dr R. D. Laing. Consider, he says, a formation of planes. From the vantage point of the formation one plane may appear to be “out of formation” and so “mad” or “bad.” But the formation itself may be “off course” and so “mad” or “bad” from the point of view of an ideal observer on the ground. Moreover, the plane that is “out of formation” may also be more or less off course than the formation itself. 60 The fools for Christ’s sake are clearly “out of formation” from the point of view of this world, but only the folly of the cross which they proclaim can lead man¬ kind back to its true course. If this is true, then the tradition of folly has immediate practical implications for the life of the Church. In particular, the Church must look very carefully at 60.

R. D. Laing, The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise

(Harmondsworth, 1967) p. 98.

John Saward

78

its pastoral presentation of the Gospel as offering “whole¬ ness,” “wisdom” and “sanity.” It does offer all these, but we must beware of distorting them into the “wholeness,” “wisdom” and “sanity” offered by psychiatry. That is not to say that from a Christian point of view psychiatry may not sometimes assist in the search for true sanity, but to accept uncritically its values and view of man would be to sacrifice the folly and scandal of the word of the cross for the wisdom of this world. Folly and Monasticism: Some Conclusions

Having surveyed the history of folly for Christ’s sake in East and West, its historical relation to monasticism, and its conflict with specific cultural pressures, we must now draw some over-all conclusions about the relation between folly and monasticism. First of all, it will be useful to consider the re¬ semblances. Both, it must be remembered, are special vocations. One cannot decide one day to become a fool; one receives, sometimes against one’s will, the call of God to serve him in this way. Monasticism, too, is a consecrated life, involving a special vocation. And yet neither constitutes an elitist group in the Church; both have the function of revealing to the Church something of its inmost essence. It is helpful to recall that the rite for monastic profession is con¬ sidered in both East and West as a “sacramental.” Mon¬ asticism has a sacramental significance in that the public consecration of one part of the body of Christ reveals something about the nature and destiny of the whole. I would claim that the lives and actions of the fools have a similar function. The rare individuals who from time to time disturb the peace and tranquillity of Church and State teach us something about the lives of all Christians. But what do monks and fools reveal to the rest of the Church? It is interesting to note that folly for Christ’s sake always appears as a motif in the writings of the great fathers of the religious orders—in St Bernard and William of St Thierry, in St Francis, in St Philip Neri, in St Ignatius Loyola, and, of course, in the first monks—the Desert

The Fool for Christ's Sake

79

Fathers. Here, at the growth points in the development of monasticism, there are prophetic voices calling monks towards the ideals, purity and intensity of the Gospel and away from the decadence and complacency of previous religious life. The cycle of early ideals followed by failure and complacency followed by prophetic re-awakening is not simply material for the cynic or satirist; it is the basic rhythm of monastic life. The prophetic fools of monasticism have a vision of the Christian life, of the life lived by the apostles, which cannot be reconciled with the decent bourgeois behavior of a moderate monasticism conformed to this world. Monastic fools reveal something to monasticism, so that monasticism may reveal something to the Church — the madness of the Gospel, and the impossibility of an adaptationary, “business as usual” Christianity. And it is revealed to the Church, so that the Church may proclaim it to the world. This, then, is folly in monasticism, in East and West. 1 have surveyed the past, but what of the present? The fool may have been severely attacked by this present world, but his mad love and compassion still appear — even in the Capitalist West and Communist East. It would be wrong to “name names,” and in any case it would only extend this discussion, but at least some can be mentioned: Charles de Foucauld, Father William of Glasshampton, and Blessed Maximilian Kolbe, “Our Lady’s Fool” and martyr of the con¬ centration camp, are three modern figures who seem to me to have a great deal in common with Symeon, Basil, Francis, and the rest. The Holy Spirit continues to pour out his gifts, even that most precious gift of apostolic folly, on the tired, failed, compromised Christians of the twentieth century. It is fitting at this Symposium to conclude with some words of a Cistercian who will perhaps one day be seen as one of the greatest Christian teachers of the century, one also who had more than a trace of the salos about him. I refer, of course, to Thomas Merton. In this passage Merton is speaking of the importance of dread for the monk.

In so doing he describes

John Saward

80

perfectly the spirit of monastic folly in both East and West. The only full and authentic purification is that which turns a man completely inside out, so that he no longer has a self to defend, no longer an inti¬ mate heritage to protect against imagined inroads and dilapidations. In other words ... dread divests us of the sense of possession, of “having” our being and our power to love, in order that we may simply be in perfect openness (turned inside out), a defenselessness that is utter simplicity and total gift. 61

John Saward Lincoln College Oxford

61. Thomas Merton, The Climate of Monastic Prayer CS 1 (Cistercian Publications: Spencer, MA, 1969) p. 147.

DIONYSIUS, THE PSEUDO-AREOPAGITE

T

JHREE TYPES OF PSEUDONYMITY should be distin¬ guished. The first is best illustrated in Ecclesiastes, “the words of the Preacher (Koheleth), the son of David, King

in Jerusalem.’’ He speaks in Solomon’s person, but he does not pretend to be Solomon. The second is illustrated in the church order sometimes called The Statutes of the Apostles, The Apostolic Church Order or The Constitution of the Apostolic Church, a compilation of the third century extant in a number of versions where all the apostles speak in turns, though the bulk of the matter, which is a manual on how to start a small local church with twelve families or more, is put in the mouth of St Peter. The third can be seen in the Didache, the Teaching of the Apostles, which some serious scholars, including a Canadian Dominican, J. P. Audet, would ascribe to the apostolic age. If they are right, it is not properly pseudonymous. If it is a literary compilation, as others think it is, including myself, it must come from a place and period, probably Syria in the second or early third century, where apostolic tradition was a living memory. The Dionysian corpus consists of four treatises, On the Celestial Hierarchy, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, The Divine Names and The Mystical Theology, and a number of letters. 1 1.

I have used the edition of Balthasar Corderius, originally published in

1634, in a Venice edition of 1755-6 as well as in Migne, PG 3-4, which is a reprint, not always accurate.

The second volume of this contains the notes

81

George Every

82

Several of the letters are short tracts, and some could have been composed to defend the authenticity of the other works. Objections to any idea that these could have been composed by a contemporary and companion of St Paul were felt to be formidable in the literary world of Byzantium in the ninth and tenth centuries. Photius in his Library * 2 purports to summarize the treatise of Theodorus the Presbyter, “in which he undertakes to prove the genuineness of the works of St Dionysius. The following arguments against it are refuted.” Photius quotes the arguments, but not the refutation. Evidently this did not impress him. He could have invented Theodore the Presbyter to avoid dealing with Dionysius at all in his Bibliotheca. But the arguments that impressed Photius are worth noting: (1) The later Fathers do not cite them. (2) Eusebius has nothing to say of them. (3) “How is it that in detail these treatises describe rites and customs which only became established in the Church gradually and after a long time?” (4) A letter of St Ignatius is cited, but this was written in the time of Trajan, and could not be quoted by a contemporary of the apostles. Photius clearly thought that this could be “a clumsy fiction,” and this opinion of his was not easily forgotten in the Byzantine world. The hagiography of Dionysius the Areopagite is largely, though not entirely, a Latin creation, to the greater glory of

ascribed to John of Scythopolis and Maximus the Confessor.

The only

English translation of the entire text is by John Parker (London and Oxford, 1897), who believed in the identity of Dionysius with St Paul's disciple. have consulted a French translation by Maurice de Gandillac,

I

Oeuvres

completes du Pseudo-Denys l'Areopagite (Paris, 1943), a translation by C. E.

Rolt of The Divine Names and the Mystical Theology, an edition of la Hierarchie Celeste by Rene Roques and G. Heil in Sources

chretiennes 58

(Paris, 1958), and a kind of summary of The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy under the title of Cosmic Theology, by Dom Denys Rutledge (London, 1964). 2.

PG 103:43-6 at the beginning of the Bibliotheca, in the edition of The

Library of Photius by J. H. Freese (London and New York, 1920) pp. 16-7;

but in his Replies to Amphilohius,

especially in PG 101:697D, Photius

appears to accept the genuineness of the Corpus Dionysiacum, there ascribed to a companion of St Paul.

Pseudo-Dionysius

83

the Church and city of Paris and of the abbey of St Denys.3 Hilduin, who was Abbot there for a number of years after 815, first received from the Emperor Louis the Pious, in or shortly

after

827,

the

Greek

manuscript

of the

Corpus

Dionysiacum that is now Greek MSS 427 in the Bibliotheque

According to Hildiun,

Nationale.

no less than nineteen

miracles were wrought by this gift in a single night, but he had to wait until 835 before he could obtain a rather unsatis¬ factory translation which has of late been identified by the labors of French scholars.4

This was greatly improved by

John Eriugena in about 860.

But as we shall see, John the

Scot had ideas of his own which found their way into his translation.

This was improved by Anastasius the Librarian,

who was his contemporary, and by John called “le Sarrasin” about 1167, but it remained the basis for the Latin under¬ standing of Dionysius down to the time of Robert Grosseteste. The problem is to place Dionysius between the first and second types of pseudonymity.

I believe that the work was

conceived as an instance of Greek wisdom Christianized.

It

was a great imaginative effort to reconstruct the common source of pagan and Christian Neo-Platonism, of Plotinus and Origen.

It is not surprising that it has been ascribed to

Ammonius Saccas, a mysterious Alexandrian who had con¬ nections with both of them, as recently as 1959.5 Attempts have also been made to identify this Dionysius with the great 3.

Autobiographical letters about the deaths of St Peter and St Paul exist

in Syriac, Armenian and Coptic versions, reproduced with Latin translations by J. B. Pitra in Analecta Sacra 4 (Paris, 1883) pp. 241-76. But Hilduin’s life in PL 106 has been composed by collating the evidence of the Dionysian writings themselves with other accounts of a martyred bishop of Paris. 4.

M. de Gandillac, pp. 12-22.

See P. G. Thery, Etudes Dionysiennes, 1,

Hilduin, traducteur de Denys and II, Edition de sa translation (Paris, 1932-7).

5.

See Les Recherches Dionysiennes de 1955 a 1960, by J. M. Hornus,

offprint from Revue d’histoire et de philosophic religieuse 41 (Paris, 1961) pp. 38-40.

This shows R. P. Elorduy persisting in his reconstruction of the

thought of Ammonius Saccas (in Spanish), with some success, convincing Hornus that Ammonius could be the Dionysiacum.

but not

author of the corpus

84

George Every

Bishop of Alexandria in the middle of the third century,6 and with Dionysius of Corinth in the middle of the second.7 What is fatal to these attempts to put Dionysius early in the history of Neo-Platonism is not so much the presence of a citation in chapter four of The Divine Names from the De malorum subsistentia of Proclus, who died in 482, for this might have been o taken from a much earlier work. It is rather the presence throughout of what has been called theurgy in a rather uneasy alliance with Christian theology. That the theology is Christian is quite certain, though the language used to express it is never entirely appropriate, nor is any language taken from any philosophy. The great merit of Dionysius is to be aware of this, and to transmit this awareness to Robert Grosseteste, St Thomas Aquinas, and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing. (I am not so sure that John Eriugena ever got the point.) The theurgy is a more difficult matter. It seems to me very important for establishing the date. The later Neo-Platonists, especially Porphyry and Iamblichus, were very much concerned with the defense of Hellenic rituals on philosophical grounds. What seemed to be ridiculous must symbolize something else. Dionysius does the same kind of thing for Christian baptism and the eucharist, for monastic and ecclesiastical life, related to their heavenly counterparts in the celestial hierarchy. I think we can say for certain that this could not be done before the Church had become an establishment in our sense of the term. The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy must be later than the Mys6.

This suggestion was made by Msgr. Athenagoras, Metropolitan of

Paramuthia, in books published in Athens in 1932 and Alexandria in 1934.

1

own my knowledge of these to Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London, 1957) p. 24, n. 1.

7.

Bede, in his commentary on Acts 17, identified Dionysius of Corinth

with St Paul’s Athenian disciple.

He clearly knew nothing of the corpus

Dionysiacum, but 1 think the tradition that he records may have contributed

something to its formation. The troubles that came to Abelard as a result of his reading of Bede are summarized in J. Sikes, Peter Abailard (Cambridge, 1932) pp. 18-9, who refers in the notes to some of Bede’s possible sources. 8. J. Vanneste in Le Mystere de Dieu (Paris, 1959) p. 37, n. 2, thinks that the passage could be an interpolation.

Pseudo-Dionysius

85

tagogical Catecheses of St Cyril of Jerusalem and the Bap¬

of St John Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia. Some liturgical detail, into which it would be digression to enquire, points to a period when infant baptism was becoming normal, and the baptism of adults assimilated to this. What has been called theurgy is the theory and practice of performing and interpreting rites of initiation, tismal Homilies

including the eucharist. I see no reason why theurgy could not be Christian. As I understand them, the authors of bap¬ tismal catecheses are in a sense theurgists. But Dionysius was a pioneer in applying up-to-date philosophical categories used by the later Neo-Platonists, such as Proclus, to interpret Christian initiation. In my own belief he was consciously up-to-date, turning the methods of the Greeks against them¬ selves. I do not believe that he himself deliberately archaized, any more than Koheleth in writing Ecclesiastes. I cannot think that a sophisticated writer in a civilized world, as he evidently was, really believed that churches in the apostolic period were lavishly decorated, or that monastic profession was then an established institution. But I think someone has doctored his text to improve the evidence for his friendships not only with Timothy, St Ignatius of Antioch and St Polycarp, but with St Peter and with St James, the Lord’s brother. In the absence of a satisfactory critical edition of the Greek text it is hard to establish this. But I would like to call attention to one passage in The Divine Names about Hierotheus, who is constantly presented as the spiritual guide of Dionysius, the writer, and of Timothy, to whom the book is addressed. The passage9 is primarily about his ecstatic utterance, which Timothy and Dionysius had both heard, at what seems to be a celebration of the eucharist, where Hiero9.

Ill, 2, at PG 3:681 CD.

M. Jugie, in L'Assomption et les peres du

vieme siecle, in Echos d Orient 25 (Paris, 1926) pp. 305-7, points out that the

scholiast in PG 4:236 is uncertain, and that some misread or|pa instead of CTcoua. This could refer to the Holy Sepulchre or to the tomb of the Virgin, but M. Jugie thinks the original reference was to the eucharistic body.

In

Andrew of Crete, who died c. 740, this has become part of the tradition of the Dormition of the Virgin.

His homily is in PG 97:1064-5.

86

George Every

theus outprayed everyone but St Peter and St James. These exceptions are introduced in what in all editions is presented as a parenthesis, defining the occasion as an assembly to behold (thean) or to deposit (theian) the zoarchic body of the theodochos. The earliest scholiast, who used to be identified with St Maximus the Confessor, but who is more likely to be John of Scythopolis (of whom more will be said hereafter) interprets this as the occasion of the Blessed Virgin’s funeral. But I am not at all sure that the words would be read in this way of her body, if St Peter and St James had not been in¬ troduced. This made it necessary to play down Hierotheus, in comparison with more illustrious hierarchs. But was this the original intention of Dionysius? I think the original reference was to the principle of divine life in the eucharistic body of Christ. I think a similar line of argument could be applied to some other references to characters in the New Testament, and to some of the letters. The letter to St Polycarp was evidently written before the question of authen¬ ticity became urgent, but the letter to St John on Patmos could be a fake to improve the evidence. How Orthodox is Dionysius? 1.

Monophysitism

The notes ascribed in the Latin versions to St Maximus Confessor are considered by modern scholars to go back in most places to John of Scythopolis. The difficulty in distin¬ guishing between two or more different scholiasts makes it likely that all were written in one tradition of spirituality. 10 This has generally been regarded as orthodox in the sense of the fifth and sixth General Councils, accepting Chalcedon but interpreting the definition in the light of St Cyril’s letters, 10.

See Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, the theological anthro¬

pology of Maximus the Con fessor (Lund, 1965) pp. 26, 249. 332, relying on

H. Urs von Balthasar, Kosmische Liturgie (Einsiedeln, 1961).

This I have

not read, but there is a good discussion of the notes in the article on Dionysius in DS 3 (Paris, 1957) 288-90 by Andre Rayez, with a further discussion of the part Maximus played in their composition by Polycarp Sherwood at c. 295-9.

Pseudo-Dionysius

87

including the third to Nestorius with the twelve anathemas as well as the letter of peace to John of Antioch. In this tradition the tome of St Leo is orthodox, but less decisive in interpreting Chalcedon than it generally is for Roman Catholics and high church Anglicans, and some flexibility is encouraged in the use of theological terms. The notes are commonly regarded as imposing an orthodox sense on Monophysite texts. Because the corpus Dionywas cited by the Severian Monophysites in the colloquy of 533, when Hypatius, the Chalcedonian Bishop of Ephesus, produced what came to be the standard objections to the authenticity of these forgotten works of St Paul’s dis¬ ciple, it has been argued by many that the corpus is the work of a Monophysite, of Peter the Iberian, writing shortly after Chalcedon, of Peter the Fuller, Monophysite Patriarch of

siacum

Antioch from 471-88, and even of Severus himself, who led the more moderate Monophysites from 512, when he became Patriarch of Antioch, to his death in exile in Egypt in 538. To all the detailed argument in favor of one or more of these there is an overwhelming objection. The essence of Monophysitism, at any rate in the moderate form professed by Peter the Fuller and Severus, lay in their strict insistence on St Cyril’s terms, “one nature of the Word that was made flesh,’’ “of” but not “in” two natures, “the Word suffered in the flesh.” They could not accept Chalcedon glossed to agree with these, or the orthodoxy of St Leo’s tome. Severus may have realized that he was in substantial agreement with many, perhaps with most Byzantine Chalcedonians, but he knew that for him to accept Chalcedon would be to hand over the leadership of the Monophysites to Julian of Halicar¬ nassus, who believed that the body of Christ was by nature incapable of suffering. By a curious paradox, his persistence in formal heresy preserved the substantial orthodoxy of the Monophysites, and so made agreement possible in later times, when passions were less intense, although political obstacles made it difficult to implement in the Middle Ages and still present some difficulties to Orthodox and Mono¬ physite dialogue today.

88

George Every

Severus and his friends could cite the Dionysian writings, as they did many other Fathers, in defense of an Alexandrian approach to the Christian mystery, but they could not possibly have written them. They probably knew of them through a contemporary Chalcedonian who wanted to loosen their rigidity about theological terms. A more likely place of origin is somewhere in the background of John of Scythopolis, the Biblical Bethshan in Palestine. According to Lequien,11 a John was Bishop of Scythopolis from 496-518. If so, he could be “John the scholastic of Scythopolis,” who wrote twelve books against Eutyches and Dioscorus, for the Patriarch Julian of Antioch (471-6).12 J. M. Hornus at one time supposed that John himself might be Dionysius. He has since come to the conclusion that the author and the annotator are not the same, but he would still look in that direction, and I agree with him.13 The author of the Dionysian writings was not a Monophysite, but did not resent the Henoticon of the Emperor Zeno in 482. He probably thought that Chalcedon had made mistakes in approving the writings of Theodoret and Ibas against St Cyril’s anathemas, but he did not repudiate the definition. Chalcedonians of this sort were plentiful in Palestine, where the Patriarchs of Jerusalem con¬ sistently defended Chalcedon, but saw no need to break with the peace policies of the imperial government. No doubt they respected the firmer line taken by Rome, but they did not take it, nor were they forced to condemn Chalcedon. The author of the Dionysian writings avoids subjects where he might be obliged to use controversial terms, by referring either to other treatises of his own, which probably never existed, or to works of the holy Hierotheus, with whom he 11.

Oriens Christianus 3:690-1.

12.

PG 103:339-40, ed. J. J. Freese, p. 177.

There is some doubt as to

whether the Julian to whom this is addressed need be a Patriarch. have put John of Scythopolis between 536 and 548. 13.

Some

His original suggestion was made in an article, “Les Kecherches

recent [sic] sur le ps. Denys 1‘Areopagite, ’ philosophic religieuse 35(1955) 488.

in Revue d'histoire et de

The recantation is in op. cit., pp. 36-7.

Pseudo-Dionysius

89

will not compete.14 He also has a lot to say about the limits of language. Thereby he evades charges of Monophysitism, Nestorianism or Neo-Platonism. 2.

Neo-Platonism

The question of Neo-Platonism preoccupies the modern reader because the case for the date of Dionysius has been made to turn on Iamblichus and Proclus. It is probable that the Byzantines were more concerned with the use that Monophysites made of the Dionysian writings, especially in the Monothelite controversy, and that some of the notes of St Maximus, introduced to correct this, also supplied a cor¬ rective to the absence of an explicit Christology that was part of the original intention. Those who know the later Neo-Platonists find them every¬ where in pesudo-Dionysius. Those who know the Greek Fathers find little that does not appear in some other Father or in Greek Christian writers open to Platonic influences such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Professor Hilary Arm¬ strong, who knows the Platonists professionally, and the Greek Fathers as a natural consequence of his professional interests in a Catholic layman of orientalizing sympathies, has written in a review of Walter Volker’s Contemplation and Ecstasy in Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita (1958):

Perhaps the one criticism of importance that can be made of his treatment ... is that, like many other students of the relationship between Neoplatonism and Christian thought, he is sometimes inclined to say “Either-Or” where he ought to say “BothAnd,” to present Neoplatonism and Christianity as mutually exclusive at points where the opposition is not really quite so absolute. Thus in the discussion of what Dionysius has to say about creation...he seems to accept rather uncritically from previous scholars that Neoplatonism here means automatic 14.

As in The Divine Names, c. 1, 1, a reference to his own Outlines of

Divinity, and c. 3, 2, to the Elements of Divinity of Hierotheus.

90

George Every emanationism and some sort of “pantheism.” As a matter of fact a good deal that he says to clear Dionysius of the charge of emanationism and pan¬ theism would apply equally well to Plotinus: the real question at issue here is whether the creative act must be regarded as in some sense necessary as well as free, or as transcending our opposition of necessity and freedom, and in his insistence that we must see it like this, Plotinus would have the support of some indubitably Christian thinkers.15

A footnote “makes it pretty clear that Volker thinks of the contemplation of Plotinus as something purely intellectual, having no essential connection with moral virtue, which must seem a quite staggering misjudgment to anyone who really knows the Enneads. ”16 This seems to me an important criticism of a book that Cardinal Danielou has praised l7(Volker is a Protestant) and J. M. Hornus has criticized on quite other grounds. He thinks that Volker knows Clement of Alexandria and Origen so well that he cannot help seeing Dionysius through their spectacles, as others see him in the light of their studies in Proclus. 18 Father Vanneste sj, who seems to Hornus much nearer the mark, denies any real influence from the Fathers on Dionysius. His theology is not mystical but “exclusively a natural theology which reflects on the mystery of God.”19 The truth I see in this is that Dionysius wishes to identify himself with the student of Greek philosophy who still seeks for the unknown God in the Athenian schools, or in other schools nearer his home, perhaps at Caesarea or Gaza in Palestine. 15. Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 10 (Oxford, 1959) pp. 175-7. Volker’s book was published at Wiesbaden in 1958. 16.

Ibid.

17. Cited by J. M. Hornus, op. cit., p. 69, calling Volker's book “the most important event in the history of Dionysian studies since...Koch and Stiglmayer in 1895.” 18.

Ibid.

19.

Vanneste, pp. 13, 40, 221-2.

Pseudo-Dionysius

91

He wants him to use a pathway of negations to reach the one who cannot be known. Probably he himself had been a philosopher before he was a monk, and his prayer is still colored by this. Neoplatonism remained a living philosophy through the whole of Byzantine history, always in tension with Christian theology, constantly giving rise to forms of religious practice ranging from contemplation of the absolute to sinister forms of sorcery and magic. In such a context Dionysius may have been for some educated young men in every generation a pathway from Platonism to Christian mysticism, but he was seldom, if ever, an introduction to Neoplatonism. That would come from lecturers in the schools. According to Vanneste “in the East, whence his work came to us, the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius remained mediocre.” 20 According to Meyendorff, “the liturgical realm is probably the only one in which Dionysius and his vocabulary kept their originality and their importance in the Byzantine world....The necessary cor¬ rectives to Dionysius were fairly rapidly incorporated in the realm of pure theology, but his symbolic and hierarchical conception of the liturgy marked for ever Byantine piety: hence the conception of a symbolic drama that the assembly attend as spectators, the mystery of which can only be pene¬ trated by initiated individuals.” 21 Influence in East and West

John Eriugena found in the Dionysian writings an introduction to later Platonism. Probably he was already at work on the Peri Physeon when they were brought to his attention, with the notes then ascribed to St Maximus the Confessor. They stimulated his speculative imagination, already at work on themes derived from St Augustine. The scholastics rejected his cosmology, but kept his Latin translation of Dionysius in revised forms, and his own notes as well as those translated from the Greek. It has been 20.

Ibid. p. 6. DS 3:290-4 (A Rayez), 300-18 (A. Wenger).

21. Christ in Eastern Christian Thought (Washington and Cleveland, 1969) pp. 83-4.

George Every

92

calculated that six per cent of his own original work was preserved in these.22 While the Greek scholiasts introduced a Christological corrective into the text of Dionysius, Eriugena in his concern for nature made it more natural and rational, less contemplative and mystical. The scholastics, especially St Albert the Great and St Thomas Aquinas, seem to have used Dionysius as a corrective to the rationalism of the Masters of Arts in the schools of philosophy. They saw his apophatic theology mainly in nega¬ tive terms, as a check on the use of language. The Palamite controversy in Constantinople in the middle of the fourteenth century was in one aspect a clash between this use of Dionysius and St Basil.23 Dionysius was not unknown before in Byzantium, but was reintroduced by Barlaam, the “monk and philosopher” from Calabria, in the hope of persuading Latin and Greek controversialists to be more modest in their claims for their own terms on the vexed question of the pro¬ cession of the Holy Spirit, offering another monastic and mystical reading from Dionysius. In the writings of St Basil against Eunomius, the encounter with the divine darkness is a positive religious experience approached by the negative way. Something corresponding to this appears in the Cloud of Unknowing, and in Eckhart and other mystics in the West in

the fourteenth century, all influenced by “Denys and his hid divinity,” but the Western Church did not develop a theology of uncreated grace or divine energies. A reading of the Dionysian writings is an element in this, but the absence from Western theology of anything precisely corresponding to Palamism in the East, and the incomprehension shown towards it by Western theologians until lately, is perhaps 22.

H. F. Dondaine, Le Corpus dionysien de I'Universite de Paris au

Xllleme siecle, pp. 88, 135-8, cited by I. P. Sheldon Williams in Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, p. 533.

Dondaine I

have not read, but there is something about it by Joseph Turbessi in DS 3:345. 23. passim.

See John Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, (London, 1964)

Pseudo-Dionysius

93

sufficient to show the limits of what Dionysius by himself could do. Nevertheless the corpus Dionysiacum did something to qualify the influence of St Augustine. My old master, Chris¬ topher Dawson, groups them with the Latin translation by Burgundio of Pisa of the De fide Orthodoxa of St John of Damascus, as leading the scholastics—above all St Bonaventura and St Thomas—to revise and complete the Augustinian doctrine of grace in the light of the teaching of the Greek Fathers and thus to create a synthesis of the two great theological traditions of the East and the West....While Augustine conceives grace primarily as an act of divine power that moves the human will, Thomas considers it above all under its essential aspect of the new spiritual principle which transforms and renews human nature by the communication of the Divine Life: in other words, the state of deification of which the Greek Fathers habitually speak. It is not merely a power that moves the will but a light that illuminates the mind and transfigures the whole spirit. This com¬ bination of the Augustinian tradition with the characteristic doctrine of the Greek Fathers is perhaps the greatest theological achievement of the scholastic period.24 Understood as Dawson does, it is not so far from the teaching of St Gregory Palamas on the uncreated light. Daw¬ son clearly attributes it in the main to “the influence of the Pseudo-Dionysius and the Neoplatonists.” He says: “Al¬ though it was not always fully accepted or fully understood by the later scholastics, it became the basis of classical Catholic theology...at once the center of the Protestant attack and the rallying point of the Catholic defense.” The real question at issue concerning Dionysius is the legi¬ timacy or otherwise of Christian interest in natural religious 24.

Mediaeval Religion and other Essays (London. 1934) pp. 38-9, 45.

George Every

94

experience. I see no reason to disagree with Fr Vanneste that the experience described by Dionysius is common to Christian and pagan, to Greek and Indian, but it seems to me that there is an overlap between natural and revealed religion even in the Bible itself, nor am I persuaded that natural religion is absent from our world, because the word philo¬ sophy is commonly used to denote something else. Where Sartre speaks of the absence of God and Wittgenstein of “that of which we cannot speak,” Dionysius is not out of date. Vanneste may be right in thinking that the appeal of Dionysius to the West in the Middle Ages was metaphysical rather than mystical. It is perhaps significant that the excep¬ tions are English, Robert Grosseteste, whose new translation was chiefly used in England,25 and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing. In comparison with the Cappadocian Fathers, who transmute Neoplatonism into theology, he is controlled by the limitations of his philosophical vocabulary. But I am not thereby convinced that his usefulness is exhausted, especially in analysis of such experiences as nothingness, angst and the sense of the unlimited in relation to faith in the mercy of God. Fr Vanneste allows that there is in Dionysius a faith in the divine goodness that he compared with the faith of Plotinus, who stands to Origen and Clement of Alexandria as a sympathetic modern philosopher might stand to the Christian theologian.

George Every Oscott College Sutton Coldfield

25.

DS 3:341-3 (S. de Saint-Athonis).

SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN AND THE WAY OF TEARS

B

ARON VON HUGEL'S niece,

Gwendoline

Greene,

says that when she placed herself under his spiritual direction, he spoke to her a great deal about the need to know history, and he began, therefore, by teaching her history, which “is an enlargement of personal experience, history pressing the past.” He thought a purely personal religion was something poor and thin, and that by a study of history she would gain a larger experience. He abhorred the idea that there was no value in the past, and that the only value was in the present, for that cuts us right off, “it gives us no base, it leaves out the soundness and richness of the great traditions.” He wanted her to learn about all the great souls who had lived through all the tracts of time, for thus she would learn about progress. Religion to be rich and deep must be historical, for it is an historical fact. Christianity, he told her, is a “thing of the heart,” and “what a difference it makes!” The spiritual world is a great world of facts, and she must learn about it. Her ultimate life would be her own, but in the meantime she must learn.1 Moreover, he told her that one saint could make another saint, one trained soul teach another, one soul radiate love to another soul. He de¬ clared that he had never learned anything by himself, and felt that he owed more than he could say to his spiritual guide, Abbe Huvelin. 1. Letters from Baron von Hugel to a Niece (Dent: London, 1928) pp. xiv, XV.

95

Sister Sylvia Maty csmv

96

During this Symposium I gather this is what we are about to do: we are going to try to think about the great saints and teachers of Eastern and Western Christendom, and thus on a purely spiritual level we will seek to overcome some of the sad divisions which for nearly a thousand years have kept us apart, to the great loss of both East and West. In a Cister¬ cian-Orthodox Symposium quite clearly we shall be dealing above all with the spirituality of the past thousand years, with the second millenium of the Christian era, and therefore I am going to begin with the two great figures raised up by God around the turn of the century which brought about this division: St Symeon the New Theologian, the “Third Theo¬ logian” of the Orthodox Church, and St Bernard of Clairvaux, the “last of the Fathers,” who stood at the dividing line between two ages. Intellectually he was the child of the age that was passing away, being little troubled by the philosophical thought which the translation of the PseudoDionysian writings into Latin was soon to introduce into the West, and which subsequently colored the thought of Western as well as Eastern mystics. Bernard sought to des¬ cribe first-hand experiences of the personal relations between the soul and God in contemplation and union. Louis L. Bouyer, referring to his title as the “last of the Fathers” agrees that it fits him because of the “creative freshness with which, for the last time in the history of devotion and theology, his teachings exhibit the characteristics and the thoughts of the Fathers.”2 Like the Fathers, he immersed himself in the Scriptures with an extreme freedom seldom found after him. He saw Christianity whole, and monasticism as the acme of Christiantity, but what chiefly united him with the Fathers was his creative genius. He became an inno¬ vator, beginning a new epoch in religious thought and Christian development. While he responded freely to the tendencies of the age in which he lived, he in turn influenced them. He blended into one unity patristic mysticism, the primitive tradition of contemplation based on the Scriptures, 2.

L. Bouyer, The Cistercian Heritage (Mowbray: London, 1958) p. 63.

Symeon the New Theologian and the Way of Tears

97

and the evangelical inspiration of early monastic asceticism, and reanimated all these elements by imparting to them the brilliance of a fresh renaissance. The whole sensitivity of the twelfth century was incorporated into Bernard’s spirituality. Together with his sensitivity there was a consciousness of self, a subjectivity in which the modern spirit was born. The distinctive note in the spirituality of Bernard was what he called the “carnal love of Jesus,” the mysticism of the Word. This carnal love was, however, to lead to a spiritual love. After him the Franciscans and the Brethren of the Common Life, from whom so much in modern Western spirituality is derived, used his contemplative, affective considerations of Christ born into the world to turn devotion to the humanity of Jesus. Other schools, equally following St Bernard, became increasingly involved in abstract and ecstatic mysticism. He sought to explain how our love for God has to be kindled by the love which God has shown us in Jesus Christ, yet we cannot love Jesus without loving the Spirit who is inseparable from him. It is thought that Bernard was to some extent influenced by Maximus the Confessor, whose writings had been translated by Eriugena, and from whom he seems to have borrowed the word excessus, which he uses to denote ecstasy. In this excessus the soul is, as it were “flooded with light, or as liquified in the fire.” This liquefaction of the soul does not involve its destruction, but quite the contrary, for the sub¬ stance of the soul remains intact, and this ecstasy confirms it in its true nature, because it makes it like God, and “re¬ models the image on the Exemplar.” Bernard, borrowing the thought of Maximus, blended it so completely with the Johannine thought which was the basis of his own teaching that he made the two as it were one.3 He had the whole patristic tradition at his fingertips and knew how to make the best of it, but, quite naturally, the tradition in his works is that of the great Benedictine family to which he belonged. 3.

E. Gilson, The Mystical Theology of St Bernard, tr. A.H.C. Downes

(Sheed & Ward:

New York, 1940) p. 26-28.

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His charity was ardent, but there was an element of fierce¬ ness about it. He rekindled the fire Jesus came to send upon earth, and in the following centuries this flame was to burn far and wide. It is still flaming in the hearts of many in our own day. Having thus started with the thought of the great Father of the West whom Paul Tillich regarded as the “baptizing father in the development of Christian mysticism"4—the mysticism which is becoming ever more widely sought in these days —I must turn to the subject of my own paper, St Symeon the New Theologian. The “Third Theologian" of the Orthodox Church died some thirty years before the great schism between East and West, and has therefore till now been practically unknown to Western Christians, though his influence on the Eastern Church has been no less important than that of St Bernard in the West. It is interesting to note that Paul Tillich regarded the Middle Ages as one form in which the great problem of human existence in the light of the eternal was solved. He realized that Christian mysticism must be a “concrete Christ mysticism."5 Both St Bernard and St Symeon were deeply Christocentric, and therefore it seems to me they are the saints for our own times, for the end of the second millenium of Christianity as for the end of the first. Before leaving the subject of St Bernard there is one more remark I think I must make, for it links him with the subject of my paper. Looking back again at Etienne Gilson’s book I see that he makes the remark that in his early years Bernard felt a profound hesitation: should he become a man of letters or a saint? Eventually he became both.6 For many the Benedictine Order, which kept the light of faith shining in Europe during the dark ages by its learning, its worship—the Opus Dei— and its Rule, sufficed. For William of St Thierry 4. P. Tillich, A History of Christian Thought (SCM Press: p. 134. 5. Ibid. 6. Gilson, p. 7.

London, 1968)

Symeon the New Theologian and the Way of Tears

99

and St Bernard it was indeed of immense value, but it was not the end: the only true end and crown of the monastic life was for them mystic union with God.7 They found their in¬ spiration in the Lives of the Desert Fathers, for St Antony had been a mystic, and Cassian had described ecstasy as the supreme reward of the ascetic life of the Fathers of the Desert. The Benedictine Rule itself refers repeatedly to Scripture, St Basil and Cassian. St Benedict made no secret of his dependence on the cenobitic Rule of St Basil the Great, and it was to an Order based on the Rule of St Basil that St Symeon belonged, since he as a Studite monk.8 The emphasis in the monastery he entered in Constantinople was supremely on the Divine Office, which appears to have been said in relays by the monks, who at one time numbered, with their dependent houses, about a thousand. St Theodore Studite (759-826) had modernized the Rule of St Basil, and it was his understanding of that Rule which was adopted by the first monasteries on Mount Athos. So great, in fact, was the emphasis on the Divine Office that it has been said that St Theodore appears scarcely to have known the meaning of private prayer, for which some provision is made by St Benedict. In the Eastern Church, however, there were two distinct trends in the monastic life: the cenobitic trend and the eremitical one. St Symeon appears to have been able to combine both aspects of the life of prayer in his own person, for together with a great emphasis on the value of the Divine Office, he also lived a life of the most intense mystical prayer —the prayer of “holy quiet’’ hesychia. His name is often linked with this hesychastic prayer, which was formerly regarded as suitable only for hermits, but which he believed was open to all. Though he began his life in religion in the great Studite monastery in Constantinople, the most important monastery of the Eastern Church, quite early in his 7. Ibid., p. 16. 8. The use of the words “Rule” and “Order” here and elsewhere in the paper follows a Western mode of speaking and has to be understood differently when being applied to Eastern realities.

(Editor’s note)

100

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novitiate he was transferrred to the smaller monastery of St Mamas close by, on account of some difficulties which arose in the large monastery owing to his devotion to a certain old monk, Symeon the Pious. This smaller monastery had become lax and had fallen into disrepair when he entered it, but he made it a place of importance in his day, and there, in the midst of the brilliant and turbulent “Queen of cities” he lived a life of such devotion and mystical prayer that the two streams were united in his own person. Since little is so far known in the English-speaking world of Symeon the New Theologian perhaps a short account of his life must precede a study of his teaching on the “way of tears” with which I shall deal later. Born in Paphlogonia in Asia Minor in 949 of parents who were apparently small landowners, he was sent at about the age of twelve to Con¬ stantinople where his uncle held a position at the brilliant Byzantine court. This uncle found him the best possible tutor, and hoped eventually to find a place for him in the palace of the Emperor. However, when at the age of fourteen it was deemed fitting that he should proceed to the study of the classical writers, he absolutely refused to do this. He would not touch pagan writings, for there was only one thing he wanted, and that was to find a man of God who would lead him in his spiritual life. This at once throws a light on the character of this youth, who even at that early age knew exactly what he wanted. Again and again he was told that no such man existed in Constantinople, and he was utterly puzzled as to how the devil could so have led men astray that in this great Christian city there was no one who could instruct him in the way to God. At last he heard of an aged monk, Symeon the Pious (whose Christian name he later took himself), living very hiddenly in the great Studite monastery, who it was thought might be able to help him. To this monk, who was not even a priest, he forthwith went. From him he received more than he had ever hoped or asked for, and whenever he could, this young aristocrat, while over¬ looking his uncle’s household and paying daily visits to the

Symeon the New Theologian and the Way of Tears 101

imperial court, went secretly to visit this old monk.

The first

thing Symeon did was to give him the book of Mark the Monk, a fifth-century Abbot who later became a hermit, and this book the young man read with the deepest care and devotion. He was very soon given the first of those experiences of the light of God which were to be his throughout his life, but, though filled with amazement at this great grace granted to such a beginner, he turned again to his worldly life, and failed to respond to this first grace. However, when God once calls a soul to himself in this way the yearning for divine things cannot be resisted for ever, and after a number of years, when he had reached the age of twenty-seven, the young man decided to enter the monastery. Till then old Symeon had dissuaded him from doing this, but now, when he told him of his decision, he felt the time was ripe for this step. Before entering the monastery the youth went to visit his parents. He spent about a year with them before the final separation, at the thought of which his father shed many tears. Here, in his own home, his “book providence” led him to find in the library the famous Ladder of Divine Ascent of St John Climacus (570-649).9

With great avidity he set about studying this book, hiding away in secret corners to read it. This book, which sets forth the spiritual life in stages of thirty steps, shows great insight and balance and is in the true eremitical tradition. In Step Eighteen the writer speaks of “insensibility,” from which he felt himself to be suffering. This made a strong impression on Symeon and he took it much to heart. In the Twenty-seventh Step John Climacus treats of solitude or “holy quiet” — hesychia — which is a liberation of the whole personality. He does not minimize the difficulty of attaining to it, and stresses the dangers of despondency, the worst enemy of the solitary. Yet, in common with most people he believed this “solitude” to be a necessary condition for the attainment of hesychia or holy quiet. Climacus was clearly influenced by earlier writers 9.

St John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent (Faber & Faber:

London, 1959).

102

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like Cassian, St Gregory Nazianzus, Evagrius and Ephraim the Syrian. Finally, having renounced all rights to whatever inheritance might be his, Symeon returned to Constantinople to enter the Studite monastery, and placed himself directly under the guidance of old Symeon the Pious. With a sure instinct he knew that in this great cenobitic monastery Symeon alone could help him to lead a truly contemplative life. This ob¬ viously aroused the displeasure of the Abbot and the enmity of his fellow-monks. Eventually the Abbot dismissed the young monk and old Symeon took his beloved protege to the smaller monastery of St Mamas, where the Abbot was famed for his sanctity. There, though he felt very unworthy, Symeon was ordained, and three years after his entry, on the death of the Abbot, was elected to succeed him. In his first cate¬ chetical address to the monks, which was probably given after Prime as was the custom in Studite monasteries, he tells them openly how unworthy he feels himself to be, and how unjust this promotion over them all appears to him, since he was the least experienced in the religious life and should have learned from them rather than having to instruct them. He then goes on to give a discourse on charity in glowing words that remind one in places of his Hymns. After twenty-five years as Abbot of St Mamas, which he had made famous in the Constantinople in his time, Symeon retired to a hermitage where he wrote his famous Loves of Divine Hymns and where he again received the visions and ecstasies which had been his in the early years of his monastic life. There he died in 1022, leaving his writings to a young monk with whom he apparently sensed a deep affinity, Nicetos Stethatos. Some thirteen years later Nicetas, having gone through many tribulations, found himself again in his beloved Studite monastery in Constantinople. Here he was given a vision in which Symeon urged him to edit these writings, because some day they would be of value. After consulting with someone whose wisdom he greatly valued, he forthwith set out upon this task.

Symeon the New Theologian and the Way of Tears 103

Now we must turn to some of the leading themes in the teaching of St Symeon. First I think we must place his insis¬ tence on the commandments, by which he means the Beati¬ tudes. His instruction to his monks on these is of great beauty. Throughout his writings in fact, he returns to the thought of rejoicing in being despised and set at nought, of being scorned and spat upon, of being accounted as nothing for the love of Christ. It was this impassibility, a virtue which the Orthodox Church has always regarded as the summit of all others, that had so impressed Symeon himself in his humble, hidden spiritual guide, and which led him to try to canonize him soon after his death. “Let a man rejoice,” he wrote in his Chapters “in being despised, bless them who injure him, endure persecution, pray for his enemies with tears and affliction of heart, praying to God for them and interceding for them.”10 In Catechesis 6, when telling his monks about the way in which his beloved staretz had attained to all this he apparently felt them to be unim¬ pressed, and then turns to the thought of how Christ-God had himself endured all these sufferings, even to the death of the Cross, and this they could not ignore. Symeon taught quite definitely the value of following Christ, the imitation of Christ. As Archbishop Krivocheine has pointed out, when St Symeon speaks of participation in Christ, or the “imitation of Christ-God” he really means sharing in the humiliations of Christ, his sufferings and his death.11 It was the beatitude on persecution, revilings and so on (Mt 5: 11-12) that especially appealed to him. We are reminded of the words spoken to Christ by St John of the Cross toward the end of his life when asked by his Lord what he could do for him: “To be despised and set at nought for love of you.” For these two great mystics of East and West this was the way to union with Christ, and their influence has lasted through the ages. 10. Symeon le Nouveau Theologien, Chapitres Theologiques. Gnostiques et Paris, 1957) 3:25. 11. Symeon le Nouveau Theologien, Catecheses, ed. G. Krivocheine, SC 104 (Cerf: Paris, 1964) p. 41, Note 2.

pratiques, ed. J. Darrouzes, SC 51 (Cerf:

104

Sister Sylvia Mary csmv

Secondly, Symeon taught that it was of the utmost impor¬ tance to know experientially that the Holy Spirit was within one and guiding one. He knew nothing of an “unconscious” presence of the Holy Spirit. He firmly believed that mani¬ festations of the workings of the Holy Spirit were by no means confined to the apostolic age. Moreover, he went even further, insisting that only those who had themselves received true spiritual experience were entitled to guide the souls of others on their spiritual journey. No position in the Church, however exalted, gave a man a right to do this, because no one could speak of things he did not know in his own experience. I wonder whether the Church in Russia, which took over the Byzantine form of Christianity during the life¬ time of St Symeon may not owe its tradition of the love for a holy man — a staretz — whether bishop, priest or simple layman, to this teaching of its “Third Theologian.” Finally we come to his teaching on two subjects which have had a lasting influence on the Orthodox Church, and certainly manifested themselves in Holy Russia up to the end of the nineteenth century and beyond: his teaching on “light” — the light of God — and his teaching on “tears” —tears both of penitence and joy, of marvelling wonder at the mysteries of the divine, at the beauty contained in the Scriptures and the truths of the Faith. These subjects recur again and again in his writings: in his instructions to his monks, in his Chapters and in the famous Loves of Divine Hymns, which all reveal a soul full of compunction, love, illumination and rapturous joy. They are probably quite unparalled in Christian literature for their humility, their simplicity, their ardor, and their adoring wonder at the graces he had received himself, and which he believed God was longing to bestow on all men if only they would open their hearts to receive it. Compunction, tears and light seem to be mingled and intertwined in his works and thoughts, almost inseparable one from the other. They were certainly manifested in his own life, as we shall see from his own accounts and from those of his biographer. In Catechesis /612the New Theologian tells us that while he 12.

Ibid.,

16.

Symeon the New Theologian and the Way of Tears

105

was a novice old Symeon the Studite spent a long day with him, in the heat of midsummer, wandering about the city, where the people loved to see the aged saint. On returning to the monastery they were both exhausted, and the novice, longing only for quiet and prayer felt disinclined to eat, fearing that this might prove to be a hindrance to his devotion. Seeing this, Symeon told his young disciple that he must eat, and, to encourage him to do so, he too partook of some nourishment, which, in his state of apatheia the novice felt sure he did not need. Finally, when the food had been cleared away, Symeon said: “Know, child, that it is neither food, nor vigil, nor bodily fatigue, nor any other praiseworthy action that rejoices God and makes him appear to us, but only a humble heart and soul, modest and good.’’ Hearing these words the novice was amazed, and became even more inflamed, and “in the twinkling of an eye —of the piercing eye of the intellect — remembering all my sins, I was inundated with tears, and fell at his venerable feet, laying hold of them and saying: ‘Pray for me, saint of God, that I may find mercy, for not one of those good things of which you speak is mine, only a multitude of sins which you know as well as I do.’ The saint’s compassion for me grew even greater, and he, too, wept. Then he told me to rise from the ground and said: ‘I have this confidence in God, who has in great measure given me the gift of his grace, that to you he will give this gift in double measure, owing simply to the faith you manifest both to him and to my humble person.’ ”13 From these words I think we may gather that the New Theologian was right in his estimate of his beloved spiritual guide. For in these few words old Symeon reveals his complete humility — that humility which is truth—not denying the gifts God had bestowed upon him. He also shows quite clearly that he was granted some prophetic gift, for the “double portion” was indeed to be given to his disciple. The aged saint told this novice to go to his cell and only to say the Trisagion before lying down to sleep. He obeyed: 13.

Ibid..

17-70.

106

Sister Sylvia Mary csmv

I entered the place where 1 was accustomed to pray, and began Agios 6 Theos, when, remem¬ bering the saint’s words, I suddenly burst into tears and transports of divine love...then falling prostrate on the floor, I saw, and behold, there was a great and brilliant light shining on me intel¬ lectually, and drawing my intellect to it as well as my soul. The complete unexpectedness of the marvel placed me in a state of stupor, and I fell into ecstasy; and that is not all, I forgot where I was, being content to cry Kyrie eleison, which, when I came to myself, I found I was repeating. But who it was who moved my tongue I do not know — God knows. Yes, whether it was in my body or out of my body, I communed with the divine light — that light which expelled all the fog that lay over my soul and all earthly feeling, and that chased far from me all that density and heavi¬ ness of body which had produced lassitude and heaviness in my members. I thought and imagined I was leaving the clothing of corruption. And that is not all; at once an immense joy, an intellectual feeling, a suavity...flowed into my soul in an indescribable way, with a liberty and a forgetful¬ ness of all thoughts of this life....Then this infinite light that appeared to me, having gradually become feebler and more contracted, I regained consciousness, and became aware of all that this great power had suddenly worked in me. I re¬ flected on its departure, and at the thought that it had again left me alone in this life, I became a prey to sorrow, and to such suffering...that I do not know how adequately to describe it; such multiple suffering, so extreme, which burned like fire in my heart.... Imagine if you can the pain of this departure, my immoderate love, the impetus of my passion, the sublimity of this supreme favor? 14.

Ibid., 70-120 (abbrev.).

Symeon the New Theologian and the Way of Tears

107

Then, describing more clearly this vision he goes on to say: This rejoices one in appearing and wounds one in hiding itself, and this came quite close to me and transported me to the heavens. It is a pearl (Mt 13:46) and remains for ever incomprehensible. It shines like the sun, and in it I see all creation enclosed; it shows me all it contains, and commands me to respect my own limitations. I am enclosed under a roof and between walls, and this opens to me the heavens....I marvel at that which has happened to me, and I hear a voice saying secretly to me from on high: “All this is but in enigmas and preambles; you will not contemplate that which is perfect while you are clothed in the flesh. But return to yourself, and see you do nothing to deprive you of the blessings from on high. If you commit a fault it will recall you to humility. But do not cease to apply yourself to penitence; for it is that which, combined with the love of man, effaces all falls both past and present!5 Having given this account to his monks, speaking of it as the experience of another, St Symeon goes on to exhort them: Come, let us clothe ourselves with sincere faith in God, and our fathers and doctors in God. Let us have contrite heart, a humble soul and a heart free — thanks to tears and penitence — from all stain of sin, and we, too, may be worthy one day to rejoice here below in the ineffable joys and the divine light, if not perfectly, at least partially, as we become susceptible to it in the measure of our purification. It is then, in fact, that we — we our¬ selves— will be united with God and God with us, and for those who approach us we shall be light and salt, to their great profit in Christ Jesus our Lord.16 15.

Ibid., 125-144 (abbrev.).

16.

Ibid., 145-169 (abbrev.).

108

Sister Sylvia Mary csmv

I have quoted at some length from this Catechesis because this simple account of mystical experience seems to show a strange resemblance to the descriptions of the Spanish Carmelites of the 16th century. First, the weariness and dejection, the obvious sense of impotence combined with an immense longing for prayer and union with God, some intense emotional suffering, and the transports of joy on hearing the promise of future graces. Yet, through it all, the over-ruling desire to break through the veil that was spread over his soul and to overcome his insensibility to divine things. The subsequent transformation of his whole being, spiritually, mentally and physically is told with simplicity and clarity. Secondly, there is the fresh note —not present in his account of his first vision of light given in Catechesis Twenty-two, of intense ensuing suffering. This mingled joy and suffering are absolutely characteristic of later experience —the “night of the spirit” of St John of the Cross, described in his commentary on the Spiritual Canticle in the twelfth stanza and those following it, and by St Theresa in the sixth Mansion of her Interior Castle. This overwhelming light and love uncover depths in the soul which have not till then been glimpsed, and are an essential part in the development of the full spiritual life of the mystic, though according to St John of the Cross it is the portion of comparatively few. This “night of the spirit” with which John of the Cross dealt with such clarity of insight that he eventually became the “mystical doctor” of the Western Church, seems to me to have been described with equal clarity, though with greater simplicity, by St Symeon centuries earlier. Another passage in this Catechesis, which brings him into line with St Bernard, is that he knew this supernatural vision to be an extraordinary grace — not a state. A Chapter probably written toward the end of his life is of untranslatable beauty: picturesque, with vigorous images, depth of feeling and simplicty of style: Someone remains at home at night with all the windows closed, if he half opens a window and

Symeon the New Theologian and the Way of Tears 109

a sudden streak of lightening flashes upon him, he cannot bear the resplendence, and immediately protects himself. Such is the soul enclosed in its feelings; if she goes out by the window of her intellect she is dazzled by the pledge within her, that is to say, by the Holy Spirit, and cannot bear this ray of light without a veil; she is at once overwhelmed in her intellect, and turns back upon herself, retiring, as it were, into her own house, into her shelter of sensible and human forms.17 In another Chapter Symeon speaks again of the reactions of the human soul when it finds itself treated in “supernatural wise”: He who is interiorly illuminated by the Spirit cannot bear the sight; he falls down with his face to the ground, and shouts and cries, overwhelmed with fear like one who feels and sees a phenomenon surpassing nature, reason and ima¬ gination. He becomes like one whose entrails are touched by fire, devoured by the flame, unable to endure the burning; he is beside himself and cannot contain himself, but sheds abundant tears which refresh him, and stir up the flame of his desire; then his tears become more abundant, and, purified by this flood, he shines with much brilliancy. Then, wholly inflamed, he becomes like the light! 18 And again, clearly speaking from personal experience:

“I

say he who has received the fire from heaven has discovered in his heart...the lightenings of the divinity in proportion to his purification, and his participation in the fire. For partici¬ pation follows purification, and contact is followed by purification.

'

17. Symeon, Chapites. Century III, 21. 18. Ibid., 54. 19. Ibid., 59.

110

Sister Sylvia Mary csmv

I must now come to the final part of this paper: the “way of tears.’’ This subject has received comparatively little attention from historians of spirituality, though St Augustine and other Western writers mention it, and it is spoken of by many spiritual writers in the Eastern church. Eastern Chris¬ tendom has, in fact, always accorded it a higher value than the West, possibly because it lays more emphasis on the affections and the “heart” as a vessel of the Spirit. It is spoken of by Evagrius, Isaias of Scete, the pseudo-Macarius, John Cassian and John Climacus. St Isaac the Syrian said “the fruit of the inner life begins with tears, for tears begin to flow when the birth of the spiritual child is near.” He also says in a passage of great beauty: “Here is the sign that you are approaching the borders of the mysterious country, when grace begins to open your eyes so that they see things in their essence, it is then that your eyes begin to flow with tears, which run in streams down your cheeks, and the conflict of the sense is subdued within.” The whole subject, however, received most attention in the writings of St Symeon, in whom we find a “way of tears,” a “gift of tears,” and also some rather startling thoughts on the “baptism of tears.” First think of his teaching to his monks on the way of tears. In Catechesis II, probably preached shortly after his first address to them on “Charity,” and entitled “To Christ by way of the Beatitudes,” we find much of his teaching on the subject: Faith is the basis of all our hope, for the con¬ solation which comes from the illumination of the Spirit to those who “mourn” is a visit of God, who gives humility, which is both seed and talent, for, growing and multiplying in the souls of those who strive, it produces fruit for God.... Where there is unfeigned humility, there, too, are the il¬ luminations of the Spirit...and where these are there is the kingdom of Heaven, and the assurance 20. Horn. 56.

Symeon the New Theologian and the Way of Tears

111

of the kingdom and the treasures hidden in the knowledge of God, among which is spiritual poverty. And where there is the sense of spiritual poverty, there, too, is affliction full of joy; there, too, the continual flow of tears, which purify the soul, making it perfect and really luminous.21 The soul, then, lifting up its eyes and recognizing its master, begins to produce fruits for Christ, that is, all the other virtues, for “ceaselessly watered and enriched by tears, which completely extinguish its irritability, the soul becomes ‘sweet,’ or ‘meek,’ incapable of the least movement of anger, while at the same time it hungers and thirsts for the know¬ ledge of God’s judgments.’’22 Symeon then goes on to speak directly of tears, saying: It is an expressible marvel, in fact, that that which flows sensibly from the eyes washes the soul spiritually from the mud of its faults; that that which falls to the ground burns and crushes the demons and renders the soul free from the invisible stains of sin. Oh tears, you who shine with divine illumination, who open heaven itself and bring me divine consolation! Again and again I repeat the same words; yes, where there is an abundance of tears, brethren, with true knowledge, there, too, the divine life shines....But where this light glows there is a profusion of blessings of the seal of the Spirit implanted in the heart, which brings forth the fruits of life for Christ: sweetness, mercy, peace, compassion, benevolence, faith and continence.

23

He goes on to exhort his hearers to long with their whole heart for that which God ordains that we should follow: spiritual poverty, “which the Word calls humility’’ — con¬ tinual affliction by night and by day, from which there 21.

Catecheses, Vol. I, Cat. II. 208-228 abbrev.

22.

Ibid., 229-259 (abbrev.).

23.

Ibid., 261-271 (abbrev.).

Sister Sylvia Mary csmv

112

springs forth joy of soul and consolation at all times for those who love God...and seek always the kingdom of God which surpasses all human understanding. Let us flee from the world...and run to the Savior of souls, to Christ. Let us force ourselves to find him, let us fall at his feet and embrace them with the fervor of our souls. For if we are judged worthy to see him sensibly here below we shall not die, death will have no more dominion over us. No, do not wait for the hereafter to see him, but here, even now, let us strive to contemplate him. In the above passage all the Christocentric spirituality of Symeon is expressed in the call to “strive” to attain to the vision of Christ while we are still in this world. Here, too, we find the affective nature of his devotion “let us hold him fast.” Here, too, he touches on one of his most characteristic themes, which is worked out in his Catechesis XIII on “The Mystical Resurrection of Christ,” delivered one Easter morning. He also mentions this briefly in Catechesis VI: “I do not speak of the final resurrection...but of that which takes place every day in dead souls: regeneration and spiritual resurrection.” 24 Symeon dwells especially on the beatitude of those who are persecuted for the love of Christ, and who for love of him endure all “tribulations, outrages, insults, being reduced to anguish on account of his commandments, enduring injuries and persecutions, and bearing with joy all wicked words spoken against them falsely for his sake, being full of joy that they are accounted worthy, for love of him, to be dishonored by men.”25 Catechesis IV is devoted entirely to “Tears of Repen¬ tance,” and here we come to an extremely interesting point, which Symeon said had been taught him by his spiritual guide who said “Brother, never communicate without tears.”

The monks, when he told them this, looked at one another, 24. 25.

Catechesis VI. 360. Ibid.

Symeon the New Theologian and the Way of Tears

saying “This is impossible.

113

Then we can never communi¬

cate.” He replies that if they gave themselves to good works, and if they had the fear of God in their hearts, it would not be only at the moment of partaking of the divine mysteries that they would show that one can be afflicted and weep, but, as it were, at every hour. The monks had their answer, for St John Climacus had said that natures differed, that some were easily moved to tears, while others could only squeeze a drop with much pain. The good and just Judge took all things into consideration, and notably in the matters of tears.2t> It is possible that here John Climacus was speaking of two things, which are really different: the way of tears and the gift of tears. The way of tears definitely desired and sought for is one thing, while the “gift of tears” is a gratuitous gift of God. Symeon, though he had studied the work of John Climacus with much care and sought to follow the way it outlined, seems to have disagreed with him on this point, and declared that, though he blamed no one for being dry and unemotional by nature, yet the way of tears was a matter of the will: that it is by means of the will that we become either humble and given to compunction and tears, or dry of heart, hardened and without compunction: “Tears and compunction cleanse the house of the soul. Compunction produces and is the creator of all the virtues, as the divine Scriptures testify. (2 Tim 3:15f) Without these neither the soul nor the body will become pure. For without water it is impossible to wash a dirty garment, and without tears it is even more impossible to cleanse and purify the soul from its stains and dirt.... Let us seek this grace with our whole soul.”

97

Then he gives his reasons for believing that the shedding of tears does not depend on any natural capacity: “For he who seeks it with his whole soul will find it; or, rather, it is virtue itself that will come and find him who seeks it, and had he a heart harder than bronze, barely has it found him before 26. St John Climacus. Scala Paradisi 7; PG 88:805C. 27. Catechesis IV. 404-414 (abbrev.).

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his heart becomes more pliant than wax. For it is the divine fire, which dispels mountains and rocks...and changes them into a kind of paradise, and transforms the souls who receive it. For within them it becomes a flowing stream, like living water.”28 Symeon continues in this strain, with many scriptural references, showing what God has prepared for them that love him. He declares that a man who has never been purified by tears and continual compunction, or received the Holy Spirit, or contemplated God, or known his indwelling, or known him simply abiding in his heart, cannot know ‘‘a very deluge of tears” which cleanse the house of the soul, bathing and refreshing it, and embracing it with inaccessible fire.20 Let no one then say it is impossible to weep every day. In fact, he who says this says it is impossible to repent every day, and this contra¬ dicts the divine writings, to say nothing of the commandment of the Lord who said: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 4:17), and again, “Ask, and you shall have, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you” (Mt 7:7; Lk 11:11). For if you say it is impossible to shed tears every day, you say it is impossible to be humble and to rejoice without ceasing in prayer, to obtain a heart free from all passions and evil thoughts in order to contemplate God...Do you wish then never to communicate without tears? Do that, then, which you sing, read, or hear read, every day, then you will be able to accomplish the rest.30 He turns to the psalms, which they said or sang so frequently, and quotes from them: “I have eaten ashes as it were bread; and mingled my drink with weeping” (Ps 102:9); “I am weary of my groaning; every night wash I my 28. Ibid.. 419ff. 29. Ibid.. 440-451. 30. Ibid., 494-519.

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bed; and water my couch with my tears” (Ps 6:6). Then in Catechesis VIII Symeon speaks of the end of the “way of tears,” when the soul being wholly purified is granted the “gift of tears,” and “in a moment is filled with ineffable joy, shedding ‘‘tears without sorrow.”31 This is, in fact, the distinguishing mark of the gift of tears, for these tears are a supernatural gift, a grace bestowed by God. They flow without strain or effort, without sobbing or contraction of the muscles, in perfect peace and overflowing joy. In the words of the Trito-Isaiah the soul becomes ‘‘like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.” (Is 58:11) Symeon knows that it is not the active way of the Beatitudes alone that lead to this end, but the way of the last of these Beatitudes: the passive acceptance of suffering, on which he lays much stress. This is perhaps most beautifully set forth in Catechesis XXIII on “Spiritual Inebriation,” where he makes the comparison with a winepress, in which the grapes are trodden under foot of men and then crushed under a stone to make the liquid flow out. So the man who lives in the fear of God, and is trampled on by others, when all carnal sentiments of pride and vanity have been squeezed out of him, receives from on high “holy humility,” “the very light and sweet stone — in a spiritual sense — which waters the soul with floods of tears, makes the living water to spring up, cures the wounds caused by faults, washing the pus and ulcers from the soul, and...thanks to it, snow itself is less brilliant than this man appears to be in his whole person.” We said when speaking of St Bernard, that the Rule was for him the way, but not the end, which was mystical union with God, so for Symeon the Beatitudes were the way but not the end, which was the “gift of tears,” the spring of waters that never dried up, the ineffable and overflowing joy in mystical union with God. His biographer tells us that Symeon himself shed torrents of tears, and that those who 31. Cat. VIII. 93-94. 32. Cat. XXIII. 220-224.

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were near him when he celebrated the Holy Mysteries could not look on the splendor of his countenance. Their eyes were dazzled by the rays darting from him, contracting as they do when one looks suddenly at the sun. The grace of the Holy Spirit transformed his body and made it practically inacces¬ sible to human eyes during the liturgy.33 It was what our Lord promised: “He who believes on me, as the scripture has said, Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water. Speaking of those who have overcome the baseness of the body with much pain and sweat, so that they become light and spiritual, those who have gone to Christ by the Beatitudes, Symeon wrote: “When your eyes are purified by tears and you see him whom no one has seen, and from your soul bitten (Sockvo \xi vr|$) by his love you draw a song mingled with tears, remember me, and pray for my humble person, for you have attained to union with God and to a confidence in him which shall never be confounded.” 34 For Symeon, despite his constant dwelling on the light and his visions of light, these really left him dissatisfied till in that light Christ his Lord who had died for him appeared to him. He speaks of this in one of his “Thanksgivings,” where at last he speaks of his mystical experience in the first person in language of exquisite beauty: Thou didst appear to me to come out in some measure and appear with more brilliancy.... Then thou didst place me outside the world — I almost said “out of the body” — but this is something thou hast not allowed me to give an exact account of. Thou didst then become more resplendent and madest thyself to be seen wholly by me who saw clearly, and as I said: “Oh, Master, who canst thou be?” — then for the first time thou didst 33. Un grand mystique byzantine: vie de Symeon le Nouveau Theologien [949-1022] par Nicetos Stethatos. Texte grec inedit, publie avec introduction et notes critiques par le P. Irenee Hausherr si et traduction franqaise en collaboration avec le P. Gabriel Horn si, Orientalia Christiana, vol. 12 (Rome, 1928) ch. 32. 34. Chapters 1:101.

Symeon the New Theologian and the Way of Tears 117

judge me worthy, me the prodigal, to hear thy voice. With what sweetness didst thou call upon me, while I stood erect, scared, trembling, and trying to reason a little in myself saying to myself again: “What can this glory and this greatness of brilliance mean? How, owing to what, have I been made worthy of such blessings?’’ Then thou didst say: “I am the God who for thee was made man. And because thou hast sought me with thy whole soul, from henceforth thou wilt be my brother, my co-heir and my friend.” Thereupon, overwhelmed, my whole soul overcome, my strength vanished, I replied: “Who then am I, I, what have I done, I wretched and miserable one, O Master, that thou hast judged me worthy of such blessings, that thou makest me to participate and be a co-heir of thy glory?” And while 1 reflected that this glory and this joy were beyond all understanding, then again thou, the Master, didst speak to me as friend speaks to friend by thy Spirit who speaks in me, and say “All these gifts I have given simply on account of thy good intention, thy goodwill and thy confidence, and I will give them again; what else hast thou, in fact, or what hast thou ever had of thine own, thou whom I brought naked into the world in order that I might receive thee and give thee these blessings in exchange? If, in fact, thou art not delivered from the flesh thou wilt not see that which is perfect, thou wilt not be capable of seeing the full and entire enjoyment of it.” And as I said: “But what is there greater than that which I have had, or more brilliant? In any case this suffices me even after death.” — “Thou art really too paltry” thou saidst, “to be content with these blessings which, in comparison with future ones are equivalent to a heaven designed on paper that one can hold in one’s hand, so much inferior

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is it, in fact, to the real heaven, as by comparison the future glory will reveal itself to be superior to that which thou now seest.’’35 At last he tells us here he has been given a vision of Christ, in which he found complete satisfaction, and which led to his Christocentric spirituality. We must now glance briefly at the last point — the “baptism of tears.’’

It is to be found, I believe, in earlier

spiritual writers in the East, but Symeon is very explicit on this point, especially in his Chapters.

Speaking of the tears

which flow from illumination he wrote:

“Suddenly raising his

eyes and contemplating the nature of beings as he had never perceived them, a man shudders, and spontaneous tears gush forth from his eyes, tears without sadness, which purify him, and confer on him a second baptism, the baptism of which our Lord speaks in the gospel.’’36 This baptism was for Symeon a real baptism, effective for the remission of sins and regeneration.

He says:

“In the first baptism water is the

symbol of tears, and the oil of unction prefigures the interior unction of the Spirit, but the second baptism is no longer in figures of the truth, but truth itself.’ efficacy

of

infant

baptism,

but

He does not deny the insists

always

on

the

conscious reception and realization of divine grace.

Symeon’s tears, his visions, his love of Christ, have not ceased to water the devotion of the Orthodox Church during the past millenium, and they are now bringing forth abundant fruits for Christ.

Without a knowledge of his teaching it has

been

Orthodox

said that

spirituality

cannot

be

properly

understood, any more than the spirituality of the Western

35 Cant XXXVI Thanksgiving 2:230-254. 36. 1:35. 37. Ibid.. 1:36.

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119

Church can be understood without that great “baptizing figure of Christian mysticism,”

St Bernard of Clairvaux.

Sylvia Mary csmv

St Mary’s, Wantage

SAINT TIKHON ZADONSKY

S

T TIKHON ZADONSKY (1724-1783 — canonized 13 August, 1861) is hardly known in the West, hence this

biographical outline. Timofey Sokolov was the orphaned son of a village sexton. The family of seven lived in dire poverty. As a boy, he earn¬ ed his bread by working in vegetable plots or ploughing. Thus came his knowledge of and love for animals and nature, reflected in some of his writings, while the plight of the poor made him into their ardent defender. He was born after the replacement of the Patriarchate by the Synodal form of administration (1721) with the publication of the Spiritual Regulation (1724), an official document full of insinuendo against Russian episcopacy, ignorant clergy and monasteries. It kindled bitter polemics between Church and State. Yet, however divergent, both Church and State were caught in the accelerated pace of general “Europeanization,” be it in positive cultural development or its superficial imita¬ tion. It brought to churchmen a closer acquaintance with the Western Church, both Catholic and Protestant. Tikhon’s outward life was shaped and colored by the new laws and manners from the time of Peter the Great, by the palace revolutions of the eighteenth century, by the wars, by secularization of church property, by Cossack and peasant rebellions. 120

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Thus, in 1738, the fear of the new decree on conscription made the family send their illiterate boy to the school at the monastery in Novgorod. Talented and diligent, in 1740 he was admitted to the Seminary. His teachers used the Latin tongue and resented the State’s interference in Church affairs. But the younger generation was more keen on the spread of education and more personal religion. Because of scarcity and transfers of teachers, the full course was finished only in 1758. Meanwhile, young Sokolov grew into a man of the Bible.

In 1745 he copied out scriptural Excerpts for the In 1751 he was appointed the unpaid teacher of Greek, in 1754 he taught poetics also, and in 1758 he lectured in philosophy. He studied patristic writings in the rich library of the monastery and loved above all St John Chrysostom. He was musical and sang both the Northern and the Kievan liturgical tunes. Good of Every True Christian Soul.

From boyhood he had developed a habit of working late into the night. In his old age he told in confidence to his cell-attendant Chebotarev: “One night in May I came out onto the porch and stood there meditating on eternal bliss. And of a sudden the heavens seemed to open and there was such a shining, such a brilliance of light, as mortal tongue cannot describe nor reason understand. This gleam was brief, and again the sky regained its usual appearance. From this marvelous sight I conceived a more burning desire for solitary life, and long after this wonderful phenomenon I felt the rapture of mind.” Whatever was the nature of this light, it confirmed the young man’s vocation. In April 1758 he was professed a monk with the name of Tikhon, then ordained deacon, and shortly after, priest. On 13 January 1759 he was nominated Vice-Rector, but in August, on the Bishop of Tver’s request, he was transferred there as Archimandrite of Zheltikov Monastery. The next year he became the head of Otroch Monastery and Rector of Tver’s Seminary. While still longing for prayerful solitude in a hermit’s hut, he was suddenly summoned to St Petersburg, and on 13 May 1761 was consecrated Bishop of Keksholm and

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Ladoga, Suffragan to the Archbishop of Novgorod. He paid a solemn visit to Novgorod, then was back in St Petersburg. In June 1762, on her husband’s “sudden death,” Catherine II assumed power, and in August the Court, statesmen and higher clergy set out to Moscow for the coronation. Tikhon was left as the Head of the Synodal Office. Torn out of the regular life of a monastic community, he was confronted with the political and social turmoil of the capital city. The experience was such for him to write later: “Christian treasure is seldom found in the crowns, titles and great names of the world, in purple and fine linen, or within beautiful and rich walls, but mostly in rags and mangers.” In the winter of 1763 the Bishop of Voronezh died, and the choice of the Empress fell on Tikhon. This nomination to a far and turbulent region was ascribed by some to one of his outspoken sermons. Catherine’s other wish, enacted in a special order by the Procurator of the Synod, was for Tikhon to stop in Moscow to witness the unfrocking of the Metro¬ politan of Rostov who had criticized the Empress and was to end his days in a fortress. Tikhon left Moscow with shattered nerves and subject to fainting spells. He reached Voronezh on 14 May, to find a dilapidated episcopal house, with a retinue of servants and even serfs, a burned down Cathedral, a scarcity of schools throughout the diocese, semi-literate clergy, slack morals and discipline in the monasteries, a Cossack population resentful of Govern¬ ment infringement upon their ancient freedoms and their Old Belief (Raskol), hostile to the Church and to any Government nominees, and along with the poverty of the masses, land¬ lords exploiting their serfs. At once he undertook the reor¬ ganization of the schools and the rebuilding of the Cathedral, and initiated the building of an almshouse. At night, he wrote. He felt no call to be an administrator, he lacked ex¬ perience, he was over-eager to order the chaos of public and diocesan business and was at times impatient and harsh, and still quite unwell. In August he asked the Synod to release him on grounds of ill health and was refused. He found

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irksome the traditional driving in the episcopal coach. He went on foot visiting the poor and the prisons and soon became known for his personal charity. His most urgent task was to educate his On the Duties of a Priest (1763-64), drew detailed Chart on the Ecumenical Councils compilation On the Seven Sacraments. Monks.

clergy. He wrote in tabular form a and a catechetical He wrote To the

He reestablished the Seminary, writing Instructions He issued for the ecclesiastical ad¬

for Seminarists (1765).

ministrators, his On the Righteous Judgment and Keeping of the Oath. Then for the laity he wrote Exhortation on What Each Christian Should Be Mindful of from Infancy to Death

and another exhortation on the reciprocal duties of children and parents, showing true respect for the child’s personality. Women were not for him an instrument of the devil for “in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female,” but he remarked that “Eve, whose character is always the same, always tempts” and warned fashionable ladies against in¬ citing passions or becoming the instrument of bribery and corruption. He spoke with realism and deep feeling of the ill-treated, defenceless women of the masses. Some works were interrupted by spells of exhaustion. He finished The Flesh and the Spirit in 1765 (revised 1767). This is a collec¬ tion of meditations based upon the scriptures and the Fathers, predominantly on St John Chrysostom. He did not dwell much on “the flesh” in its coarser meaning, but rather on “the mind of the flesh” — self-indulgence and greed: “Luxury and avarice are contrary sisters but both wound the heart.”

All are “the offense of the poor.”

A true evangelist, he delivered a course of instructions to his flock, then obtained from the Moscow Ecclesiastical Academy a lay preacher who acted as a catechist and was later ordained deacon. In his writings and by his word Tikhon was true to what he demanded from the priests: “Expose unrighteousness, who¬ ever be guilty, even to the point of suffering for it.” “Thunder with the word, but have pity upon the sinner.” He

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did not overlook the abuses within the churches where the books of the gospels were covered with gold and jewels while their essential meaning was neglected. He did not spare rapacious bishops: “Money is always hideous: it is terrifying when concealed beneath the mitre.” And he pointed to Ezekiel, chapter 34. He spoke of the self-admiring preachers, of prayers and fasting hiding hypocricy. “By the Word of God the Church was built and saved,” yet there was ignorance of the Bible, and some people’s attendance not the outcome of love but of “politeness.” No wonder, since the services were performed hastily and perfunctorily, “mere noise and beating of the air.” As for the sincere faithful, “what a pitiful thing! Simple folk who cannot read go to church in order to hear soul-saving readings and hymns, but they are disappointed, poor souls, and the cause of this is the sloth of bad parsons and clerics,” “the lazy popes”— he did not hesitate to use this disparaging term. He denounced “deceit and robbery under the cloak of piety, when false relics of saints or the icons were claimed to be miracle-work¬ ing and induced simple folk to make donations.” He agreed on this point with the Spiritual Regulation, but the vigor was his own. His belief in the Church as the mystical Body of Christ with all human beings as its members made him grieve for the travesty of Christ’s message around him. His language was colorful and colloquial, and his examples from everyday life. He told the clergy: “teach by your whole life... Do not flatter the rich instead of teaching them.” His compassion went to the lower classes. On their behalf he tried to turn devotees’ zeal for making rich altar cloths to clothing living members of Christ shivering in the street. He castigated tradesmen, judges and especially landowners who, with their English carriages and galleries would “squander in gambling and banqueting but would not feed their serfs, nor lose a penny to save a poor peasant from selling the last of his cattle to pay his rent.” He spoke plainly to people’s faces. recreate a sumptuous, crude and cruel Russia.

His words

Saint Tikhon Zadonsky

125

Such sermons shocked many, but he did have among the gentry as among simpler people some true friends. Even when in retirement, he did not forget the sufferings and in¬ justices of the world. In the times of Catherine II he wrote: “Whoever wishes to rule others must strive to become ruler of his own passions.... Those who are with Christ have crucified their flesh with its lusts — there you are, my Lords and Tsars, may God have mercy upon us!” He warned against the wars of aggression, while he never mentioned the “divine right” of the monarchs. Evil can spread like epidemics. “Authorities, landlords, judges, your wrong¬ doings cry to heaven and denounce you to God. God hears the cry of the oppressed and will call you before his judgment seat. Beloved, repent while there is still time.” For all the cruelties of Russian life Tikhon exhorted all to unite in faith and action: “For the sins of all, we must propitiate God by corporate repentance.” By the spring of 1767, overworked and ill, he applied to the Synod for release or the permission to recuperate in Zadonsk Monastery. No reply came. He addressed the Empress directly. His resignation was officially accepted in December and a pension of five hundred roubles allotted to him. The Synod’s order arrived on 3 January 1768. But by this time Tikhon had already wound up most of the diocesan business and moved to a monastery at Tolshevo, mainly a place for faulty monks and soldiers. Hence, the rumors of his dis¬ grace. Even the new diocesan, another Tikhon (Yabubovsky), educated and worldly, questioned his right to celebrate the divine service. The Synod replied that Tikhon I did not celebrate owing to ill-health. In 1769 Tikhon Zadonsky moved permanently to the Monastery of the Virgin Mary in Zadonsk. The Superior was uncongenial, perhaps embarrassed to have a Bishop on the premises. A small apartment housed Tikhon, his two cellattendants who acted also as secretaries, Chebotarev and 1. Tikhon II Yakubovsky was transferred in 1775 and succeeded by Tikhon III Malinovsky, who became a friend and admirer of our Tikhon (I).

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Efimov, a cook and a servant.

But Tikhon avoided troubling

servants and often carried out himself the various domestic tasks. When feeling stronger, he would cut the grass for the horse or chop wood. Sometimes this was for economy’s sake; money saved could help someone else. He lived in poverty, reducing his belongings to a bare minimum. His pension was devoted to charity, distributed at times on his instructions by some friends. His donations were practical and timely; grain in season, a cow, a harrow, fuel for winter, timber for re¬ pairs. Poor peasants found their way to his dwelling, were fed and, if ill, given some concoction he prepared from spirits and medicinal herbs. He made children go to the Liturgy, then they ran to him for a penny or an apple. He taught them to pray: “Holy Mother of God and all the saints, pray for us,” or the Prayer of Jesus. If the little boys fought, he made them get reconciled. Himself a quick-tempered man, he was quick to ask forgiveness and was a sincere pacifier. He attended all services in the monastery church, but never went to the community refectory. He ate his meals at the same time as the community and was read to by a cellattendant, often from his beloved prophet Isaiah. He would lie down for an hour, then read the Fathers and go into the garden or the near-by grove, reading the Psalter which he anyway knew by heart. Then he dictated to his secretaries, stopping at times to withdraw into his cell to pray with tears. Before going to bed he recited the canonical prayers with all their prostrations and genuflexions. He slept no more than about four hours. He had prepared for himself a coffin which stood in a closet near his bedroom, and contemplated it daily. Occasionally, by way of a retreat, he stayed in the isolated, empty country house of a friend, and sometimes he returned to Tolshevo. In daily life he rarely received visitors, and then only a few friends. Few people understood how much any contacts tired him, to what extent he needed solitude and silence. He admitted to Chebotarev: “There are times when I feel like hugging and kissing everybody, but at times—such a temptation!—I feel a real repulsion.’’ But his love of God

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predominated, fulfilling itself in the love of people and in his belief that in God “all are called to blessedness.’’ Efimov recollects Tikhon saying: “Not only those who hold to the Raskolnik’s sect, being simple and wandering sheep who had strayed away from Christ’s fold, but the very Turks and others who disbelieve in Christ the Son of God and our Savior, and to the very blasphemers of the Divine Name do 1 wish that they should be saved and find themselves in the eternal bliss.’’ Tikhon’s life and doctrine, based on the Scripture and couched in precepts of personal and social morality and righteousness, reflect also his own deep experience. There is no field of life or thought which he does not bring under the light and judgment of the Scripture. Much of what he wrote may seem too obvious to a modern reader, but these writings of two hundred years ago were the first in the Russian language and became the foundation for the studies of moral theology. As for the impact of his personality and his spiritual message, they still speak to us directly. The Bible is his foundation but as “the Church was founded on the Word of God,’’ he links Scripture and Tradition in one bond of love. He refers in his writings to St Jerome, St Augustine and St Ambrose, Gregory the Great and the Pope Leo “of the Tome.’’ He names Sts Antony and Macarius of the desert. In matters of doctrine he turns to Sts Cyril of Alexandria and John of Damascus. He is indebted to St Basil in his teaching on baptism and the eucharist as well as in admonitions to parents and children, while St Basil’s thoughts on mercy, almsgiving and hospitality found a deep echo in Tikhon. Above all, he is the son of St John Chrysostom. He did not follow the allegorical school and can be placed as an “evangelical” type within Orthodoxy. The knowledge of the Bible, according to Tikhon, leads mankind into the unity of faith (since “faith is the gift of the Holy Ghost”) and into the fulness of the stature of Christ since “the first duty of the Christian is eternal salvation.

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He reveals in a private letter that at first he thought of the after-life with fear but now, when old, the thought of it came “with some amazement, with transports, taking one as it were beside oneself.’’ Ignorance of the Bible, he claims, leads to error and vice and breeds schisms. “Necessary as daily bread, the Word is uttered to each and all.” Those who limit it to the clergy err gravely. For the Bible is, as it were, a letter sent by God to man. In it “Christ himself is speaking to you” ... “O, the sweetness of the word of your mouth!” Even the conviction of the very divinity of Christ is fortified for him by the fact that despite all persecutions “the sacred Bible remained intact and gives testimony to itself by the power of its action, through the comfort, exhortation, detachment, repentance, etc. which it inspires.” One of the proofs of its veracity is also in that “the apostles did not conceal their past faults but wrote of them in the Scripture and published them abroad.” One could fill pages with his references to the Old and the New Testament. He sketches a draft of Thoughts to Remember: “The Presence of God. Prayer is conversation with God. Communion in the Holy Sacrament. God says to you: do this and that, and he promises blessedness. The word of God is a word from the mouth of God. You are redeemed by the blood of Christ, the Son of God; you are not your own but his. Our fellowship is with the Father and his Son. Christians are the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. They are spiritual members of Christ. He is the Vine, the Shepherd, the Bridegroom, a Christian soul his betrothed bride. Christ came into the world for souls...he loved me for nothing, and I must love him for nothing, sincerely. Christ united to himself human nature. God became man. The Son of God is the Son of the Virgin. This is a great mystery. Christ says to his unworthy servants: you are my friends. The mercy of your loving¬ kindness, Lord! Glory be to You in all and for all! A life of much suffering in this world, death, the judgment of Christ, hell and the Kingdom of heaven. My soul, mark this well and meditate.”

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He teaches men to read the Bible with devotion, keenness and zeal, "not in order to show one’s wit but for the sake of salvation. Think that for you and for me and for each debased, miserable and sinful soul the Gospels are the appeal to repentance and promise of mercy....Read a little at a time. Pay no attention to people around you. Pray for the enlight¬ enment of our reason and will, and apply the text to your need — for instance to our need for blessedness, that God may plant in us the root of blessedness, true faith. And having finished reading, give thanks.” ... "Grow calm, grow quiet after harmful noise...you will experience a certain movement toward eternity. Gradually, like a still small voice, a thought will come to you as to who you are and what is your end and purpose.... This is the sign of the approach of the word of God to your soul. Hide it in your heart like a treasure and feed upon it.” To him, life in the Scripture was inseparable from sacramental life. In his booklet On Seven Sacraments he was briefly defining each as to its matter, form, meaning, validity. He laid down the main conditions to be observed by the minister who performs them by the power of the Holy Spirit and enjoined him to participate inwardly in the sacrament, always mindful of the meaning of his own ordination. He did not enlarge on anointing, which was then given only to the dying, and of marriage he spoke only briefly, though stressing that there must be not only agreement of both par¬ ticipants, but love and mutual respect, soul and body. In baptism, through the Holy Spirit, man enters into the realm of grace, becomes a participant of the life of Christ— an image of the two natures of Christ. Even though baptized in infancy, an adult should always remember baptism as "the decisive step by which he has entered the Church and pro¬ mised to lead a certain type of life, which is to follow Christ in truth and righteousness as it was promised in one’s baptism.” He even uses the metaphor of the bridal union. He reminds all of the earthly life of Christ who humbly came to be baptized in the Jordan.

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Indeed, a child in a manger, obscurity, poverty, walking homeless from place to place, misunderstood, rejected, Jesus, his long-suffering love, in his humiliation and crucifixion, is the center of Tikhon’s devotion. He repreatedly comes to the earthly trials of Jesus and advises people to have in their room a representation of the Crucified. In this last he is near to Catholic devotional practice. In his cell he had one icon of the Blessed Virgin with Child and several paintings of the Passion. In expounding on the sacrament of confession he followed the traditional enumeration of sins but emphasized “six sins against the Holy Spirit: despair, which means having no hope in the mercy of God; presumption—too presumptuous a reliance on his mercy; opposition to revealdd truth, the truth of Holy Scriptures and of the dogmas of faith confirmed by the apostles and the holy fathers; envy of the spiritual graces received from God by one’s neighbor; obduracy in heresies and hardening in malice; negligence with regard to the salvation of the soul, till the end of one’s life.’’ In words reminiscent of St James and typical of himself and of his times, he mentions four sins “which cry to God for vengeance: deliberate murder; the vice of sodomy; embit¬ tering the poor and orphans by offense and oppression; withholding or non-payment of wages to hired servants or workers.’’ To the priest he says: “When a man confesses his sin to you, you can say anything to him, as long as you speak affectionately, with compassion and not with anger; for he must realize that you speak from love and sincerely desire his salvation.” While the penitent must have a firm intention to abstain from sin and not just “perform a ceremony without repentance.” He insisted that penitents must bear “the fruit of penitence” in humility, charity and the fuller growth of the soul. For he believed firmly that the spiritual fire kindled in man by the Holy Spirit is increased and strengthened through reading of the Bible or listening to it, through prayer, medi¬ tation and Holy Communion. He defines the sacrament

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following St Basil, but here, too, he speaks from the reality of his days, reminding people that this is not “a mere rite” and deploring that “once in a year, and then almost by compul¬ sion, people approach this immortal meal; many put it off until they are ill, some almost until their death.” Not so was it with “the Christians of old, who often received the Holy Mysteries as the food of eternity.” Now, when after the con¬ secration the priest comes from the altar lifting the chalice and saying “With the fear of God, with faith and love draw near,” no one approaches. He implored the priests “to suffer in their hearts.” His call for the frequent communion was heard by some outstanding priests and monks of the next century. Self-examination is required both before and after communion. “Are we renewed? Do we persevere in the spirit of the new man? Let us strive that the living bread of heaven may become our sanctification, renewal, joy and the consolation of our souls.” Communion is a pledge on earth of life eternal, as the gospels assure us. The faithful must know that “just as the body grows and is fortified by natural food, so Christian faith, conceived in the heart, grows through communion. For the Body and Blood of Christ is lifegiving and a remedy for spiritual disease.” Yet a deeply personal union of the soul with Christ is also an essentially corporate sacrament: for in it all are “called to blessedness.” However deep his personal experience of the sacrament and his approach to the Gospels, where “Christ himself is speaking to you (‘O sweet colloqui!’),” he cannot separate himself from mankind. The Scripture reading is more than the joy of a son far away hearing from his father, “for in the Word of God we find God as our Father.” Briefly commenting on the Lord’s prayer, he reminds us that by saying “Our” Father we bring in the universal brotherhood. So, once more he thinks of the Church. While, in his diocese, Tikhon spoke of the earthly strivings and failures of the Church, in old age he begins to elucidate its nature.

The

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Church here on earth is not perfect for it includes sinners as well as saints, but she gives both the opportunity for amend¬ ment, growth and sanctification: “this Ship makes us peace¬ able and meek through baptism — so the fierce beasts become meek in the ark.” Hence “The Church is one (because she reflects) God in the Trinity. One because she stands on one sole foundation, Christ; on unity of teaching, the word of God; on belief in the Trinity. She is one in the unity of the Spirit who leads her; in the hope of the resurrection. Thus, both militant and triumphant, she is one.” The Church “is the dwelling of God sanctified by the blood of Christ.” The Body of which we are all members is more than a metaphor for him. We are all called to cherish its purity. A questioning mind did not frighten Bishop Tikhon; he could see the rational objections to the Scripture as to dogmas or the sacraments, but he made a clear distinction between the facts and ideas which constitute Christian dogmas, and truth and confidence which pertain to faith. He sorrowed for those who had doubts or whose faith seemed at times “as though it had never existed.” The essential freedom of man remained, but, as in spiritual combat, “knowledge of beliefs often makes one arrogant and fruitless,” while some act of self-forgetful kindness may lead to a revelation that “all Christianity and all Christian duty consist of faith, hope and love.” “Pray for the illumination of the Holy Spirit.” And the end of wisdom is Spirit. His unbounded love for Christ excluded doubt, but he knew to doubt and even despair of his own salvation. Spiritual combat begins in daily life. Much of what is found in his works or in private letters to some monks can be applied to every soul. There was moderation in his advice, and he did not preach severe asceticism. “Many abstain from meat, fish, milk and other food which God has not for¬ bidden and which was even given as a blessing (1 Tm 4:34), while the same abstemious devout people spread scandal.” Like St James, he spoke of the evil produced by the loose and biting tongue of those who with one mouth slander and whisper their prayers.

Saint Tikhon Zadonsky

He called for the spirit of recollection.

133 Monks were

reminded of their baptismal vows and especially of the freely undertaken vow of their profession. They should read the Rule often, keep their promise of obedience, respect and pray for their Superior and avoid judging his ways, even if he is far from perfect. He particularly recommended the stability of a daily life within the precincts of the community and stressed the danger and temptation of “wandering through cities and villages’’; words and impressions of the world waste the quiet which has been stored in silence. He did not overlook the “boredom” of unsubdued nature: “what torment and burning of the heart and of the whole body there can be in us through the lust of the flesh! Everyone knows it, particularly those who remain celibate. Know that the flesh with its passions will always rise against you — but withstand it with the arms of the spirit.” “Solitude! For the very word ‘monk’ means a solitary.” He knew from experience how “the godly sorrow” for one’s sin and imperfection, and the thought of the evil in the world may turn into despondency: “mighty is this wicked power even against those who prosper in the world, and more so against those in retirement.” I advise you to commit yourself to prayer and every good action, even if you do not feel the wish for it — as a lazy horse. God seeing such a labor and application will give good will and zeal. Such good will is a certain attraction to prayer and is often the result of habit.... A change also stimu¬ lates zeal.... Do this: now pray, now work in some way with your hands, now read a book and ponder about your soul and eternal salvation and soon.... And if despondency overtakes you too strongly, go out of your room, take a little walk and in walking think of Christ and other things, and meditating, lift up your mind to God and pray.... The thought of sudden death, of the judgment and of eternal bliss drive despondency away. eternity.

Remember often

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Something of his own prayer life is given in his Breathing of and still more in his discursive prayers. They take the form of a dialogue, always scriptural, mostly from the psalms, with references through¬ out. Thus, the morning invocation “Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King and my God: for unto Thee will I pray” (Ps 5:2-4) ends with Ga 5:22-23 on the fruit of the Spirit and a the Sinful Soul to the Son of God,

brief note: “Pray always for these.” In distress he would begin (Ps 32:) “Lord, thou art my refuge. Thou art my hiding place...thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.” And the Lord replies: “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eyes” (v. 5). The over¬ whelming sense of the presence of God did not abandon Tikhon amidst tribulations and in moments of despondency, “for then God is even nearer, not in his omnipotence, but through his grace.” It is “man’s inward treasure.” ... “That is why souls which are spiritually sad cannot be comforted with anything except God and his holy word.” This Word is once more Christ. As an adoring disciple he remembers every word and action of Christ, “looking into Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb 12:2). His conviction grew stronger that even here on earth “those who have endured unto the end” will experience “the insatiable Bless¬ edness of contemplation.” The psalms speak of his craving for God, while in the words of a Lenten hymn, he calls: “I see thy palace, O my Savior, all adorned, but I have no gar¬ ment to enter therein. Illuminate thou the raiment of my soul and save me.” In his day of peace, Tikhon would write down or sing “Bless the Lord, O my soul.... I will extol thee, my God and my King; and I will bless thy name forever.... Praise God in the sanctuary.” That the very name of Jesus moved him is testified in his words. It remains a conjecture whether or not he practiced the invocation “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me,” after the Byzantine tradition of contemplative

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prayer. The evidence is scant; both cell-attendants remember that some children taught by their Bishop recited the “Jesus Prayer.’’2 They relate how at Tolshevo or on his friend’s isolated estate, Tikhon found the silence suitable for reading and all “mental activity.’’ Both use such expressions as umnoje delanije, umnoje bogomyslije,

bezmolvnoje bogomy-

slemnoje uprazhnenije, which may well refer to the practice

of the Jesus Prayer or else suggest meditation. Tikhon might have known of the invocation of the Name through the tradition of Nil Sorskij (1433-1508), though the voice of this “non-possessor’’ in the fifteenth-century controversy on monastic property was somewhat muffled and his followers not numerous.3 But in his retirement, on the recom¬ mendation of his friend, Gabriel Petrov, then the Metro¬ politan of Novgorod, Tikhon was visited by Greek monks from Mount Athos. They had come to the Metropolitan with a letter from the Russian monk, Paissij Velichkovskij (1722-94) bringing his Slavonic translation of the Greek ascetical mystical Fathers, the Dobrotoliubije [Philokalia], Efimov and Chebotarev reported the deep impression made on Tikhon by these Greeks’ account of monastic life on the Holy Mountain.4 It is however in Tikhon’s last and best works, On True Christianity (1770-72) and The Spiritual Treasury Gathered from the World (1775-77) that we see further development of his thought and spiritual life. His very language and style show a new freedom and subtlety. Some expressions which may sound sentimental today, have an aroma of good eighteenth-century prose. Tikhon was a great writer. His books fascinate by their light yet plastic images. His True 2.

A Russian would never use the words Jesus Prayer for the Lord’s

Prayer — molitva Gospodnja. 3.

His Ustav (Rule) was first printed in 1820.

4.

The Dobrotoliubije was very influential in bringing about a revival of

the ascetical-mystical life in Russian monasteries and also a revival of individual spiritual direction (starchestvo).

The Russian translation of this

work, slightly different in the choice of authors, was made by Bishop Theophane (Govorov) and published in 1876-90.

136

Nadejda Gorodetzky Christianity in particular had a historical signifi¬ cance. It is not a dogmatic system; it is rather a work of mystical ethics or asceticism. But it was a first attempt to formulate living theology and experimental theology in distinction, and as a counter-balance, to the schools devoid of authentic

experience.5 It has been suggested that True Christianity was influenced by Joahann Arndt’s work of the similar title, while The Spiritual Treasure derived from another Protestant writer, Joseph Hall’s Occasional Meditations. Tikhon knew and loved these works, and they were among the very few books he kept in his retirement. Arndt’s evangelical approach to life according to Christ’s teaching and example was obviously congenial to Tikhon — had he not from his student days pondered and written on this same theme? As for Hall, even if the title and method have been suggestive and stimulating, once again it is Tikhon himself who is speaking. His prayers, despondent or triumphant, are unmistakably his own, and so are the themes of his meditations. Alive in all five senses, he evokes realistically the Russian landscape. With the psalmist — and almost in a Franciscan voice — he says: “Winter has come, the earth is covered with snow, frost has chained lakes, rivers and marshes, and thus a free road has been made so that there is no longer any need for bridges and other means of crossing. This is a divine bene¬ volence, serving your need; bless him who gives snow.” Winter passes as pass our days, with repeated blessings and thanksgiving, and the spring brings the traditional com¬ parison with the resurrection: The sun shines and warms pleasantly, the air is filled with scents: the womb of the earth brings forth its riches; the fruit of seeds and roots appears and offers itself for the use of all; the meadows, the cornfields, the woods deck them5. G. Florovskij, The Ways of Russian Theology (Paris: 1937) pp. 123-5.

YMCA

Press,

Saint Tikhon Zadonsky

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selves in green, they adorn themselves with flowers and pour out fragrance; the springs flow and the impetuosity of the rivers gladdens not the sight alone but also the hearing; everywhere the diverse voices of a variety of birds make sweet melody; the cattle (which in the Russian winter are enclosed) stray over the meadows and steppes, no longer asking food from us but fed and satisfied with what the hand of God spreads before them; they eat and play as though thanking God for his mercies.... Or else he meditates on The Waters Which Flow By (rem¬ iniscent of some pages of The Imitation of Christ). He looks with detachment on the changing pattern of his life: poverty and plenty, now honors and praise, now blame and humiliations. “Where are the times when I drove in a coach and four? Where are days of reproach and unhappiness? All things pass.’’ But one note of regret can be discerned: “I have listened to sweet music; it grew silent and with it went my pleasure.... Not thus will be the life to come, of that the Word of God and our faith assure us.” More and more often eternity is his theme. “In the morning you see the sun which comes out brightly and amazes everyone. Think, then, what great gladness will be experienced by souls resplendent in the eternal sun of righteousness, Christ, the Son of God. Pray that in your heart too may shine the beneficent light of his grace.” “The trees which in the winter nearly all look alike under the snow, blossom in spring. So shall it be with our bodies when they rise again.

Now we do not clearly distinguish

between good and evil, but in the resurrection all things will be clear.... All that is true in us is hidden. Praise not, neither judge, for you know not the soul from within. And seek goodness and faith that you may adorn your soul and make it beautiful.... So in the resurrection the goodness concealed in the hearts of the saints will be revealed.” He who believed that “the first duty of a Christian is eternal salvation” as his

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total response to Grace, now exclaims with the Prophet Isaiah: “My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he hath clothed me with a garment of salvation.” On Christmas day, 1779, he felt faint in the church and had to be helped to reach his home. From then on he withdrew into complete seclusion, only listening in silence to the Scriptures being read to him. In January 1782, he had a slight stroke. Regaining some strength and fully alive mentally, on the nineteenth he dictated to his cell-attendant Ivan Efimov his Will. He began by glorifying and giving thanks to God for all the graces of the Revelation, for help and punishment in temptation or sin, for the roof above his head and for food and clothes. “As many breaths I have taken, so many graces I received from him.” (The whole of this part was actually read at his funeral). He then enumerated all the works written by him in retirement including letters and sermons. He indicated that he entrusts this list to Efimov who is now writing under his dictation, to take it personally to the Synod for their consideration. He adds: “Unable on account of my illness to sign with my own hand, I am setting my seal to certify to this list’s authenti¬ city.” On a separate sheet Efimov was given the instructions concerning Tikhon’s personal belongings, to which again was set Tikhon’s seal. This is a true witness to his life of poverty and thoughtful care for the poor. The Bishop’s pots and pans, a cuckoo clock, tablecloths and towels, a few chairs, a divan, two old carpets and firewood are to be sold. Some coarse felt, to be sold back to the shop, “be it only for a half-price.” And all the proceeds are to be distributed among the poor. Bread is to be given to widows. Some old underclothes go “to crippled half-naked children.” Borrowed folding chairs, a mattress and pillows were to be returned to their owners, but should the owners decline them, these too should be sold for the poor. The four men of his household were given his warm under-shirts (“one to each”), to another man, wooden ware and the sheepskin coat (which Tikhon

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wore in winters and used as a blanket). His Latin and some other books were to go to the Vornizh Seminary. Two icons to Efimov himself, five to other people. He indicated his burial clothes “already prepared”: a new shirt, coarse-linen cassock, monastic headgear, his stoles, his simple episcopal cloak (polumantija] and the round icon on a chain {Omophor). He did not mention his coffin, also made some time before, for that was already known to Efimov. Yet he was still to live, more secluded than ever. A very few people were admitted to see him, among them, Bishop Tikhon III, a real friend. It was on 10 August, 1783, that Tikhon felt the approach of his end and allowed in all who cared to take leave of him. He pointed the weeping people to the image of the Passion on the wall, repeating almost inaudibly, “I entrust you to God.” He lived for another couple of days, his mental faculties unaffected to the end. Throughout his last night he repeatedly begged for Holy Communion, but the Superior, though called more than once, did not wake up. No one brought him the sacrament though he did not die until seven in the morning of Sunday, 13 August, 1783. The Bishop was informed of Tikhon’s last instructions concerning his burial and gave his consent. The body, in Tikhon’s own coffin and clothes, reposed on a table in the hall. Five days later, love and reverence for the deceased moved the Bishop to send another set of vestments. Hiermonks and priests solemnly replaced Tikhon’s humble garments, and transferred the body into a sumptuous coffin sent by rich merchants. Nor was he buried under the stone which he had himself carried some time ago to the path leading to the church, so that the faithful going there to pray should step on the stone and intercede for his soul. Thus, despite Tikhon’s explicit wish, carried in a rich coffin, clad in gorgeous episcopal robes and a mitre, he was buried under the altar of the main church of the monastery. But nothing could have better testified to his radiant faith and to his life than his last will read aloud by the Bishop before

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the unexpected throng of people, who gathered at the funeral, drawn by their love and veneration: Glory to God, for he has created me in his image and likeness! Glory to God, who redeemed me, the fallen one. Glory to God, for he was the providence of my unworthy self. Glory, for he called me, a sinner, to repentance! Glory, for he has handed to me his holy Word as a lamp shining in a dark place, and by it he taught me the true way. Glory to God, for he has illumined the eyes of my heart! He has granted me to know his holy name! Glory to God, for he has washed away my sins in the waters of baptism! Glory, for he has shown me the way to eternal bliss. And this way is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who says of himself: “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Glory to him, for he did not ruin me in my sin but in his mercy was patient to my transgressions! Glory to God, for he has shown to me the vain en¬ ticements and vanity of this world. Glory to God, for he has helped me in the multitude of tempta¬ tions, griefs and tribulations! Glory, for he has preserved me in accidents and mortal dangers. Glory to God, for he has defended me from the enemy Satan. Glory, for he raised me when I fell. Glory to God, for when I erred he converted me. Glory to God, for, like a father, he punished me. Glory to God, for he showed me his dreadful judgment that I might be afraid and repent of my sins! Glory to God, for he revealed to me eternal pain and eternal bliss that I might flee the one and seek the other! Glory to him, for to me, the un¬ worthy, he gave food to strengthen the weakness of the body. He gave me clothes to cover the nakedness of my body; gave me a house in which to rest! Glory to God, for all the other benefits which he gave to me for my sustenance and

Saint Tikhon Zadonsky comfort. As many breaths 1 have taken, so many graces have I received of him. Glory to God for everything. Today, my brethren, I address my words to you. I cannot talk to you as before with my lips and voice, for I am without breath and without voice; but I converse through this brief letter. First: The temple of my body is demolished and, as dust, is given to dust, according to the word of God: “dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return.” But with the Holy Church I believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. My hope sits at the right hand of God, Jesus Christ, my Lord and my God. He is my resurrection and my life; he tells me: “I am the resurrection and the life; whosoever believeth in me even if he be dead shall live again.” He will wake me, who am asleep, with his all-powerful voice. Secondly: I have departed from you in the way of all flesh and have gone away, and already we do not see each other as before. But we shall see each other there where all nations that have lived from the beginning of the world till its end will gather. Lord, show us mercy that we may meet there where God is seen face to face, where those who see are made alive, comforted in joy, gladness and eternal bliss! There do men shine like the sun, there is true life; there, true honor and glory, there gladness and joy; there true blessedness and all that is eternal and endless. Lord, let thy mercy be upon us for we put our trust in thee. Thirdly: To my benefactors who have not abandoned me in need and sickness but in their charity and mercy have provided me with all sorts of goods, many thanks. May God reward them on the day when each will receive according to his deeds. Fourthly: All who in any way whatever

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have offended me I have forgiven and I do forgive; may God forgive them too, in his grace! I beg you also to forgive me if perchance I, being human, have offended someone. Forgive and it shall be forgiven you, says the Lord. Fifthly: As I had no possession, I leave nothing behind. I beg those who have lived with me and have served me to exact nothing. Forgive, my beloved ones, and remember Tikhon in your prayer.

Nadejda Gorodetzky

Oxford University

THE SPIRITUAL TEACHING OF STARETZ SILOUAN

S

YMEON IVANOVITCH ANTONOV — who was later to be known as Staretz Silouan - was born in 1866 in the Tambov province of central Russia. It was the period which prepared the way for “the Russian Religious Renais¬ sance of the twentieth century.’’ Philaret of Moscow

(1782-1867) and A. S. Khomiakov (1804-1860) were reshaping the theological foundations. The work of spiritual renewal of the great Staretz Paissy Velitchkovsky (1722-1794) was spreading through the Slav world. He had published in 1793 the Slavonic text of the Philokalia. Around 1865, The Way of a Pilgrim was published in Kazan. At Optina Pustyn, a succession of startsi, (Leonide who died in 1841, Marcarius L1860, Ambrose tl891, Anatole fl894), made this place a spiritual center to which there flocked thousands of pilgrims from every part of Russia. But it was also this period which was incubating the ferment which would turn Russia topsy¬ turvy half a century later. Symeon Antonov stayed outside these influences.

He be¬

longed to a poor peasant family, who feared the Lord. His education was meager — he was at school for only two winters. He trained as a carpenter. At nineteen, he felt a strong call to the monastic life, but after a few months his ardor waned, and he resumed the ordinary restless life of the

143

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young people of his generation. However, God had called him to another way. After a supernatural intervention — he never doubted that it was the holy Virgin herself who spoke to him to bring him out of sin—his life changed radically and he firmly resolved to be a monk. Before, however, achieving his intention, he had first to do his military service in the imperial guard at St Petersburg; but in his heart, he was on Mount Athos and at the last Judgment. Toward the end of his military service, and before returning to his family, he visited the home of Father John of Kronstadt, asking, in a letter which he left, for his prayers that the world would not hold him back. From this time, the spirit of repentance grew stronger, and he felt “the flames of Hell roaring around him.” It was in this state of burning repentance and with a great will to be saved, that Silouan, now aged twenty six, arrived in 1892 at Mount Athos, and entered the monastery of St Pante¬ leimon. Except for rare occasions, Silouan stayed there until his death, on 24 September 1938, at the age of seventy-two. During his forty-six years in the monastery, he led the life of a simple monk, working first of all in the mill, then, on building work, and finally as steward in the great supply depot at the monastery, having charge of two hundred workmen. It was a time of great expansion in the monastery: about 1890 there were eight hundred Russian monks, and this number grew to nearly two thousand before the first world war. When he joined the monastery, Silouan received the same training as all young novices, — an organic fusion with the monastic atmosphere, attendance at the long church services and prayer in the cell; work; reading; obedience to authority; confession to his spiritual father. A simple man — uncon¬ cerned with the innumerable problems which haunt the spirit of the modern “civilized” man, Silouan adapted easily and was able to absorb all the rich tradition of Athonite monasticism. He had no staretz to guide him in all the details of his life. Outwardly, his life was the same as all the other monks, but what was happening in the depths of his being

The Spiritual Teaching of Staretz Silouan

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was the spiritual development of a great ascetic, guided by the patient pedagogy of the grace of the Holy Spirit. The Staretz Silouan was not given the spiritual direction of other monks in his monastery, or of lay people. He did not develop any systematic teaching. He spoke of his spiritual experience only rarely, to people who asked his help and advice for their own spiritual life. Among those who were particularly close to the Staretz, is Archimandrite Sophrony, who has written about his life and published his writings. It was only during the last years of his life that Staretz Silouan edited his writings — when his dogmatic awareness had reached full maturity, and his victory over the passions — apatheia — was assured. He was driven by his love for man¬ kind, that through his ascetic experience, he might help those — even if only one person — who were following the same path. During his life time he lived unnoticed, not only by the world at large but even among the monks of his own monastery. The first edition of the writings of the Staretz was published in Russian in Paris in 1948. An English trans¬ lation, The Undistorted Image,1 and a German one, Staretz Soon there will be a Greek, a

Siluan,2 have since appeared.

French and a new English edition.1 2 3 The writings of Staretz Silouan do not make a body of sys¬ tematic teaching — nor indeed have they a direct aim to teach. They resemble more the confessions of St Augustine, intermingling autobiographical events, conversations with other ascetics and often prayers, which express the longings of his heart, in a language like the psalms. It is a language always simple, but that will not deceive a discerning reader. The realities which he describes — in spite of his lack of book 1.

London:

2.

Diisseldorf:

3.

The new English editions have now appreared, The Monk of Mount

Athos (London:

Faith Press, 1958. Patmos Verlag, 1959. Mowbrays, 1973) and Wisdom from Mount Athos (1974).

Like the previous edition they still contain only part of Archimandrite Sophrony’s original Russian introduction and, also, only part of the writings of Staretz Silouan. We must still await a complete English edition. note.)

(Editor’s

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Hieromonk Symeon

learning — are among the highest and profoundest to which human thought can aspire. Father Lassus op has expressed the view that while the words of Staretz Silouan have no dia¬ lectical or technically philosophical aspects, this should not conceal from anyone “the real and marvellous depth of a religious experience which is rather unique than rare.”4 As these writings become familiar to the reader, they give the strong impression that they are true — that here is the true path of the Christian, here the mystery of the journey from death to life, from darkness into light. This is because, behind the writings, is the life. The Staretz’s teaching is not a theology in the current sense of the word, still less a philosophy, it is a telling of his experience, of his life in the Lord. Even more — for it is not only on this basis of experience that he wrote. He said somewhere “The perfect say nothing of themselves, they say only what the Holy Spirit inspires....’’ I believe that these words can be applied to the writings of the Staretz Silouan, and this above all gives them their power. Almost all the themes of asceticism and of Christian mystical experience are to be found here. “He is perhaps’’ says Divo Barsotti in Le Christianisme Russe, “in all oriental monastic history, the most perfect representative of a tradition of spirituality which in him seems to achieve the highest expression.’’5 To speak of the teaching of the Staretz Silouan, it is necessary to retrace the stages through which he himself went. He had known the superabundance of the grace of God which engulfed his whole being, soul, intelligence, and even his body. He knew also the loss of this grace and the pro¬ found despair into which he was plunged by this loss. He also laboriously travelled on the path of recovery of this lost grace. Such is the triptych on which is written the path of the life of the Staretz Silouan, but it is a pattern which gives the rhythm of the stages of all spiritual experience. Unfortunately, in such a brief account it is not possible to 4. L. A. Lassus, op, Silouane, Collection Spiritualite Orientale (Begrolles: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1969) p. 13. 5.

D. Barsotti, Le Christianisme Russe (Tournai, 1963) p. 175.

The Spiritual Teaching of Staretz Silouan

147

include all aspects of the teaching of the Staretz Silouan. I must be content to emphasise the most important moments, on which all the rest depends, without forgetting that especially in the present instance, every attempt to sys¬ tematise what is spirit and life is only a distortion, and for that I accept full responsibility. The Novice

One of the first instructions which the young novice received when he entered the monastery, taught him that prayer in his cell was principally recitation of the Prayer of Jesus, with the rosary (prayer rope —tchotki), and that, thanks to this prayer, it is possible to pray anywhere and at any time. Inspired by profound repentance and living in great spiritual tension, Silouan prayed much and fervently. After about three weeks, he received the gift of perpetual prayer. This is how he has described what happened. “When I was still a young novice, I was praying one day before the icon of the Mother of God, and the Prayer of Jesus entered my heart and continued there of its own accord.’’ 6 A monk asked him if he prayed much. He answered: “I pray without ceasing,’’ The description of this initiation into perpetual prayer recalls the account given by Maximus the Kapsokalivite to Gregory the Sinaite (1255-1346), of his entry into this state. “Since my earliest days, I had great faith in the Mother of God, and I begged her with tears to give me this gift of men¬ tal prayer. One day, I went to her church as usual, and here I prayed fervently with this intention. I stood in front of her icon, then kissed it with reverence. Suddenly, I felt a warmth filling my heart with joy and my soul with penitence. From this moment, my heart began to say the prayer within me, and my spirit began to rejoice in the remembrance of Jesus and of the Mother of God, and to have him, the Lord Jesus, constantly borne within me. Since that day, the prayer in my heart has never ceased.” 6.

7

Archimandrite Sophrony, Starets Silouan (Paris, 1952) p. 162 —in

Russian. 7. I. Briantchaninov, On the Prayer of Jesus (London, 1965) p. 65.

148

Hieromonk Symeon

At this time, Silouan did not yet understand the sublime and rare gift he had received from the Lord, at the interces¬ sion of the Mother of God. But gradually, the spirit of re¬ pentance left him, and vain thoughts: “You are leading a holy life,” alternated with despairing ones: “You will not be saved’’ — and tormented him. One night a strange light filled his cell, and “Accept what you see’’ came the thought, “it proceeds from grace.’’ Devils began to appear to him. He did not give in: he prayed more intensely, passing his nights in prayer, reducing his sleep to an hour and a half to two hours in the twenty four. But the attacks of the devils never slackened. This lasted six months, until the interior resistance of the young monk broke, and he fell into despair. He felt he was forsaken by God; abandoned in his agony, he thought “God will not hear me!’’ Sick at heart, he remained in this black hell for about an hour, then went into the church. A little later, during Vespers, standing before the icon of the Savior, he said this short prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’’ At this moment, he saw the living Christ. This event was the most important of all his life. At the moment when he saw Christ, all his being, even his body, was filled with the Holy Spirit. A great light shone about him, and he received a new birth from on high, as we read in St John 1:13. He lived, at this moment, the Easter triumph, and was filled with the Pentecostal fire. The gentle gaze of the joyous, boundlessly loving Christ drew Symeon’s entire being to himself. Never again did he doubt the love of God, however bitter were the proofs—he knew that God is love. Ever afterwards, directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly, the Staretz referred back to this central experience of his life, which was the source of all the knowledge and love of God — which he would live out to the end of his days. In the theology of the Orthodox Church, teaching of the Holy Spirit has always been prominent. Did not Saint Sera¬ phim say that the aim of the Christian life is acquiring the Holy Spirit? For the Staretz Silouan, his experience of the Holy Spirit was a great revelation.

He said that before he

The Spiritual Teaching of Staretz Silouan

149

was filled with the Holy Spirit, he did not even know of the existence of the Holy Spirit. Man cannot know God by his intelligence alone, for God is “ineffable, unknowable, invisible, incomprehensible” (the Eucharistic canon of St John Chrysostom). But to the man who is lowly of heart, the Holy Spirit reveals God. “In the Holy Spirit, one may know the Lord; and the Holy Spirit fills the entire being, soul, mind and body. It is thus that one may know God in heaven and on earth.”8 “However wise we may be, it is impossible to know the Lord without keeping the commandments — because it is not by knowledge, but by the Holy Spirit, that the Lord may truly be known. Many philo¬ sophers and scholars have come to the conclusion that God exists; but they have not known God. To believe that God exists is one thing, but to know God is another.”9 These extracts from the writings of the Staretz refer to two distinct ways of knowing — one begins from the outside —by reason and science—the other develops between the knowing and the known as existential communion. This last relates to God — for he is never the object of knowledge. He is always Subject, unknowable in the deepest mystery of his Essence but who reveals himself in his Gift to those who are humble, and live according to the commandments of Christ. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The gift of “great grace” did not only show to Silouan that Christ is God, and his infinite love for man; a great change was wrought in him. Fulfilled with the Spirit of Christ, man becomes, like his Master, humble and meek, passing from unlikeness to likeness. A sure sign that the Spirit of Christ dwells in us, is love for our neighbor, and especially, love for our enemies. Love of our enemies makes us like God. “But love of enemies is impossible without the grace of God” said Staretz Silouan, for whom this idea was a favorite one.

8.

Sophrony, C. 8: On the Knowledge of God.

9.

Ibid.

150

Hieromonk Symeon

Pure Prayer

Such was the overwhelming experience lived by the young monk, some months after his arrival in the monastery. Similar experience of God is rare not only in our time, but in the whole history of the Church. Gradually, this light grew less bright, the joy and peace grew weak, and at times, grace abandoned him again, hindering pure prayer. He received advice from a staretz at Old Rossikon, whom he consulted. He recommended Silouan to keep his mind in prayer free from all imagination and all thought, and to enclose the mind in the words of the prayer. He explained what is meant by a “pure” mind and how to enclose it in the words of the prayer. The very greatness of the gift which he had received gave Silouan occasion to be tempted by thoughts of pride, which waged constant, desperate war within him. Demons began to appear to him again, seeking by every means to hinder him from praying, and to cause him to despair. Long years of alternation of grace and abandonment began. By reading the lives of the Saints, and the writings on asceticism of the Holy Fathers, by conversation with other monks, Silouan learned, little by little to wage the spiritual combat, to “fight against thoughts,” to discover the way which leads to pure prayer. He observed what happened within himself, and learned to distinguish “by their taste” the “thoughts” inspired by grace and those which come from the Enemy. “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” says the Psalmist. He understood that the aim of as¬ ceticism is the acquisition of grace. He learned to discern in himself, the presence of grace: in full agreement with St Symeon the New Theologian, he realized that a man who has received grace feels distinctly its presence within him, and feels also its why one loses again. But asceticism, he nor variations

departure. Being attentive within, he learns grace and how one can be ready to receive it despite all his efforts and his ceaseless could not succeed in escaping demonic attacks which caused him such affliction.

This struggle lasted fifteen years.

One night, when the

The Spiritual Teaching of Staretz Silouan

devils were filling his cell, he fell into despair.

151

With all his

being, he wanted to pray with a pure mind, but the demons prevented him. He complained to the Lord, full of pain, and he received in his soul the response “The proud always suffer from devils.” “Lord,” said Silouan, “teach me what to do that my soul may grow humble.” “Keep your mind in hell and despair not. ” This answer from the Lord gave to Silouan the means to struggle against the passions—especially against that most subtle and dangerous one—pride. He realized that it is pride which causes us to lose grace — pride had caused the fall of Lucifer and of Adam. Pride causes us to succumb to the snares of passions. Inversely, humility is the path which leads to salvation — opening the heart to divine grace and permit¬ ting this grace to dwell within man. Thenceforth, Silouan sought humility before all else, putting into practice the command of the Lord “Keep your mind in hell,” that is, condemning himself, judging himself unworthy of Paradise and of the divine grace. In the spiritual state arising from this self-condemnation, every passionate thought is extinguished. Man no longer judges his brother, for he considers himself worse than all, unworthy of heaven, and even of earth, and from the depth of this abyss he prays to the Lord with a pure mind. He achieves pure prayer, un¬ hindered by distracting thought, as the commandment decrees — loving God with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind, (Mt 22:37). It is in the first commandment —the one of the love of God, that the Staretz Silouan finds the necessity to offer pure prayer. To achieve this, he preferred not to make use of the hesychast method of psychosomatic technique10 —but going to the fundamental cause of our spiritual ills —pride —he attacked its roots. He could cause the torments cf the flames of hell to engulf him —and this by an act of the will undiscernible to anyone. At the same time, he knows that the loving kindness of God may penetrate even 10.

See I. Hausherr, Methode d'Oraison Hesychaste,

9 (Rome, 1927).

Oreintalia Christiana

152

Hieromonk Symeon

hell—that is why he shall “despair not.” “In this way the enemies (the devils) are vanquished. But when I allow my mind to come out of the fire, thoughts regain their strength.” The formula revealed to the Staretz Silouan, “Keep your mind in hell and despair not,” brings a standard of judgment infinitely valuable—to help us to discern the distinction between prayer which is truly Christian and the techniques of meditation which belong rather to the Far East, whatever may be the soil in which they flourish. This practice of self-condemnation is one which belongs to the Christian ascetic tradition—indeed belongs to the Gospel: “Whosoever exalts himself will be abased, and whosoever humbles himself shall be exalted” (Lk 14:11). Saint Antony learnt this from a cobbler in Alexandriz, who said to himself—“All will be saved, I alone shall perish.” Saint Antony transmitted this “art” to the Fathers of the desert, who adopted it, each giving it an expression which corresponded to his own experience. Essentially it was the same ascetic art, carried out with more or less tension. With the Staretz, this tension reached a maximum, and so it is not advisable for all. Abba Peomen said, in this connection, about Abba Isidore that his thoughts insinuated “You are a great man,” and he replied to them, “Am I fit to be com¬ pared to Abba Antony? or am I like Abba Pambo, or like the other Fathers who were pleasing to God?” When he said these words, he was at peace. And when a thought from the Enemy drove him to be fainthearted, suggesting that after all he was going to eternal punishment, he replied: “Even if I am sent to punishment, I shall find you there beneath me.” 11 This practice of “keeping the mind in hell and despairing not” revealed to Staretz Silouan by the Lord himself, helped him to find peace of soul. It helped him to resist disturbance of mind and passionate thoughts which lead to sin in all its forms. From this time, grace did not abandon him any more, as beforehand. He was aware of grace in his heart, he felt within the presence of the Living God. But variableness was 11.

Apophthegmata Patrum, Isidore 6; PG 65:222.

The Spiritual Teaching of Staretz Silouan

not entirely overcome.

153

Fifteen more years of struggle lay

ahead before he received the power to repel with a single thought what had formerly caused him so much affliction. The Prayer of Compassion

The Staretz truly became a bearer of the Holy Spirit, know¬ ing the ways of salvation, and able to help others. Then there began to dominate his life the prayer of compassion for all those who are in the greatest unhappiness of all — ignor¬ ant of God, separated from him. His compassion knew no limits — it was universal. For him, the commandment of Christ—to love his neighbor as himself — did not disclose the measure of love, but revealed the ontological unity of man. “Our brother is our life,” the Staretz used to say. It was his custom to see in each his brother for all eternity; to feel himself one with all humanity; to pray for all as for himself. This praying for each as for himself involved also bearing within himself the sins of all. “To pray for your neighbor, your brother,” the Staretz used to say, “is to shed one’s life’s blood.” He saw the tragic gift of divine grace, and its loss: he knew also the catastrophe which came in the fall of Adam. In Adam's Lament, he described the grief of the loss of Para¬ dise, the tears he shed in his repentance and his inconsolable sadness that he was separated from his Beloved Lord. No more could he be satisfied by anything on the earth; he longed only for God, who alone is happiness and consolation. Adam — he is Staretz Silouan, who has become one with all mankind, for whom he prays. Such prayer can be called “hypostatic” for it is not any more the prayer of an isolated individual, shattered by sin and clinging jealously to his little nucleus of humanity.

This is the prayer of the integrated

human person (hypostasis) who can become the whole Adam, and through this identification is able to offer him to God. The Staretz Silouan always insisted on the love of one’s neighbor, but especially, he insisted on love for one’s enemies. For him, there was no doubt that someone who did not love his enemies, did not really know God.

The loss of

154

Hieromonk Symeon

any soul was to him a real loss: his prayer is for the salvation of all men. This was how he understood his voca¬ tion as a monk: “A monk is a man who prays and who weeps for the whole world.This is his principal occupation!’12 To love one’s enemies is not a natural accomplishment; it is the fruit of the Holy Spirit active within us. In this way, we can test the source of a spiritual influence. If after a “spiritual” experience there is no love for enemies, it is a sign that this inspiration did not come from God. This criterion helps us to examine ourselves — and this would not be possible by any exercise of a purely intellectual analysis. In the experience of Staretz Silouan is a contemporary renewal of the experience of the Fathers of the Church. He was truly a bearer of the Holy Spirit. Referring to the writings of the Holy Fathers, he could say: “Our monks, not only read these books, but can themselves write similar books — even if these books disappeared, monks could write them again.” He could speak like this, because he had himself lived the spiritual states which the Holy Fathers have described. The way to achieve this lies in keeping the commandments of Christ, especially seeking humility, self-condemnation, and love of one’s enemies. Such is the paradox of the Christian life — the person who humbles himself is raised up by the Lord himself, who gives the gift of grace. He thinks “I am unworthy of God and of Paradise. I am worthy of the pains of hell and shall burn forever in the fire. I am worse than all, and unfit even to be pitied. The Holy Spirit teaches us to think like this of ourselves. The Lord rejoices when we condemn ourselves, and gives us his grace in our souls.” 13 Hieromonk Symeon St John the Baptist Monastery Talleshunt Knights, Essex

12.

Sophrony, C. 14: About monks.

13.

Ibid.

THE CISTERCIAN TRADITION

THE CISTERCIAN TRADITION

T

lHE SECOND AND THIRD DAYS of the Orthodox-Cistercian Symposium were dedicated to exploring the Cistercian tradition, with constant reflection on its relation to the Christian East.

Father Basil Pennington ocso, the General Chairman of the Conference, took the chair on Tuesday, and Professor Elizabeth Kennan, Director of the Byzantine and Medieval Program at the Catholic University of America, chaired the third day. These two days’ discussion deepened the aware¬ ness of how much the monks of the East and West had in common in their thought and outlook. Yet two interesting contrasts emerged. The one was between East and West, their complementary ways of perceiving tradition. The other was the different approach taken to the Symposium by the scholars and by the monks. Tradition

The chairman for the second day opened the discussion by speaking of tradition as something received, in some way re¬ shaped by the recipient, and handed on. One of the Orthodox took exception to this, affirming that tradition is the work of the Holy Spirit revealing. In contrast to the Sacred Scriptures, this revelation moves, unfolds organically, slowly— 157

158

The Cistercian Tradition

but it is the work of the Spirit. One never influences or changes it; rather it influences and changes us. This led to considerable discussion on the nature of tradition. Some felt the distinction between the two views lay in the distinction between the Tradition and tradition, customs established at particular times and places. But this does not adequately explain the matter. The difference lay precisely in the understanding of tradition itself. Most, including many of the Orthodox, felt the position stated in the response was extreme. Tradition involves cooperation between God and man, a cooperation in which God demonstrates his respect for the free will which he has given to man. Tradition is a dynamic presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, in the time of our Fathers and now, uniting us with the Fathers and opening us to the possibility of expressing the same tradition and the same faith, without repeating their precise words or actions, but in a way appropriate to our own time. Within the context of the basic common understanding of tradition, however, there is a difference of emphasis or out¬ look between East and West. The Orthodox tend to look at it more from God’s point of view, his primary role in the activity. The West emphasizes more the role of the human agent or instrument. The Eastern view is perhaps the one more compatible with the monastic or contemplative approach to reality, yet it can lead to a certain immobility on the part of man — the tradition can become relatively static. This has various consequences. Eastern monasticism has remained closer to the sources. And this is one of the reasons why the monk of the West looks to it for guidance and inspiration. But one is also forced to ask if this relative immobility has not led to a certain inflexibility in the face of man’s evolving con¬ dition. On the other hand it can be seen that the West’s em¬ phasis on the human agent has led to expressions of “mon¬ astic life” that are questionable, that seem to have lost some of the elements that belong to the authentic monastic tradition common to all Christians. The early Cistercians cannot be considered apart from the

The Cistercian Tradition

159

one great river of monastic tradition. Indeed, in his opening remarks the Chairman raised the question: Can we speak of a Cistercian school of spirituality? Is there something dis¬ tinctive among the Cistercians, or are they so much of the tradition that it is difficult to speak of a distinctive school? If we delineate the distinctive contents in the spirituality of the Cistercian Fathers, do these have significant parallels in the Christian East, especially among the monastic Fathers? Is Bernard, the jester, evocative of the fool for Christ? His bundle of myrrh an expression of the gift of tears? There are certainly contrasts, such as Bernard’s attitude toward art in the life of the monk and the role of the icon in the Eastern monastery. To what extent did the Cistercian Fathers give evidence of consciously looking to the Fathers of the undivided Church? (For in those early times, can we legitimately distinguish between the Fathers of the East and the West? The Fathers were the Fathers of the whole Church —they belong to all of us.) The Cistercian delights in reading the Cistercian Fathers and the early monastic fathers of the East because they speak of what he himself is experiencing. How the Cistercians might have drawn from the Greeks is a fascinating question but it is more important to see how the same realities, alive— the one continuous tradition being lived now—should be lived together in the future. Monastic and/or Academic

Here the contrast in approach between the monks and the academicians came out. The monks were concerned with ex¬ ploring the general feel of things, to perceive the common spirit, to see the parallels. Textual proofs were seen as quite secondary in the context of a whole lived and living reality. This left the scholars a bit uncomfortable. They wanted a more clearly defined question with a response based on the norms of a precise methodology. One of the professors on the panel spoke up for this approach. Professor John Sommerfeldt saw the theme lying precisely in the influence of the Eastern Fathers on the Cistercians.

160

The Cistercian Tradition

And he praised the methodological norm set forth by Dr Elder, who “accepted as a certain source only those works which the monk quotes, and regarded as inconclusive mere consonance or similarity of idea.’’1 According to this approach, most of the papers were considered irrelevant, though some did establish a true influence. Professor Shel¬ don William’s excellent study on “Eriugena and Citeaux” showed how the neo-platonic thought of Pseudo-Dionysius reached William of St Thierry, Isaac of Stella, Alan of Lille, Helinand of Froidmont and Gamier of Rochefort through the translations and works of Eriugena. Professor Bernard McGinn’s paper pointed out parallels between the thought of Dionysius and Bernard and Aelred, especially in their negative theology, their use of symbols and the need of sal¬ vation through transcendence and union with God.3 However, he demonstrated a direct relationship with Dionysius only in the case of Isaac of Stella and Gamier of Rochefort. Dr McGinn indicated also the influence of Augustine and Boethius on Isaac, and pointed to him as the best example of a man drawing fully from both East and West. Hugh McCaffery also demonstrated Isaac’s dependence on DionyS1US.

4

Drs Anderson and Elder had turned their attention to William of St Thierry: Dr Anderson, in his study of William’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, found no evidence of Eastern influence.5 Dr Elder, studying a theme rather than a work, found that William’s Christology could be completely explained by Western sources, and these alone he named.6 Dr Sommerfeldt admitted that his scholarly approach is 1. 2.

See below, p. 258. Published in Studia Monastica.

3. B. McGinn, “Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians,” below, pp. 200-241. 4.

H. McCaffery, “Apophatic Denis and Isaac of Stella,” published in

Hallel.

5. J. Anderson, “The Use of Greek Sources by William of St Thierry, Especially in the Enigma Fidei,” below, pp. 242 - 253. 6. E.R. Elder, “William of St Thierry and the Greek Fathers: from Christology,” below, pp. 254 - 266.

Evidence

The Cistercian Tradition

161

necessarily a narrow, limited one. One of the monks felt, however, that it produced in fact, a caricature. To study William and draw conclusions only in the light of one work or one theme was to lose sight of the real man. Not only does he explicitly cite Greek Fathers in a number of his works and quote them extensively, but the parallel lines of thought are constant. His work has a distinctively Eastern flavor. In her paper on William of St Thierry and the Image of God,7 Sr Anne Saword demonstrated William’s kinship to Eastern thought, drawing largely from the extensive work of Jean-Marie Dechanet. Fr Dechanet may tend to overstate his case, but his work should be seen as he sees it — pioneer work done by a monk who lacked both time and tools to pur¬ sue all the finer points of scholarship. What his pioneering has contributed to studies in the field can hardly be over¬ estimated. Besides the theme of the image of God in man, William develops such typically Eastern themes as man as microcosm, the dignity of nature and of the body, love as a form of knowledge, starchestvo, the deification of man by grace and the region of unlikeness. The Chairman pointed out the necessity of recognizing the distinctiveness and the validity of the two approaches, the monastic and the academic. Recognizing that each of us finds a greater connaturality with one or the other, we must also recognize that to judge exclusively from one position will lead to a failure to appreciate adequately the other. The Symposium aimed at drawing from both sources, academic scholarship and monastic wisdom. The two, though different, are yet complementary. The mystical should not be divorced from the theological. The icon combines exactness of tech¬ nique with the movement of the Spirit. Perhaps the interesting paper of Fr John Morson: “Chalcedon, Nijmegen and Igny: Phases in the Development of Christology,” can be pointed to as a felicitous wedding of the two. 7.

A. Saword, “Man as the Image of God in the Works of William of St

Thierry,” below, pp. 267 - 303.

162

The Cistercian Tradition

Parallel Lines of Thought

Aelred Squire, in his paper written from a monastic context,8 says the obvious: it is contrary to reason and ex¬ perience to assert that two men cannot have the same thought and express it in the same way without one being dependent on the other. This is especially true when we con¬ sider how extensively all these men were formed by the same Scriptures and Liturgy, looked to the same desert heritage,9 and pursued the same basic ideals. Most of the papers presenting the Cistercian Fathers pointed to the many ways in which their thought was similar to that of the Eastern monastic Fathers. We tend to identify hesychasm with the practice of the Jesus Prayer, but it is actually a much wider concept. Fr Hilary Costello defined it as “a spiritual system with an es¬ sentially contemplative orientation which places man’s perfection in union with God by means of prayer or perpetual prayerfulness.”10 While the Jesus Prayer as such seems to be unknown to the twelfth-century Cistercians, frequent ejacula¬ tory prayer is found in Aelred and others. But the means the Cistercians most characteristically used for the attainment of this perpetual prayerfulness is lectio divina. Archimandrite Kallistos assured us that this was not foreign to the life of the hesychast in the East. Lectio brings about the purification of the memory so that one can abide in the continual memory of God. Closely related to this is the theme of ‘‘purity of heart,” seen as an essential prerequisite for prayer in both the East and the West. Nicholas Grove’s paper shows how this is 8. A. Squire, “The Cistercians and the Eastern Fathers,” below, pp. 168-182. 9. Sr Benedicta brought this out in her paper, “The Desert Myth,” (below, pp. 183-199). She showed how the early Cistercian writings, especially the miracle texts, expressed a theology centered very much on Eastern tradition. The miracle texts illustrated the common monastic ideal: to restore the image of God in man, to make man perfect as God first made him. They emphasize withdrawal from the world and spiritual combat, all for the sake of the world. 10. See below, p. 333.

The Cistercian Tradition

163

central in the teaching of Hugh of Portigny.11 His source for this was the Sermon on the Mount; parallels are found in the teaching of Clement of Alexandria and Origen; St John Cassian seems to be the principal intermediary for bringing it to the West. The fact that St Benedict pointed so strongly to Cassian and the early Cistercians had such devotion to Benedict’s Rule underlines other indications that we should take a better look at Cassian as a channel of communication between the Eastern monastic Fathers and the Cistercians. In his brief study, Fr Edmund Mikkers again pointed to the theme of “image and likeness,” this time in a later Cister¬ cian, John of Ford.12 The way Abbot John approached the theme is typically monastic, not scholastic but personal, based on prayer and meditation. The Cistercians’ strong devotion to the Passion of Christ and their emphasis on poverty, “to be poor with the poor Christ,” can be seen to have a parallel in the fool for Christ. Channels of Thought

While it was left till the fourth day to discuss explicitly the channels of communication that existed between the early Cistercians and the East, many were inevitably touched upon in the course of these days’ discussions. There was, of course, the Liturgy. The Greek influence on the early Roman Breviary was quite strong. Hagiography, beginning with Athanasius’ Life of Anthony, and Palladius’ Lausiac History, was probably far more significant a vehicle

than we realize.

Origen’s role can hardly be overestimated.

His influence is found in the writings of all the Cistercians. At least twelve lessons in the early Cistercian lectionary were attributed to him. (These are all spurious, yet the attribution is significant considering that Benedict warned his monks to read only orthodox Catholic Fathers.)

Greek monks from

11. N. Groves, “Mundicia cordis: A Study of the Theme of Purity of Heart in Hugh of Pontigny and the Fathers of the Undivided Church,” below, pp. 304 - 331. 12.

E. Mikkers, “John of Ford:

pp. 356-360.

Doctrine on Image and Likeness,” below,

164

The Cistercian Tradition

southern Italy are known to have visited and influenced Cluny, and the Cistercians brought with them not a little of Cluniac customs. There were points of contact at Rome, Ravenna and also in Hungary. There were the new academic traditions, especially at Paris, and the new translations. It is not insignificant that the first Cistercian Pope, Eugenius III (1145-53), commissioned the translation of the works of St John Damascene and St John Chrysostom. His Cistercian background made him realize the importance of having the Greek Fathers available to be read in the West. In general there was an openness to Eastern thought at the time of the Cistercian renewal; it was a common phenomenon in the twelfth century. The Cistercians were formed in this milieu before entering the monastery. But even in the monastery, as is characteristic of a new group, they were more open to the new movements of their times. Renewal

In this light the Cistercians can be seen receiving the tradi¬ tion and bringing it into vital communication with their times. They could be said to be adapting to the current historical conditions. But one of the Orthodox expressed it another way: they adapted themselves to conditions above history and thus entered into the authentic tradition which is not subject to history but leads beyond history and is fully alive in all times. But the living tradition ever needs to be con¬ cretely expressed and lived out in the present concrete cir¬ cumstances. It was very clear that all the Orthodox and Cistercians wanted to be faithful to the tradition of the Fathers and to be in communion with them. But sometimes the different ways we expressed this caused wonder. Behind this lies the question of what we consider tradition to be and what demand it places on us to be faithful to the ways, forms and structures of our Fathers. How much can the passing on of the essentials be accompanied with change and develop¬ ment according to time and culture and still be valid, still be truly in the tradition, under the Spirit? This is at the heart of our concern—to understand and see how the living tradition

The Cistercian Tradition

165

was a the center of the renewal of the Cistercian Fathers and is in our midst today, and how it is to be carried forward to tomorrow. Small Groups Carrying over from the first day, the question of apophatic theology in the East and West emerged again in both the general sessions and the small groups. In the small groups many complementary and contrasting notes were shared. The morning’s insights were deepened and enriched. The data coming from the reports of these exchanges I have tried to incorporate above, but all in all, it is far too rich and divergent to be all included. Some of the papers which were not touched upon in the general sessions were discussed in the small groups, such as Fr Ernest Sublie’s “The Man of God Then and Now.’’ The Way to Unity In the course of the general discussion Sr Anne Saword brought forward a text from Thomas Merton which seemed to epitomize the common aspiration of the monks and nuns at the Symposium. If I can write in myself the thought and devotion of Eastern and Western Christendom, the Greek and Latin Fathers, the Russian and Spanish mystics, I can prepare in myself the reunion of divided Christians. From that secret and unspoken unity in myself can eventually come the visible and manifest unity of all Christians. We must contain all divided worlds in ourselves and transcend them in Christ.13 Archimandrite Barnabas expressed this for the Orthodox when he said that the role of monasticism is to restore unity, which must first be in the person—a unity of mind and heart that is found only in silence, and a unity with creation that offsets man’s false domination or exploitation by fasting and 13. T. Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: 1966) p. 12.

Doubleday,

The Cistercian Tradition

166 mortification. tercian

Father Hilary pointed to the traditional Cis¬

way

to this unity: lectio, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio. The monk reads, then stops to meditate, and this leads into prayer and union with Christ till he finds himself wholly drawn together in simple contemplation. The early Cistercian’s closeness and oneness with nature is readily evident in the language and symbols he used. His manual labor, that purposeful, hard, repetitive manual work in contact with nature, had an important part to play in all this. The Cistercian did not tend to see his work as having a role in bringing creation to its fullness. His approach to it was rather hesychastic and economically pragmatic. At the behest of others, Dom Augustine Roberts ocso, Superior of Los Angelos in Argentina, attempted a descrip¬ tion, not so much of Cistercian spirituality — for this is basically the common evangelical spirit centering on charity and humility — but the Cistercian phenomenon: The Cistercians see as their ideal a Christian monastic life led in community, but in a relatively simple and austere way, so that the common monk may enjoy the advantages of the eremitical life of prayer along with the fraternal love, spiritual guidance and stability of the cenobitic life. They see the Rule describing a simple way of life, consisting of a balanced program of work, private prayer and reading, and common prayer, lived with geographical separation from society. In comparison with the Black Benedictines, the Cis¬ tercians put more emphasis on manual work and the interior dimension of the Christian life with correspondingly less emphasis on intellectual studies and on the external solemnity of the liturgy. The mysticism of light of the first Cis¬ tercians was their experience of the continuing mystery of the Incarnation and has remained the characteristic of Cistercian spirituality. Fraternal love, joy and simplicity are also typical features.

The Cistercian Tradition

Bishop Antonie’s response to this was most gratifying:

167 if

one but drop the word Cistercian and present this description to an Orthodox monk, he would readily accept it as a des¬ cription of his own way of life, and a hesychast would accept it too. At the opening of these two days of discussion centering on the Cistercian tradition, Dr Zernov told the group how pro¬ foundly moved the Orthodox Community had been by the Cistercian participation in their Liturgy that morning. This sharing in worship is “an experience of essential unity, a sign of deep connection.” Quite aptly, therefore, did one of the Orthodox suggest that this discussion be brought to a close by chanting that hymn with which the Cistercians close each day — the Salve Regina.

THE CISTERCIANS AND THE EASTERN FATHERS

I

T WAS NOT SIMPLY the fact that I am, in effect, for the second time in my priestly life, acting as a country parish priest, with virtually only the volumes of a small personal library of monastic source-books behind me, that made me feel it would be necessary to decline the invitation to write a contribution on the fascinating subject of “The Cistercians and the Eastern Fathers” for this Symposium. I felt, in ad¬ dition, that a title of this sort would necessarily raise expec¬ tations of a kind which even a scholar with greater resources at his disposal would perhaps be unlikely with any notable success to fulfill. The more I pondered the arguments for the second of these impressions, the closer I came to feeling that I might have to revise my judgment about the validity of the former. Could it actually even be something of an advantage to have very few books from which to work? After all, I re¬ flected, on the basis of our really certain, as opposed to our merely conjectural, knowledge of the state of Cistercian libraries of the first generation, even in the houses that pro¬ duced notable writers, it is possible to say that my limited re¬ sources are, both in range and quality, better than those of almost any of these houses. For the Holy Rule alone, I per¬ sonally have better equipment for forming a judgment about St Benedict’s text and original intentions than any of these

168

The Cistercians and the Eastern Fathers

169

monasteries can have had. The same is true of John Cassian and the Vitae Patrum. Again, no wholly satisfactory evidence can be produced to show that a writer like Aelred had direct access to as many major works of Augustine as I can easily turn to on my own shelves. It is doubtful if even William of St Thierry, who must rank among the most impressive of Augustine’s spiritual disciples in any period, ever found himself shut up in any room with as many good texts of auth¬ entic works of that most influential of the Latin Fathers as I do, when I am shut up in mine. I also have the whole of that vastly neglected writer who runs Augustine a very close second in importance right up to and including the Summa of St Thomas Aquinas, Gregory the Great, about whom it will be necessary to say a quite special word later. So, on the Western side, I am less ill-equipped than an efficient modern bibliophile might at first suppose. As for the East, why, I actually have, in some tolerable form, if not always in critical Greek, a good deal more of Gregory of Nyssa and other Eastern Fathers than anyone is likely to be able to convince us any of the Cistercians of the earliest period can have known in even the most garbled form. These remarks are not, I need hardly say, intended as an excursus in autobiography, or even as an example of the in¬ troductory device of capturing the favor of one’s audience, which the classical orators would have recommended to those with a difficult case to make. They are meant rather, in the first place, as an appeal to common sense. One learned, and I hope still learns, a number of memorable things almost by accident in a city like Oxford, and I shall never forget one particular afternoon when a well-known scholar, referring me to an unusually exemplary edition of a medieval author, sud¬ denly said: What a very ingenious note that is in the apparatus—though there isn’t, of course, the faintest hope that the author can have known such a work. This observa¬ tion, coming from the mouth of a man of such experience, confirmed my own growing conviction that, next to the arrogance and irresponsibility of constructing one’s own mis-

170

Aelred Squire op

begotten theories on only the slenderest basis in the texts one is commenting — if one has read them, as a whole, at all — comes, in the order of gravity of sins against sound learning, that device of blinding one’s reader with science, from which even the most respectable authors and editors are not invari¬ ably exempt. It requires only a few years of apprenticeship to begin to perceive how to assess a work of learning whose value is obviously meant to be measured chiefly in relation to the size and range of its footnotes, which will often be careful to omit the name of no study to which it is fashionable to refer, however irrelevant to the argument. In Oxford, one need only recall the at-one-time familiar “send-up” by Msgr Knox, proving that Queen Victoria was the author of In Memoriam, to remind onself of the sort of things that can sometimes be done even on the basis of a text alone, if one is clever enough. In a word, if this contribution is not to be a kind of con¬ fidence trick, it is very necessary to insist at the outset upon how much we still do not know, and perhaps never shall know, about even the very greatest of twelfth-century authors. It is true that no account, either of his education or of his personal reading, ever wholly explains the emergence of a writer of distinction and, as I think I must stress later on in this paper, it is contrary both to reason and to experience to imagine that no two people ever arrive at the same, or similar, thoughts without ever having read what the other has written. Yet it is also true that, at least from the point of view of craftsmanship, virtually no book emerges like Melchisedech, without father or mother. Nevertheless, St Bernard’s first little treatise, the De gradibus humilitatis, does merge a little like that, when considered against the background of our ignorance about his early formation.1 The verve and sureness of the organization of this treatise, where every calculated and memorable phrase tells, is certainly not that of a man 1. For the case for regarding this work as Bernard’s first, in a chronological sense, and also for the difficulty of dating it precisely, see the introduction to the critical text of Dom Jean Leclercq, Sancti Bemardi Opera, vol. 3 (Rome, 1963) pp. 3-5.

The Cistercians and the Eastern Fathers

171

who has learned everything from the woods and fields, what¬ ever anyone may say to the contrary. Yet, of the literary formation which this little book and its successors necessarily presuppose, what can we say with confidence today2that could not have been said nearly as confidently forty years ago? Further, I do not think it ungenerous to the enormous amount of hard work that has been put in during that period of time, to say that much the same observation would be true of what we can, beyond all dispute, say of our knowledge of the doc¬ trinal influences upon St Bernard and those of his school. This is probably why the pioneer studies of these particular writers stand up so well to the test of time. We should rem¬ ember that a striking parallel, even an apparent verbal allu¬ sion, is not the same as a direct source and when Gilson, in 1933, wrote, in what remains the classical systematic sketch of the broad outlines of Bernard’s doctrine, that the influence of the teaching of Gregory of Nyssa, through Maximus the Confessor is “not to be doubted, though he did not, beyond doubt, know it at first hand,’’3he expressed an opinion which can scarcely be substantially modified today. If, then, today I find myself giving a paper on the Cistercians and the Eastern Fathers, I do so as a half-reluctant convert to the view that there is something useful to be said on this subject. Twenty-five years ago I treated — and still tend to treat — with the profoundest suspicion the bulk of the more sweeping things that are said even about the influence of Origen upon the great Cistercian writers, though that influence is easier to 2.

Probably the shrewdest remarks on this subject are those of R. W.

Southern:

He was the first to make latin a capacious language for the

thoughts of the twelfth century. to this result: the Bible.

There are two elements which contributed

the influence of the French vernacular, and the influence of

The first let in new words and new constructions which gave the

old language a fresh fluency and vivacity.

(The Making of the Middle Ages,

[London, 1953, paper ed, 1959] p. 224) But all this presupposes an all-round competence in the history of education which few possess. 3.

E. Gilson, La theologie mystique de S. Bernard (Paris, 1934; English

version, 1940).

I quote from the ed of Paris, 1947, p. 29.

The preface

clarifies the circumstances under which the work was written in 1933.

172

Aelred Squire op

establish, within limits, than that of any other Eastern writer.4 In this connection I should like to make a point which I am unfortunately in no position to develop. When one considers how much we owe to his researches into medieval writers, nothing is more regrettable than that Gilson never gave us an extended study of the true influence of Gregory the Great. The continued want of such a book is perhaps the greatest gap in all medieval theoretical studies. When Hugh of St Victor came to write a commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy of Denys, what would he have done without Gregory the Great? And, to leap a century further ahead, how often even in the Summa Theologica would St Thomas have been at a loss to find a Christian authority for a particular nuance he wished to make had he not been able to find it in Gregory the Great? For at least two fertile centuries everyone who was anyone knew Gregory the Great in a way that we no longer do, and very surprising was the range and subtlety of the notions they found in him. Gregory had, of course, lived in Constantinople, probably for six years, without learning any Greek, which makes him sound a little perverse, especially in view of what his function was supposed to be. But whatever his limitations — and he certainly enjoyed poor physical health — he was a monk to his fingertips, and a man of remarkable psychological insight. In his writing, the inner life is so alive that, as one reads one’s medieval writers, and returns again and again to Gregory the Great, one develops a kind of habitual hesitation about attributing to any other source a notion that could well have had its origins in him. For all his provincialism, the total effect of his work is so much less dis¬ tinctively Latin than that of the powerful Augustine, and it is not without significance that his Pastoral Rule had got itself 4.

1 have explained in my study. Aelred of Rievaulx(London, 1969) pp.

31-2, part of the grounds for these reserves.

A prolonged and careful exam¬

ination of surviving Cistercian MSS which is easier for England owing to the work of N. R. Ker, made it quite clear to me that the rows of Origen MSS to which historians are apt to point with a sweep of the hand belong, almost without exception, to dates near or after the death of the first generation of monks. What I have seen of surviving French MSS gives the same impression.

The Cistercians and the Eastern Fathers

173

translated into Greek in his own life-time, and other works were to follow later. Difficult though it may be exactly to place the curiously mediating influence of Gregory the Great in the context we are considering, it is beyond question right to insist upon the importance of the kind of milieu from which his work ulti¬ mately springs, and in which it naturally fourishes. When Dom J. M. Dechanet, who has probably done more than anyone to make us aware of the theological stature of the in¬ comparable William of St Thierry, published in 1940 his pre¬ liminary study of William’s sources, the final chapter bore the title Orientale Lumens’ The words are, of course, a reference to the opening chapter of William’s Golden Epistle, and their primary significance, as a symbol of the aspiration towards the life and experience of the desert fathers among William’s contemporaries, is conceded. But Dom Dechanet tells us, at the same time, that he cannot quite resist the undertone of an allusion to the contemporary re-emergence of works of the Greek Fathers in Latin translation, and in particular those of Gregory of Nyssa, clear traces of whose teaching seemed to be embodied in William’s spiritual doctrine.5 6 7 How far the evident expectations of these initial soundings have really been substantiated by subsequent studies and editions of William of St Thierry and other Cistercian writers, I must leave others to judge. To attempt to review them here, or even in a small volume, would be a formidable and, probably, •It

ungrateful task. For what causes the influences, direct or in¬ direct, that bear upon this group of writers to coalesce in the form which so impresses us is evidently a way of living based on certain common theological convictions which are the heritage of the undivided Church. Upon the importance of this sense of what theology is really about William of St

5.

Aux sources de la spiritualite de Guillaume de St.

Thierry (Bruges,

1940) pp. 60-79. 6. 7.

Ibid., p. 70.

A preliminary conspectus of sources is given in Dom Dechanet’s

Guillaume de St Thierry, I'homme et son oeuvre (Bruges, 1942) pp. 200-9.

174

Aelred Squire op

Thierry is explicit,8 against a background of reading which is fairly clearly more broadly based than that of any other writer of this school. Yet they all, in their own way, share his regard for that “argument for the things which are not seen,” which a living faith finds in the witness of the Fathers, and penetrates by living as though what the Fathers believed were true. I doubt if anyone will ever be able to tell us in any merely bookish way how they achieved this realization, which was at once so strikingly new, and yet so demonstrably old. Their answer, if asked, would I suppose have amounted to something like what is implied in the well-known line of a Cistercian hymn of appropriately anony¬ mous authorship which says, Expertus potest credere,9 a phrase which certainly meant, for the first generation of Citeaux, something by no means so anti-intellectual as some of its later admirers and users liked to suppose. For, as my own reading in the spiritual writing of the twelfth and other centuries has progressed, I have found a conviction developing in me, which 1 was careful to test upon several competent audiences before I first dared to put it into print in the epilogue of my study of Aelred of Rievaulx.10 I have now repeated it in a study called Asking the Fathers, published this January, by saying that “while orthodox Christians have gone on saying in their creeds that they ‘believe in the resur¬ rection of the body,’ St Bernard in the first half of the twelfth century is the last Western spiritual master of undoubtedly major stature to give that doctrine a clear and definite place in his vision of the meaning of the Christian life.” 11 This is, naturally, by no means the only thing that could be said along these lines, for it only pinpoints that feeling for the signi¬ ficance of the Incarnation, the divine economy as the Greeks 8.

See, e.g., the texts cited by Dechanet in William of St Thierry: The Cistercian Publications, 1972) pp. 145-146.

Man and his Works, CS 10 (Spencer, MA:

9. For the entire question of the Dulcis Jesu Memoria see A. Wilmart, Le jubilus dit de St Bernard (Rome, 1944).

10. 11.

Note 4, p. 149. Asking the Fathers. (London, 1973) p. 57.

The Cistercians and the Eastern Fathers

175

would call it, which makes these writers, at their best, essen¬ tially men of the creeds and the liturgy. And who is to say what orthodox belief cannot teach us, when lived out in prayer and practice, provided we do not despise whatever qualified human helps may come our way? Vladimir Lossky who, as Jean Meyendorff says, sought to present Orthodoxy as abiding and catholic truth,12 understandably stressed in the introduction to his Essai sur la theologie de Veglise d orient the key role of monasticism, in its primitive sense, in the development of the theology of the Eastern Churches. 13 This connection between theology and monasticism seems to me, personally, still to be the primary and most vitalizing sense in which an oriental light shone in the cloisters of early Citeaux, and in an endeavor to demonstrate this I should like to make some remarks upon the one of the four great writers of the first generation whose sources, outside common teaching, life and experience, are the hardest to recapture yet who, in his most impressive explanations of the meaning of the spiritual life, enters more clearly and unselfconsciously into a classical tradition of Eastern doctrine than any other. At the time of preparing this communication only the first volume of the new critical edition of the Sermons of Guerric of Igny had appeared,14 but its modest and lucid introduction —singularly free of those faults which clutter up so much that is meant to be scholarship nowadays — enables anyone who wishes to read the whole of these the only works of Guerric to do so with reasonable confidence with the aid of the text of Mabillon.15 If one leaves aside anything that has been written about these Sermons, and allows them to make their own impression upon the mind, the best are such a 12. Introduction to the posthumous V. Lossky, Vision de Dieu (Paris, 1962) p. 7. 13.

Paris, 1944, p. 15.

14.

Ed. J. Morson and H. Costello, SC 166 (Paris, Cerf, 1970).

The second

and final volume, SC 202, appeared in 1973. 15.

PL 185: 11-214, excluding, with Mabillon and the new editors, the Fifth

Sermon for the Purification. A complete English tr. based on the new edition has appeared in the Cistercian Fathers Series: CF 8 (1970) and CF 32 (1971).

176

Aelred Squire op

happy marriage of doctrine and expression that the poorer ones need no other comparison to reveal their defects. I may say, incidentally, that even the dullest are nothing like so dull as the sermons of the learned Patriarch Photius, which I was also reading at the same time, and which can be recommend¬ ed as an antidote to the views of a few people today who seem to imagine that everything that comes from the East is invariably all sweetness and light! Both writers are unexceptionally orthodox in their teaching but Photius, alas, has learned his rules of fine rhetoric only too well. If Guerric says he is fumbling, he often is. He is not wholly innocent of tricks of style, yet it is his convictions that give him wings. So bold and confident is his sense of the wonder of the divine kenosis in the work of our redemption that it can produce a sermon like the first of those for Palm Sunday which, for all its rhetorical character, moves from the first sentence to the last with an unhesitating sureness and integrity which makes it something fairly unique in Western homiletic literature. Medieval and later Russian piety would have found it pro¬ foundly sympathetic. Its view of the passion is at once deeply theological and touchingly humane. It would be misleading not to mention, in this connection that a type of tender devotion occasionally emerges in Guerric!7 as also in Bernard and Aelred, which most people would associate with Franciscan or later medieval piety in the West, but then there are these anticipations in much early Cistercian writing which, nevertheless, remain the exception rather than the rule. On the other hand, it must also be noted, without our wishing to insist upon it, that the first of Guerric’s Pentecost Sermons would probably be consistent with the view of someone who wondered whether the Filioque were not an unwarranted addition to the creed, insisting as this sermon does, for the whole of its sustained first paragraph and vir¬ tually until its final sentence, upon the Holy Spirit as the gift 16.

SC 202:164-70; PL 185:127-30.

17.

E.g. SC 202:210; PL 185:140B.

18.

Ibid., SC 202:282; PL 185:157-60.

The Cistercians and the Eastern Fathers

111

of the Father, by which we receive that adoptive sonship which is the sequel to the Father’s gift of his Son. It is, in fact, the theology of adoptive sonship which brings us to that which is central to Guerric’s thought and gives him his closest affinity with the characteristic Christology of the Eastern Fathers. His new editors have, I think, with complete scholarly propriety referred, apart from Origen, only to possible Western sources for the more striking formulation of these views.19 But, if we examine these passages in the context of Guerric’s doctrine as a whole we shall, I believe, see that they are more integrally definitive of his under¬ standing of the meaning of the Christian life than they can honestly be said to be in any possible Latin sources. Guerric has simply arrived, by whatever means, at a Christology very like that which made Athanasius the champion of orthodoxy, and continued to inspire the Eastern Fathers up to Maximus and beyond with the conviction that “God was hominized that 20 man might be deified.’’ We may, I think, very well use the opening paragraph of the first of the Advent sermons as a frame of reference in terms of which to appreciate how Guerric’s ideas on this entire subject hold together. Hearing at the liturgy for the vigil of this first Sunday of Advent the words: “We await a savior,’’ the soul turns to God and says: “I know that you will not disappoint me in my anticipation for, already, my very substance is with you. For our nature, taken from us and offered for us, is now glorified in you, giving us the hope that ‘to you shall all flesh come’.”21 As we must see present¬ ly, while not ignoring the complexities of that final phrase which he cites from Psalm 65, Guerric like all his Cistercian contemporaries is not going to spiritualize the “fleshy” aspect of what man is right out of the picture. There is, as the first sermon for Christmas will say, a complete continuity between that event by which “newness itself” 22 renews 19. 20. 21.

Op. cit., p. 40.

22.

Ibid.. 164 (29B).

Athanasius, De incarn. L1V, 3. SC 166:90, (PL 185:11 A).

178

Ae/red Squire op

everything and the saving of man in his entirety. “For to this end the art of mercy bounded the glory of God and the wretchedness of man in the one person of the mediator that in virtue of the mystery of the unity, by the power of the resurrection, glory might swallow up wretchedness, life scoff down death, and glorified man as a whole enter into a share in the divine nature.’’ Here again, we shall not fail to note the allusion to a theological formula from the Second Letter of Peter which bears there, and doubtless in Guerric’s own thought, a close relation to the mystery of the Transfiguration of our Lord. These are, naturally, the underlying reasons why it is possible to say, as the fifth of these Christmas Ser¬ mons does, that the Word which God is “lets me see him today in that which I am”24 and also the reason why “the form of religion in its completeness seems to be born in his nativity.’’25 Both the words “form’’ and “religion’’ in the original Latin of this phrase inevitably involve some technical difficulties of interpretation, but there can, I think, be little doubt that by “form” Guerric here means, not so much the pattern by which I imitate that which God does, as the very type of the way in which God himself works, and by “religion,’’ the Christian life in its fulness, which the monastic life, in any case, ought to be. In so far as there is an implicit allusion to the doctrine of the image of God in man in these phrases from this Fifth Christmas Sermon, we may perhaps note that there is at least one passage in Guerric’s Third Sermon for the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul, where it is very hard not to see the correctly reported doc¬ trine of Gregory of Nyssa on this theme?7 Guerric, comment¬ ing on the phrase: Now we see in a glass darkly; but then face to face, says: “For this to happen, namely that we should see in a glass darkly, it is necessary, not only that the 23.

Ibid., 166

(29D).

24.

Ibid., 224

(44a).

25.

Ibid., 232

(46a).

26.

On the word forma see ibid., Intro, pp. 34-6.

27.

Cf. R. Leys, L'image de Dieu chez Gregoire de Nysse (Paris, 1951).

The Cistercians and the Eastern Fathers

179

surface of our mirror should be wiped free of all fancies and shadows of bodily things, but that he, the Most High, who dwells in inaccessible light, should be good enough to bend down towards us and show himself to us, as it were, by the shadow of his image.”28 But there is, as everyone knows, an element of abstract and philosophical speculation connected with these views which is really rather untypical of Guerric and, while I would not dismiss this as an uninteresting theme to study in his teaching, I think there can be no serious doubt, that more central to his doctrine, more evangelical in its fundament, and more widely patristic in its general character, is his doctrine of the birth of Christ in the soul, in which perhaps better justice is done to the divine initiative, and the notion that the nativity is the ‘‘form of all religion” is more evidently followed up. This is the doctrine which we, like Guerric, can learn in the silence of the school of the Word.29 One of the key texts for this teaching is the Third Sermon for Christmas, which begins with the theme of the divine kenosis by which, in his nativity, the Word of God became ‘‘the least of men and, in his passion, the last of all, so that he was not even taken to be of any account.” Nothing better mirrors Guerric’s own humility of spirit than the way he speaks about this subject, whenever it comes up, and there is a corresponding respect for the action of God in the souls of -in

his brethren and his fellow men when, toward the end of the sermon, he explains how the words of our Lady in the moment of her Annunciation apply, not just to him in his maternal office as preacher and abbot, but to each of them individually. ‘‘0 my brethren, this name of mother is not the special prerogative of superiors, though on them particularly falls the duty of maternal care and devotion. It is common to all of you who do the will of the Lord. For all of you are indeed mothers of the Son who is born to you and in you, to 28.

SC 202:404; PL 185:185B.

29. 30.

Ibid.,

SC 166:228 (44C). 190 (34A).

Aelred Squire op

180

the extent to which you have conceived in the fear of the Lord and brought forth the spirit of salvation. Take care, then, holy mother, take care of the new-born child, until Christ be formed in you, who is born to you. For the tinier he is, the more easily he can die to you, who never dies to himself. Since the Spirit is in you, if it is extinguished in you, it returns to God who gave it.”31 Although this doctrine is found in Augustine, since it is almost impossible to avoid it for anyone who weighs the evangelical words, ‘‘My mother and my brothers are those who listen to God’s word and obey it,” it is very much more clearly the pure doctrine of the Eastern Fathers. At the Fourth International Patristic Congress in 1963 I contributed a communication on ‘‘The idea of the soul as Virgin and Mother in Maximus the Confessor,” the contents of which I have no wish to repeat here since the paper was printed in the second volume of the proceedings, published in Berlin in 1966.33 But, in relation to Guerric’s notion that the ‘‘form of all religion” is found in the mystery of the nativity, I should just like to draw attention once again to a text of St John Chrysostom there adduced, in which Chrysostom, with a completely sound sense for the text, insists that St Paul’s words, ‘‘I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you a chaste virgin to Christ,” apply to the whole Church. “For the incorrupt soul is a virgin, though she have a husband.”34 With that as a re¬ minder of how broadly-based this doctrine is, I should prefer to concentrate here on the role of the Holy Spirit in this birth of Christ in the soul, to which Guerric appears to allude in several places. In the Third Sermon for the Purification, for instance, he says that: ‘‘That truth which Christ himself is, which is clothed in the flesh by Mary, in the Church by doctrine, grace offers to our direct embrace by the infusion of 31.

Ibid., 198

32.

Eg., De virg, p. 5.

(38A).

33. Studio Patristica, vol. VIII, part II, ed. F. L. Cross (Berlin, 1966) pp. 456-61. 34. PG 63:201-202.

The Cistercians and the Eastern Fathers

181

the Spirit; though this happens in different ways according to the capacity of the soul that receives it, or the good pleasure of the mercy that gives it.”35 Thus, though second to none in his regard to the prerogatives of our Lady, which it would require a separate paper to discuss, Guerric does not hesitate explicitly to apply titles and phrases commonly associated with her to every soul. ‘‘The soul of any just man is the seat of wisdom.”36‘‘The ivory bodies of the saints are the house of Christ, the clothing of Christ, the members of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit.” And in the second of the Annunciation sermons, where the idea of the soul as virgin and mother is once again explicitly formulated, it is our Lady as type of what ought to occur in every soul that is Guerric’s main preoccupation. ‘‘In us he is a seed, when the sanctifi¬ cation of God blooms upon the progressing soul with the ad¬ mirable beauty of the virtues. And finally, a fruit, when beatitude satisfies the consummated man.”380r, if we wish to see how this pattern of development relates to the imagedoctrine, then we must turn back to the Fifth Sermon on the Purification, where Guerric relates how our transformation ‘‘from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” means progressing from the vision which is by faith to that which is by a mirror and an image, and finally from that which is in the image of a likeness to that which will be in the very truth of the face, or the face of the truth.39 In either case this ultimate fulfillment is the work of the Holy Spirit, who blows where he wills. Of him Guerric says: ‘‘I see by your gift, not one, but countless faithful souls pregnant with this glorious seed: watch over your work, lest any of it miscarry. And you, happy mothers of so splendid a child, care for your¬ selves, until Christ be formed in you.” 40 35.

SC 166:344

(73A).

36.

I in Assump., SC 202:426; PL 185:190C.

37.

I in Annunc., SC 202:118-20; PL 185:118D-119A.

38.

Ibid., 122AB.

39.

SC 166:382

40.

II in Annunc., SC 202:140; PL 185:123C.

(92C).

Aelred Squire op

182

In conclusion, I should like briefly to cite one Eastern mystic, somewhat earlier in time than Guerric, and every bit as difficult to relate to his sources, but who has evidently found his way through a common faith and a common experience into the same tradition. In the first book of his Ethics, chapter 20, St Symeon the New Theologian writes: “The ineffable birth of the Word in the Flesh from his mother is one thing, his spiritual birth in us another. For the first, in giving birth to the Son and Word of God, gave birth to the mystery of the re-forming of the human race and the salvation of the whole world — Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, who reunited to him what had been separated and took away the sin of the world; while the second, in giving birth in the Holy Spirit to the word of the knowledge of God, con¬ tinually accomplishes in our hearts the mystery of the renewal of human souls.’’41 If this impressive doctrine has somehow got lost and for¬ gotten for such a very long time it has doubtless been part of the terrible price that orthodox believers have had to pay for being separated from each other.

Aelred Squire op

Lillehammar, Norway

41.

SC 122:258.

THE DESERT MYTH

Reflections on the desert ideal in early Cistercian monasticism

I

T IS TEMPTING to see the flight to the desert of the early Cistercians as a repetition of the life and ideals of the Desert Fathers in the fourth century. It is claimed that this was first stated by the early Cistercians themselves, and elaborated by later historians of the order. Yet once the statement has been made, there seems to be a pause, a kind of awkwardness, a lack of breath; the idea is not given sub¬ stance, nor does it receive close analysis, though it is clearly an idea very significant and precious among Cistercians; in one way, the present conference is founded on that very assumption, i.e. that the first Cistercians found inspiration in the life of Eastern monasticism and that those of today can do

likewise. It is the purpose of this paper to see upon what foundation this first assumption is based; how far, in fact, did the first Cistercians know anything about Eastern monas¬ ticism and how much did they want to imitate or learn from it? I would like to examine what is said in some early Cis¬ tercian documents about the Desert Fathers (and this without entering into the vexed question of the early Cistercian docu¬ ments themselves); then I would want to see how, if at all, this differed from what was said by their contemporaries; then, how this was elaborated by later writers; and what con¬ tact the Cistercians had with contemporary Eastern monas¬ ticism.

183

184

Benedicta Ward slg

I would then, for the second half of the paper, like to examine a very different kind of material, which seems to me to illustrate both the similarities and the differences between the Desert Fathers and the Cistercians in another way. This last type of material is that contained in the miracle col¬ lections, and it has rarely been the subject of serious his¬ torical study. In some ways this is the very dregs of his¬ torical material, unverifiable by its nature, closer to romance than history, and yet it is here that the atmosphere of the early days can be most clearly caught as it was known to the monks themselves. Their expectations, their standards of holiness, their ideals, are, after all, as important as their charters or their formal theology. What did they look for in a holy man? What images did they use to externalize their temptations? What meaning and significance did they give to miracles? How did they distinguish between a vision and a delusion? Between Augustine and Aquinas there is no known major work on miracles, but medieval life was pervaded by miracle and sign. It was not only simple and uneducated people that were impressed, as the Victorian rationalists supposed; Anselm, the greatest of medieval philosophers, Bernard, the wisest of spiritual guides, Hildebrand, Peter Damian, Hugh of Cluny, all men of outstanding intellect in any age, told each other stories like these: “the bishop of Annecy died and lay all night in a church, ready for burial; at cock-crow the dead man sat up and began to speak. He said he had died and been taken before the judgment seat of God, where he was condemned for his sins; but the Mother of God intervened on his behalf, so that he was allowed to return to the body in order to do penance for his sins.” 1 Peter Damian says he had this from the Cardinal priest Stephen, one of the most able of the papal legates, and he is repeating it in a letter to Desiderius of Monte Cassino, another assiduous collector of miracle stories. Others he had from the venerable Hugh of Cluny. These stories were being exchanged, therefore, by some of the most able and respon1.

Peter Damian, De bono suffragiorum', P. 145:562-3.

The Desert Myth

185

sible people of the day; they cannot be dismissed lightly. Here I would like to draw attention to a few such stories that were told in Cistercian circles, and which seem to show some similarity to Eastern ways of thought, and to be in some sense an expression of that underlying Greek influence which Professor Hamilton has so happily called, quoting William of St Thierry, orientale lumen. It is a common language for experiences held in common, and it is there that I would look for parallels with the experience of the Desert rather than in any direct contact or imitation. First of all, however, what did the Cistercians of the first generation have to say about the desert ideal? According to the Exordium Parvum and the Carta Caritatis, nothing whatever. The Exordium Parvum uses the word heremus to describe the site of the new monastery and says of it: nemoris spinarumque

tunc

temporis

opacitate

accessui

hominum

It was prized because it was inaccessible, because they would be safe there from insolitus a solis inhabitabatur feris.

interference; but their ideal, what they were going there to do was not “to imitate the Fathers of the Desert’’ but to “follow the Rule of St Benedict,” secundum regulam S. Benedicti deo servire cupientibus.

There were two hints here upon which later writers were able to build: one was the Rule of St Benedict. In Chapter 73, de hoc quod non omnis justitiae observation in hac sit regula consitituta, St Benedict recommends those who desire perfection to read, Colltiones Patrum, et Instituta et Vitae eorum, sed et regula sancti patris nostri Basilii. Behind St Benedict lay the Desert tradition, and for those following the Rule faithfully, this was a decisive pointer. Then there was 2.

P. McNulty and B. Hamilton, Orientale Lumen et Magistra Latinitas:

Greek Influences on

Western Monasticism

[900-1100] (Chevetogne, 1963).

Orientale lumen — William of St Thierry, The Golden Letter,

cap. XI; PL

184:33. 3. Exordium Parvum, ed., J. B. van Damme, Documents pro Cisterciensis Ordinis. (Westmalle, 1959) cap. Ill, p. 7.

4.

Ibid., II, p. 6.

5.

Rule of St Benedict, ed., J. McCann (London, 1952) cap. 73. p. 61.

186

Benedicta Ward slg

also the fact that the first Cistercians were following a dif¬ ferent observance of the Rule from that which was customary. They were “new” monks in the “New Monastery,” and the whole point of their break with Molesmes was that they wanted a different kind of observance of the Rule. They would have said they wanted to observe the Rule literaliter, and so convinced were they of this that they could use the word “perjury” of their previous observance.6 But this “new” thing was itself an interpretation; it laid the emphasis in different places, on ideals different from that “discretion” so prized by other monks, and, as the black monks were quick to point out, on ideals scarcely to be found in the Rule at all. The next generation had to justify this, and they turned in the direction St Benedict gave them, to the lives of the Fathers of the Desert, to justify the austerities and sim¬ plicities in their own times. It is with William of St Thierry and St Bernard that the desert comes into the ideology of the Cistercians. They saw the Rule of St Benedict as crystallizing the ideals of an older and purer monasticism and were able to call upon what they knew of it to justify their interpretation of St Benedict. It is significant that it is in the Apology, a work of polemic rather than devotion, that St Bernard refers to the desert: he con¬ trasts the present “slackness” of monks with the desert, quis in principio, cum Ordo coepit monasticus, ad tantam crederet monachos inertiam devenire? 0 quam distamus ab his, qui in

Later, in defence of the austerities of Clairvaux against the dispensations of other monasteries, he says, sic Macarius vixit? Sic Basilius docuit? diebus Antonii exstitere monachi.

Sic Antonius instituit?

Sic Patres

in Aegypto

conversati

sunt?8 This appeal to pre-benedictine monasticism indicates

a new concern: St Bernard goes beyond an exact fulfillment of the letter of the Rule and articulates more clearly a concern 6. Exordium Magnum Cisterciense, ed., Bruno Griesser (Rome, 1961) Book 1, cap. XI, p. 63: manifeste perjurii crimen se scienter incurisse dolendo fatentur.

7.

C. 9; OB 3:96.

8.

Ibid., C. 11; p. 100.

The Desert Myth

187

for an integral and authentic monasticism, appealing to the Fathers beyond St Benedict. It was the austerities of the desert that St Bernard appealed to; and this was the case also with William of St Thierry. In his letter to the brethren of Monte Dei, he sees the Carthusians as introducing the fervor of the Desert Fathers into the West, and it is to them, not the Cistercians, that he is speaking in his references to patres nostri in Aegypto et Thebaida;9 how well justified this was, will be seen later. But in his part of the Vita Prima he used the same language about the early Cistercians: when he first stayed at Clairvaux, mansi autem indignus ego cum eo paucis diebus quocumque oculos vertebam, mirans, quasi coelos me videre novos et terram novam et antiquorum Aegyptiorum monachorum patrum nostrorum antiquas semitas,

et in eis

Of St Bernard himself he says, et primum quidem circa resuscitandum in

nostris temporis hominum recentia vestigia,10

monastico ordine antiquae religionis fervorem}^ the fervor in

fact of the monks of Egypt. Both Bernard and William are speaking about the life lived at Clairvaux under Bernard, and it is fair to see in them a development of the Cistercian ideal. With William there is surely also his special knowledge of and admiration for the hermit ideal among the Desert Fathers to be taken into account. Both are referring to the early monks for the example of their fervor in asceticism and the simplicity of their lives; in particular, manual labor, poverty and austerity are singled out as having their prototypes among the Desert Fathers. There were other sides to the desert monasticism that made no appeal to them or to their successors, and there were developments at Clairvaux and in the whole Order that were very different from the ways of the Thebaid; the whole liturgical life, for instance, and their concept of community, were unknown to the desert; and the whole social background 9. William of St Thierry, Ep frat; PL 184:332-4. 10.

Idem., Vita Prima; PL 185:247.

11.

Ibid.: col. 251.

188

Benedicta Ward slg

of the new Order was unbelievably different from Egypt:

the

phrase, vir eximiae sanctitatis, nobilis quidem genere sed morum nobilior fuitn occurs again and again in descriptions of the early Cistercians; it could never have been used of Macarius the smuggler, Moses the highwayman, or Pachomius, Antony or Amoun. In practical ways, then, the “return to the desert’’ was tentative and selective; in theology the case was different, as other writers will show. In monastic life itself, it was a literary ideology, based on readings in Cassian and the Vita Patrum, as seen through the Rule of St Benedict, and seems to have been brought in by the second generation of Cistercians to support their ideals of a more primitive monasticism than that of St Benedict. These hints were taken up and solidified by the next generation. In the Exordium Magnum Cisterciense we meet the myth of the desert in its full formulation: Conrad of Eberbach traces the fundamental monastic spirit to Jesus Christ and John the Baptist, making i i

#

#

it revolve round the words paenitentiam agite. In Book I, chapter III he traces this spirit to the desert: Antonius, Pachomius, Basilius, are specially mentioned; and after them, Macharius, Paphnutius, Pambo, Ysidorus, and the monas¬ teries of Egypt and the Thebaid. He refers to the “Rule of St Antony,’’ and “Rule of St Pachomius’’ and, more under¬ standably, “the Rule of St Basil,’’ the latter being the only “Rule’’ which he says was written down, scripsit monachorum regulam. The virtures of these monks, he says, was summed up in St Benedict and transmitted by him to the West. This definite statement that the Rule of St Benedict is to be seen in the light of a more primitive monasticism leaves the way free to trace the distinctively “new” Cistercian customs back to the Desert fathers, and to claim their authority for them. To have the best of both worlds, Conrad also inserts a chapter on the Vita Apostolica, the life of the primitive church in Jerusalem, which he tries to fit into the 12.

Exordium Magnum, Bk. 1, cap. XXXII. p. 89.

13.

Exordium Magnum, Bk. 1, cap. 1-5, pp. 48-54.

The Desert Myth

189

scheme of pure monasticism; in using both ideals he is not unique, but the developments of the Cistercians on the one hand and the Augustinians on the other were to prove that these were two very different patterns and not at all the same thing. The other writer who asserts that the primitive ideal of Citeaux was concerned with the desert, right from the beginning, is Ordericus Vitalis. In the third book of the Historia Ecclesiastica, he gives an account of the beginnings of the Cistercian movement and puts this information in the form of a dialogue between Robert and the monks at Molesmes. Vitalis was a monk of St Evroul, a black Bene¬ dictine, writing at the time when feeling between the Orders was beginning to run high, yet he admires the Cistercians, and presents arguments in their favor. He sees Robert as the leader and inspirer of the movement, urging a more primitive form of monasticism, against the arguments for discretion from the other monks at Molesmes. There are other imaginary debates in Vitalis’ History, such as that between William and his chaplain, Samson of Bayeux,14 and there is no reason to believe they are anything other than interesting and lively pieces of writing, reflecting opinions that were current, not accounts of actual dialogues. This would seem to be the case with this passage about the Cistercians: Vitalis is giving a vivid account of a conversation which appears in no known source for Robert or the Cistercians, and presents the ideals and arguments for the Cistercian reform in his own day, putting them into the mouth of the supposed founder. He sees Robert as reading the sources—perscrutatus est15 —the Rule of St Benedict and aliorum sanctorum documentes Patrum perspectis, and then exhorting his monks thus: manibus nostris

non

laboramus,

ut

sanctos Patres fuisse

legimus...legite sanctorum Antonii, Macarii, Pacomii, et ante omnes aliis, doctoris gentium, Pauli apostoli.

It is manual

14. Ordericus Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica, ed., Marjorie Chibnall, Oxford Medieval Texts (1972) vol. Ill, bk. IV, p. 300-302. 15.

Ibid., Part III, bk. 8, cap. XXV; PL 188:637.

Benedicta Ward slg

190

work in particular that he is shown as choosing out of the early monastic customs. In reply, Vitalis sees the monks giving two kinds of answers, both common-place in Benedic¬ tine polemic of his day: first, the ways of St Benedict and other abbots were approved by God by miracles and signs, quorum

vita

refulsit,16

evidentibus

miraculis

insignita

manifeste

quorum santitatem Deo placitam in vita et post

and secondly, that the Egyptian monks acted as they did from necessity, in a barbarous and non-Christian situation; to which Robert is said to have replied, inimitabilem Aegyptiorum Patrum vitam ad informahumationem refulsit;

tionem commemoro. exactio

imo

Sed inde nulla nobis violenta imponitur

salubris

proponitur

persuasio,

verum

ad

tenendam per omnia Sancti Benedicti Regulam vos invito. 17 Paulus

et Antonius

expetierunt, construxerunt,

et

in

aliique plures,

qui primitus

abditis

locis

timore

deserti

paganorum...illuc

eremum

monasteria complusi,

sibi

arctam

nimis vitam elegerunt, et cooperante gratia Dei, necessitatem

The role that Vitalis assigns to Robert is at best controversial, and the references to the desert do not agree with any other early Cistercian account of the beginnings. It is perhaps useful to cite here another account by a contemporary of Vitalis of the same matter, to see how differently two writers handled it, according to their own ideals. In the Gesta Regum Anglorum, William of Mal¬ mesbury describes the early Cistercians,18 and here the hero is Stephen Harding, noster puer, and the example of the desert finds no mention. He records only that monks were appointed to examine the Rule, ita duo fratres electi, in in voluntatem transmutaverunt.

quibus scientia literarum cum religione quadraret, qui, vicaria collatione, auctoris regulae voluntatem inquirerent, inquisitam aliis proponerent.

It seems, therefore, that the connection of early Citeaux with the ideals of the desert was a myth which grew up in the 16. Ibid. 17.

Ibid.

18.

William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum. IV; PL 179:1287.

The Desert Myth

second and third generations of the life of the Order.

191 What

connection there was came through the Rule of St Benedict and literary sources such as the Vita Patrum and the Con¬ ferences and Institutes of Cassian.

It is worth noticing, in passing, that the Vita Patrum, along with miracle stories of all kinds, formed the staple of instruction in the Cistercian novitiate, if we are to believe the stories about Achard, who was novice master at Clairvaux, and the statements of Caesar of Heisterbach at the beginning of the Dialogus Miraculorum. It remains to see if the first Cistercians had any knowledge of contemporary Greek monasticism. It seems probable, it seems almost inevitable, that they knew of the Greek monastic foundation of St Nilus; that they had met and talked with Greek monks in Italy; but evidence of this is wholly lacking. Much could be said about the emigrant Greek monks, individuals and communities, who had settled in the West in the previous century. Symeon of Trier, for instance, was a monk from Mount Sinai, who settled at Trier in the early eleventh century, edifying all by his complete enclosure, his long fasts, great austerities, and his combat with demons — per noctis enim audiebat rugitus leonum, ululatus luporum, grunnitus porcorum, cetetarumque duras infestiones ferarum19— in the best tradition of the

Thebaid. Constantine, quid monachus Graecus, settled at Malmesbury in 1030 and planted a vineyard there — cibi Like Symeon, he was renowned for manual work, silence, fasting and prayer. The West was made aware of the austere traditions of Eastern monasticism through such men, but their connection with Citeaux has not yet been proved, and by the twelfth century sobrius, potus parci et paene nullius.

this kind of contact was very greatly reduced. There is one reference in the Exordium Magnum Cisterciense which shows the kind of hearsay knowledge current in the West in the twelfth century about Greek mon19.

“Symeon of Trier,” Acta Sanctorum, 1 June, 88-101.

20.

William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum, ed., N. E. S. A. Hamilton

(Cambridge, 1870) V. 415-6.

192

Benedicta Ward slg

asticism: Conrad quotes Anselm of Havelburg,21 a friend of St Bernard, and his observations of monasticism when he visited Constantinople. In the Dialogues written later, he claimed to have seen nearly 500 monks living according to the Rule of St Pachomius at Philanthropou, 700 monks at Pantocrator, under the Rule of St Antony, and vidi quamplures congregationis sub regula beati Basilii Magni. Although Anselm claims to be avidus explorator et diligens inquisitor diversarum religionum,22 doubt has been cast upon his accuracy. The numbers seems greatly exaggerated, eighty being more possible for Pantocrator, and forty at most at Philanthropou. But his main impression is clearly of a great many monks living a devout life in great monasteries, and Conrad of Eberbach quotes him as evidence of the continuity of the desert ideal to the present day. It is an exaggerated and confused impression that emerges, of a wide-spread and venerable kind of monastic life, no distinction being made between eremitic and cenobitic life, associated with great names, and seen through the Rule of St Benedict. The appeal is to something that seemed to the Cistercians very like the kind of life they were themselves evolving, and, uncritically, they claimed their reform as a return to this more primitive monasticism. 'y'l

There were other “new” Orders at the beginning of the twelfth century that also claimed the Desert Fathers as their predecessors. St John Gualbert and St Romuald saw their hermit foundations in this light, and St Romuald, says Peter Damian, deliberately modelled his practices in fasting and vigils on what he read in the Vita Patrum.24 St Bruno’s bio¬ grapher also says that he took the Desert Fathers as his example in very practical ways, et exemplo beati Pauli eremitae, 21.

beatorum Antonii,

Arsenii,

Evagrii,

aliorumque

Exordium Magnum, Bk. 1, cap. Ill, p. 51.

22. Anselm of Havelburg, Dialogues, ed., Gaston Salet (Paris: Bk. 1, p. 101. 23.

Ibid., See note on p. 101; ref. to R. Janin, Le Siege de Constantinople

et le Patriacat Oecumenique t. Ill, Les

Eglises

et les monasteres, p. 503,

540. 24.

Cerf, 1966)

Peter Damian, Vita S Romualdi, cap. 8; PL 144:962-3.

The Desert Myth

193

sanctorum cum beato Joanne Baptisto antra deserti quaera-

William of St Thierry, as has been noticed, saw the Carthusians as fulfilling the ideals of the desert in a special way, and this ideal of hermit life seems in fact much closer to the desert than that at Citeaux. It was, it would seem, common practice in the twelfth century, to claim the Desert Fathers as the example for changes in monasticism, as belonging to a purer form of monasticism, to which the Rule of St Benedict was the ante¬ chamber. But there is another way in which the early Cistercians mus in montibus nos salvos faciemus.

were in fact closer to the desert than in actual imitation or contact. The evidence of the miracle collections and the stories told about the first Fathers of Citeaux point to a deep similarity of experience and understanding. There were hermits among the early Cistercians whose austerities and experiences recall the life of the Thebaid. Peter Tolasano,

for instance, habitavit in solitudine ieiuniis et laboribus multis and faced the attack of demons: of innumera bella temptationum a spiritibus maliginis. There was also the hermit William,27 who was visited by an angel disguised as a pilgrim, who came to rebuke him for breaking his fast. And here is the first instance I want to give of the difference between the stories of the Thebaid and those of Citeaux, as well as noticing their similarity: the story of an angel visiting a hermit to correct him for breaking his fast sounds like a typical story of the desert, but in two important respects it differs. First, any Desert Father would have inquired very closely indeed into the credentials of an angel;28 and secondly, the desert rule was to place hospitality and charity before rules of fasting, eating cheerfully with guests. The changes in this Cistercian version of the story seem to be 25.

Vita Antiquior. PL 152: 484-5.

26..

Exordium Magnum, Bk. 3, cap. XV. p. 180.

27.

Ibid., cap. XVI. p. 183.

28.

Apophthegmata Patrum. Abba Zacharius; PG 65:336.

29.

Ibid.. Abba Poemen. col. 457.

194

Benedicta Ward slg

due to a concern to prove the divine approval of both the fast and the Cistercian-hermit life, by the rebuke and by the visit itself. The theme of temptation which occurs with these hermits is more wide spread in the accounts of the Cistercians than is the theme of their solitude; devils and the conflict with demons is a main theme throughout the Exordium Magnum and the Dialogus Miraculorum. In this the Cistercians were in the desert tradition. The withdrawal of the Desert Fathers had not been simply a flight from the unattractive conditions of late Roman society, and the Cistercian withdrawal was more than a flight from ecclesiastical interference. The Great Old Men of the fourth century saw themselves going into a desert crowded with demons, with whom they were to do battle. The Desert Father was the heir of the martyrs, the warrior of Christ, engaged in unseen warfare. At Cluny, Peter the Venerable30 described the corporate monastic life in just these terms, and it is a recurring theme in monastic literature, East and West. Cassian, St Benedict, St Gregory, all thought of the monk as the spearhead of resistance in supernatural conflict, and this imagery is there in the Cister¬ cians. The outcome of the conflict is, naturally, assured, but the battles have to be fought. Quisquis ad aetemum cupiens pertingere

vitam

/

Currere

felicem

monachi

contendis

O 1

begins the verse preface Magnum, and this agon was no other than When St Bernard brought a repentant back to Clairvaux, it was for diutumo agonem,

to the Exordium the agon of Christ. thief, Constantius, cruciatu

et

morte

longissima mori...cruci affixum per annos plurimos faciam in poena iugiter vivere et pendere

This similarity with the desert cannot be pressed too far. The conflict with devils, the noises, attacks, delusions, temp¬ tations of the desert had been the common heritage of Europe since Athanasius published his Life of St Antony. There is 30.

Peter the Venerable, de Miraculis, cap. 12; PL 189:876.

31.

Exordium Magnum, Prologus, “Sequentis Operis Versifice,” p. 45.

32.

Ibid., Bk. II, cap. XV. p. 109.

The Desert Myth

195

hardly a saint in medieval Europe whose temptations and battles with the devil are not modelled on those of St Antony. The idea of the monk as a holy man who had special powers, both against the demons and with God, the one who could claim access to the divine, is not a Cistercian discovery. Men had lived under the shadow of the Last Judgment for cen¬ turies and knew what they looked for in a holy man. Perhaps the significant difference here is that with the Cistercians, although they revered the great men who did battle in that way, it was predominantly the Order and not the individual that saved. To remain in the Order assured salvation, to leave it was apostasy; to belong to it gave you access to God and power over the demons at death; to make light of its least customs was perilous; to keep them in humility and obedience was a sure way to heaven. Not the great individual fast, the feat of endurance, but the rule of abstinence from flesh meat, the custom of not eating after the grace at meals — these were the things that counted at Citeaux. As at Cluny, it is the ordered round of the monastery that keeps the devil at bay. The authority of the Life of St Antony was parallelled for them by another book, the Dialogues of St Gregory, with its accounts of holy men and miracles in Italy. Very close to the Eastern understanding of such things, it is nonetheless the miracle book of the Black Benedictines. It showed, in the miracles of St Benedict, God’s approval of their way of life. There can be no doubt that a desire to emulate this lay behind the books of miracles produced by the Cistercians. They saw miracles as divine confirmation of their way of life, and with the example of St Antony and St Benedict, and behind them the vast authority of the Bible miracles, they had the pattern that formed their expectations. They had already read what happened when God approved of a way of life. They knew God would approve of them, and they looked for the signs. The whole way of life at Clairvaux especially made for miracles: the plain white-washed walls, the lack of exterior ornament, the concentration on the inner life, dead-

196

Benedicta Ward slg

ened the senses to the commonplace and made the monks, especially the unlettered lay brothers, unusually aware of the strange or peculiar circumstance. A presentiment, a coincidence, a ray of sunlight in an unusual place, might suggest a miracle for which there were a dozen parallels. Angels walked with St Benedict, and they filled the choir at Clairvaux: cum ymnus Te Deum Laudamus cantaretur, vidit sanctos angelos multa claritate fulgentes,

...qui utrumque

chorum percurrentes modo hunc, modo ilium excitabant.

But here, in the details of this last miracle, is another major difference between Citeaux and the desert: the litur¬ gical life. The Desert Fathers scorned it: “It belongs to monks to weep,’’ they said, and kept to their cells with the psalter. At Citeaux, it was central. Many miracles show the divine approval of the choir, and the immense importance of the night office. Again, the place of the Eucharist was very different, and another miracle illustrates both the likeness and the differences: Symeon of Trier represents the authentic Eastern tradition in his dream: a devil appeared to him as an angel and tried to persuade him to celebrate Mass; the saint refused and held the whole matter to be a diabolic suggestion — he dispersed the vision by prayer and the sign of the cross.34 But when the lay brother, Walter, at Clairvaux dreamed, he was sure it was an angel who spoke to him, and he learned the Mass of the Holy Spirit from him in his sleep. Moreover he still knew the words when he awoke, to the edification of all. Another lay brother similarly learned to read Latin in his sleep.36 Clearly, the expectations and desires of the Cistercians were not those of the desert: liturgy, learn¬ ing, and priesthood are revealed in these stories as desirable goals, not temptations of the demons. Lastly, what did the Cistercians expect of a holy man? In the Desert, this was quite clear: he was the athlete of Christ, the one who was near to God by the whole conduct of his life, 33.

Ibid., cap. IV. p. 101.

34. 35. 36.

Exordium Magnum. Bk. IV, cap. XV, p. 240.

Symeon of Trier, op. cit., cap. 7, col. 90. Ibid., Cap. XVII. p. 242.

The Desert Myth

197

and especially by his humility and prayer. This was true also at Citeaux. The theology of transfiguration, of the restoration of the image of God, will be dealt with in other papers; here it is sufficient to notice that it colored the miracle stories of the holy men. Fastrad, abbot of Citeaux, was seen to be so filled with the Holy Spirit that vultu angelico radiabat ut vix posset fidelium

aliquis

desiderabili

eius

aspectu

satiari,

praesertim qui puritatem animi eius et sinularitem manseutudinem cogitabant quam in exteriori homine velut in proprio

St Bernard seems to see this transfiguration as the ground of the power to work miracles. It is to him a part of manhood redeemed by Christ, rather than a working of divine power in itself. sigillo divinitus

impressam

esse cemebant.37

This at least seems to me to be the meaning of his words to Anselm of Havelburg, who asked him to cure him, si eadem haberes fidem quam habent mulierculae, posset tibi,38 and his insistence, when his message to sick persons “come and I will cure you” was changed by the messengers to “come and God will cure you through me,’’ that the first version was correct. 39 Bernard himself was a thaumaturge, a holy man with power to heal sickness of body and to cast out demons. Such powers were attributed to some of the Desert Fathers likewise, and although in this Bernard was not typical of the early Cistercians, in himself he stands in the desert tradition in this respect. What is more general, however, is his attitude to miracles, which is in line both with the teaching of the desert monks and the rest of his own Order. Miracles were, according to Cassian, second class; they were not the primary thing. “We should not ask of a man whether devils are subject unto him, but whether he possesses love;’’ 40 and that was Bernard’s own teaching: only three things were worthy of wonder, deus et homo, mater et virgo, fides et cor 37.

Ibid., Bk. 1, cap. XXXII. p. 91.

38.

Vita Prima; PL 185:384.

39.

Ibid., col. 356.

40.

Cassian, Collationes XV, cap. VII.

198

Benedicta Ward slg

humanum.41

In his account of St Malachy of Armagh, he

extols Malachy’s virtues,

and then says,

quidne

coelitus

missa crederentur quae tot caelestia conjlrmant miracula?

et

ut fidem dictis faciam, perstringam nonnulla paucis. 42 The miracle, the sign, is secondary; conversion of heart is first; the signs follow where this is indeed true. Bernard himself was also in the tradition of the desert by his insight into souls, which was so great it seemed miraculous. Also, like Antony, he was called into the Councils of the Church to combat heresy, and his place in politics is essentially that of a holy man, an outsider, and therefore an arbitrator, though it must be said that his actual participation in Church affairs far exceeded that of any desert saint.

It remains to ask, what of ourselves? The relationship between the monasticism of the desert and early Cistercian monasticism seems to present both differences and similar¬ ities. The Cistercians do not, either in a formal way or in the ways of inspiration, seem to have copied the desert. They found in it rather a familiar way of thinking and acting, a sense of friendship and similar thinking. They adapted their own ways to the demands of their own culture realistically, and in no spirit of archaism, yet the desert myth remained with them: demons, angels, cures, dreams, signs and wonders, tales that could have been told in Egypt or in Clairvaux. Some of the tales came directly from the East, of course, and were generally known in Europe long before the Cistericans, especially in the Mary miracles. Others seems to show a family likeness between Clairvaux and the Thebaid. The Fathers in both places would have been unsurprised; they would perhaps have said, “Where the life is truly lived, these are the signs that will follow.” And is that perhaps the question they would still ask today: you have shown us your

41.

Sermo in nativitate Domini 3, OB 4:257-262.

42.

Vita S. Malachi, cp. 6; OB 3:314.

The Desert Myth

199

ideas, your methods, your theology; now show us your signs from the Lord?

Benedicta Ward slg

St Anne’s College Oxford

PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS AND THE EARLY CISTERCIANS

T

IO WRITE ABOUT the influence of the Pseudo-Dionysius upon the twelfth-century Cistercians is to invite difficul¬

ties. Controversy still rages over the date and the author¬ ship of the works ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite.1 dis¬ agreements are many over their interpretation.2 Even if one could arrive at some consensus regarding the meaning of the corpus Dionysiacum, or Areopagiticum, the problem of the extent of its influence on the writings of the Cistercians would still remain. Subsequent investigators should be pre¬ pared to tread with hesitancy when a scholar of the caliber of Etienne Gilson admitted: “The influence exerted on Cistercian mysticism by Dionysius is very difficult to estimate.’’ 3 Nevertheless, much work has been done over the past gen¬ eration both on the interpretation of the Dionysian writings 1.

These writings include the treatises De divinis nominibus (DN), De

mystica

theologia

(MT),

De

ecclesiastica

hierarchia (CH), and ten Epistolae.

hierarchia

(EH),

De

caelesti

There are other Dionysian writings

referred to in the course of these works, but they appear to be for the most part fictitious. 2.

For a brief summary of the problem,

Christianas:

see E. von

Ivanka. Plato

Ubernahme und Umgestaltung des Platonismus durch die Vdter

(Einsiedeln, 1964) pp. 244-5. 3.

The Mystical Theology of St Bernard (London, 1940) p. 25.

200

201

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

and on their importance in the twelfth century.

This paper

will attempt to summarize the present state of the question rather than to open up new lines of investigation. Given the topic of the present Conference, and the importance of the Dionysian corpus to the Orthodox tradition,4 such a purpose may not be without significance. The question of the influence of the Pseudo-Dionysius on the early Cistercians will be approached in three stages. First, a brief look at current opinion on the authorship, date, and interpretation of the corpus Areopagiticum; second, a survey of the history of the corpus in the early Middle Ages. Finally, the central question of the relation between the Dionysian writings and the twelfth-century Cistercian authors will be discussed. Dionysian Studies:

The Current Picture

Though doubts had been expressed for centuries about the post-apostolic date and authorship of the corpus Dionysiacum — supposedly the product of the pen of Paul’s Athenian con¬ vert-it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that the research of P. Stiglmayer and H. Koch compelled an abandonment of attempts to date the works to the late first or early second century AD. These scholars showed the dependence of certain sections of the corpus on the writings of the Neoplatonic philosopher Proclus (t 480 AD), 5 and thus argued for a late fifth-century date. The suggestion was corroborated by the fact that the first explicit citation of the works comes from the early sixth century.6 Stiglmayer’s sup4.

In this connection, cf. the work of V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of

the Eastern Church (Cambridge and London, 1957) pp. 23-33; and The Vision of God (London, 1963) pp. 104-5.

5.

Notably the treatment of evil in DN IV, 18-35.

Neuplatoniker Proclus als Vorlage des sogen.

Cf. J. Stiglmayer, “Der

Dionysius Areopagita in der

Lehre vom Uebel,” Historisches Jahrbuch 16 (1895) 253-73; 721-48; and H. Koch,

“Proklus als

Quelle

des

Pseudo-Dionysius

Areopagita in

seinen

Beziehungen zum Neuplatonismus und Mysterienwesen,” Forschungen zur christlichen Literatur-und Dogmengeschichte. I. Bd. 2-3 (Mainz, 1900).

6.

See R. Roques, “La question dionysienne,” in Structures theologiques

de la gnose a Richard de St Victor (Paris, 1963) p. 73.

202

Bernard McGinn

position that the Monophysite Severus of Antioch (d. 538) was the author did not meet with much success. Not all twen¬ tieth-century scholars have agreed with a late fifth-century dating, however; some continue to place the origin of the works as early as the late second or early third century,7 and others see them as fitting in the theological milieu of the fourth century.8 The most important recent studies, though, tend to agree with the late fifth-early sixth century date; 9 and have on the whole rejected attempts to link the corpus with any of the Monophysite authors of the period.10 Peculiarities of the liturgy discussed in the EH may indicate an origin in Syria. Disagreement concerning the interpretation of the Diony¬ sian writings has not abated over the last generation. For fifteen centuries the Pseudo-Dionysius enjoyed an almost canonical status for many Christians.11 The demonstration of his dependence on late Neoplatonism induced a reaction which has seen in the corpus Dionysiacum little more than a pagan natural theology masquerading as Christian.12 Though there are some who still adhere to this position, much recent scholarship, both Eastern and Western, has tended to view such a judgement as misleading and incorrect. However one 7. E. Elorduy thinks that the Alexandrinian philosopher Ammonius Saccas may be the author, while Msgr. Athenagoras holds that Dionysius the bishop of Alexandria was responsible. pp. 74-91. 8.

For a survey of views, cf. Roques, op. cit.,

E.g., C. Pera, “Denys le mystique et la Theomachia," Revue des

sciences philosophiques et theologiques 25 (1936) 5-75.

He thought the

corpus originated in the circle of Basil of Caesarea.

9. E.g., Roques, op. cit., pp. 89-91; E. von Ivanka, op. cit., pp. 252-4; and E. Corsini, “La questione areopagitica.

Contributi alia cronologia dello

Pseudo-Dionigi,” Atti della Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filologiche 93 (1959) 128-227.

Classe di

10.

Such as Severus of Antioch, Peter the Iberian, and Peter the Fuller.

11.

There were, of course, notable exceptions to this.

See Martin Luther,

The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, under “Ordination.”

12.

This view is perhaps best represented in recent times by J. Vanneste,

Le mystere de Dieu.

Essai sur la structure rationelle de la doctrine mystique

du Ps.-Denys TAreopagite (Brussels, 1959)

pp. 21, 221.

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

203

may evaluate the depth of the influence of Neoplatonism on the Dionysian corpus, it does seem that the thought of Dionysius is much more than a disguised pagan philosophy. As V. Lossky puts it, Dionysius was “...a theologian very much aware of his task, which was to conquer the ground held by Neoplatonism by becoming the master of its philoso¬ phical method.”13 Many investigators would agree, at least to the extent that the Dionysian writings are partly a polemic against Neoplatonism.14 One way to sketch the disputes that still divide the inter¬ preters of the thought of the Pseudo-Dionysius is under the threefold division of the divine nature considered in itself (Movr[) the divine nature as the cause of all things (updo 60s), and the divine nature as the goal of all things(! uicrTpocprjl. The division itself is, of course, Neoplatonic—the triad was known and used by both pagan and Christian in the late Classical period.15 There are significant differences in current scholarship concerning the interpretation of each of these areas. God as he is in himself is utterly unknowable, beyond botn affirmation and negation (MT III,V; DN XIII,3). While the Pseudo-Dionysius is depending here upon the ancient Hellenic tradition of negative theology, his insistence that God transcends all human modes of predication is charac¬ teristic and has been described as a distinctive transformation of the Greek heritage.16 As H. Puech has shown, the images of divine darkness and cloud under which Dionysius presents this transcendence (e.g. MT I) are Christian in origin and

13.

The Vision of God, pp. 99-100.

14.

E.g., von Ivanka, “La signification historique du corpus areopagiti-

cum’," Recherches des sciences religieuses 36 (1949), 15-8, and 19-23; Plato Christianus,

251-3, and 285;

I.

P.

Sheldon-Williams in The Cambridge

History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge, 1967) p.

473; E. Corsini, op. cit., pp. 184-8; and R. Roques, op. cit., p. 71, note 1. 15.

Sheldon-Williams, The Cambridge History, 430-1.

16.

As recognized by Sheldon-Williams in his Iohannis Scotti Eriugenae

Periphyseon.

Liber Primus (Dublin, 1968) p. 232.

Bernard McGinn

204

imply a critique of late Classical paganism.17 The treatise entitled The Divine Names, the central work of the Dionysian corpus, is an intricate survey of the variety of predicates that both pagan and Christian tradition had used to describe God. While ostensibly basing itself upon Scripture alone (DN 1,1), E. von Ivanka has shown that the book is a reinterpretation of a rich mine of sources.18 Dionysius is insistent throughout on the priority of negative over positive theology, but also on the ultimate limitations of the negative way itself. The Mystical Theology is his attempt to describe the indescribable, the mystical union with God that lies beyond all affirmation and negation. Several important points raised by The Divine Names are illustrative of the continuing quarrels over Dionysius’s views!9 After his survey of the kinds of terms that may be predicated of God, Dionysius seems to give priority to the term of unity or The One ( toev ) in the final chapter of the DN. Never¬ theless, as DN XIII, 3 makes clear, unity is still an appellation of positive, or cataphatic, theology, and hence not a true predicate of the superessential Godhead. The text also seems to belie the claim of Lossky that the name “Trinity” is superior to the name “One,”20for both terms suffer from the same limitations.21 This view is enhanced by a look at the careful discussion of the dialectic of undifferentiated and differentiated terms in chapter II. Undifferentiated terms (such as Trinity) are predicated of the entire Godhead; dif¬ ferentiated terms (such as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) of the individual Persons (II, 3-4). 17.

“La tenebre

There are two kinds of dif-

mystique chez Pseudo-Denys l'Areopagite et dans la

tradition patristique,” Etudes Carmelitaines 23 (1938) 42-5. 18.

Plato Christianus, pp. 230-42.

19.

The corpus Diotiysiacum is to be found in J. P. Migne, Patrologia

graeca 3; but since the major concern of this paper will be with the effect of

the Latin translations of the Pseudo-Dionysius in the West,

I will cite

throughout the invaluable edition of the Greek text and Latin versions collected by P. Chevallier in his Dionysiaca, 2 vols. (Paris, 1937-49). 20.

The Mystical Theology, p. 31; The Vision of God, p. 101.

21.

Dionysiaca 1, 551-2.

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

ferentiation or distinction (StccKpicrts)

205

in the divine nature:

the differentiation in the superessential God recognized in the orthodox doctrine of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and the differentiation “...which is that pouring out of goodness whereby the divine unity in a supereminently unified way communicates and multiplies itself through goodness” (II,5)22 Dionysius is most interested in showing that that even in this second form of differentiation the divine nature does not lose the unity that lies beyond all unity (II, 11). Can we, as V. Lossky claims, find the later Palamite doctrine of the distinc¬ tion of the divine energies from the unknowable essence in the two kinds of differentiations mentioned by the Pseudo23 J Dionysius? E. von Ivanka, on the basis of DN II, 11, claims not, since the Palamite divine energies, by constituting a separate ontological sphere between the essence of God and created being, contradict Dionysius’s claim that the divine unity is not lost in the differentiations.24 Similar problems crop up in the interpretations of the Dionysian view of God as the efficient cause of being,Trpoo 6o 5, Recently, several important studies have concluded that in the corpus Areopagiticum the Christian doctrine of creation overcomes Neoplatonic emanationism. As von Ivanka shows, 22.

. . . q ayoc6o TTpeTrfij ttpoo 60s TnS EVWCT6COS TT]S ©El aS> EOCUTTIV

ayOtBoTTITl

U7TEpr|VCOp£VCDS

uAr|0u6uOT|S

te kou tto A A ottA acriaip ucrr|S"

[Dionysiaca I, 85].

23.

The Mystical Theology, pp. 72-3, 220; The Vision of God, pp. 101-2.

24.

“La signification historique...,” pp. 23-4.

On the relation between

Gregory Palamas and the Pseudo-Dionysius it is important to note the caution expressed by J. Meyendorff, “Notre travail sur les oeuvres inedites de

St Gregoire Palamas nous conduisent a affirmer que, sur

plusieurs

points, le docteur hesychaste a formellement contredit Denys, ou, tout au moins, a adopte un point de vue qui diminuait beaucoup l’importance de l'Areopagite dans la structure de sa propre pensee.”

Cf.

l’influence

II

dionysienne

en

Orient,”

Studia

Patristica

“Notes sur (Texte

und

Untersuchungen 63 [1957]), p. 549.

25. E.g., von Ivanka, Plato Christianus, pp. 258-9, 261, 284-5; Lossky, The Vision of God, pp. 102-3; and Sheldon-Williams, The Cambridge History, p.

471-2.

206

Bernard McGinn

there is no plurality of causes in the Pseudo-Dionysius— God causes all things directly without intervening agent (CH VII, 4)26 The different levels of being participate in divinity according to the “analogy” proper to each; 27 the individual beings in the hierarchies are called upon to cooperate directly with God. 28 The notion of hierarchy (CH III) and the description of the various levels of the hierarchical universe and their functions are central to the thought of the Pseudo-Dionysius and among his most important contributions to the history of Christian thought.29 Although there are still controversies about aspects of the notion of hierarchy in Dionysius, the study by R. Roques, L'univers dionysienne. Structure hierarchique du monde selon le Pseudo-Denys (Paris, 1954) provides a secure

guide to this complex area. E. von Ivanka mitigates the im¬ portance of hierarchy in Dionysius too much when he claims that though the knowledge of the hierarchies is present in the corpus, it is empty of content and therefore not significant. 30 Certainly, though union with God takes place in a break¬ through of love (specs )beyond all hierarchy and knowledge,81 the ontological and epistemological aspects of man’s ascent through the hierarchies is a most significant preparation for this ultimate union — salvation is the reconstitution of the hierarchical order lost through sin, and hence the role of hierarchy cannot be gainsaid.32 26.

"La signification historique...,” pp. 15-6.

27.

Cf., V. Lossky, "La notion des ‘analogies’ chez Denys le Areopagite,”

Archives d’histoire doctrinal et litteraire du moyen age 5 (1930) 279-309.

28.

von Ivanka, “La signification historique...,” pp. 16-7.

29.

For a brief description of the three hierarchies,

the Legal, the

Ecclesiastical, and the Celestial, consult Sheldon-Williams, The Cambridge History, pp. 463-6. 30.

For von Ivanka this emptiness is due to the fact that the content of

hierarchical knowledge depends upon the rejected emanation theory of the relation of God and other beings (Plato Christianus, pp. 275-7, 284-5); but this assertion is never really proven. 31.

Ibid., 280-3.

32. R. Roques, L'univers dionysien, pp. 101-11; Structures theologiques pp. 162-3, 236; and J. Meyendorff, op. cit., pp. 550-1.

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

207

The notion of updo So s, the creative procession of the hier¬ archical universe from God, involves the correlative move¬ ment, the return of all things to him, or siricttpo cprf. The des¬ cription that the corpus Dionysiacum gives of the process of return is heavily dependent on Neoplatonism, but once again there are far-reaching transformations of the philosophical categories. Theurgy, or the manipulation of power inherent in sensible objects for purposes of ascent to the gods, was quite popular in late Neoplatonism. For the PseudoDionysius the process by which man is drawn above (avayoysiv) by God begins from and makes use of material symbols in a manner perhaps reminiscent of Neoplatonic theurgy, but without any materialistic and magical overtones. The dialectical law that governs the ascent is that of the priority of negation — since nothing is like God, dissimilar symbols are to be preferred to similar ones (CH II), just as negative terms surpass positive ones when man transcends sense experience to attain the level of reason (CH III,3) 34 Finally, the Christian roots of the Dionysian doctrine of ecstasy and contemplation have been much discussed in recent studies. Dionysian ecstasy is a going beyond being, a union (Vvcoais ) with God that is a new and dynamic state, similar to the doctrine of the vision of God in Gregory of Nyssa rather than the Neoplatonic teaching concerning the soul’s recognition of its original home.35 W. Volker in his study Kontemplation und Ekstase bei Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita (Wiesbaden, 1958) has presented a strong argument for the Christian character of the Dionysian doctrine of contemplation and has attempted to show its roots 33.

On the influence of theurgy, cf. Sheldon-Williams, The Cambridge

History, pp. 458-9.

34. There are thus five functions, or divisions, of theology for the Pseudo-Dionysius: symbolic theology, divided into positive and negative, cataphatic, or positive rational theology; apophatic, or negative rational theology;

and

mystical

theology.

Cf.

R.

Roques,

Les

theologies

dionysiennes,” Structures theologiques, 135-50. 35. Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 29-31, 37-8. It should be pointed out that Lossky’s characterization of Plotinian ecstasy as a purely intellectual exercise (p. 38) is misleading, cf. Enn. VI, 7, 34-6.

Bernard McGinn

208

in the earlier Patristic tradition.36 Pseudo-Dionysius in the Early Middle Ages

It is clear, even from a superficial survey, that Dionysian studies are an area of lively debate. Although it seems true to say that the corpus Areopagiticum is more than pagan philosophy in Christian garb, from the beginning of its history there have been those who have felt uncomfortable with the strongly Neoplatonic cast of the corpus,37 The Dionysian problem began not in the nineteenth, nor in the sixteenth, but in the sixth century. In the East the Dionysian writings rapidly became the sub¬ ject of commentaries and scholia designed to elucidate the problems of the text and to defend its orthodoxy. The most important of these were written by John of Scythopolis in the sixth century, Maximus the Confessor in the seventh, and Germanus of Constantinople in the eighth. Though it was under the name of Maximus that standard scholia were popu¬ larized and came to form a constant companion to the text, it seems that most of the explanatory material really goes back to John of Scythopolis.39 The influence of the Pseudo-Dionysius upon Orthodox theology is too complex to attempt any sketch here: our pur¬ pose is rather to follow the channels of communication 36.

Cf.,

the

evaluation

of

Volker's

thesis

by

Roques,

Structures

theologiques, pp. 226-40.

37. For von Ivanka (Plato Christianus, pp. 288-9) the Pseudo-Dionysius could work in favor of extreme Hellenization because the Neoplatonic elements coordinated and transformed in the corpus were frequently under¬ stood in isolated fashion by later authors. Sheldon-Williams, with more jus¬ tice, finds an internal reason, “...the ambiguities of the ps.-Dionysius are the symptoms of a tension between Christianism and Platonism that was nearing the breaking point." (Cambridge History, p. 473). 38. 39.

Sheldon-Williams, The Cambridge History, p. 474. For these scholia, cf. PG 4:14-432, 527-76. Important studies are those

of H. Urs von Balthazar, “Das Scholienwerk des Johannes von Scythopolis,” Scholastik 15 (1940) 16-38; and Sheldon-Williams, The Cambridge History,

pp. 474-6. 40. For a survey, cf. “Denys l'Areopagite. IV. Influence du Pseudo-Denys en Orient,” DS 3 (Paris, 1957), pp. 286-318.

209

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

through which the twelfth-century Cistercians came into con¬ tact with the Areopagite. Making use of the material gathered and studied by P. Chevallier,41 it is not difficult to summarize the dissemination of the corpus Dionysiacum prior to the twelfth century. Pope Gregory I, who had been apocrisiarius or legate to Constantinople (579-85), was responsible for bringing a Greek codex of the Dionysian writings back to Rome. Besides influencing Gregory, especially in his doctrine of the angels, the corpus was cited in papal synods and letters a number of times in the seventh and eighth centuries.42 The growing alliance of the Papacy and the Frankish King¬ dom in the eighth century, and the fact that tradition had elevated Dionysius the Areopagite to the position of the first bishop of Paris and a particular patron of the Frankish King¬ dom,43 initiated a decisive phase in Dionysian influence in the West. Pope Paul I had sent a copy of the corpus to Pepin the Short in 758,44 but it was the codex of the Dionysian writings sent to Louis the Pious in 827 by the Byzantine Emperor Michael the Stammerer (Paris, Bibl.nat.ms.gr. 437) that stands at the head of western Dionysianism. Hilduin, the abbot of the monastery of St Denis, founded on the supposed site of the martyr’s grave, attempted a translation; but the result was almost unintelligible and had little influence upon Western theology.45 In the second half of the ninth century, Charles the Bald commissioned the Irish scholar known as John the Scot (Eriugena) to undertake a new translation. As the researches of G. Thery, M. Cappuyns, and H. Dondaine 41.

“Influence du Pseudo-Denys en Occident.

DS 3:318-23.

A.

Du 6e au 12e siecle,”

Another brief sketch may be found in H. de Lubac, Exegese

medieval II. part 1 (Paris, 1961) pp. 429-32.

42.

DS 3:319.

43.

On the legend, see Roques, Structures theologiques, p. 64.

century

abbot,

Hilduin,

popularized

the

legend,

but

The ninth-

probably did

not

originate it. 44.

DS 3, ibid.

45.

G. Thery, Etudes dionysiennes.

translation may be dated to c. 835.

Hilduin. 2 vols. (Paris, 1932-7).

The

210

Bernard McGinn

have shown,46 John’s translation, completed in 862,47 was far superior to that of Hilduin. John also wrote a Commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy that was to

have far-reaching importance. The influence of the system of the Pseudo-Dionysius upon the Irishman’s masterwork, the Periphyseon, was profound indeed. In his attempt to combine Eastern theology, represented by Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, and the Pseudo-Dionysius, with traditional Western thought, largely Augustinian in character, John the Scot was a harbinger of things to come. The influence of Dionysius and the Irish author were to be inextricably mixed in the twelfth century. The translation of John the Scot underwent a considerable evolution. As Dondaine demonstrated, before the end of his life John reworked his version in terms of greater correctness and a consistent Latinization of Greek terms.49 This revised work came into the hands of the scholarly papal librarian, Anastasius, who in 875 issued a text containing further cor¬ rections made on the basis of the Roman manuscript tradition and furnished it with translations of the traditional Greek scholia.50 This body of translation and commentary, termed the “Anastasian corpus” by Dondaine, was a basic channel through which knowledge of Dionysius reached the early twelfth century. It was not until 1167 that the deficiencies of the “Anastasian corpus” by Dondaine, revision undertaken by John Sarrazin, a friend of John of Salisbury.51 46. (1931)

G. Thery, “Scot Erigene traducteur de Denys,” Bulletin du Cange 6 185-278;

and

“Scot

Erigene introducteur de

Denys,”

The

New

Scholasticism 7 (1933) 91-108; M. Cappuyns, Jean Scot Erigene (Paris-Lou-

vain, 1933; reprint 1969) 150-61; and H. Dondaine, Le Corpus Dionysien de Vuniversite de Paris au XHIe siecle (Rome, 1953).

47.

Cappuyns, 158; Dondaine, 28.

48.

PL 122:126-266, plus the additions published by H. Dondaine in the

Archives d’histoire doctrinal et litteraire du moyen age 18 (1951) 245-302.

49.

Le Corpus Dionysien, 37-50.

50.

Ibid., 50-64.

51.

About 1140 John Sarrazin had also composed a Commentarium in

celestem hierarchiam (Dondaine, op.cit., pp. 29-31).

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

211

Aside from two brief eleventh-century citations,52 there is little evidence for Dionysian influence for two hundred years after the Carolingian period. The renewal of theology so evident in the early twelfth century marked the dawn of a new age of Dionysianism in the West. Anselm of Canter¬ bury does not appear to have been familiar with the corpus but it has been claimed that the Dionysian texts were known at the School of Laon, the most influential of the early Cathedral Schools.54 Although there is substantial evidence for the presence of the thought of John the Scot at Laon, we cannot be sure whether this included his Dionysian translations or not. Moreover, as the cases of such major theologians as Peter Abelard and Peter Lombard prove, it was possible to know Dionysius at second hand, through nominal intermediaries like Gregory the Great,55 or through strong ones like John. We are on surer ground in the case of Honorius Augustodunensis and of Hugh of St Victor. Honorius (t c. 1137) was one of the foremost students of John the Scot in the twelfth century; his recently edited Key of Natural Science is an adaptation of the Periphyseon. We should not be surprised then that he explicitly cites the Pseudo-Dionysius in his On Dionysiacum,53

Hugh of St Victor (d. 1141) was the most influential channel of Dionysianism in the early part of the

Apostates,56

52.

DS 3:320.

53. There is no reference to the Dionysius in the index auctorum of F. Schmitt’s edition of Anselm’s Opera omnia. 54.

Cf. the remarks concerning the Sententiae Magistri A and the Senten-

tiae Anselmi in S. Otto, Die Funktion des Bildbegriffes in der Theologie des Jahrhunderts (Beitrage zur Geschichte der Philosophic und Theologie des Mittelalters 40, 1, Munster, 1963) pp. 36-7, 52. The Senten¬ tiae divinae paginae cite John the Scot, but not the Pseudo-Dionysius, cf. the zwolften

edition in Archives d'histoire...2 (1930) 55, note 6. 55. DS 3:320; and Dondaine, op. cit., p. 29. Abelard, of course, did have knowledge of the fame of Dionysius at least, as his denial of the identity of the convert of St Paul and the first bishop of Paris indicates, cf. Historia calamitatum (ed. Monfrin, 89-90).

56.

MGH, Libelli de Lite III, 60 (#14).

The passage that Honorius has in

mind seems to be EH III, 7 (cf. Dionysiaca II, 1451-3).

Bernard McGinn

212

century. His Commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy (really two expositions completed before 1125, and then combined and revised sometime after 1137)57 was a major force in pop¬ ularizing Dionysian views on hierarchy and symbolism, though admittedly with many additions and corrections from ro

the Victorine himself. General acquaintance with the Areopagite grew, especially in the middle third of the century. Suger of St Denis (t 1151) took special interest in the patron of his monastery and made use of Dionysian notions of light symbolism in his des¬ cription of the revolutionary new church he had built over the martyr’s relics in the late lHO’s.^0 Among the Victorines, Hugh’s successor Richard (f 1173) was certainly knowledgable in the CH at least among the Dionysian writings, though as G. Dumeige notes, the actual influence of the Pseudo-Dionysius on Richard’s thought should not be exaggerated.60 The extent of the knowledge of the corpus Areopagiticum among the authors associated with the School of Chartres has not received the attention it deserves. Bernard of Chartres (t 1130) seems to have been familiar with John the Scot, 61 57.

PL 175:923-1154.

Cf. D. van den Eynde, Essai sur la succession et la

date des ecrits de Hugues de Saint Victor (Rome, 1960), “Table synoptique;’’

and H. Weisweiler, DS 3:323-4. 58.

The best study of the Commentarium is by R. Roques, “Connaissance

de Dieu et theologie symbolique d’apres Pin Hierarchiam Caelestem Sancti Dionysii" de Hugues de Saint-Victor, Structures theologiques, pp. 294-364. Cf. also H. Weisweiler, “Die Ps.-Dionysiuskommentare des Skotus Eriugena und Hugos von St Viktor,” RTAM 19 (1952) 160-83. 59.

See his Libellus de consecratione ecclesiae S. Dionysii, as edited and

commented upon by E. Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis (Princeton, 1946). 60.

DS 3:324-29, especially 328:

“Richard a connu Denys, mais il l'a plus

souvent utilise comme une illustration que comme une inspiration de sa propre pensee."

On the influence of the

Ps.-Dionysius on

Richard’s

Commentarium in Apocalypsim cf. S. Otto, op.cit., 151.

61.

His doctrine of the divine ideas as recounted by John of Salisbury

(Metalogicon II, 17; and IV, 35) appears to have been influenced by the

Scot’s position.

Cf. A. Maurer, Medieval Philosophy (N.Y., 1964) p. 75.

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

213

though whether or not he knew his translations of the corpus is impossible to say; his brother Thierry (fc. 115) explicitly mentions Dionisius summus theologus no less than nine times in his Commentaries on Boethius, especially on the question of the superiority of negative theology. Recently, the exten¬ sive influence of John the Scot’s Periphyseon, and through it of aspects of the thought of the Pseudo-Dionysius, on the Cosmographia of Bernardus Silvestris has been demon¬ strated.63 John of Salisbury (fl 180), a student at Chartres in the 1130’s, was quite interested in the Pseudo-Dionysius, as his encouragement of John Sarrazin shows;64but we cannot be sure that he acquired his interest at Chartres. In the case of Gilbert, at one time Chancellor of the School at Chartres and later bishop of Poitiers (t 1154), we are once again in largely unexplored territory. Gilbert and his follow¬ ers were not only conversant with the Greek Fathers, but were also important agents of their communication to Early Scholasticism;65 but although Everard of Ypres says that Gilbert knew Dionysius,66 the bishop does not cite him in his Commentaries on Boethius as Thierry had done. M. D. Chenu has stressed the important role of Dionysianism among the Porretani, or followers of Gilbert,67 but we must remem62.

N. Haring, Commentaries on Boethius by Thierry of Chartres and his

School (Toronto, 1971).

See the index on p. 582 for the list of citations.

Thierry’s pupil Clarembald of Arras mentions Dionysius once in obvious de¬ pendence on his master, cf. N. Haring, Life and Works of Clarembald of Arras (Toronto, 1965) p. 201.

63.

See W. Wetherbee, The Cosmographia of Bernardus Silvestris (New

York and London, 1973), especially pp. 52-4. 64.

See the letters of Sarrazin and John in PL 199:143c-44; 161c-63b; and

259d-60a. 65.

John also cites Dionysius in the Metalogicon II, 20.

N. Haring, “The Porretans and the Greek Fathers,’’ Medieval Studies

24 (1962) 181-209. 66.

N. Haring, “A Latin Dialogue on the Doctrine of Gilbert of Poitiers,’’

Mediaeval Studies 15 (1953) 251-2.

67. Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century (English translation of La theologie au douzieme siecle) (Chicago, 1968) pp. 85-9, 94-8, 129-41.

The

English translation of this important work will be cited except for chapters available only in the original.

214

Bernard McGinn

ber that they were by no means a monolithic group. Adhemer of St Ruf and Hugh of Honau both cite the Areopagite, but on the whole the early followers of Gilbert do not appear to have been heavily influenced by Dionysian currents.69 The situation changes as one approaches the end of the twelfth century, when an extensive knowledge and utilization of the Dionysian corpus among the later Porretani is evident. There are minor figures such as Radulphus Ardens and Master Martin of whom this is true; the same is evident among more important authors, such as Simon of Tournai (t c. 1201). In his Disputations and in his Sermons, Master Simon shows his mastery of the Dionysian doctrine of the angels and of the anagogic function of negative theology and his still-unedited Instructions in Sacred Scripture contains among other material a paraphrase of sections of John the Scot’s translation of DN I and CH II?1 The major figure in the revived Dionysianism of the end of the twelfth century is Alan of Lille (c. 1120-1202), a writer who has continued to fascinate literary critics as much as he has theologians and historians of thought. Alan is difficult to characterize — his polymathic knowledge and the diversity of his works mark him as perhaps the most interesting of late twelfth-century Scholas¬ tics. Alan’s Dionysianism is evident in a preference for 68.

For an introduction to the Porretan School, cf. A. Forest, F. van

Steenberghen, and M. deGandillac, Le mouvement doctrinal du Xle au XVIe siecle (Paris, 1956) pp. 176-8; and A. Landgraf, Einfiihrung in die Geschichte der theologischen Literatur der Friihscholastik (Regensburg, 1948) pp. 79-92.

69.

Haring, “The Porretans and the Greek Fathers,” pp. 194, 202-3, for

Adhemer and Hugh respectively.

The conclusion is based upon the scarcity

of citations of the Pseudo-Dionysius in the wealth of material gathered by Haring. 70.

J. Warichez, Les Disputationes de Simon de Tournai (Louvain, 1932).

Cf. the index on p. 323 for citations, especially those relating to Disputatio XCI (261-5). 71. Dondaine, Le Corpus Dionysien, 110, note 104. been edited by M. T. d’Alverny, Alain de Lille.

A part of this text has

Textes inedits (Paris, 1965)

pp. 307-12. Dondaine was the first to show the extent of Simon’s knowledge of John the Scot in his “Cinq citations de Jean Scot chez Simon de Tournai,” Recherches de theologie..., 17 (1950) 303-11.

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

215

negative theology explicitly based upon the authority of the Areopagite,72 as well as in a general acquaintance with the themes of the corpus Areopagiticum that has been confirmed in recent years by the editing of his Summa “Quoniam Homines'’73 and by the research of Mile. M. T. d’Alverny into his lesser-known works. Furthermore, Alan is probably the earliest witness to a significant complication in the Diony¬ sian tradition. A number of late twelfth-century theologians, Alan among them, make use of a text frequently referred to as John the Scot on Hierarchy, but sometimes cited as authentically Dionysian.74 The exact origin of this unedited work is still in doubt;75 while its terminology is an obvious aping of Dionysian categories, the order in which the various angelic hierarchies are put is that of Gregory the Great rather than of the Areopagite.76 While neither properly Dionysian nor Erigenean, it is an important witness to the general dif¬ fusion of Dionysian themes towards the end of the century. 72.

E.g., Regulae theologicae XVIII (PL 210:630ab).

73.

The Dionysian character of the work was first demonstrated by J.

Parent, “Un noveau temoin de la theologie dionysienne au Xlle siecle,” Aus der Geisteswelt des Mittelalters (Munster, 1935) pp. 289-309.

The full text

was edited and studied by P. Glorieux, “Le Somme ‘Quoniam homines’ d’Alain de Lille,” Archives d'histoire... 20 (1953-4) 113-364. 74.

d’Alverny, pp. 83-108, for a discussion; and pp. 185-217 (Expositio

prosae de angelis). and 219-35 (Hierarchia Alani) for texts in which Alan uses it. 75.

There are a number of manuscript witnesses, some of which (such as

Munich, Clm 380, ff. 19v-24v) know that the text is not Dionysian.

The most

that can be said of it at the present time is that it is most likely late twelfth-century. 76.

The general scheme is as follows: I Supercaelestis — hierarchia trium superessentialium ypostasium \ Caelestis — hierarchia intellectualium )

Hierarchia \ 1

Epiphania (3)

naturarum (ordo angelicus)= Hyperphania (3) unitas spirituum charactere theophaniae

Hypophania (3)

/ Subcaelestis — ecclesiasticus fidelium conventus I am indepted to Mr. I. P. Sheldon-Williams for some valuable suggestions regarding this text. Lille, pp. 93-9, 106-8.

The best discussion in print is d’Alverny, Alain de

216 A

Bernard McGinn

chronological

survey

of

the

use

of

the

corpus

Dionysiacum in the twelfth century—thus far without mention

of the Cistercians—demands at least some analysis of the way in which typical Dionysian themes were understood in this era. At the risk of what may be gross over-simplification, the influence of the Areopagite will be summarized under three headings: negative theology, symbolism and hierarchy. The Pseudo-Dionysius and his interpreter John the Scot are among the cardinal representatives of the preeminence of negative, or apophatic, theology in the Christian tradition. But it must be remembered that not every appearance of negative theology in the twelfth century need be Dionysian in origin — there are many roots of negative theology in such Western thinkers as Augustine and Boethius. In a number of early scholastic authors, for example Abelard,79 and even Richard of St Victor, the understanding of negative theology is more traditionally western than Dionysian in origin. For specifically Dionysian apophatic theology we must look for such things as a clear distinction between positive and negative predication, a critical analysis of the varieties of divine names, and the use of eminent terminology (i.e., terms prefixed by the Greek uTre'p, or Latin super, indicating that God surpasses all created categories).81 It should be 77. Cf. V. Lossky, “Les elements de ‘theololgie negative’dans la penseede saint Augustin,” Augustinus Magister, 3 vols. (Paris, 1954) I: 575-81. 78.

E.g., De Trin. IV (ed. Rand, 16).

79. Francheboud claimed that the negative theology of Theologia Christiana II, 10 (PL 178:1062cd) was distinctively Dionysian (cf. DS 3:333-4).

But the

passage cited is too general to be definitive, and passages from Book III are more properly Augustinian and Boethian (e.g., 1235d-36b, 1243c-44c). 80. This point is well brought out by Chenu, Nature, Man and Society, pp. 86-7, 113-4. 81. The Pseudo-Dionysius himself makes much use of eminent terms (e.g., DN V, 1-2), and claims that God surpasses both affirmation and negation (MT III); but it is John the Scot who first clearly expresses the dialectical superiority of the via eminentiae in Periphyseon I (ed. Sheldon-Williams, pp. 72-8). As John puts it: Essentia igitur dicitur deus sed proprie essentia non est.

Esse enim opponitur non esse.

essentialis (p. 76).

urrspoyo to$ igitur est, id est super-

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

217

pointed out that even eminent terms are not always a sign of direct Dionysian influence, as G. Dumeige warns in the case of Richard of St Victor. 82 Furthermore, many twelfth-century authors who expound the superiority of negative theology do so by joining the witness of the Areopagite to that of Boethius, as in the case of Thierry of Chartres and Simon of Tournai. 83 As M. D. Chenu has remarked: “In the whole range of its culture, the medieval period was an era of the symbol as much as, indeed more than, an era of dialectic.’’84 While a passion for symbolism drawing upon a wide variety of sources was general, it is still possible to isolate some of the special contributions that the Dionysian use of symbol made to the twelfth century. As Chenu himself has shown, the Dionysian symbol was more objective in character than the Augustinian signum in the sense that its meaning was not so much dependent on interpretation by human understanding as upon its status in an ordained hierarchy, its place as an “analogy’’ or of the higher world. The function of the symbol was to initiate the believer into the sacred world; and this initiation was agagogic, i.e., it was to lead man up through the levels of sense and intellect to transcendent union with God beyond all affirmation and negation. In the language of Hugh of St Victor, the anagogic leap in being initiated by the symbol was qz:

described as a demonstration7 Hugh of St Victor’s Commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy popularized the objective and anagogic Dionysian notion of symbolism, 82. 83.

but

not

without

some

significant

shifts

of

DS 3:326. Among the Cistercians Isaac of Stella has similar concern, as will be

shown below. 84. Nature, Man and Society, p. 103. 85. Ibid., pp. 124-8. 86. Ibid., pp. 102-45 (especially, 103, 113-4, 123-8, 130-41). 87. The concept of the anagogic demonstratio is at the center of Hugh of St Victor’s famous definition of symbolum as...collatio videlicet, id est coaptatio visibilium formarum ad demonstrationem rei invisibilis propositarum. (PL 175:960d) Cf. Chenu, pp. 131, 138.

Bernard McGinn

218

88 meaning, as R. Roques has shown. Hugh’s distinction between philosophical theology (theologia mundana) and properly Christian theology (theologia divina), and his con¬ centration on Christ crucified as the center of Christian theology enabled him to moralize and Augustiniamze many Dionysian concepts.90 Hugh also distinguished between sym¬ bolism and anagogy by giving a consistency to the natural object considered in isolation from the world of sacral meaning in a way that the Pseudo-Dionysius never would have.91 Though the Victorine makes use of the Dionysian “unlike likeness’’ of symbols that highlights their negative function (as well as the claim that grossly material symbols are less misleading and therefore more efficacious in anagogy), he tends towards greater equilibrium in evaluating both the positive (similar) and negative (dissimilar) aspects of symbolic anagogy than the Pseudo-Dionysius or John the Scot.92 The anagogic use of symbolism is a secure sign of Dionysian influence in the twelfth century; and, despite the correctives which Hugh of St Victor brought to the interpretation of anagogy, H. de Lubac has claimed that Dionysian anagogy tended towards an evisceration of the historical dimension of the anagogical sense of scripture that was evident in some • • 93 monastic circles. Inextricably connected with the notion of symbolism in the Dionysian system is that of hierarchy. Chenu provides a well balanced account of the content and complexity of the cosmic vision of hierarcy which so influenced the age.94 Hier-

88.

“Connaissance de Dieu et theologie symbolique...,”

Structures theo-

logiques, pp. 294-364.

89. 90. 91. 92. 93.

Ibid., pp. 292-305. Ibid., pp. 308, 325-6. Ibid., pp. 329-30. Ibid., pp. 333-45, 362. Exegese medievale I, 1 (Paris, 1959) pp. 641-2.

Chenu. Nature. Man

and Society, p. 113, has admitted the influence of Dionysian symbolism on

Citeaux as well as St Victor. 94. Chenu, pp. 79-88.

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

219

archy is taken as “...expressing an order, a Ta£jt$ or arrange¬ ment, primarily in a mystical sense: a holy disposition on the part of God, a ‘superessential harmony’.’’95 Especially important among the themes associated with that of hierarchy were those of continuity (or concatenation), viz., that all things are bound together and harmoniously inter-related on the chain of being stretching from God to the furthest reaches of matter,96 and theophany, or the doctrine that all created being has its deepest meaning as a manifestation of God.97 Chenu is prepared to admit that in the question of hierarchy the Pseudo-Dionysius had Christianized his Neo¬ platonic sources to a notable extent, especially in his pro¬ vision for the direct participation of all things in the divine nature98 and in his emphasis on the personal God of Christianity.99 Nevertheless, the Dionysian system still offers areas of conflict with Christian doctrine that are of some moment. In terms of hierarchy as the road back to God, the Pseudo-Dionysius may be thought to have introduced inter¬ mediary beings between man and God,100 though this danger was circumvented by the interpretation of John the Scot and Hugh of St Victor that the role of hierarchy in the return was not so much that of a series of beings through which man must pass on his way to God as it was a multiplication of “formative activities’’ to help him on his way.101 Another

95. Ibid., 81, note 59; cf. also Roques, L'univers dionysien, chap. I. 96. Ibid., pp. 23-4; and 291-2, note 2 in the French ed. Cf. also R. Javelet, Image et ressemblance au douzieme siecle /: 150-7, 232, 234-5; and B McGinn, The Golden Chain (Washington, 1972), index under “Concate¬ nation” and “Continuity.” 97. Chenu, La Theologie, pp. 304-5 (French edition). Theophania was an area where John the Scot contributed much to the development of Dionysian categories, cf. T. Gregory, “Note sulla dottrina delle ‘teofanie’ in Giovanni Scoto Eriugena,” Studi Medievali 3rd Series, 4 (1963) 75-91. 98. Ibid., p. 82, rightly sees this as the destruction of emanationism. This is not necessarily in conflict with the statements on pp. 25 and 68 that there are still emanationist aspects in the thought of the Dionsyius. 99.

Ibid., p. 85.

100. . Ibid., p. 82. 101. . Ibid., p. 53.

220

Bernard McGinn

weak point in the influence of Dionysianism according to Chenu was its tendency to mingle cosmology and soteriology, something which threatened the traditional understanding of the unique character of the Incarnation and the special status of the Christian sacraments.102 A similar criticism of the weakness of the Christological dimension in Dionysianism has been made by the Orthodox theologian John Meyendorff. 103 There are other aspects of the thought of the PseudoDionysius that undoubtedly had much effect on twelfth-cen¬ tury theologians. S. Otto has emphasized the way in which the understanding of man as the imago Dei in Dionysius and John the Scot worked upon Hugh of St Victor.104 The Diony¬ sian doctrine of ecstasy, the passing beyond all things to union with God in love, may well have contributed to dis¬ cussions of ecstasy in the mystical theorists of the age;105 but a doctrine of ecstasy, or excessus, was common to a number of Greek and Western sources, and therefore need not always be Dionysian in origin.106 Finally, Dionysius’ variations upon the functions and divisions of theology contributed both to the evolution of a specifically Christian notion of theologia in the West (e.g., Hugh of St Victor’s theologia divina)107 as well as to the continuation of an undifferentiated view of theologia within which contemplation and rational argumentation are to be found in undivided fashion.108 Important as these areas were, it was through negative theology, anagogic symbolism, 102. Ibid., pp. 84-5. 103. “Notes sur l’influence

p. 102. For a more recent survey of the

Pseudo-Dionysius by the same author, see Christ in Eastern Christian Thought (Washington, 1969) pp. 68-84. 104. Die Bildbegriffe, pp. 124-5, 127-36, 143-6.

Otto also claims that the

same Dionysian view of imago Dei influenced Robert of Melun (pp. 106, 146). 105. On Dionysius and Richard of St Victor in this area, see DS 3:327-8. 106. For an introduction, cf. “Extase” in DS 4 (Paris, 1961) 2087-2120.

On

Maximus the Confessor as an influence on Bernard’s view of excessus, E. Gilson, The Mystical Theology ...pp. 25-8. 107. Comm, in Cael. Hier.

(PL 175: 925c-28b).

108. Chenu, La Theologie, pp. 306-8 (French edition).

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

221

and hierarchy that the Areopagite really made his presence known in the world of twelfth-century thought. Cistercian Use of the Pseudo-Dionysius

What role did the Cistercians play in the assimilation of the Dionysian texts in the century? Our sketch has deliberately refrained from speaking of Cistercian authors — a strategy designed to provide some form of exterior control in the debate over the extent of Dionysianism among the white monks.109

Do the claims for the influence of the corpus Areopagiticum on the Cistercians fit in with the general lines of the twelfth-century development? Do the Cistercian authors show evidence of specifically Dionysian themes and not merely general theological approaches common to the Patristic tradition in many ways? It is to these questions that we must address ourselves. The earliest Cistercians, unlike the Victorines, did not have the activity of teaching and writing as a part of their self¬ definition. They were monastic reformers in the truest sense of the word, concerned with the purity of the Benedictine Rule and the most perfect form of retirement from the world. It should not be surprising, though, that a reform as suc¬ cessful as that of Citeaux should soon engender a body of explanatory and apologetic literature of major importance — such a phenomenon was by no means unique in the history of monasticism, and the context of the renewal of theology in the twelfth century made the Cistercian version of this reaction one of real theological significance. Monasticism had begun as an Eastern phenomenon, and despite the unique role of St Benedict, the father of Western monks, Latin coenobites and eremites have never ceased to turn to the riches of the Eastern tradition as a means of contact with the pure springs of their vocation. In the twelfth century this traditional monastic pattern was strengthened by 109. The only general survey of the Dionysianism of the early Cistercians is by

A.

Fracheboud,

“Influence

cisterciens,” DS 3:329-40.

du

Pseudo-Denys

en

Occident.

Les

While a useful starting point, Fracheboud’s

claims must be subjected to a number of criticisms.

222

Bernard McGinn

a widespread desire to appropriate the riches of the Greek past; the orientate lumen, as William of St Thierry termed it,110 was not least among the factors that contributed to the 111 florescence of monastic theology in the twelfth century. No other Cistercian approaches St Bernard in terms of the impact of his thought upon his own age and upon the future of the Order of Citeaux. Despite his ambivalent relation to much contemporary theology, it was Bernard who, in his attempt to give theological expression to the meaning of the Cistercian reform, initiated the great age of Cistercian theology. Even if this theology did not always follow all the lines laid down by the Abbot of Clairvaux, its very existence is a tribute to his charismatic influence. The relations between the Abbot and the Areopagite have been subjected to a good deal of study since Gilson first issued his warning on the difficulty of evaluating the Dionysianism of the early Cistercians. Dom Andre Fracheboud, while conscious of the profound differences between Bernard and Dionysius, made fairly large claims for the Abbot of Clairvaux’s acquaintance with the corpus Areopagiticum. 112 The use of eminent terminology, aspects of his doctrine of God (especially his description of God as esse omnium)}1-* the understanding of creatures as participations in God, parts of his theology of the angels and of ecstasy, and the doctrines of hierarchy and analogy were all seen as lines of connection between Bernard and the corpus.114 Fracheboud’s claims 110. “Fratribus de Monte-Dei, orientale lumen et antiquun ilium in religione Egyptum fervorem tenebris occiduis et gallicanix frigoribus inferentibus...”; PL 184:307 (Davy, p. 70). It should be noted that the explicit reference here is to the monastic life of the East in general, and not directly to its theological component. 111. The best study of the significance of Eastern theology in the twelfth century is the chapter entitled “Orientale lumen’’ in La theologie au douzieme siecld.' pp. 289-308 (unfortunately not in the English translation). 112. DS 3:329-33. 113. The term appears in John the Scot’s translation of CH IV. 1: “Existentia igitur omnia esse eius participant; esse enim omnium est super esse Divinitas" (Dionysiaea II, 802). 114. DS 3, ibid.

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

223

were taken to task by Dom Edmond Boissard in two fine articles which are at present the final word on the question of Bernard’s knowledge of the Areopagite. In his earlier article Boissard showed the independence of Bernard’s teaching on the angels;115 the second article, “St Bernard et le Pseudo-Areopagite,’’ was a general treatment of the relations between the two authors.116 While Boissard admitted that there was a strong probability that Bernard may have read sections of the Dionysian corpus,117 his de¬ tailed analysis of the supposed areas of contact showed just how tenuous the lines of connection actually are. The use of the axiom Deus est esse omnium as a description of God’s universal causality is an indisputable sign of Dionysian influence, something which is also probably true of the appear¬ ance of the terms superplenus and superimplere;119 but these borrowings are occasional, they do not in themselves indicate any major doctrinal contribution of Dionysian themes to the theology of Bernard. The comparison between the eccle¬ siastical and the celestial hierarchies found in the treatise On Consideration (III, 4, 14, 17-18) may have been suggested by

a knowledge of the titles of the Areopagite’s two treatises on 191 the hierarchies, but has nothing else in common with them. As Boissard sums up: En dehors de ces points, aucune trace certaine d'une influence dionysienne, ni dans la theodicee, ni dans

la

mystique,

ni

dans

la

angelologie

du

Docteur

cistercien}22 The negative theology of Bernard (e.g., On Con¬ sideration ,V.

6-8, 11, 13-14), his use of some forms of eminent terms to describe the divine nature, his doctrines of 115. “La doctrine des anges chez St Bernard, ” St Bernard Theologien ASOC 9 (1953) 114-35. 116. RTAM 26 (1959) 214-63. 117. “La doctrine des anges,” p. 133. 118. Csi V, 6, 13; and SC IV, 4. 119. Asspt II, 2. 120. “St Bernard et le Pseudo-Denys,” pp. 220-1, 227-31, 261-3. 121. Ibid., pp. 256-8. 122. Ibid., p. 262.

224

Bernard McGinn

ecstasy, participation, hierarchy and analogy can all be traced back to the general “Platonism of the Fathers,’’ rather than to doctrines specific to the Pseudo-Dionysius. 124 Boissard’s articles, while largely negative in tone, do set up important methodological principles that must not be over¬ looked in the investigation of the connection between the Dionysian corpus and twelfth-century Cistercianism. Mere general similarities of terminology, as well as agreement upon doctrines and formulations common to the Patristic tradition in the wide sense, are not sufficient to demonstrate clear lines of connection with the works of Dionysius. More¬ over, even when a few lines of indisputable contact are found, as is the case with Bernard, one must weigh the frequency of their appearance and their doctrinal import before making expansive claims concerning the significance of the Areopagite in the formation of an author’s thought. It is with these principles in mind that we turn to the other Cistercian authors for whom a Dionysian heritage has been claimed. William of St Thierry (f 1148), Bernard’s confidant and biographer, has not been subjected to the same kind of invest¬ igation as Bernard on the question of possible influence from the Pseudo-Dionysius. Nonetheless, William did pay tribute to the importance of the orientale lumen, as we have seen, and Dom J. M. Dechanet’s study of the sources of William’s theology forms a starting point for future research into William’s use of Patristic authors.124 Dechanet’s large claims for William’s knowledge of the Greek Fathers sometimes appear to fall into errors similar to those for which Boissard criticized Fracheboud, and negative reactions to aspects of his views on Greek influence have not been lacking.125 One re123. Ibid. Boissard was even able to show that the manuscript of John the Scot’s version of the Dionysian corpus that Fracheboud thought Bernard may have used (DS 3:331; the ms is Troyes 841) is really mid-thirteenth century in date (251-3). 124. Aux sources de spirituality de Guillaume de Saint-Thierry (Bruges, 1940). 125. E.g., E. Rozanne Elder, The Christology of William of St Thierry (Thesis, University of Toronto, 1972).

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

225

markable fact uncovered by Dechanet ties the Abbot of St Thierry to the work of John the Scot. In his anthropological treatise, The Nature of the Body and the Soul, William makes use of The Creation of Man of Gregory of Nyssa in the littleknown translation of John the Scot and not in the more wide1 9A spread version of Dionysius Exiguus. If William read his Gregory of Nyssa through the good offices of John the Scot, was he also familiar with the Scot’s translation of the Pseudo-Dionysius? Dechanet has listed a number of places in William’s writings which he interprets as evidence of the influence of the corpus Areopagiticum, and his parallels have been accepted by A. Fracheboud.127 These passages must now be scrutinized with care. The use of a term like theoria by William does not really prove Dionysian influence, since the word was well known to many of the Fathers. The same is true of generalized eminent terminology (e.g., God described as supereminens)129 and of the broad appeals to the clouding of the intellect found in The Enigma of Faith.130 Theophania, or divine manifesta¬ tion, used by William on several occasions,131 was introduced into Latin theology by John the Scot and is usually a secure sign of his influence, but since the term is present in the 126. Aux sources, 26-59, and 206 for a listing of passages. cussion of this treatise in Three Treatises on Man:

See my dis¬

A Cistercian Anthro¬

pology (CS 24) “Introduction.”

127. DS 3:335-7. 128. Brev Cant 126 (PL 185:529b; Davy, 158):

“Sic ergo Sponsus apud

Sponsam similis habetur capree hinnuloque cervorum, cum de hujusmodi quibusdam theoriis sive theophaniis esurientam pascit, reficit afflictam.” For the general Patristic use of theoria, cf. Boissard, “St Bernard et le Pseudo-Denys,”

pp.

221-2;

and J.

Leclercq, Etudes sur le vocabulaire

monastique du moyen age. Studia Anselmiana 48 (Rome, 1961) 81-2.

129. Med Vll (PL 180:228d). Cf. Boissard, “Bernard-Denys” pp. 217-21. 130. Cited by Fracheboud in DS 3:337. 131. Besides the passage in Brev. cant 126, there is another in Nat am IV, 10

(PL

184:386c):

“...jam

sanctorum splendores animam, refocillare et illustrare.”

frequentes continuo

et

improvisae

laborantem

theophaniae

desiderio,

et

incipiunt

See Chenu, La theologie, pp. 304-5, for a brief

survey of the theophania in the twelfth century.

Bernard McGinn

226

Irishman’s own works as well as in his translations of the Pseudo-Dionysius, it is not definitive proof of knowledge of the Dionysian corpus, though it might be said to indicate a Dionysian theme.

The dialectic of likeness and unlikeness

that we have seen to be a frequent sign of Dionysian and Erigenean influence is present in The Golden Epistle, but William’s use there is quite personal and he may well be merely adopting common terms to suit his own purposes.132 There is ample evidence that the abbot was familiar with at least parts of John the Scot’s Periphyseon. 133

Given this

familiarity with the Irish scholar’s work as both translator and original thinker, it may seem a priori reasonable to think that William was acquainted with the Erigenean version of the Dionysian

corpus;

but

it

is

equally

possible

that

his

Dionysianism comes entirely from the Periphyseon. The major doctrinal similarity that has been claimed for William and the Pseudo-Dionysius concerns negative theo¬ logy.

J. M. Dechanet lists a number of parallel passages of

William and the Pseudo-Dionysius relating to the apophatic way, 134

but

they

fall

into

the

class

of

what

he

call

132. The context is a description of the specific likeness between God and the soul, rather than the general dialectical law expressed through anagogy that is peculiar to Dionysianism.

The text makes this clear:

“Et sicut

semper sibi indissimilis Deus indissimiliter dissimilia in creatura operatur; sic anima hominis quamvis totum corpus vivificans indissimili vita, in sensibus tamen corporis et in cogitationibus cordis indissimiliter operatur assidue dis¬ similia. (PL 184:348d; Davy 106, p. 145). Dionysian dissimitis similitudo is in CH II. 133.

Dechanet, Aux Sources,

contemplation de Dieu,

p.

201; J.

The classic account of the

Hourlier,

“Introduction,” La

61 (Paris, 1959), pp. 41-3, 155; O. Brooke, “The

Speculative Development of the Trinitarian Theology of William of St Thierry in the ‘Aenigma Fidei’,” RTAM 27 (1960) 210. 134. The list includes: a)

DN passim

=

Ep frat 11. 3 (23-5) (PL 184:352c-54c); Aenig (PL 180:401bd)

b)

DN I, 5

=

Aenig (422d-23a)

c) d)

DN II, 2

=

Aenig (419c-20a)

DN IV, 1

=

Aenig (423bd)

e)

DN IV, 9

=

Brev cant (PL 180:531ad)

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

227

“assonances” and offer at best vague similarities.135 The nub of the issue here is one of method—how are we to determine the actual dependence of one author upon another? The principle that has been adopted throughout this paper is that in an area as integral to Christian thought as negative theology in the broad sense,130 more precise determinations than mere “assonances” demonstrate dependence.

must

be

shown

in

order

to

A. Fracheboud is more careful in his attempts to show the affinity between the Dionysian tradition and William’s negative theology, especially as it appears in The Enigma of Faith and The Mirror of Faith. In The Enigma of Faith William emphatically states that human words are unsuitable to express the divine reality;13' we never know God better than when we understand that he is incomprehensible. 138 Such statements are certainly not at variance with the Pseudo-Dionsysius, but they can also be found in Augustine, to mention only the most readily available Western source.139 Two of the primary themes which Fracheboud invokes to show the Dionysianism of the Abbot of St Thierry are also undoubtedly Augustinian. The affirmation that we know God better by not knowing him (nesciendo scimur), found three f)

DN VII, 3

=

Aenig (426c)

g)

DN XIII, 3

=

Aenig (410cd)

h)

MTU

=

Ep frat II, 3 (18-25) (PL 184:350a, 354ab)

i)

MT I, 3

=

Med VII (PL 180:228d)

135. Described as “...textes patristiques dont 1'influence sur la doctrine de Guillaume est probable, pour ne pas dire certaine.”

Aux

sources, p. 200).

136. Our suggested categories of broad and specific senses of negative theology are analogous to the distinctions suggested by

Boissard,

“St

Bernard et le Pseudo-Denys,” pp. 236-43. 137. PL 180: 426d (Davy 68, pp. 150-2). 138. PL 180:426c (Davy 67, p. 150). 139. On the unsuitability of human words to express the divine nature, cf. Contra Adimant.

11 (PL 42:142); incomprehensibility as the truest mode of

the knowledge of God can be found in Enarratio in Ps 85, 12 (PL 37:1090); and De Ordine I, 16 (PL 32:1017). For the negative theology of Augustine, cf. Boissard, op.cit., pp. 236-9; and V. Lossky, “Les elements de ‘itheologie negative’ dans la pensee de saint Augustin.”

228

Bernard McGinn

times in William,140 is closer to a famous text in Augustine’s work On Order than to the passage in DN VII, 3 that Fraeheboud suggests.141 William also uses the term docta ignorantia, 142

which Fraeheboud admits originates with Augustine,143 but which he claims in William is filled with Dionysian content.144 Certainly, there are aspects of the rich negative theology of these treatises which may well have been strengthened by contact with Dionysianism,145 and William’s use of John the Scot argues for a good deal more contact, whether direct or indirect, with Dionysianism than can be found in St Bernard. Nonetheless, William does not emphasize the themes of hierarchy and symbolism in any recognizably Dionysian way, but rather more in line with the riches of the Latin monastic tradition. While the orientale lumen did have profound effects upon his anthropology, in the area of negative theology it does not appear to have been more that at best a secondary confirmation of a basically Western way of expressing the doctrine.146 Neither Bernard nor William ever mentioned Dionysius by name. Their well-known younger contemporary, Aelred, the Abbot of Rievaulx (t 1167) in his treatise The Soul expressly

140. Med VII (PL 180:228d): “Visio vel scientia divinae majestatis tuae quae in hac vita melius nesciendo scitur...” (There are related passages in Spec fid, PL 180:396b; and Nat am, PL 184:393b). 141. De Ordine I, 16: “...de summo illo Deo, qui scitur melius nesciendo” (PL 32:1015). The Dionysian text is more vague: “Et est iterum divinissima Dei scientia per incognitionem cognoscens” (Dionysiaca I, 406). 142. Exp Rome (PL 180:638c). 143. Ep 130, 28 (PL 33:505). Cf. Lossky, pp. 578-9. 144. DS 3:336. 145. Any explicit parallels would be perhaps general, but Aenig 64 (Davy, pp. 146-8; PL 180:425bd) seems to have a Dionysian ring, though it is interesting to note that even in this passage the description of God as essentia omnium and not as esse omnium is not as much Dionysian as Boethian in origin. In this connection, the passage may be compared with Isaac of Stella, Sermon Nineteen (PL 194:1864d-65a). 146. As Chenu puts it: “...la langue de Guillaume de Saint-Thierry contients des assonances dionysiennes inconnues a celle de saint Bernard.” La theologie, p. 290.

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

229

refers to the Areopagite: So only God is truly said to be being since he is always the same. He alone naturally possesses immortality, that is, unchanging in himself he dwells in unapproachable light. As he said to Moses: “I am who I am,” and “He who is sent me to you.” His existence is really such that he is the being of all things, as Dionysius the Areopagite says: “The superessential divinity is the being of all things that exist.”147 It might be thought, then, that Aelred is a stronger witness to Cistercian Dionysianism than the authors seen thus far. When one begins to search the writings of the Abbot of Rievaulx, however, it soon appears that citations of Dionysius are not common in his works. Dionysianism appears to have had little substantial influence on Aelred’s major writings, such as Spiritual Friendship, The Mirror of Charity, and his sermons.148 Aelred’s theological orientation is, on the whole, more conservative than that of the other important early Cistercian authors, more narrowly Augustinian and less open to influences from Greek Patristic thought.149

His explicit

147. De Anima II (ed. Talbot, p. 120): “Unde solus Deus dicitur vere esse, quia semper idem est, solus habens naturaliter immortalitatem, idest incorruptabilitatiem et lucem habitans inaccessibilem, sicut dixit ad Moysen: ‘Ego sum qui sum. Et qui est, misit me ad vos.’ Qui profecto ita est, ut sit omnium esse, sicut Dionysius Ariopagita ait: ‘Esse omnium existentium est superessentialis divinitasV’ The nearest references in John the Scot’s translation are DN V, 4 (Dionysiaca I, 334-5), cited by Talbot; and CH IV, 1 (Dionysiaca II, 802).

148. Two other passages deserve mention.

The second of the Sermons De

oneribus (PL 195:363b) also speaks of God as the esse omnium.

Finally, a text in the Sermon “De Adventu Domini” (Talbot, Sermones Inediti, p. 34) concerning the communication of forms from the higher to the lower seems to depend in general fashion on the doctrine of the CH: “Proinde, ut creatura informis adhuc et fluitans formaretus, spiritus domini ferebatur, quatinus unaqueque pro gradu suo formam a superioribus, dei bonitate operante, suscipiet.” I an indebted to Fr Charles Dumont for bringing these texts to my attention. 149. Cf. C. H. Talbot, “Introduction,” Ailred of Rievaulx: De Anima Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies. Supplement I (London, 1952) pp. 11-15; and A. Hallier, The Monastic Theology of Aelred of Rievaulx, CS 2 (Spencer, 1969) pp. 100-1.

230

Bernard McGinn

citation of a stray theological dictum, quoted at a time (The Soul was composed in the last years of the Abbot’s life) when

the name of the Pseudo-Dionysius had achieved sufficient notoriety to provide sufficient reason for its inclusion does not indicate any extensive knowledge of the corpus on the part of the Abbot of Rievaulx. A survey of Bernard, William, and Aelred produces little evidence for substantial acquaintance on the part of these early Cistercians with the text of the corpus and indicates that Dionysian themes are not really significant in the theology of the three authors. William is the best candidate for some Dionysian influence, but even his possible use is small when compared to someone like Hugh of St Victor. There is, however, another younger contemporary of Bernard and William among the early Cistercians for whom a substantial acquaintance with the Areopagite has been claimed. Isaac, the abbot of Stella near Poitiers, is a figure whose back¬ ground and biography still contain many gaps.150 There is good reason for believing that he had spent time in the schools in the 1130’s prior to his entry into the monastery in the early 1140’s;151 his most important theological works appear to date from the 1160’s, and he may have died about 1170.152 Several detailed studies have been devoted to Isaac’s Dionysianism, notably by A. Fracheboud,153 R. Javelet,154 and

150. The most recent biographical studies are Gaetano Raciti, “Isaac de l'Etoile et son siecle,” Citeaux 12 (1961) 281-306; 13 (1962) 18-34; 133-45; 205-16; G. Salet, “Introduction,” Sermons I (Sources Chretiennes 130, Paris, 1967) pp. 1-35; B. McGinn, The Golden Chain (Washington, 1972) pp. 1-50; and G. Raciti, “Isaac de l’Etoile. 1. La personne,” DS (Paris, 1971) 2011-16 (with considerable changes from his earlier views). 151. The Golden Chain, pp. 8-10. 152. The customary date of 1169 is not an old tradition, but most modern authors think that it is approximately accurate. Raciti in DS 7:2013, now holds for a new date towards 1178. 153. “Le Pseudo-Denys l’Areopagite parmi les sources du cistercien Isaac de l’Etoile,” Coll 9 (1947) 328-41; 10 (1948) 19-34; and by the same author the account in DS 3:337-9.

231

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

the present author.155 Although there may be methodological disagreements regarding the criteria to be used to distinguish direct influence from vague resemblance, these studies agree that Isaac knew the Dionysian text well and that he way deeply affected by it.156 A brief survey of the Dionysian themes in Isaac will make this clear.

major

First of all, the Abbot’s concern with the divisions of theology is undoubtedly Dionysian. Although he does not distinguish a specifically Christian understanding of the term theologia, as Hugh of St Victor had done,157 his threefold

division into divina theologia which denies formal predicates of God, rationalis [or rationabilis] theologia which affirms them, and symbolica vel sensualis theologia which describes God under material images is certainly dependent upon the Dionysian tradition as known through the translation of John the Scot. 158 Furthermore, Isaac’s distinction of theologies is not merely an accidental or extraneous element in his thought, for the superiority of apophatic theology plays an important role in the treatise he wrote on the nature of God, the Sexagesima Sermons. In the manner of many Cistercian authors, Isaac rarely quotes his sources in direct fashion, hence simple verbal comparisons do not tell the full story. What is more impor¬ tant is that when Isaac expounds his understanding of negative theology in the Sexagesima Sermons, especially in 154. “La vertu dans 1'oeuvre d’lsaac de l’Etoile,” Citeaux 11 (1960) 252-67; and Image et ressemblance, passim. 155. “Theologia in Isaac of Stella,’’ Citeaux 21 (1970) 219-35; and “The Divine Nature in Isaac of Stella,” Analecta Cisterciensia 29 (1973) 3-53. 156. Whether through the translation of John the Scot in itself, or through the full Anastasian corpus is probably impossible to say given the manner of Isaac’s use. 157. McGinn, “Theologia in Isaac of Stella,” pp. 229-35. 158. Sermon Twenty-two (PL 194:1762cd). Cf McGinn, “Theologia in Isaac of Stella,” pp. 224-5; and Fracheboud, “L’influence du Pseudo-Denys...,” 9 (1947) 335.

Isaac mentions rationalis and symbolica theology in Sermon

Twenty-three (1766d).

For the doctrine of the varieties of theology on the

corpus Areopagiticum, cf. MT III and Epist. IX.

Bernard McGinn

232

Sermon twenty-two,159 he does so with distinctively Dionysian accents. Among these should be included the darkness that the excessive light of God causes in man,160 the claim that positive, or rational, theology is meant to indicate eminent causality,161 and the assertion that negative language is the most appropriate way of speaking about God.162 In the last connection, Isaac permits himself a close parallel to a Dionysian axiom: “In God’s case it is more proper that we deny everything rather than affirming anything of all that exists.’’163 For the Abbot of Stella, as for the Areopagite, when we are speaking of God we must either be aware that we are using words in a transferred or metaphorical sense, or else we must take refuge in silence.164 Several remarks need to be made, however, in order to set the Dionysianism of Isaac of Stella in the proper context. First of all, the Abbot’s negative theology is not purely Eastern and Dionysian, but, like John the Scot in the ninth century and Thierry of Chartres and Simon of Tournai in the twelfth, he combines oriental and occidental traditions of apophaticism. Dom Fracheboud has placed much emphasis on the appearance of eminent terms in Isaac’s writings as a manifest declaration of his Dionysianism.165 It is true that a number of eminent terms were coined by John the Scot in his translation of the corpus Dionysiacum and that the prevalence 159. For a more extended treatment see my “Theologia in Isaac of Stella,” pp. 227-9; and “The Divine Nature...,” pp. 27-32. 160. PL 194:1701d, Nature...,” pp. 30-1.

1761d-62a,

1763a,

and

1771a.

CF.

“The

Divine

161. 1762ab (cf. also 1810a, and 1818a). 162. 1762bc. 163. Isaac:

Dionysius:

Proprius enim de illo omnia

Si igitur negationes in divinis

negamus, quam omnium aliquid

verae, affirmationes vero incom-

affirmamus.

(1762c)

pactae... (Dionysiaca II, 758 - Ch II, 3)

164. 1762d. For parallel passages in the Dionysian corpus, cf. DN 1, DN XI, and MT I (Dionysiaca I, 18, 498-500, 566). 165. “Le Pseudo-Denys l’Areopagite...,” 9 (1947) 330-1; and DS 3:337.

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

of eminent language in Sermon twenty-two

233

shows

many

affinities with Dionysius; but E. Boissard demonstrated that eminent terms are by no means peculiar to Dionysius, and in the case of Isaac the adoption of the term supersubstantia in Sermon nineteen and elsewhere argues to a Boethian more than a Dionysian source.166 Finally, it must be emphasized that negative theology is only one of the elements that the Abbot of Stella builds into his complex doctrine of God — despite its importance, it is not as central to the Cistercian as it had been to the Pseudo-Dionysius himself or to his inter¬ preter John the Scot.167 Other aspects of Dionysianism in Isaac are no less real but more diffuse. His understanding of symbolic theology is closely tied to the Dionysian text,168 and he makes use of the dialectic of dissimilis similitudo as a means of expressing the difference between the divine nature and all the images of it which men use on the anagogic return to God.169 The notions of hierarchy, continuity, and anagogy are central to his Letter on the Soul. 170 And, as R. Javelet was the first to demon¬ strate, one side of his conception of virtue as expounded in

166 1755b. Boethius speaks of God as being ultra substantiam in De Trin. IV (ed. Rand, 16). The Dionysian term uTrspoucrictvis never translated as supersubstantiam by John the Scot, but always by superessentiam, a term that Isaac does not use. It may be useful here to give a list of the eminent terms employed by Isaac (references to PL 194); superabundantia (1762a. 1763a); superadmirabilis (1766a); superattendere (1763c); superferre (1767a); supergredi (1762d); superjustitia (1762b); supernatura (1768b); superpraesens (1767c); supersapientia (1762b, 1763a); supersimul (1767d); supersubstantia (1755b, 1757c, 1762b. 1763a.) 176. “The Divine Nature,’’ p. 32. 168. Compare his description of symbolic attributes in

1762c with such

passages as DN I, 6 [Dionysiaca I. 45-9]. 169. Sermon Twenty-four (1771a): “Nam cum de luce ilia inaccessibili nequivimus proprie dicere quid vere est, imaginaria usui contemplatione per similitudinem diximus. quod longe dissimiliter simile est.” (Cf CH II, 4). 1764a speaks of God as dissimilar both in essentia and existentia from creatures. 170. See The Golden Chain, index under “Analogy,” “Hierarchy,” “Chain of Being,”

etc.;

R.

Javelet,

Fracheboud, “Le Pseudo-Denys,

“La vertu 26-31.

dans

1’oeuvre,”

p.

256;

and

234

Bernard McGinn

the Letter, along with his doctrine of grace are deeply affect¬ ed by the Dionysian idea of hierarchy.171 Certain specific themes, such as that of theophany,172 and possibly that of the function of the angelic orders in the ascent. 172 are also Dionysian in origin; but a balanced judgment indicates that Isaac’s hierarchical and anagogic view of the world does not so much originate from his reading of the corpus Dionysiacum as it was enhanced and enriched by his acquaintance with it.,74i Isaac of Stella thus appears to be the only Cistercian of the first two generations for whom a substantial Dionysianism can be claimed, and his acquaintance with the corpus Areopagiticum is most likely due to his background in the Schools more than to his training in the cloister, no matter how much he may have felt that Cistercianism was amenable to expression in Dionysian terms. Nevertheless, the investiga¬ tion of the thought of Isaac does not close the books on 17 possible Dionysianism among twelfth-century Cistercians, for we have seen that the influence of the corpus was strong towards the end of the century among the second generation of the Porretani, such as Simon of Tournai and Alan of Lille. Although Alan himself retired to a Cistercian monastery in the last years of his life,177 his Dionysianism can scarcely be f\

171. “La vertu dans l’oeuvre,” pp. 257-62; and Image et ressemblance, I, 14, 145, 339. Cf. also The Golden Chain, pp. 143-6. 172. The term theophania appears only in the Epistola de anima (1888b). On its use in Isaac see The Golden Chain, pp. 159-60; and Raciti, “Isaac 1’Etoile,” DS 7:2030-1. 173. E.g., 1880-81a (1708c is a possible parallel).

On this question see The

Golden Chain, pp. 151-3.

174. This conclusion is demonstrated more fully in The Golden Chain, chap. 4. 175. A conclusion with which Raciti concurs:

“De plus, le corpus dionysien

a exerce une influence tres profonde sur sa vision theologique" (DS 7:2035). 176. The only major author of the first two generations not discussed here is Guerric of Igny (fc. 1157). The recent edition of his works by J. Morson and H. Costello, Guerric d’Igny. Sermons. (Sources chretiennes 166, Lyon, 1970) indicates that there is nothing specifically Dionysian in his thought, even in his theology of darkness in the Third Sermon for the Epiphany (pp. 270-87). 177. Cf. d’Alverny, Alain de Lille, p. 22.

235

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

described as Cistercian in origin. Were there any late twelfth-century Cistercians who were acquainted with the Areopagite? Dom Fracheboud has advanced a number of candidates for Dionysian honors from the period. Gilbert of Hoyland (t 1172), the continuator of Bernard’s Sermons on the Canticle of Canticles is cited for his assertion that union with God is above knowledge, as well as for his use of eminent terms;178 but the former is too general to be called particularly Dionysian, and the eminent terms seem to have been taken from Bernard. Henry of Marcy (t 1189), Abbot of Clairvaux and later Cardinal of Albano, is a witness to the importance of negative knowledge of God,179 but in a manner that does not go beyond the traditional claims of Augustine. The des¬ cription of God as the “monad” found in Henry and in Geoffrey of Auxerre (t c. 1195) does not prove direct Dionysian influence as Fracheboud claimed,180 since there are non-Dionysian sources for the theology of God as unity, or “The One,”181and the use of the term “monad” to describe God’s oneness is found in a variety of sources. Granted that the influence of the Pseudo-Dionysius tended to stress a theology of God in which unity was of central concern, and 1 O')

178. 179. 180. 181.

DS 3:336. PL 204:267bc. DS 3:336-7. E.g. Augustine, De vera religione 31-6 (PL 34:150-1); and Boethius, De Triti. II and V (ed. Rand., pp. 10, 28); and Quomodo substantiae (ed. Rand, p. 42)—to mention only the two authors most likely to have influenced the twelfth century. Chenu remarks that speculation on God as “The One” in monastic theology frequently had Boethius as its source; cf. “Platon a Citeaux,” AHDL, 21 (1954) 101. 182. Notably in Macrobius, Comm, in Somnium Scip. I, 6, 7-11, who applies it to the highest God. In the twelfth century, the term is used by Abelard, Theol. Christ. IV (PL 178:1270d); Thierry of Chartres, Glosa super librum Boethii de Trinitate (ed. Haring, p. 298); and in the Glosa super Macrobium of William of Conches, as reported by E. Jeauneau, “Macrobe, source du platonisme chartrain,” Studi Medievali, 3rd series, 1 (1960) 13. An important witness to the theology of God as unitas in the twelfth century is the PseudoBoethian, De unitate et uno (PI 63:1075-8). 183. Chenu, Nature. Man and Society, pp. 86-8.

236

Bernard McGinn

that John the Scot had used the term monas in his transla¬ tions of the Dionysian writings,184 the theology of divine unity popular among the Cistercians, though it may have fed on Dionysius in some cases, cannot be said to have been caused by him.185 Two late twelfth-century Cistercians, however, show an evident connection with the tradition of the Areopagite and affinities with the eclectic Dionysianism of Simon of Tournai and Alan of Lille.186 Gamier of Rochefort, Abbot of Clairvaux from 1186 to 1193, and afterwards Bishop of Langres until his death about 1225, has not received a good press of late. For J. de Ghellinck he was without interest;187 J. C. Didier found his sermons lacking in “unction” and charm,188 and M. D. Chenu showed him to be a witness to the decadence of allegorization. 189 More positive accounts of Gamier have been given by H. de Lubac190and A. Hoste.191 This is not the place to attempt a

184. E.g., DN 1,4 (Dionysiaca I, 23-4). 185. For Bernard’s theology of God as unitas, see the valuable notes in Boissard, “St Bernard et le Pseudo-Denys,” pp. 231-3. Isaac of Stella's theology of the unity of God is dependent in part on the Masters of Chartres and the Boethian tradition, as well as upon the Pseudo-Dionysius; cf. “The Divine Nature...” pp. 23-34. Another Cistercian with an evolved theology of God as unum is Nicholas of Clairvaux in his Ep 65 (PL 202:503ad). In the case of Geoffrey of Auxerre, the knowledge of Macrobius shown in his Super Apocalypsim, Sermo II (ed. Gastaldelli, p. 68) indicates that this is the most likely source for his idea of God as monas. 186. No consideration has been given here to Thomas the Cistercian (fl. c. 1180). A cursory glance at his extensive Sermones in Cantica (PL 206:9-862) indicates nothing clearly Dionysian, but further study is needed. Neither does Baldwin of Ford (tH88) seem to have significant Dionysian reminiscenses. 187. L'essor de la litterature latine au XHIe siecle (Paris, 1955) p. 220. 188. “Gamier de Rochefort. Sa vie et son oeuvre. Etat des questions,” Coll. 17 (1955) 154. 189. “La decadence de I’allegorisation. Un temoin: Gamier de Rochefort (d. v. 1200),” L’homme devant Dieu. Melanges Henri de Lubac (Paris, 1963) 2:129-35. 190. Exegese Medievale 1:81-2, 130-2, 299-301, 641-3; 2:276-7. 191. “Gamier de Rochefort,” DS 6 (Paris, 1965) 125-8.

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

237

rehabilitation of Gamier; and, given his many sins, one is not sure whether to count his use of the Dionysian corpus on the plus or on the debit side. A correspondent of Simon of Tournai, the Abbot of Clairvaux was obviously heavily in¬ fluenced by the writings of John the Scot, including his translations of the Pseudo-Dionysius. Fr Chenu’s important article, “Erigene a Citeaux,” 193 has sketched the facets of Garnier’s Dionysianism in detailed fashion. Gamier’s thirty-fifth sermon, given at the Cistercian General Chapter, shows the depth of his knowledge of the Areopagite.194 The Abbot quotes John the Scot on the definition of theophany,195 gives a good summary of the dia¬ lectic of similis and dissimilis manifestations of God,196 and includes the threefold division of theophania into epiphania, and hypophania which we have seen is characterisic of the work frequently known as Johannes Scotus super hierarchiam,197 Gamier has one unusual twist to his doctrine of theophany, for he distinguishes between theo¬ phany proper, the positive manifestation of God, and anagogy, which, without any image, contemplates the divine hyperphania,

principle in naked and pure fashion. In somewhat confused fashion, “anagogy” has become the term for that which the negative ascent aims at, properly called mystical theology in

192. PL 211:453bd. 193. In La philosophic et ses problemes: Recueil d'etudes de doctrine et d'histoire offert a Mons. R. Jolivet (Lyon-Paris, 1960) pp. 99-107. See also Nature, Man and Society, p. 140, note 77. 194. PL 205:793-8. Cf Chenu, “Erigene a Citeaux,” pp. 101-3. 195. 794ab. It is interesting to note that a further description of theophany in 796c uses the Erigenean term superessentialis. 196. 795ac. Cf. also 641c, and 765d-66a. 197. 796b-97c (cf. also 631b-32a). The same doctrine of the divisions of theophany is said to be found in his unedited Ysagoge theophaniarum symbolica.

198. Sermon Twenty-three (730b).

W. Wetherbee, Platonism and Poetry in

the Twelfth Century (Princeton, 1972) pp. 64-5, has shown the dependence of

this passage on two texts from Hugh of St Victor’s Comm, in Cael. Hier. The same doctrine is speculatio in Sermon Thirty-one (765d-66b). Cf. Chenu, “La decadence de I’allegorisation,” pp. 132-3.

Bernard McGinn

238 the Dionysian corpus.

As H. de Lubac puts it, anagogy and

ecstasy have combined in Gamier.199 Negative themes, especially emphasis on the divine darkness, are strong in the Abbot’s sermons.200 Finally, while with Garnier the allegorical method of scriptural interpretation frequently seems to run riot because of the multiplication of senses based upon an analysis of inconsequential details or upon isolated words,201 the Abbot’s interest in Dionysian symbolism led him to another apparently original, if perhaps somewhat fuddled, contribution — the addition of a Dionysian scientia symbolica into the traditional Platonic-Aristotelian division of sciences into physica, mathematica and theologica.202 The peculiarities of Garnier’s Dionysianism show the influ¬ ence of the eclectic theological world of the end of the twelfth century, particularly that of Simon of Tournai with whom we know the Abbot was connected. Garnier’s contemporary, Helinand, the prior of Froidmont (t 1229),203 also has Diony¬ sian moments, if in less marked fashion. As Dom Fracheboud has noted, Helinand quotes from Dionysius in discussing the angels in his third sermon for Pentecost.204 He also has an important treatment of God as the One, but we have seen that Dionysian.205

such

discussions

are

not

necessarily

It is likely that there were other late twelfth-century Cis-

199. Exegese, 1:642-3. 200. In Sermon Five (599c) and in Sermon Thirty (703c) Garnier quotes the Dionysian axiom: “Negativae enim de Deo compactae sunt; affirmativae incompactae.” See also 796a. 201. “La decadence de l’allegorisation,” pp. 130-1, 133. 202. Sermon Twenty-three (730a). See “La decadence de l’allegorisation,” 133-4; and “Erigene a Citeaux,”' pp. 103-4. This threefold division, best known to Medieval authors through Boethius in the De Trin. II (ed. Rand, p. 8), though found in Aristotle’s Met. E, 1026a, is probably a Platonic element in the Stagirite’s thought. 203. See de Ghellinck, L'essor de la litterature, pp. 221-2, 327-8. 204. PL 212:627c-28b. The citation is from CH VII in John the Scot’s translation (Dionysiaca II, 838-9). 205. Sermon Two (489d-91a). Sermon Twenty-two.

The passage is dependent upon Isaac’s

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

239

tercians who made use of Dionysian and Erigenean themes,206 but Gamier and Helinand are the only names that can be brought forward with security. By this time the age of the great Cistercian authors was over, and lack of research into their less distinguished successors precludes further investi¬ gation of possible traces of Dionysianism. That the Cister¬ cians were influenced by the spreading popularity of Dionysius and John the Scot at this time seems quite likely; how widespread the interest was is difficult to say. Conclusion

The purely historical conclusions of this study hopefully speak for themselves, but perhaps they can suggest some wider topics for discussion. We have seen that some accounts of the influence of the corpus Areopagiticum upon the twelfth-century Cistercians are exaggerated — only two authors, Isaac, of Stella among the earlier Cistercians and Gamier of Rochefort later on, show extensive utilization of Dionysian themes. Nevertheless, if the use of the PseudoDenys is not as great as has been claimed, it is still illustra¬ tive of an important general rule of twelfth-century Cistercianism, viz. its willingness, nay its eagerness, to turn to Eastern theology as a source of inspiration and illumination. Bernard’s use of Eastern sources, especially Origen and Maximus, is well-known; William of St Thierry’s praise of the orientate lumen shows his positive attitude towards the East,

even if disagreements exist about the extent of his practice. The willingness of almost all the Cistercian authors to invoke what they knew of the riches of Greek Patristic thought is more important than the limitations of their knowledge. The fact that on occasion at least the rapprochement between the 206. It has even been suggested that the condemnation of the Periphyseon of John the Scot in 1225 by Pope Honorius III was directed at the use of the Erigenean works and translations in the Cistercians houses. Cf. M. Jacquin, “L’influence doctrinale de Jean Scot au debut de XHIe siecle,” Revue des sciences phil. et theol. 4 :1910), 104-06. 207. It is perhaps useful to note here that the Dionysian concept of the monastic state (EH VI and Epist. VIII) is notable by its complete absence in Western monastic theology.

240

Bernard McGinn

Western “psychological” tradition of Augustine and the Eastern, “cosmological” attitude of Dionysius was a rich one indeed deserves more attention than it has received.208 A second suggestion for further discussion seems to result from our historical analysis. It has become obvious that those authors who were seriously concerned with the PseudoDionysius were not content merely to repeat his formulae, something which was rather the practice of those marginally connected with the Dionysian tradition. John the Scot, Hugh of St Victor, and Isaac of Stella are major figures in the Dionysian heritage precisely because they interpreted, adapted, and sometimes altered the theology they had received. Without entering into an area in which I am not competent to speak, I must confess to being impressed by the evidence that John Meyendorff brings forth for a similar history in the Orthodox use of the Pseudo-Dionysius. 209 Gregory Palamas is an important figure in the history of Dionysianism precisely because he consented to live within the tension between using the corpus Areopagiticum on the one hand and re-interpreting it in sometimes radical fashion in the light of his own situation on the other. In this sense the attempt of Isaac of Stella,

and

even

of Gamier of

Rochefort, to make use of Dionysianism in their elucidation of the fundamentals of their theology of the monastic life points to the same creativity. Plus fa change, plus la meme chose. It is sometimes tempting to think that a detailed study of the history of any major theological tradition

illustrates

the

obverse

of the

208. Chenu’s stress upon the opposition of these ideal types is somewhat overdrawn (cf. Nature. Man, and Society, pp. 25, 50, 63-4, 84-6, 96; as well as “Erigene a Citeaux,” p. 100).

The two approaches should be seen as

complementary, even if the complementarity was not always adequately manifested. 209. “Notes sur l’influence dionysienne en Orient,” pp. 551-2; and Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, pp. 80-4.

Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians

241

principle — plus la meme chose, plus ga change. Perhaps something of this is hinted at in a look at the Dionysian tradition and its effect upon the early Cistercians.

Bernard McGinn

University of Chicago

THE USE OF GREEK SOURCES BY WILLIAM OF ST THIERRY ESPECIALLY IN THE ENIGMA FIDEI

TlLLIAM OF ST THIERRY opens the Enigma fidei %/%/with a declaration: “It is the conscientious admission T T of weak human nature that it knows only this about God, that he exists.” One might compare this with a similar statement by Origen in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans 1:16 as Dechanet has done.1 Or a parallel could be drawn with John Damascene’s “That there is a God is clear; but what he is by essence and nature, this is altogether beyond our comprehension and knowledge.”2 It is even possible to point out a similarity to Maximus the Confessor when he says, “One thing only is perfectly comprehensible in God: that he is infinite; and the fact of knowing nothing is already a knowledge—”'3 The fact is, however, that this declaration and over two dozen subsequent lines William borrows verbatim from Hilary of Poitiers.4 1.

PG 14:863D:

“Ignotum autem dei intelligendum est ratio substantiae

ejus vel naturae; cujus quae sit proprietas, homines, sed et omnem lateat creaturam:

puto quod non solum nos aut si aliquando tantus erit

naturae rationabili profectus, ut in hanc quoque possit pervenire notitiam, Dei est nosse.” 2.

On the Orthodox Faith 1:4; PG 94:797B.

3.

Centuries on Charity 1:100; Joseph Pegon, Maxime le confesseur:

Centuries sur la charite. SC (Paris, 1943) pp. 91-92.

4. Tract on Psalm 129:1; PL 9:718BC, and On the Trinity 10:289A, and 10:53; PL 10:385B-386A.

242

9:10; PL

Use of Greek Sources by William of St Thierry

243

This example illustrates one of the most fascinating areas of inquiry in the study of William of St Thierry; namely, the extent of his indebtedness to the Greek Fathers for the development of his own theological thought. Indeed, there are few areas of investigation in William studies which are more fundamental to the elucidation of William’s theology, and at the same time, more complex. As in the example above, there is a tendency today to find a Greek source for much of what William has to say, a tendency which this paper will examine, especially as it affects the Enigma fidei, William’s trinitarian treatise. Such an inquiry has much to offer not only with respect to this single treatise, but to all of William’s works and the research generated by them. This paper, by presenting the results of a detailed investigation of one treatise, suggests the need for a critical reexamination of William’s other works, based on close textual scrutiny, and free from a priori commitments to the presence of Greek in¬ fluences in the Cistercian author under examination. The field of William studies has been dominated by the towering figure of Jean-Marie Dechanet. He has been a pioneer in the revelation of William of St Thierry over the last thirty years. Everyone interested in William owes a debt to Dechanet for his editions, translations, and studies of William’s works. While this is true, there is a greater debt to William studies themselves: to do justice to Dechanet as a scholar and to build on his work, but not on his errors and mistakes. There is an obligation to emulate Dechanet’s inde¬ fatigable efforts to illuminate William’s thought, but an equal obligation to progress beyond Dechanet to the fuller under¬ standing of William which further scholarship must, of neces¬ sity, provide. At present William studies suffer from a tendency which has produced a distorted view of William of St Thierry’s vision. Specific instances of Eastern influence, such as that of Origen in William’s Commentary on Romans, have precipitated a rush to search pell-mell for Greek sources for William’s works.

Dechanet himself is guilty of this in his

John D. Anderson

244

William of St Thierry, the Man and His Work.5

Another example is Bouyer’s study of Willin in The Cis¬ tercian Heritage where he says of William’s Enigma fidei, “It is obvious that William has once again drawn on the sources of the Greek Fathers, of which his whole treatise is a veritable epitome....’’6 A third example is evident in J. Hourlier’s translation of De contemplando deo in Sources chretiennes7 where Hourlier attributes four lines to Eriugena which also occur in Augustine’s De vera religione 55:112. One sentence later in De contemplando deo William continues with the next sentence of De vera religione. The entire closing paragraph of William’s treatise is a cento of this same section in Augustine. Hence, it is more likely that William’s source above is Augustine rather than Eriugena. For a further instance of this tendency see Odo Brooke, “The Speculative Development of the Trinitarian Theology of William of St Thierry in the Aenigma fidei,” where Brooke compares a trinitarian statement of William with sections of St Basil’s De spiritu sancto. It seems more likely that any similarity between William and St Basil on this point is due to William’s use of Ambrose’s De spiritu sancto,8 a primary 5.

See Cistercian Studies Series (to be cited henceforth as CS), No. 10

(Spencer, 1972) p. 76 n. 105; p. 81 n. 114; p. 82 n. 117; p. 86 n. 127; p. 90 n. 135. Also, the Tableau des sources in the French edition, Guillaume de SaintThierry, I'homme et son oeuvre (Bruges, 1942)

pp. 200-209, betrays the same tendency to overstate William’s use, or possible use, of Greek sources. Also, see Cistercian Fathers Series (henceforth cited as CF), No. 6, pp. xlvii-xlviii,

where

Dechanet

discusses

the

contribution

of

Plotinus

to

William’s thought, especially in reference to the expression regio dissimilitudinis.

Dechanet’s discussion must be qualified by p. 52 n. 7 in CF 6 and

by Fr Ceglar’s comments in his dissertation,

where

he

attributes the

expression to Augustine’s influence in William’s case; see William of Saint Thierry, the Chronology of his Life (Washington, D.C., 1971) pp. 275-277.

6. Louis Bouyer, The Cistercian Heritage (Westminster, 1958) p. 114.

See

also the article “Les cisterciens” by M.-Andre Fracheboud in Dictionnaire de spirituality, ascetique

et mystique 3 (Paris, 1957) p. 337 where the author

describes the Enigma in a similar manner. on Fracheboud’s work. 7.

SC 61 (Paris, 1959) p. 119 n. 1.

8.

RTAM 27 (1960) p. 207 n. 77.

See note 26 below for comments

Use of Greek Sources by William of St Thierry

245

vehicle for the transmission of St Basil’s ideas to the West. This is especially true since William had read Ambrose’s work.

He quoted from it in his Super cantica ex libris s.

Ambrosii.

A final example of the fruitless search for Greek sources for William is found in this same article by Odo Brooke. In the first part of the article Brooke talks about a fusion of elements in William’s theology. One of these elements Brooke isolates is the “intellectualism of Eriugena and his desire for objective truth.”9 Brooke cites four examples to substantiate this assertion. One of these is based merely on the use of the words spinas and tribulos by both William and Eriugena, which proves nothing but that both authors read the Bible.10 Another example consists of the similarity between Eriugena’s ‘‘Nulla enim pejor mors est quam veritatis ignorantia,” and William’s ‘‘Ratio non est ratio, si non continuo abjecta cura verborum, veritati acquiescit.” 11 This seems inconclusive also. The third example is a prayer for truth which William has in the Enigma. A comparable passage is located in Eriugena’s De divisione naturae, but the fact is William borrows the entire passage containing this prayer verbatim from Augustine’s De trinitate. Brooke’s final example is William’s declaration at the outset of the Enigma fidei that all man can know about God is that he exists. This passage also is compared with a selection from De divisione naturae, but this has already been shown to be Hilary of Poitiers.13 Later in this paper it will be shown that the Enigma fidei falls far short of being an epitome of the Greek Fathers as Bouyer contends. The above discussion has already sug¬ gested as much.

Now it is time to investigate another aspect

9. RTAM 27 (1960) p. 210. 10.

See, for example, Genesis 3:18.

11.

Eriugena, De divisione naturae 3:10; PL 122:650A; William, Enig; PL

180:424D. 12.

De trin. 4 prooem.

13.

See note 4 above.

246

John D. Anderson

of the examination of the question of William’s debt to the Greek Fathers. Attention must now be given to the problem of misunder¬ standing Greek theology. The late Odo Brooke was subject to this pitfall. He misrepresented Orthodox teaching about intra trinitarian life when he attributed the formula, “ex Patre, per Filium, in Spiritu” to the internal processions of the Persons as well as to the economy ad extra. Brooke said, “The specific contribution of the Greek Fathers was to trans¬ fer the scriptural scheme describing the economy ad extra to the order of the Procession ad intra, while retaining also the scriptural economy ad extra,’’14 This erroneous belief plays a large role in the second part of Brooke’s article where he dis¬ cusses William’s use of the formula “ex Patre, per Filium, in Spiritu’’ in the Enigma Jidei and where he says that William follows this so-called Greek practice!5 Whether this is repre¬ sentative of William’s thought is debateable. In any case the theological development described by Brooke is not Greek. For example, Vladimir Lossky insists on a radical difference between the eternal procession of the Persons and the temporal mission of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in the world!6 He says, “the Eastern Church has criticized Western theology for confounding the exterior aspect of God’s mani¬ festing activity in the world (an activity in which the Holy Spirit, as a consubstantial Person sent by the Father and the Son, reveals the Son), and the interior aspect of the Trinity, in which the Person of the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, without having any relation of origin with the Son.’’17 To return to the central issue of this paper, one might well ask: what does it mean to say that William used the Greeks? 14. Brooke, “The Speculative Development,” p. 207 n. 77. 15. Brooke, Part Two of his previously cited article, RTAM 28 (1961) pp. 49-55, esp. p. 50. 16. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Cambridge, 1968) p. 158. 17.

Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 85.

Use of Greek Sources by William of St Thierry

247

Dechanet would have us think William used Greek writings, sometimes in the original.18 Certainly no one now believes that William knew Greek. But did he read the translations of Rufinus and Eriugena? There is evidence to suggest that he did have some familiarity with these works, or at least some of them. However, the nature and the extent of this familiarity is yet to be established. More central to the present investigation is the necessity to distinguish clearly its constituent elements. On the one hand, there are the works of the Greek Fathers written in Greek and representing a rich, highly developed theology. On the other hand, there is William writing in the Latin theological tradition of the West, a tradition with its own internal growth and development. A third element is the translation literature of men like Rufinus and Eriugena. This is Greek theology read through Latin eyes. The nature of this transmission from East to West is significant, for fundamental distinctions of primary import were glossed over in the process of translation from Greek to Latin. This was not only a linguistic problem but a theological one.19 Did William use the Greeks?

There is evidence to suggest

that he did not use Greek thought, that is, the theological teachings of the Greek Fathers as they presented them in their writings. This can be illustrated in the Enigma fidei. First of all, the trinitarian concept embodied in the word filioque: in the Enigma fidei William explicitly states his be¬ lief in the Western trinitarian theology of the processions with no fewer than thirteen uses of the word filioque, the expression ab utroque procedens, or some similar phrase. Even William’s use of the expression principaliter a Patre, so suggestive of Greek influence, has its source in the West. Augustine, in De trinitate 15:17, uses the same phrase when speaking of the Holy Spirit’s procession from the Father and the Son.

There is at least a dual significance to the term

18. CF 6:xxx, but see Ceglar, p. 252. 19.

See Lossky, The Vision of God (London,

Theology, p. 96.

1963) p.

104; Mystical

John D. Anderson

248

The importance of the term as a paramount issue in the separation of East and West is undeniable. But attention must always be given, not only to the distinctive difference in trinitarian theology implied by filioque, but to the contrasting ecclesiologies held by the East and the West which the history of this term exemplifies. The second example in the Enigma of William’s essentially Western theological point of view centers around the Augustinian expression of the equation of the Person of the Holy

filioque.

Spirit with all that the Father and the Son share in common. In De trinitate 6:5 Augustine describes the Holy Spirit as unites

amborum

[amborum\. Sanctus]

sive

sanctitas

[amborum]

sive

charitas

A few lines later Augustine says ipse [Spiritus

commune

est

amborum

quicquid

commune

est

Both of these statements are borrowed verbatim by William in the Enigma fidei, as well as paraphrased or alluded to in his Golden Epistle, Mirror of Faith and Com¬ eorum.

mentary on Romans.21

This is Augustine’s understanding of the Holy Spirit and his place in the Trinity; this is William’s understanding also. This understanding is Western; it is not Greek, although it has been described as Greek by Dechanet. In the introduction to William’s On the Song of Songs Dechanet says that in describing the Holy Spirit as the mutual union of the Father and the Son William is in accord with traditional theology, and with that of the Greek Fathers in particular.22 Lossky in The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church says that such an understanding of the Holy Spirit is “inadmissible for Eastern theology, according to which love belongs to the common nature of the Trinity, in which the Holy Spirit is distinguished as Person.’’23 Lossky goes on to say, “The Spirit can never be assimilated to the mutual love of the Father and the Son.... To say: ‘God is 20.

CF 9, pars. 87-88.

21. Golden Epistle, CF 12:96; Mirror of Faith (Davy, Deux trades sur la foi: Le Miroir de la foi, L'Enigme de la foi [Paris, 1959] p. 82; Commentary on Romans, PL 180:561C. 22. CF 6:xliv-xlv n. 125. 23.

Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 213.

Use of Greek Sources by William of St Thierry

249

love,’ ‘the divine Persons are united by mutual love,’ is to think of a common manifestation, the ‘love-energy’ possessed by the three hypostases, for the union of the Three is higher even than love.”24 Another instance of William’s fundamentally Western, Latin theology can be found in his treatment of, and solution for, the question of man’s vision of God in this life. William’s consideration of this problem occupies first section of the Enigma fidei. The question resolution of the tension of apparent contradiction such scriptural passages as 1 John 3:2 ‘‘We shall he is,” and Exodus 33:20 ‘‘No man will see me

the entire involves a created by seehimas and live.”

Augustine’s lengthy Epistle 147 provides William with an understanding of this dilemma as well as an approach to its solution. William follows Augustine’s formulation of the problem of mortal man’s vision of God and borrows heavily from Augustine’s Epistle to restate the Augustinian position, which itself is dependent on the work of St Ambrose. William makes a distinction among things which are seen by bodily eyes, things which are seen by the mind’s eye (mentis obtutu), and things which are not visible to either bodily or mental faculties, but which are believed, and this on the authority of someone else. And these are Augustine’s distinctions. Augustine, with William in agreement, speaks of man’s vision of the very nature and substance of God. Augustine says the ipsa dei substantia can be seen by man in this life, if only in ecstasy. The Son, an image presented to the mind, reveals the nature and substance of God to eyes which are worthy of such a vision.25 In all of this William’s position is derivative; it is expressed in the very words of Augustine found in Epistle 147. The approach to the problem is Western through and through. William does not propound the absolute transcendance of the divine essence. Moreover, his methodology cannot be characterized as the apophatic approach of the Eastern Fathers. In his entire treatment of 24.

Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 81.

25.

CF 9, pars. 2-4.

250

John D. Anderson

this problem of the vision of God William is the child of Augustine. A true evaluation of William’s theology can follow only upon the recognition of this fact. Another aspect of this investigation is the degree to which William utilizes Greek works in Latin translations. Latin translations of Greek works have yielded no sources for the Enigma fidei, although due to William’s use of the term nomina divina in the treatise it has long been assumed that he drew on Dionysius’ De divinis nominibus in Eriugena’s translation. However, the vocabulary and the concepts of William’s discussion of the Divine Names are Augustinian, based primarily on the categories employed in Augustine’s De trinitate. Nowhere does William use Dionysian categories or vocabulary. The distinctions between God’s inaccessible nature and his energies or powers, which are inherent in Dionysius’ work, are not to be found in William’s treatise. This is perhaps to be expected in view of the shortcomings of Eriugena’s translation. 27 Nevertheless, even the superlatives which Dionysius uses in an attempt to express the divine transcendance — and these do appear in Eriugena — are lacking in William’s discussion of the Divine Names. William uses none of the characteristically Dionysian terminology such as super essentialis, superdeus, superbonus, and superplenitudo. 28 Earlier in this paper mention was made of the Enigma fidei 26.

See the revealing article by Edmond Boissard, “Saint Bernard et le

Pseudo-Areopagite,” RTAM 26 (1959) pp. 214-263.

In this article Boissard

examines the assertions of M.-Andre Fracheboud in his “Les cisterciens” article (DS 3:329-333), the section dealing with Bernard of Clairvaux.

Bois¬

sard fundamentally modifies Fracheboud’s findings and concludes that the Areopagite had minimal influence on Bernard.

The same must be said for

the Areopagite’s influence on William of St Thierry.

See notes 6 and 28 also.

27.

Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 96.

28.

The article “Les cisterciens” by Fracheboud (DS 3:329-340) must be

discounted in what it says about Dionysius and William. Likewise, Hourlier’s explanation that William avoids Dionysian vocabulary because of his own deepseated originality (CF 3:31) seems inadequate, especially in view of what is known about William’s method of using his sources in the Enigma. a literal, often verbatim, borrowing.

His is

Use of Greek Sources by William of St Thierry

251

as a work totally indebted to Western sources. It is true that no Greek sources have been found for the treatise. This statement is the result of a minute study of the text itself, a study which has discovered sources for the Enigma in Hilary of Poitiers, Augustine, pseudo-Jerome (Pelagius), Leo the Great, Boethius, and Isidore of Seville.29 Without a doubt, the major source for the Enigma is Augustine, especially his de trinitate. Of the fifteen books of that work William quotes verbatim from nine. In addition, William uses some eleven or twelve other works by Augustine in his treatise.30 None of the Greek Fathers can be cited as a source for the Enigma. Passages in the treatise which formerly were attributed to various Greek authors can be no longer thus described. For example, the opening lines of the treatise, which Dechanet assigns to Origen,31 are taken word-for-word from Hilary of Poitiers’ Tract on Psalm 129. All of the above examples of William’s sources in the Enigma raise the question of the efficacy of searching for Greek sources for William’s works. It seems imperative to examine William’s theology of the Trinity in the light of his sources for the Enigma, all of which are Western writers. This examination would gain much by including other Latin sources which William uses in works other than the Enigma, for example, St Ambrose. In Ambrose’s De spiritu sancto William saw the long section on the trinitarian formula “ex Patre, per Filium, in Spiritu.”32 William read Ambrose’s discusstion of nosce teipsum in his Exposition on Psalm 118.33 Dechanet had said that this was taken from the Greeks.34 Ambrose provides a treatment of man made ad imaginem dei. 35

29. See the Introduction in CF 9 and my dissertation, The “Enigma fidei" of William of St Thierry, (Washington, D.C., 1971) pp. 25-37.

30.

For details see notes in CF 9.

31. 32. 33. 34.

CS 10:77 n. 105. PL 16:762B-764A. PL 15:1402CD. Guillaume de Saint-Thierry: Expose sur le cantique des cantiques, SC,

No. 82 (Paris, 1962) p. 160 n. 1. 35. PL 15:1404ff.

John D. Anderson

252 Even

the

unusual

word phalerari,

which

Dechanet

says

William owes to Terence"16 appears in Ambrose.37 Ambrose uses the pseudo- Athanasian paradigm “sanctus Pater, sanctus Filius, sanctus et Spiritus sanctus, sed non tres sancti sed unus sanctus” which appears so frequently in the Enigma fidei. 38

An additional example of the need to read the Latin Fathers in order to discover the parentage of William’s thought is the following. In the Enigma William rejects Boethius’ classical definition of person: persona est rationalis naturae individua substantia,39 This he did because of the problem of predicating person of God. William felt that if person, as defined by Boethius, were used of God it must be said that the Father is a person, the Son a person, and the Holy Spirit a person, but that there are not three persons, but one person?0 Abelard had this same difficulty with Boethius’ definition in his Theololgia Christiana where he says that if there are three persons in the Trinity there are therefore three substances.41 William deals with the problem by rejecting the definition and offering a second definition of person: cujus pro sui forma, certa sit agnitio. The source of this second definition has proven quite elusive. Following his penchant, Dechanet suggests a similarity to a letter of St Basil.42 In point of fact,William’s definition is also taken from Boethius, from the same work as the classical Boethian definition, the Liber de persona.43 This tendency to overlook a Latin source in favor of a Greek allusion has become a problem in William studies. Brooke gives Eriugena as a source for some passages in William’s 36.

SC 82:170 n. 3.

37.

PL 15:1289C; PL 16:36A.

38.

PL 16:802D.

39.

CF 9, par. 34.

40.

CF 9, par. 34.

41.

PL 178:1258.

42. CS 10:83 n. 117 where Dechanet refers to Epistle 231:6, PG 32:883AC. 43.

PL 64:1343D-1344A.

Use of Greek Sources by William of St Thierry

253

Enigma while the passages are actually from Augustine. 44

This phenomenon occurs in Hourlier’s edition of William’s De contemplando deo in Sources chretiennes45 In short, there is too great a willingness to follow blindly after the work of

Dechanet without critically examining that work and the de¬ tails upon which its conclusions are based. It is hoped that this paper will illustrate some weaknesses in the present trend in William studies vis-a-vis Greek sources and suggest ways to rectify these weaknesses. The above pages are intended to emphasize the great need to re-examine William’s works in light of the tradition which produced them: the theological tradition of the Latin West. Any fuller response to the question of whether William used Greek sources is not possible at this time. A few similarities to Eriugena are not conclusive unless based on a thorough knowledge of Eriugena’s indebtedness to Augustine. The bare use of nomina divina as a term need not imply the use of Dionysius’ treatise of that name, and in the case of the Enigma fidei does not. Until proven otherwise, William, in the Enigma at least, must be seen as a Latin writer in the Latin West drawing upon the tradition of his Latin heritage which admittedly includes some translations from the East. But emphasis must be placed on William’s known use Augustine, Gregory, Hilary, Boethius, Leo, etc., and not his supposed use of Dionysius or the Cappadocians. It important that these sources be discovered and studied

of on is so

that a full understanding can be attained of William’s contribution to the development of monastic spirituality in the West. John D. Anderson

Washington, D.C. 44.

See above, n. 12.

45.

See page 244 n. 7 above.

WILLIAM OF SAINT THIERRY AND THE GREEK FATHERS EVIDENCE FROM CHRISTOLOGY

T

1

HAT WILLIAM OF SAINT THIERRY, more than his confreres, was not only familiar with but extremely sensitive to Eastern spirituality, has been maintained for many years by J.-M. Dechanet. William’s almost total failure to name his Eastern sources is attributed to a contemporary occidental suspiciousness and pervasive antagonism towards Greek writings and Eastern monastic practices.1 Since Dechanet posited this thesis and highlighted the echoes of Greek spirituality in this Cistercian’s teaching, other scholars have increasingly assumed as fact his hypo¬ thesis that William enjoyed a singular and probably first-hand knowledge of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, of Pseudo-Denis through Eriugena, and even of Plotinus. Acceptance of the thesis is not universal 3 and not without its dangers.

Some,

1. J.-M. Dechanet, “Autour d’une querelle fameuse, de l’Apologia a la Lettre d’or,”

Revue d'Ascetique

et de Mystique 20 (1939)

sources de la spirituality de Guillaume de Saint-Thierry

69-77; Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, I'homme et ses oeuvres. medievale:

19-20; Aux

(Bruges,

1940),

Bibliotheque

spirituels prescolastiques I (Bruges, 1942) Appendice II, pp.

207-208. 2. For example, M. Adela Fiske, “William of St-Thierry and Friendship," Ctteaux 12 (1961) 5; M. Schmidt, “Regio dissimilitudinis,” Freiburger Zeitschrift J'iir Philsophie und Theologie 15 (1968) 72.

Dechanet argues that

William may have possessed a fragmentary text of the Enneads(“Guillaume et Plotin,” Revue du moyen age latin 2 (1946) 259). 3. N. M. Haring, “The Porretans and the Greek Fathers," Mediaeval 24 (1962) 205 n. 36 and p. 207.

Studies

254

William of St Thierry and the Greek Fathers

255

outstripping Dechanet in enthusiasm, have claimed that William read and translated Greek.4 Before this intriguing hypothesis establishes itself as hard fact, scholars need to scrutinize minutely the parallels between William of Saint Thierry and Eastern writers, and to determine with ruthless exactitude what works William indisputably read. My own researches have not been centred on the question of sources but on William’s theology of Christ and his appli¬ cation of this theology to the spiritual life. The limitations of this topic have narrowed the range of identifiable sources so that I can only relate my results in locating Christological sources and suggest very tentatively their possible signifi¬ cance for a fuller study. In searching out the genesis of William’s Christology, I have accepted as a certain source only a work which the monk quotes, and I have regarded as inconclusive mere consonance or similarity of idea. In his study of Late Latin Writers and Their Greek Sources, Pierre Courcele isolates two ways of determining the sources any writer had at hand. One can rely on doctrinal similarities, but this he deems “extremely unreliable’’ because Christians after a certain early point tend to sound remarkably alike. The better way, in Courcelle’s opinion, to determine not only ultimate but also intermediate sources is to seek out textual parallels.5 Mediaeval authors felt no compunction in borrowing wholesale phrases, passages or paragraphs from anterior authors. In fact, one often suspects they suffered a latent inferiority complex which caused them to assume that anyone in the past whose works they admired must surely have stated his opinion better than they could theirs. There is no reason to assume that the early Cistercian felt any differently. 4.

Jean Danielou. Origen, et. Walter Mitchell (London and New York,

1955) p. 296 claims St Bernard knew Gregory of Nyssa through William’s translation. Dechanet, on the other hand, leaves the question of whether William read Greek or not open. “Guillaume et Plotin," p. 260, n. 6. 5.

Pierre Courcelle, Les lettres grecques en Occident de Macrobe a

Cassiodore, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1948); ET Harry E. Wedeck, Late Latin Writers and Their Greek Sources (Cambridge, MA, 1969) p. 6.

E. Rozanne Elder

256 After

painstakingly

pointing

out

numerous

affinities

between texts of William and those of Eastern Fathers, Dechanet admits that William was no mere compiler. “A thorough investigation of all of William’s works,” he argued, would prove that this [similarity to Origen] is not a fortuitous conjuncture, pure coincidence, but is the indication of an influence as clear as it is profound. Nowhere has William taken one of Origen’s major themes, and all that goes with it, and made it his own without re-thinking it along his own lines.6 7 Dom Jacques Hourlier, agreeing that William quaffed deeply at Greek springs, agrees also that ‘‘he utilized more than he quoted. He assimilated the thought and transformed it into his own.”8 No one can deny that William’s spirituality, particularly that of his Cistercian years, does indeed invoke Eastern images — especially after the resemblance has been pointed out and especially when one compares his work to that of so many contemporary monks. William’s failure to name and to quote Eastern fathers verbatim, as he did Western, causes one to wonder whether he did in fact know their works directly. In only one treatise did the monk indisputably cite passages from a work of Origen, passages which can be matched in the original. That occurred in his Exposition on the Epistle to the Romans, in whose preface he stated with no hesitation that he intended to utilize Origen.9 If his habit had been tactfully to obscure his Eastern sources, why did he advertize this one? The fact that Abelard utilized the same commentary accentuates its ready availability and accept6. Dechanet, Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, Vhomme, Appendice II, pp. 200-209 cites parallel passages. 7. Dechanet, Introduction to William of Saint Thierry: Commentary on the Song of Songs, CF 6 (Spencer, MA, 1970) pp. xxix-xxx.

8. Jacques Hourlier, Introduction to William of Saint Thierry: On Contem¬ plating God, CF 3 (Spencer, MA, 1971) p. 16.

9. William of Saint Thierry, Expositio in epistolam ad Romanos, Prologus; PL 180:547 AB: ‘‘Sed magnorum doctorum magna commendat auctoritas; praecipue, sicut dictum est, beati Augustini, deinde vero Ambrosii, Origenis, et nonnullorum aliorum doctorum...”

William of St Thierry and the Greek Fathers

ability in their day.10

257

Other echoes of Origen, where no

demonstrable borrowing has taken place, cannot be used to prove direct knowledge. Before we contend that an occasional Greek word — theophania, theotokos, theoria — evinces William’s knowledge of Greek writings, translated or in the original, or his familiarity with Eriugena, let us remember that a number of unim¬ peachably authoritative Latin writers employed Greek words now and again. Saint Jerome, whose works apparently abounded at William’s abbeys, tossed off Greek vocabulary with the abandon of an undergraduate. In his Meditationes, by way of analogy, William tantalizes us by employing the verb satisfacere in speaking of the death of Christ.11 If he had not later attacked Abelard on this point, he might never have elaborated his own theology of redemption and we would not know, as we now do, that he had not in fact read Anselm of Canterbury. In the Disputation with Abelard he betrayed that he had not read the Archbishop’s explanation, that he did not understand his theory, and that he half disagreed with as much of it as he had heard of.12 That William writes of theophania or of an ordo charitatis no more proves a knowledge of

Eriugena or of Origen Anselm.

than satisfacere

proves

he

read

10. Abelard’s use of Greek sources has been studied by Eligius M. Buytaert, “The Greek Fathers in Abelard’s ‘Theologies’ and Commentaries on St Paul,’’ Antonianum 39 (1964) 408-436. Buytaert (p. 429) suspects Abelard used Rufinus’ translation unexcerpted. Origen’s exposition on Romans and his commentary on the Song of Songs are listed together in an eleventh-century inventory of the library of Saint-Thierry (Reims ms lat 427, f. 12v). 11. Meditativae orationes VIII, ed. M.-M. Davy, Meditativae orationes. Bibliotheque des textes philosophiques (Paris, 1934) p. 178; PL 180:229D230A: “Horribilia pro nobis patiens Christus, qui fecimus horribilia, pro quibus faciei summae justitiae in nullo satisfacere potuisset facies cujusvis poenitentiae, nisi eis quae pro nobis passus es....’’ 12. Disputatio adversus Petrum Abaelardum VII; PL 180:274D: “Nec a Deo Patre quasi ad satisfaciendum est requisitus, cum tamen si plenissimi satisfecerit oblatus.” Thereafter William never used satisfaction to explain the crucifixion but he also shied away from using such traditional terms as pretium and mors indebita.

E. Rozanne Elder

258

William cited Cyril of Alexandria in his treatise on the Eucharist, carefully identifying him. It has however been demonstrated that the identical quotations occurred so fre¬ quently during the twelfth century as to point to a conciliar or canonical collection rather than to a copy of Cyril’s works!3 When we have exhausted textual parallels and disregarded mere similarities, where can we turn? Clues to William’s sources, Eastern and Western, would seem to lie in the libraries surviving from Signy and Saint Thierry. We in North America labor under the disadvantage of not being easily able to consult these manuscripts; working through microfilms is time-consuming and my observations must be taken as the merest beginnings of a study. If without checking the manuscripts one takes the catalogue listings of the library holdings which survived William’s abbeys and compares the works listed with printed editions, one finds that William could conceivably have had access to more than twenty Greek authors, all of whom had been translated into Latin well before the twelfth century.14 Origen is one of them. 13.

De sacramento altaris XI; PL 180:361A and B.

See N. M. Haring,

“The Character and Range of the Influence of St Cyril of Alexandria on Latin Theology (430-1260),” Mediaeval Studies 12 (1950) 1-19. 14. Working from the Catalogue general des manuscripts des bibliotheques puhliques, and checking against published texts with the aid of, among others,

Friedrich Stegmiiller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi (Madrid, 1950-1961); E. Dekkers, Clavis Patrum Latinorum, 2nd ed., Sacris Erudiri 3 (Bruges-den Haag, 1961); J. T. Muckle, “Greek Works Translated Directly into Latin Before 1350,” Mediaeval Studies 4 (1942) 33-42 and 5 (1943) 102-114, I have compiled this list of available Greek sources. Ps.-Amphilochus of Iconium, Vita et miraculis sancti patris nostri Basilii, 12th century ms. Charleville 199 (Signy) Athanasius, Antonii patris venerabilis actus. ms. Reims 428 (E.337) (St Thierry)

Evagrius of Antioch.

Vita et conversatio s. p. n. Antonii

12th c.

Charleville 152

Basil, Liber ad fdios spirituals ( = Rufinus’ abridgement of Rules?) 12th c.

Charleville 51

Exameron id est de operibus sex dierum.

end of 12th c.

Charleville 212

Clement of Rome, Recognitiones. Rufinus. 12th c. Charleville 191

Eustachius.

11th c.

259

William of St Thierry and the Greek Fathers

The same manuscript from Signy which contains his Commentary on Romans, which we know William used, has Didymus of Alexandria, Liber de Spiritu sancto. 12th c.

Eusebius of Caesaria, Historia ecclesiastica.

Gregory

Jerome

Charleville 196a Rufinus.

11th c.

Reims 1352 (K.762)

12th c.

Charleville 208

Nazianzus, Apologeticus;

De

(St Thierry)

(Signy)

epiphaniis,

De

communibus

sive

secundis epiphaniis, De pentecoste, De agro regresso, De Jeremie dictis presente

imperatore,

De

reconciliaione

monachorum,

De

gradibus

Rufinus.

vastatione.

12th c.

Charleville 173

Hiron (us?), Laus Hironus in Ignatium Antiochenses falso adscriptum.

Victor

of Capua. 12th c.

Charleville 173

Ignatius of Antioch, Letters and Passios Ignatii. 12th c.

Charleville 173

John Chrysostom, Libri II de compunctione cordis, (anon.). De reparatione lapsi (Anianus?)

9th c.

Reims 382 (E.233)

De compunctione cordis, Quod nemo possit ah alio ledi nisi prius a se ipso ledatur, De reparatione lapsi, De penitentia sermo.

12th c. John Damascene.

Charleville 173 Liber gestorum Barlaam et Josaphat

12th c.

Charleville 190

John of Jerusalem = Theophilus of Antioch, Interpretation super IV evangelia. lOth-llth cc. Reims 427 (E.331) Leontius

of

Neapolis,

Eleemosinarii.

10th-11 th cc. 12th c.

bishop

in

Cyprus,

Enarratio

vitae

s.

Johannis

Anastasius Bibliothecarius. Reims 1412 (K.789)

Charleville 152

Macarius, Sermo ad monachos (incipit not given and so far not identified. Possibly part of Benedict of Aniane’s collection as the ms includes other monastic selections by Basil, Faustus of Riez, Jerome and Cassian) 12th c.

Charleville 51

Origen, Old Testament Homilies (Genesis,

Exodus,

Leviticus,

Numbers,

Joshua, Judges, Kings, Canticle), Rufinus and Jerome; Commentary on the Canticle, (Rufinus); Peri archon (Rufinus), Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Rufinus), fragment of Commentary on Matthew (Bellator?) and Planctus origenis (?)

12th c.

Charleville 207

Papias, Elementarius doctrinae erudimentum early 12th c.

Reims 1090

(J.716)

E. Rozanne Elder

260

as well various Old Testament homilies and his Peri archon.]5 Two chapters of the Peri archon [De principiis], as it appears in Rufinus’ translation, concern Christology: One, De Christo (I,ii) and one De incamatione (II,vi).16 Thorough

examination of both reveals only one possible connection between the two men. Origen had said in referring to Christ as the Wisdom of God: Splendor autem lucis ejus sapientia sua est.17 William, twisting the pronouns, had written: Si autem aliquis splendor ejus est in nobis, que nostra sapientia dicitur.18 Otherwise there is no indication that William borrowed from this work of Origen, at least not to the degree of incorporating some telling phrase from it into his own works. The negative evidence, while not conclusive, suggests that William did not know the Peri archon. Origen, for example, had a predilection for referring to Christ as figura substantiae [Dei], an expression which William never acquired.19 He taught that the Father is omnipotent through the Son, which William did not;20 that Wisdom incarnate is a speculum immaculatum, a phrase which would have fit nicely into William’s Speculum fidei but is not there. The companion theory that William knew and echoed the orientophile opinions of the Carolingian sage, John Scotus Peter Chrisologus, Bp. of Ravenna. Sermones, 12th c.

Charleville 220

Theophilus of Alexandria, Librii III pascales ad totius Aegypti episcopos. Jerome. 12th c.

Reims 378 (E.224)

Vitae of various eastern saints and hermits. 12th c.

Reims 417 (E.323)

15.

Charleville 207 (12th century), copied at Signy.

16.

Origen, De principiis, Rufinus.

17. De principiis I. ii, 11; 142C.

PG 11:130-145.

Cf Habbacuc 3,4:

Splendor eius ut lux

erit.

18.

Aenigma fidei 19, ed. M.-M. Davy, Deux trades sur la foi.

Bib-

liotheque des textes philosophiques (Paris, 1969) p. 108; PL 180:405D. 19.

De principiis. I, ii, 8; 136B.

20.

De principiis I, ii, 10; 141A:

21.

De principiis I, ii, 12; 143A.

Per Filium enim omnipotens est Pater.

William of St Thierry and the Greek Fathers

261

Eriugena, finds no better support. No Eriugena manuscript has survived, if one existed, from Signy or Saint Thierry. If one nevertheless scrutinizes Eriugena’s De divisione naturae to discern a link between them and William’s Christology, more inconclusiveness results. Eriugena’s poetically concatenous antithesis of incomprehensibilis comprehensio, ineffabilis fatus, inaccessibilis accessus,

incorporalis corpus,

or de composita incomposita facta;22 and Pseudo-Eriugena’s piquant twists of phrase such as humanitas non deificata... divinitas non humanata or deitas genitrix et genita Deitas were never picked up by William, who like Bernard, though less zealously, enjoyed turns of phrase. In one place in the Epiphanium in sermone de fide, Eriugena seems almost to prefigure an hyperbolic statement of William that, in the crucifixion, divinity suffered. But William’s statement tends to contradict that of the Scot. Eager to stress the complete unity of Christ’s two natures, William permitted himself to say that “divinity has suffered in the flesh everything that was of the flesh because God took on passible flesh with its human affection. But (divinity) did not co-suffer with the flesh because in its nature divinity remained forever impassible.’’24 John Scot had Christ say on the cross: Solus carni compatiar qui solus carnem accepti [sic] et caro factus sum. Like William keen on demonstrating the inseparability of Christ’s two natures, Eriugena inter¬ preted this to mean: not that he was passible according to his divinity but that in him passibility and passion and death 22.

Eriugena, De divisione naturae II (PL 22:633B); V (990B).

23.

Ps-Eriugena, Commentum Boethii de Trinitate IV.

Johannes Scotus:

Ed. E. K. Rand in

Quellen und Forschung zur lateinischen Pholologie des

Mittelalters I, 2 (Munich, 1906) p. 68:

Eriugena, De divisione naturae I (PL

122:568B). 24.

Aenigma fidei 94, pp. 172-174; PL 438B:

“Passa enim est divinitas

cuncta que carnis erant in carne; quia passibilem carnem cum humanis affectibus Deus suscepit; non tamen compassa est cum carne, quia impassibilis semper in sua natura divinitas permansit.” 438D-39A.

Cf Aenig 96, p. 174;

262

E. Rozanne Elder

are said of the humanity which he alone assumed, and he co-suffered with the humanity which he had assumed to himself in unity of substance. Therefore because “co-suffer” is said with some merit, “suffer” is more truly said.25 While their doctrine seems to have been substantially the same, William shied away from saying that God, or divinity, had co-suffered in Christ’s passion. Eriugena’s subject moreover is ipse: William’s is divinitas i.e. natura. Does this mean he was correcting Eriugena, considered by many in need of correction, or that he was simply unfamiliar with the passage? The survival from Saint Thierry or Signy of a tenth, eleventh, or twelfth century manuscript does not by its existence prove its accessibility to William, any more than the absence of a work establishes its inaccessibility to him. 26 Nevertheless the extant manuscripts seem logical starting points from which to pursue William’s sources. It may with good reason be argued that Christology and soteriology are not the most propitious areas in which to seek Eastern influence. All orthodox Christology has an Eastern tinge. Origen’s Christology, on the other hand, was unique and extremely suspect. Yet the method seems valid. By re¬ stricting the breadth of inquiry, we may focus more accurately on our evidence. 25.

When other scholars have sorted

De divisione naturae IV; 745A: “...donee solus carni compatiar, qui

solus carnem accepti, et caro factus sum. secondum

divinitatem,

sed

quod

in

Non quod et ipse passibilis sit eum

humanitatis,

quam

solus

assumpserat, passibilitas et passio et mors refertur, humanitatique quam sibi in unitatem substantiae assumpserat, compassus est. non immerito dicitur, et vere dicitur passus. passione una substantia Verbi et hominis.” Epiphanius’ Serrno de fide). 26.

Ideo quia compassus

Non enim separata est in (Eriugena’s stated source is

For example, Boethius De trinitate survives from Saint Thierry, Reims

437 (E.344), and De divisione. De diffmitione, Quomodo trinitas, De topicis differentibus, and Speculatio de rhetorice from a Signy MS, Charleville 187—

both twelfth century. know any of them.

Yet William's Christology indicates that he did not

E.R. Elder, “The Image of Invisible God:

The Emerging

Christology of William of Saint Thierry,” Diss. University of Toronto, 1972, pp. 210-211.

William of St Thierry and the Greek Fathers

263

out other themes — William’s doctrine of love, of self-know¬ ledge, of the vision of God — a pattern should begin to emerge which will permit the positing of generalizations and definitive conclusions to the question of William’s contact with the spiritual writers of the East. (In the clutter of chasing down texts, one is tempted to speculate on the rapidity with which a well-programmed computer might resolve such questions.) Beyond consulting published editions of works whose titles or incipits match those in a catalogue of monastic libraries, one must certainly consult the manuscripts themselves before positing with any certitude which works, in which translations and with which pecularities, William might have known.27 Finally, it seems to me that we must pay much stricter attention to the intermediaries from whom William could have derived his so intriguingly Eastern flavor. Eriugena is an obvious but, as I have indicated, unlikely, transmitter. An¬ other undeniable possibility is Cassian. Through him, William — like any monk — had access to Greek terminology and to the spiritual lessons of the Desert Fathers. He would have found ample fuel from the eremetical tradition illustrated there to feed his elderly enthusiasm for solitude. And finally, through Cassian he would have had a direct line to Origen and the Cappadocians. When, in fact, William wrote to the Carthusians: Et haec est destinatio solitarii certaminis, hie finis, hoc praemium..., might he not have been recalling Cassian’s: Haec igitur destinatio solitarii, haec debet esse omnis intentio...? When in the same letter he 27. In his Disputation with Abelard,William quoted a passage he claimed to have found in Leo:

“Nec alter est ex Patre alter est ex matre; licet aliter sit

ex Patre, aliter ex matre” (Disp. VIII; PL 180:278D). The text does not occur in Migne or in any modern edition of Leo's works.

It can however be found

in a 1700 edition from Lyon (Sancti Leonis magni papae primi opera omnia, II, Appendicula Sermorum, p. 193). A Saint Thierry MS, Reims 395 (E.278), from the tenth century seems to contain a text like that used in the Lyon edition, but I have not had opportunity to check it. 28.

Courcelle, ET 228-229, has tracked down Cassian’s use of Gregory

Nazianzus, Athanasius, Chrysostom, Origen and others.

E. Rozanne Elder

264

compared the fervor of Egyptian religious to the chilliness of Gallic, could he not have had Cassian’s similar judgment in the back of his mind? These are similarities, however, not in

textual parallels, and therefore inconclusive. As William cast about for authorities by whom to confound Abelard, he either ignored or was ignorant of Cassian’s anthology of Greek opinions against Nestorius, a document preserved from either monastic library.

which

is

not

The works of Saint Jerome are also tantalizingly shot through with Greek words and Origenistic theology, albeit selectively, and these works are generously represented both at Saint Thierry and Signy.31 Claudianus Mamertus, whose Liber de statu animae has survived Saint Thierry in a twelfth century exemplar, might have provided a handbook of Neoplatonism with which William supplemented Augustine. Ru29.

William, Epistola ad fratres de Monte-Dei II, iii, 20 (PL 184:350D);

Cassian, Collado X, vii (PL 49:828D). 30 William, Epistola ad fratres I, i, 1 (309AB):

“Fratribus de Monte Dei,

orientale lumen et antiquum ilium in religione Egyptium fervorem tenebris occiduis

et

gallicanis

frigoribus

inferentibus,

vitae

scilicet

solitariae

exemplar...”; Cassian, Collationes XXIV, pars 2, praefado (845A): vero

ut

etiam

penetrare

corporali

voluerit,

ut

eorumdem

hanc ad

quasi illas

aedificaretur frigoris

quas

aspectus,

Gallicani

sol

justitiae

rigore

provinciam

derelinquens

terras...”

William’s division of the faithful into camalis.

spiritualis might also echo Cassian, Collado IV,

(671C-73B), rather than St Paul or Origen.

“...alter Aegyptum torpentem

proximus

respecit

animalis

and

xix (605A-608C); VII, iv

Cf Dechanet. Introduction to the

Commentary on the Song of Songs CF 6:xxxiii.

William’s abandonment of

this for other ways of ascent to God, specifically rationalis,

spiritualis,

intellectuals [Expositio in epistolam ad Romanos III, vi; PL 180:609D and Epistola ad fratres I, v, 12;

184, 325C] poses the problem of still other

sources. “Where did he get it?” Dechanet asks, admitting this latter is not derived from Origen (loc. cit., note 74). 31.

MSS Charleville 121, 152, 158,164, 196a, 196b, 196c, 208, and 209 —all

12th century:

MSS Reims 38 (E.224), 387 (E.247)d — 12th century, 428

(E.337) — 11th century, 439 (E.347) — 10th century, 1352 (K.762) — 11th century, 1392 (K.799) — end of the 12th century. 32.

Claudius Mamertus, Liber de statu animae is contained in the 12th

century Saint Thierry MS. Reims 201 (B.92).

Odo Brooke, “The Trinitarian

Aspect of the Ascent of the Soul to God in the Theology of William of St

William of St Thierry and the Greek Fathers

265

finus, the omnipresent translator, might have contributed to William’s knowledge of the East.33 Other possible trans¬ mitters are dauntingly numerous. De Lubac has listed several adapters of Origen; some (Alcuin, Smaragus, Pascasius Radbertus, apparently available to William; some (Sedulius Scottus, Christian de Stavelot, Hincmar, Godescalc of Orbais) apparently not.34 Beyond underscoring how little we really know of William’s sources, what purpose does all this serve? If subsequent studies support this Christological research and demonstrate that William did indeed work through intermediaries rather than from Greek originals or translations, the knowledge of which intermediaries were available and which he favored at various times in his life would increase our appreciation both of William's spiritual psychology and of the genesis of Cistercian spirituality. If, as an example, this Cistercian monk used Cassian extensively — a source readily available to all Western monks—and derived from Cassian a spirituality profoundly reminiscent of and sympathetic to Eastern monasticism, this information would give us more insight into early Cistercian

ideals

and

formation

than

would

a

facile

Thierry,” RTAM 26 (1959) 88, n. 13, claims Claudius Mamertus was a direct source for William’s De natura corporis et animae (PL 180). In this he follows Dechanet, Oeuvres choisies de Guillaume de Sint-Thierry, Bibliotheque Philosophique (Paris, 1944), pp. 64-66 and pp. 71-74 where he has constructed tables of parallels. 33. Rufinus’ De fide symbolo was apparently on the shelves at Saint Thierry and Signy, MSS Charleville 212 and Reims 379 (E.227) —both 12th century. His Historia monachorum in an 11th century MS seems to have been at Saint Thierry, MS Reims 428 (E. 337). 34. Henri de Lubac, Exegese medievule: Les quatre sens de l ecriture. Etudes publiees sous le direction de la Faculte de Theologie S.J. de LyonFourviere, 41 (Paris, 1959) I, 1, pp. 228-229. Alcuin, Carmen de pontificibus et sanctis ecclesiae Eboracensis, MS Reims 426 (E.338)—10th - 12th centuries; Liber de virtutibus et vitiis, Reims 439 (E.347) — dated 10th century but containing a treatise by Walter of Mortaigne. Smaragdus, Diadema monachorum, Reims 440 (F.443)— 10th century. Pascasius Padbertus, Expositio super lamentationes Jeremiae. Charleville 159 —12th century.

266

E. Rozanne Elder

assumption that William had read the Greek directly. It is difficult to be authentically monastic, in touch with the monastic tradition represented and recommended by St Benedict without being influenced by the Eastern fathers. That eleventh and twelfth century Black Monks had turned their attention from it only points up the remarkableness of the Cistercian renewal, and the intentions of the White Monk. If is was William of Saint Thierry’s enthusiasm for what he knew of the Eastern tradition which caused the amassing and copying of the extensive twelfth century collection of Greek works at Signy, then his influence on his brothers and on his order surpasses the apparently limited dissemination of his own writings. If William’s Eastern-early monastic spiritual predilections were derived through intermediaries and half¬ sources, his accomplishment, I submit, is greater not less than it would have been had he worked with the originals.

E. Rozanne Elder Institute of Cistercian Studies Kalamazoo, Michigan

MAN AS THE IMAGE OF GOD IN THE WORKS OF WILLIAM OF ST THIERRY

O Lord our God, you did create us to your image and likeness that we might contemplate you and have fruition of you. No one who contemplates you reaches fruition of you save insofar as he be¬ comes like to you. O splendor of the highest Good, you ravish with desire of you every rational soul; the more a soul burns for you, the purer it is in itself; the purer it is, the freer it is from bodily things to turn rather to spiritual things. Free then from the servitude of corruption that inner force of ours which ought to serve you alone: I mean by this our love. For it is love that, when it is free, makes us like to you, to the degree in which we are drawn to you by the sense of life. And through this whoever lives by the Spirit of life ex¬ periences you. Such a one, as the Apostle says, beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, is transformed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. [Exposition on

W

the Song of Songs, 1]}

rE HAVE HERE allusions, at least, to some of the chief Scriptural texts occurring in William of St Thierry’s doctrine of man as the image and likeness

1.

Trans. C. Hart, Exposition on the Song of Songs, CF 6 (Spencer, MA:

Cistercian Publications, 1970) pp. 3-4.

Hereafter Cant.

267

Anne Saword ocso

268 of God:

Gen 1:26, “Let us make man to our own image, in

the likeness of ourselves’’; 1 Jn 3:2-3, “...we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is. Surely everyone who entertains this hope must purify himself, must try to be as pure as Christ”; Rom 8, “...freed from servitude to corruption...the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free.... He who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you”; and finally, 2 Cor 3:18. However much William may make use of Plotinus2 and however much he may allegorize on the Song of Songs, his doctrine on the image is firmly anchored in what he considered the literal sense of Scripture. The fact that William keeps so close to these texts prevents his making a clear and consistent distinction between image and likeness, as do some authors. But the idea is there: man has the image of God indelibly printed on his nature by what William calls creative grace. By sin he has lost his likeness to God. His task, with the aid of illuminating grace, is to gain a more glorious likeness. Man, says William in one of the twenty-eight passages he borrows from St Gregory of Nyssa’s treatise On the Creation of Man 3 was made to be king of creation, a living image of the King of all things. When someone makes a statue of a king he paints a purple mantle on it and gives it the insignia of royalty, and the statue is then called “the King.” Human nature has no purple or sceptre or diadem, because its Archetype has none. Instead of purple it is clad in virtue, which surpasses all regalia. As a sceptre it has the beatitude of immortality and as a royal diadem it has a crown of justice. [De natura corporis et animae, 717B]4 2. See J.-M. Dechanet, “Guillaume et Plotin,” Revue du moyen age latin 2 (1946) pp. 241-60. 3.

De hominis opificio,

PG 44:123-256; see 136 CD.

William uses

Eriugena's translation but seems to know that of Dionysius Exiguus as well. 4.

De natura corporis et animae (Hereafter Nat corp), PL 180:695-726.

There is an abridged French translation in J.-M. Dechanet, Oeuvres choisies

Man as the Image of God in William of St Thierry

269

The idea, widespread in the ancient world, that the statue of a king or god somehow was the king or god and made his authority really present is behind the original Scriptural por¬ trayal of man as the image of God, who gives the animals their names and rules over the world. That is why man’s life is sacred (Gen 9:6) and why no other images of God may be made. Gregory says that man was meant to enjoy God by his spirit and creation by his body. William, as Dom Dechanet points out,* * * * 5 says that man was meant to enjoy the divine “per divinioram naturam” and use earthly goods “per cognatum sensum,” i.e. by the body. Both agree that something has gone wrong. As William puts it elsewhere: Man’s spirit was created with an acute perception in the quest for good and with an active nature. In the womb of creative Wisdom it excelled every material object, shone brighter than all bodily light, and was of greater dignity because it was the image of its Creator and capable of reason. But it was implicated in the fault attached to its fleshy origin and made the slave of sin, taken captive by the law of sin which is in its members. Yet it did not wholly lose its power of choice (arbitrium), that is, the power of the reason to judge and to discern, although it lost its freedom to will and to act. ...Even when it abuses this power to choose evil instead of good, it is, as has been said, better and of greater dignity than any bodily creature. (The Golden Epistle, 199-200)6 de Guillaume de Saint-Thierry (Paris:

Aubier, 1944); see pp. 120-1 for the

passage quoted and pp. 71-4 for a table of William’s sources for this com¬ pilation.

For quotations from this and the other works of which I have no

English edition I have translated from the Latin, using the French editions (if any—I know of none for the Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans) as a guide. 5. 6.

Oeuvres choisies, p. 115, note 48.

T.

Hereafter

Berkeley, Ep

frat.

The

Cf.

Golden Exp.

Epistle, in

Epist.

CF

12

ad

“imaginem...ex parte amisimus; non enim totam.”

(Spencer,

Romanos,

MA, PL

1971).

180:671,

270

Anne Saword ocso

Man has retained other indications, too, of his dignity as the image of God. Another of the passages William takes from St Gregory of Nyssa speaks of man’s upright posture, indicating his kinship with heaven.7 This classical and patristic analogy may seem rather trivial, but the frequency with which William repeats it shows his respect for the body as sign of the soul. We shall see him again, near the summits of the spiritual life, as erect as Adam in Paradise or Antony emerging from reclusion. However, if man subjects his reason to his lower nature, instead of the divine image he puts on a bestial image, bent towards the earth. The passions are “far from the character of divine beauty.” 8 They are given to the animals for the conservation of life, but man did not understand his own dignity: comparatus est jumentis insipientibus, et similis factus est illis (Ps 48). Worse, he far outdoes the animals, because his thoughts exacerbate his passions. If they did not, “the passions would quickly burst like bubbles.” 9 Both William and Gregory include a good deal of physiology in their treatises. One senses that these two mystics with their scientific curiosity about the body have much in common. For both of them the mysticism explains (and serves to justify!) the curiosity. The marvellous har¬ mony and functioning of the human body, they tell us, reveals the existence of the rational soul that coordinates it. Before man reaches the age of reason it is less obvious that he has a rational soul. He shows little more than vegetative and animal life. But God is working like a sculptor, making an image of himself. Gradually the divine form will appear, as the child attains to reason and manhood (and as the man 7.

Nat corp 714B; PG 144B.

See also Nat corp 708A and 715B; Cant 45.

This analogy continues its career today. tic Exchange 5, no. 2, p. 29:

Cf. Br Felix of Gethsemani, Monas¬

“By its upright posture, and all that it does,

flesh, body, should manifest the spirit dwelling within.

The Roshi had to

work against our tendency to a bowed posture, expressive of reverence and characteristic of our spirituality.’’ 8.

Nat corp 714C; PG 192B.

9.

Ibid., 715B; PG 193B.

Man as the Image of God in William of St Thierry

271

advances in virtue, as we shall see). The image would have been perfect in us from the beginning, if our nature had not been corrupted from the beginning by sin.10 God is the fullness of all good, man is his image, therefore man is a capacity for all good. To amplify the text of William and Gregory: he is an image that is concave where the seal of archetype that stamped it is convex, but when his capacities for good are filled out he will be a positive likeness or the archetype. He bears the imprint of everything good— courage, wisdom, etc. — and above all he has the dignity of free will without which there can be no virtue.11 Gregory and William agree that there is another resemblance in the fact that just as God is omnipresent in the universe, so the spirit (animus, vous ) is omnipresent in the body. And it is “simple and uncompounded,” although it perceives by means of several different senses: in singularitate varium invenitur, unum in varietate. How can it be simple and yet operate through different senses? Ah—a mystery! Man’s incomprehensibility is a further likeness to God. All we know, William adds in a passage that is apparently his own but that Don Dechanet illustrates by a quotation from Gregory, is that the soul is a spiritual, intel¬ lectual substance, Deo simillima. 14 This Dom Dechanet considers the fundamental ontological likeness—the image of God in man.15 Merton would call it the “true self.” Now we part company with St Gregory of Nyssa. Everything material has number, measure and weight, and 10.

Ibid., 710C; PG 253D.

11. 12.

Ibid., 717C; PG 184BC. Ibid. JUT)', cf. PG 154D, where, of course, the reminiscence of the

“Athanasian Creed is lacking. 13.

Ibid., 714B; PG 156A.

14. 15. 16.

Ibid.. 717D. Oeuvres choisies, pp. 251-2.

Gregory does have the triad, vous, Aoyos andcxyanr),but R. Leys,

L image de Dieu chez Saint Gregoire de Nysse (Paris, 1951) p. 93, says that

he has no intention of implying an analogy between three faculties of the soul and the three Persons of the Trinity.

Anne Saword ocso

272

17

therefore bears some slight imprint of the Trinity. But when God created man, William tells us in an early work, he formed in him a certain likeness of the Trinity, in which the image of the Creator-Trinity should shine forth, and by which, since like seeks like, this new inhabitant of the world could if he wished cling indissolubly to God his Creator. The Trinity breathed the breath of life into this newly-formed man and placed in him the force of memory, that he should be ever mindful of the power and goodness of the Creator. Immediately and without the slightest interval, memory from its own substance begot reason, and memory and reason from their own substance pro¬ duced the will. The memory has and holds the end toward which we are to tend; reason tells us that we must tend toward it; and the will does the tending. These three are one, but three powers (efficaciae), just as in that most high Trinity there is one sub¬ stance but three Persons. And just as in that Trinity the Father begets, the Son is begotten and the Holy Spirit proceeds from both, so reason is begotten by the memory, and the will proceeds from the memory and the reason. So that the rational soul created in man might cleave to God, the Father claimed the memory and the Son the reason, while the Holy Spirit proceed¬ ing from them both claimed the will proceeding from both. [De Natura et Dignitate Amoris, 382BC]18 17.

Nat corp 722B.

18.

De natura et dignitate amoris (henceforth Nat am), PL 184:379-408.

Critical text and French translation by R. Thomas: Nature et dignite de Vamour, Chambarand, 1965.

spirituality, see R. Thomas,

Guillaume de S. Thierry,

On the Trinity in William’s

“Notre entree dans

la vie trinitaire d’apres

Guillaume de St-Thierry,” Coll 24 (1962) 209-24 and 338-49; and O. Brooke, The Trinity in Guillaume de Saint Thierry Against the Anthropological Back¬ ground of his Doctrine of the Ascent of the Soul to God (typewritten thesis)

Rome, 1957.

Extracts have appeared in RTAM 26 (1959) 85-127 (“The

Man as the Image of God in William of St Thierry

273

The soul is not distinct from its powers: ipsa etiam anima sua est potentia (Nat corp 720 B). What it thinks or wills is an accident, what it thinks or wills by is its substance: Tota igitur cogitat, quia tota cogitatio est; totaque vult, quia tota voluntas est (ibid.). This implied comparison with God whose love is his knowledge should be borne in mind apropos of the vexed question of amor ipse intellectus est.19 William, who is here using Claudianus Mamertus, goes on to ram home the comparison with God: “See how close we are, by the image, to him who created us. For if, when the soul thinks, it is all thought; if [when it wills] it is all will; then certainly, when it loves wholly it is all love. And God is called, and is, Love” (720 C, cf. 721). Unfortunately there is the difference that the soul may love the wrong things and be dragged down to the depths. The soul therefore hears Christ saying to it: I and the Father—and my Charity — are not three but One.... And you, rational memory,20 thought and love of self,21 you are one man, made to the

Trinitarian Aspect of the Ascent of the Soul to God...”); 27 (1960) 193-211; 28 (1961) 26-58. The triad “memory, intellect and will” as an image of the Trinity comes from St Augustine (De trin. xiv, 8), but William uses it differently. Dom Brooke (RTAM 26, p. 123) says: "The distinction could almost be summarized by saying that St Augustine is interested in showing the Trinity in the image of man whereas William is interested in showing the term of the image of man in the Trinity.” 19. See p. 278 of L. Malevez, “La doctrine de l’image et de la connaissance mystique chez Guillaume de St-Thierry,” Recherches de Science religieuse 22 (1932) 178-205, 257-79. 20. Mens rationalis, as distinct from the sort of memory that animals have. 21. Reading tui with Dechanet, and not tua with Migne. The triad in this passage from Mamertus is mens rationalis, cogitatio, voluntas. In one quotation from Nat am it is memoria. ratio, voluntas. Here are some other triads, but the list is certainly not exhaustive: In Cant (PL 180), in con¬ junction with the image: habere in memoria, intelligere, amare (494A); reminiscens, intelligens, amans (503C); and memoria, purus intellectus. amor (503CD, 516B); ditto with fides, spes (502C); memoria, intellectus, affectus (545A); memoria. intellectus, charitas (508C); fides. intellectus, amor (505C);

Anne Saword ocso

274

likeness of your Author, but not created his equal. For you are not begotten, you are formed, and you are not the Former. Withdraw from the things below you, less formed and less formosa than you; draw near to the forma formatrix, so that you may become formosior and cleave to it for ever. For the greater the weight of charity that presses you against it, the deeper will be the imprint that you receive from it. (Nat corp 721 CD) A man who cleaves thus to God has no need to envy the angels. He and they are one in God. In fact, in the union of its Head the man Christ with the Son of God, humanity has been raised higher than the angels, to divine sonship, and has heard what no angel has ever heard said to it: “This is my beloved Son.’’ Gaudeat itaque glorificata in capite suo Christo sancta humanitas, et exaltata super angelos exsultet in seipsa (722 A). However, if the human race is risen in Christ, “the image of the unseen God and the first-born of all creation” (Col 1:15), the individual has sinned in Adam and in himself: memoria, praesentia,

spes,

dilectio

experientia,

(488B);

mens,

suavitas fruitionis

conscientia

(529D);

intelligendum,

cognos-

memoria,

(ibid);

cendum, amandum, and sensus, affectus, intellectus

(530B); vivendum quod

credebatur, habendum quod sperabatur, fruendum quod amabatur (537A); memoria, cogitatio, voluntas (537D); fides, spes, charitas (539C).

(PL 184), in conjunction with the image: (342A); without the image:

memoria,

memoria,

intellectus,

In Ep frat

intelligentia.

amor

voluntas/amor (347A);

memoria, ratio vel intellectus. voluntas (3478); and of course the three stages

of the spiritual life, animal, rational and spiritual.

It should be noted that

when in Ep frat (nos. 260-2 of the English) William sums up his doctrine of the image he does not mention any triad; and in Cant no. 88-9 the corres¬ pondence with the Persons of the Trinity is only implicit and is carefully qualified.

In Med 12 (PL 180:246D) fruendi habitus, intellectus, amor (all

three = the will) are an image of the Trinity in the soul. caritas in Speculum Fidei (PL 180:365B).

So are fides, spes,

In Aenig (PL 180:433D) fides,

dilectio, intellectus, are “a certain likeness of the Trinity.”

In the Exposition

in Epistolam ad Romanos (PL 180:547-694; see 688AB), of Christ the Image

and the Trinity, we have some of the words which recur in descriptions of the blessed soul:

congruentia, prima aequalitas, prima similitudo; intelligere,

vivere, esse; perfruitio, charitas, gaudium; dilectio, beatitudo.

delectatio, felicitas vel

They come from Aug., De Trin. VI, ch. X.

Man as the Image of God in William of St Thierry

275

O good Creator! How well had you created me!... You fashioned me in your own image and likeness, and set me in the Paradise of your delight.... The serpent did steal in, seduced my Eve (= my flesh), and made me a sinner through her. For that reason I am driven out of the Paradise of good conscience, and made to be an exile in a foreign country, the land of unlikeness...?2 Bid me to be a reasonable man, as at the first, ruling my earth so that I may subject my body to my spirit and my spirit to you. Do not regret the dignity you have bestowed on man in giving me dominion over the beasts of my earth, that is to say, the fierce and untamed movements of my soul’s affections. (Med 4:6-7)22 Whereas St Gregory of Nyssa believed in the apocatastasis and implied as much in his treatise On the Creation of Man, William ends Nat corp with what he calls the catabathmos. If the soul ad imaginem et visionem Dei creata persists in soiling itself, in going out from before the face of God like Cain and dwelling “in the land of unlikeness, the land of Naim, that is, of commotion,” 24 and wallowing in sensual pleasure, it acquires a sort of insensibility. Indeed, it kills itself; but it will suffer for all eternity and one day will again animate its body so that it accomplice may share its suffering. The different fates of the blessed soul and the damned soul come from the difference in their love. In the one love has kept its natural dignity, in the other it has degenerated into animality (725 B-726 C). As we see from that last sentence, man’s state, at least since the Incarnation and Redemption, is not one of total 22.

For this theme, see DS 3:1330-1346, art. “Dissemblance.”

23.

The Works of William of St Thierry, vol. 1, trans. Sr Penelope, CF 3

(Spencer, MA: 24.

Cistercian Publications, 1971).

Dechanet, Oeuvres choisies, p. 145, tells us that this interpretation

comes from Origen, PG 13:540B. 25. Cf. Plotinus on the state of the Dead Souls in the land of unlikeness, in Erin. I, 8, 13.

Plotinus uses the wordKOTO^a(vovTihere, and in I, 6, 7 has

avajSorreov, cf. William’s anabathmos.

See Dechanet, art. cit. in note 2.

276

Anne Saword ocso

corruption. His nature, created good, remains fundamentally good. He has to work with it, not against it, though in the sense that he has to mortify his passions with the help of grace to return to the nature that he had in Paradise.26 Through sin nature has abandoned due order and departed from the uprightness with which it was created. If it turns back to God it quickly re¬ covers...all that it lost by turning away from him. And when the spirit has begun to be formed anew to the likeness of its Creator the flesh too soon takes on fresh life of its own accord and begins to model itself on the reformed spirit. For even con¬ trary to its own inclinations it begins to take delight in whatever delights the spirit.... For we do not lose our pleasures, we only trans¬ fer them from the body to the soul, from the senses to the spirit....Indeed it would be very easy and enjoyable to live according to nature with the love of God to season it if our folly allowed us. As soon as that is healed nature finds natural things [e.g. a diet of black bread and vegetables] attractive. (Ep frat 88-9) No vice is natural to man, whereas virtue is. None the less the force of habit deriving from a corrupt will or a deep-seated carelessness tends to make a host of vices become as if natural to the conscience which has been neglected.... Yet every bad spirit can be softened before it grows hard in evil; and even after it has become hardened it need not be despaired of. For the curse pronounced upon Adam means that the earth which we cultivate and the ground which is our heart or body produce harmful or useless growth freely in all directions, but what is useful and necessary only with hard work. (Ep frat 219-20) For no one possessed of a glimmer of reason harbors in his soul such perversion, or such aversion to God, that God does not sometimes speak within him. (Cant 93)27 26. See J.-M. Dechanet, “Le ‘naturam Saint-Thierry,” Coll 7 (1940) pp. 141-8. 27.

sequi’

chez

See also Ep frat 55-6, and Spec fid, PL 180:386BC.

Guillaume

de

Man as the Image of God in William of St Thierry

111

We have a good nature to work upon, yes, but grace is still necessary: For just as daylight is... the ruler over all colors, being indispensable to their beauty and strength, so illuminating grace is the strength of all the virtues and the light of all good deeds, being indispensable to their effectiveness and success. (Cant 47) Granted nature and grace, the first step in the soul’s anabathmos is self-knowledge, but self-knowledge of a particular kind: Know yourself, then, to be my image; thus you can know me, whose image you are, and you will find me within you....Seek God therefore in sim¬ plicity, think of him in goodness, strive to have him ever in your memory, to know him by loving him and to love him by knowing him....Forget the material objects to which your bodily senses are accustomed... and the images pressed deep in your memory by the desire for enjoyment....Purify yourself, train yourself in godliness, and you shall find the kingdom of God within you. O image of God, recognize your dignity; let the effigy of your Creator shine forth in you. To yourself you seem of little worth, but in reality you are precious.... Be wholly present to yourself, therefore, and employ yourself wholly in knowing whose image you are and ... what you can do in him whose image you are. (Cant 64 and 66) As

a

means

of

combining

self-worth

with

realistic

self-appraisal this would be hard to beat. But that is not the point. The point is that the soul by this introspection finds God. The introspection is at the same time purification which, as we shall see, makes the soul able to “see” God by the sense of love. There is also in the same passage an em¬ phasis on trust: If you know, be sure that you were foreknown; if you choose, be sure that you were chosen...from

278

Anne Saword ocso

the greatness and purity of love, the Holy Spirit gives testimony to a man’s conscience that he is a son of God. (Cant 66) We may compare it with an excerpt William takes from St Augustine and inserts in Nat corp (724 AB). At the end of the process of purification the soul in ecstasy rests in itself most joyfully, free from all fear and anxiety. Then it suddenly realizes its own greatness and with “huge and in¬ credible confidence makes for God, that is, for the contemplation of the Truth and that most high and secret reward for which it has laboured so much.’’ The passage from Cant quoted above goes on to say that the light of God’s countenance is the only light that teaches the soul that it is a son of God; the soul will never know what it is and what it is capable of until if finds itself in the light of God’s countenance and by the sense of life that comes from the Spirit of life. William’s doctrine of God’s countenance comes mainly from the psalms, and it includes aspects which cannot be dealt with here, such as the “hiding place.” But generally speaking, the countenance of God in his relation with us, God as our exemplar. “The light of thy countenance is signed (or sealed) upon us, Lord” is one of William’s favourite texts. God’s face radiates upon our upturned faces and imprints its own beauty on them as though it were a seal.28 Today we should perhaps prefer to use the metaphor of photography, and in fact the word has the honor of having been invented to express this idea.29 But the metaphor of the seal stamped on our faces has the advantage of reminding us that our own faces may have to be broken in the process. God’s face is God’s will, and to let God’s will be done in us can be painful: 28.

Nat am 399B; Med 2:9; 7:5; 9:6.

29.

By Philotheos of Sinai (7th cent.?):

“Let us at all times and with all

our attention preserve our hearts from the thoughts that tarnish the mirror of the soul, on which Jesus Christ, the wisdom and power of God, is wont to imprint and photograph ( (PL 180:365B) 34. Cf. Cant 92 (PL 180:504C) ratio transit in amorem.

On this amor-intel¬

lectus, see Malevez, art. cit.; J.-M. Dechanet, “Amor ipse intellectus est. La

doctrine de l’amour-intellection chez Guillaume de Saint-Thierry,” Revue du Moyen Age latin I (1945) pp. 349-74; R. Javelet, “Intelligence et amour chez

les auteurs spirituels du Xlle siecle." Revue d'ascetique et de mystique 37 (1961) pp. 273-90 and 429-50; and O. Brooke op. cit. in note 18. M. Lot-Borodine, La deification de I'homme (Paris: Cerf, 1970) p. 243, considers William’s formula an excellent summary of the Greek doctrine on the knowledge of God. 35. Migne’s text. Should there be a comma after fideli? Dechanet (Miroir, p. 48) has one, Davy (Deux trades, p. 24) not; both translate ‘Tame fidele a son image et a sa ressemblance," as though there were no comma. No doubt this is out of respect for William’s habitual doctrine on the image. I think however that Brooke and Tomasic are probably right in saying that

Man as the Image of God in William of St Thierry

289

In the Aenigma fidei he tries fides, intellectus and dilectio, saying cautiously that they are in the heart “a certain resem¬ blance to the Most High Trinity” (PL 180:433D). But he has to admit that “it is difficult to see what proceeds from what,” though I am rather abusing the admission in quoting it here. Now we must look more closely at the role played by the “sacraments” of the New Testament, i.e. the visible and temporal economy of salvation. In De natura et dignitate amoris 36 the Trinity sees that man has strayed far into the land of unlikeness and holds council about how to get him back. Both men and angels have fallen by wanting to be like God in the wrong way and so making themselves rivals of the Son, “the radiant light of God's glory and the perfect copy of his nature” (Heb 1:3). The Son concludes that only miseria will not arouse their envy, and sets out to recuperate man by making himself man—the last and most wretched of men—so that man may learn of him to become meek and humble of heart. When man is like him in the right way he will attain the glory that he lost by trying to be like him in the wrong way. We need not go into the soteriology of this little mystery play, but we should notice that the Eucharist is linked with the theme of likeness. By eating and drinking the Body and Blood of his Redeemer man “is transformed into the nature of what he eats. For to eat the Body of Christ is to become the Body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit.” (403B) Later works stress the memory of the passion and resur¬ rection, which brings enlightenment to the intellect and love to the will: Created as we were to the image and likeness of the Creator, we fell through our sin from God into ourselves, and fell from ourselves beneath our¬ selves into such an abyss of unlikeness that no faith, hope and charity here are the image of the Trinity in the soul; see O. Brooke, RTAM 33 (1966) pp. 290-1, and T. M. Tomasic, “The Three Theo¬ logical Virtues as Modes of Intersubjectivity in the Thought of William of St Thierry,” RTAM 39 (1972) pp. 89-120, at p. 116. 36.

PL 184:401 ff; R. Thomas, pp. 130 ff.

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hope was left. But there came the Son of God, eternal Wisdom; he bowed the heavens and came down. He made of himself a being who should be among us and be like us, so that we might grasp him; and he made that we be like to himself, so that we might be exalted by him. Thus the constant remembrance of this mystery would be our perpetual remedy. (Cant 80) The nosegay of myrrh (the passion) and the cluster of grapes (the resurrection) abide between the Bride’s breasts when her memory, lovingly drawn to the Bridegroom, is sometimes borne down by the myrrh and some¬ times sustained by the cluster of grapes. Both these effects, however, require the balsam of Engaddi, that is the visit of the grace of the Holy Spirit to attract the memory, enlighten the under¬ standing and enkindle love.... The balsam of Engaddi indicates...the oil of gladness and the unction of the Holy Spirit wherewith God the Father anointed the Bridegroom, who is also God, above his fellows. For whatever comes from faith and hope, from the memory and the intellect, seems to possess a certain feeling of love and joy; but joy in the Holy Spirit, in the fullness of love, conduces to a certain effective beatitude that sur¬ passes all joy. (Cant 86) Here we see faith, hope and charity clearly associated with the memory, intellect and love (= ardent will towards God), and less clearly with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Eucharist is a memorial and works in the memory: Pour into me your wholly fragrant spirit....This is what happens when we do what you have told us to do in your remembrance....This is what happens when we eat and drink the deathless banquet of your body and blood. As your clean beasts, we there regurgitate the sweet things stored within our memory and chew them in our mouths like cud for the renewed and ceaseless work of our salva¬ tion. That done, we put away again in that same

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memory what you have done, what you have suf¬ fered for our sake... [The soul] is made that which she eats, bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh....The Holy Spirit effects in us here by grace that unity which is between the Father and your¬ self, his Son, from all eternity by nature; so that, as you are one, so likewise we may be made one in you. (Med 8:5) The proper use of the memory or imagination is to contain the image of the face of God; which provides an unusual and beautiful explanation for distractions: By a certain natural sense derived from her First Cause the soul dreams—after a fashion — of your Face, in the image of which she was herself created. But because either she has lost the habit or never acquired it of not receiving another image in place of it, she is receptive when, in the time of her prayer, many other images offer themselves?7 It is legitimate and good to replace these unwanted images by that of our Lord’s humanity, for “the man who contemplates his own form [i.e. Christ] does not sin.” It was not the least of the chief reasons for your incarnation that your babes in the Church, who still needed your milk rather than solid food, who are not strong enough spiritually to think of you in your own way, might find in you a form not un¬ familiar to themselves.... Therefore, although we know you now no longer according to the flesh... we make our prayers... to that same flesh of ours, which you have not cast off but glorified and made the footstool of your feet.... For what better preparation, what happier arrangement could have been made for the man who wanted to ascend to his God, to offer gifts and sacrifices according to the precepts of the Law, than that, instead of going up by steps to the altar, he should walk calmly and smoothly over the level 37. Prayer, trans. Sr Penelope, The Works of William of St Thierry, vol. 1, CF 3. 38. A text from Job quoted in differing forms in Ep frat and Med 10:4.

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of his own likeness, to a Man like himself, who tells him on the very threshold: “I and the Father are one.” And he is forthwith gathered up to God in love through the Holy Spirit and receives God coming to him and making his abode with him, not spiritually only but corporeally, too, in the mystery of the holy and life-giving body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Med 10:4,5,8) However, practice and effort and the aid of the Holy Spirit should eventually lead us beyond meditation on the humanity of Christ, ‘‘the level of our own likeness.” This marks a stage in the restoration of the image of God, who is Spirit, in us: But nevertheless, to this very day, Jesus says to his disciples, ‘‘It is expedient for you that I depart,” that is, that I withdraw the mask of my humanity from your sight, ‘‘for if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you.” For as long as he who prays thinks of anything bodily in him to whom he prays, his prayer is indeed devout, but not entirely spiritual.... Therefore the rational man who is led by reason, under reason’s guidance in this respect, labors and strives laboriously until, victor over himself, he rises above all mental pictures and makes his escape into the realm of spiritual things... The Holy Spirit helps this man’s infirmity. Then his beauty begins to be renewed in the image of God. Grace, supervening, forms his reason and under¬ standing, his life, manners and physical tempera¬ ment, even, into a single affection of godliness, a single image of charity, a single face —the face of one who seeks God. (Cant 17,19) This of course implies no lack of gratitude for the incar¬ nation and redemption: God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.... With it my brow is signed, in it my mind rejoices, by it my life is directed and my death is made dear. (Med 10:1) But in the past history of salvation, however wonderful, is

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not the whole story: “glass and riddle and that which is in part shall be done away, but there shall be the vision face to face and the plenitude of the highest Good.” (Cant 167) Meanwhile, faith in the mysteries of salvation is the lattice through which the soul can contemplate eternal realities. True, it needs the help of illuminating grace; but it is to some degree connaturally fitted for the task: By the illuminating light of the sun, the eye of the body... can go on seeing wherever it turns, until sight fails in it because of its natural weakness. In the same way, by the action of illuminating grace, reason, when it tends in the direction of divine contemplation, unless it lets itself be affected from without by the darkness of error, suffers no con¬ tradiction in regarding the simplicity and purity of the divine substance, until, overwhelmed by glory, it grows weary and falls back on itself. (Cant 158) There are degrees in the freedom of our reason for this act, just as there are degrees in the freedom of the will. But “when the will has been set free by liberating grace and the spirit begins to be moved by a reason that is free, then it be¬ comes its own master, that is, makes free use of itself” (Ep frat 201). It is entering the second stage of the spiritual life and its original likeness to God, the integrity of Paradise, is now taking over. It clings more and more closely to its exemplar (Ep frat 209). Its gaze is fixed on heaven and it lives with men more to impart to them God’s life than to live this mortal life (Ep frat 211). “It holds erect the body which it animates, raising it to its natural state, looking to the heaven....” (Ep frat 212) Is it because he is writing to Carthusians that William has so completely forgotten the deportment prescribed in St Benedict’s twelfth degree of humility? At any rate he has not forgotten humility, and the literary here come in for the comments traditional in spiritual literature: Now although these pursuits may sometimes be helped by literature and make use of it, they are not merely literary, they are not concerned with

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mere trifles, with wrangling and gossip; they are spiritual, peaceful, humble, adapting themselves to humble men. They may be carried on exteriorly but their proper sphere is within a man’s mind and spirit, where his renewal takes place and he puts on the new self which is created in God’s image, justified and sanctified through the truth. (Ep frat 213) And so the soul completes the work of its sanctification in the fear of God. Now we come to a period in which growth in the knowledge or vision of God, growth in love for God and growth in likeness to God alternate. William ingeniously ex¬ plains this alternation by comparison with sensory perception: But does the soul ever see God as the Father sees the Son or the Son the Father, who see each other as we said in such wise as to be not separate but one God? Yes, assuredly, but not in every way the same....For the soul’s sense is love; by love it per¬ ceives whatever it perceives, alike when it is pleased and when it is offended. When the soul reaches out in love to anything, a certain change takes place in it by which it is transmuted into the object loved; it does not become of the same nature as that object, but by its affection it is con¬ formed to what it loves... O Charity, Charity, you have brought us to this that, because we love God and the Son of God, we are called and we are gods and the sons of God! Although “it does not yet appear what we shall be, when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.’’39 The ancients thought of sight as a sort of radar in which the eye emitted rays as well as receiving them. The eye could see because it had within itself a luminosity akin to daylight (as human love informed by the Holy Spirit is akin to grace) and because the rays returning to the eye formed an image of what was perceived. In the Speculum Fidei the same idea is brought into relation with Christ. “The power of vision, coming out of the brain by the rays of the eyes, bumps (offendit) into the shapes or colors of visible things; 39.

Med 3:6-9; cf. Cant 94 and Spec fid 390 C ff.

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and when it reports them back to the mind, the mind is con¬ formed to them [there is an image on the radar screen] and sight takes place” (391 A). On the intellectual plane, the spirit has the intellect as a sense; and again, an image of the thing known must be formed in the knower. Similarly, When the soul athirst for the living God considers the glory of the Lord, led by grace, it bumps into the Mediator between God and men, the man and God, the Image of the invisible God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Then... it feels within itself the splendor of God’s grace and the figure of his substance; and what the Apostle spoke of happens: “And we, with our unveiled faces reflecting like mirrors the brightness of the Lord, all grow brighter and brighter as we are turned into the image that we reflect” (II Cor 3:18). For the soul loves, and its love is its sense, by which it senses him whom it senses. It is in some way trans¬ formed into him whom it senses, and if it were not transformed into him—that is, if he were not in it and it in him — it could not sense him. (390CD) To sum up.

Because man has a natural likeness to God

and like attracts like, man is naturally attracted to God. As by the practice of virtue and prayer he conforms his will to God’s (the second of the three likenesses listed in Ep frat 260-3), the image becomes more deeply imprinted and the at¬ traction becomes stronger and turns into love informed by divine charity. But love is for the soul a sense, an intellect. And so there comes a clearer vision, a deeper love and a closer likeness, the third—but these three are one. The question which comes first, vision or likeness, at which stage of the spiritual life, is the subject of Malevez’ article40 and I shall not attempt to repeat his penetrating analysis. I must at least mention, however, that the process is not smooth and automatic. There is a sudden and special intervention of the Holy Spirit before the soul can reach the third likeness, that of a unity of will so perfect that it is unable to will anything but what God wills. 40.

See above, note. 19.

This

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is called unity of spirit not only because the Holy Spirit brings about or inclines a man’s spirit to it, but because it is the Holy Spirit himself, the God who is Charity. He who is the love of Father and Son, their Unity, Sweetness, Good, Kiss, Embrace and whatever else they can have in common... be¬ comes for man in regard to God in the manner ap¬ propriate to him what he is for the Son in regard to the Father or for the Father in regard to the Son through unity of substance. The soul in its happi¬ ness finds itself standing midway in the Embrace and Kiss of Father and Son. In a manner which exceeds description and thought, the man of God is found worthy to become not God but what God is, that is to say man becomes through grace what God is by nature.4I That last phrase, and its parallels elsewhere in William’s works, sounds a little like an echo of St Maximus the Con¬ fessor, whose Ambigua William may have read either in Eriugena’s translation42 or in the extracts inserted in Eriugena’s Periphyseon. The soul, then, participates in the Holy Spirit, who is the mutual love and knowledge of the Father and Son. In this sense it knows God as he knows himself: Quibus ergo revelat Pater et Filius, hii cognoscunt, sicut Pater et Filius se co41.

Ep frat 263; cf. On Contemplating God 11; Med 6:7-8; Spec fid 391 D

ff. 42.

Little of Eriugena’s translation is available in Migne (PL 122 and PG

91). However, the translation of PG 91:1345D is presumably much the same as Eriugena’s: tradunt,

cum

“...hominem ad Dei imaginem in principio factum esse plane

secundum

voluntatem

generatus

esset

Spiritu,

et

similitudinem hanc accepisse attributam propter servatum Dei mandatum (baptism), ut idem homo figmentum quidem sit Dei secundum naturam, sed Filius Dei et Deus per Spiritum secundum gratiam. ”

Cf. 1087C (Eriugena):

“...totus quidem homo manens secundum animam et corpus per naturam, et totus factus Deus secundum animam et corpus per gratiam.”

A couple of

other phrases from Eriugena’s translation that are reminiscent of William: “velut imagine redeunte ad principale exemplum” (1075C), “cognoscituros nos quandoque quantum cogniti sumus, cum deiforme hoc, et divinum nostrum animum ac rationem proprio admiscebimus, et imago revertetur ad principale exemplum cujus nunc habet appetitum” (1078B).

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noscunt; quia habent in semetipsis notitiam mutuam eorum {Spec 393A). But even in heaven the soul never becomes by nature what God is by nature; which amounts to saying that it never sees God's essence. multiplying the aliters:

William

expresses

this

by

Sed aliter hoc est in divina substantia in qua cum Patre et Filio consubstantialiter ipse [the Holy Spirit] unum est; aliter in inferiore material; aliter in Creatore, aliter in creatura; aliter in propria natura, aliter in gratia...etc. (Spec 393B) In heaven we shall see God in so far as we are like him (by grace, not by nature), and we shall be like him in so far as we see him. In this life we can never attain that heavenly vision or knowledge, but we can have foretastes of it. To make him realize to some extent what he lacks, grace sometimes as if in passing touches the af¬ fections of the lover and takes him out of himself, drawing him into the light of true reality, out of the tumult of affairs into the joys of silence, and to the slight extent of which he is capable, showing him for a moment, for an instant, ultimate reality as it is in itself. Sometimes it even transforms the man into a resemblance of ultimate reality, grant¬ ing him to be, to the slight extent of which he is capable, such as it is. Then... he is restored to himself and sent back to cleanse his heart for vision, to fit his spirit for likeness. (Ep frat 269-70) Not withstanding the alternations, likeness to God and mystical experience or fruition go hand in hand, as a new mode of understanding begins: The degree of fruition becomes the degree of pro¬ gress and likeness; because there can be no likeness apart from the fruition which accompanies it, and there can be no fruition apart from the likeness which brings it about. For whenever a soul receives, by God’s gift, a certain grace for its own profit, it receives also, with that gift, under¬ standing of the Giver; that man may not be un¬ grateful to God, but his turning may be toward the

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Giver. When humble love turns toward God more ardently, it is conformed to him toward whom it turns; because as it turns it is given by him an aptitude for such conformity. And since man is made in the likeness of his Maker, he becomes attracted to God; that is, he becomes one spirit with God, beautiful in his Beauty, good in his Goodness; and this takes place in proportion to the strength of his faith,43 the light of his understand¬ ing and the measure of his love?4 He is then, in God, by grace, what God is by nature. For when, sometimes, grace super-abounds to the point of a positive and evident experience of something of God, suddenly, in a new sort of way, something comes within the grasp of the sense of enlightened love which exceeds the reach of any bodily sense, the consideration of reason, and all understanding except the understanding of enlightened love. In this state... there is no difference between thus grasping something of God and (by the attraction of the happy experience) becoming like to him in accord with the nature both of the impression ex43.

In Exp Rm 609D, William gives an opinion of some commentators

which seems a good summary of the progress of faith as he himself sees it: “Proponunt enim tres formas in doctrina fidei:

rationalem, spiritualem,

intellectualem.

et

Rationalis

est

in

sacramentis

moribus,

apta

illis

hominibus, quibus Dominus dicit in parabolis annuntiandum regnum Dei. Spiritualis est in lectionis studio et meditationis, et majorum doctrine, con¬ veniens eis quibus Dominus dicit: Dei.’

Intellectuals est in

mundorum

cordium,

voluntariam

quae

obedientiam,

‘Vobis datum est nosse mysterium regni

amoris Deum et

illuminati videre

activam

affectu,

merentur.

perfectionem,

quae

propria est

Rationalis spiritualis

exigit

sobrium

sensum, et humilem contemplationem; intellectuals pacificam et familiarem experientiam.

De sursum enim veniens hie intellectus non formatur a

ratione, sed ipse sibi conformat rationem” ... etc.

However, the terms

rationalis, spiritualis and intellectualis are here used in a way very different

from William’s own. There is another scale of faith, or rather, of the under¬ standing of faith, in Aenig 414 B-415 B. 44.

The degrees of love: “‘Love’ is a strong inclination of the will toward

God, ‘dilection’ is a clinging to him or a union with him; ‘charity’ is the enjoyment of him. But ‘unity of spirit’ with God... is the term of the will’s progress.’’ (Ep frat 257; cf. 235).

Man as the Image of God in William of St Thierry

perienced and the love that experiences it. 94)

299

(Cant

This is the grace of adoption, whereby we cry “Abba, Father” (Spec fid 391D). Because we love God and the Son of God, we are called and we are gods and the sons of God (Med 3:9, with allusion to Ps 81:6 and 1 Jn 3:1). But “what¬ ever awareness you have here of seeing God, whatever faith here teaches you about him (these are the two sorts of knowl¬ edge of God in this life), is a riddle, darker at times indeed, at others clearer” (Med 3:9). What are the characteristics of the man in whom the image and likeness of God have been restored as far as possible in this life? Humility, first of all: Here lily resembles lily; that is, the copy is con¬ formed and like to the exemplar of the sacred humility in Christ. (Cant 108) Then indeed it is sweet for man to be abased together with supreme Majesty, to become poor together with the Son of God, to be conformed to divine Wisdom, to make his own the mind which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. For here is wisdom with devotion, love with fear, exultation with trembling, when God is thought of and understood as brought down unto death, the death of the Cross, to the end that man might be exalted to the likeness of the Godhead. (Ep frat 272-3) Apatheia:

When the joy of the Lord is established in a good conscience, it is not interrupted by the incursion of any earthly sadness or obscured by any vain joy¬ ousness but continues faithfully and firmly in its steady course, always and everywhere tranquil, nor does it undergo change even though it lends itself to many things. (Cant 117) The faithful soul lives, as the Apostle says, by the life of God, that is, a spiritual life in the joy

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of the Holy Spirit, in the hope of the children of God, and in the contemplation and imitation of the highest justice. For as long as it lives here...it uses its natural passions in such a way that although it is in the flesh it does not live according to the flesh. It becomes almost impassible. Its very passions are not passions for it but virtues. It fears, but only with a holy fear; it grieves, but only because it cannot yet enter the Kingdom. Exhilarated by the enlargement that charity brings, it joyfully runs in the way of God’s commandments, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things, filled with love by the contemplation of what awaits it. (Nat corp 725A) The humble, tranquil man on whom the Spirit of the Lord rests finds the mystery of the Trinity and Unity of God no problem: “he comprehends the majesty of the divine incom¬ prehensibility by the very fact that he does not comprehend it” (Med 3:12). He has the gift of understanding Scripture (Nat am 399A)—indeed, of feeling and handling its mysteries with the hand of experience, by a special inner sense. With the understanding that comes of love his soul gazes upon the laws of unchangeable Truth, “while it accepts the realities of this created world to adapt and conform itself to them, not without using its judgment to discriminate, its power of rea¬ soning to examine and its mind to appreciate.” (Ep frat 351B) Such a man has the gift of tears (Med 4:3; Cant 33), and practices continual prayer: Thanksgiving... is charity, which never fails. It is the uninterrupted prayer or thanksgiving of which the Apostle says “Pray without interruption and give thanks at all times.” For it is a certain un¬ changing goodness of the mind and of the wellordered spirit and a certain resemblance to the goodness of their Father, God, on the part of God’s sons. It prays for everyone always and gives thanks for all things... to be in such a state is to be always in the joy of the Holy Spirit. (Ep frat 180-1)

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His nature has been restored by God’s grace (Cant 170). Filled with wisdom, he bears within himself the brightness of the eternal light and the mirror of the divine majesty; he radiates the image of the goodness and holiness of God (Nat am 405B). If he speaks, it is the Spirit that speaks in him. Whatever he does, it is the Spirit that works in him — he who divides his gifts as he will. As the body lives by the soul, so such a soul lives by God, breathes God as a body breathes air. It abides in him by its affection and he abides in it by his power, so that it is one spirit with him (cf. Nat corp 722C). And as he thus tastes and sees how gracious the Lord is, all of a sudden his whole being grows so sweet in tasting of his sweetness, and he is so lit up by seeing the light of his truth, and so beside himself in the joy of the Holy Spirit at this sudden plenitude of the highest Good, that he is confident he will have won eternal life, if this experience be perfected. For “this is life eternal, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (Med 3:12) The wisdom of the children of God comes not from this world. The inner light is reflected in their outward appear¬ ance, and the charm and simplicity of their expression and bearing provoke love of God: In such people nature indeed returns to the foun¬ tain whence it sprang... when with the help of the Spirit... their spirits enter into the divine move¬ ment and their senses are controlled by a certain spiritual discipline, a certain spirituality appears even in their bodies and their faces acquire an appearance that is more than human, having a singular and very special grace... their flesh that is sown in corruption begins even now to rise again to glory; so that heart and flesh together may rejoice in the living God, and where the soul thirsts after you the flesh also may thirst in O how many ways! For the blessed meek possess the earth of their own body; which earth... bears fruit of itself in fastings, in watchings, in labors. (Med 12:15)

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They show us what the Church triumphant will be like: Whenever we see two or three of that company gathered together in your name on earth, with you, Lord, in their midst, their life together seems so good, so pleasant, so fragrant with the unction of the Holy Spirit, that it is plain to all that there the blessing that you have ordained is realized. How much more, then, shall this be so, where you have gathered your saints... and where the hea¬ vens you have made [the souls in which God dwells] proclaim your righteousness! (Med 6:3) They have a special grace and angelic conversation simply from their affectionate manner, and seem already to enjoy something of the beatitude of heaven (Nat am 405D). Some of your saints undoubtedly were full of light. They glowed and they gave light, because they lived so close to your light and your fire. By word and example they enkindled and enlightened others, and they declared to us the solemn joy of this supreme knowledge of you, for which we look hereafter, when we shall see you as you are, and face to face. (Med 7:8) Their memories have become wisdom and tasted that the Lord is sweet. Their intellects think of the Lord in goodness, with the understanding of love. Their wills are one with God’s will. Soon faith will give place to the direct vision of that Face which the memory was made to contain. The intellect will grasp the substance of things hoped for of the Word of Life. Full charity will exalt all affections, uniting them in effective joy and fruition in the Holy Spirit. Mul¬ tiplicity will be gathered back to the One from whom it came forth and to whom its unification and transformation has made it like. And so we come to death. The poor unbelievers call this passage to life “death”; what should be¬ lievers call it but a Pasch? In this bodily death we die perfectly to the world to live perfectly to God... But what is this passage to God? All bonds are broken and all obstacles overcome. Henceforth the

Man as the Image of God in William of St Thierry

holy soul cleaves perfectly to God, or rather, is one with him, in perfect bliss and eternal love. It has become one of those of whom it is said: “I have said: you are all gods, and sons of the Most High...” From the beginning of the ascent to this end in which all is consummated, Wisdom extends its might, preserving the strength of him who ascends lest he should falter in the ascent, and sweetly disposing all things, favorable and unfavorable, modifying them and making them work together for his good. And so it leads the soul back to its Beginning and hides it in the covert of the Face of God. (Nat am 406D-408A)

Resemblance to God is the whole of man’s per¬ fection. To refuse to be perfect is to be at fault... For to this end alone were we created and do we live, to be like God; for we were created in his image. (Ep frat 259)

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Notre Dame de la Paix Chimay, Belgium

303

MUNDICIA CORDIS A STUDY OF THE THEME OF PURITY OF HEART IN HUGH OF PONTIGNY AND THE FATHERS OF THE UNDIVIDED CHURCH

I

N MANY WAYS the Cistercians of the twelfth century can be seen as among the last and most eloquent teachers of a common Christian spirituality, one that could be shared by both the East and West. To say this is not to deny that there were significant differences between the spiritual teachings of Cistercians and the spiritualities in the Eastern tradition. A close reading of the Cistercian texts will reveal these differences. But I think that we can can still say that, even with these clearly differing perspectives, there was a common ground both in the Scriptures and in the Fathers on which both Cistercians and Eastern Christians could build in the twelfth century. There was to a considerable extent a common language of spirituality which could be understood both by Latins and Greeks because of the shared scriptural and patristic tradition. Vladimir Lossky has explained this well in his work Essai sur la Theologie Mystique de VEglise d' Orient:

%

La rupture entre l’Orient et l’Occident chretiens ne datant que du milieu du Xle siecle, tout ce qui est anterieur a cette date constitue un tresor commun inseparable des deux parties desunies. L’Eglise orthodoxe ne serait pas ce qu’elle est, si elle n’avait pas saint Cyprien, saint Augustin, saint 304

Mundicia cordis

305

Gregoire le Grand, comme l’Eglise catholique romaine ne pourrait non plus se passer de saint Athanase, de saint Basile, de saint Cyrille d’Alexandrie.1 This common heritage was especially strong in the monastic life in Europe in the twelfth century, because monastic culture was preeminently a biblical and patristic culture, as Dom Jean Leclercq has shown.2 3 When monastic houses reformed, or when new monastic communities were estab¬ lished, they went back to the sources of their tradition: to the Rule of St Benedict, and to the teachers and ascetics of the first Christian centuries. Thus it should not surprise us that the Cistercians were very much as home in the presence of the Desert Fathers and knew much of the teaching of such theologians as Origen and St Gregory of Nyssa, even if it is more likely that they read their Eastern Fathers in Latin translation. Both first and second generation Cistercians sensed that they shared a 'X

vision of the monastic life with the monks of the earliest times, the ascetics of Syria and Egypt. William of St Thierry could commend the heremitical spirituality of the Carthusians of Mont-Dieu by calling it the Orientale lumen.4 St Aelred of Rievaulx can criticize the almost naturalistic sculpture found in the cloisters of some monasteries as being foreign to the teachings of Sts Antony and Macarius.5 The contemporaries of the Cistercians who opposed their renewal of the monastic 1. V. Lossky, Essai sur la theologie mystique de leglise d'Orient. 1944) pp. 9-10.

(Paris,

2. See the short presentation of his thesis in the article “S. Bernard et la theologie monastique du XII siecle,” Saint Bernard Theologien. Actes du Congres de Dijon, 15-19 Septembre 1953, ASOC 9 (Rome, 1953) pp. 7-23. 3. For a study of some of the possible Greek influences on William of St Thierry, see J.-M. Dechanet, Aux sources de la spirituality de Guillaume de Saint-Thierry (Bruges, 1940). 4. The Golden Epistle: A Letter to the Brethren at Mont Dieu, CF 12, Tr. T. Berkeley (Spencer, MA, 1971) p. 9. 5.

Spec car 2, 24, 70.

Aelredi Rievallensis,

Edd. Opera Omnia, A. Hoste and C. H. Talbot,

Opera Ascetica, Corpus Christianorum.

Mediaevalis I (Turnhold, 1971) p. 99.

Continuatio

306

Nicholas Groves

life (or “innovations” as they frequently called it), such as Orderic Vitalis, accused the Cistercians of trying to force the sons of St Benedict back into the mold of the Desert Fathers.6 In their sermons and commentaries the Cistercian authors of the second generation have made much use of the ideas that were first expressed by Eastern theologians. J. Danielou has shown us how St Bernard had been influenced by St Gregory of Nyssa’s descriptions of image and resemblance.7 Although William of St Thierry’s direct knowledge of Eastern sources is matter for considerable debate, we owe a great debt to Dom Dechanet for showing us the extent to which William is steeped in the ideas of certain Eastern fathers.8 Clearly St Bernard, William, and other Cistercians of the second generation found the theology and spirituality of the East as part of a basic Christian heritage from which they could draw when they wrote about their vision of what the monastic and the Christian life should be. It is only with the development of a type of theology which rests more on logical and systematic methodology than on a personal digestion of Scripture and patristic texts that the East and West can no longer comprehend each other. Al¬ though there were many theological misunderstandings before the twelfth century, there was enough of a common heritage so that East and West could meet on the shared ground of certain texts. But once the Scriptures and the Fathers were dissected with the new and increasingly refined tools of logic, of lectio, quaestio, and disputatio, mutual understanding became more difficult.9 The majority of Cis¬ tercians opposed this development, but at the risk of cutting 6.

Historia ecclesiastica.

7.

J. Danielou.

Theologien.

8.

PL 188:636ff.

“Saint Bernard et les Peres Grecs,” Saint Bernard

pp. 52-55.

Of particular importance are the articles of Dechanet’s which were

collected together in the volume Aux sources de la spirituality de Guillaume de Saint-Thierry.

9.

For a discussion of the development of these techniques as they were

applied to Scripture see M. D. Chenu, Towards Understanding St Thomas (Chicago, 1964) pp. 79-125.

Mundicia cordis

307

themselves off from what became the dominant intellectual current of the twelfth century.10 In doing so they became preservers of their variety of the scriptural and patristic tradition rather than apologists for it. But perhaps it was their particular vocation to preserve rather than to make the kinds of adaptations of their tradition which apologists are often forced to make. Looking back from our own vantage point of eight centuries, we can see that although the Cis¬ tercians may have give up a certain kind of intellectual respectability in the latter twelfth century, they preserved a fund of spiritual teaching common to both East and West. One of the themes shared by both the Cistercians and Eastern Christians in the twelfth century was that of the importance of mundicia cordis or “purity of heart” for man’s ascent to God. Mundicia cordis has been, both in the East and the West an ethical and mystical concept. This is what is implied in the saying of Our Lord in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Mt 5:8) By practising purity of heart, we prepare ourselves for the vision of God. This visio Dei is the end of the Christian life for many both within the specifically monastic tradition and outside of it.11 Thus this theme of puritas or mundicia cordis, and its resulting end in the visio Dei were of great importance in the earliest Christian writings. The idea that twelfth-century Cistercians like Hugh of Pontigny held of purity of heart depends on their reading of Cassian, where this purity is of primary importance, as we shall see. But be¬ fore we can examine Cassian, and Hugh’s adaptation of him, we need to look at the development of this important theme in earlier writings, particularly those of the Alexandrine Fathers. 10.

For it is in the writings of Evagrius Ponticus, a

There is an excellent discussion of the growth of theology into a

“science” as opposed to the earlier understanding of it as ars in M. D. Chenu.

Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century.

Essays on New

Theological Perspectives in the Latin West, Tr. Jerome Taylor and Lester K.

Little (Chicago, 1968) pp. 270-309. 11.

See the work of K. Kirk, The Vision of God:

the Summum Bonum.

(London, 1931).

The Christian Doctrine of

308

Nicholas Groves

monk well read in Origen, that East and West meet. Recent work has shown that the spiritual teaching of Evagrius was carried over into the works of St Maximus the Confessor, who became one of the most influential teachers for the Eastern tradition. In the West, Evagrius became the source of much of the teaching of Cassian.13 Cassian, in turn, became one of the foremost of authors read by Western monks, including Cistercians. Thus a study of Cassian’s sources and of Cassian himself will help us to see how Hugh of Pontigny adapted him, as well as modified this venerable monastic theme with a characteristically Cistercian flavor. Purity of Heart before Cassian

As we have said, the theme of purity of heart has quite a venerable history in the East.14 In fact, its roots lie not only in the Beatitudes, but also in the somewhat parallel under¬ standing of the importance of this virtue in Stoic philosophy. For the Stoics apatheia meant the complete absence of passions and the resulting tranquillity of spirit. This was the highest virtue in the Stoic moral life. Seneca describes it in these words: What indeed keeps us from calling that life blessed where the soul is upright, unafraid and stable, free from fear and earthly desire? I5 Philo maintains that anything done under the influence of anger or of any other passion is not pleasing to God.16 Plo12.

M. Viller.

‘‘Aux sources de la spiritualite de saint Maxime.

Les

oeuvres d’Evagre le Pontique,” Revue d'ascetique et de mystique 11 (1930) 156-184, 239-268, 331-336. 13. S. Marsili, Giovanni Cassiano ed Evagrio Pontico; dottrina sulla carita e contemplazione, Studia Anselmiana 5 (Rome, 1936).

14.

There is a large literature on this subject.

Perhaps the most thorough

general account is that of Juana Raasch in her articles on “The Monastic Concept of Purity of Heart” published in Studia Monastica from 1966-1970. Besides these articles, the work of Kirk mentioned above has much infor¬ mation on the themes of “purity of heart" and the “vision of God" in the Early Church. 15.

Quoted in the article of G. Bardy. “Apatheia," DS 1:727.

16.

Ibid., 727.

Mundicia cordis

309

tinus sees that bodily and sense images are foreign elements which must be stripped away from the nous if it is to be able to join the divine.17 This means that there needs first to be a certain type of asceticism that is an active cultivating of the nous. As J. Raasch describes it: Cleansing is certainly the proper word for this idea, although it includes the positive notion of cultivating the virtues, especially those which Plotinus calls the higher and more spiritual virtues.18 Although the Stoic idea of apatheia was to be of some im¬ portance in the Eastern of the heart It is out of

the development of the idea of purity of heart in Fathers, of much greater importance is the view and its purification held by the Hebrew tradition. this tradition that Our Lord spoke when he said:

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’’ 5:8)

(Mt

For the Hebrews the heart was the center of man’s being, and of his mental activity. It was, as Raasch says, “the center of the personal life, and also of the interior life, the inner man.”19The Psalms mention the heart as the source of the interior life (cf. Psalm 72:26; 83:3). The type of conver¬ sion of life that the prophets emphasize, especially Jeremiah and Isaiah, is a turning of the heart. We have here an “interiorization” of the concept of purity, a “transposition from the ritual plane to the moral plane.” Our Lord’s in¬ dictment of the Pharisees and of other professionals in the Law is that they did not cleanse the interior man, however much they insisted on the exterior cleanliness, the proper observance of externals.

21

The earliest Christian authors, especially St Clement of 17.

J.

Raasch,

“The Monastic Concept of Purity of Heart,” Studia

Monastica 8 (1966) 9.

18.

Ibid., p. 9.

19.

Ibid., p. 13.

20.

Ibid., p. 13.

21.

See Lk 11:37ff., where Our Lord contrasts inner and outer purity.

310

Nicholas Groves

Rome, St Ignatius of Antioch, and St Polycarp, see purity of heart as being this type of cleansing of the interior person. St Clement considers that the state of having pure thoughts proceeded from the thought of Christ.

He directly relates

this purity to conversion.23 Liturgical sources from the earliest times show a similar concern for the purity of heart which is seen as a grace re¬ ceived at Baptism. The Euchologion of Serapion of Thmuis is particularly explicit about this.24 Although purity of heart and the vision of God are separately important themes in these early writings, there is, strangely enough, no clear view of purity of heart as leading to the vision of God. The implications of this Beatitude for the Christian life had not yet been thought out entirely until we reach the Pseudo-Clementine writings. There they are explicitly established.25 While the Apostolic Fathers, especially St Ignatius of Antioch use the term apatheia both in reference to Christ himself and to the Christian,26 giving it its Stoic meaning of the absence of passions, the use of the term apatheia is not systematic until we reach St Clement of Alexandria and Origen. They will give to this Stoic term its fullest Christian translation. Clement sees the “gnostic” or perfect Christian as being indifferent to everything except Christ. Thus it was that after the Resurrection Our Lord’s apostles conquered their emotions of anger, fear and desire because of the teachings of Christ.27 They did not do this by their own effort alone, but by allowing Christ himself to work a transformation in them: 22.

Raasch, p. 24.

23.

K. Lake, ed. The Apostolic Fathers, Loeb Library, 2 vols. (New York,

1930) 1:18-20. 24. A. Hamman and W. Mitchess, Early Christian Prayers (Chicago, 1961) p. 121. 25.

Raasch, pp. 199-204.

26.

For example,

note this exhortation of St Ignatius of Antioch:

“Look

for him who is above all time, eternal and invisible, yet who became visible for our sakes; impalpable and impassible, yet who became passible on our

Mundicia cordis

311

By him alone can the heart become pure by the expulsion of every evil spirit from the heart. ...When the only good father visits it it is sancti¬ fied and gleams with light. And he who possesses such a heart is so blessed that he shall see God.28 Thus for Clement purity of heart leads directly to the vision of God: that becoming pure in heart through the know¬ ledge which is by the Son of God, he may be initiated into the beatific vision face to face.29 Many writers have objected that Clement is too concerned with “knowledge” or gnosis—as if the full Christian life were thus only intended for a spiritual elite. If this were true, Clement would indeed be guilty of a type of snobbery which made of the Gospel just another esoteric teaching. 30 But the gnosis which Clement describes is not just “intellectual” in our sense of that term. Rather, throughout the Stromates it is seen as the purity of heart and its accompanying knowledge which is the gift of the Son of God. Some may object that this is too “intellectual” a view of salvation. But we need to remember here that the nous for the Greeks was what the “heart” was for the Hebrews: the center of man’s life. According to St Clement, Christ enters into this center to cleanse it and direct it to the vision of God. Man’s own efforts to help Christ to achieve this in man. To object to Clement’s view of salvation as the increasing en¬ lightenment of the nous is to object to all but a specifically account; and who in every kind of way suffered for our sakes.” Ignatius to Polycarp,

Epistle of

Tr. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, The Ante-Nicene

Fathers I (1926) p. 94.

27.

Stromata

6, 9, 71.

PG 9:291.

Roberts and Donaldson tr.

The

Ante-Nicene Fathers 2:496.

28.

Ibid., 2, 20.

PG 8:1058-1059.

Tr. p. 372.

29.

Ibid., 6, 12. PG 9:323. Tr. p. 503.

30.

This is particularly the accusation brought by Bigg in his work The

Christian Platonists of Alexandria (Oxford, 1886) pp. 86-87.

31. Deification, the process of purification which ends in the vision of God, is achieved by Christ working in the soul.

Stromata 4, 23.

Nicholas Groves

312

Hebraic Christianity. If St Clement was the first theoretician of purity of heart, his pupil Origen was to be the more pragmatic expositor of similar views. Origen was the source for Evagrius Ponticus’ teaching about the importance of apatheia in the spiritual life, and therefore Origen was the father of this theme for Eastern monks for future generations. As does Evagrius, Origen specifically connects apatheia with the capacity of the heart to receive the Trinity?2 Origen makes the attaining of this capacity the final goal of the spiritual life. This apatheia and the accompanying capacity for the Trinity are reached through the working within us of God’s word, which both removes serious faults and instills virtues. Origen is quite clear that the possession of apatheia is not achieved by our efforts alone. His system of ascesis is thus not merely a negative katharsis, a purging of sin by our own work. Rather it is a positive purification accomplished in us through the indwelling of Christ.34 The result of this is to make the puri¬ fied heart a new inner world with its sun, moon, and stars, which by its purity invites the Trinity to dwell within it. Evagrius continues this teaching of Origen’s, adding to it refinements of his own. It is well for us to remember here that it was Evagrius’ association with the teachings of Origen which made him suspect in the East for a long time.35 His ideas will be appropriated by Eastern monasticism, but his name will be unmentioned. For Evagrius, as for Origen, the ascetic life involves the stripping of the soul of all thoughts. In this respect Evagrius follows the Stoics very closely. Indeed, his definition of “pure prayer’’ is “the explusion of all thoughts.’’36 But 32. Peri archon I, 3, 8. PG 8:127. See also his In Cant. 2. PG 13:146ff. 33. In Lev. horn. 8, 11. PG 12:507-508. See the discussion of this point by Raasch, pp. 40-50. 34. Bigg, p. 170. 35. See A. Guillaumont. Les 'Kephalaia Gnostica' d'Evagre le Pontique et I'Histoire de I'Origenisme chez les Grecs et chez les Syriens,

Patristica

Sorbonensia 5 (Paris, 1962) pp. 15-80.

36.

Les Legons

d’un Contemplatif.

LeTraite de I'Oraison dEvagre le

313

Mundicia cordis

Evagrius clearly distinguishes himself from the Stoics’ concept of apatheia when he shows that this stripping of the soul results in not simply an absence of thoughts, but in the soul becoming a temple in which the Holy Trinity dwells. He seems to be following Origen here. This idea is clearly expressed in his larger work the Centuries-. The naked intellect is that which is perfect in the view of itself and which has merited to communi¬ cate in the contemplation of the Holy Trinity. 37 There is a fuller, and more lyric explanation of this state in the work On Prayer: When the intellect, after having put aside the old man, takes on the new man of grace, then he will see his own condition, at the time of prayer, to be like that of the sapphire or the color of heaven; the condition which Scripture calls the habitation of God, which was seen by the Elders on Mount Sinai.38 Here we see a marriage of Stoic ideas with St Paul’s teaching on the new man, where violence has been done to neither. 39 Evagrius has taken Origen’s idea of apatheia as leading to the dwelling of the Holy Trinity within the soul, and has made it more systematic. There is now an ascending ladder, each rung of which is reached in order to make the higher rung possible. 1.

The practice of the virtues.

2.

Apatheia

3. 4.

Agape

5. Pontique.

37.

The ladder can be outlined thus:

Cent.

Gnosis of nature, the contemplation of God in his

creation. Gnosis of God himself, the final blessedness. 40 Ed. tr. I. Hausherr (Paris, 1960) Sec. 70, p. 102. Ill, 6.

Quoted in Hausherr, Les lefons, p. 17.

I have been

unable to consult a modern edition of the Centuries. 38.

Cent., p. 34.

English translation mine.

39. 40.

See Rm 6:1-11. O. Chadwick.

John Cassian:

(Cambridge, 1950) pp. 85-86.

A

Study in

Primitive Monasticism

Nicholas Groves

314

I would object to Professor Chadwick’s judgment that this scheme is a far cry from “Gospel simplicity.” Although the statements in the Gospels on purity of heart and the clean¬ sing of the inner man are of a different style than Evagrius’ systematization, this does not mean that Evargrius is not steeped in the sense of the Gospel’s teaching on this point, as he is also in St Paul’s teaching about the new man. Evagrius is more systematic, but no less a Gospel Christian. His system will have great influence on the spirituality of both the East and the West, through St Maximus the Confessor in the East and through John Cassian in the West. Puritas cordis in Cassian Marsili has shown in much detail how John Cassian took over the spirituality of Evagrius.42 But there was one signi¬ ficant point where Cassian not simply adopted Evagrius, but altered one of his most important themes, that of apatheia. Cassian never uses the Greek term apatheia, but judiciously changes it to puritas. Guillaumont is of the opinion that Cassian did this deliberately so as to avoid suspicion of too close an adherence to Greek philosophy, and particularly to the ideas of Origen.43 Another important change Cassian made in his adaptation of Evagrius’ system was to simplify it, and thus make it more intelligible to the ordinary Latin monk he was writing for. In order to do this, Cassian needed to condense the number of categories into which the spiritual life was divided by Evagrius, and to dwell more on the actual practice of the virtues than on the end that awaits those who have practiced them. Cassian becomes more an advisor on the stages of spiritual combat than a theoretician of the con¬ templative life. This explains Cassian’s emphasis on the need to first understand and then overcome particular sins, a point where I find Chadwick too harsh in his criticism of Cassian.

Chadwick observes that Cassian’s analysis and em-

41.

Ibid., p. 85.

42.

See n. 3 above.

43.

A. Guillaumont, p. 79.

Mundicia cordis

315

phasis on sins “in spite of allusions to the Spirit and the in¬ dwelling Christ,’’ has “unwittingly created a gloomy aura of discouragement.’’ 44 I do not think we can see Cassian as underemphasizing the action of Christ and the Spirit in us. Rather it seems to me that Cassian felt that these were so central to the life of the monk that he did not feel he had to mention them at every point. Cassian’s practical concern with instructing monks in that life of virtue which leads to contemplatio and charitas seems to have required him to emphasize the knowledge of and the overcoming of vices. He was writing practical manuals of the monastic life in both the Institutes and the Conferences. These were intended as guides to those engaged in the ascetic warfare more than as treatises on the joys of contemplation. Indeed, Cassian does turn his attention to the end of this warfare more in the Con¬ ferences than in the Institutes. At points the Conferences are more particularly intended to explain the fruits of the ascetic life. But Cassian never gets very far away from his purpose of moral instruction. I wonder whether he would be the “ideal” novice master. In I Conference, Cassian sets out in great clarity and sim¬ plicity his definition of puritas cordis and its place in his scheme of the monastic life. He has Abbot Moses describe the finis and the scopos of the monk’s adventure: The end {finis) of our profession, as we said, is the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven, but the destination, that is the scopos, is purity of heart, without which it is impossible for any pious man to arrive at that end.45 The point which Cassian is making here is that there is an immediate goal of our efforts (scopos) which when reached allows us to reach the ultimate goal (finis), which is the Kingdom of Heaven.46 The “ultimate” goal for a farmer is to 44. O. Chadwick, p. 96. 45. Conference I, 4. Translation mine. For the Latin text, see Conferences 1-VII. Tr. E. Pichery, SC 42:80-81. 46. The terms “immediate” and “ultimate” are taken from the translation of O. Chadwick in his Western Asceticism, The Library of Christian Classics, 12 (Philadelphia, 1958) p. 197.

Nicholas Groves

316 grow fertile crops.

So he makes his “immediate” goal the

removing of brambles and weeds from his soil, in order that the crops will have good conditions for growth.47 It is the same process in the spiritual life. Cassian seems to have followed Stoic teaching when he used the term finis for the ultimate end of the monk’s life. The Stoics adopted this idea from Aristotle, who said in the Nichomachean Ethics that every human activity was directed toward achieving a certain “good” (agathon) which was its end (telos). The Stoics de¬ veloped this idea into a more thorough moral philosophy, so that philosophy became for them the “art of living” (techne peri hiou) which was to conduct man towards the telos that was the “happy life” (eudaimonia). This telos becomes the finis in Roman philosophy, as we see in the De finibus bonorum et malorum of Cicero.48 This idea of the finis or “end” of life became enough of a commonplace in the later Roman Empire that it was even used in reference to the chariot races.49 Thus Cassian was making a distinction which would have been very clear to his audience both as a philo¬ sophical and as a more common idea. This scopos of puritas cordis is never in danger of being seen apart from the finis which is the regnum Dei. It is im¬ possible to do good works for their own sake if we follow Cassian’s system. Rather we conquer vices and cultivate virtues in order that we may reach the Kingdom of God. In place of the more intricate system of Evagrius which we outlined above, Cassian has developed this simpler one: Practice of virtues —► purity of heart (scopos) —► King¬ dom of God (finis) Purity of heart is charitas, and Cassian’s equation of the two keeps him from falling into the trap of practicing virtues for their own sake: 47. 48.

Conference I, 4; Western Asceticism, p. 196; SC 42:80-81.

R. Holte.

Beatitude et Sagesse:

Saint Augustin et le probleme de la

(Paris, 1962) pp. 11-44. 49. L. Christiani. Jean Cassien. La Spirituality du Desert. Figures Monastiques. (Abbaye S. Wandrille, 1946) pp. 14-15.

fin de I'homme dans la philosophic ancienne.

Mundicia cordis

317

These practices of fasting, watching, withdrawal to the hermitage, meditation on the Scriptures, are all subordinate means to your chief aim which is purity of heart, or charity, and we ought never to allow them to take precedence over charity. Charity will not suffer hurt if some necessary reason prevents us fulfilling our disciplinary rule. None of these practices are of any profit at all if the purpose for which they are undertaken is lost?0 This passage immediately calls to mind St Paul writing about agape in I Corinthians 13:3: If I give away all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good whatever. (Jerusalem Bible)

It is in the light of this orientation of the monastic life toward the attainment of purity of heart which is charity and the ultimate end of this life as the Kingdom of God that we need to view Cassian’s concern with eradicating vices and establishing virtues. Cassian is convinced that the free will of man has a most active part to play in this spiritual progress.51 Although our ideas can come from either God, the demons, or ourselves (a theme taken from Origen) we have the choice of admitting or rejecting these ideas. We do this by weighing them in the “balance” of our hearts, as Abbot Moses says.52 In finding this proper weight or “balance,” the course we follow is that which Cassian develops in the Conferences. We learn to know what the vices are like, and how we can master them. We then learn to understand the particular virtues, and how each one of these corresponds to the vices.53 Thus, when we have acquired these virtues we have reached the puritas cordis and our heart is free. Cassian is quite clear that we do not accomplish this task by our own efforts alone. 50. Conference I, 7. Western Asceticism, p. 199. For the Latin, see SC 42: 84-85. 51.

See especially Conference Ill, 11-12; SC 42:155ff.

52.

Conference I, 20; Western Asceticism, p. 209; SC 42:101-102.

53.

Conference V, 23; SC 42:214.

Nicholas Groves

318

Achieving purity of heart means submitting our hearts to the “Holy Spirit’s fire.’’54 We are engaged in “ploughing up the ground of the heart’’ by “the constant recollection of the Lord’s cross.’’55 From Puritas to Munditia

Hugh of Pontigny and other twelfth century Cistercian authors talk about mundicia and mundicia cordis as well as its opposite immundicia rather than using the terms puritas cordis and puritas as does Cassian. I think that we can find in the use of mundicia a similar and yet often quite different meaning from Cassian's puritas. Munditia comes to mean not only “cleanness” or “purity of Heart” as the end of the monastic life, but also particular virtues that are to be reach¬ ed along the way toward the end, such as chastity. It appears that St Augustine and St Gregory the Great were in¬ strumental in developing this double sense of mundicia. In his second sermon on Psalm 33 in the Enarationes in Psalmos, St Augustine says that it is necessary for us to return to our hearts in order to find God. In order to enter our hearts, we must first cleanse them: redire ad cor tuum, munda illud: “beati mundi corde, quoniam ipsi Deum videbunt.” Aufer inde cupiditatum sordes, aufer tabem superstitionum, aufer sacrilegia et malas cogitationes. ... Cum ibi coeperis gaudere, ipsa munditia cordis tui delectabit te, et faciet orare. 56 Here we have a view of purity of heart very similar to Cassian’s. Attaining purity of heart is the immediate end, and means the overcoming of particular vices. The ultimate end achieved by this is the ability to pray, and the vision of God. But further on in this same passage St Augustine speaks of cleanness of heart as more of a particular virtue, of a state of being which he opposes to “uncleanness”: 54.

Conference I, 20; SC 42:102.

55.

Conference I, 22; Western Asceticism, p. 212; SC 42:107.

56. Enarratio in Psalmum XXXIII, 8. S. Aur. Augustini. Tomus IV: Enarrationes in psalmos (Paris, 1935) 312-313.

Opera Omnia.

Mundicia cordis

319

Si ergo loci visibilis te delectat munditia, quare. non offendit immunditia cordis tui.57 It seems to me that purity of heart is for St Augustine both a particular virtue among other virtues which need to be achieved in order to reach the vision of God, and the culmin¬ ation of all the virtues, as Cassian describes it. He does not seem to be as thoroughly systematic about this as Cassian. This double understanding of munditia is continued by St Gregory the Great in his Moralia in Job. It is particularly associated with chastity, not only of a sexual variety but with cleanliness of thought in general: diabolus castas cogitationes corrumpere conatur. Sed discretio periculum evadit. —Quid per oves, nisi bonorum cordium munditia designatur? ... Et scimus quod immundi spiritus, qui de coelo aethereo lapsi sunt, in hoc coeli terraeque medio vagantur: qui tanto magis corda hominum ascendere ad coelestia invident, quanto se a coelestibus per elationis suae immunditiam projectos vident.58 St Gregory speaks more specifically particular virtue in another passage:

of

munditia

as

a

Saepe enim dum de castitatis munditia extollitur, sorde avaritiae foedatur.59 Thus St Gregory has a view of munditia as a goal to be reached, but is even more concerned with it as a virtue in it¬ self. Closer to Cassian’s view of puritas is the place of munditia in the Rule of St Benedict. St Benedict has taken over many ideas from Cassian, and so we should not be surprised that he places munditia as the attainment of his steps of humility: non iam timore gehennae, sed amore Christi et consuetudine ipsa bona et dilectatione uirtutum. Quae dominus iam in operarium suum mundum 57.

Ibid..

313.

58.

Moralium Lib. Il-In Cap.

59.

Ibid.,

700.

/

B. Job:

PL 75:590.

Nicholas Groves

320

a vitiis et peccatis demonstrare.60

spiritu

sancto

dignabitur

It is both this view of Cassian and St Benedict and the double understanding of Augustine and Gregory which will continue in the monastic tradition in the medieval period. We shall encounter them both in Hugh of Pontigny. Cassian, along with St Augustine and St Gregory the Great was one of the most widely read authors in Euorpean monas¬ teries during the medieval period. We can see something of the extent of Cassian’s popularity by following the citations about the reading of Cassian which we find in Dom Jean Leclercq’s well known book The Love of Learning and the Desire for God61 An important reason for Cassian’s eminence

as a monastic author was the position given to his works in the Rule of St Benedict. Benedict there instructs his monks to expand their understanding of the monastic life by reading “the Conferences of the Fathers, their Institutes and Lives.’’162 This is a direct reference to the Institutes and Conferences of Cassian. As we have seen above in the chapter of the Rule concerned with the “steps of humility,” St Benedict follows Cassian closely in the position he gives to purity of heart. The person who is to allow God to work fully within him has been cleansed from “vices and sins.” 63 The attainment of purity of heart is for both Cassian and St Benedict the essential condition before God can bring us to the fullness of spiritual life. The influence of this idea as developed by both St Benedict and St Augustine as well as St Gregory the Great can be seen in the writings of St Anselm. He considers munditia cordis in its larger sense as the goal to be achieved, rather than following the interpretation of it as the virtue of “cleanness” which also occurs in St Augustine and St Gregory. St Anselm 60. Benedicti Regula. Ed. R. Hanslik, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 75 (Vienna, 1960) Cap. VII, p. 52. 61.

New York, 1961.

62.

RB 73; CSEL p. 164.

63.

Ibid.,

Cap. VII, p. 52.

Mundicia cordis

321

explains that munditia cordis is necessary in order to arrive at the visio Dei: Pulchritudo certe mentis et nutrimentum virtutum est cordis munditia, cui visio Dei specialiter promittitur, ad quam munditiam nullus nisi magnam cordis custodiam perducitur.64 It would be possible to find numerous examples of the im¬ portance of munditia cordis in early medieval monastic litera¬ ture. As a theme rooted in the Gospel, and developed to a position of high importance by the Fathers and teachers of the universal church, East and West, it could not help influence monastic authors. They took both the idea of “purity” as the puritas mentis of Cassian, the goal of the ascetic life ending in the vision of God, and the more ex¬ panded definition of St Augustine and St Gregory where munditia is both a goal and also a particular virtue. Hugh of Pontigny

It would be out of place in this study to give a biographical sketch of Hugh of Pontigny. There is as yet no full scholarly account of his career, although the short article on Hugh done by Gaetano Raciti in the Dictionnaire de la Spirituality is excellent.65 In the course of preparing a critical edition of Hugh’s Sermones, I have gathered many biographical facts which I plan to include as part of the Introduction to the edition. For the purpose of giving us an idea of Hugh’s importance in the Cistercian second generation,66 I shall briefly indicate the main facts of Hugh’s career as abbot of Pontigny. Hugh came from a noble family in the region of Macon. It is likely, though not certain, that Bernard of Clairvaux and Hugh both studied at the school of the Canons of Saint-Vorles 64.

Ep 185 in F. Schmitt, S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi, Opera

Omnia. Vol IV. (Edinburgh, 1949) 70-71.

65.

DS 7:886-889.

66. By “second generation” I mean those monks between the years of 1113 (entrance of St Bernard to Citeaux) and 1130s.

Nicholas Groves

322

at Chatillon-sur-Seine. In his Vita Prima, William of St Thierry describes in detail Hugh’s conversio to the Cistercian life as a result of the persuasion of St Bernard. William’s narrative is a piece of carefully developed theology at this point, and it appears to me that William saw Hugh as an exemplum of what the conversion to the monastic life entailed

more than making this an account of biographical accuracy. Hugh entered Citeaux with St Bernard and his companions, and they all completed their novitiates there in those years when both primitive fervor and an influx of vocations made of Citeaux one of the most vigorous of the early twelfth-century monastic movements. When in 1114 Citeaux made its foun¬ dation at Pontigny, Hugh was chosen as abbot. Hugh was to continue in this office until 1136 when he was appointed bishop of Auxerre, which is in the diocese where Pontigny is located. During his time as abbot of Pontigny, Hugh worked closely with St Bernard in both the internal affairs of the Order as well as in the larger reform movement in the French Church. Hugh’s importance in these affairs is shown by the letters that he and St Bernard wrote on behalf of the General Chapter.67 Both Bernard and Hugh affirmed by their positions in these disputes that the reform of the Church and support of reforming bishops was worth the risk of incurring the wrath of King Louis VI. There is also evidence that Hugh was sufficiently well-known and respected so that groups of nuns and canons asked him to help them in reforming their communities.68 These and other instances in which Hugh was involved in the reform of both the monastic life and the Church at large show that he was one with St Bernard in seeing the Cistercian life as a model for perfection in all of ecclesiastical society. Thus, while he was bishop of Auxerre Hugh did much to strengthen the reform orders 67.

in

his

While awaiting the Leclercq edition of the letters, we can consult that

of J. Mabillon, S. Bemardi Opera Omnia (Paris, 1839) cc. 189-200. 68. Manrique, Annates cisterciennes (Lyons, 1642-49) T. I, pp. 241-242. On the nuns of Yerres, see Annates Benedictines, T. VI, lib. 67, n. 21, pp. 306-307.

Mundicia cordis

323

diocese, especially the Premonstratensians.69 Hugh retired from his episcopal office shortly before his death in 1151, and spent his final days at his abbey of Pontigny. The Sermons of Hugh of Pontigny

There is only one complete manuscript that has been dis¬ covered to date of the Sermones, that which is now in the abbey of Zwettl in Austria.70 Besides this text, there are por71 tions of the Sermones included in a few other manuscripts. The Zwettl text is from the middle or later twelfth-century, and most of the other manuscripts in whch parts of the Sermones are contained also date from this period.72 Charles Hugh Talbot of the Wellcome Foundation in London has done a short study of the Sermones, based on his own transcription of the Zwettl text.73 Other than this article of Talbot’s, Hugh’s Sermones have not been formally edited or studied. The preparation of a critical edition of the Sermones is my dissertation project in the Department of History at the University of Chicago. Thus 1 offer the following observations on the Sermones as by no means conclusive. Rather they represent “work in progress,’’ and further research still needs to be done. It is the most likely of hypotheses that are available to say that these Sermones were delivered by Hugh to his monks who were assembled in chapter. The giving of short homilies on feast days is one of the tasks of an abbot in the Cistercian Order.74 The text of the Sermones shows that they were in69. Gallia Christiana, T. XII, c. 291. 70. Manuscript 119 (f. 2-107). 71. Angers, Bibl munic. 303, f. 129-143; Paris, BN lat. 3301 C, f. ll-16v, 34-37, 38-41v, 49v-50, 77-79, 87-89v; BN lat. 2569, f. 237-241v; Orleans, Bibl. Munic., 198, p. 330-334; Monte Cassino Bibl. de l’abbaye, 420 LL, p. 191-193; Evreux, Bibl. munic. 9, f. 160v-161. 72. G. Raciti, DS 7:887. Having myself examined the Paris, Angers, and Orleans mss, I agree with the judgment Raciti gives about their dating. I have still to examine the mss from Monte Cassino and Evreux. 73. C. H. Talbot. “The Sermones of Hugues of Pontigny,” Citeaux 7 (1956) 5-33. 74. Nomasticon cisterciense (Paris, 1664) pp. 141 and 188.

324

Nicholas Groves

tended for certain feast days as well as for occasions of monastic profession. This “internal evidence’’ seems to me to be the most persuasive argument that these Sermones were given while Hugh was abbot of Pontigny. Although the title of the Sermones in the Zwettl ms. reads: sermones hugonis monachi pontiniacensis,76 I do that Hugh could have delivered these sermons simple monk of Pontigny, as when he returned to

Incipiunt

not think as just a the abbey

after being bishop of Auxerre. The abbot’s prerogative in giving the chapter sermons would preclude this. Perhaps the copyist of the original and now lost text of the Sermones was not himself a monk of Pontigny, and had no indication that these were indeed the sermons of an abbot. He knew only that these sermons came from a certain monk of Pontigny named “Hugh.” Hence the designation in the Zwettl ms. Munditia Cordis in the Sermones of Hugh of Pontigny Although Hugh does not have as clear an explanation of mundicia as Cassian has of puritas cordis, yet his view of the importance of this virtue is just as strong as Cassian’s. We can see this in Hugh’s second sermon, one intended for a monastic profession, which takes as its text Ephesians 5:15: Videte quomodo caute ambuletis:

In his profecto duabus virtutibus totius religionis consistit perfectio. Contemptus evertit regna cupiditatis, mun (dicia) rimat archana divinitatis. Contemptus tranquillat affectum, mundicia illustrat animum. Contemptus avertit oculum carnis a delectatione glorie labentis, munditia dirigit ocu¬ lum cordis ad aspectus veri luminis.77 These two virtues of contemptus and mundicia are for Hugh the foundation of the religious life. Contemptus is the negative virtue, and it means contemptus mundi.™ He uses 75. 76. 77.

The first fourteen sermons are for monastic profession. Ed. 2. Fol. 3v.

See f. 2-20.

78. This theme is very basic to medieval monastic spirituality. See the series of articles for 1965 in Revue d'Ascetique et de Mystique: “La notion de ‘Mepris du Monde dans la Tradition Spirituelle Occidentale,” pp. 233-323.

Mundicia cordis

325

this term frequently in his sermons. But this negative virtue is followed by a positive one, mundicia. In this sermon and in several others mundicia is the goal of the ascetic life as it is for St Augustine and St Gregory the Great in the first sense in which they use that term. It is also occupying the same place in Hugh’s spiritual scheme as does puritas for Cassian. In the passage from Sermon 2 quoted above we find that the value of mundicia is that it illuminates the soul. Contemptus and mundicia complement each other.

While

contemptus turns the eye of the flesh away from earthly

delights, mundicia works to direct the eyes of the heart “to the vision of the true light.’’79This statement brings us to the heart of Hugh’s spirituality, and his belief that the end of the monastic life is the vision of God. Hugh is fond of emphasizing this. In Sermon 13 he says that through engaging in a life of conquering the devil and his evil suggestions, the monk will arrive in God’s presence, and see him in his glory: Denique cum solutis de suis pedibus, calcia mentis in terra sancta cum moyse steterit ut facie ad faciem videat deum habitatem lucem inaccessibilem tecum gloriabitur.80 This vision of God is often interchangeable in Hugh’s voca¬ bulary with the Heavenly Jerusalem. We have a more detailed description of this in Sermon 20: Domus superior, celestis regia. Huius fundamentum inconcussa vite perhennis soliditas. Parietes, eternitas, gaudium, exultatio, securitas. Tectum omnia protegens divina maiestas. Hostium domus vera et manifesta rerum omnium congitio. Fe¬ nestra plena et perfecta dei visio.81 The faithful pilgrim on earth reaches this goal of the Heavenly Jerusalem by attaining purity of both flesh and

79.

F. 3v.

80.

F. 18.

81.

F. 34.

Nicholas Groves

326

heart: Sine arrogantia igitur et desidia fidelis viator cordis et carnis mundiciam conservet, et in presenti humilietur quatinus (sic) in futuro exaltatus supernam ierusalem ingrediatur.82 While Hugh stresses that the way we reach the Heavenly Jerusalem is through mundicia both of the heart and the flesh, he is aware that we cannot achieve this mundicia by our own efforts alone. It is through the direct intervention of Christ in our lives that we can practice virtues. Hugh’s theology is that Christ is both the model of our life, and the strength to bring our life to its completion in God. It is, as we shall see, a theology of deification, resting on the teachings of St Irenaeus and St Athanasius. Here we notice a clear difference between Cassian and Hugh. While Cassian is content to make a few statements about how the monk ought to look to Christ as his source of strength, Hugh de¬ lights in describing the various ways in which Christ works through us by the example of his humanity to bring us to the vision of God. It seems to me that Hugh’s language is at its 0-5

most eloquent when he describes this action of Christ. His principle is that Our Lord is at the same time both the way to the heavenly kingdom, and the heavenly kingdom itself. His way of acting upon us on earth is through perfecting us in virtue, so that we may enjoy him as full blessedness in the world to come: Nativitas, passio, sepultura pertinent ad infirmitatem humanitatis. Resurrectio vero demonstrat virtutem divinitatis. Humanitas precium nostrum, divinitas premium nostrum. Infirmitas humanitatis medela nostra, virtus divinitatis tutela nostra. Christus homo via nostra, christus deus patria nostra. Via conversationis honeste, patria beatitudinis eterne.84 82.

F. 54

(Sermo 34).

83. For example, see Conference I, 22: “It is as though we were always to be ploughing up the ground of the heart. The plough is the constant recol¬ lection of the Lord’s cross.” (Western Asceticism, p. 212). 84. Fols. 40-40v. (Sermo 23).

Mundicia cordis

327

Christ s purpose in coming to earth is that man may become one with God. This is the idea of divinization which was dear to the Fathers of the undivided Church, and was especially developed in the East. But Western theologians, particularly St Augustine and Hilary of Poitiers also give this theme an important place in their Christology. The Western theologians only continue to explain what was more thoroughly expressed by St Irenaeus of Lyons and St Athanasius of Alexandria?5 Hugh’s way of describing Christ’s action in bringing us to himself is to contrast sharply the earthly Christ with man whose destination is heaven: Hinc deus humilis peregrinatur in mundo. Homo sublimis regnat in celo...Deus pauper, homo dives. Verumtamen simul in unum dives et pauper, simul in unum parvus et magnus. Simul in unum humilis et sublimis. Deus in homine, homo in deo. Deus homo. Homo deus.86 In an especially striking passage Hugh shows Mary minis¬ tering to Christ on earth, so that her Son can minister to her in heaven: 0 felix commercium et retributio gloriosa. Mater filio ministraverat humana in mundo, filius matri divina ministrat in celo. Mater filium collocaverat in vili et humili presepio, filius matrem constituit in sublimi solio. Mater filio contulit in quo miserie nostre particeps fieret, filius matri dedit in quo divine beatitudinis heres existeret. Mater filium duxit in egyptum, filius matrem assumit in celum?7 Hugh even makes use of the term deificatio: Revera dei et hominis filius qui propter carnis assumptionem dictus est adam naturam quam assumpsit, deificavit et divine similitudinis gloria sublimavit in suis participibus prestaret fiduciam

85.

On the theme of divinization in the early church, see the article

“Divinisation” in DS 3:1376-1399. 86.

F. 19v. (Sermo 19).

87.

Fol. 42. (Sermo 25).

Nicholas Groves

328

veraciter dicendi filii . oo erimus.

dei

sumus

et

similes

ei

In another sermon Hugh again uses this term to describe Christ’s action in us: Factus

est

homo,

infirmus,

parvulus

ut

nos

on

deificaret, roboraret, magnificaret. Christ is so near to us in the example that he thus gives to us who follow him to the Heavenly Country that we can even call him “our brother’’: Gaudium natus in stabulo, salus affixus patibulo, beatitude regnans in celi solio. Gaudium quoniam caro nostra et frater noster est.90 This spirituality of deification or divinization is not just that of the early Fathers. It is also important for St Bernard, who enjoys describing the humility of Christ on earth, especially in 91 his nativity and death on the cross. Thus we can see that Hugh believes that the purpose for which Christ came to earth was so that he would bring us to himself, to the visio Dei and the celestis regia. This is the For both also, purity of heart is the scopos, since it results in contemplation, which is the goal of all virtues. Hugh can thus directly link munditia with contemplatio:

finis both for Hugh and Cassian.

Mortificationem viciorum gingnit (sic) penitentia, mundicia parit contemplationem.92 Cassian speaks similarly, as we have seen, of how the attainment of purity of heart through the practice of the virtues leads to contemplation in his first Conference. There Abbot Moses describes this process: The

Lord,

you

see,

placed

the

chief

(principale bonum) in divine contemplation. 88.

Fol. 20

(Sermo 19).

89.

Fol. 80v

90.

Fol. 92

91.

See In Nativitate, Sermo 1:3.

92.

Fol. 16

(Sermo 62). (Sermo 70).

(Sermo 12).

OB 4:246.

good All

Mundicia cordis

329

the other virtues, however necessary and useful and good we deem them, must be placed on a lower plane because they are sought for the sake of the one thing. When the Lord said: “Thou art anxious and troubled about many things, but we need few things or even one thing.” (Mt. 25:34-5) he was putting the supreme good, not in the pur¬ suit of virtue, however excellent and fruitful, but in the pure and singleminded contemplation of himself. 93 Both Cassian and Hugh thus value puritas or mundicia as the scopos of the monastic life, which has as its goal the finis of contemplation. The chief difference in Hugh’s use of mundicia from Cassian’s puritas is that

Hugh follows St Augustine and St Gregory the Great in their almost literal translation of mundicia as “cleanness,” as well as in the more general sense of “purity.” In the second sense in which Hugh describes mundicia as the particular virtue of “cleanness,” it is one virtue among several which are to be cultivated in order to reach contemplation. In this second use of the term, Hugh follows St Augustine and St Gregory closely. Hugh will sometimes employ the term mundicia alone when describing this state, instead of mundicia cordis. For example in Sermon 38 he describes the conversion of Mary Magdalen. Hugh does the same in Sermon 80: Vestis sordida similitudo carnis peccati, vestis linea mundicia conversationis, vestis rubra toller. . . os antia passioms. Hugh also speaks of this virtue’s opposite as immundicia: Et omnes qui pie volunt vivere persecutionem patiuntur. Scilicet a mundo, a carne, a diabolo. A mundo concupiscentiam, a carne immundiciam, a diabolo maliciam.96 From this short examination of the meaning of puritas for 93. 94. 95.

Conference I, 8; Western Asceticism, p. 200; SC 42:86-87. Ibid., fol. 101.

96.

Fol. 13.

Hugh of Pontigny.

Sermones.

(Sermo 80).

(Sermo 11).

fols. 64-64v.

(Sermo 38).

Nicholas Groves

330

Cassian and mundicia for Hugh of Pontigny we can draw a few conclusions. For Cassian the expression of puritas consistently designates the reaching of a certain spiritual state. For Hugh it means both the attainment of this sublime goal, which leads to contemplation, and also is one step or virtue on the way to achieving the goal. Both Cassian

mentis

and Hugh see purity as the end of the ascetical life. Unlike Cassian, Hugh sees mundicia as a virtue in itself. Here he follows St Augustine and St Gregory, as well as those writers in the Latin tradition who were the disciples of these men. Hugh does not feel that he needs to make a detailed analysis of virtues and vices as does Cassian. Hugh is not writing an ascetical manual as did Cassian. Rather he is giving sermons, whose purpose is partly to spur his monks forward to greater perfection. He dwells on the finis in order to show his brethren the joys that are in store for them. Thus Hugh describes in great detail the end of the monastic life as contemplatio and the visio Dei. Christology is for Hugh a knowledge of how Christ actively works to bring about this vision. As we have seen, Christ is described as being both the means and the end of monastic experience. For Cassian, while Christ is clearly the one who directs our efforts, we seldom find him mentioned as directly intervening to aid us. Christ is the end, but we do not see him often as the means as well. This is where Hugh appears as one with St Bernard and others of the Cistercian second generation. These men are at their most lyrical when describing the action of Christ in us.97 We are in the “golden age” of Cistercian christology. I shall deliberately leave the practical implications of Hugh’s spirituality for us to our discussion and reflection together. We have seen that there was a wealth of tradition both from the early Fathers and from Cassian which Hugh drew on when he described mundicia cordis or mundicia. It seems to me that Hugh directly relates this mundicia to 97.

See D. DeWilde. De Beato Guerrico eiusque Doctrina de Formatione (Westmalle, 1935).

Christi in Nobis

Mundicia cordis

331

Christ’s presence within us. In this he is at one with the tradition of the undivided Church, although he is particularly Western and Cistercian in his love to portray the human nature of Christ. One of our most pressing needs today, especially in the West, is to discover once again the implica¬ tions of such an incarnational theology, so that we can both accept the world which God has given us and at the same time see that our final goal is beyond it. We claim to have a theology of “resurrection.” But can this theology be real if we have not experienced Christ’s birth and death in us? Hugh and the other Cistercians of his generation give us many dimensions of this we should explore. heart” or mundicia cordis is one of them.

“Purity of

Nicholas Groves

University of Chicago

HESYCHASM IN THE ENGLISH CISTERCIANS OF THE TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES

A

LTHOUGH

IN

THE

TWELFTH

and

thirteenth

centuries there were several important Cistercians writers in England, for the purpose of this paper I would like to confine myself to Aelred of Rievaulx, Gilbert of Hoyland and John of Ford. This means in practice that I will not take into account writers like Baldwin of Ford, Walter Daniel, Matthew of Rievaulx, Stephen of Salley, or even Isaac of Stella. To make matters worse I am unashamedly putting more emphasis on the teaching of John of Ford in his ‘Sermons on the Song of Songs’ than the title to this paper would suggest. I can only hope that the result of these limitations will be to make up in depth what is lacking in breadth. In any case it is the themes closely connected with hesychasm that we are interested in, and these themes tend to be rather similar in all the spiritual writers of the West during this period. It is too early yet to say with any degree of reliability just what influences from the these writers, especially know more for example Ford in the second half 1.

C.

Eastern Fathers are to be found in John of Ford. We would have to about the libraries at Rievaulx and of the twelfth century.1 Certainly

Holdsworth, Learning and Literature of English

1167-1214, with special reference to John of Ford,

Clare College, London, (1959) pp. 22-25 and 70-78.

Also:

“Les bibliotheques cisterciennes en Angleterre au Xlle Saint Bernard (1954) pp. 375-382.

332

Cistercians,

Unpublished thesis for C. R. Cheney,

siecle," Melanges

333

Hesychasm in the English Cistercians

they would all have been directly influenced by the readings during Vigils, quite apart from the common heritage of the biblical text with the generally accepted allegorical and tropological interpretations, common that is to both East and West. John of Ford’s Commentary on the Song depends heavily on those who had gone before him—the giants and elephants as he affectionately calls them.2 No doubt this means principally St Bernard and Gilbert of Hoyland, but he might also have read Origen’s Commentary either at Ford or while in France. It is unlikely that he would have read the commentaries of Hippolytus, St Nilus or Gregory of Nyssa, though these were in fact among the giants, i.e. his prede¬ cessors. They would have exercised only an indirect influence on his thought. If hesychasm is defined as “a spiritual system with an es¬ sentially contemplative orientation which places man’s perfection in union with God by means of prayer or perpetual prayerfulness,” 3 it is clear that this is the aim of the Cister¬ cian authors. Yet we should be more explicit. I will deal only with those themes that are more specifically hesychastic: namely, desertum, solitudo, memoria Dei, oratio; and then pax, sabbatum and serenitas. For this type of theme Aelred, Gilbert and John of Ford must surely have been influenced directly by Cassian, the Apothegmes of the Fathers and other similar Eastern writings which had been translated into Latin and disseminated throughout the West. Desert

To practice hesychia, qcnjxo^Eiv, belongs to the monk who has lived for long in the desert.4 For the Western monks of the twelfth century this becomes the desert of the monastic 2.

Sermo, Prol., 10. 89-108. (“Sermo” refers to Ioannis de Forda, Super

extremam partem cantici canticorum sermones CXX, edd. E. Mikkers et H.

Costello, Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaeualis 17-18 [1970]. canticum”

refers

to

Gilbertus

de

Hoylandia,

Sermones

in

“In

canticum

Salomonis; PL 184:11-252.)

3.

Pierre Adnes, Hesychasme: DS 7:384.

4.

Ibid., col. 384-385, quoting Apopthegmata Anthonii 11; PG 65:77C.

334 life.

Hilary Costello ocso

It is to live the cenobitical life, uita coenobialis, to live

in a monastic dwelling, monastica habitatio, to accept voluntary poverty after the example of the apostles and the tradition they had started, apostolicae paupertatis consortium. Exteriorly, then, the monk lives in the desert, striving after quies, i.e. repose, when he lives in a cenobitical monastery. Yet this desert has an interior or spiritual meaning which shows clearly the direction that any true hesychasm must take. To go into the desert is to aim at growth in the con¬ templative life —to pass de deserto, per desertum et ad desertum,5 6 John of Ford makes this enigmatic phrase clear when he goes on to define the spiritual life as a progress through three deserts. First there is the desert of “flight from all illicit pleasures”— the flight from sin and the per¬ suasions of the devil. Secondly, there is abstention even from good things, a licitis, in order to make the more perfect choice of following Jesus into the mountain, by striving after poverty, peace and patience. Thirdly, the sublime desert at the top of the mountain. This is the final end of all our spiritual efforts; or, if we wish to stress God’s prevenient action in the work before our own response, it is the place where the Good Shepherd carries his chosen sheep.7 Origen had written in a similar vein centuries before, in his Commentary on the Song of Songs, where he talks of the souls who have drunk deeply of the water given them by Jesus. “In them,” he says, “the Word of God bursts forth in frequent and abundant perceptions like ever-flowing streams, so that they have become mountains and hills by virtue of their life and knowledge and teaching.”8 No doubt the threefold desert and the inner mountain with their spiritual interpretation became canonized by the Vita Antonii of St Athanasius.9 The phrase, “to practise hesychasm in the 5. 6. 7.

Sermo 110, 140-147. Sermo 100, 201-204. Ibid.. 205-223.

8. Origen, The Song of Songs: Commentary and Homilies; Tr. by R. P. Lawson (London, 1957) p. 216; cf. also pp. 299-300. 9. Michael J. Marx, “Incessant Prayer in the Vita Antonii": The highest

335

Hesychasm in the English Cistercians

desert,” ev Iprjuco f]auxa^ovTi becomes the catch-word of all monastic and eremitical life.10 Solitude and Solicitude

The Cistercian attitude to the strict eremitical life was rather ambivalent. In general they did not write much about it. There are important exceptions to this: Aelred’s De institutione inclusarum, for example, is written for an anchorite sister; and John of Ford had written the very popular life of Wulfric of Haselbury which is wholly concerned with a famous hermit of the early twelfth century.* 11 But it remains true that for the most part they were writing for cenobites. It follows from this that the themes typical of hesychasm are adapted to the cenobitical life, in spite of the fact that they were originally applied to the hermit Fathers of the Desert.12 We will therefore be more concerned with the interior hesychia, fiauXlav cryEiv, otium sanctum. John of Ford moves rapidly from the literal meaning of the word “Carmel” to its moral or spiritual meaning. From St Jerome he had learned that Carmel means “the knowledge of circumcision,” scientia circumcisionis. And he declares that only the solitaries who are progressing in solitude (virtually form of this state of contemplation and mystical experience is revealed in Anthony residing on the Inner Mountain and rejoicing in the contemplation of the divine.”

Studia Anselmiana 38 (1956) 129-130 and 123-124.

10.

Evagrius, De oratione, cap. LXI; PG 79:1192C; CS 4:65.

11.

Aelred de Rievaulx, La vie de recluse-, texte latin,

introduction,

traduction et notes par Charles Dumont; SC 76 (1961) pp. 42-169. English tr: The Works of Aelred of Rievaulx CF 2 (Spencer, 1971) pp. 43-102.

Bell, Wulfric of Haselbury. by John Abbot of Ford;

Maurice

Somerset Record Society

47 (1933). 12.

Jean Leclercq, Otia monastica:

etudes sur le vocabulaire de la con¬

templation au moyen age (Rome, 1963):

nullement exclu de la perspective. les cenobites et pour eux:

“L‘eremitisme, on l’a note, n'est

Mais la plupart des textes sont ecrits par

l’hesychasme du Xlle siecle trouve sa realisation

ordinaire dans le cenotitisme.

11 est represente par des temoins divers...

Parmi eux, les cisterciens, et surtout St

Bernard, ont apporte une con¬

tribution originale en mettant en lumiere certains aspects dogmatiques ou psychologiques de la spiritualite du loisir contemplatif.” (Translation forthcoming in CS series - ed.)

pp.

128-129.

336

Hilary Costello osco

the same as “the desert”) know how to climb the mountain of true circumcision. What is this spiritual circumcision? It is to cut out of one’s life all merely human pleasure, all earthly solicitude and all carnal desire. There is a care for souls that is legitimate. But the true hesychia is often connected in Greek thought, as is solitude in the West, with this flight from “earthly solicitude”; it is a spiritual uncon¬ cern for all that takes a man away from God. We are exhor¬ ted to remain “at rest and unconcerned.” There are those monks, John of Ford insists, who never seem to be at rest. They are always worrying about something: “they are so concerned about the harvest and the bread that perishes that they rarely give a thought to the bread that continues into eternal life. They hardly have time to breathe. After a lot of sweat and labor, they take only a very little time for ‘quiet’,” pausillulum sibi quietisP It is freedom from care (the Greek d net piiavo 5 ) that is the constant companion of hesychia in the writings of the Fathers. The whole point of this freedom from care is that it should lead the monk to the true solitude of prayer and contempla¬ tion which is not possible when one is constantly distracted: “Your life is not a real solitude or a high look-out post (mons speculationis) when you are full of noise — of grumbling, quarrelling, worries — when you are a busy city, busy with the affairs of seculars and bubbling over with the silly concerns of mere worldly joy.”14Therefore John of Ford urges us to take an example from the prophets who lived solitary lives —Elias, Eliseus and so forth —and he implies that the Fathers of the Desert were the true Christian hesychasts. “The mind of the bride is compared to Carmel, i.e. to that fruitful life of solitude where the great prophets Elias and Eliseus dwelt. Consider, my brethren, how much progress these solitaries made in this solitude, how they ascended to the very height of the sublime mountain, how far they secluded themselves from the ordinary ways of human 13.

Sermo 89, 149-182.

14.

Sermo 103, 63-67.

Hesychasm in the English Cistercians

337

life, how high they were above the earth and close to heaven.” 15 One must of course point to the supreme example: our Lord Jesus Christ. But in this case we are touching on a deep mystery, for Jesus had no need to go out into the desert, precisely because he carried about with him a perpetual and most lovely solitude, amoenissima solitudo. ^ Jesus is the ‘‘good man”; he alone can speak the word that makes non-existing things come out into existence; he alone commands the sea of anxiety and the wind of troubles so that a great silence and deep tranquillity is felt - a tranquillity and silence that we can only learn in the ‘‘school of Jesus’ secret philosophy.” 17 Memory of God

Solitude is not an end in itself. The monk’s aim is con¬ templation or union with God. “Solitude,” says St John 18 Climacus, “is unceasing worship and waiting upon God.” Continual prayer or the habitual thought of God is at the heart of the monastic ideal. The Fathers of the Desert used to speak of “the memory of God” uvr]|jrj tou 0eou. In the West from the time of St Augustine this reference to the “memory” was associated with the doctrine of the Image. Quoting the text of Genesis, they say that man was created to God’s image and likeness. The image of God, residing in man’s soul, takes on a Trinitarian perspective when the three powers of the soul, memory, understanding and will, are re¬ lated to the three Persons of the Trinity: memory to the Father who is the powerful principle, understanding to the Son who is the Wisdom of God, will to the Holy Spirit who is Love. So St Aelred talks of “the presence of God in the 15.

Sermo 79, 30-45; cf. Sermo 100, 59f.

16. Sermo 100, 78-89. 17. Sermo 23, 40-52; cf. Sermo 12, 127-130 and 22, 68-75. St John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 27:54: “There are those who are thoroughly versed in secular philosophy though they are indeed rare; but 1 affirm that those who have a divine knowledge of the philosophy of true solitude are still more rare.” 18. St John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 27:60.

Hilary Costello ocso

338

memory, knowledge of God in the reason, love of God in the will.”19And to his sister he gives this warning against frivo¬ lous conversations and even against chatting with children: “Before her very eyes, even though she may not yield to them, the recluse has worldly and sensual temptations, and amid them all, what becomes of her remembrance of God?’’20 In the article on “Contemplation” in the Dictionnaire de Spirituality Lemaitre points out: “The problem of continual prayer is identified, among the Ascetics, with the continual memory of God or this continual union with God my memory” which he calls “the doctrine of the lavrinr] Bscu." 21 For Aelred memory plays in important role in our return to God. He tells us that the powers of the soul have fallen away from God, for “our memory has been corrupted by forgetfulness, our intellect by error, our application to God by sensual desires.” But the way back is found in meditation on the Scriptures. Here we find the very common association of memory with meditation which is practically the same as lectio divina - that slow and ruminative reading of the Bible with a conscious effort to commit it to memory, very charac¬ teristic of the twelfth-century monks as is clear from the huge number of scriptural quotations in their writings. As Aelred says: “Jesus Christ repairs our memory by the teaching of Holy Scripture.” 23 Yet this use of the memory in medita¬ tion is something very rich with meaning: it is a bringing to presence of the mysteries of salvation, a sort of sacramentalizing, if I may so express it, of the actions and events in the Gospels so that they become really present for us again today. The word hodie has, therefore, a deeper significance in these writers than one might realise at first sight. Thus a little further on in the Mirror of Charity from which I just 19.

In Nativitate Domini, p. 38, ed. C. H. Talbot, Sermones Inediti B.

Aelredi Abbatis Rievallensis (Rome:

20. 21.

Editiones Cistercienses, 1952).

Rule for a Recluse 4, CF 2 (see note 11) p. 50.

Col. 1858-1862.

22. St Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity, tr. Geoffrey Webb and Adrian Walker (London, 1962) chapter 4, p. 7. 23. Ibid., ch. 5, p. 7.

Hesychasm in the English Cistercians

339

quoted Aelred prays to our Lord: “May the thoughts of you and of your passion obsess my memory..., for the memory of God has become hidden in the minds of men, even though they have not completely lost it.... Indeed, there must always be some glimmer of the memory of God in the mind.’’24 Notice particularly, then, that this memory of God is usually joined to meditation on Scripture but it means especially the bringing to presence of Christ’s passion, memoria passionis Christi. 25 It is Aelred, among these writers, who insists on the use of memory in our relationship with God. He says for example: “So, if that sweet love of Jesus is to grow in your affections, you need a threefold meditation: on the past, on the present, and on the future.’’26 He follows this with a long meditation on the life of Christ, a beautiful catena of Gospel texts, in which he constantly employs words like, considera, or occurrat iam nunc memoriae. 27 And indeed he entitles this meditation: “De praeteritorum recordatione, " an expression that he uses both at the beginning and at the end as a sort of chiasmus. Thus it is clear that for Aelred the memory of God is the same as the memory of Jesus; it is the constant meditation on and making present the mysteries of his life in the Scriptures, especially in the Gospels. In this connection I would also like to quote a text from Gilbert of Hoyland, for he too makes the memory an important faculty in this search for Christ or for Wisdom: “The bride finds Christ through her desire for him, she holds him by retaining him in her memory, she will not let him go because she gazes on him with continual contemplation.”28 In this case, as you see, Gilbert brings memory into a discussion of the highest point of the spiritual life. The discipline of the spiritual life proceeds in an orderly 24. 25.

Ibid., p. 9. Sermo 15, 81. In canticum, 4, 4; PL 184:18B. Aelred, Sermo 23 , In fest. omn. sanctorum 2; PL 195:340; Id., Sermo 11 .In die sancto Paschae; PL

195:276A. 26. Rule for Recluse, part 3, 29, p. 79; cf. 33, p. 102. 27.

Rule for Recluse, part 3 passim.

28.

In Canticum, 9, 2; 53C.

340

Hilary Costello ocso

fashion according to the four ways of lectio, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio. In theory these are distinct. In practice they tend to merge into one another,—lectio and meditatio (which I have been talking about so far) providing the atmos¬ phere or setting for oratio whose aim is ultimately contem¬ platio-, or,, to be more precise, God himself contemplated in the vision of his glory. Prayer to Jesus Hesychasm is connected in the later Greek writers, especially St Gregory Palamas, with the Prayer of Jesus. This form of prayer is found to some extent even as early as St John Climacus in the well-known quotation: “Let the remembrance of Jesus be present with each breath, and then you will know the value of hesychia. ”29 This form of prayer was, I think, unknown to the English Cistercian Fathers. Nevertheless, it is worth considering their writings from this point of view to see if there are any indications of a similar method. After all, St Aelred in the De institutione inclusarum does give his sister this advice about prayer: “She must apply herself very frequently to prayer, throw herself repeatedly at Jesus’ feet, and by repeating his sweet name very often draw forth tears of compunction and banish all distraction from her heart.”30 The Latin phrase, crebra dulcissimi nominis illius repetitione, is important here for Aelred very frequently uses the vocative “O sweet Lord,” dulcis Domine, when he is addressing a prayer to Jesus. This invocation, dulcis Domine, occurs most often in the Oratio Pastoralis which may be considered as his most intimate outpouring of devotion. It is likely, to say the least, that Aelred often repeated it when on his knees or whenever he gave himself to prayer. Another short ejaculatory prayer that we find quite often in the De puero Jesu duodenni is bone Iesu, “O good Jesus.” But this latter prayer: 0 bone Iesu, is one that we would with more reason attribute to Gil29.

The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 27:61.

30.

Rule for a Recluse, part 1, 11, p. 59.

Hesychasm in the English Cistercians

341

bert of Hoyland. To judge by the number of times he uses it in his Sermones in Canticum Salomonis, O bone Iesu is surely the prayer Gilbert would have repeated more than any other?1 Neither of these prayers is used much by John of Ford. I have not been able to go through all his sermons with this in mind, but I get the impression that he has a preference for the invocations: Domine Deus meus and Domine Iesu — invocations that certainly occur more frequently than either of the other two in his sermons. Indeed, without wishing to commit myself, I have not noticed the expression dulcis Domine in his sermons at all. I am not suggesting that these English Cistercians had anything like the Prayer of Jesus in mind when they prayed or taught others to pray. All I suggest is that some simple ejaculatory prayers were used constantly by the early Cister¬ cian monks and laybrothers. We find the same thing in our monasteries today. Obviously one does not ask one’s brethren intimate questions about their spiritual life and the prayers they use. However, I have learned from experience and observation that many of them use this sort of ejaculatory prayer. I would say with some assurance that some of them do use the invocation “Jesus” frequently in their prayer. Therefore, although each person must choose the type of prayer most appropriate to himself, I think it reasonable to maintain that there is a resemblance to the Prayer of Jesus in St Aelred’s use of 0 dulcis Domine, in Gilbert’s 0 bone Iesu, in John of Ford’s Domine Iesu, and that this form of prayer is used by many in our monasteries at the present time. Peace, shadow, light, sabbath

Dorotheus of Gaza tells of a brother who thought he had arrived at perfect peace and tranquility ( metcx !ipr|vr) koc! tjcruxiac;). but who was troubled by an unkind remark that 31.

In canticum, 1, 2, 13A; 2, 7, 21D; 3, 4.5, 24C, 25D; 13, 2.6.7, 64C.

67B.D; 15, 5.8, 77B. 79B; 16, 8, 86A; 18, 5, 94D; 19, 5.6, 100B, 101B; 20, 4.5, 104B. 105B. 32.

For example:

Sermo, Prol. 16, 156; 4, 23; 6, 43. 62. 128; 7, 152; 8,

123. 312; 9, 175; etc.

Hilary Costello ocso

342

another brother had made to him. So he complained, “If this brother had not come and troubled me, I would not have sinned.’’ Dorotheus goes on to point out that although he thought he had peace, there was within him a passion he was unaware of—the rottenness ( (3op(3o po$ ) inside him. In other words, this peace and hesychia is not something that one can confine to one’s monastic cell; it is something that must become habitual both within the cell and outside it.33 “We must observe the same vigilance, know how to preserve the same hesychia wherever we are.34 I do not think that either the Greek or Latin Fathers were aiming precisely at “perfect peace and tranquillity of soul’’ in their teaching on the spiritual life. It is deeper than that: they were aiming at the perfect love of God and union with Jesus in contemplation. But it is certainly one of the charac¬ teristics of the person who has attained the heights of con¬ templation that he has this peace and tranquillity. From the start the monk is urged to cultivate silence and interior quiet. Gilbert says: “Denique monachorum est non colloquium sed silentium, non quaestiones sed quietem sectari.’’35 However, even this is to some extent external. It is another matter when Gilbert is commenting on the name Bersabee. He in¬ terprets it as the “seventh well,’’ the well of quiet, the well of wisdom. This is the deep well in which are hidden all the treasures of God’s wisdom and knowledge.36 But before we can arrive at the seventh stage of the spiritual life, we must pass through the shadows. Gilbert does not speak of seven shadows. He refers to the stages of progress as three shadows; three shadows that must clear away before the sun¬ light of the eternal day can shine upon us.37 There is the shadow of error: the place where the devil dwells. I take it 33. Dorothee de Gaza, Instruction diverses VII, 82; SC 92:292-295.

de notre saint Pere Dorothee a

ses disciples,

34.

Id., Lettres diverses,

35.

In canticum, 7, 2; 43D.

180; SC 92, p. 489.

36.

In canticum, 37, 4.5; 195B-D.

37.

In canticum, 27, 6; 143D.

343

Hesychasm in the English Cistercians

that he is referring to the purgative way, the first stage of the spiritual life. Then there is the shadow where the bride rests. It is the shadow of this life of faith where the soul strives in prayer and contemplation to draw close to God. No doubt Gilbert has in mind the stage of illuminative progress, even though it is still in “shadow.” It seems that this shadow gives way to the third shadow in which Christ the Spouse hides himself. Gilbert calls this the umbra mysterii, the shadow of the mysteries. When this shadow finally dis¬ appears there will be no shadow left because we will see the naked Truth.38 (We have here a theme that Fr John Morson has developed at greater length in Via, Veritas et Vita: Christ in the Sermons of Guerric of Igny). The second and third shadows possibly correspond in a general way with “the night of the senses” and “the night of the spirit” that St John of the Cross describes in the Dark Night of the Soul. But in the twelfth century there was much less emphasis on the subjective or psychological darkness to which John of the Cross gives poetic expression. At any rate, the third shadow must be that period during which the soul is united with the Word so closely as to be called “a bride of the Word.”39 It would, however, be true to say that the Cistercian Fathers insist on “light” rather than “darkness” in contemplative prayer.40 John of Ford, for example, admits that the person with the care of souls has to occupy himself with many exterior affairs, of which he says regretfully, “How far are these affairs from the study of heavenly things, how distant from interior peace of soul, how alien to the joy given by the Holy Spirit.” 41 38.

Ibid..

And so the person who is

Tunc erit umbra nulla quia veritas nuda.

And later:

donee

27, 7; 144D. 39. In canticum, 27, 6-7; 143C-I45A. I have given a few indications of John of Ford’s use of the phrase sponsa Verbi in my article, “John of Ford and the Quest for Wisdom’’; Citeaux 23 (1972) 146f. 40. In canticum, t, 6: Cum adest, lux est; cum abest, nox est\ 16A. Cf. Guerric of Igny, Liturgical Sermons 1, CF 8 (1970) Introduction p. xlv. 41. Sermo 68, 109-111. aspiret dies, et plenus sempiternus meridies qui umbras omnes annihilet;

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striving to be united to God in perfect peace, the hesychast, sighs for the rest of contemplation: “After the darkness of this night full of worries, the clear light returns to him; after the troubles of secular cares the more pleasant time, i.e. the Sabbath of interior quiet, shines upon him.’’42 In another place he will encourage us with the thought that the sunlight does indeed become clouded over and shaded from our sight, but if it is truly the sun it does not decrease in itself. “How¬ ever,” he goes on, “although the sun has been given by God to shine on us, it must also go down to its own rest and quiet” — ad sua tamen quietis otia debet frequentius declinare.43 Here he is trying to bring out the paradox of mystical language that the night of contemplation glows with the deeper darkness of God that is brighter than the light from any created source.44 These ideas are taken up by St Aelred too. He is the great exponent of the Sabbath theme.45 He talks to those who have been purified from imperfections and are entering God’s sanctuary where they can see Jesus Christ as God. He con¬ tinues: “We are drawn into his glorious light and are lost in his unbelievable joy. Everything that belongs to our human nature, everything that is fleshly and perceptible and transitory is stilled. All we can do is to gaze on the One who is forever changeless, and as we gaze on him we are perfectly at rest. So great is the delight we find in his embrace that this is indeed the Sabbath of Sabbaths....In each Sabbath we find rest and peace and joy for the spirit, but the first Sabbath belongs to a man’s own quiet conscience, the second to the community of men living happily together, and the third consists in the contemplation of God.”46 And Gilbert too in a lovely passage on the Sabbath theme 42.

Sermo 68, 116-123.

43.

Sermo 57, 265-271.

44.

Ibid.,

45.

Especially in

275-278.

46. The Mirror God,” pp. 91-92.

The Mirror of Charity, Introduction,

of Charity

3, ch. 6:

p. viii-xi.

“The Perfect Sabbath in the Love of

Hesychasm in the English Cistercians

345

touches for a moment on Cassian’s description of a form of prayer that transcends all human thoughts and words to such an extent “that it cannot be recalled once the soul has returned to its usual condition.’’47 Bonum est otium, says Gilbert: “Idleness is a good thing. If you are at rest and ‘see’ and contemplate God’s good things, delectationes Dei, your Sabbath is calm and holy — God’s glorious Sabbath, the best of Sabbaths and the finest kind of repose.’’48 He goes on to talk about the repose from the cares of this world; then the better or higher repose in the thought of God. And finally there is the best type of repose “when you have entirely forgotten yourself and are at rest in God alone and consider only how to please God, and are concerned with the matters that are God’s.’’49 Symeon the New Theologian has a similar teaching when he is addressing himself in poetry to the monks, to the solitaries. “Solitaries?’’ he asks, “how can you be a solitary, you who are joined to the Trinity as if to one alone? For he is no longer alone who is united to God, even if he is a solitary, even if he is living in the desert, even if he is in a grotto.’’50 Now Symeon’s theology too is one of light rather than dark¬ ness, for he goes on to tell us: “The monk, who by his virtue has made a heaven in his own cell, he it is who contemplates the Creator of heaven and earth. He sees him, he adores him; he is united continuously to the light that never sets, to the light without evening, this light inaccessible.’’51 Yet he is in a sort of darkness since he cannot contemplate this sun¬ light fully while he is in this body.52

47.

Conference

9, 25.

48.

In canticum, 11, 5; 60D-61A.

49.

Ibid..

61B.

50. Symeon Ie Nouveau Theologien, Hymnes, tome 2; texte critique par Johannes Koder; tr. et notes par Louis Neyrand; SC 174 (1971): Hymn 27, 20-23, p. 281. 51.

Ibid.,

52.

Hymn

39-43, p. 283; also

Hymn

28, 17-18, p. 297.

27, 76-81, p. 285; 97s, p. 287.

Hilary Costello ocso

346

Therefore: “The man who has been enlightened by the divine Holy Spirit in his soul, he too enters into communion with the light and contemplates the light, — the light of God, true God. He shows him all things; all things that God decides to show, all that can be desired, all that he wants. God shines on him with his own radiance, grants him the ability to see what is revealed in the divine Light. In pro¬ portion to his love, to his keeping the commandments, he sees in this light, he is initiated into the deep places of the secret and divine mysteries.’’ 53 Serenity

“The

term

‘contemplation’

(theoria),”

says

Thomas

Merton, “is not prominent in the Apophthegmata or other popular stories of the Fathers, though we read of them ‘seeing the glory of God’ or having prophetic visions. There is then some other term which is at once simpler, more pro¬ found and more general.... That term is ‘tranquillity,’ ‘sweet repose’ (in Greek hesychia and in Latin quies). This repose is essentially ‘contemplative’ if you like but it is more; in its deepest meaning it implies perfect sonship of God, union with God by a complete renunciation of self, and total surrender to the word and will of God in faith and love.”54 If this tranquillity of soul is the real goal of the solitary life, as Thomas Merton goes^on to say, we should look for it in John of Ford’s teaching on “serenity.” At the beginning of our conversion to God we sometimes experience an interior peace or serenity, but it has not yet taken full possession of us. Human weakness, sexual desires, petty annoyances, above all depression, can invade the heart and disturb “the serenity of our radiance which is dedicated to the heavenly Spouse.”55 So we must strive to regain this radiance by prayer. But as we progress in the spiritual life so this serenity should deepen, so it should widen and begin to 53. 54.

29, 201-216, p. 329. L. Merton, “The Spiritual Father in the Desert Tradition," Studies 5 (1968) 90. 55. Sermo 45, 203-213. Hymn

Monastic

Hesychasm in the English Cistercians

347

pervade all our actions. Serenity becomes for us like a sapphire. The place where we find this sapphire is of course the pure love of Christ. John teaches that serenity, like a sapphire, has two outstanding qualities: it has the deep clear blue of the heavens, and it is immensely tough. “The sapphire possesses the wonderful color of serenity and it is also the most powerful virtue against the foul blemishes of sin.’’^ Not that there are no clouds in the sky. Even the bride of the Word sometimes loses her serenity and is urged by her companions to return to her former peace of soul. “Come back, Shulamite maiden,’’ they say to her, “come back to the serenity of your former peace and interior joy.’’ The reason for her trouble is purely spiritual: Christ has for a while hidden his face from her, and his absence causes anguish, the lament of sorrow in place of her normal song of love. But this cloud has a purpose. Christ allows a person to enter into this cloud, this night of the senses, this depri¬ vation of the sense of his presence, in order that effort might continue and deepen. Certainly this cloud is a sign. Yet it is not meant to be a sign that the Word has abandoned the soul to the tempest, to the sea of troubles. On the contrary, the cloud is intended to be a sign of serenity — for we know for certain that behind the cloud there is still the shining sun?8 John of Ford does not make a clear distinction between “the cloud’’ and the “night.’’ The cloud of Christ’s absence is virtually the same as the night of absence, as far as I can see. He seems to use the metaphor that just happens to fit the context. So in this alternating state of light and darkness it is normal for an early morning serenity to suffuse the soul quickly after a period of Christ’s absence...cui et serenitas matutina succedit.59 But he does explain exactly what he means by this night. “The night,’’ he says, “is the absence of the Beloved when his face of glory does

post modicum

56.

Sermo 29, 173-180.

57.

Sermo 61, 15.

58.

Sermo 53, 141-148.

59.

Sermo 43. 40; cf. 53, 14.

Hilary Costello ocso

348

not shine on the bride with its customary serenity. ...some¬ times the night is short, sometimes more prolonged.”60 The reason for this absence is to increase the bride’s desire for Christ and to make her more vigilant:61 “My soul will desire you in the night, watchful over its affections, impatient because of its desire for you, careful while waiting until you come to me.”62 However, we should remember that this type of serenity is still only at the beginning of the spiritual life. It is the serenity of the rising dawn when we first catch a glimpse of Christ’s wonderful light.63 When a person has progressed so far as to become a “bride of the Word”64 a new type of serenity appears. It is the serenity of true contemplatives, serenitas, contemplantium. 65 Thus returning to the metaphor of the sapphire we find this fine passage in Sermon 28: “Ezechiel saw God’s throne of glory looking like a sapphire. Now the sapphire has the appearance of a serene heaven, and this signifies the serenity of mind possessed by those who contemplate God’s face of glory without ceasing, but also without boredom or without ever becoming satiated by it.”66 Although strictly speaking this is a description of the state of those who are in heaven, it is meant to give us the desire to participate as far as possible in this serenity even on earth. For those who are truly striving after holiness it is the fruit of the patience they 60.

Sermo 38, 140-143.

61.

The theme of “vigilance” or “sobriety,” vfjq;is,

is also important in

the hesychastic tradition. Due to lack of space 1 have not developed it here: cf. P. Adnes, "Hesychasme,” DS 7:391-392. 62.

Sermo 38, 151-153.

63. Sermo 58, 115-116. The theme of “the memory of God” also comes to John’s mind here when he says:

“Certe et quo molestior absentia eo etiam

desiderabilior praesentia, haec et memoria tenacior et recordatio humilior et robustior denique expectatio est” (Sermo 38, 132-135). 64. Cf. my article: “The Idea of the Church in the Sermons of John of Ford,” Citeaux 21 (1970) 241. 65.

Sermo 28, 3.

66.

Ibid., 214-218.

In canticum, 27, 6:

paradisus voluptatum; 144A.

...serenitatis locus est coelum,

Hesychasm in the English Cistercians

349

have gained by passing through troubles and nights. Trials and darkness have these effects: “first they help to form patience within us; secondly, they burn away all the impuri¬ ties in our soul; thirdly, when we have been totally purged by them we are suddenly renewed with a special kind of serenity in our conscience.’’67 At this point John of Ford seems to enced by St Benedict’s twelfth degree stage where a man becomes totally himself deep in his soul and also in his

be particularly influ¬ of humility—at the serene both within exterior conduct too.

It is seen sometimes in elderly men and women who have given their whole life to God. If you are perceptive and sensitive to it, you should be able to recognize it in these fas¬ cinating, these radiant people. It is often called modestas— not quite the same our word “modesty.” “It shines forth with a wonderful beauty from the person who loves God perfectly and adorns not only his interior life but also his ex¬ terior appearance with the reverence of a gracious serenity,” reuerentia gratiosae serenitatis68 If you are familiar with the deeply mystical interpretation given to certain scriptural texts by these medieval writers you will recognize at once the transforming effect of this serenity. The “bride of the Word” is truly blessed when she is clean of heart, when she is made worthy for the vision of her Spouse by the purity of her intention. She is still more blessed by her completely serene understanding of Christ in his mysteries, so that she is not simply ready to see God but already does see him.69 Thus it is this total serenity of understanding that the Word praises in his bride.70 Finally the eye of understanding is fully enlightened; it transforms the person who contemplates God into his likeness and makes him progress from splendor to splendor. 71 67.

Sermo 15, 252-262.

68.

Sermo 44, 99-103.

69.

Sermo 48, 203-210.

70.

Ibid., 201-202.

71.

Ibid., 210-215 (quoting 2 Co 3:18 — NEB).

350

Hilary Costello ocso

Two further remarks need to be made about this ultimate transformation into Christ, this serenity, this hesychia.

First,

it is not simply the privilege of the individual person who has been raised by God to a state of mystical experience. It is rather a sharing in the state of the Church, the whole body of Christ. And indeed the Church of the Gentiles and the Jews. The writers of the high Middle Ages sometimes looked to the return of the Jews to the Church as the event that would immediately precede the Parousia. It was thought of as an eschatological event when the light of Christ’s glory would shine once more on the Jewish people. Referring to this final integration of the Jews into the Church John of Ford gives it a mystical meaning that seems to embrace the whole of man¬ kind: “Come back,’’ he says commenting on the Song, “that we may gaze on you and marvel at you and imitate you. From the light of your face we believe an altogether new kind of serenity will come forth, and those who contemplate the splendor of your appearance will be transformed into Christ’s likeness.’’ 72 Secondly, it is Mary the Mother of Jesus, Theotokos, who is pre-eminent over all the saints and transcends all creation by her unique humility. She is “the mother’’; mother of Jesus, “and not only mother of our glorious Head Jesus Christ, mediator between God and man, but mother also of all those who are lovers of Jesus, mother of the whole sacred Body of Jesus. She is mother of all the living for she gave birth and life to all, and she is the genetrix gratiae, mother of grace to all the generations of the faithful.’’73 Mary, then, merited to contemplate the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father in a manner beyond all the other saints; she outdoes them all by her incomparable love and devotion, so that in her face shines forth the serenity that comes from contem-

72.

Sermo 62, 196-206.

73.

Sermo 70. 109-120.

Hesychasm in the English Cistercians

351

plation, the perfect peace and devotion that springs from per¬ fect love. 74

Hilary Costello ocso

Mount Saint Bernard Abbey Leicestershire

74.

Sermo 73, 36-41.

IMAGE AND LIKENESS THE DOCTRINE OF JOHN OF FORD

O

NE OF THE MAIN TOPICS of Cistercian spirituality

is the doctrine about man or about the human soul as the image and likeness of God. The Cistercian authors had this doctrine from scripture and from the fathers of the church, their teachers in the spiritual life. It was widely spread too in contemporary theological works and contem¬

porary spirituality. It was conceived by them as a fundamen¬ tal doctrine and they only can be understood if their ideas about this question are taken in account. They always insist¬ ed on the dignity of man, on the human soul and its faculties and capacities, on the consequences too of original sin; that all belonged to the psychological background of their spiritual teaching and their monastic life. The whole work of Christian and monastic ascesis consists in the restoration of the original likeness of God in the human soul, through the exercises of the virtues, specially of love and charity. This being true in general, it must be said that each of the Cistercian authors had his own explanation of this doctrine, more or less explicitely developed. We cannot say that all members of the Cistercian school of spirituality had an iden¬ tical understanding of this point, but nor did the fathers of the Church. So St Bernard stressed much more the fact that through sin the original dignity and liberty of man was des¬ troyed, and that only through perfect self-knowledge and 352

Image and Likeness: Doctrine of John of Ford

353

knowledge of his followman can man attain more perfect knowledge of God, so that his soul, drawn towards earth and earthly things, may be turned towards God in a renewed liberty of spirit. William of St Thierry insisted much more on an intellectual understanding, starting from the Augustinian trilogy: memory, reason, will, as the human capacity for the vision of God through love and knowledge, or rather through love that is knowledge. For Aelred of Rievaulx, the image of God in the human soul was damaged, not completely ruined; it should be restored completely by right inclination toward God, through love and charity, in all its dimensions and expressions. Others, Cistercians as well as Victorines, thought in the same way. A whole pluriform terminology of image and likeness can be found in authors of less known treatises as well as in some biographical works of the thir¬ teenth century. This doctrine occurs also in the works of Cis¬ tercians of the fourteenth century in Germany, not without being influenced by German mysticism. Therefore it is valuable to examine how this doctrine is present in the works of John of Ford, a Cistercian author of the first years of the thirteenth century. He completed the sermons of Bernard of Clairvaux and Gilbert of Hoyland on the Canticle with no less than 120 sermons, an extremely abundant source for our knowledge of Cistercian spirituality of that time. In those sermons he explains the Canticle as did all his patristic and Cistercian predecessors. He himself was greatly influenced by this preceding literature, and by contemporary writers like Guerric of Igny, Richard of St Victor, Aelred of Rievaulx, and Baldwin of Ford, his prede¬ cessor in the government of the abbey of Ford in Devonshire. It is, however, a fact that John of Ford is not a theorist. In his sermons he gives very rich doctrine, but always in a very personnal way, using abundantly the allegorical method. The theological background he really had is only shown by a few words or by some allusions. If his christology and ecclesiology and even his doctrine on the spiritual life is clearly structured, we cannot say the same about his doctrine

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Edmund Mikkers ocso

on image and likeness.

We should perhaps prefer greater

clarity. First of all, he uses the word imago in a very general way when he is quoting Mt 22:20, and even more, 2 Co 3:18. A definition of imago is given (Sermo 103, 171): imago supposes equality of form, or a comparison of two equals {simile simili comparare). The text of 2 Co sometimes suggests a more theological meaning: transformation into the image of God (Sermo 71, 202). The connotation of an image that lost its original splendor may be found in the expression imago mortis, the image of death (34, 163); or the image of its own darkness (15, 293). On the other hand there are also expressions indicating the opposite such as: the image of the Bridegroom (11, 20), image of eternal peace (115, 293), image of justice and charity (117, 51). Perhaps the word similitudo is used in a yet more general way; a likeness is used to make things clearer (21, 21; 34, 176, 187; 37, 12). All creatures are created in the image and likeness of God; they are in their being the likeness of the true and eternal love of God (14 passim). The first parents were created in the image and likeness of God through their natural instinct, and the excellence of their condition (101, 46), so that they were capable of understanding their own condition and that of the whole creation. They possessed a royal likeness of the image (117, 200f). All qreated charity and justice is a like¬ ness or a revelation of God’s endless charity (116, 215; 11, 89). John of Ford does not develop these statements further, but immediately he makes a transition from the creation of all man in the image and likeness of God to the mystery of In¬ carnation itself; a man, Christ is the real image and likeness of God, not only in himself but also for us (8, 206; 67, 225). For this Son, made man in Incarnation, the Father created a spouse to his image and likeness, who will be for ever the glory of the Son (35). The church in her earthly existence has always to be renewed to this likeness of the Son (51, 191 f.). Here the doctrine of Incarnation and ecclesiology join

Image and Likeness: Doctrine of John of Ford

355

together. The original image and likeness of God has been destroyed in the first parents by the devil. He retained, even after his own sin, the image of God, but he abuses it to his own perdition and that of all mankind. (36, 55). He promised to the first parents immortality, knowledge, a full likeness to God or rather equality with him (8, 256). The devil was jealous that Christ, a man, was himself the image and like¬ ness of God, completely equal to God (84, 28). The devil, therefore, is the origin of all the unlikeness in the creature (dissimilitudo) (24, 136; 36, 124; 93, 213-5; 110, 209). The key of this rather fragmentary doctrine of John of Ford on image and likeness is to be found in sermons 103 - 104. Christ, who is the image of the Father in his human existence or in his human nature is restoring the lost original likeness in a double way. John of Ford places this doctrine in his conception of redemption and the consequences of the redemption on human life. The image which we originally received is a divine seal of likeness upon our soul. Through sin the devil put his own seal of unlikeness upon that divine seal, so that our soul lost its divine brilliance and became only darkness. Christ, through his redeeming death and resurrection put his own seal, the real image and likeness of God, on our darkness and (in this way) restored the original splendor. He did that first of all through his example of poverty and obedience. Through consilium and voluntas, through our good works and our perseverance and through desire, the form of charity can direct the intuition of our spirit {mens) toward the principal image, toward God (103, par. 5-9). But first Christ himself in his Incarnation has to put his seal upon our soul, because he is the seal and the sealer, he is life and the source of life. He has conformed himself to our human existence, so that the charity of God through the Spirit may be restored in us, to the glory of his divinity (104, par. 1-5). The participation of man in this restoration is openness through grace, or through penance (6, 22 sq.). The work of

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Edmund Mikkers ocso

sanctification of the Spouse, the church, always continues (51, 233; 116, 213 sq.). This is the mercy of God, that as a father he restores in us his image and likeness through his Son, and that as a mother he is bearing us in pain to new spiritual life through Christ in his humanity, which he assumed for us (28, 49 sq.). The work of Christ, continued in the Church, his spouse, is the procreation of other sons to the image and likeness of God and to the likeness, too, of the Spouse (68, 182 f; 94, 152 f; 98, 63 f). It is clear that John of Ford made the doctrine of image and likeness an integral part of his much more developed christology, of his doctrine of the Incarnation and Redemp¬ tion. It can be understood only in this much broader context. There is no doubt that we easily can recognize here some ideas of Bernard and Aelred, probably yet more of Baldwin of Ford and Thomas of Citeaux, who speak of Christ as the seal of the likeness (signaculum similitudinis). But this topic is broadly developed only by John of Ford. Even if there are patristic sources, Eastern or Western, the doctrine of John of Ford can easily and sufficiently be explained by his immediate predecessors.

E. W. F. Mikkers ocso

Sint Benedictus Abdij Achel

ONE YET TWO

A UNITY TO BE FULFILLED

T

^HE FOURTH AND FIFTH DAYS of the Symposium were dedicated to the explicit study of the various channels of contact between Eastern or Orthodox monasticism and the Cistercians. Dr Bernard Hamilton of Nottingham University chaired the program on Thursday and Canon A. M. Allchin of Canterbury was chairman on Friday. Canon Law

Already on the previous days many of the channels of con¬ tact had been spoken of. Fr Bede Lackner’s paper, “Early Citeaux and the East,’’1 surveyed many of the channels of contact already mentioned, but took note of one not yet men¬ tioned, Canon Law. The great ecclesial legal system inherited from Rome shaped the lives of all monks, as did the Novellae of Justinian. We tend to forget the common heri¬ tage Christians of both East and West share from the Roman Empire. Even today, if one is in Constantinople looking for the Ecumenical Patriarch, he must ask for the Roman Pat¬ riarchate. And Christians in the “new Rome” still speak of themselves as Romans.

1.

Below, pp. 373-400.

359

360

A Unity to be Fulfilled Libraries

Dr Gastaldelli, in his very brief communication on the writings of the Greek Fathers present in the Library of Clairvaux,2 pointed to an immense task that must be under¬ taken before we can fully estimate the amount of immediate contact the early Cistercians might have had with the writings of the Greek Fathers. When all the remaining catalogues and collections from the twelfth-century Cistercian houses have been carefully studied, we can form a truer estimation of the extent to which the texts of the Eastern Fathers were actually in the hands of the Cistercian Fathers. John Scotus Eriugena

In studying the Cistercian Fathers on the previous days, a good bit was said about the influence of the PseudoDionysius. Professor Sheldon-William’s paper turned atten¬ tion specifically to the primary channel of the influence. John the Scot or Eriugena.3 Eriugena was responsible for the first Latin translation of the Pseudo-Dionysius, and his work formed the basis for the study of Platonist philosophy which was dominant in the Western European schools until the re¬ discovery of Aristotle in the late twelfth century. As students at these schools before they entered the monastery, the early Cistercians would have been formed by this philosophy. However, it needs to be noted that although Eriugena is the most Eastern of the important Western medieval thinkers, he read Dionysius and the other Greek Fathers in a different theological context than they were read in the East and therefore they meant something different and were inter¬ preted differently. Also, Eriugena made a conscious effort to combine what he got from Dionysius with Augustinian Platonism. Dionysius is only one of a number of apophatic mystical theologians, and one who was somewhat suspect in the eyes of monks as being too much like a schoolman. His influence might actually be more philosophical than theo¬ logical. 2.

Below, pp. 401-404.

3.

I. P. Sheldon-Williams, ‘‘Eriugena and Citeaux,” Studia Monastica.

A Unity to be Fulfilled

361

A Paradox

The early Cistercians acknowledge an indebtedness to the East. They have stated this explicitly in their writings. Yet there is this paradox: When they came into direct contact with Orthodox monasticism in the Crusade States, they were, on the whole, indifferent to it, while when they encountered it in Frankish Greece they were openly hostile to it. Dr Hamilton, in his general survey of the Cistercians in the East? and Fr David Williams in his more specialized study of “Cis¬ tercian Settlement in the Lebanon,’’5 could find no evidence to the contrary, no indication of friendly overtures or Christian outreach. There had always been a Greek monastic presence in the West ever since Athanasius wrote his life of Antony and Cassian came to Marseilles. There were Greek monasteries at Rome, which in many ways remained a Byzantine city until the mid-twelfth century. The Cistercians were to occupy one of these — Saints Vincent and Anastasius — and continue to occupy it till this day. There was a significant increase in the number of Greek monks moving into Western Europe, even as far as England, in the two centuries prior to the founding of Citeaux. This was due to the Saracen attacks on Byzantine southern Italy. Some of these took up residence in Western monasteries and even became abbots. A large section of Western monks of this period would have had the opportunity of coming into contact with men of the Eastern monastic tradition. These contacts undoubtedly greatly influenced the eleventh-century renewal out of which the Cistercians sprung. There was still full communion, a complete sharing of faith and spiritual life was possible. However, this phase of Greek expansion came to an end before the birth of Citeaux. Its termination was due not to the final schism of 1054 but to the Norman conquest of Sicily and the patronage which the early counts, Roger I and Roger II, extended to the Greek monks. 4.

B. Hamilton, “The Cistercians in the Crusade States,’’ below, pp.

405-422. 5. D. Williams, “Cistercian Settlement in the Lebanon,’’ Citeaux 25 (1974): 61-74.

362

A Unity to be Fulfilled

There was no longer any need to move northwards. In the second half of the eleventh century, Greek monks were rarely found north of Rome, and by 1100 the only important Greek community in the Papal States was that of Grottaferrata. But the important point is that when the Greek monks did come into the West they freely mingled with Western monks and had many fruitful contacts with them. Why, then, when the Cistercians went East, did they not do likewise? They rather built their own Western style mon¬ asteries in remote places, or, whey they occupied Greek monasteries, they totally displaced the native communities. There were many reasons for this. The relative rigidity and worldwide uniformity of the Cistercian monastic observances did not lend themselves to mixing or even being open to other monastic customs. Also, and perhaps more significant¬ ly, by the time the Cistercians came to have the opportunity of contacts with the Greeks, the situation of the Greek and Latin Churches had radically changed. A Roman hierarchy had been set up in ancient Eastern Patriarchates. The Crusades, supported by the Cistercians and even led by them, deviated into treacherous ways. The Cistercians occupied Orthodox monasteries in the wake of military forces. There was little to invite friendly contacts, no matter how much the Cistercians might have appreciated their Eastern heritage. One of the Orthodox, however, pointed out that there is very little documentation on which to base any assertion; for two or three houses we have no documents at all. Also, the Cistercian presence was short-lived. While the Lebanon foundations were earlier, after the Second Crusade, and one of them, Belmont, stands till this day as an Orthodox seminary, those in Greece came only in the beginning of the thirteenth century, and yet by 1275 only two of them re¬ mained, Daphne and a house on the Isle of Crete. Just why the Cistercians went East it is hard to say.

St

Bernard was opposed to it. There is a letter of Innocent III of 1204 suggesting that the Cistercians could have a good influ¬ ence on the Greeks because of their discipline and holiness of

A Unity to be Fulfilled

363

life. But the whole Eastern adventure of the Cistercians does seem to have been an unhappy and unsuccessful affair. Ranee

Moving ahead a few centuries, Fr Chrysogonus Waddell wrote of a monk who had an immense influence on a great portion of the Cistercian family for three centuries—up until the present time: Armand-Jean Le Bouthillier, Abbe de Ranee. Fr Waddell argued for a more balanced view of this much misunderstood Cistercian reformer. Relevant to our present concern he brought out Ranee’s deep concern for the patristic sources of monastic theology, especially the Fathers of the Desert, which is at the root of the present Cistercian renewal and the Oxford Symposium. If it must be admitted that his view of the Fathers was somewhat distorted according to his own times, this serves to warn us that we are probably doing the same in our outreach to our Eastern sources. But it also indicates that such a temporized view can yet be a source of life, as it certainly was for many of his monks. His correspondence reveals a man who was con¬ stantly evolving toward a perfect love. He was a great spiritual father, which our Orthodox brethren would readily recognize; his monks had a deep affection for him. Yet, some of the Cistercians felt it had to be admitted, in spite of his devotion to authentic monastic sources, the general spirit that came down to later generations as a heritage from Ranee, while one of great fidelity in a rather morbid sort of way, did distort the general balance of Cistercian life with an undue emphasis on penance. This might be blamed on later de¬ velopments at La Val Sainte, although Dom Augustin de Le strange, who formed its basic spirit, is known for his devotion to the humanity of Christ, developing Paul’s teaching on our role to fill up the sufferings of Christ. He cultivated a basic Cistercian attitude toward reality: work, material things, liturgy. The distortion is probably more to be blamed on the fact that Ranee was known to later generations more by 6.

C. Waddell,

“The Eastern Monastic Fathers and the Reform of

Ranee,’’ below, pp. 423-439.

364

A Unity to be Fulfilled

excerpts than by the whole complexity of his rather balanced but very extensive corpus. In any case, the unhappy influence the Greek monastic Fathers had on the Cistercians through the devotion of Ranee can serve to warn us that Cistercians can better enter into the full spirit of the Orthodox tradition by plunging more deeply into the fullness of the tradition they have received from their own Fathers. Thomas Merton

This is exemplified in the modern Cistercian Father whom Dom John Eudes Bamberger presented so well in his mono¬ graphic paper: “Thomas Merton and the Christian East.” 7 As Merton entered more and more fully into his Cistercian vocation, there was a gradual unfolding of love for, appre¬ ciation of and appropriation of the Greek Fathers. He became more sensitive to the Eastern tradition by living his own tradition. He was truly a Western hesychast. He be¬ came a disciple of the Greek Fathers and let himself be formed by them. His powerful imagination as a writer of genius was totally in the service of the spiritual life and he brought the Fathers into relation with contemporary con¬ sciousness. He became rooted in tradition as a living reality now interacting with current experience. He clearly saw the complementarity of East and West and this led to great inte¬ grity in his own spirituality. Merton could never have written as he did, or been what he was, if he had not lived an authentic Cistercian life. He was a man who made the journey within to his true self so he could see all from within, no matter from what tradition it sprang. If in a particular writing he is carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, this is always brought into balance if it is seen in the context of his writings in general. Paul Evdokimov

It is not surprising then that Rowan Williams was inspired in his beautiful paper, “Bread in the Wilderness,”8 to draw 7.

Below, pp. 440-451.

8.

Below, pp, 452-473.

A Unity to be Fulfilled

365

a comparison between Thomas Merton and the great con¬ temporary Orthodox writer, Paul Evdokimov. Evdokimov’s ideal clearly answered to a very great extent Merton’s own thought: the discovery of the true desert within; interiorized monasticism, not as a substitute for monastic life but an af¬ firmation of its meaning, relevance and power in the lives of all Christians; the saint or monk as an icon, participating in the irony of the incarnation, in the world yet outside of it, useless yet restoring the world’s true view of itself. This is just one more witness to the fact that the two monastic tra¬ ditions, in spite of the prolonged separation of the Churches, have truly remained essentially one. Small Groups Dr Hamilton had set before the small groups the task of trying to explicitate what the Orthodox and Cistercians could learn from one another. Some reacted to this particular for¬ mulation. They saw the meeting and sharing as primarily a challenge to each to go deeper into his own tradition, and this it primarily was. There was no desire to stifle any very healthy pluralism. But most felt that we did indeed have things to learn from one another. But we had to realize, especially those from the West, who are so enamored with instantaneous results, that it takes time to truly draw from another tradition and not just engage in superficial imitation. One group characterized the East as a feminine, the West as a masculine, interpretation of Christianity. The East stresses the intuitive, the West the rational, the intellectualization. The East takes more to implicit, oral tradition; the West to clear written statements. Community seems to loom larger in the East, while the West has emphasized more the individual. The East seems to integrate the body, matter, more completely; the West places emphasis on the spirit. The meeting of these complementary interpretations certainly offers a mutually enlarged view of the Christian reality. Cistercian Offerings In the end there were many things the Orthodox felt they

366

A Unity to be Fulfilled

could learn from their Cistercian brothers as a typically Western expression of the monastic tradition. Bishop Antonie, who has visited many monasteries in the West and has been impressed by them, offered this list: exactness, as a form of respect for God and men; organization, creating a sense of order and balance; humility in clothing and foot gear, a sign of liberation from the material world; the inten¬ sity of the quest for contemplation as signified by the en¬ closure of the nuns and the ascetic cells of the hermits; intel¬ lectual occupations. There can be an unbalance here, but the Western tradition is not without its emotional warmth and even sentimentality. Eastern monks are often indebted to those of the West for the very editions of the Greek Fathers that they employ. 9 Others added to the Bishop’s list. The West can warn the East of the danger of getting away from the sources, of being infiltrated by the growing materialism of secular society. It can indicate the value in spiritual direction and discernment of complementing the father-son relationship with relationships to spiritual friends, relationships mediated by the community. It can suggest ways in which the monastic tradition can develop while remaining essentially true to itself, how it can go on and live its life through great cultural changes, how it can integrate into itself certain good elements from the movements going on outside itself, even when those movements are basically inimical to it. Finally, on a very practical level. Western monasticism can reach out to Orthodox monasticism as it seeks to establish itself in the West, welcoming it, offering counsel and support, helping it to integrate into Western culture rather than leaving it in a cultural ghetto. Orthodox Gifts

For its part, Orthodoxy brings very much for a meeting with Western monasticism. It says to the West: We are your past. Orthodoxy brings to the West its own origins. Ortho¬ dox monks can show us how to allow the great monastic 9. Even in the libraries on Mt Athos one will find the editions of J. P. Migne and Sources Chretiennes.

A Unity to be Fulfilled

367

Fathers to come alive again in our communities. It can re¬ vitalize our living out of the tradition. It can show us how the local monastery is meant to contain within itself the fullness of the mystery of the Church and yet to be in vital contact with the Church and society around it; how to share its soli¬ tude discreetly and break down false barriers between the sexes. It offers a sense of the integrity of spirituality and doc¬ trine, a fuller ecclesiology and pneumatology. It demon¬ strates, as Symeon the New Theologian taught, that theology and life are one, and separation brings death to them both. In this time when the Western Church and the monastic orders, especially the Cistercians, are undergoing a rapid de¬ centralization and destructuralization, Eastern monasticism can give us examples of how to make the best use of the new structural freedom. Concretely, Orthodoxy invites us to renew the role of the spiritual father and gives us the Jesus Prayer. How much more could be added! Christian life.

It is a whole gift of

Towards Unity

As Archimandrite Barnabas pointed out, unity has many facets: in Christ, in prayer, in the Bible and spiritual read¬ ings, in mystical experience, in monastic life. It is already achieved in all of these. It is still to be achieved canonically— which is certainly secondary — and dogmatically and sacra¬ mentally—which is very important. We must not act as if it has been achieved there or we will be living a falsehood. As Bishop Antonie stated, we cannot have intercommunion, only communion. But there are obstacles in our movement towards communion, and one of these is fear. There is fear in the East, and it is not without basis, that something very precious will be swamped and submerged by the great technological, intellectual and scientific knowledge of the West. There is fear of losing one’s own nationality or culture or Church. The separation of East and West has been caused by other than religious factors; there have been political, sociological and

368

A Unity to be Fulfilled

economical ones also.

There have been different points of

view in regard to the whole of life and the creation. We have gone different ways and have quite different attitudes. How¬ ever, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment have had their impact on the East. The Orthodox Churches have been in¬ fluenced by pietism, a rational attitude towards life and the world, rational theology independent of faith, a separation of dogma and moral life; so that at the moment it is a mistake to make too strict a distinction between East and West. It should not be forgotten that Western civilization has been based on a connection between the Greek mind and the Christian kerygma. There are practical things that can be done now to facilitate unity. Partnership in prayer is, of course, fundamental and presupposed. Bishop Antonie urged that the classical writings of the Western monastic tradition, especially the Cistercian Fathers, be made available in the various Orthodox languages. They would be well received. Archimandrite Kallistos urged this also, saying that what he had read and heard convinced him it was the same monastic tradition with only differences of emphasis. When the Cloud of Unknowing was published in Greek, the Bishop of Corinth presented it as the work of an unknown English Orthodox writer of the fourteenth century. The Cistercian writings might well be presented as those of known French and English Orthodox writers of the twelfth century. More important and more desirable than new meetings would be visits, first of Western monks to Orthodox monas¬ teries and then return visits. Joining with our Eastern brothers in venerating the relics and icons, chanting the offices and following the rhythm of the hesychastic life would help them realize our oneness. Then they would come and find the same things they knew at home, but in a different context. We need to share accounts of the lives of our holy monks and nuns with each other. I know that when I visited Greece,

A Unity to be Fulfilled

369

this is what the ordinary monk and nun asked for: “Tell us of your saints, your holy monks and nuns.” When the presence of the Spirit is discerned in this concrete way, there will be interest in the teaching and way of life that led to such holiness. One Orthodox monk who has been living in England de¬ clared that the Christian West has never before been so aware of the East, so eager to learn. The whole development of the Catholic Church in the last twenty years comes from a desire to recover what has been lost. Yet it is difficult for the East to understand this change. Our task now is, first of all, to hear each other; second, to try to understand each other; third, to discuss in trust and with love; and fourth, not to reject each other. But for all of this there is an absolute need of metanoia, repentance, which is at the basis of the whole monastic movement in the East and in the West. There were other topics explored in the small groups on these days. Sister Benedicta Ward’s paper on “The Desert Myth,” to which she added ideas of the monk as an exile, invited more discussion on the relationship of the monk to the world. The tension between solitude and sharing will always be a factor in the life of each monk and the monastic community as such. It is something that it is difficult to generalize about, for it is very relative to time and place. It is important that the monk keep a certain distance, yet con¬ stantly be giving to a needly world. The solutions must come out of the lived experience of the monks themselves. One group devoted its efforts toward understanding more fully the Christian meaning of fasting. Fasting was seen as a means of self-mastery, of aiding the mind to come to a sharper attention; as a penance expressing one’s willingness to share in Christ’s Passion, an anticipation of the freedom of the parousia, as producing a certain emptiness that underlined the desire for God, and as an expression of solidarity with the poor. A paper given spontaneously by one of the Orthodox scholars on sacred art also evoked considerable discussion.

370

A Unity to be Fulfilled Broader Perspectives

A very beautiful paper by Dr Gordon Rupp on “A Devotion of Rapture in English Puritanism,” invited some reflection on the relations of the more ancient Christian monastic traditions of the Orthodox and Cistercians to post-Reformation Christianity. Dr Rupp’s paper showed the underlying con¬ tinuing spiritual life and prayer in the midst of persecutions and apparent hatred. There was always a common acceptance of Christ, the Scriptures, the Trinity, the teach¬ ings of the first Councils, of Word and Sacraments. There is a parallelism between some aspects of Puritanism and Ranee’s reform among the Cistercians. Seventeenth-century Anglican divines did not hesitate to read and quote St Bernard. This inspired an Anglican priest to express what he saw there was for the Anglicans to learn from the Cistercians. The Anglican Church, which shares in the fullness of the undivided Church, in rediscovering the Cistercian heritage and the medieval monastic tradition, will not be embarking on some sort of romantic quest, but will be reappropriating its own tradition. The Cistercian Fathers offer insights not only into monastic life, but into Christian life as such: identity with Jesus Crucified, losing life to find it, poverty of spirit, simplicity of life, purity of heart, following the poverty, weak¬ ness and humiliation of Christ. These are at the heart of the Cistercian tradition, expressed with passion in their words and in their lives. From their monastic theology there can be learned the use of symbols, images, meditation, contempla¬ tion and prayer and that dimension of theology which is a reflection on the good, the true and the beautiful, the poetry of theology. The practical suggestion was made of preparing an English Philokalia, drawing on the writings of the great English spiritual writers of all the different traditions, beginning with the twelfth-century Cistercians. A hope was expressed also for a Cistercian-Anglican Symposium to explore these rich veins more fully.

A Unity to be Fulfilled

371

But the horizons of the meeting were to broaden yet more. Dom Jean Leclercq's paper “Monasticism and One World” and his opening address invited consideration of these broader perspectives. Canon Allchin’s paper, ‘‘Monastic Life and Unity in Christ” issued a similar invitation. Without denying either the prefiguration of Christ in all cultures and religions or the absolute uniqueness of the incarnation of God in Christ, there can be found in every well developed culture a monastic state which shares striking similarities with every other monastic state. Some of these are beyond geographical and historical influences and must be seen to be arising from a common human nature and archetype of the suprarational consciousness which have been reached by intellectual intui¬ tion and prayer. Thus there is here again a basis for fruitful dialogue and sharing. But the message of the monastic tradition shared by Orthodox and Cistercians must go out beyond all Christian Churches and all monastic communities to the entire world. In the time of ecological crisis, the witness of the monastic renunciation of exploitation and manipulation of human beings and the natural world by the virtues of poverty and chastity is of the utmost importance for the evolution of a contemplative attitude and relationship with people and things. The contemplative attitude is one of openness toward God, man and nature. The contemplative man listens to the word of God not only through Scripture and in his own heart, but coming through his brothers and in the signs of the times, in the events of history, past and present. He cannot close his ears to any voice. He is not truly a contemplative if he does not listen to them all. The Christian monk as a con¬ templative, who is open to all and sees all in the light of the Gospel, is a prophet of meaning. He understands and gives witness to the ultimate meaning of all things in the incarnate God—Jesus Christ. There was ample material here for many more Symposia, inviting monastic reflection on basic human issues such as social justice,

ecology,

peace,

racial

equality

and

world

372 culture.

A Unity to be Fulfilled

But the hour of this Symposium had run its course,

leaving us with the humbling realization that we had only just begun.

EARLY CITEAUX AND THE EAST

T

^HE TITLE OF THIS PAPER seems to imply a contra¬ diction in terms for reasons which must not be dismissed lightly.

First of all, there is the question of the terminology since East can mean a great many things: it may refer to Egyptian, Syriac, Greco-Byzantine and, possibly, other monastic forms. It should therefore be stressed that aside from the brief allusions to Egyptian monasticism, our inves¬ tigation will chiefly focus on the Greek and Byzantine world and seek to ascertain whether and to what extent the latter shaped the thinking of the early Cistercians. To do so may seem a far-fetched undertaking, given the great differences between Eastern and Western monasticism in general. The former, faithful to the early Christian vita apostolica ideal, is known for its essentially charismatic, pneumatological and eschatological make-up. Accordingly it retained a certain disregard for institutional forms, viewed the monastery as a schola theoriae rather than a schola dominici servitii, did not become clericalized, and tended to see the cenobitic life—even though preferred and justified by St Basil—as an inferior state, a preparatory step toward the angelic life of the pneumatic. Western — i.e. Benedictine — monasticism chose to remain, for one reason or another, on the moral level, in the realm of action, in a direct ministration 373

Bede Lackner o cist

374

to the temporal world during the first five centuries of its existence. Inspired by Augustinian concepts, it was, in form as well as in outlook, intellectualistic, philosophical and juridical rather than its more biblically and theologically oriented Eastern counterpart.1 Hence the difficulty in a search for common denominators, unless one looks to Egyptian monachism — Origen, the Fathers of the Desert, Pachomius and John Cassian—the common ancestor of Greek 2 and Western monasticism. •

1.

•

Clement Lialine, “Monachisme oriental et monachisme occidental,” 33

Irenikon.

(1960)

437,

443-445;

Jean

Leclercq,

“Medievisme

et

Unionisme,” ibid.. 19 (1946) 6f, 10; LEremitismo in Occidents nei secoli XI Atti della seconda Settimana Internazionale di Studio, Mendola, 30

e XII.

agosto 6 settembre 1962 (Miscellanea del Centro di Studi Medioevali, IV; Milano:

Societa Editrice Vita e Pensiero, 1965) p. 355 n. 2; Ernst Benz, The

Eastern Orthodox Church.

Its Thought and Life (Garden City, N.Y.: Double¬

day Anchor, 1963) p. 89f. 2.

Otto episcopi Frisingensis Chronica, editio altera (Scriptores Rerum

Germanicarum in usum scholarum ex Monumentis Germaniae Historicis separatim editi; Hannoverae:

Impensis Bibliopoli Hahniani, 1912) p. 191.

Georg Schreiber, “Anselm von Havelberg und die Ostkirche,” Zeitschrift fur 60 (1942)

Kirchengeschichte,

367f.,

387;

Benz,

The

Eastern

Church, pp. 84-87; John Meyendorff, The Orthodox Church. Role in the World Today (London:

Orthodox

Its Past and Its

Darton, Longman & Todd, 1962) p. 26; C.

Lialine, “Monachisme oriental,” 437-9; Eduard Schwartz, “Die Kanonessammlungen der alten Reichskirche,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fiir Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung, XXV (1936) 39; Peter Anson, The Call of the Desert.

The Solitary Life in the Christian Church

S.P.C.K.,

18f.,

1964)

pp.

26f.,

46;

Piusz

Halasz,

“A

(London:

Ciszterci

Rend

szelleme,” Katolikus Szemle (March, 1942) 5; Norman H. Baynes and H. St. L. B. Moss, eds., Byzantium. (Oxford:

University Press,

Byzantine World (New York:

Ryan, Irish Monasticism. Talbot Press, 1931) p. 22.

An Introduction to East-Roman Civilization

1969) pp.

136,

144; Joan M.

Hussey,

The

Harper Torchbooks, 1961) pp. 115f., 118; John

Origins and Early Development (Dublin:

The

On Pachomius see Vita Pachomii, PL 73:255;

Theologie de la vie monastique.

Etudes sur la tradition patristique, edited

by the Faculte de Theologie S. J. de Lyon Fourviere (Lyon: Aubier, 1955) pp. 69ff.; Paulin Ladeuze, Etude sur le cenobitisme Pakhomien pendant le IVe et la premiere moitie du Ve siecle (Frankfurt, a. M.: Minerva, 1961) pp. 173,

186, 286f.; Columbanus Spahr, De fontibus constitutivis primigenii iuris constitutionalis Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis (Romae:

90f.; J. Ryan, Irish Monasticism.

p. 30f.;

Dissertatio Lateran, 1953) p. and Herbert Workman,

The

Early Citeaux and the East

375

A third difficulty arises when one seeks, or is called upon, to explore possible common elements or at least mutually held treasures by early Citeaux and the Byzantine East, a project never undertaken before. The question is im¬ mediately at hand whether attempts to attribute Eastern elements to Citeaux, established in 1908, nearly fifty years after the fateful events of 1054, as a genuine product of the Gregorian Reform—with its papalism, juridicalism, moralism —in the distant region of Burgundy, are not doomed to failure ab ovo. For a long time — too long, in fact — no answer had been sought to this question. Today, however, we are more fortunate: Imber abiit et recessit. Flowers are surfacing in wide areas which give this investigation — necessarily sketchy given its pioneering status—with a note of hope. Debitor es Graecis} St Bernard told his former charge, Pope Eugene III. It is time to explore how this reminder — or obligation? — applied, mutatis Cistercian world.

mutandis,

also

to

the

contemporary

A first step in this direction will be to point to the numer¬ ous unbroken contacts between Eastern and Western monasticism which went on for centuries and came to a re¬ grettable halt — not in 1054, but only in 1204. * * 3 4 Sicily and southern Italy, for instance, had been under Greek control for centuries and fully Byzantinized by the eleventh century. Both regions housed numerous Greek monasteries leading their traditional way of life based on as¬ ceticism, their ritual and cenobitic as well as eremitic fea¬ tures. In time they also came to show a great appreciation for manual labor and field work, a concern for economic selfsupport, a readiness to accept material donations in exchange Evolution of the Monastic Ideal (Boston:

Beacon Press, 1927) pp. 68, 125

n.l. 3.

De consideratione, III, i, 2; OB 3:432.

See also Leopold Grill, “Bern-

hard von Clairvaux und die Ostkirche,” ASOC, 19 (1963) 165-188. 4. Deno J. Geanakoplos. Byzantine East and Latin West: Christendom in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Oxford:

1966) p. 44.

Two Worlds of

Basil Blackwell,

Bede Lackner o cist

376

for spiritual obligations, and to organize its monasteries in hierarchical groupings, anticipating in many ways western monastic practices of the eleventh century. 5 6 Of equal importance was Monte Cassino, the center of Benedictine monachism, in this context. The abbey had been under Byzantine political control for a considerable period of time and remained on friendly terms with the emperor and the imperial city even after Byzantine fortunes declined in Italy. This brought imperial favors and, more importantly, a fruitful exposure to Greek religious, monastic and cultural in¬ fluences which it transmitted to its sons in western Europe. Mention must also be made of the city of Rome which welcomed Greek visitors and pilgrims who came ad limina apostolorum even after 1054. Here one could also see Greek and Benedictine monks live in the same monastery under a Greek abbot, where each group followed its own rule, and in its vicinity there was Grottaferrata, a center of genuine Greek monasticism founded by St Nilus, a follower of St Theodore the Studite, who had spent some time at Monte Cassino and written a hymn in honor of St Benedict, the Father of western monachism. 7 While these agents of the Greek spirit exercised their main influence primarily and directly in the Mediterranean regions of Italy, Moslem advances as well as other factors of in¬ security (e.g. iconoclasm) caused an impressive number of Greek monks and solitaries to seek a safe haven in the North of Europe. As is well known, some of these refugees advan5.

LEremitismo in Occidenta, pp. 356f., 361f., 364-8; D. Geanakoplos,

Byzantine East, pp. 13-15, 19-21, 24, 39, 41-45; J. Hussey, The Byzantine World, p. 126f., J. Leclercq, “Medievisme et Unionisme,” 8, 10, 16f., 19-21; G. Schreiber, “Anselm von Havelberg,’’ 387; Albert Mirgeler, Geschichte Europas (Freiburg, i.B.: Herder, 1958) p. 84.

6. Herbert Bloch, “Monte Cassino, Byzantium and the West in the Earlier Middle Ages,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Number 3 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1946) 163ff. 7.

D. Geanakoplos, Byzantine East,

p. 44; J. Hussey, The Byzantine

World, p. 126f.; A. Michel, “Die griechischen Klostersiedlungen zu Rom bis

zur Mitte des 11.

Jahrhunderts,” Ostkirchliche Studien, 1 (1952) 32-45 and

idem., “Der kirchliche Wechselverkehr zwischen Ost und West,” ibid., 151.

Early Citeaux and the East

377

ced as far as Trier (Porta Nigra) and, weathering the stormy Channel, even the city of London (the hermit Symeon). Like St Athanasius in the fourth century, they acquainted the West with their characteristic monastic ways and greatly contri¬ buted to the monastic revival of the eleventh century—really an ascetical movement, based on the example of the Fathers of the Desert — culminating in what came to be called the Gregorian Reform. These Greek monks had, thus, a definite influence on Western reform movements between the tenth and the twelfth centuries; in fact, some of the more important monasteries, particularly in the Ardennes region, Lorraine and Burgundy (Cluny!) had been exposed to the direct in¬ fluence of Eastern monks. Even Cluny’s liturgy is, in a way, a return to the traditions of the great patristic centuries, just as its architecture and art forms show definite Byzantine features accepted or received, undoubtedly, through the ino strumentality of Monte Cassino. But there were still other instances of communication between East and West, namely the literary activities of Western authors to whom the transmission of Eastern treasures can directly be traced. Thus Eastern conciliar and imperial legislation had been preserved and revived by Isidore of Seville, Charlemagne and Louis the Pious (with the help of Benedict of Aniane), while Eastern patristic and monastic spirituality and the products of the Greek spirit in general (philosophy, psychology, etc.) found their way into the Western world, also the monastic world, through such middlemen as Boethius, Bede, John of Damascus, Louis the Pious, and John the Scot (Eriugena), long before the crusa¬ ding movement (1096) brought even greater and much wider personal contacts, leading to a more intimate knowledge and appreciation of the East. Thus, what may be called the “monastic” Middle Ages — as opposed to the world of Scho¬ lasticism and of the universities which moved in different directions—preserved numerous elements that had originally 8.

A. Mirgeler, Geschichte, p. 84; Bede Lackner, The Eleventh-Century Cistercian Publications, 1972)

Background of Citeaux (Washington, D.C.:

pp. 135-7; D. Geanakoplos, Byzantine East, p. 45.

Bede Lackner o cist

378

come from the East.

This applied to the Scriptures, the

Church Fathers, the use of biblical texts and exegetical methods. It meant the same eschatological outlook in theology, the cult of the Virgin Mary and interest in the world of angels. It also meant that Western monks read, during lectio, the works of the Eastern Fathers, not for the sake of

gathering material for apologetics or scholastic disquisitions, but to sustain and enrich their spiritual life — in a truly Eastern fashion. And in the liturgy they kept or adopted numerous Eastern elements: feasts, ceremonies, hymns, blessings and a multitude of liturgical and ecclesiastical terms. The same applied to the field of the arts (painting and the plastic arts) and to philosophy (Stoicism, Platonism, etc.) which inspired a great many monastic thinkers — also Cister¬ cians— in the West. 9 Still another link between East and West was the Rule of St Benedict which the Cistercian pioneers sought to implement in its original purity; this for the simple reason that it had appropriated many elements from Eastern-Egyptian as well as Greek-monasticism. Its provisions on the distribution of the psalmody and moderation in the use of wine reflect, for instance, the world of the Apophtegmata Patrum. The regu¬ lations dealing with the enclosure and the practice of hospi¬ tality (e.g. the duties of the gate-keeper) can easily be traced to the Vitae Patrum which long before St Benedict defined the abbot as a spiritual father and the monastic community as 9.

Heinrich Bacht and Alois Grillmeier, eds. Das Konzil von Chalkedon.

Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3 vols. (Wurzburg:

Echter-Verlag, 1951-4) II,

pp. 622, 628, 874-7, 902; E. Schwartz, “Die Kanonessammlungen,” loc. cit., 110; D. Geanakoplos, Byzantine East, pp. 21, 24; J. Leclercq, “Medievisme et Unionisnre,”

10,

16-21; G. Schreiber,

“Anselm von Havelberg,’’ 387;

Wilhelm Koehler, “Byzantine Art in the West,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Number 1 (Cambridge, Mass.:

Harvard University Press, 1942) p. 85; Louis

Bouyer, The Cistercian Heritage (Westminster, Md.:

The Newman Press,

1958) pp. 65, 85; J.-M. Dechanet, Aux sources de la spirituality de Guillaume de Saint-Thierry (Bruges:

Editions Charles Beyaert, 1940) p. 55; Maieul

Cappuyns, Jean Scot Erigene, sa vie, son oeuvre, sa pensee (Bruxelles: Culture et Civilization, 1964) pp. 48, 146.

Early Citeaux and the East

379

the Church in miniature.10 St Benedict obviously also knew St Pachomius, the Father of cenobitism, from whom he borrowed the measures dealing with monks who had to do some business outside the monastery. Pachomius also opposed the idea that his monks should become priests, since, as he was convinced, it is not good to desire dominion and fame, just as the first Benedictines did not seek ordina¬ tion to the priesthood.11 Next it should be stated that the patriarch of Monte Cassino also prescribed rules very similar to those of St Basil, even though it is still difficult to prove the fact of a strict dependence. This parallelism is in clear evidence where St Benedict defined the relationship between the abbot and the community, where he admonishes everyone to be constantly mindful of the presence of God, where he talks about the degrees of humility—particularly the first and the twelfth degrees—and in chapters 19-20 of the Rule where he gives details on prayer. Moreover, St Benedict adopted several of St Basil’s ideas in modified form. Thus, on the one hand, he called for a greater separation from the world while, on the other hand, he opted for a milder regime within the monastery itself.12 St Benedict’s indebtedness to Evagrius Ponticus is still in need of more study, to determine further 10.

Paul J. Boesen, Regulae Sancti Benedicti Index Verborum (Nashville:

Vanderbilt University, 1941) passim; PG 65:71-440 (Apophtegmata Patrum)\ PL 73:855-1022 (Vitae Patrum); see also Historia monachorum in Egypto, PL 21:388-462 and PG 34(995ff.; La regie de Saint Benoit. maitresses des novices cisterciennes (Laval:

Seminaire pour

Abbaye cistercienne, 1972) p.

63f; J. Hussey, The Byzantine World, p. 118. 11. La regie de Saint Benoit, p. 64; P. Anson, The Call of the Desert, p. 60; E. Benz, The Eastern Orthodox Church, “Monchtum

und

Seelsorge

bis

zum

13.

p. 89; Philipp Hofmeister, Jahrhundert,”

Studien

und

Mitteilungen des Benediktinerordens und seiner Zweige, ’ 65 [1955] 215.

12. Great.

144,

La regie de Saint Benoit, p. 64; William K. L. Clarke, St Basil the A Study in Monasticism (Cambridge:

147-9,

Schwartz,

University Press, 1913) pp.

152f.; E. Benz, The Eastern Orthodox Church, “Die

Kanonessammlungen,”

Byzantine World, p.

loc.

cit.,

39;

J.

p. 89f.; Hussey,

E. The

116; LEremitismo in Occidente, p. 361; N. Baynes,

Byzantium, p. 142; H. Workman, The Evolution of the Monastic Ideal, p.

127.

Bede Lackner o cist

380

particulars in addition to those on prayer (pura oratio) and the various degrees of humility.13 No uncertainty remains, how¬ ever, about St Benedict’s dependence on John Cassian, a dis¬ ciple of Evagrius, to whom Benedict referred those of his monks who sought to advance beyond the prescriptions of his minima inchoationis regula (ch. 73). For, according to Cassian, after many years of training and preparation in a coenobitic monastery, the monks should eventually embrace a higher way of life and persevere therein until death. From Cassian St Benedict also took over the numerical arrangement of the liturgical hours (introduced each time by the versicle, Deus, in adiutorium meum intende) and the recitation of twelve psalms during the office of Vigils. He followed Cassian’s instructions on the spiritual life and on prayer, stressed the necessity of silence, the importance of humility calling for the renunciation of one’s own will and for obedience even when difficult things are commanded. He agreed with Cassian on the need for a penitential code in the monastery and, like the former, condemned the detestable manners of the Sarabaites.14 In his early years St Benedict had himself been an anchorite. Later he became a champion of the (Western) coenobitic ideal as his Rule for Coenobites and his biography written by St Gregory (Dialogi) attest. Yet, in the testimony of the latter, even then Benedict and many of his associates remained pneumatics. This is also seen from the Rule itself. Already its very title introduces the Rule not as a collection of (juridical) canons, but as an instrument of faith under the direction of the abbot who is a master of the spiritual life 13.

Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos-Chapters on Prayer CS 4 (Spencer,

MA:

Cistercian Publications, 1970) pp. VIII, XVIlf.; La regie de Saint

Benoit, p. 63.

14.

Owen Chadwick, John Cassian (Cambridge:

University Press, 1968)

pp. 153-5; Bruno Albers, “Cassians Einfluss auf die Regel des hi. Benedikt,” Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktinerordens und seiner Zweige, 43 (1925) 32-53 and 46 (1928) 12-22,

146-58; La regie de Saint

Benoit, p. 64; P. Anson, The Call of the Desert, p. 60f.; Cuthbert Butler, Benedictine Monachism (New York:

Barnes & Noble, 1961) p. 62f.

Early Citeaux and the East

381

rather than what will later be a called a superior major. Its seventh chapter outlines Benedict’s spiritual teaching based, again, not on juridical or moralizing formulae, but on humility, purity of heart, compunction, the gift of tears and perfection in love. Very significantly, Benedict makes no dis¬ tinction between compunction, perfection and salvation, and even when prescribing external observances, he always pre¬ supposes a living faith, a spiritual disposition which was to animate their execution. In chapter 18 Benedict refers to the example of the Fathers who recited the psalter in one single day whereas, in his own days, monks having grown lukewarm, needed a whole week for the one hundred and fifty psalms. The recitation of these psalms must be done with reverence and recollection, since the action takes place in the presence of God and his angels (ch. 19). The ideals of the Eastern Fathers resurface also in chapters 42-48, while chapter 68, entitled If A Brother Be Commanded Impossible Things, clearly envisions the possibility of obedience in a heroic degree. Chapter 73 encourages those aspiring, beyond the rudiments, to the perfection of the monastic life to seek further enlightenment and guidance from the Bible and the example and writings of the Fathers, the rules of St Basil and the Conferences and Institutes of Cassian. Yet, in the end St Benedict decided in favor of the strong race of the coenobites, for reasons no longer known to us in their entirety. Perhaps the uncertainties and rough manners of the contemporary world—Italy, invaded by the Ostrogoths, had just been reclaimed by the emperor Justinian after twenty years of intermittent warfare—constrained men,also St Benedict, to desist from the pursuit of higher monastic ideals attainable only in an atmosphere of undisturbed peace. Thus, in spite of the preferences listed in the previous paragraph, his Rule has actually very little to say about the charismatic life, the oratio pura is merely mentioned, and the propheticomystical ingredient is practically absent. Nor are the references made to the Fathers given any detailed elaboration or application. Instead, we see how the (Eastern) ascetico-

382

Bede Lackner o cist

mystical and pneumatic factor is lowered to the moral level of the honestas morum, and how the liturgy, the spiritual life, work, mortification and organizational matters are brought into balance through external regulations. The Rule is thus a code for beginners, not a handbook for heroes; it demands paululum, calls for nothing harsh or burdensome or heroic. In chapters 18 (weekly psalter), 40 (wine), 48 (manual labor), 49 (lent) and 73 (slothfulness) ascetical demands are mitigated—even if this is done with a trace of resignation—to accommodate souls less bent on the heroic. Yet the Dialogi of St Gregory tells us that even in his later life at Monte Cassino St Benedict and his associates continued to lead a life not unlike that of the Eastern thaumaturgoi. This may account for the supposition that the Rule of St Benedict does not totally reflect the spirit and the aspiration of the patriarch of Monte Cassino and that after composing his rule for beginners (bios praktikos) — his only option at the time — he planned, at a later date, to write another rule (bios theoretikos) for those who aspired to the summit of perfection, after they have successfully passed the stage of coenobitic preparation. 15 It is at this juncture that the Cistercian pioneers, benefiting from the contemporary monastic revival, stepped in. They had chosen the puritas Regulae as their motto and goal. In this pursuit they followed, on the one hand, the catharsis call of the Greek Fathers; on the other hand, they continued where St Benedict had left off, abruptly and, perhaps, unwill¬ ingly. They once more combined the Rule of St Benedict and what has already been referred to as the spirit of St Benedict. Building on the foundations of the seventy-third chapter of the Rule, they longed—in their uncomplicated simplicity and their affection—for a direct and prayerful penetration and ex¬ perience of the mystical and charismatic world. Hence their cultivation of the “theoretical” life (theoria). Their 15. P. Halasz, “A Ciszterci Rend szelleme,” loc. cit., 5f; C. Lialine, “Monachisme oriental,” 448-451; O. Chadwick, John Cassian, pp. 154-56; J.-M. Dechanet, Aux sources de la spiritualite de Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, p. 61; P. Anson, The Call of the Desert, p. 60f.

Early Citeaux and the East

383

monastery was not simply a dominici schola servitii,

an

elementary school, but a way of life modelled after that of the apostles and the (charismatic) vita apostolica of the early Church. And such a school—the Cistercian authors called it a schola primitivae Ecclesiae, a schola theoriae, a schola charitatis, — is an ideal institution, nothing less than an earthly paradise.16 The resolve of the early Cistercians “to live up to the ety¬ mology of their name,” points to another Eastern gift to the West: ecclesiastical legislation. Already the council of Nicaea had prescribed this in very similar terms. Of a greater importance, also for Citeaux, was the legislation of the council of Chalcedon (451) which enacted several canons (2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 16, 18 and 23) on the monastic life, calling upon the monks to be faithful to their vocation and defining the re¬ lationship between the monastery and the local bishop, i.e. the monks’ place in the Church, since they were neither priests (can. 2) nor simply laymen. This legislation reached the West through the instrumentality of Dionysius Exiguus, Pope Zacharias, Charlemagne (Admonitio generalis, 7; Synod of Aachen in 802), and such Western authors as Isidore of Seville, Bede, Sigebert of Gembloux, Hugh of Fleury, Anselm of Lucca, cardinal Deusdedit, Ivo of Chartres, Otto of Freising, Hugh of St Victor, Richard of St Victor and, of course, Gratian. Thus the conciliar decrees came to figure 16. Exordium Magnum Cisterciense, ed. Bruno Griesser (Rome:

Editiones

Cistercienses, 1961) p. 50; St Bernard, Letter 107 (106), in Bruno Scott James, The Letters of St Bernard of Clairvaux (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1953), p. 155; J. Leclercq, “Medievisme et Unionisme,” 15; P. Halasz, “A Ciszterci Rend szelleme,” 6; C. Lialine, “Le monachisme oriental,” 446; M.-Dominique Chenu, Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century. Essays

on

New

Theological Perspectives

in

the

University of Chicago Press, 1964) p. 274; Pius

Latin

West

(Chicago:

Halasz, ‘‘Die geistliche

Schule der Zisterzienser,” Anima, 8 (1953) 59. 17.

‘‘Instituta

monachorum

cisterciensium

de

molismo

venientium,”

Exordium Parvum, ed. Joannes-B. Van Damme, Documenta pro Cisterciensis Ordinis historiae ac juris studio (Westmaile:

Typis Ordinis Cist., 1959) p. 13;

Louis Lekai, The White Monks (Okauchee, Wis.: C. Spahr, De fontibus constitutivis, p. 56.

Spring Bank, 1953) p. 263;

Bede Lackner o cist

384

prominently in Western synodal legislation during the all-im¬ portant eleventh century. The most famous of the Chalcedon decrees, canon 4, oratory shall be ordinary; (2) the and prayer and to

prescribed that (1) no monastic church or set up without the consent of the local monks are to lead a life of silence, fasting remain under the bishop’s jurisdiction; (3)

the monks shall not interfere or get involved in temporal matters or even ecclesiastical affairs outside the monastery; (4) the monks shall not leave their monastery unless forced by a necessity and, finally, (5) the bishop shall exercise a bene¬ ficial surveillance over the monastery (without interfering in its internal affairs). The council also decreed that no regularly established monastery may be secularized or its property alienated (can. 24) and, finally, prohibited simony for obvious reasons. These canons of the council of Chalcedon have become some sort of a fundamental law for the monks. They defended and safeguarded the monastic ideals and assigned it a solid place in the Church. The spirit of Chalce¬ don is, thus, like a powerful stream, flowing underground as it were, but resurfacing, over and again, in later times. That such was the case with the Western monastic revival of the eleventh century which led to the foundation of Citeaux can easily be ascertained from a study of French local conciliar legislation during this period and from an investigation of the monastic background of the New Monastery (Citeaux), a task already undertaken in our very own days.19 Justinian, the great emperor, completed and perfected the preceding monastic legislation, supplying new measures whenever necessary. Several of his novels — particularly 18.

H. Bacht, Das Konzil von Chalkedon, II, pp. 617, 619, 622, 627f., 629,

670f., 674, 676, 874, 877-80; J. Hussey, The Byzantine World, p. 118f.; Jean Berthold Mahn, L 'ordre cistercien et son gouvernement des origines au milieu du Xllle siecle (1098-1265) (Paris:

E. de Boccard, 1945) p. 121; H.

Workman, The Evolution of the Monastic Ideal,

p. 13 n. 1; N. Baynes,

Byzantium, p.

146; W. Clarke, St Basil the Great, p. 131; G. Schreiber,

“Anselm von

Havelberg

und

die

Ostkirche,’’

388;

E.

Schwartz,

“Die

Kanonessammlungen,” loc. cit., 110. 19. B. Lackner, The Eleventh-Century Background of Citeaux, pp. 113-130.

Early Citeaux and the East

385

Novels 5 and 76—form the basis of this legislation which is further detailed in Novels 67, 79, 123 (ch. 33-44) and 137 (ch. 7), as well as in the Codex (I, 2-4). The preface of Novel 133 offers a classical definition of the monastic life: “The monastic life and the contemplation it entails is a holy thing; it leads men’s souls to God; it is a life which serves not only those who have embraced it, for its purity and its intercessory mediation make it beneficial to all.” Justinian made coenobitism obligatory in the empire, proscribing independent private cells. Monks were to live in common (Nov. 5, Nov. 133) and anchorites told to live within the walls or confines of the monastery. Thus, while independent anachoretism was outlawed, anachoresis as such as well as the ideals of hesychia, silence and solitude survived in the coenobia. But even in this arrangement, seclusion remained the law, also for the coenobites. Accordingly the monastery was to be surrounded by a wall and its door guarded so that no one could leave or enter without due permission. Vagrancy was, under¬ standably, altogether prohibited; similarly any involvement in secular transactions (Nov. 123:6). Finally, Justinian also strengthened the bishop’s role vis a vis the monastery: no monastery was to be founded without the latter’s consent who retained a general ecclesiastical and legal jurisdiction over the monks of his diocese. On the basis of this he was to preside at the election of the abbot, i.e. ascertain the suitability of the candidate, approve the election and then install the candidate in his office. Here we have another proof that the Eastern Church did not grant “exemption” to the monks — even though they were not clerics (Nov. 133:2)—simply because it did not want to isolate the monks from the (local) Church, the local bishop and the life of the diocese. Justinian’s legislation thus had also deep theological implications. 20.

PL 72:1044-49; H. Bacht, Das Konzil von Chalkedon, II, pp. 663-67;

Gustav Pfannmiiller, Die kirchliche Gesetzgebung Justinians hauptsachlich auf Grund der Novellen (Berlin:

C. A. Schwetschke, 1902) pp. 2, 4f.; N.

Baynes, Byzantium, pp. 146f., 164; C. Lialine, “Le monachisme oriental,” 441; P. Anson, The Call of the Desert, p. 66; W. Clarke, St Basil the Great, p. 132; G. Schreiber, “Anselm von Havelberg und die Ostkirche,” 388.

Bede Lackner o cist

386

In addition to imperial legislation, one should also study Eastern conciliar decrees to discover possible parallels between Eastern and Western monastic developments. Given the scope of our investigation, however, it will suffice to list but a few examples. The Council of Nicaea (787), for instance, told the monks to wear cheap, simple and undiver¬ sified clothing, free of silken material. This is also what the Cistercians legislated in practically identical terms. And Eastern conciliar legislation in the eleventh century — reference is made to the councils held in the imperial city — enacted measures quite similar to Western canonical provisions, preceding the latter with its strong advocacy of 91 what may be called the libertas monasterii principle. In this connection, it is important to note that while whole¬ heartedly espousing and implementing the program of the Gregorian Reform, the first Cistercians did not follow the re¬ formers in the question of exemption; instead, they adhered to the ideals of the Eastern Church. Their constitution, the Charter of Charity, prescribed that no abbey should by any means be founded in any diocese before the bishop gave his approval and before the bishop approved the Charter of Charity. In a like spirit, their newly elected abbots were in¬ stalled, given the pastoral staff and, if called for, released from their office by the local ordinary. Even St Bernard, the zealous guardian of the Cistercian ideals, remained violently opposed to the privilege of exemption, opposed to it in prin¬ ciple and also for practical reasons, namely on account of the dangers—pride and ambition—it involved. He had seen how monks bought their exemption; they used it to buy licence and lawlessness. Such monks open their churches to the faithful; they compromise their vocation so that they may 21. (Graz:

Adolph Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen im Mittelalter, 2 vols., Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1960) l:249n. 3; PG 137:

1405; 695ff.; H. Bacht, Das Konzil von Chalkedon, II, p. 627f.; W. Clarke, St Basd the Great, p. 133; C. Spahr, De fontibus constitutivis, p. 62; J. Hussey, The Byzantine World,

p. 122; N. Baynes, Byzantium, p. 156; Joannes D.

Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum...amplissima 1901-1927) 19: 466, 471, 474, 1062.

collectio

(Paris:

Welter,

Early Citeaux and the East

387

exact tithes from laymen. He has also seen abbots who sought exemption simply for the purpose of procuring the pontificalia—mitre and sandals—for themselves, to satisfy

their own personal pride. Yet, the Church, Bernard insists, is built on order. This order must not be changed or upset. Bishops must therefore obey their archbishop and abbots must defer to the bishop; else there will be disorder in the Church and in the monastery. Then the monks will be with¬ out a helpful watchman, they will have no one to turn to in their needs. St Bernard’s words simply mirrored the concern and conviction of his confreres, for the Cistercians did not have the privilege of exemption for more than half a century. This fact is also seen from the insertion of the reservatum safeguarding the rights of the local ordinary into every official decree and privilege. 22 A further Eastern element prominent in the life of the early Cistercians was seclusion, stressed by the early Fathers and Justinian’s legislation. Already St Jerome had said that monks must not live in cities, i.e. among the crowds, but follow the example of the prophets who lived in solitude. In a like manner Cassian had insisted that a deeper insight into heavenly things can only be gained in solitude. According to his biographer, St Benedict had himself been a solitary in his youth and even in his Rule, for the strong race of the coenobites, he prescribed solitude, telling his monks they must become strangers to the doings of the world (ch. 4). During the centuries which followed the death of St Benedict, the need to christianize Western Europe brought the monks into the world, however, as is well known from history. These missionary centuries came to an end at the close of the first millenium by which time Western Europe had been christianized. This fact as well as the simultaneous advance of Greco-Italian eremitism in the North, combined with a new 22.

J. Mahn, L'ordre cistercien, pp. 124, 135f; Bernhard von Clairvaux

Internationaler Bernhardkongress Mainz 1953, ed., Moseph Lortz (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner Verlag, 1955) pp. 87ff.; Georg Schreiber, Kurie und Kloster im 12. Jahrhundert, 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Ferdinand von Enke, 1910) l:83ff.

Monch and Mystiker,

388

Bede Lackner o cist

interest in Cassian, led to a new understanding of the Rule of St Benedict. This growing trend toward eremitism inspired the conviction that the Rule of St Benedict can be observed only if the monks remain radically separated from the secular world. Advocates of the movement went even beyond the, ancient coenobitic postulates on solitude by surrounding the monastery with a double wall as it were. Accordingly, as before, laymen were not allowed to enter the monastery, but, secondly, monks were now forbidden to leave the monastery. Thus, more than before, the monastery became a hortus conclusus, an eremus, an adapted Egyptian Desert. 23 Early Citeaux, the New Monastery, was such an eremus, as its earliest documents abundantly testify. But the Cistercians were not hermits, as also St Bernard vigorously insisted; they were coenobites living not in the “desert,” but in a secluded and solitary region, in a “solitude abbey.” In this monastery they observed all the provisions of the Rule as they under¬ stood them, with a special fidelity to its call for a separation from the world and its service. Thus solitude became an im¬ portant element of their monastic life: an atmosphere which enabled them to concentrate on the interior life of the soul which no disturbance from the outside was allowed to upset. This hortus conclusus, where prayer, abnegation, poverty, silence and penance prevailed, had been a thriving seedbed of virtues. Citeaux produced a legion of saints, and with a champion like St Bernard its ideals found many imitators in the contemporary monastic world. 24 Still another consequence of the new — more “Eastern”— understanding of the Rule of St Benedict was the introduction 23. Kassius Hallinger, “Woher kommen die Laienbriider?,” ASOC 12 (1956) 93; Pope St Gregory the Great, Life and Miracles of St Benedict, trans. Odo J. Zimmermann and Benedict R. Avery, (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1949); P. Anson, The Call of the Desert, pp. 9, 59-61, 67; H. Workman, The Evolution of the Monastic Ideal, pp. 31, 33, 119; A. Mirgeler, Geschichte Europas, p. 84. 24. C. Spahr, De fontibus constitutes, p. 46; Stephan Hilpisch, “The Benedictine Ideal Through the Centuries,’’ The American Benedictine Review, 15 (1964) 387; Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos, p. XIII: L. Bouyer, The Cistercian Heritage, p. 7.

Early Citeaux and the East

389

of laybrothers, i.e. claustrally organized helpers, in the New Monastery already during the first decade of its existence. The Cistercians, who had resolved to follow the Rule in toto and to live in seclusion and solitude, were convinced that without such help they could not do full justice to the ideals of St Benedict (prayer, work, lectio)-, hence their decision in favor of a division of labor, i.e. the introduction of laybrothers.25 Historians of name — Holl, Griitzmacher, Voigt, Hilpisch, Schreiber, to mention only the most prominent experts in this field — sought to deduce the institution of laybrothers from Eastern monachism which had come to make a distinction between monks of the Greater Habit (megaloschemoi) and those of the Lesser Habit (mikroschemoi). The latter were the “practicians,” monks who took care of the various material needs of the brethren and thus could obviously not assume all the obligations of those who aspired to a higher state of perfection; the former were the pneumatics living in an atmosphere of silence and freedom from material concerns where they could cultivate mystical prayer. Others, however, —among them Hallinger—dispute the Eastern origins of laybrotherhood in the West, since in the East both categories were monks, whereas laybrothers in the West were religious but not monks and since the evidence that the mikroschemoi actually performed services to their contemplative superiors is still far from sufficient. But even Hallinger admits that the laybrotherhood was a fruit of the eremitic movement of the eleventh century which of course had, one should add, un¬ deniable Eastern roots. Citeaux, an eremus in the sense des¬ cribed above, did well to adopt the institution since its pioneers, resolved to fulfill the precepts of the Rule perfectly and to live by the labor of their hands, had realized that they 25.

“Instituta

monachorum

cisterciensium

de

molismo

venientium,”

Exordium Parvum, J.-B. Van Damme, Documenta, p. 13; Instituta Generalis Capituli,

chs.

8,

41,

45,

74,

ed.

Joseph

Turk,

“Cistercii

Statuta

Antiquissima,” ASOC 4 (1948) 17, 22, 27; Bruno Griesser, “Die Ecclesiastica Officia Cisterciensis Ordinis des Codex 1711 von Trent,” ASOC 12 (1956)

194, 200, 264.

390

Bede Lackner o cist

needed precisely this kind of help. Thus, even if there is no unanimity in the question whether the Greater and the Lesser Habit was somehow responsibile for the emergence of laybrothers in the West, it remains a fact that the solitude ideal —a legacy of the East — had had an overriding role in the Cistercian pioneers’ decision to admit laybrothers into their ranks.26 Since the early Cistercians, taking the rectitude of the Rule as their norm of conduct, decided to stay aloof from the doings of the world and the traffic of men, they did not feel it to be their vocation to engage, from the monastery, ini the care of souls, just as St Benedict, they told themselves, did not . 97 possess churches, altars or offerings, i.e. parish revenues. Hence they felt no need to have their monks ordained to the priesthood, as many contemporary orders had done. In this they followed the Rule of St Benedict, which did not speak of priest-monks and referred to priests only on two brief instances, and the practices of the Eastern Church where the greater part of the monks—with a few necessary exceptions— remain lay monks and where even in the twelfth century Patriarch Michael III (1169-1177) still insisted the monks must on no account be active outside the monastery but leave the care of souls and every other ecclesiastical service and ministration to the secular clergy. In this instance, too, the early Cistercians accepted the lead of the Eastern Church. They had, of course, a number of priests in their monasteries since secular priests had joined them and since they needed priests for the celebration of the 26. K. Hallinger, “Woher kommen die Laienbriider,” 38f., 91, 93-95; C. Spahr, De fontibus constitutive, p. 60f., C. Lialine, “Monachisme oriental,” 441. 27. “Instituta monachorum cisterciensium de molismo venientium,” Exordium Parvutn, ed. J.-B. Van Damme, Documenta, p. 13. 28. The Rule of Saint Benedict, trans. Justin McCann (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1960) p. 136f., 140f.; Bernard Lucet, “Les ordinations chez les Cisterciens. Temoignage d'Eude de Rigaud pour la Normandie,” ASOC 10 (1954) 222, 268. 29.

Ph. Hofmeister, “Monchtum und Seelsorge,” p. 246.

391

Early Citeaux and the East

Eucharist, the administration of the sacraments and the various liturgical functions. In the testimony of the Ecclesiastica Officia, the customary of early Citeaux a Cistercian monastery needed at least seven priests.30 But this does not imply a wholesale clericalization. For the first Cistercians had decreed at the very outset to reject evey type of parish revenue—this would have implied outside parish work — and the General Chapters of the Order repeatedly insisted that the monks must not altiora se quaerere (1189; 1191; 1192; see also 1157).31 According to St Bernard, monks were on no account to engage in pastoral work outside the monastery, i.e. usurp a work which is rightfully the business of the secular clergy and the canons. And even Pope Eugene III, a Cistercian on the papal throne, warned that pastoral care undertaken by monks would violate the law of their profession. The rule was, as the author of the famous Dialogus duorum monachorum expressed it, that only a monk worthy of the office should be ordained, and that no one should seek ordination on his own initiative, but be compelled (by obedience) to accept the honor34 By rejecting, for at least one century, a wholesale ordination to the priesthood, the early Cistercians—like their Eastern counterparts—retained what may be called their monastic wholeness. They escaped the perils of functionalism and restrictive specialization which tended to accompany monastic clericalization in the West. Common to Eastern monasticism and to the early Cister¬ cians is thus also their conception of the apostolate, especially as outlined by St Theodore the Studite. 30.

Eastern monasticism

B. Lucet, “Les ordinations chez les Cisterciens,” 268, 276, 278f., 281;

Ph. Hofmeister, “Monchtum und Seelsorge,” 229. 31.

B. Lucet, “Les ordinations chez les Cisterciens,” 277; Ph. Hofmeister,

“Monchtum und Seelsorge,” 229 and 268-70. 32.

Bede Lackner,

Clairvaux,”

Paper

“The Monastic Life According to

read

at

the

Medieval

Institute,

St

Bernard

Western

of

Michigan

University, April 30-May 3, 1972, n. 3If. 33.

Ph. Hofmeister, “Monchtum und Seelsorge,” 272.

34.

B. Lucet, “Les ordinations chez les Cisterciens,” 268 n. 1, 277 n. 1;

M.-D. Chenu, Nature, Man and Society, p. 210 n. 15.

392

Bede Lackner o cist

called for renunciation [apotage] and subjection [hypotage]. Renunciation alone did not suffice; hence the importance of the coenobitic life which provides precisely such a subjection. This is why St Theodore placed such an emphasis on manual labor. His reasons were not to promote a certain activism or to secure material gains for the monastery, but to bring about such a subjection; for this makes the monk the humble servant of everyone, indeed of the human race: thus, he helps the poor, offers his prayers for the world, intercedes on behalf of the deceased (through some sort of prayer associations), and supports the cause of the truth by fighting heresies, supporting Church reforms, fighting secular en¬ croachments, and by furnishing leaders—i.e. bishops—to the Church (beginning with the sixth century in the East). Such concerns animated also the early Cistercians, as this author has recently pointed out on the basis of clear and abundant documentary evidence. 3'S While the Cistercians abstained from direct contacts with the outside world, they pursued vigorous activities — intel¬ lectual as well as artistic—in their scriptoria. This is clearly seen from the beautifully illuminated ms 129 (96) of the Municipal Library of Dijon which is a work of the Cistercian pioneers and dates from within the first two decades of the monastery’s existence. Other, similarly endowed manuscripts from the scriptorium of early Citeaux fully corroborate such findings. In these manuscripts the portrayal of the Madonna shows a definite break with the Romanesque style’s flat rendering of the human body. Now, beneath and through the garments, the articulated and even animated body makes its appearance by means of a system of folds and the addition of a force which animates the physical body and thus reveals an undefined, but still very real, inner life. Both elements, i.e. the system of folds and the innovative portrayal of the dualism of body and spirit (soul), are Byzantine forms, a 35. Theologie de la vie monastique, pp. 433, 435; Alice Gardner, Theodore His Life and Times (London: Edward Arnold, 1905) p. 75; G. Schreiber, “Anselm von Havelbert," 405; J. Meyendorff, The Orthodox Church, pp. 27. 78; J. Hussey, The Byzantine World, p. 118f; above, n. 19.

of Studium.

Early Citeaux and the East

393

legacy of classical antiquity. This Cistercian interest in the animated human figure was part of a common interest leading, in the twelfth century, to a revival of the study of psychology which sought to establish and define the various steps or grades which connect this body and soul dualism. This renewed interest in the relationship between body and soul—supported by such intermediaries as Augustine, Boe¬ thius and Hrabanus Maurus (De anima)—will be a central theme in the speculations of the contemporary writers, among them such Cistercians as William of St Thierry, Isaac of Stella and Alcher of Clairvaux, all of whom wrote treatises on the soul. 36 It is well known that Citeaux had scribes at work in the scriptorium from the very first days of its existence. After taking care of the immediate needs, these scribes, given the

wide-spread contemporary interest in early monachism as well as in Greek patristic and monastic thought, began an extensive copying of the Greek Fathers whose works had re¬ mained forgotten in the royal libraries from the days of the Carolingian Renaissance. Thus Byzantine and Hellenic ideas experienced a new flowering in Western monastic circles, also among the Cistercians, particularly in the writings of St Bernard and other Cistercian authors of the twelfth century. The Greek Fathers most prominently figuring in this Cister¬ cian revival were Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius Ponticus, Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor. Foremost among them was, of course, Origen whose works, available in numerous manuscripts, were read in the liturgy and during the lectio. The Cistercian authors built mainly on Platonic (neo-Platonic), Stoic and Origenist foundations, not simply copying their sources, but producing, quite frequently, new syntheses. All the great Cistercian authors of the twelfth century pursued psychological and anthropological investiga36. W. Koehler, “Byzantine Art in the West,” 62-87, esp. 84-86. See also Charles Ursel, “Les manuscrits a miniatures de la Bibliotheque de Dijon,” Bulletin de la Societe pour la reproduction des manuscrits a peinture 7 (1923), 7-33 and idem, La miniature de Xlle siecle a I'Abbaye de Citeaux (Dijon, 1926).

394

Bede Lackner o cist

tions based on Hellenic models, analyzing the experiences of the soul in its ascent to God. 37 To illustrate this point, it will suffice to take but one example: St Bernard of Clairvaux. Among the Fathers he knew Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor and, needless to say, Pachomius, Macarius and St Jerome. The Greek Fathers taught him that there is an absolute continuity between the earthly Church and the hea¬ venly church and that sinful man, in virtue of the imago Dei in him, is able to grow, by degrees, in grace, love and freedom and thus eventually be united with God. 38 Under such tutelage, he came to see in the monastery a schola Christi where asceticism had received a mystical turn

and where the various monastic observances were actuated by a charismatic conception and justification of the monastic life. The guidebook of this school was the Gospel in its pure simplicity. In it there was no room or even need for any dis¬ entanglement of Plato’s or Aristotle’s subtleties. Here one was taught to live. In an age when Plato’s prestige was 37.

Ecclesiastica Officia, ch. 3, ed. B. Griesser, 185; Evagrius Ponticus,

The Praktikos, pp. VIII, XIV-XVI1I; L. Grill, “Bernhard von Clairvaux und die

Ostkirche,” 186; M.-D. Chenu, Nature, Man and Society, p. 304; Jean Leclercq,

“Origene

au

Xlle

siecle,”

Cappuyns, Jean Scot,

p. 48,

Theology

of Rievaulx.

of Aelred

146,

24

Irenikon.

245; An

(1951)

Amedee Hallier, Experimental

427-29;

M.

The Monastic

Theology,

CS

2

(Spencer, MA.: Cistercian Publications, 1969), pp. 4n.5, 9, 49f., 82, 101, 125, 130; Odo abbas Ursi Campi, Quaestiones magistri Odonis Suessionensis, ed. Joannes Baptista Cardinalis Pitra (Analecta Novissima Spicilegii Solesmensis, Altera

Continuatio,

tomus

II;

Tusculum,

1888)

IX,

XIII.

For

further

individual references see the already cited works of C. Bouyer, M.-D. Chenu, J. Leclercq, J.-M. Dechanet and J. Lortz, ed. Bernhard von Clair\’aux, pp. 168ff. 38.

Bernhard von Clairvaux, pp. XIX, XL, XLIV, 120, 151; A. Hallier, The

Monastic

Theology

of Aelred

of Rievaulx,

p.

65

n.

35;

Evagrius

Ponticus, The Praktikos, p. XVIf.; M.-D. Chenu, Nature, Man and Society, p. 175; C. Bouyer, The Cistercian Heritage, pp. 28, 59, 61; L. Grill, “Bernhard von

Clairvaux

und

die

Ostkirche,”

mystique de Saint Bernard (Paris: J.

186; Vrin,

Etienne

Bernard Theologien, Actes du Congres de Dijon,

ASOC 9 (1953) Index.

Gilson,

La

theologie

1947) pp. 29f., 39-42; Saint 15-19 semptembre 1953,

Early Citeaux and the East

395

practically uncontested, Bernard remained uninterested in philosophical approaches, for he based his teachings on theological and biblical foundations. Yet this does not mean that Bernard had no knowledge of Plato. Fact is that the main lines of his thought (e.g. conversio; charitas) are clearly following neo-Platonic lines. But he wished to do without the novelties of those profane terms and to stay with the outlines traced by Scripture. In no need for definitions, he made rich use of imagery; he was a master of the simile, in the tradition of Pseudo-Dionysius. Even when he made use (via Boethius) of such philosophical terms as forma, materia, causa, or when he referred to disputatiuncula, quaestiuncula and disputatio, he employed them as mere auxiliary tools, not for the sake of producing precise de¬

persona,

esse

finitions but to be better able to explain Scripture. He needed authorities in support of his faith and reasons to aid his understanding, in fact, he demanded certain reasons and called for the proper authorities. Thus, while not toally opposed to dialectics, to reason’s explanation of the faith, but merely to the excesses of the dialecticians, he preferred to stay with tradition and to procede with caution?9 On the other hand, Bernard advocated what may be called “Christian Socratism,” by insisting on self-knowledge through ex¬ perience and faith. For man, also the pagan, must see himself as he truly is: sinful and of no great worth. But he has a soul; hence he must be made aware of its dignity—it is the image of God—through which it obtains its freedom to bring about a perfect purification of the soul, to achieve the right order of love and thus attin its goal in a mystical union with God (apatheia). 40 Moreover, as is well know, St Bernard also owed a great deal to Origen and to the contemporary Origenist revival. 39.

He

Bernhard von Clairvaux, ed. Lortz, pp. 55, 146f., 152; A. Hallier, The

Monastic Theology of Aelred of Rievaulx,

pp. 65 n. 34, 66 n. 42; Saint

Bernard Theologien. loc. cit., 66, 72, 78; M.-D. Chenu, Nature, Man and Society, pp. XVIII, 51 n. 1, 61, 113, 142, 175, 308.

40. C. Bouyer, The Cistercian Heritage, p. 45; Bernhard von Clain’aux, ed. Lortz, p. 137; Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos, pp. XVIII, LXXXVI.

Bede Lackner o cist

396

voiced his admiration for Origen’s writings and for their eloquence. He used the same expressions as Origen: ecclesia perfectorum; congregatio justorum; ecclesia electorum or praedestinatorum; ipsi (i.e. electi\ Ecclesia sunt; nos qui simul Ecclesia sumus, and the like. Even his classical saying, “Merely to shine is vanity, merely to burn (with zeal) means deficiency; the perfect thing is to burn and to shine’’— as well as other examples—repeat ideas expressed by Origen who had already distinguished the elements of light and heat in fire and may well have been borrowed directly from his writings (available in Rufinus’ translation). He builds on Origen also in his Sermons on the Song of Songs, seeking to explore the mystery of the sponsalia between Christ and the Church and the mystery of the Word and the soul. Also Bernard’s relative silence about the Eucharist and the sacra¬ ments could easily reflect the thinking of Origen. But, in spite of his reservations about several of Origen’s statements and his awareness of “some errors’’ which suggested the use of caution, he defended Origen when his audience in the chapter room began to murmur that he had taken Origen as a starting point in his sermons. (The accusation of plagiarism is, or course, easily refuted in view of Bernard’s creative genius and needs no detailed treatment in this paper.)41 The same applies to hymnology, one of Byzantium’s most original and most beautiful creations. A case in point is the hymn Jesu dulcis memoria attributed to St Bernard which exhibits sentiments of a singular poetic beauty and religious jubiliation very similar to the Christ Akoluthia of Theosteriktos, the ninth-century Studite monk.42 Finally, Bernard also made reference to more secular auth¬ orities, when opposing the preference given to Justinian’s 41.

Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos, p. XVIf.- J. Leclercq, “Medievisme

et Unionisme,”

18; idem, “Origene au Xlle siecle,” 428,

430-33,

439;

Gustave Bardy, “Saint Bernard et Origene?,” Revue du Moyen Age Latin, 1 (1945) 420f.; Bernhard von Clairvaux (ed. Lortz), pp. 9, 77, 79, 81f.; C. Bouyer, The Cistercian Heritage, p. 28. 42. L. Grill, “Bernhard von Clairvaux und die Ostkirche,” Geanakoplos, Byzantine East, p. 41.

187; D.

Early Citeaux and the East

397

laws over the teachings of the Gospel, and when he told his monks they must not become followers of Hippocrates who seeks to save man’s earthly life, but rather lose the latter, for the sake of Christ. 43 In addition to Bernard, other prominent Cistercian contemporaries should also be mentioned for their interest in or cultivation of Eastern treasures. Thus, it was Pope Eugene III who commissioned Anselm of Havelberg to write down his (Anselm’s) public debate with Niketas of Nicomedia (Constantinople, 1136) on East-West relations. Anselm obliged, completing his Dialogi in the years 1149-1150.44 The same Cistercian pope also asked Burgundio of Pisa, a jurist and translator who had been in Constantinople (1135-1138) and acted as Anselm’s interpreter, to translate John of Damascus’ De fide orthodoxa, a work which had a great influence on subsequent medieval Latin thought. This take¬ over of Greek thought resulted, in the view of Otto of Freising—who had been in the East (in the imperial city, or at least in Pera)—in a translatio studiorum, in a gradual shift of culture from the East to the West. (Through Cassiodorus’ Historia ecclesiastica tripartita and Rufinus’ Historia mona• 46 chorum he also knew of Egyptian monachism.) At the end of this lengthy —albeit sketchy —investigation it will be good to restate or list several additional common ele¬ ments found in Eastern and Western monachism as appli¬ cable to early Citeaux. As the East, so also Citeaux was con¬ vinced of the superiority of the coenobitic life, adding to it however the best features of the anachoretic life and the ascetico-mystical, prophetic and eschatological factors that had to a great extent been lost in the West. Accordingly, 43. Bernhard von Clairvaux, ed. Lortz, XIX, 13; B. Lackner, “The Monastic Life According to St Bernard,” n. 38. See also G. S. “Bernardus en het Recht,” Citeaux 6 (1955) 64f. 44. G. Schreiber, “Anselm von Havelburg,” 361. 45. H. Bacht, Das Konzil von Chalkedon, II, p. 902. 46. Ottonis episcopi Frisingensis Chronica, V Prologus, p. 227; G. Schreiber, “Anselm von Havelburg,” 365, 367f.; M.-D. Chenu, Nature, Man and Society, p. 275.

Bede Lackner o cist

398

both viewed the monastery as a schola:

not as a schola

servitii, but as a schola charitatis where life was not left to

casual freewheeling but was ordered: in the East by the typikon and in the West by the so-called monastic customaries (usus; consuetudines)—in the case of Citeaux the Ecclesiastica Officia—which regulated every aspect of the monk’s life within the monastery. Thus monasteries became model monasteries. There were such model monasteries in the Greek East and in the Latin West, among them Citeaux with respect to its filiations. It had its own abbot, enjoyed selfgovernment, as had been the case in the East, but not in the Cluniac western world. Byzantium as well as Citeaux defined the abbot’s office and role not in terms of juridical or legal terms, but saw the abbot primarily as a spiritual father and director of souls. In the Studite and the Cistercian reforms the abbot was assisted in the administration of the monastery by a hierarchy of officials not mentioned by the Rule of St Benedict. Both reforms, though keeping aloof from the secular world in the sense it has been explained, remained under the jurisdiction of the local bishop. And just as Eastern monachism never really succumbed to imperial con¬ trol— while emperors retained a definite influence over the monasteries—in fact, it prevented the establishment of a state church, the West, also the Cistercians, was likewise able to overcome the Eigenkirche system and helped not only the libertas Ecclesiae, but also the libertas monasterii prin¬ ciple to victory. To be free from every kind of outside interference both monastic worlds needed seclusion and a stabile economic foundation. This led, at least in the Studite reform, to a greater appreciation of manual labor, while in the West the Cistercians restored manual labor and introduced a division of labor with the help of the new system of laybrothers. 47 47.

G. Schreiber,

Occidente,

Anselm von Havelberg,

pp. 368 ff.; L Eremitismo in

pp. 362, 364f.; N. Baynes, Byzantium, p.

150;

A.

Gardner,

Theodore oj Studium, pp. 71f., 74f., 78ff.; Theologie de la vie monastique, p.

435;

“Instituta

monachorum

Exordium Parvum, ed. J.-B. above, n. 25.

cisterciensium

de

molismo

Van Damme, Documenta,

venientium,”

p. 13.

See also

Early Citeaux and the East

399

Not just their monastery, but also the monks of Citeaux had many traits in common with their Eastern brethren. They were neither laymen nor ordained priests but belonged, through their consecration, to a different order of classifica¬ tion. Entering upon the difficult and narrow path—an ex¬ pression used by Symeon the New Theologian and by the first Cistercians48 — they embraced a life of higher aspirations restoring, once more, the prophetic and the mystical element to Western monachism. Since they were not restricted, through clericalization, to confining specific tasks, they re¬ tained a monastic wholeness easily lost in a vocation which concentrates on particular specialized functions. In the central part of their vocation, the choir and the liturgy, they preserved numerous Eastern elements: litur¬ gical feasts, rites, blessings (e.g. St Bernard’s use of blessed bread),49 the special veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary who was the protectress of the Order and to whom all Cistercian churches were dedicated,50 the cult of relics51 and the services for the dead." With the rest of Western Europe, the Cistercians also borrowed numerous ecclesiastical and liturgical terms from the Greek East, as a cursory look at the early Cistercian documents immediately reveals.53 This also 48.

J.

Hussey,

The

Byzantine Christianity:

Byzantine Emperor,

World,

p.

129;

Harry J.

Magoulias,

Church and the West (Chicago:

McNally and Co., 1970) p. 71; C. Lialine, “Monachisme oriental,”

Rand 442; B.

Lackner, The Eleventh-Century Background of Citeaux, p. 269, and pp. 36 and 138. 49.

Georg Schreiber, Gemeinschaften des Mittelalters (Munster:

Regens-

berg, 1948) p. 7f; A. Mirgeler, Geschichte Europas, pp. 80-82; A. Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen, 1:264.

50.

B. Lackner, The Eleventh-Century Background of Citeaux, pp. 56, 135,

223; D. Geanakoplos, Byzantine East, p. 45f.; Instituta Generalis Capituli apud Cistercium, 18, ed. J. Turk, ‘‘Cistercii Statuta Antiquissima,” 19; G.

Schreiber, ‘‘Anselm von Havelberg,” 400. 51.

A.

Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen,

2:450-54;

A.

Mirgeler,

Geschichte Europas, pp. 56, 59, 65, 82-84; D. Geanakoplos, Byzantine East,

p. 46. 52.

G. Schreiber,‘‘Anselm von Havelberg,” 408; Ecclesiastica Official ed.

Griesser, 257ff. 53.

G. Schreiber, Gemeinschaften des Mittelalters, p. 8; Ecclesiastica

400

Bede Lackner o cist

reveals that in their daily life they practiced, like their models in the Studite monastery, personal poverty: they made no allowances to diversity in their clothing and kept a diet which was explicitly vegetarian in nature. They, too, had a system of remedial measures to deal with failures and transgressions of the common rule. 54 Similarities like these and the evidence gathered in the course of this investigation clearly shows that there was more than a mere parallelism between Eastern monachism and the ideals of the first Cistercians. If, given the realities of the twelfth century, this could only be an indirect influence, it must not be viewed as less effective or less genuine on this account. The main thing is to realize that Eastern treasures did reach the West and the Cistercians, decisively shaping the latters’ ideals and their enthusiasm for a total monastic life. This should also be remembered in our own days when the monastic West — impoverished in many ways—is, for a variety of reasons, once more in need of the gifts of the East. And what an exciting opportunity this offers: the acceptance of gifts will not only retrieve losses, but restore health! Thus, also in this instance, the truth is: Ab Oriente Lux.

Bede K. Lackner o cist

University of Texas, Arlington

Officia; ed. Griesser, passim.

54. See above, n. 47 and G. Schreiber, “Anselm von Havelberg,” 371, 386, 389f., 399-407; J. Hussey, The Byzantine World, p. 120.

PROPOSED INVENTORY FOR THE GREEK FATHERS IN THE LIBRARY OF CLAIRVAUX

R

esearch into the Greek sources of the writings of the Cistercian authors has depended until now almost exclusively on deductions from quotations —explicit or implicit. The writers who have received the most notice in this re¬ search have been in particular Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Pseudo-Dionysius. If, however, one looks into the riches of the ancient library of Clairvaux, which has passed almost wholly into the municipal library of Troyes, it is possible to

establish that the Cistercians of the twelfth century had at their disposal a much greater number of the works of the Greek Fathers which have not yet attracted the attention of scholars. And if the monks possessed all those works, they certainly must have read them, have assimilated their thought, and have imbued their own writings with it. For example, in the extremely accurate edition of the Libelli of Geoffrey of Auxerre against Gilbert de la Porree (edited by N. M. Haring), there are quotations from Athana¬ sius (in fact, Vigil of Tapso, Contra Arianos) Didimus of Alexandria (De Spiritu Sancto), Gregory Nazianzen (In semetipsum and De luminibus). Again, Geoffrey in the Expositio in Cantica Canticorum (shortly to be published) fre¬

quently quotes Origen (the homilies and the commentary on 401

402

Ferruccio Gastaldelli

the Song of Songs, and the homilies on Genesis 1 ). Geoffrey’s quotations are probably not second-hand ones because one finds the works of these Fathers in the library of Clairvaux in the twelfth century. This evidence suggests to one, therefore, the project of drawing up a complete inven¬ tory of all the Greek authors possessed by the library of Clairvaux—at least in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the well-known article by A. Wilmart, “L’ancienne bibliotheque de Clairvaux,”2 one already finds a fairly com¬ prehensive survey of the subject which, nevertheless, is not complete either in its authors or in its works. Less useful is the very short list of authors given by M. H. D’Arbois de Jubainville in Etudes sur I'etat interieur des abbayes cisterciennes et principalement de Clairvaux au Xlle et au XHIe siecle.3

The catalogue of the municipal library of Troyes now re¬ mains the best instrument even if in some respects somewhat deficient. The panorama which it offers is remarkable. In the twelfth century Clairvaux possessed: Athanasius of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea, Pope Clement I, Didimus of Alexandria, Hesychius of Jerusalem, Eusebius of Caesarea, Eusebius of Emesa, John Chrysostom, John of Damascus, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, Ignatius of Antioch, 1. It is curious to note that though Geoffrey openly expresses his admira¬ tion for Origen (magnus ille theologus), he seems to share the prudence of St Bernard in respect of these works.

(One remembers De diversis, 34:1:

Plurima ... abundatius forsitan, quam cireumspectius dicta, nec tarn sobrie quam diserte non sine circumspectione monet esse legendum).

In fact,

Geoffrey, making a parallel between the Alexandrian doctor and the Abbot of Clairvaux, says that St Bernard knew how to use a language adapted to the men of his own time without fear of being misunderstood: Victor

enim

Origenes vicit,

in

aliis

ceterorum,

in

ut legitur, et se ipsum.

his

quidem

principiis

Sed et pater noster,

beatae memoriae Claraevallis clarissimus abbas sanctus Bernardus, suae generationis hominibus suis ipsorum moribus congruo usus eloquio, evidenter probavit quam veraciter Sapiens dixerit, quoniam sermo oportunus optimus est.

second volume of the Expositio). 2. 3.

Coll. 11 (1949) 101-127 and 301-319.

(Paris, 1858) pp. 97-98.

(Preface to the

Proposed Inventory for the Greek Fathers

403

Maximus of Constantinople, Melito of Sardis, Origen, Pamphilus of Caesarea, Polycarp of Smyrna — to which one can add Joseph Flavius and Ephrem the Syrian. One notes the absence of the Pseudo-Dionysius in the twelfth century, who instead appears at Clairvaux in the following century with all his tracts and letters. The collection of works of some of these authors is very large, in particular Ephrem, Eusebius of Emesa, John Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen and Origen; of some works they had two copies (for example, the De Spiritu Sancto of Didymus). One finds many excerpta from these authors scattered throughout thirteenth century.

the

anthologies,

especially

in

the

It would, then, be useful to make a complete inventory of all the Greek writers, with identification of their works, both authentic and spurious, adding another set of data: Period, origin, translator, recent editions, bibliography of the vicissi¬ tudes of the individual authors in the Latin West. This inventory could offer to scholars a point of reference and initiate a more systematic research. Naturally one could not know everything. For the monks travelled, they went from one abbey to another, and they found manuscripts lacking at Clairvaux. The same research could, therefore, be extended to all the principal Cistercians’ abbeys so as to establish an almost complete inventory of the Greek Fathers possessed and read by the first Cistercians. One could thus also state with some precision the Cistercian contribution to the pene¬ tration of Greek thought into the Western world. It is obvious that such a work must be done in loco, directly from the manuscripts. On the other hand, some work could be done in the National Library of Paris, or in the Vatican Library, or else in some library which is well-stocked in its patristics section. However, the principal part must be done at Troyes because working from catalogues is useless. For 4. A passage from the De bello iudaico by Flavius is quoted three times in the Expositio in Cantica Canticorum by Geoffrey. But it could have been taken from Jerome’s Commentary on Ezekiel, or else from the ordinary marginal glosses.

404

Ferruccio Gastaldelli

this reason I am unable to produce a fuller paper. It may be that this idea has already come to others because it seems to me like Columbus’ egg. But I believe that it would be useful for everyone if somebody were to carry it through. I hope that such a person may be found, and that the Institute for Cistercian Studies will find a patron who will finance it.

Ferruccio Gastaldelli

Salesianum Rome

THE CISTERCIANS IN THE CRUSADE STATES

A

lthough st Bernard of clairvaux was very

interested in the Frankish East and launched the .Second Crusade virtually singlehanded, no Cistercian foundations were made in the Crusade States during his lifetime. This was, perhaps, because he was more concerned to promote the work of the Knights Templar there than that of his own Order, recognizing that the needs of Outremer would be better served by warrior-monks than by contemplatives.1 The Cistercians first came to Syria in 1157 when the Abbey of Belmont was founded, 2 3 and a second house, 3 Salvatio, was established there four years later: both were daughters of Morimund. Nothing certain is known about the reasons for making these foundations at this time. Belmont was built in the demesne lands of the Counts of Tripoli. 4 The site of Salvatio has never been determined: Janauschek is certainly correct in criticizing earlier scholars who thought it 1. On St Bernard’s contribution to the foundation of the Templars see M. Barber, “The origins of the Order of the Temple,” Studia Monastica 12 (1970) 219-40. 2. L. Janauschek, Originum Cisterciensium, vol. 1 (hereafter cited as OC) (Vienna, 1877) p. 139, no. CCCLIV. 3. Ibid., p. 144, no. CCCLXV. 4. J. Richard, LeComte de Tripoli sous la dynastie toulousaine (1102-1187) (Paris, 1945) Maps vi, vii.

405

406

Bernard Hamilton

was in Cyprus, which was at that time part of the Byzantine Empire, 5 and the sparse evidence indicates a site either in the County of Tripoli or in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Al¬ though Raymond III of Tripoli may have been formally re¬ sponsible for the foundation of Belmont, yet because he had only recently attained his majority in 1157 it seems likely that negotiations with Morimund had been initiated earlier by the regent, his mother Hodierna. It is possible that Hodierna was herself influenced by her sister, Queen Melisende of Jerusalem, whose power in the ecclesiastical affairs of the Southern Kingdom remained paramount until her death in n September 1161. Melisende had corresponded with St 8 Bernard and there is a strong prima facie case for regarding her as the real patron of the first Cistercian foundations in the Crusade States. Melisende’s son, King Amalric I (1163-74), had a devotion to St Bernard. The saint appeared to him in a vision during one of his Egyptian campaigns, as he later told Abbot Richer of Salvatio, 9 and in thanksgiving for his subsequent victory over the Saracens the King had the fragment of the True Cross which he wore about his neck set in a reliquary which he presented to the Abbey of Clairvaux.10 Salvatio is men¬ tioned in no source after Amalric’s death, and it therefore seems probable that it was conquered by Saladin in his cam5.

OC p. 144, no. CCCLXV.

6. M. W. Baldwin, Raymond III of Tripolis and the Fall of Jerusalem (Princeton, 1936) p. 9. 7. William of Tyre, Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, and the old French translation of this, LEstoire d'Eracles Empereur, Lib. XVIII, c. 20, R.H.C. Occ. 1 (ii) p. 854. 8. PL 182, Epp. CCVI, col 373; CCLXXXIX, col 494; CCCLIV, col 556; CCCLV, col 557. 9. Vita S. Bernardi Clarevallensts abbatis auctore Gaufndo monacho, c. Ill, AASS Aug. IV, p. 327. 10. Manrique found this recorded in a list of reliquaries belonging to Clairvaux.

A.

Manrique,

Cisterciensium

seu

verius

annalium a condito Cistercio, 4 vols. (Lyons, 1642-59) ann.

II, p. 548.

ecclesiasticorum

1173, VI, 9

vol

The Cistercians in the Crusade States

407

paign of 1187-88, and that any surviving members of the community either returned to Morimund or were absorbed into the sister-house of Belmont. The Abbey of Belmont still stands to the south-east of Tripoli in the mountains of the Lebanon.11 Only one member of the foundation community is known by name: Brother William, who in 1162 witnessed a document on behalf of Baldwin of Ibelin. The original buildings, it would seem, were completed and consecrated in 1169, although additions continued to be made throughout the period of Cistercian occupation.14 In 1169 Belmont established a daughter-house called St John in nemore. 15 The site of this abbey is not known: it may, as Richard suggests,16 have been in the 1 "5

County of Tripoli, but, if so, it must have been situated in the northern part or in the area around Gibelet, for it is men¬ tioned in no source after 1187, which suggests that it was in territory occupied by Saladin, who failed to conquer the Lebanon area. The survivors of this community, it may be presumed, withdrew to the mother-house at Belmont. There is also a bare record that Belmont founded a second daughter-house, that of SS Trinitas at Rephech, in 1187, which Lynn White Jr. has identified as Holy Trinity Refesio in Sicily.17 He argues that it was founded by monks from Belmont who fled on Sicilian ships from the invasion of Saladin. 11. C. Enlart, “L’Abbaye Cistercienne de Belmont en Syrie,” Syria IV (1923) 1-23. 12. Ch. Kohler, “Chartes de l’Abbaye de Notre-Dame de la Vallee de Josaphat en Terre-Sainte (1108-1291),” Revue de /'Orient Latin (hereafter cited as ROL) VII (1899) 142, no. xxxii. 13. Les Gestes des Chiprois, Livre I, Chronique de Terre Sainte, 1132-1224, ed. G. Raynaud pour la Societe de l’Orient Latin (1887) reprinted (Osnabruck, 1968) p. 7: “A. MCLXIX...en cel an Valmont.” Cf. Enlart, p. 2. 14. See n. 11 above. 15. Janauschek, OC p. 158, no. CCCCV.

fu

fait

l’abaie de

16. Richard, (n. 4 above) p. 61. He is wrong in describing Salvatio and St George de Jubino as daughters of Belmont. 17. Janauschek, OC p. 188, no. CCCCLXXXI1. Lynn White, Jr., Latin Monasticism in Norman Sicily (Cambridge, MA, 1938) pp. 171-77.

408

Bernard Hamilton

For a quarter of a century after Hattin Belmont was the only Cistercian house in the Latin East. Little is known about the community during those years, except that when, in c. 1206, the Cardinal Legate, Peter of St Marcello, wished to appoint an Archdeacon to the Church of Antioch against the wishes of the Patriarch, the Prior of Belmont was one of the officials whom he appointed to induct his candidate. The Prior may have been chosen because the Archdeacon-elect had once been a novice at the Cistercian abbey of St Spiritus, Palermo; in any case his intervention was unavailing, since the Patriarch successfully appealed to the Pope against the proposed new appointment.18 When the Patriarch of Antioch died in 1209, at a point when relations between Church and State were extremely strained in the Principality,19 Pope Innocent III appointed a Cistercian to the vacant see.20 This was Peter, Bishop of Ivrea, a former member of the La Ferte community.21 He had a strong vocation to the contemplative life and had attempted, when elected to the see of Ivrea in 1206, to renounce his office before he was consecrated and become a hermit, but had been forbidden by the Pope to do so.22 Although by 1209 he had become reconciled to the burdens of administration, which formed a central part of a thirteenth century bishop’s work, he accepted his translation to Antioch only on one condition: 18. Innocent III, Regesta X, clxxxvi, PL 215:1278-82. This letter is dated 9 January 1207. It is difficult to discover exactly when the action had started. 19.

C. Cahen, La Syrie du Nord al'epoque des croisades et la principaute Institut franfais de Damas, Bibliotheque orientate I (Paris, 1940) pp. 612 ff.

franque d Antioche.

20.

Regesta XII, xxxviii, PL 216:46-47.

21.

Innocent III, Regesta, XII, viii.

PL 216:18-19.

22. Innocent III, Regesta IX, clxxii, PL 215:1004-08. There is no evidence for the statement frequently made that Peter had once been Abbot of Locedio (e.g. Cahen, [n. 19], p. 616; Mary Hardwicke, in K. M. Setton, ed., History of the Crusades. II [Philadelphia, 1962] p. 536). From Innocent Ill’s letter it is clear that Peter had come straight from La Ferte to the see of Ivrea: "abbatia de Firmitate ad quam fueras evocatus, dimissa, tu ad ejusdem ecclesiae [Yporediensis] regimen accessisti.”

The Cistercians in the Crusade States

409

When the Holy See strictly ordered us to take up the burden of ruling the Holy Church of Antioch, although we were unworthy and unwilling, we talked with the Pope informally about one matter, namely, that as we were growing old it grieved us to be separated in distant lands from the society of the Cistercian Order in which we had lived since boyhood, and we ended up by asking that if any abbey in the Black Mountain wished to be incor¬ porated in the Cistercian Order we should be em¬ powered to grant their request with (the Pope’s) consent and authority. The monastery which, according to Peter, later asked to be incorporated in the Cistercian Order was St George de Jubino in the Black Mountain.24 He does not indicate what Rule the community there had previously followed, although it would seem likely that they were a Latin order and perhaps, as Janauschek suggests, were Benedictines.25 The precise location of this monastery has never been determined. The matter came before the Chapter-General in 1213, and Peter’s request was opposed by the Abbot of Morimund, perhaps be¬ cause earlier foundations in Outremer had been daughters of Morimund, whereas Peter wished to affiliate St George to his own former abbey of La Ferte. The Chapter-General committed the dispute to the Abbot of Citeaux26 who found in favor of the Patriarch, and the new foundation was inaugu-

23. IX,

Letter of 21st September 1214 transcribed in the Registers of Gregory L.

Bibliotheque

des Ecoles

frangaises d’Athenes et de Rome, 3 vols. (1896-1910) No. 3468.

Auvray, Les

Registres

de

Gregoire IX,

Part of the

text is also quoted by Manrique, arm.

1214, IV, 4, vol. IV, pp. 37-38.

24.

Idem.

25.

OC p. 217, no. DLXIV.

26.

J.-M. Canivez, Statuta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Cisterciensis

ab anno 1116 ad annum 1786,

6 vols., Bibliotheque de la Revue d'histoire

ecclesiastique (Louvain, 1933-) 1:415, no. 56.

Bernard Hamilton

410

rated on 22nd March 1214 27 and was a daughter of La Ferte2^ By the time that St George’s was founded the Cistercian Order had established some communitites in the Latin Empire of Constantinople and general rules had to be made for the administration of these distant houses such as had not, per¬ haps, been necessary in the twelfth century when the only overseas dependencies were the Syrian Abbey of Belmont and her daughters. The problem of carrying out visitations of the Syrian houses was solved by a ruling of the Chapter-General in 1219: “The Abbeys of Belmont and Jubin...shall visit each other at the appointed times, because they cannot otherwise be visited.” 29 The attendance of the Syrian abbots at the Chapter-General was also regulated: in 1216 they were re¬ quired to be present every five years;30 in 1225 this ruling was relaxed to require attendance every six years; 31 and in 1232 the requirement was finally reduced to once in every 32

seven years. In addition to the monks of the two abbeys there were also some congregations of Cistercian nuns in the Frankish East in the thirteenth century. The oldest of these would seem to have been St Mary Magdalen’s, Acre, which is first recorded as a Cistercian community in a document of 1222. This re¬ lates to the foundation by the Acre community of a daughterhouse at Nicosia in Cyprus 33 which had been under Latin rule since 1191. Cyprus was an obvious place for the communities of Latin Syria to make new foundations in the early thirteenth

27.

OC p. 217, no. DLX1V.

The new foundation was certainly established

before 21 September 1214, for Peter of Antioch dated his letters from there at that time, see n. 23 above. 28.

Canivez, 2:172, no. 18.

29.

Ibid., 1:510. no. 37.

30.

Ibid.,

31.

/bid., 1:47, no. 62.

1:459, no. 49.

32.

Ibid., 2:103, no. 18.

33.

L. de Mas Latrie, Documents nouveaux ser\’ant de preuves a ihistoire

de Hie de Chypre sous la regne des Princes de la Maison de Lusignan, Collection

de

documents

inedits

sur

I'histoire

de

France.

historiques: choix de documents, vol. IV (Paris, 1882) pp. 343-44.

Melanges

411

The Cistercians in the Crusade States

century: there was more opportunity of obtaining landed en¬ dowments there than in the attenuated coast-lands of the Crusade States, and it was, moreover, prudent to found a daughter-house there as a possible place of refuge in the event of Moslem conquest of Crusade territory, which must always have seemed an imminent threat. The nuns of Acre had another daughter-house, also called St Mary Magdalen’s, inside the city of Tripoli, but the date of its foundation is not known. The foundation charter of the convent at Nicosia was witnessed by the Abbot of Belmont, from which it might be inferred that the convent of Acre was a daughter-house of Belmont. However, the matter was not so clear-cut. In 1223 Pope Honorius III wrote to the Cistercian convent of St Maria de Parcheio at Constantinople to settle a dispute which had been referred to him. The Abbess had made an agreement with the Abbess of St Mary Magdalen’s Acre about a visitor, which had not proved acceptable to the Abbot of Citeaux and the Pope upheld the Abbot’s judgment in this matter.35 In it¬ self this need not imply that Citeaux had any direct authority over the Acre house, although it is difficult to see why these two communities should have made such an arrangement at all without, it would seem, reference to the Chapter-General, if they were not sister-houses. It is clear, however, from the Statutes of the Chapter-General of 1238 that Citeaux did claim direct authority over the nuns of Acre, for in that year the Chapter-General directed the other Cistercian abbots of Syria to make a full inquiry into the dispute between Citeaux

34.

The fifteenth century Cod. 32 of the Diisseldorfer Landesbiobliothek

contains a list of convents of nuns directly subject to Citeaux, which is obviously based in part on much older material. recorded Ultra Mare is no.

129:

Among the four houses

In Tripoli. S. Marie Magdelene.

It is

published in F. Winter, Die Cistercienser des nordostlichen Deutschlands, 3 vols. (Gotha, 1868-71) 3:182. 35. 4487.

Regesta Honorii Pupae III, ed. P. Pressutti, 2 vols. (Rome, 1888-95) no. See also L.

Patriarchats

von

Santifaller, Beitrdge zur Geschichte des Lateinischen Konstantinopel

[1204-1261]

und

der

venezianischen

Urkunde, Historisch-Diplomatische Forschungen, 3 (Weimar, 1938) pp. 63, 193.

Bernard Hamilton

412

and Belmont about the filiation of that house. Only their judgment is known, which was given in the following year in favor of Citeaux.37 It is possible that St Mary Magdalen’s Acre had originally been a daughter of Citeaux, but that because it was the only dependency of Citeaux in the Levant, the Abbot had, for convenience sake, placed it under the oversight of the Abbot of Belmont. When, after the Fourth Crusade, Citeaux acquired other dependencies in Frankish Greece, and it became practical to resume direct supervision of the Acre community once more, the Abbot of Belmont was reluctant to relinquish his customary position there. After 1239 St Mary Magdalen’s and her daughter houses at Tripoli and Nicosia became special daughters of Citeaux. Belmont, however, acquired a new daughter-house of nuns just at the point when it was deprived of control over the Acre community: in 1238 the Chapter-General allowed the convent of Episcopia to be incorporated in the Order as a daughter of Belmont. 38 This would seem to have been an existing foun¬ dation which adopted the Cistercian Rule; it is not known whether it was situated in Syria or in Cyprus, but to judge from the silence of later sources the former location seems more probable. Citeaux also acquired another convent of nuns as a daughter-house: it was built at Nicosia by Adelicia, widow of Philip of Iberlin, and incorporated in the Order in 1244.39 The Abbot of Belmont, like the Magdalen’s, also wished to found 36.

Canivez, 2:196, no. 57.

37.

Ibid., 2:214, no. 57.

38.

Ibid., 2:193, no. 41.

39.

Abbess of St Mary a daughter-house in

L. de Mas Latrie, Histoire de I lie de Chypre sous le regne de la

Maison de Lusignan, 3 vols. (Paris, 1852-61) 3:644-45.

This should perhaps

be identified with the house built by the “Countess of Cyprus” and dis¬ cussed by the Chapter-General in 1237, Canivez, 2:171, no. 15.

Neither the

name of this house nor that of the daughter-house of St Mary Magdalen’s Acre at Nicosia are known.

Perhaps they were the convents of St Theodora

and De Bellacomba recorded as being special daughters of Citeaux in Cyprus in the Diisseldorf manuscript.

Winter, n. 34 above, 3:182, nos. 130, 131.

The Cistercians in the Crusade States

413

Cyprus, probably wanting a place of refuge for his monks in the event of an Aiyubid attack. They acquired land at Pirgos, but their ownership was disputed by a knight called William Rivet, who asserted that he held the property in fee of Queen Alice, the Regent. The case was heard by the legate, Cardinal Pelagius, and finally came before Pope Honorius III who gave judgment in favor of Belmont in 1224.40 This decision did not prove easy to enforce: in 1233 Pope Gregory IX ordered the Bishops of Tripoli and Tortosa together with the Cantor of the Church of Tortosa to put Belmont in full possession of these lands, explaining that it had not been possible to do this sooner because, although William Rivet had died, the Kingdom of Cyprus had been very disturbed, a reference to the wars between the Ibelins and the supporters of Frederick II. 41 It was not until 1237 that the ChapterGeneral gave permission for a house to be founded at Pirgos, and empowered the Abbot of Jubin to inspect the site.42 It is possible that the inspection was not carried out that year, or that the report which was made was unsatisfactory, for the matter was referred once more to the Chapter-General in 1238 and permission was once again granted to Belmont to found a daughter house there. 43 If doubts had been expressed by the Abbot of Jubin about the suitability of this site when he inspected it, they seem to have been well-justified. The Cistercians had a reputation for reclaiming waste-land, but Pirgos defeated them. Mgr. Golubovich described it in 1909 in these words: “The peasants of Pirgos even today are thought the most uncouth and uncivilised people in the island and are ignorant of agriculture.’’44In 1243 and again in 1244 the Chapter-General 40.

Regesta, ed. Pressutti, no. 5108.

41.

Registres, ed. Auvray, no. 1084.

42.

Canivez, 2:173, no. 25.

43. Ibid., 2:189, no. 21. the

Abbey

of

Beaulieu

This date for the foundation of what later became is

Janauschek, 1st August 1235. 44.

G.

Golubovich,

more

authoritative

than

that

suggested

by

OC 1:238, no. DCXX.

Biblioteca

Bio-bibliografica

della

Terra

dell Oriente Francescano, 9 vols. (Florence, 1906-27) 2:373, n. 1.

Santa

e

414

Bernard Hamilton

authorized the other Cistercian abbots of Syria to inspect an alternative site to which the Pirgos community might be transferred.45 The move did not take place until 1251 when, with the approval of the papal legate, Odo, Bishop of Tusculum, the Pirgos community bought the Franciscan convent of Beaulieu outside the walls of Nicosia, the Friars having moved to the new house of St Francesco which King Henry I had built for them.46 This move was approved by the Chapter-General in 1253.47 Even then the Cistercians were not allowed to live at Beaulieu in peace, for the Archbishop of Nicosia complained to Pope Innocent IV that the sale had been unlawful and that the house should have reverted to him as diocesan when the Franciscans moved. The Pope ordered the Bishop of Tripoli and the Archdeacon of Acre to inquire into this,48 but it is not known what report they made. Judg¬ ment was finally given in 1256 by Pope Alexander IV in favor of the Cistercians on the grounds that “the house at Pirgos was not suitable for you for many good reasons,” whereas Beaulieu was “more fitting for the use of contemplatives.”49 At a time when the older Cistercian communites of Syria were seeking to establish daughter-houses in Cyprus as places of refuge in case of Saracen attack one new house was founded on the mainland. In 1231 Bishop Vassal of Gibelet, the most southerly town in the County of Tripoli, wrote to the Abbot of La Ferte offering him the monastery of St Sergius, together with a few endowments, for the use of a Cistercian community. The dedication of the house, which the 45.

Canivez, 2:263, no. 22; p. 284, no. 50.

46.

Odo’s ratification is cited in a bull of Alexander IV of 1256.

Les

Registres d Alexandre IV, ed. C. Bourel de la Ronciere, 2 vols., Bibliotheque des Ecoles Franfaises d'Athenes et de Rome (1902-31) no. 1242. The earlier

Franciscan occupation of Beaulieu is discussed by Golubovich, 2:372-5, where the text of Alexander IV’s bull is also given. 47.

Canivez, 2:397, no. 34.

48. L. de Mas Latrie, Histoire de I'lle de Chypre, 3:651. printed by Golubovich, 2:373. 49. 374.

Registres, ed., Bourel de la Ronciere, no. 1242.

This text is re¬

Cf. Golubovich

p

The Cistercians in the Crusade States

415

Cistercians retained, suggests that it had earlier been a monastery of the Eastern rite, which may have declined through a lack of vocations. The Bishop explained in his letter that he had wanted to place Cistercians there for some time but had been unable to persuade the other Cistercian abbots of Syria to send him monks because of a shortage of vocations; he had then met two brethren from La Ferte who had come to the East to carry out a visitation (presumably of the Abbey of Jubin), and had discussed with them the pos¬ sibility of bringing monks there directly from the West. One of them, Brother Gilles, had carried out a full inspection of the site and could make a full report to the French house.50 The Bishop evidently received a favorable reply to his request and the property was formally made over by him to La Ferte in June, 1233.51 It would seem that St Sergius did not prove entirely satisfactory to the needs of the Cistercians, for in 1238 the Chapter-General empowered the Abbots of Belmont and Jubin to supervise the removal of the St Sergius community to more suitable premises if they could be found. It is not known whether this was ever done, although in that same year St Sergius received considerable new endowments from Guy I Embriaco, Lord of Gibelet, which he augmented in 1241, and that may have made it financially possible to build a new monastery.53 In making these bequests Guy was considering his spiritual welfare; he was an old man, having become Lord of Gibelet in 1186, before the Battle of Hattin, and his donation of December 1241 may have been made on his death-bed, since he is mentioned in no subsequent source. St Sergius’ sister-house, the Abbey of Jubin, passed through a very critical phase of development in the 1230s. 50. E. Petit, “Chartes de PAbbaye Cistercienne de Saint-Serge de Giblet en Syrie, Memoires de la Societe nationale des antiquaires de France, Ve ser., 8 (1887) 23-30. 51. Ibid., pp. 25-26. This date of foundation must be preferred to that of 1235 suggested by Janauschek, OC p. 239, no. DCXXII. 52. Canivez, 2:192, no. 36. 53. Petit, pp. 26-30.

416

Bernard Hamilton

The community had been on excellent terms with their founder, the Cistercian Patriarch Peter II,54 and their relations with his successor Renier (1219-26) were unremarkable, but the peace was shattered in the Patriarchate of Alberto de Rezato (1228-45). The first evidence of trouble is found in Statute 32 of the Chapter-General of 1232, which reads: “Concerning the matter of Jubin, let appeals be made to the Pope and to the Patriarch of Antioch.’’55 This cryptic re¬ ference is clarified by a letter of 1233 written by Pope Gregory IX to the Bishops of Acre and Bethlehem and the Archdeacon of Acre ordering them to investigate the dispute between the monks of Jubin and the Patriarch of Antioch. The Pope relates that the Abbot of Jubin had refused to take an oath of obedience to the Patriarch or to pay tithes to him in respect of certain properties and that the Patriarch had ordered the Archbishop of Tarsus to excommunicate the com¬ munity despite an appeal which they had made to the Holy See.56 While this papal inquiry was taking place the Patriarch made a formal complaint to Rome that the Jubin community had forged new title-deeds for their house in order to evade the fulfilment of their obligations towards the ordinary, and in 1234 the Pope ordered the Bishops of Sidon and Acre and the Archdeacon of Acre to investigate these charges.57 The dis¬ pute was finally settled in 1237 when Cardinal Thomas of Santa Sabina gave judgment in favor of the Patriarch and had authenticated copies made of the genuine title-deeds of the monastery. The troubles at Jubin were not confined, how¬ ever, to litigation with the Patriarch. In 1237, it would seem59 a quarrel broke out in the house between the prior and the sub-prior, which came to involve the monks and the lay 54. He died in 1219, and in 1225 the Chapter-General allowed the Abbey of Jubin to observe his year’s mind solemnly in their house. Canivez, 2:47, no. 62. 55. Ibid., 2:106, no. 32. 56. Registres, ed., Auvray, no. 1011. 57. Ibid., no. 1887. 58.

Ibid., nos. 3466-69.

59.

This information is contained in a papal letter of 6 January, 1238.

The Cistercians in the Crusade States

417

brethren, and this culminated in the prior’s using knights and armed men to drive the sub-prior and thirty of the brethren out of the monastery. When news of this reached the Pope he ordered the Archbishop of Apamea, together with the Dean of Antioch and one of the canons to take action about this, but the Abbot of Jubin and the Abbot of the mother-house of La Ferte came to the Curia and begged him to allow the Order to settle this dispute internally. He agreed to their request and wrote at Epiphany 1238 to his Legate in Syria, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, to the Archbishop of Naza¬ reth and to the Archdeacon of Acre, countermanding his earlier instructions.60 The Chapter-General probably had full knowledge of these scandals in 1237 when they directed the Abbot of La Ferte to go to Rome in order to settle the affairs of Jubin, granting him the rather unusual powers of allowing the abbey to be separated from the Order if this should seem necessary.61 The Pope’s decision to allow the quarrels within the Jubin community to be settled by the Order would seem to have been successful, since no further outbreaks are known to have disturbed the peace of the house. The practical de¬ tails of the settlement with the Patriarch of Antioch were worked out by the Abbot of La Ferte in accordance with a ruling of the Chapter-General of 1238, and on the same occa¬ sion Jubin was removed from the direct control of La Ferte and made a daughter house of Locedio, which was itself a daughter of La Ferte. This may have been the consequence of the appointment of new monastic officials in the Antioch house, which would certainly seem to have been very neces¬ sary, but of which we have no details. Despite these scandals at Jubin the Popes used Cistercians as their agents in the Crusade States quite extensively during the thirteenth century. In 1238 the Abbot of Belmont was empowered by Pope Gregory IX, in conjunction with the Archbishop of Mamistra and the Archdeacon of Valania, to 60.

Registres, ed., Auvray, no. 4020.

61.

Canivez, 2:172, no. 18.

62.

Ibid., 2:194-95, no. 49.

418

Bernard Hamilton

investigate a dispute which had arisen between the Chapter of Bethlehem and the Patriarch of Jerusalem about the 63 appointment of a new Bishop of Bethlehem. In 1246 Pope Innocent IV made the Abbot of Belmont responsible for the appointment of Deodatus de Praefectis as Archdeacon of Bethelem,64 and in 1251 the same Pope committed to the Abbot of Belmont and the Abbot of the Praemonstratensians of St Samuel the adjudication of a dispute between the Bishop of Tortosa and the Knights Hospitaller about the payment of certain tithes.65 In 1254 Innocent IV ordered the Abbot of Jubin to reserve any archbishopric or bishopric in the Pat¬ riarchate of Antioch or in Cyprus which fell vacant for the use of the Patriarch of Antioch who had suffered a great loss of revenue through Moslem raids.66 The Abbot secured the Patriarch’s appointment in plurality to the see of Limassol in 1256 which Pope Alexander IV confirmed. 67 The same Pope also ordered the Abbot of Jubin to levy a tax on all the clergy of the Patriarchate of Antioch and of Cyprus (from which only the Cistercians and the Military Orders were exempted) to pay for strengthening the fortifications of the Patriarch’s castle of Cursat. The fact that members of the communities of Belmont and Beaulieu were allowed on occasion to become members of the households of prelates is a sign of the growing influence of the Order in the Frankish Church in Syria during the thirteenth century, although this gave rise to z: o

some scandals of which the Chapter-General took note in 1253. A further indication of the importance of the Cistercians in Syria in the mid-thirteenth century was the appointment in 1253 of Brother Blaise, a Cistercian monk 63.

Registres, ed. Auvray, no. 4699.

64. Les Registres d'Innocent IV, ed., E. Berger, 4 vols., Bibliotheque des Ecoles frangaises d'Athenes et de Rome (1884-1921) no. 2039. 65. Ibid., no. 5129. 66. Ibid., no. 7873. 67.

Registres, ed., Bourel de la Ronciere, no. 1175.

68. Ibid., no. 1087.

See also T. S. R. Boase, Castles and Churches of the

Crusading Kingdom (London, 1967) p. 78.

69.

Canivez, 2:394, no. 26.

The Cistercians in the Crusade States

419

from Genoa, as Prior of St Michael’s Cathedral, Tripoli, which belonged to the Austin Canons. The reason for this unusual nomination by the Bishop of Tripoli is not known; it may reflect a decline in the calibre of the Canons of this church so that they were unable to provide a suitable prior from among their members, or it may simply have been a straighforward example of episcopal patronage. In any case it received confirmation from Pope Innocent IV.70 St Sergius was evidently the least important of the Cistercian communi¬ ties in Syria, for although its abbots were sometimes employ¬ ed by the Chapter-General in connection with the general business of the Order in the Levant,71 they were not used by the Holy See in the affairs of the Church in the Frankish East. Belmont, Jubin and St Sergius continued to prosper through the period of the Mongol invasions of Syria. Belmont, at least, attracted one distinguished vocation, for in 1260 its abbot was a former Bishop of Beirut, who was pre¬ sent at Acre to witness the authentication of a copy of a papal privilege relating to the Benedictine abbey of St Maria de The privileges of the Cistercians were extended when in 1263 Pope Urban IV freed Belmont, Beaulieu and St Sergius from the payment of all tolls and dues on goods being taken to those monasteries or to their dependencies. The

Josaphat.

70.

Registres, ed., Berger, no. 7016.

71.

In 1238 to investigate the dispute between Belmont and Citeaux about

St Mary Magdalen’s Acre; to inspect the site of Pirgos in Cyprus; and to inspect the convent of nuns called Episcopia;

Canivez, 2:189, no. 21; p. 193,

no. 41; p. 196, no. 57.

In 1243 and again in 1244 to inspect a new site for

the convent of Pirgos:

ibid. 2:263, no. 22; p. 284, no. 50.

72.

H. F. Delaborde, “Chartes de la Terre Saint provenant de 1’abbaye de

Notre Dame de Josaphat,” Bibliotheque des Ecoles frangaises d'Athenes et de Rome, ser. I, 19 (Paris, 1880) pp. 106-9, nos. 51, 52. Sacra," Zeitschrift

des

deutschen

Palastinavereins

R. Rohricht, "Syria

10 (1887) 24,

n.

23

suggests an identification of this abbot with Bishop Galeran of Beirut who attended the Council of Lyons in 1245. 73.

Les Registres d'Urbain IV, ed., J. Guiraud, 4 vols., Bibliotheque des

Ecoles frangaises d'Athenes et de Rome (1901-29) 2:220-21, nos. 453, 454,

455.

420

Bernard Hamilton

growing power of Mameluke Egypt after its victory over the Mongols at ’Ain Jalut in 1260 was, however, a constant threat to the Franks in Syria. In 1268 the Sultan Baibars captured Antioch and with it the Black Mountain, and the Cistercians of Jubin, or the survivors of them, took refuge at Beaulieu in Cyprus.74 This could only be an emergency measure, for Beaulieu was not a daughter house of Jubin or even a mem¬ ber of the same family, and in 1271 the Chapter-General gave permission to the Abbot and brethren of Jubin to live in any of the granges which they owned until they could make provision for a new monastery. Janauschek is probably correct in supposing that the community finally went to Genoa where it was amalgamated with, or became a priory of, St Maria de Zerbino, which, like itself, was a daughter of Locedio. Cer¬ tainly the Genoese notarial deed of 1400 which he cites, re¬ lating to a priory of St Maria named “S Georgium de Montana Nigra, alias de Jubino in Antiochia Syriae,” gives support this this view.76 It would seem that when Baibars campaigned in Northern Syria in 1268 the community of Belmont also fled for safety to their daughter-house at Beaulieu in Cyprus and according to a report made to the Chapter-General they were still living there a year later. 77 This proved to be a false alarm, for the Mamelukes did not attack the Lebanon on that occasion and so the Cistercians were able to return to Belmont once more. The last certain evidence for this community comes from the year 1283 when the Abbot of Belmont, Pierre l’Aleman, and his companion, Brother Stephen of Tripoli, were among the witnesses present in the Castle of Nephin to attest a record, which a papal notary drew up, of the conspiracy which Guy II Embriaco, Lord of Gibelet, had attempted to work against Bohemond VII of Antioch-Tripoli. 78 The fate of the monks of 74. Canivez 3:76, no. 40. The editor is certainly correct in regarding the word Iubelei in the text as corruption of lubino. 75.

Ibid., 3:102, no. 64.

76.

OC pp. 217-18, no. DLXIV.

77.

Canivez, 3:76, no. 40.

421

The Cistercians in the Crusade States

Belmont is not known:

it can only be supposed that either

the community perished when the Sultan Kalavun conquered Tripoli and the adjacent lands in 1289, or, which seems more probable, that they once again took refuge in their daughterhouse of Beaulieu and were subsequently absorbed into that community. The fate of St Sergius is equally unknown. It could have survived longer than Belmont, since the lordship of Gibelet was not overrun by the Sultan Kalavun’s forces and there is some evidence to suggest that Peter Embriaco was allowed to retain his fief as a vassal of the Sultan until about 1298.79 It does not follow from this that the Cistercians remained there during that period: indeed, a statute of the Chapter-General of 1290 indicates that they did not, for it enacts that: It is enjoined upon the Abbots of La Ferte and Morimund that they make provision about an abbot for those of their daughter-houses in Cyprus and Syria which have been almost overthrown and deprived of resources; the goods of those houses shall in no way be alienated without the special license and consent of those abbots.80 The mention of the Abbot of La Ferte shows that this en¬ actment must refer in part to St Sergius, for there was no other community in that line in the Frankish East at that date. It seems probable that the monks of St Sergius with¬ drew from Gibelet after the Egyptian annexation, and per¬ haps went to the mother house of La Ferte. Despite its troubled beginnings the Abbey of Beaulieu therefore proved the most lasting Cistercian foundation in the Frankish East. It attracted noble patrons, for in 1283 John of Montfort, Lord of Tyre and brother-in-law of King Hugh III of Cyprus, was buried in the convent chapel, and the house was 78.

L. de Mas Latrie, Histoire de l lle de Chypre, 3:662-8.

This document

is dated 18 February, 1282, old style. 79.

R.

Grousset, Histoire des

Croisades

et

Jerusalem, 3 vols. (Paris, 1934-36) 3:745, no. 3.

80.

Canivez, 3:248, no. 16.

du

Royaume

Franc

de

Bernard Hamilton

422

81

subsequently called St Jehan de Montfort in popular speech. The Cistercians remained there until the reign of James II (1464-73). The convent buildings were destroyed by the Venetians in 1567 in the course of their attempt to strengthen the fortifications of Nicosia, but the remains of the thirteenth 82 century chapel and chapter-house were excavated in 1909. It is a matter for regret that the sources provide no infor¬ mation about the spiritual life of the Cistercians in Syria or the relations which existed between them and the Eastern Christians among whom they lived. It is evident from the use which the Popes made of the abbots of these houses that the Cistercians of Syria continued to attract the vocations of men of ability at a time when the prospects for continued Frankish settlement appeared very bleak. It also seems clear from the survey which Enlart carried out of the Abbey at Belmont that the community there went on expanding, and re-building their monastery almost to the eve of the Egyptian conquest,83 which, given the political context, suggests that there was no lack of religious confidence in this house at least as Frankish military power collapsed. Their act of faith was, in a sense, justified, though scarcely in a way which they would have ex¬ pected, for after their departure Belmont was given by the Mamelukes to a community of Orthodox monks who still live there. The buildings have not been substantially altered since the thirteenth century, and this is the only medieval Cistercian foundation in Syria or Cyprus in which the Divine Office, albeit in a different rite, is still sung each day.84 University of Nottingham 81. 82.

Bernard Hamilton

Golubovich, n. 44 above, 2:374-5. By C. Enlart, “L’Ancien monastere des

Franciscains a Nicosie de

Chypre,” in Florilegium, ou Recueil de travaux d'erudition dedies a M. le Marquis Melchior de Vogue (Paris, 1909) pp. 215-29.

Golubovich, 2:375-8

has argued convincingly that the site which Enlart excavated was not, as he supposed, the Franciscan convent of St Francesco inside the walls of Nicosia, but the Abbey of Beaulieu, which the Franciscans occupied both before and after the Cistercians lived there. 83.

Enlart, Syria 4 (1923) 1-23.

84.

Idem.

See also, Boase (n. 68 above) p. 100.

THE EASTERN MONASTIC FATHERS AND THE REFORM OF RANCE

Then P. CAUSSIN, confessor of Louis XIII, learned %/%/that his Majesty was about to confer yet another ▼ V benefice on Armand-Jean Le Bouthillier de Ranee, he objected. Ranee, after all, had just turned thirteen.1 King 1.

No reliable biography of the reformer of la Trappe exists.

For many

years it had been thought that the bulky two-volume Histoire de labbe de Ranee et de sa reforme (Paris, 1866) by L. Dubois, made good the defects of

Ranee’s first biographers (principally Maupeou [1702], Marsollier [1703], and Le Nain [1715], and satisfied admirably the exigencies of historical criticism. Then, in 1959, Fr Louis Lekai, o cist, published in Coll OCR 21 (1959) 157-163, a brief but solidly documented article, “The Problem of the Author¬ ship of de Ranee’s ‘Standard’ Biography.”

In this article, Fr Lekai showed

that the work done by Dubois had been simply that of an editor re-working an unpublished manuscript authored around 1720 by an ex-abbot of la Trappe, A.-F. Gervaise, but based on brethren of la Trappe.

material

amassed earlier by the

Since Gervaise is notorious for his spirit of parti pris,

and never hesitated to falsify the facts when this proved advantageous, the tomes attributed to Dubois must be used only with caution.

(Cf. P. Zakar,

“Inquisitio de methodo ab abbate Gervaise adhibita in prima parte operis sui de historia Strictioris Observantiae Ordinis Cisterciensis,” ASOC 20 [1964] 237-264.)

Though this present article occasionally uses data supplied by

Dubois and the earlier biographers, care has been taken to avoid material which might be suspect from the standpoint of objective history. substance of this paper depends on the writings of Ranee himself.

The

(Since

this paper was presented, a new study of Ranee, based on his letters, has appeared. Trappe.

It is A. F. Krailsheimer, Armand-Jean de Ranee, Abbot of La His Influence in the Cloister and the World [Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1974]—ed.)

423

Chtysogonus Waddell ocso

424

Louis countered the objection with the remark that the boy already knew more Latin and Greek than all the other abbes in his kingdom. 2 The King was not exaggerating overmuch. The precocious lad had just published an edition of the fiftyfive odes of Anacreon, along with his own learned scholia—in Greek.3 His Greek studies had begun when he was only five. Among the three tutors engaged for him by the boy’s ambitious father—at that time secretary and counsellor to Marie de Medicis—was a certain M. de Bellerophon. “Less French than Greek by reason of his tastes, his studies, and even his name.’’4 M. de Bellerophon initiated the youngster into the intricacies and beauties of Greek literature; and it was in Greek that the boy wrote his first extant letter. 5 In the dedicatory letter to the “grand Armand-Jean cardinal de Richelieu’’ printed in his edition of Anacreon,6 7 the little “Armand-Jean Le Bouthilier, abbe” wrote of his predilection for Greek, which was, the young hellenist piously noted, the language in which the bulk of patristic literature had been written.2 But it was Anacreon and not Saint Basil whom he annotated; formation. 2.

and this was symptomatic of the boy’s early

Dubois, Histoire de I'abbe de Ranee et de sa reforme, 2 vols. (Paris,

1866) 1:27; Abbe de Marsollier, La vie de Dom Armand Jean Le Bouthillier de Ranci..., 2 vols. (Paris, 1703) 1:9-10.

M. de Maupeou, La vie du Tres-

Reverend Pere Dom Armand Jean Le Bouthillier de Ranee... 2 vols. (Paris,

1702) 1:25-26.

Dom Pierre Le Nain, La vie du Reverend Pere Dom Armand

Jean Le Bouthillier de Ranee..., 3 vols. (s.l. [Rouen] 1715) 1:9-10.

3. AN AKPE0NT02 THIOY TA.MEAH, Icoavvou BouOi AAiripuou apxMavSpETO u. at London, in 1725 and 1740.

nrra ctkoTu'cou ’AppavSou (Parisiis, 1639) Later editions

4. Dubois 1:11. For references to Bellerophon in the early correspondence of Ranee, see B. Gonod, Lettres de Armand-Jean Le Bouthillier de Ranee (Paris, 1846) pp. 8, 9, 10 and 27. 5. To P. Jacques Sirmond sj. The letter accompanied a copy of the boy’s edition of Anacreon. For a description of the letter, see Henri Tournouer, Bibliographic et iconographie de la Maison-Dieu Notre-Dame de la Trappe au

Deuxieme partie (Mortagne, 1895) p. 198, n. 793. 6. Dubois 1:24, where the letter (for which several variant versions exist) is quoted in extenso. 7. Ibid. diocese de Sees,

Eastern Monastic Fathers—The Reform of Ranee

M.

de

Bellerophon was,

to

quote

Ranee

himself,

425 an

“adorer of the divine writings of the profane Aristotle;”8 and so it comes as no surprise that, at the Parisian College d’Harcourt, it was Aristotle read in Greek who initiated the young abbe into the realm of philosophy. His familiarity with Greek stood him in good stead on the occasion of his defense of his master’s thesis at the same college in 1643. By appealing to the authentic Greek text of Aristotle, Ranee silenced an opponent whose objection was based on a de¬ fective Latin translation. “1 have never read Aristotle except in Greek,” commented Ranee, “and it is only in Greek that I shall listen to him quoted. Bring me the Greek text, and I shall give you your answer. ”9 Ranee’s theological studies were supervised chiefly by tutors from the Sorbonne. Scholasticism was covered in only an eight-month long crash course, during which he conceived a sincere, by only temporary, distaste for Saint Thomas Aquinas. “As for Saint Thomas,” he wrote, “I have as much aversion for his uncouth language as I have attraction and enthusiasm for the gracious diction of the Greek poets.”10 More important for his later development were the sixteen months which remained before his baccalaureate in theology, during which time he gave himself to an intensive study of the Fathers, the Church Councils, and ecclesiastical history.11 An early biographer of Ranee — the Abbe Marsollier — claimed that Ranee was “one of the first to join to the study of scholasticism the study of Sacred Scripture, the Fathers, and the Councils.”12 This is surely an exaggeration. Church history and patristics had been much in vogue long before 8.

Gonod, Lettres, p. 9.

9.

A.-F. Gervaise,

Jugment critique mais equitable

des vies de feu M.

Labbe de Ranee. (Londres, 1742) 43-44; re-told in Dubois 1:38-39.

10.

Quoted in Dubois 1:43 as taken from the “Manuscrit de Septfons”—

actually the manuscript originally authored by Dom A.-F. Gervaise; cf. supra note 1. 11.

Gonod, Lettres..., p. 10.

12.

Marsollier 1:15; so also Dubois 1:42, referring to the “Manuscrit de

Septfons.’’

Chrysogonus Waddell ocso

426

Ranee came upon the scene; and there was a veritable mania for textual criticism. Ranee simply put to excellent use the considerable patristic resources at his disposal. It was characteristic of the general interest in the Fathers that Marguerin de la Bigne’s Bibliotheca sanctorum Patrum supra ducentos, first published in only eight volumes at Paris in 1575, had expanded to a twenty-seven volume series in the Maxima edition of Lyons, 1677.

13

Ranee’s competence in Greek patrology was given public recognition during the General Assembly of the clergy in 1655. He was assigned to a special commission charged with the examination of a new Greek-Latin edition of the ecclesiastical histories authored by Eusebius, Socrates, and Sozomen;14 and the same General Assembly commissioned Ranee to prepare a French translation of the Greek version of Saint Ephrem’s opera — a commission never carried out, for lack of a reliable Greek text. 15 Years later, as Abbot of la Trappe, Ranee was still busy with translations from the Greek; and in 1686 appeared his translation of the Instructions of Saint Dorotheas, till then available only in de¬ fective French and Latin version.16 For his Greek text, he seems to have used the version printed in the twenty-four volume edition of the Fathers which he himself had acquired for the library of la Trappe, which was strong in patristics.17 13.

For a survey of editions of the Fathers during this period, see J. de

Ghellinck, Patristique et Moyeti Age II (Bruxelles-Paris, 1947) 14-17. 14. Dubois 1:78. This three-volume series of authors of Church history, edited by Henri Valois, was printed at Paris in 1659 (Eusebius) and 1668 (Socrates and Sozomen). Dubois refers to a Paris edition of 1669, and another at Cambridge, 1720. 15.

Le Nain 1:29; Dubois 1:78.

16.

Published at Paris, 1686, under the title Les instructions de saint

Dorotheas,

pere de I'eglise grecque.

For a bibliography of editions of the

Greek text, and of French and Latin translations prior to the publication of Ranee’s version, see Dorn L. Regnault and Dorn J. de Preville, Dorothee de Gaza: Oeuvres spirituelles, SC 92 (Paris, 1963) pp. 85-87. 17.

This was one of many 17th century re-editions of Marguerin de la

Bigne’s Bibliotheca sanctorum Patrum.

The funds for the purchase of this

set had been realized by the sale of some of the “less monastic’’ books in

Eastern Monastic Fathers —The Reform of Ranee

427

In his scrupulosity for absolute accuracy of translation, he consulted - anonymously, and through a third party—one of Europe’s leading hellenists, Jean-Baptiste Cotelier.18 Having examined Ranee’s translation and accompanying page of dubia, Cotelier gave his considered judgment:

“...(This man)

knows more Greek than I do.’’ 19 But to understand the place of the Eastern monastic Fathers in the reforming activity of Ranee one has to go back to his six years of solitary retreat in his chateau at Vereta, near Tours (May, 1657 — May 1663). The monastic vocation of Monsieur de la Trappe was slow, very slow in maturing. His renunciation of the ambitions and dissipated life of a worldly minded cleric in no way led inexorably to the cloister. His dominating passion, after his conversion, was for an in¬ tegral, radical form of Christianity; and one has only to glance through the Table of Contents of any church history of seventeenth-century France to realize how many spiritual reform-movements of the period were dominated by the same ideal of an integral, radical Christianity such as would re¬ capture something of the springtime of the early Church. The two major influences on Ranee during his years at Veretz were, both of them, much beholden to patristic thought: Berulle, whose spirit was mediated through the Oratorians of Tours and Paris (P. de Mouchy in particular); and the solitaries of Port-Royal, to whom he turned for counsel in March, 1658. 20 Just how massive a dose of Berullism Ranee received at this time is problematical. We find in his later writings nothing of the characteristic Berullian vocabulary of deifithe large personal library donated by Ranee to la Trappe when he was still only commendatory abbot. 18. One of Du Cange’s chief collaborators, he published works as important as the Patres aevi apostolici (1672) and the Monumenta ecclesiae graecae (1677-1686). 19. Maupeou 2:47.

The “third party” was P. de Maupeou himself.

For a

slightly different account, see Dubois 2:103. 20.

See P. Lucien Aubrey, “La conversion de Monsieur de Ranee,” in

Collectanea OCR 25 (1963) 192-215, with special reference to pp. 198-200.

428

Chrysogonus Waddell ocso

cation, nothing of the neoplatonism and exemplarist philosophy which linked Berulle with the Rhino-Flemish mystical tradition, nothing of the theology of divinization borrowed by Berulle from the Greek Fathers and from the Scotist tradition. On the other hand, we do find in Ranee the substance of Berullism, but without the metaphysical trappings and somewhat esoteric vocabulary: a profound christocentrism rooted in an attitude of sovereign reverence and adoration, and stamped by an augustinian insistence on the “nothingness” of the creature and the absolute need of grace. 21 It was M. Robert Arnauld d’Andilly himself — a layman, and one of the most representative of the Messieurs de PortRoyal — who became Ranee’s chief spiritual director in 1658. The relationship was short-lived, since it soon became apparent that the recently converted abbe had no intention of being converted all the way into the Port-Royal camp. Still, the initial orientation received from d’Andilly was decisive. Ranee’s “rule of life” gave pride of place to prayer, manual labor, and lectio divina; occasional translation chores (from the Greek) were reserved for the evening. Church history featured large in Ranee’s list of recommended reading: Eusebius, Baronius, Cardinal Duperron (Replique a la Reponse du Roy de la Grande-Bretagne.) Theology was re¬ presented by tomes of a Jansenizing stamp — chiefly the mammoth Petrus Aurelius, which stirred Ranee’s uncritical enthusiasm for a brief period; but this type of literature was shelved in proportion as his initially warm rapport with his spiritual director cooled. When the solitary of Veretz was at last free to choose his own reading, he chose, mirabile dictu, Saint Thomas and Suarez.22 But much more important was Ranee’s initiation into the monastic classics popularized by M. d’Andilly.23 The Ladder of Divine Ascent by Saint John 21. Excellent expose of Berulle’s doctrine in Paul Cochois.Berulle et l ecole franfaise, Coll. Maitres spirituels 31 (Paris, 1963).

22.

Dubois 1:140-146.

23.

The Vies de Peres, as translated by A. d’Andilly, had been printed in

Eastern Monastic Fathers — The Reform of Ranee

429

Climacus, and the writings of Cassian were to be Ranee’s vade mecum for the rest of his life. These masterpieces of monastic spirituality, redolent of the desert and of the springtime of monasticism, produced a shattering effect on Ranee, who at that time still retained a number of monasteries in commenda. Besides having been a canon of Notre-Dame de Paris, he had also been, since the ripe old age of eleven, commendatory abbot of la Trappe (Cistercian), of Notre-Dame-du-Val (Augustinian), of SaintSymphorian at Beauvais (Benedictine), and, at a slightly later date, of Saint-Clement, near Poitiers; he was also prior of Boulogne (Order of Grandmont). The contrast between the commendatory abbot and the monastic ideal portrayed by John Climacus and Cassian could not have been more deeply or sincerely felt. Some twenty years later, it was still Saint John Climacus who epitomized for Ranee the ideal monk. He had two chapels built, one in honor of Saint Mary of Egypt, the other in honor of the author of The Ladder of Divine Ascent. Indeed, he even composed proper Offices for these saints, in the (unfulfilled) hope of one day being able to celebrate these Offices in the chapel of the respective saint. Writing later to a friend, he explained: When the idea of working for the restoration of la Trappe first came to me...nothing was of greater help in achieving the goal than the thoughts and opinions found in reading Saint John Climacus and the lives of the holy Desert Fathers. It was in order to have a monument to remind and exhort those who came after us that we had two small chapels built...one for Saint John Climacus, the other for Saint Mary of Egypt. We also composed two proper Offices for these saints — Offices made up exclusively of texts from the Prophets and from other Sacred Books, such as seemed suitable to in¬ culcate 1647 and 1653; later, in 1672.

the

spirit

of

solitude,

retreat,

and

but his translation of Saint John Climacus appeared only

Chrysogonus Waddell osco

430

penitence....24 It is something of a puzzle that Ranee finally abandoned his peaceful retreat at Veretz in order to enter the storm-tossed Cistercian Order. For years the White Monks had been in the throes of something approaching civil war between Ob¬ servances, with only short-lived periods of truce and mutual toleration between the militant “Abstinents” (or “Strict Ob¬ servance” monks) and the “Ancients” (or “Common Ob¬ servance” monks).25 Ranee threw in his lot with the Strict Observance, and on June 13, 1663, arrived at the Abbey of Perseigne with a view to serving his time of novitiate in that house, prior to assuming the role of abbot and reformer of la Trappe—the abbey he had held in commenda for the pre¬ ceding quarter-century. “Strict” is a relative term; and the “strict observance” at Perseigne was less strict than the ideal envisaged by Ranee, who had come to the Rule of Saint Benedict only after swearing allegiance to Saint John Climacus and Cassian. His novitiate was a difficult one, complicated further by commissions to negotiate affairs which normally should have been reserved to abbots long experienced in the affairs of the Order. When he finally made profession on June 26, 1664, it was with the express provision that he be allowed to initiate in his own Abbey of la Trappe a local reform more in keeping with his own ideal of Cistercian monasticism. But it was several years before Ranee asked from his ')z

24.

Le Nain 2:73-74.

Dubois 2:621, describes the chapels, but omits

reference to the proper Offices which failed to obtain ecclesiastical approval. 25.

Fr Louise Lekai’s masterpiece, The Rise of the Cistercian Strict

Observance in Seventeenth Century France (Washington,

DC, 1968), will

probably never be surpassed as a synthesis of the events of this troubled period of Cistercian history.

Many recent monographs and dissertations —

almost exclusively by scholars of the Common Observance, and too numerous to be listed here in so brief a study—deal with particular periods or events of this period.

But, for a general survey within the confines of one volume, Fr

Lekai’s contribution remains unique. 26. For details relative to Ranee’s novitiate, see G.-A. Simon, “Le Noviciat de M. de Ranee a l’Abbaye de Perseigne,” La vie spirituelle 307 (mai, 1946) 702-713.

431

Eastern Monastic Fathers — The Reform of Ranee

monks anything more than a strict observance of the Strict Observance’s programme of reform. He himself was almost immediately drawn into the maelstrom of the “War between Observances.’’ Sent to Rome as a representative of the interests of the Abstinents, he straightway revealed an infallible instinct for saying the wrong thing at the worst possible moment."' On 19 April, 1666, Pope Alexander VII issued the apostolic constitution In suprema, thus providing a practical programme for the restoration of harmony between the two Observances, and for the reform of the Order’s general discipline. Like a number of his fellow Abstinent abbots, Ranee was bitterly disappointed in the terms of the decree; and, after the General Chapter of May, 1667, he withdrew from active involvement in the reform of the Order TO

at large, and addressed himself to the task of implementing his own personal reform in his own abbey. Here he was in his proper element. It is much to be regretted that the scholarship lavished on Ranee’s polemic with Mabillon over the question of studies for monks has diverted attention from questions far more im¬ portant for an understanding of the reform at la Trappe. Ranee’s concept of history, and his ecclesiology provide the context in which he worked out his monastic reform. For Monsieur de la Trappe, the early monastic Fathers had an archetypal significance; and he proposed “as a fundamental maxim, that it is necessary to reject as false coin everything which bears not the mark and character of the tradition of the holy fathers.’’29 The “tradition” to which he refers, however, is directly rooted in, and quickened by Christ in his redemp27.

Lekai, The Rise, Ch. IX:

28.

Ibid.. Ch. X: “A New Apostolic Constitution,” pp. 132-142.

29.

A.-J. le Bouthillier de

monastique

(Paris,

“The Roman Arbitration,” pp. 119-131.

Ranee, De la saintete et

1846) (first ed.

referred to as Devoirs),

Ch.

V,

p.

des devoirs de la vie

appeared at Paris,

1683)

102; translation here

and

(hereafter in

later

quotations from Devoirs taken from A Treatise on the Sanctity and on the Duties of the Monastic State, translated by “A Religious of the Abbey of

Melleray, La Trappe,” (Dublin, 1830); the above citation is found on p. 62 of the translation.

Chrysogonus Waddell ocso

432

tive Mystery: Fields become sterile by continual production, but the Church is a field whose fecundity never ceases; its fertility is inexhaustible. Jesus Christ is the source and principle of it; it is still watered daily with his blood, and doubt not but it is capable even in our own age to produce men comparable to the Pachomiuses, Anthonies, Hilarions, and Maca¬ riuses. 30 But none of these monastic Fathers were in any way founders of the monastic state, for “It was Jesus Christ himself who founded it; and those who were raised by him to establish it in the world at various periods, which were marked out by his eternal foreknowledge, were only ministers of his orders, and the executors of his holy will.” For Ranee then, the twelfth-century Cistercian reform, and his own seventeenth-century Trappist reform, were ultimately the result of Christ’s lordship over history, and were the expression of his presence and action in the Church. Indeed, the substance of the monastic state was the very substance of the Gospel; and it was with deep conviction that Ranee repeated the classical doctrine that the monastic vocation, foreshadowed already in the Old Testament, reca¬ pitulated the vocation of the Apostles and of the martyrs, whom God had raised up to worship him in spirit and in truth (and, for Ranee, worship was inseparable from love):32 Almighty God has raised (monks) up and established them in his Church, for no other purpose than that of becoming saints, of perpetu¬ ating (in the Church) the life of the Apostles, and of filling the place the martyrs formerly held therein. 33 30.

Devoirs, Ch. VI, p. 121; A Treatise, p. 79.

31.

Devoirs, Ch. II, quest. 1, p. 5; A Treatise, p. 4.

32.

Cf. Devoirs, Ch. Ill in toto.

33.

Devoirs, Ch. V, Part VI in fine, p. 98; A Treatise..., p. 60.

Eastern Monastic Fathers — The Reform of Ranee

433

In brief, Ranee was convinced that the monastic state ex¬ pressed a radical form of authentic, integral Christianity; and in this he was in perfect agreement both with tradition and with the fruits of modern scholarship. Fr Alexander Schmemann, for example, has summed up in a single sentence of his book, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy, the general consensus of modern scholars:

Painstaking studies of the early records carried on in the last few decades have indicated that monasticism is only the expression under new conditions of the original evangelical concept of Christianity which had ruled the life of the early Church.34 It was the glory of the Eastern monastic Fathers that they had expressed faithfully this evangelical ideal; and it was the strength of the Holy Rule of Saint Benedict that it transmitted this ideal to the West; for, wrote Ranee, “we find therein a faithful copy, and a real delineation of all that has been practised in the monasteries of the East.’’35 So true was this, that, “having the Holy Rule, we need not go back to Pales¬ tine or to (the) Thebaid, nor go back to those ancient times in order to seek for instructions and examples, since we have them at home present with ourselves.’’36 In spite of the allegedly all-sufficient nature of the Rule, Ranee, always and everywhere made ample use of citations from Eastern sources. Though his conferences were delivered without notes, he kept a massive cardfile of biblical and patristic texts so as to ensure perfect accuracy in his reference to these sources. The result was that his books were often little more than florilegia of texts loosely bound together by a running commentary.37 In particularly ample developments, Ranee’s practice was to begin with Scripture— the Old Testament first, then the New; next came the Fathers in roughly chronological order— first those of the East, then 34. 35. 36. 37.

(New York - Chicago - San Francisco, 1963), pp. 105-106. Devoirs, Ch. II, p. 49; A Treatise..., p. 34. Ibid.

Dubois 2:2.

434

Chrysogonus Waddell ocso

those of the West. Saint Bernard could usually be counted upon for a few apt quotations. And there were also references to Saint Thomas Aquinas and to the Councils of the Church (including the canons of the Council of Trent, which had not been promulgated in France). The Vitae Patrum, Cassian’s Conferences and Instituta,38 Saint John Climacus, Saint Athanasius, the three Cappadocians, Saint Ephrem, Pseudo-Denis, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Macarius—the list of Eastern Fathers quoted is almost co¬ extensive with the authors represented in Marguerin de la Bigne’s Bibliotheca sanctorum Patrum. Not unexpectedly, the bulk of these citations come from writings of a markedly ascetic stamp. Like Saint Benedict, Ranee was chiefly concerned with setting up the ascetical context within which an intense mystical life, under the direct influence of the Holy Spirit, could grow and flourish. Neither Benedict nor his faithful disciple Ranee were immediately concerned with those perfect monks who were already com¬ fortably ensconced on the very peak of the mount of perfection. Their chief attention was directed to the mul¬ titude of monks still struggling on their upward ascent. Ranee has been fiercely criticized for his preoccupation with the ascetical aspect of monastic life. Even so sympathetic a scholar as A.-G. Simon, for instance, regrets that the reformer entered upon monastic life through “the way of tears, such as he had found described in the Ladder of Divine Ascent," without having meditated sufficiently on the con¬ clusion to the Prologue of the Rule, where the monk, with heart enlarged, runs with unspeakable love in the way of God’s commandments. But this type of criticism betrays a lack of real understanding relative to the monastic tradition represented by Ranee, the early Cistercians, Saint Benedict, Cassian, and the Eastern monastic Fathers. For all these, it 38. Whatever mis interpretations of Eastern practice Cassian might have introduced consciously or unconsciously, the Conferences and Institutes remain a monument to the wisdom and traditions of early Eastern monasticism. 39.

(n. 26 above) pp. 712-713.

Eastern Monastic Fathers — The Reform of Ranee

435

was clear that the average aspirant to monastic life was not already filled with perfect love when he knocked for ad¬ mittance at the monastery gate. Monastic life meant the gradual purification of an often self-centered, ambiguous type of love; and the dynamism generated by the tension between the ideal (perfect love) and the concrete situation of the indi-vidual monk was often expressed in terms of a passing from fear to the perfection of charity. Ranee’s “penance” covered as broad a reality as Saint Benedict’s “humility,” and connated an on-going, ever deepening conversion such as would, if God so willed, lead to perfect love in a life lived wholly under the direct action of the Holy Spirit. Without adopting the terms vita praktike and vita theoretike, Ranee, like Saint Benedict, understood monastic life in terms quite familiar to monks of the East.40 Was Ranee in error when he interpreted the Holy Rule in the light of the wisdom of the desert fathers? Critics of Ranee appeal constantly to Saint Benedict’s discretio, and stress those details in which the Patriarch of Western Monks obviously tempered the rigor of the sources from which he directly or indirectly drew. Much more essential, however, is the basic continuity between the monasticism expressed in the Holy Rule and the monastic experience of the Christian East. Similarly, Ranee’s penchant for the Eastern monastic sources was hardly a departure from the spirit of primitive Citeaux. Many years have passed since Etienne Gilson drew attention to the decisive role played by the final Chapter 73 of the Holy Rule in the asceticism and mysticism of Citeaux. “The Conference of the Fathers, their Institutes and their Lives, and the Rule of our Holy Father Basil” were here pro¬

posed as normative for “him who would hasten to the per¬ fection of religion”41—and the Cistercian movement was 40.

Cf. P. Placide Deseille, “A propos de l’epiloguedu chapitre VII de la

Regie,” Coll 21 (1959) 289-301. 41.

Holy Rule, Ch. 73, quoted in Gilson, The Mystical Theology of Saint

Bernard (London-New York, 1955; reprint of the 1940 edition) p. 15.

436

Chrysogonus Waddell ocso

aimed precisely at helping the monk hasten along this way to perfection. The asceticism of Gteaux, or the Chartreuse for that matter, is certainly derived from the Fathers of the Desert. In the former the cenobites of Egypt lived their lives over again in France, in the latter the hermits.... To set out to observe to the letter the Rule of St Benedict, not omitting the last chapter, is thus to follow in the footsteps of St Anthony, of Macarius and Pacomius... 42 And Gilson goes on to show that Cistercian mysticism was no less rooted in the Desert Father tradition than was Cistercian asceticism. This is an area of research which still remains to be explored; and the dissertation demonstrating Bernard’s massive debt to the East by way of Cassian has yet to be written. But already it is clear enough that the crusty Bene¬ dictine chronicler, Orderic Vital was more right than wrong when, writing (around 1135) about the first stirrings of the Cistercian movement, he presented the reformers in terms of a platform based on the Rule as read and interpreted in the light of the Desert Fathers.43 Bernard himself could write without feeling the need to explain further his reference to the Eastern rules: If...my abbot attempts to impose upon me some¬ thing which is not according to the Benedictine Rule, and which is also not in accord with the Rules of St Basil,

Augustine,

or Pachomius,

to

what obligation, I ask, have I to conform? 44 And when, in the Dialogus inter cluniacensem et cisterciensem monachum, the White Monk’s appeal to the “Rule of the Holy Fathers Serapion, Macharius, Paphnutius, and the other Macharius” receives the rejoinder, “What does that Rule have to do with us?” the answer is unequivocal: 42. 43. 44.

Gilson, The Mystical Theology,

pp. 17-18.

Historia ecclesiastica. Pars 111, Lib VIII, xxv; PL 188:636-642. De praecepto et dispensatione IV,

10; translation from Bernard of

Clairvaux: Treatises I, CF 1 (Spencer, MA, 1970) p. 112.

Eastern Monastic Fathers — The Reform of Ranee

437

A great deal. Because those things which Saint Benedict left unmentioned in our Rule, he commanded us to seek in other books, and especially in the Institutes of the Fathers. This is what the last chapter of our Rule teaches us: “That the Full Observance of Justice Is Not Established in This Rule.’’ That is to say, that not everything which monks have to observe in justice is to be found in this Rule. And there is no other chapter (of the Rule) which could more justly and usefully be observed in monasteries...55 Looking backwards from the vantage point enjoyed by our own twentieth-century, it seems clear enough that differences in the interpretation of the Benedictine Rule have often led to a remarkably fecund variety of monastic witness and experience. Fr Hans Urs von Balthasar has written: The Benedictine Rule...unites charism and minis¬ try, authority and love, zeal and discretion, the Roman and Christian character, in such a way as to be practically a model for all Christian discipleship. It is a model that did not set itself up as a rival to the Gospel, one that remained so open in its readiness to serve that it could be developed in all directions, in the holiness of the hierarchical ministry and of personal asceticism, in missionary activity and in the stability of contemplation, in the life devoted to the liturgical opus Dei and in a Christian humanism in the tradition of antiquity.46 If then the Rule can be “developed in all directions,’’ should anyone take it amiss if Ranee has simply understood the Rule against the background of its sources? The vitality of the reform at la Trappe lasted even during the century which followed the reformer’s death in 1700. 45. Ed. Martene-Durand, in Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum V (Lutetiae Parisiorum, 1717) col. 1594, (ET to appear in Cistercian Studies Series, 1976 —ed.) 46. Church and World (New York, 1967), p. 98.

Chrysogonus Waddell ocso

438

Ninety years later, when the monks were given the choice between returning to the world with a pension and some sort of continued community life in a “house of union,” only one out of fifty-four monks was willing to return to the world. In his carefully documented study, “French Cistercians and the Revolution 1789-1791,”47 Fr Louis Lekai has shown that, in view of the already decreed dissolution of the monastic Orders and the lack of reasonable alternatives, the huge number of monks who opted for the pension, though ad¬ mittedly unheroic, were not guilty of a betrayal of their vows, and in no way should be branded as apostates. 48 The re¬ solution of the monks of la Trappe “to live and die in their monastery” becomes all the more impressive in comparison with the modus agendi adopted by the vast majority of their confreres in religion. When the full blast of the Revolution fell upon the Cistercians in France, everything crumbled—or almost everything. A colony of monks from la Trappe had managed to secure a precarious foothold in nearby Switzer¬ land. When external conditions once more allowed it, they were the ones who restored Cistercian monasticism to France. Present day Cistercians of the Strict Observance trace their family genealogy from Citeaux by way of la. Trappe. But the term “Trappist” seems less in favor than it did in times past, being nowadays reserved chiefly for commercial commodities such as “Trappist cheese” or “Trappist fruit-cake” or “Trappist preserves.” However, the Order’s adoption of the principle of pluralism within the bounds of a unity based on adherence to the Holy Rule and the Charter of Charity pro¬ vides the context in which, here and there in the Order, something of what was deepest and most evangelical in the Rancean heritage can not only survive, but flourish anew. And it will be in such privileged centers of monastic ex¬ perience that an understanding of the Eastern monastic Fathers will thrive. There might possibly be a certain danger of dilettantism so often as the Eastern Fathers are studied 47.

In ASOC 24 (1968) 86-118.

48.

Ibid., p. 89.

Eastern Monastic Fathers—The Reform of Ranee

439

and appreciated in a monastic environment determined largely by a type of culture alien to the absolute exigencies of the Eastern tradition. But a monastic environment truly consonant with a simple interpretation of the Holy Rule and with our twelfth-century Cistercian expression of monastic life would provide a setting in which the wisdom of the East as mediated by the monastic Fathers could come to full flower, and help actualize once again the springtime of the desert and of the early Church. May God one day bring to per¬ fection the good work begun in the East, and continued thorugh Saint Benedict, the early Cistercians, and Ranee and his Trappists.

Chrysogonus Waddell ocso

Gethsemani Abbey Trappist, Kentucky

THOMAS MERTON AND THE CHRISTIAN EAST

W

rHEN THOMAS MERTON DIED he had a small icon with him, carried about in the breviary he used for his daily office during the trip to the Far East. On the reverse side of this icon, which I have in my posession, he had written in his own hand a Greek text taken from the Philokalia which he wished to keep before his eyes. It reads as follows. If we wish to please the true God and to be friends with the most blessed of friendships, let us present our spirit naked to God. Let us not draw into in anything of this present world — no art, no thought no reasoning, no self-justification — even though we should possess all the wisdom of this world. 1 A great deal could be said about this text and its signifi¬ cance for Merton. For the present let it suffice to underline the fact that it represents one of the more characteristic elements of the spirituality of the Philokalia in its emphasis on the “spirit naked to God.’’ This tradition goes back to Evagrius who taught the doctrine of pure prayer taking place beyond images in the highest part of man, his nous, as the means to perfect union with God. In focusing on this text 1.

John Carpathios, Kephaliaia Paramythitika, 49.

440

Thomas Merton and the Christian East

441

Father Merton was at the center of the Eastern tradition, at the heart of the Philokalia. But also he was pursuing the same path that he had followed from his first readings on mysticism in the writings of the Spanish mystic of the six¬ teenth century, John of the Cross. Already as a layman, prior to his entry into Gethsemani, he read the books of the Spanish writer with careful attention. He found his teaching difficult to understand, for they referred also to a “naked” knowledge of God. ...these words I underlined, although they amazed and dazzled me with their import, were too simple for me to understand. They were too naked... however, I am glad that 1 was at least able to recognize them, obscurely, as worthy of the greatest respect.2 Thus we find in Merton’s first contacts with mystical writings as well as in his last days a fascination with the “naked knowledge” of the God who is love. This “naked knowledge,” spoken of by Eastern and Western mystics, became increasingly important to him. Some years before his death Father Merton became ex¬ plicitly aware of the fact that his own spiritual life was rooted in the Eastern tradition as well as in the Western and he came to understand his own identity and his vocation in terms of this fact. I am more and more convinced that my job is to clarify something of the tradition that lives in me and in which I live: the tradition of wisdom and spirituality that is found not only in Western Christendom but in Orthodoxy. 3 This conviction that Merton speaks of was not a sudden irruption of some quick enthusiasm. It was rather the ripe fruit of a seed that had been planted in the days of his first conversion to the spiritual life when as a young student he was visiting Rome. For Merton Rome was not only Latin and 2. The Seven Storey Mountain (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1948) 238-39. 3. Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Doubleday, 1966) 176.

John Eudes Bamberger ocso

442

Western, but also Byzantine through its history and early monuments. He had come to Rome rather as a tourist and in search of a wider humanistic culture, but while there he visited the ancient churches where he found numerous, well preserved works of Christian art, many of them Byzantine. “I was fascinated by these Byzantine mosaics...and thus without knowing anything about it I became a pilgrim... .” As he passed his days in the presence of these awesome images Merton felt himself drawn to leave aside the modern novels he had brought with him to read on his tour and he felt himself drawn increasingly to Christ, for the first time in his life. “I read more and more of the Gospels, and my love for the old churches and their mosaics grew from day to day.” 4 5 As a consequence of this prolonged contact ‘‘for the first time in my whole life,” he adds, ‘‘I really began to pray — pray¬ ing not with my lips and with my intellect and my imagination but praying out of the very roots of my life and of my being, and praying to the God I had never known, to reach down toward me out of his darkness... .”6 In later years he still felt the deep attraction of these images of God’s holiness incarnated in the human form: ‘‘No art form stirs or moves me more deeply, perhaps, than ... Byzantine and Russian ikons.”7 It is significant that the ex¬ perience of God he discovered under the influence of these ikons was an experience of God’s light that reached “down toward me out of his darkness,” which is related to the ‘‘naked spirit” prepared to receive the pure light of its creator that John Carpathios speaks of. Once Fr Louis had entered the monastery he began to ac¬ quaint himself with various early Christian writers. In his earlier years he was interested especially in St Augustine and various other Latin Fathers, especially the early Cistercians of the twelfth century. His interest in John of the Cross with 4.

The Seven Storey Mountain, 108.

5.

Ibid.,

6.

Ibid.. 111.

7.

Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p. 280.

110.

Thomas Merton and the Christian East

443

his doctrine of the dark ascent was also to continue unabated and indeed to prove life-long for one of his last essays, as yet unpublished, treats of the Spanish Carmelite’s teaching at length and contains some admirable pages, full of vitality. But Merton also began to have some more direct contact with the Eastern tradition. The Apophthegmata at some early date in his monastic life became some of his preferred reading. He felt a great attraction to the wisdom condensed into these brief sayings, artfully revealing a world of intense and authentic experience. Later on Fr Louis translated some of these Sayings of the Fathers, and, since his death, this book has been used for readings at the Divine Office by some of our monks. I recall on one occasion in earlier years, in the course of a conference in the novitiate, his remark that “these men from the Egyptian desert have more reality for me than the people living in Louisville.” But it was through his study of the early Cistercians that Merton was to be led to further contact with some of the great Greek theologians and mystics. Very probably when reading Gilson’s The Mystical Theology of St Bernard he began to recognize the importance of the Greek tradition for the Cistercian Fathers and was led to a serious study of two of the more important Greek theologians. Gilson pointed out the primordial importance of the Vitae Patrum for the early Cistercians who consciously sought to appropriate their teaching and follow their example in many practices. When he went on to speak of “the admirable doctrine of Gregory of Nvssa, which undoubtedly had its influence on St Bernard through Maximus,” Fr Louis would have been led to both of these writers. When his book on the teachings of St John of the Cross appeared in 1951 he devoted the first chapter in Q

good part to the mystical teaching of Gregory of Nyssa.

Why

so? Precisely because St Gregory presented so forcefully the basic orientation of the kind of mystic that Merton was most attracted to: “And there are the great theologians of darkness: Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Pseudo-Dionysius, Saint 8.

(London-New York, 1940, 1955), p. 17.

444

John Eudes Bamberger ocso

John of the Cross.”9 Gregory presents, as few others have, the mystic view of the two ways--vision and illusion. Fr Louis considered him to be ‘‘at one the most important and the most neglected of the early Christian mystical theologians.” (This was written prior to the work of Werner Jaeger and the translations in Sources chretiennes.) One of Gregory’s teachings that held great appeal for Merton was the doctrine of epektasis that saw each advance of the spiritual life as sat¬ isfaction of some spiritual aspiration and, at the same time, an invitation to further movement into God. Though he does not refer to this view in any writing of this period, he spoke of it in a community discussion at Gethsemani with enthu¬ siasm. Its vision of the life of union with God as a con¬ tinuous movement and growth devoid of restlessness or desire was exciting to his imagination and corresponded to the modern dynamic psychology with which Merton was familiar. He also read Maximus the Confessor and found in him many of the elements that had stimulated St Bernard and which were taken over by him. He became for a time one of his favorite authors. Gilson had pointed out that Maximus provided St Bernard with a word that held so much impor¬ tance for his mystical doctrine, excessus, ecstasy. Bernard made a very independent use of this word with its related themes of love, participation, and deification but he had dis¬ covered these concepts already brought together in the Ambigua of Maximus.10 Having entered so deeply into the teaching of Bernard, when Merton found some of its origins in the writings of Maximus, he had a personal sense of dis¬ covery in reading the texts of this Byzantine theologian whose writings on the spiritual life proved so fertile in the history of Christian spirituality. Doubtless, some of the conference materials that remain unpublished deal at length with the writings of this Confessor who stirred Merton’s early enthusiasm so deeply, but it is curious to note that in his published works Merton refers ex9. 10.

The Ascent to Truth, (New York:

Harcourt, Brace, 1951) 25.

Gilson, The Mystical Theology, 26, 27.

Thomas Merton and the Christian East

445

plicitly to Maximus only in passing. Once he had entered into the Greek tradition Merton would never get very far away from it, even while he continued his studies in the Western Fathers and later spiritual writers and enlarged the scope of his interest. Among the Eastern Fathers he found Clement of Alexandria particularly attractive and translated a portion of his writings into English. It was above all Clement’s vast culture, his open spirit that was able to assimilate Greek values while deepening his Christian commitment that attracted him. He read Denis the Areopagite, Evagrius Ponticus and John Chrysostom and found in each of them a vision and an insight that enriched his own. We find him utilizing their teachings in his last book on mon¬ astic spirituality, showing their relation to St John of the Cross. “The teaching of St John of the Cross...is in the direct line of ancient monastic and patristic tradition, from Evagrius Ponticus, Cassian and Gregory of Nyssa on down through Gregory the Great and the followers of PsuedoDionysius in the West. St John Chrysostom writes of the ‘incomprehensibility of God’.” 11 Other writers too brought him into touch with one of the more important currents of Byzantine spirituality, the hesychastic tradition as presented by the Philokalia especially. Already in the 1950s Merton wrote a detailed and nuanced account of Mt Athos and its traditions which had profound appeal for him. He discusses the spirituality of St Gregory of Palamas with his doctrine of the “divine light” and the im¬ plications of it for the spiritual life, and in fact he sees the Light of Tabor as the meaning of Mt Athos, for it is the mystery of Easter. This light is related to the “void” that is in man’s heart and whose darkness can be illuminated only by its divine rays. 12 The prayer of the heart as he discovered it in the various Eastern writers struck a very sympathetic cord in Merton’s 11.

The Climate of Monastic Prayer, CS 1 (Spencer, MA:

lications, 1969) p. 110. 12. Cf. Disputed Questions (New York: pp. 68-82.

Cistercian Pub¬

Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1960)

John Eudes Bamberger ocso

446

spirit. When he was writing his final work on monastic prayer he returned to this theme and developed it at some length, pointing out its significance for certain basic values which held great importance for him, such as authenticity, remaining “rooted in one’s own inner truth.”13 Merton believed that the prayer of the heart is eminently suited to monks of our time when used intelligently and recommended it as an effective approach to interior prayer and so to spiritual growth, showing how it can lead to deepening purity of heart. 14 It is instructive to note in this book on monastic prayer how Merton cites alternately various Eastern and Western authors. It was indeed true that his roots were deeply buried in both these traditions so that presenting the climate of monastic life meant interpreting for men of our time the teachings of Issac of Nineveh as well as Gregory the Great, and Macarius and Basil as well as Augustine and John of the Cross. John Climacus was the subject of a special essay by Merton when a new English translation of his works appeared in 1959.15 In addition to providing a detailed appreciation of his Ladder of Divine Ascent Merton pointed out how much his spirit had entered into the formation of the Russian character and how an understanding of it throws light on such writers as Dostoievsky, for example. Crime and Punishment has a lot to do with the spirituality of St John Climacus, in a per¬ verse and inverted sort of way. In fact all Russian literature and spirituality is tinged with the ferocity and paradox of Sinai. 16 The Russian mystics had a particular place in the affections of Merton as did various Russian writers and modern theolo¬ gians such as Dostoievsky and Berdyaev and especially 13.

The Climate of Monastic Prayer, p. 34.

14.

Ibid., p. 93.

15.

Cf. Disputed Questions, pp. 83-93.

16.

Ibid., p. 88.

Thomas Merton and the Christian East

447

Sololvyev, whose contemplative vision with his emphasis on Sophia in the world, was congenial to Merton’s own vision of the world. In addition to their profoundly contemplative and monastic spirit, the Russians display a tenderness and humanity that is evident in their iconography as well as in their spiritual writings. That commended their art and spirituality to Merton. Above all others, St Seraphim of Sarov was for Merton the most perfect example of that mysticism of light which is characteristic of the Orthodox Church: completely positive and yet compatible with, indeed based on, the apophatic (negative) theology of Pseudo-Dionysius and St Maximus the Confes¬ sor. It is perhaps this which distinguished Russian mysticism in its pure state.17 In this article Fr Louis points out that Russian mysticism takes its origin largely in the traditions brought from Mt Athos and for centuries maintained a nourishing contact with the Holy Mountain. Through this channel the Prayer of Jesus became a prominent feature of Russian piety and reached it highest expression in the figure of St Seraphim, who taught that the culmination of the ascetic life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. Even more than Staretz Silouan, for whom Merton felt “a great admiration,” Seraphim stands at the center of this great spiritual tradition in which Merton found so much of what he felt to be most central to his own vision i o

of life. In his description of starchestvo Merton presents a positive and ardent picture of this form of holiness, which corresponds in large measure to his own ideal. It is characterized above all by a ‘‘total surrender to the power of love” and this ‘‘love was the sole basis of their spiritual authority.” But few are capable of so exalted an ideal and rather prefer to conform to ‘‘law because in reality, law is less demanding than pure 17. Mystics and Zen Masters (New York: 182. 18.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1967)

Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, 147.

John Eudes Bamberger ocso

448

charity.” Even in his literary criticism the Eastern Fathers continued to play a role, as one can see in Merton’s fine discussion of Pasternak’s novel ‘‘Doctor Zhivago.” He points out that Pasternak, whether he knows it or not, is plunged fully into midstream of the lost tradition of ‘‘natural contemplation” [Theoria physica] which flowed among the Greek Fathers after it had been set in motion by Origen. He points out, however, that Pasternak does not share the dogmatic and ascetic preoccupations of Origen and the Cap¬ padocian Fathers.

He

is not the prophet of this regained Paradise, as were Origen and Gregory of Nyssa.... Rather he is a prophet of the original, cosmic revelation....21 The ease with which Merton points out, convincingly, such aspects of the Eastern tradition reveal to what extent familiarity with the Greek Fathers had formed his awareness and judgment and influenced his taste. Fr Louis had an intense nostalgia for the eremitical life. The solitary aspect of monastic life had been so important to him from the beginning of his conversion that he considered seriously, more than once, entering an order of hermits. Though he decided to remain a monk of Gethsemani, he did receive permission to live as a hermit, and the last five years of his life were dedicated to the practices of the eremitical life. Yet he never ceased to think of himself as having a function as spiritual guide which he exercised above all by his writing and to a lesser extent also by conferences he gave to the community every week and by spiritual direction. From the time that Merton was assigned the task of spiritual master to the young monks at Gethsemani he gave himself generously to this work and it became an important element in his personal development, as he himself 19. 20.

Mystics and Zen Masters, p. 186.

21.

Ibid.

Disputed Questions, p. 17.

Thomas Merton and the Christian East

attested various times.

22

449

He dates his concern with social and

political matters to the years he spent as spiritual guide to the student-monks and, significantly, dedicated the book he wrote during those first years, No Man is an Island, to his students. The ideal spiritual Father then became a part of his own identity. And he occupied himself with the traditional teaching on his role and qualities. In the interesting article he wrote on “The Spiritual Father in the Desert Tradition,’’ as well as what we have already seen above in his treatment of starchestvo, he portrayed in good part his idea of this office. He chose to study it in the Eastern tradition in a particular way, though elsewhere he also wrote of certain Western spiritual guides whom he admired and from whom he learned a great deal, Augustine Baker, Ekhardt, Newman and others.23 The Apophthegmata is one of the chief sources of his ideal. Other Eastern writers are cited as well and con¬ tributed to his ideal of a spiritual guide, such as Evagrius Ponticus and Pachomius and Barsanuphius and Evergetinus and the Philokalia. He appreciated in the Desert Fathers especially their flexibility, their judgments based on concrete circumstances. This approach to life was primary with Merton who repeated the need for this Christian manner of using rules and law constantly to his young students in the monastery: The sayings of the Fathers are not to be taken as hard and fast rules which apply in the same way in every situation: they are applications of broad general principles....24 In the advice, so often given by the Desert Fathers, to “guard the cell’’ Merton saw the expression of a whole orientation

in

spirituality which

he

considered

important

enough to merit a special essay which was again based 22.

The Sign of Jonas (New York:

23.

See, for example, the index of Mystics and Zen Masters.

24.

Contemplation in a World of Action (New York:

280.

Harcourt, Brace, 1953) pp. 333-34.

Doubleday, 1965) p.

450

John Eudes Bamberger ocso

25 primarily on the Sayings of the Fathers. ~ The spiritual Father, then, had to be a man who had experience with the ascesis of the cell and solitude and who could use it with mastery, along with other traditional practices that in Merton’s eyes remained useful and even necessary for spiritual progress. Merton’s view in all these respects accepts and conforms to the tradition of these various Fathers and in making use of them both in his own life and in guiding others, Merton did more than learn from them. He became a disciple and allowed himself to be formed by them, to enter into their experience so as to be himself transformed by their teaching. He became himself one with them. For a striking instance of how such identification infuenced Merton’s per¬ ception as well as his thought consider the following passage that speaks of one of his favorite eastern Saints, the Hermit of Lebanon, Charbel: Everywhere is beauty... Alive and dead I climb the glorious barn. The mud of my feet going up is the mud of my hands going down. I will go down more wretched than I went up because more glorious. This barn cannot be known. It is Mount Lebanon, where Father Charbel Makhlouf saw the , 26 sun and moon. If Fr Louis wrote relatively little about dogmatic questions and formal theology for its own sake, it was not because he had no interest in it, nor because he thought it unimportant. He used to tell us that all of us future priests should seek to become theologians, and he sought to enter deeply into the heart of the best theologians of the Church. But he strove still more to penetrate into the dogmatic formulations and discover, in a personal way, their hidden truth and life. For him dogma was spirituality because it was to be con¬ templated, assimilated and lived. In short, he was in accord with Evagrius: If you are a theologian, you truly pray. 25.

Ibid., pp. 252-59.

26.

The Sign of Jonas, p. 326.

If you

Thomas Merton and the Christian East

451

truly pray, you are a theologian. 27 Merton’s early and persistent and vast interest in ecumenism was the fruit rather of prayer than of theological reflection. In this he had the same approach as some of the spiritual Fathers on Mt Athos with whom I discussed ecu¬ menical and spiritual matters on the occasion of a recent visit. Merton was convinced that the way to union among the churches is not through argument or theological discussion, in the first place, but through encounter among men of the Spirit, men who have learned something of the mystery of Christ through contemplation and long ascetic practice. Once a meeting took place where one lives in the Presence of the Spirit of Christ, important dogmatic matters could then be fruitfully examined together. He understood his contribution as demanding above all this spiritual encounter. He was stimulated immensely by such meetings with men of the Spirit from the Eastern as well as from the Western Tradition and such meetings represented more for him than a search for broader understanding. They were a necessity of the Spirit, for he felt he had inherited many of the values of the Byzantine tradition “as a son inherits his father’s estate.’’28 He had a profound conviction that “the only source of the spiritual life is the Holy Spirit.”29 and that its purpose is to attain to possession of the Holy Spirit, by the free gift of God in Christ. He was convinced that when we attain to this greatest of all gifts through ascetic preparation and through prayer of the heart we would discover that in the Holy Spirit we are already united, already one, and in this realization we would receive the light and strength to give corporate expression to this unity so that, in the end, we would be fully united in the Whole Christ. Abbey of the Genesee Piffard, New York 27.

Evagrius Ponticus,

John Eudes Bamberger ocso

60 in Evagrius Ponticus: CS 4 (Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications,

Chapters on Prayer,

Praktikos—Chapters on Prayer,

1972) 65. 28. Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p. 176. 29. Contemplation in a World of Action, p. 271.

BREAD IN THE WILDERNESS THE MONASTIC IDEAL IN THOMAS MERTON AND PAUL EVDOKIMOV

M

ANY READERS OF MERTON

have probably

ac¬

quired their only knowledge of the thought of Paul Evdokimov through a long passage in Conjectures of

a Guilty Bystander 1 in which Merton (mistakenly assuming,

by the way, that Evdokimov was a priest) discusses Evdokimov’s vision of a “radical tradition of monasticism, both Eastern and Western.’’ It is an impressively sympathetic discussion; Evdokimov’s ideal clearly answers to a very great amount in Merton’s own thought, already developing with in¬ creasing reference to the Eastern tradition in general, and the Desert Fathers in particular. What I hope to do in this essay is to investigate some of the more interesting points of con¬ vergence between these two theologians, and thereby to explore a little of what this “radical tradition” implies. Cer¬ tainly, one of the most significant aspects of such a conver¬ gence is that it appears in two thinkers who are at once pro¬ foundly rooted in their own traditions and genuinely open to others: Merton’s spirituality owes its fundamental orientation to the Cistercian and Carmelite traditions, and, as Evelyn Waugh rightly indicated,2 to French Catholicism, but it would not be what it is without his devoted and careful study of 1.

Pp. 308-10.

2.

In his Foreword to Elected Silence (the British edition of The Seven

Storey Mountain).

452

Bread in the Wilderness

453

Greek patristic thought and the Desert Fathers. Evdokimov, a Russian emigre who spent his entire working life in France, is essentially a product of the Russian religio-philosophical and literary ethos of Gogol and Dostoyevsky, Florensky, Bul¬ gakov, and Berdyaev, an ethos itself very much aware of the spirituality of the “desert” which was to become so central to Evdokimov’s theology. Yet his understanding of French religious and anti-religious culture, from Bloy and Claudel to Sartre, is remarkable. What we are witnessing is a rapprochment not merely between the “monastic culture” (to borrow Merton’s own term 3 ) of Catholicism and that of Orthodoxy, but between distinct “religious cultures,” in a wider sense; and the interest in Kierkegaard shared by Merton and Evdokimov suggests the possibility of a further convergence, with a particular strand in another “religious culture,” that of Continental Lutheranism. That, however, is a subject which would require another paper to itself. It is Evdokimov’s treatment: of the question of authenticity which seems to interest Merton most in the discussion to which I have referred: “one goes into the desert to vomit up the interior phantom, the doubter, the double” 4 is Evdokimov’s phrase, and Merton, as we might expect, re¬ sponds enthusiastically to the idea of asceticism as “therapy,” humanizing therapy, implicit in this formulation. The preoccupation with authenticity is, I think, one of the most consistent unifying themes traceable in Merton’s work, from the time of Elected Silence onwards; indeed, even further back, in the Secular Journal, which contains material written between 1939 and 1941, we find a succession of wryly humorous dialogues with a sceptical interlocutor, in which questions of personal and artistic integrity are obviously much to the fore in Merton’s mind.5 Here, too, we find one of the only two explicit allusions in the Journal to Merton’s painful decision to risk being refused entry to the Franciscan 3. See, for example, The Climate of Monastic Prayer, note to p. 116. 4. Op. cit., p. 309, cf. Evdokimov, The Struggle with God (Paramus, NJ: Paulist-Newman Press, 1966) pp. 99-105. 5. Pp. 77-9, 79-80, 84-88.

Rowan Williams

454

novitiate in 1940. 6 However, the superb passage on Kierkegaard and the “teleological suspension of ethics” is a moving and revealing commentary on the insights gained through this decision, which was, as Elected Silence makes clear, very definitely prompted by considerations of “authen¬ ticity.” Of his anticipations of life as a friar, Merton dryly comments that “it made a pleasant picture.” 8 It represented an attempt to create a new existence essentially divorced from the reality of his previous life, with no attempt at a healing or integration of that previous life; a new existence, therefore, which could not be other than artificial, inauthen¬ tic. At the same time, his attraction to the Franciscan life is recognised as being no more than a translation into vocational terms of a set of inclinations and attractions purely natural in character, “investing the future with all kinds of natural pleasures and satisfactions which would fortify and defend my ego against the troubles and worries of life in the world.” 9 There is no met'ocvoicx here; any illusion that there is is based upon the superficial divorce from, and suppression of, a “sinful” past. It is not difficult to misrepresent this section of Elected Silence-, Merton’s expressions are often obscure, and can be read as suggesting merely a kind of tormented scrupulosity, a moralistic awareness of “unworthiness” for the religious life. To some extent, indeed, it is a moralistic vocabulary which he uses here, and a rather conventional language of “renunciation of natural goods”; but I hope I have shown some reason for seeing his decision as, funda¬ mentally, concerned with a crisis of “integrity.” There is here, surely, an implicit recognition that the monastic vocation demands a real encounter with one’s own “nothing¬ ness,” with the false and illusory persona created by one’s betrayal of the true self, the image of God, in a concordat with a false and illusory society. 6.

P. 80.

7.

Pp. 68-71.

8. Elected Silence, p. 215. The British title of The Seven Storey Mountain — ed.) 9. Ibid., p. 216.

Bread in the Wilderness

455

At this point, we may turn to examine Evdokimov’s expla¬ nation of the rise of monasticism; and it is precisely the “concordat” with society and history which Evdokimov sees as driving the monk into the desert: “Apres le concordat qui installait l’Eglise dans l’histoire et lui offrait son statut legal et une existence paisible, le temoignage que les martyrs rendaient aux choses denieres passe au monachisme et s’y transforme en ministere du maximalisme eschatologique.” 10 For ‘those who love his coming,’ the Christian city that the Empire of Constantine undertook to build is profoundly ambiguous.” 11 What the monk is doing is witnessing to a radical eschatological folly in the midst of a church which has learned to sit lightly to the apocalyptic violence of the gospel, to pitch its tent in history, to allow itself to be defined by history and by the present saeculum. Monasticism is a provisional phenomenon, existing for as long as the Church exists as a function of the city, the state, until the city is truly baptised. Not only Kierkegaard on “Christendom,” but Dos¬ toyevsky on Church and state is echoed here: “It is not the Church that ought to be turned into a State, as from a lower to a higher form, but, on the contrary, the State ought to end by being worthy to become only the Church and nothing else.”13 The Church has failed to recognise the devils in the city, and so the monk seeks them out in the desert; the only real reason for the flight to the desert is this impulse to con¬ front the diabolical, the infernal, which threatens all men, be they ever so oblivious of it. In other words, in the more familiar terminology of twentieth-century existentialism, the monk recoils in horror, anguish, and nausea from the pos¬ sibilities of “bad faith” which life in the city presents to him and other men.14 The monk is called to face the threat of nothingness, 10. 11. 12.

whether in

“bad faith” or in the

constant

L’Orthodoxie, p. 20. The Struggle with God, p. 93. Ibid., p. 113.

13. The Brothers Karamazov, Book II, ch. 5 (I quote from Magarshack’s translation in the Penquin Classics, vol. 1, p. 69). 14. See The Struggle with God, ch. 1, passim.

David

Rowan Williams

456

awareness of finitude and death, without any of the anodynes provided by life in society: “Les athletes de Tascese pouvaient se mesurer avec les demons, car seuls ils etaient capables de les voir face a face et de supporter cette vision redoutable (les ascetes parlent de la puanteur insupportable des demons, de la “nausee de l’esprit” qu’ils provoquent).”15 The monk’s service to the city he leaves is the objectification of its demons, so that they become visible and identifiable for men; his immense risk, his total exposure of himself, has a universal “therapeutic” effect,16 redeeming the Church, and thus, finally, the world, from bondage to blindness and un¬ truth, from submission to the false, “demoniacal” self-image (individual or collective) which is not recognised until it is “personalized” in the solitary combat of the ascetic with the devils in the wilderness. “This is precisely the monk’s chief service to the world: this silence, this listening, this questioning, this humble and courageous exposure to what the world ignores about itself— both good and evil." 17 The going-out of the monk into the desert is a sign of hope to the city as well as a sign of judg¬ ment, because it testifies to man’s ability to face and to reject illusion; it is an act performed in imitation of Christ, par¬ taking in the salvific quality of his temptation in the wilder¬ ness. Evdokimov rightly reminds us of the great significance attached by many of the Greek Fathers (especially Justin, Irenaeus and Origen) to the temptations of Christ in the economy of salvation, the avocKEtpaAoucocris of human existence and the realisation of the image of God in man;18 it is the reversal of the consequences of Adam’s defeat by the tempter, and thus the opening to man of the new possibility of victory over falsehood and inauthenticity. Christ in the desert prepares the way for the Christian in the desert. Evdokimov’s particular use of the temptation narratives, is predictably, very much influenced by the brillian analysis of 15. 16. 17. 18.

L’Orthodoxie, p. 98. The Struggle with God, p. 104. The Climate of Monastic Prayer, p. 37; my italics. The Struggle with God, pp. 117-18.

Bread in the Wilderness

457

the three temptations in Dostoyevsky’s parable of the Grand Inquisitor, as temptations to the exercise of “miracle, mystery, and authority.” 19 “Satan advances three infallible solutions of human destiny: the alchemist miracle of the philosopher’s stone, the mystery of occult sciences and their boundless powers; and finally one unifying authority."20 In these temptations is summed up the whole of the diabolical invitation to falsehood and “nothingness,” that “selfdestruction and non-existence’ of which Satan is the personification. And these are the temptations which the Empire offered to the Church, and which the Church, or, at least, the greater part of it, has succumbed, according to Dostoyevsky and Evdokimov. Thus we can see how the monk’s rejection of the city is grounded in Christ’s victory over the temptor: “If the empire made its secret temptation out of Satan’s three invitations, monasticism was openly built on Christ’s three immortal answers.” 22 We should, Evdokimov suggests, see the three traditional vows of the religious state as corresponding precisely to Christ’s three replies to Satan. The refusal to turn stones into bread cor¬ responds to the vow of poverty: it is “the primacy...of grace over necessity,” the rejection of a scale of values in which the material satisfaction associated with property is con¬ sidered self-evidently good. The poor man, the monk who possesses nothing, can share nothing but “his being, his eucharistic flesh and blood,”24 he is free to be the brother of all men. The refusal of Jesus to cast himself from the pinnacle of the temple corresponds to the vow of chastity: it is the “purification of the heart” in love and reverence towards the whole of creation, the refusal of a certain kind of “power” over the cosmos, a power which is a mockery, an 19.

The Brothers Karamazov. Bk. V., ch. 5; Penquin edition, vol. 1, pp.

288-311. 20. The Struggle with God, p. 118. 21. The Brothers Karamazov, Penquin edition, vol. 1, p. 295. 22.

The Struggle with God, p. 120.

23. 24.

Ibid., p. 122. Ibid., p. 123.

458

Rowan Williams

abuse and an exploitation of the place which God gives to man in the world. The monk’s chastity is an “integration” of his human powers over matter in a new attitude of what Simone Weil would call “attention” to created things. Evdo¬ kimov points to the mysterious relationship between woman and the cosmos apprehended in so many of the mystery cults of pre-Christian Europe and Asia, and discernible even in the cult of the Mother of God.25 Continence towards woman and reverence for creation are intimately connected. Finally, Jesus’ refusal to bow down and worship Satan corresponds to the vow of obedience: the refusal of slavery to Satan, to illusion and falsehood, is liberation into obedience to him “whose service is perfect freedom.” Evdokimov quotes from the Apophthegmata Patrum to illustrate his contention that monastic obedience is fundamentally different from the secular model of submission to authority: “Never command, but be for all an example, never a lawgiver”;26 “I shall say nothing. Do, if you want, what you see me do.” 27 “Every counsel of a staretz (elder, spiritual father) leads a man to a state of freedom before the face of God.” 28 Merton nowhere (to my knowledge) develops such a close analogy between Our Lord’s temptations and the vows of the religious state; but 1 hope it will become clear that the monastic ideal outlined by Evdokimov is very close indeed to Merton’s own. Certainly the type of religious obedience which Evdokimov speaks of is precisely what Merton finds so impressive in the Apophthegmata: obedience preserves the monk from the dangers of being a law to himself, of per¬ severing in the falsehood of self-will and self-love which he has fled the city to escape. “His search in the desert is not merely for solitude in which he can simply do as he pleases and admire himself as a great contemplative. There would be 25. Again a theme found in Dostoyevsky; see, for example. The Devils, Pt. I, ch. 4. (Penguin edition, p. 154) “The Mother of God is a great mother earth.” 26. 27. 28.

PG 65:363; 564; quoted in The Struggle with God, p. 128. PG 65:224; quoted, ibid., p. 128. Ibid., p. 129.

Bread in the Wilderness

459

no real quies in such an exploit, or if there were peace, it would be the false peace of self-assurance and self-com¬ placency.” Obedience is a necessary concomitant of M£Tavoia, delivery from the worship of the illusory ego; and this, of course, is as much as to say that the mere fact of geographical separation from the city, from society, does not of itself deliver the monk from illusion. What the monastic tradition calls “compunction” (uev6os ) and Merton, following the existentialists, calls “dread,” is a constantly recurring experience in the monastic life.30 There is a danger of a wrong sort of objectification of the diabolical, of refusing to recognise its radical presence in oneself, and it persistence within oneself, even when the appropriate gestures of renun¬ ciation have been made. It is perhaps the new awareness of this that lies underneath the tormented questionings of Part Five of The Sign of Jonas, the discovery that a new and more subtle temptation to falsehood and unreality awaits the monk in his community, that it is as easy to yield to the imposition of an illusory definition of the self by the purely external observance of the religious community as to submit to the definition of the self offered by society. It is revealing to look at (what seems to me to be) a climacteric passage in this section of The Sign of Jonas: “In order to be not remem¬ bered or wanted I have to be a person that nobody knows. They can have Thomas Merton. He’s dead. Father Louis— he’s half-dead too.”31 The true solitude in which the monk must face his nothingness is to be found, finally, only in the monk himself: “Even though he may live in a community, the monk is bound to explore the inner waste of his own being as a solitary.” 32 And in the opening essay of Raids on the Unspeakable, one of the places in which he explicitly makes use of the temptation narratives of the Gospels, 29.

Contemplation in a World of Action, pp. 284-5 (in the essay on “The

Spiritual Father in the Desert Tradition”). 30. See particularly The Climate of Monastic Prayer, p. 37. 31. 32.

Op. cit., p. 246. The Climate of Monastic Prayer, p. 39; cf. “The Identity Crisis,” in

Contemplation in a World of Action, pp. 56-82.

Rowan Williams

460 Merton

quotes,

from

the

sixth-century

Syrian

ascetic,

Philoxenos, a passage on the monk following Christ into the desert “to fight the power of error,’’ and comments: “And where is the power of error? We find it was after all not in the city, but in ourselves. ”33 The “geographical” desert, then, is adjectival to the true personal solitude of the monk, and to think otherwise is to refuse to see that the flight of the first monks to the desert, although a protest against compromise with history, was itself an historical phenomenon, a particular manifestation in a particular period of history: “Certainly now there can be no possible return to the desert. We are in different times and above all in different spiritual ages.”34 Indeed, Evdokimov suggests that the Fathers of the Desert have paved the way for a return to history, to the city, to society; once the reality of the interior desert has been seen, in the city and in the wilderness, the resultant deep transformation of the human consciousness becomes, to a greater or lesser degree inde¬ pendent of external circumstances. “Human consciousness was different before the ascesis of the desert from what it was after. Just like the event of Pentecost, this ascesis has modified the dominant energies of the psyche and has re¬ newed the human spirit.” 35 The extremism, the “escha¬ tological maximalism” of the desert is a necessary dialectical step in the development of the Christian consciousness toward a position of equilibrium; and because in the present world order, we cannot hope ever to attain and preserve such a position, the monk’s physical or geographical separation from society remains an indispensable witness. However, it is now possible for the monastic state to exist as “interiorised” in the layman: and Evdokimov supports his plea for “interiorised monasticism” with an impressive array of quotations from Chrysostom, Theodore of Studium, and 33. 34.

Op. cit. (New York:

New Directions, 1966) p. 19.

The Struggle with God, p. 105.

35. Ibid., p. 104 (note that the expression "transformation of conscious¬ ness” is the title of a chapter in Fr J. Higgins' Merton's Theology of Prayer CS 18 [Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1971],

Bread in the Wilderness

461

others on the essential unity of all Christian spirituality, whether practiced by priest, monk, or layman. The monastic experience of exposure to the diabolical possibilities inherent in human existence, especially Christian existence in “the world,’’ and the monastic reiteration of Christ’s refusal of Satan’s temptations are part of the vocation of every believer. What they imply, finally, is a condition of receptivity to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, who is alike the giver and the gift of authentic human being. Monasticism is a universal epiclesis, an invocation of the Spirit upon all humanity and all creation;36 there must be no weakening of its demands by any such evasion as the traditional distinction between “counsel’’ and “precept’’ in the Gospel. The encounter of the monk with God is the same encounter to which all Christians are called; and here, of course, we are reminded of Merton’s constant insistence that contemplative prayer is the vocation of every believer, 37 or, rather, that the “contemplative dimension’’ (for lack of a better expression) exists in every man, and that the Christian is called upon to realise it as his true identity, his “identity-in-God. ’’ “Discovering the con¬ templative life is a new self discovery. One might say it is the flowering of a deeper identity on an entirely different plane from a mere psychological discovery, a paradoxical new identity that is found only in loss of self.’’38 This is not the place for a detailed discussion of the central importance for Merton of the doctrine of man as the image of God (for such a discussion, I would commend in particular the first two chapters of Higgins’ study), but it should be noted that this explanation of contemplative prayer implies that confrontation with, or awakening to, the true self is awakening to God; so that the condition of inauthenticity, falsehood, clinging to the illusory self-image precludes any real encounter with God. 36. Ibid., p. 130: the concept of epiclesis is very important in Evdokimov’s thought on a variety of subjects, especially liturgy and iconography. 37. See the essays “Contemplation in a World of Action” and “Is the Contemplative Life Finished?” in Contemplation in a World of Action: and cf. Higgins, ch. 3. 38. Contemplation in a World oj Action, p. 340 (cf. pp. 205-17).

Rowan Williams

462

NOVERIM ME NOVERIM TE; to know God in the “Coming to ourselves’’ is to know ourselves as God knows us, to know our true identity. The “opposition’’ between man and God is done away with, and we may speak of man’s “divinisation, “the ultimate in man’s self-realisation.”39 To arrive at “true identity” is to arrive at true personhood, since one is “not a person in the fullest spiritual sense of the word”40 if one does not yet truly know oneself. “We must long to learn the secret of our own nothingness (not God’s secret first of all, but our own secret). But God alone can show us our own secret.”41 If every man’s identity is hidden in God, every man is bound to seek it through that perilous exposure of himself to God in solitude which is the basis of contemplation. Contemplation is not a religious exercise but an ontological necessity in the intense personalism of Christian faith, the encounter of the human person with the Divine Council of Persons. Evdokimov likewise reiterates the profound identity of the mystery of God and the mystery of man: “Le mystere du Createur vient se refleter dans le miroir de la creature et fait dire a Theophile d’Antioche: “Montre-moi ton homme, et je te montrerai mon Dieu.” Saint Pierre parle de Thomocordis absconditus, l’homme cache du coeur. (I P 3:4). Le Deus absconditus, Dieu mysteriuex a cree son vis-a-vis: l’homo absconditus, l’homme mysterieux, son icone vivant.”42 All human beings have the potential for true personhood, be¬ cause all have the capacity for self-awareness, which Evdokimov designates as the property of the Trpoacoirov; it is when this self-awareness is perfected in communion with God, in the realization of the image of God, that man becomes uTrooroccris, a person whose personhood is analogous to that of the Persons of the Trinity. 39. 40. 41. 42.

The TrpoacoTrov alone

The New Man (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1961) p. 34. Ibid., p. 149. A Secular Journal, p. 98. La connaissance de Dieu selon la tradition orientate, p.

11 (cf The

Struggle with God, p. 2); this is well said, but it is only fair to add that, as

an exegesis of 1 Peter 3:4, it is somewhat fanciful.

Bread in the Wilderness

463

can become trapped in individuality, whereas the u-rrocrracrig exists in a state of communion with other persons.43 Thus, if the monk, the solitary, is engaged in the process of becoming a person, he cannot be simply an individual pursuing an im¬ possible ideal of individual sanctification in a sort of spiritual solipsism; this is, rather, the condition characteristic of hell.44 The spirit of man at its deepest level is “intentional,” turned toward the other; - and again we may say that a denial of this intentionality with regard to other men and to the world in general prevents us from ever realizing our position as partners in dialogue with God. “We can never keep ourselves alone before God; we are saved only together, “collegially,” as Soloviev said: “he will be saved who saves others. ”46 The purpose of the ascetic life is the attainment of “a heart inflamed with charity for the entire creation,”47 in the words of Isaac of Nineveh which Evdokimov was so fond of quoting. The Christian is baptized into the death of Christ, into his descent to hell, into a condition of vulnerability to the suffering of the whole of humanity; so that the solitary who goes out to face the demons is exploring the consequences of his baptism, his being-in-Christ. Paradoxically, his calling to be alone with Christ in the desert is made possible by his existence in the Church, in “communion,” because it is thus that he becomes sensitive and vulnerable to the presence of the demons afflicting mankind; in the desert he has to bear the weight not only of his own interior devils, but of the world’s suffering and bondage. The solitary is such because he is a member of Christ’s body, and so, ultimately, because he is a human being: and his way must, in some measure, be the way of all members of Christ’s body, and so of all 43.

See especially L 'Orthodoxie, pp. 68-72, cf. V. Lossky, The Mystical

Theology of the Eastern Church, ch. 6.

44.

See, for example, The Struggle with God, pp. 63-4; La connaissance de

Dieu, p. 32.

45. 46.

See L'Orthodoxie, pp. 312ff. The Struggle with God, p. 137.

47. 48.

Ibid., p. 167.

See The Struggle with God, part II, especially chapters 3 and 4.

464

Rowan Williams

human beings. Solitude, then, is a form of kenosis: the solitary is not merely imitating a past event when he follows Christ into the desert, he is participating in the whole work of Christ, the kenosis of the whole of his existence as “The lamb slain from

the foundation of the world.’’ We have already seen, in the first part of this essay, how the life of the monk is grounded in Christ’s “recapitulation” of human nature, his perfect realization of the divine image in man; now we may under¬ stand also that, just as this restoration of humanity is only achieved by the eternal self-emptying of the Word made flesh, so the monk’s refusal of falsehood and his commitment to the search for “authenticity” are made possible only by his baptism into the death of Christ, his sharing in the self-exposure and, if you will, the sheer risk of Christ’s kenosis. He enters into “the radical and essential solitude of man—a solitude which was assumed by Christ and which, in Christ becomes mysteriously identified with the solitude of God.”49 He becomes “a poor man with the poor Christ.” In a sense, he has nothing to give: and we have seen that, according to Evdokimov, this means that all the monk has to share is his being, himself. Here I should like to mention a passage in The Sign of Jonas 50 (a passage which, surprisingly, seems to have received no attention in any study of Merton to date), the passage written a few days before his ordination to the priesthood in which Merton reflects on the implications of his vocation to be a priest and a contemplative. The priestly state is itself a part of the contemplative life, “an encounter of the substance of my soul with the living God”;51 and thus priesthood is intimately con¬ nected with that poverty which is a necessary condition of the contemplative state. “To be a priest means, at least in my particular case, to have nothing, desire nothing, and be nothing but to belong to Christ.”52 Priests who are contem49. 50. 51.

Disputed Questions, p. 188. Ibid., p. 186.

52.

Ibid., p. 187.

Pp. 186-88.

Bread in the Wilderness

465

plative monks must recognise “that perhaps we have prac¬ tically nothing to give to souls in the way of preaching and guidance and talent and inspiration. We are ashamed of any active apostolate that might conceivably come from us. And so we vanish into the Mass.’’53 The priestly contemplative is “defined’’ by the Mass, by the re-presentation of Christ’s kenosis and sacrifice, and by nothing else, by no “works,” no external apostolate; the priest lives Christ’s sacrifice, or, rather, the kenotic Christ lives in the priest. We may compare another passage a little later on in The Sign of Jonas, written after Merton’s ordination to the priesthood: “Day after day 1 am more and more aware that I am anything but my everyday self at the altar.... I am superseded by One in whom I am fully real.... It is at Mass, by the way, that I am deepest in solitude and at the same time mean most to the rest of the universe. This is really the only moment at which I can give anything to the rest of men.”54 And what is given is Christ, and therefore the self-in-Christ and the world-in-Christ. Now I do not think that Merton is suggesting that the canonical state of priesthood is necessary for the full living of the contemplative life, but rather that “being a contem¬ plative” is a state of life which has “priestly” implications. The priesthood of the contemplative or the solitary is a very different matter from the priesthood of the pastor, the teacher, the confessor, even if the contemplative is actually in priest’s orders (Merton stresses, in the first of the passages to which I have referred,55 that his interpretation of priest¬ hood is a personal one, bound up with his particular vocation: “Not all priests are necessarily committed, by their priesthood, to absolute poverty”56). canonically a priest, his priestly

For the monk, who is kenosis, his gift of

himself-in-Christ, is expressed pre-eminently in his offering Ibid., p. 187. Ibid., pp. 196-97. A Secular Journal, pp. 186-87. 56. Ibid., p. 187. 53. 54. 55.

Rowan Williams

466

of the Eucharist, but the significant element here is a kenosis, a poverty, which does not depend upon the rite of ordination. Evdokimov notes that “The New Testament uses the term Trpea(3'uTepo s to designate the particular ministry (the clergy) and keeps the term upsus f°r the priesthood of the laity... Christ abolished the lepeusi as a distinct caste.” There are, in fact, Evdokimov suggests, two priesthoods in the Church, the universal priesthood of the baptised, whose vocation is the consecration of all human existence, the offer¬ ing of the whole of human being to God, and the “functional” or “ministerial” priesthood, whose vocation is to teaching, leading, and explicating the consecration of the world by the performance of the sacraments. The Christian layman is homo liturgicus, the man whose whole life is directed to God, and who thus is able to direct all that is in his world to God, “to be in love with all of God’s creation in order to decipher the meaning of God in everything,” 58 “Nature’s Priest,” the “interpreter” of creation to God. The priestly self-oblation of the believer becomes the vehicle of theophany in the world, man becomes transparent to God, and the light of the divine energy shining through him trans¬ figures all things. Thus the kenosis of the contemplative is directly linked to the dignity of the priest, the believer is baptized into the priesthood of Christ59 as he is baptized into the kenosis of Christ; and so, finally, the universal priesthood of the laity is identical with the “interiorized monasticism” of the laity.60 The priest, the monk, the layman (et hi tres unum sunt) holds the glass through which God sees the world and the world sees God. Ses saints ne participent pas au dynamisme exterieur des evenements ou, s’ils y participent, e’est autrement. Dostoievsky trace un visage de saint et le suspend au mur du 57.

The Struggle with God, p. 198 (cf. L'Orthodoxie, p. 165).

58.

Ibid., p. 208.

59.

See Augustine, De Civ. Dei, I. 20, c. 70:

membra sunt unius sacerdotis.

60.

The Struggle with God, p. 200.

Orrines sacerdotes, quoniam

Bread in the Wilderness

467

fond comme une icone. Mais c’est a sa lumiere revelatrice et therapeutique qu’on dechiffre le sens des evenements qui passent sur la scene du monde.” 61 Thus Evdokimov, writing of the “saints” in Dostoyevsky’s novels: the saint is an “icon” not merely in the sense that he “stands for” or “witnesses to” the divine order, but because he is truly the channel through which God’s energies enter into the world of men. The saint’s vision of the world is God's vision of the world, because the saint is “transparent” to God: in the person of the saint contemplating God, God contemplates the world. This divine contemplation of the world is obviously not reducible to any fact in the world, it is a point of reference, in some sense “outside” the world: hence the “uselessness” of the saint, his position on the margin of human existence, his failure to provide practical solutions. Zossima in The Brothers Karamozov does not prevent the catastrophe that overtakes the Karamazov family; but it is his “vision” of the situation that is ultimately the only real, credible and stable factor in the working out of the brothers’ destinies. Tikhon in The Devils fails to “save” Stavrogin, who rejects his counsel in mingled fear and contempt; but again, Tikhon is the only character in the novel who is per¬ mitted to see Stavrogin whole, to see him as a man and a child of God. The Dostoyevskian saint is a sign of contra¬ diction, a participant in the irony of the Incarnation: at once a fact in the world and a point outside it, useless, yet omni¬ percipient, the judge of the world and its savior, because he alone knows the “truth” of the world, and his vision can restore it to a reality which is in accord with the purpose of God. His vision is, to take up a favorite expression of Evdokimov, a vision of the “sophianic” world, the world as first formed by the creative Wisdom of God, the world before the Fall. (Of course, this conception is not an insight peculiar to modern Russian thought: in one form or another it is dis¬ cernible throughout the Eastern patristic tradition, receiving what is probably its fullest and best formulation in the 61.

L ari de I'icone, p. 43.

468

Rowan Williams

seventh century, in the writings of Maximus the Confessor. The task of Christian man is reintegration, the overcoming of the “divisions” (diaipeoeis) caused by the Fall; these divisions are transcended in the first place by the Incarnation, and it is for each man in Christ to realize this victory in his own existence and so partake in the total restoration of the cosmos. If the restoration of the “sophianic” world is such a funda¬ mental constituent of the calling of every Christian, we might well expect to find Merton underlining its significance as part of his conception of monasticism as “therapy” and “humani¬ zation”; and, indeed, there is in his work an increasing interest in the priesthood of man in creation, and its corollary, the “priesthood” of the monk and his reintegration of the world in God. In Bread in the Wilderness (1953), for example, there occurs this passage, so very reminiscent of Evdokimov: “David is...filled with the primitive sense that man is the Leitourgos or the high Priest of all creation, born with the function of uttering in ‘Liturgy’ the whole testimony of praise which mute creation cannot of itself offer to its God.”63 The “sophianic” theme is even more prominent in his discussion of Doctor Zhivago:M “it is as artist, symbolist, and prophet that ‘Zhivago’ stands most radically in opposition to Soviet society. He himself is a man of Eden, of Paradise. He is Adam, and therefore also, in some sense, Christ. Lara is Eve, and Sophia (the Cosmic Bride of God) and Russia.”65 And “One can see in Pasternak a strong influence from Soloviev’s ‘Meaning of Love’ and his theory of man’s vocation to regenerate the world by the spiritualisation of human love raised to the sophianic level of perfect conscious participation in the mystery of the divine wisdom of which the earthly 62. For the best exposition in English of Maximus’ thought, see and Mediator:

Microcosm

the Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor,

Lars Thunberg. 63. Bread in the Wilderness (Collegeville, MN: 51. 64. Disputed Questions, pp. 3-67. 65. Ibid., p. 18.

by

Liturgical Press, 1953) p.

Bread in the Wilderness

469

sacrament is love.” 66 And it is clear that this conception is one which Merton made very much his own in interpreting the monastic vocation: he can describe monasticism as “a recovery of paradisal simplicity,” 67 as “incarnation and eschatology.” 68 “Is it,” he asks, “too romantic still to suppose the monk can bake the bread he will eat at table and consecrate on the altar — and bake it well?" 69 The monk’s work, his shaping of the materials of the world, is not merely a prophylactic against acedia, it is an integral part of his being-in-Christ, his sharing in the Word of Christ. To bake bread and bake it well, to till the soil, to carve wood or cast pots—all these are expressions of the monk’s efforts to restore man’s use of created matter to its proper wholeness: Merton is even prepared to grant that “The instinct that pushes modern monastic experiments toward salaried em¬ ployment in industry is sure and authentic, though it raises special problems of its own.”70 And here I must refer, in passing to Merton’s well-known interest in and admiration for the craftsmanship of the Shakers in their houses and domestic furniture—“a model of what the native American spirit can achieve in the monastic sphere.”71 “The Shaker builderslike all their craftsmen — had the gift of achieving perfect forms.” 72 The monk, the homo liturgicus, is icon and iconographer: his material is himself and his personal world; and his “holiness” and that of his world, the measure of their parti¬ cipation in the energies of God, are inseparable. The decay of Christian liturgical art always goes hand in hand with the degeneration of the spiritual life, just as the general decay of beauty and skill in human manufactures is bound up with a 66.

Ibid.,

p. 49.

67.

Contemplation in a World of Action,

68.

Ibid.,

p. 188.

p. 189.

69.

Ibid.,

p. 189; my italics.

70.

Ibid.,

p. 189.

71.

Ibid.,

p. 189.

72.

Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,

p. 200.

Rowan Williams

470

process of depersonalization in society at large, and if the Church cannot witness to the possibility of an integrated per¬ sonal vision of reality in its art, who is there left who can?73 Evdokimov repeatedly associates the sterile individualistic emotionalism of late mediaeval and Counter-Reformation piety with the religiously barren and assertively secularist character of Renaissance and Baroque art,74 and Merton says categorically that “To like bad sacred art, and to feel that one is helped by it in prayer, can be a symptom of real spiritual disorders.’’75This is not merely an incidental point: the refu¬ sal to bring one’s full creative capacities to the service of God is a betrayal of the whole Christian calling to “reintegration” of the world; it is “a rank infidelity to God the Creator and to the Sanctifying Spirit of Truth,”76 a reversion to slavery and inauthenticity. The Christian—and so, a fortiori, the monk— is bound to be an “artist,” in some way, a participant in the divine tto'it|ctis; and it is of great interest to compare what Merton has to say about the artist’s (especially the poet’s) vocation with his statement of the monastic vocation. The “Message to Poets,”77read at a meeting of young Latin American (and some North American) poets in Mexico City in 1964, speaks of the poet’s task in terms of the rejection of “the political art of pitting one man against another and the commercial art of estimating all men at a price,” 78 the rejection of “infidelity,” alienation, the experience of one’s existance as “betrayal.” The poet must not even let be defined by opposition to the false society, as this definitive reality to the falsehood: “Let us remain ‘their’ categories. It is in this sense that we are all for we

remain

innocent

and

invisible

to

himself gives a outside monks:

publicists

and

73. See the essays on “Sacred Art and the Spiritual Life” and “Absurdity in Sacred Decoration” in Disputed Questions. 74. 1, ch. 75. 76. 77. 78.

See, for example, La connaissance de Dieu. ch. 8; L 'art de I'icone, Pt. 7 and LOrthodoxie, pp. 220, 229. Disputed Questions, p. 155. Ibid., p. 154. Raids on the Unspeakable, pp. 155-161. Ibid., p. 157.

Bread in the Wilderness

471

79

bureaucrats.” If art is merely reaction against philistinism, it is wasted. In ‘‘Answers on Art and Freedom”80 (first published in a Latin American periodical), Merton contrasts the illusory freedom of the artist ‘‘in revolt” against society, defined by his revolt and limited by it, who ‘‘cultivates anti-art as a protest against the art cult of the society in which he lives,”81 with the true freedom which the artist should enjoy, ‘‘freedom from the internalized emotional pressures by which society holds him down.”82 As for the “use” of art: ‘‘The artist must serenely defend his right to be completely useless.”83 ‘‘Today the artist has, whether he likes it or not, inherited the combined functions of hermit, pilgrim, prophet, priest, showman, sorcerer, soothsayer, alchemist and bonze. How could such a man be free? How can he really ‘find himself if he plays a role that society has predetermined for him? The freedom of the artist is to be sought precisely in the choice of his work and not in the choice of the role of ‘artist’ which society asks him to play.” In other words, the dilemma of the artist is identical with the dilemma of the monk: each, at one level, rejects society, but has to guard against being defined by this rejection, against continuing to play a fore-ordained part (even though it be a ‘‘negative” part) in the social myth. Or again, reverting to a theme discussed earlier in this essay, the monk or artist must beware of locating all the demons of the age outside himself: the artist, like the monk, has an interior wilderness to discover. The importance of refusing the role of “monk” or “artist” lies in the corollary of this refusal, the affirmation of oneself simply as a person, as a human being:

ultimately, I believe,

it is this which is at the heart of the monastic theology of 79.

Ibid.,

p. 158, my italics.

80.

Ibid.,

pp. 165-175.

81.

Ibid.,

p. 166.

82.

Ibid.,

p. 167, my italics.

83.

Ibid.,

p. 168.

84.

Ibid.,

p. 173.

472

Rowan Williams

both Merton and Evdokimov.

The monk is, quite simply,

man-in-Christ engaging in his work as “artist,” showing the world in its sophianic truth, by first confronting and rejecting the falsehood in society and in himself. We have seen Merton in particular speaking of the artist and the monk in closely similar terms: but finally the distinction must be drawn between the artist (simply qua artist) who, in some measure, is bound to be working “in the dark,” and the monk who lives by the light of Christ. Which is not to say that the monk’s task is thereby made easier or its ends more obvious; only to recall that the monk knows himself to be sharing in a work of restoration whose extent neither his nor any other finite mind can grasp, the avaK£9x^ai“crlS of all things in Christ. “The necessary dialectic between eschatology and incarnation” 85 is a fundamental presuppo¬ sition of all art; for the monk, it is given final and definitive shape in his baptism into the divine-human existence of the Incarnate Word, the Alpha and the Omega. I have written throughout this paper of the monk as “solitary.” I should perhaps say that I do not mean thereby to deny true “monastic” significance to the cenobitic life. Far from it; I have, rather, followed Merton in presupposing that the pio'vaxos, if he takes his calling seriously, will in¬ evitably be, in some degree, a “solitary,” even if he is a member of a community, simply because the refusal of false¬ hood and the search for identity-in-God involve, by their very nature, a measure of solitude, a solitude often experienced as abandonment, dereliction. And it is equally important to bear in mind Merton’s emphasis on the distinction between “person” and “individual” (a distinction very characteristic, S6 J as we have seen, of Eastern thought) and the impossibility of attaining true personhood without existing in communion with others.87 Again, bearing in mind Evdokimov’s remarks 85. 86. 87.

p. 188. See above, n. 43. See, for example, “The Power and Meaning of Love” (Disputed Questions, pp. 97-126); The New Man. pp. 64f., 106, 115; Life and Holiness (New York: Herder and Herder, 1963) p. 112; and cf. the passage on the Contemplation in a World of Action,

Bread in the Wilderness

about

the

“provisional”

character

of

473 monasticism,

its

dependence for its existence upon the imperfection of the present age,88 I must make it clear that I have not intended to suggest that either Merton or Evdokimov believed the monastic institution to have been superseded, simply because the monastic state is seen by them as essentially identical with the calling of all Christians. In this age, the need for radical, concrete witness to the “monastic” ideal by what I have called “physical or geographical separation from society” is as great as ever. However, such a view of monasticism does raise very searching questions for the monastic institution and its attempts at renewal, questions which space (and incompetence) prevents me from entering into here. Perhaps, in conclusion, I may mention a third great theologian of the monastic life, whose name has con¬ stantly been in my mind as I write, because his writings seem in so many ways, to adumbrate the positions I have outlined here; I refer, of course, to Charles de Foucauld. To investigate the correspondence of his thought with that of Merton or Evdokimov, and to assess the extent of any in¬ fluence he may have had upon them would be an undertaking far beyond my capabilities. I mention this in the hope of illu¬ mination from those better qualified, and in the conviction that it is to these “Desert Fathers” of our days that we must look for the most authentic statement of the essentials of monasticism, and so also, the most fruitful source for a theology of monastic renewal.

Rowan Williams Wadham College Oxford

different kinds of “solitude,” permissible and impermissible, in the cenobitic life, in The Waters of Siloe (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949) pp. 276-282. 88.

The Struggle with God, p. 113.

MONASTIC LIFE AND UNITY IN CHRIST

I

N THE PAPER which he had prepared for the meeting held in Calcutta in October, 1968 of representatives of dif¬ ferent religious traditions, but which in fact he did not

deliver, Thomas Merton notes that the contemplative dialogue between men of different faiths “must be reserved for those who have entered with full seriousness into their own monastic tradition and are in authentic contact with the past of their own religious comunity — besides being open to the tradition and to the heritage of experience belonging to other communities.” 1 At the very moment in which he was launching out into a new experience of dialogue, and surely one rich in promise for the future of mankind, that is if man¬ kind is to have a future on this planet, he was insisting on the need that that dialogue should proceed from and lead to, an ever-deepening hold upon and living out of the spiritual tradition which has already been received. In terms of the dialogue of religions he was finding, as many of our contem¬ poraries who have entered into that encounter have found, that it immeasurably increases their hold upon, their sub¬ mission to the mystery of God revealed in Christ, present and active in the Spirit, and not the reverse. In finding what is universal, we do not lose what is particular. Rather it is in 1.

Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal (New York, 1973) p. 316.

474

Monastic Life and Unity in Christ

475

faithfulness to the particular that the true mystery of what is universal is found. In this paper I shall begin then, not from the contemplative element in the dialogue of religions, a theme essential to the subject of “monastic life and unity,” and one to which I hope to come, but from the fact of the existence of religious communities and monastic communities within the Churches of the Anglican Communion. I shall ask who were our own fathers, how is it that we came to birth? From the outset, let us note that the distinction between religious and monastic communities, between active and contemplative, has not been very sharply drawn in practice in Anglicanism during the last hundred and thirty years, and this largely because, as Merton pointed out “there is a special monastic quality in Anglican ideas of the religious life.” 2 This does not mean that specifically contemplative communities do not exist. It does mean that in all the communities the primacy of corporate and personal prayer, the place of the liturgy, in Eucharist and Office, has always been maintained. Let us also at the outset dispose of another and somewhat paradoxical element in the situation, the anomalous character of the person writing this paper, who is seeking to articulate the Anglican understanding and experience of the monastic life, without himself being a member of a religious or monas¬ tic community. This is an anomaly built into our situation. The first spiritual guides and directors of the Anglican com¬ munities for women in the nineteenth century were for the most part married priests, often serving in parishes (e.g. T. T. Carter, W. J. Butler, J. M. Neale). The founder of the first stable community for men, the Society of St John the Evan¬ gelist, and without question the outstanding monastic theo¬ logian of the Church of England in the nineteenth century, R. M. Benson, had as his spiritual father Dr Pusey, himself a married man, and he in turn turned at the moment of great¬ est darkness in his life to John Keble, as to a confessor and father in God. Through Keble, in Newman’s words, “the 2.

Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p. 307.

476

A. M. Allchin

true and primary author” of the Oxford Movement, that new thing which the Spirit began to do in Oxford in the 1830s was itself linked in a chain of spiritual succession to Bishops of the seventeenth century like Lancelot Andrewes, and Thomas Ken, to households like that of the Ferrars at Little Gidding, and William Law at Kingscliffe, men and com¬ munities in whom something of the monastic reality had been present in the Church, without the institution of monasticism itself. This anomalous situation has not ceased to exist, even though with the growth of the monastic institution it becomes less evident. The spiritual father who gave to the Community of the Sisters of the Love of God, at Fairacres, a new birth of life in Christ and the Spirit in the first half of the 1960s, was himself a married priest, Gilbert Shaw, who had labored in the slums of East London during the 1930s, at the same time as entering deeply into the great tradition of Christian prayer and asceticism. These anomalies themselves are not irrelevant to our sub¬ ject. They can show us something of the relationship of coin¬ herence between the different callings within the Church, and something of the way in which the reality of the monastic life overflows the boudaries of the monastic institution. They do not at all suggest, at least to an Anglican, whose Church has known for three hundred years the deprivation of being with¬ out distinct religious communities, that the monastic institution is superfluous. They do suggest that the reality which it incarnates can manifest itself in a variety of ways, and that the discontinuities evident in the history of our Church are not the final word on the subject. They also per¬ haps help to account for the way in which Anglicans and European Protestants experience the existence of such communities as a gift. They know what it is like to be without them. 3 3.

The article of Dom Louis Leloir on St Ephrem which discusses the

"pre-monastic” situation of fourth-century Christianity in Syria, suggests in¬ teresting contemporary parallels to an Anglican.

See Theologie de La Vie

Monastique, Etudes sur La Tradition Patristique (Liguge, 1961) pp. 85-97.

Monastic Life and Unity in Christ

All

It was perhaps because the first religious communities were viewed by the Church of England as a whole with con¬ siderable suspicion and anxiety, that Benson more than once stresses the organic relationship between the community and the Church as a whole. “Nor is our society, a society drawn out of the Church, but drawn together within the Church. And it is not drawn together as supplying something wanting in the communion of Saints, but as the means to arrive at the recognition of that communion. The object of all religious communities is to gather up, and, as it were, focus the love which ought to animate the whole body of the Church Catholic.... There are special gifts of God indeed in the society, but only as it is a society within the Church. The small body is to realize and intensify the gifts, to realize the energies, belonging to the whole Church.’’ 4 In this way the community is to be a center of unity within the Church as a whole. But as soon as we come to speak of “the Church as a whole,” we are faced with another and more fundamental Anglican anomaly. I think that it would not be unfair to say of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church that in both the fundamental awareness of the Church is that of being the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church in which we profess our faith in the creeds. This being so, the recognition of other “Churches” outside the canonical limits of Catholicism or Orthodoxy is always a problem. It is possible but difficult. The Anglican situation is basically different. Our fundamental awareness of the Church is that the Church to which we belong is a part of the whole Church, a part unhappily separated from others. For us the basic problem is when not to recognise another body of Christians which claims to be a Church, as part of the same Church as ourselves. We ask rather why we should not be in communion with others, rather than why we should. The more we become conscious of the reality of the Church, the more we become aware of the fact of schism. From this 4.

R. M. Benson, The Religious Vocation, pp. 80ff.

478

A. M. Allchin

painful awareness prayer for unity follows at once. To put it in this way is to generalize and oversimplify, but I believe it is nonetheless true. When Lancelot Andrewes in his Preces Privatae prays “for the whole Church, Eastern, Western and our own,” he is articulating something fundamental to the Anglican awareness and experience of the Church. It is not for nothing that at every Lambeth Conference since 1867, the question of Christian unity has been one of the first matters to be considered by these assemblies of the Anglican bishops from all parts of the world. Nor that the prayer of our Lord “that they all may be one” is so deeply planted in the heart of the Anglican religious communities. One of the principle ways in which this Anglican con¬ sciousness of unity within disunity has been expressed, has been in “the appeal to the undivided Church,” that is to say to the life and worship, the faith and teaching of the Church before the schism of East and West. A large part of the theological tradition of Anglicanism has been based on the study of the Fathers of the Church, and in particular of the theology of the first five centuries. This fact in itself has tended to give Anglicanism a bias towards a theology which links faith and worship, and which puts the liturgy at the heart of the Church’s life. It is a theology which can very easily take a monastic turn. Charles Gore, founder of the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield, and later Bishop of Oxford writes of Fr Benson. “He was very orthodox, and a great theologian, but he had a dread of abstract or intellectualized, or what one might call scholastic theology. He felt profoundly that Christianity is a life, a life which embodies a doctrine, and that true theology is expressed in life, and he found this kind of spirit...expressed in its classical form, in the great Fathers of the Church. So he was a very thorough and convinced Anglican; that is to say, he quite deliberately and vehemently looked beyond the scholastic and later Roman developments to the primitive standard of faith as the pattern of right-thinking. I must not be misunderstood in saying that he was a very ardent and

Monastic Life and Unity in Christ

479

passionate Anglican, because that did not mean that he felt any obligation of loyalty to the particular arrangements, or settlement as it is called, which was made in the sixteenth century in England. He wrote, ‘There is no reason why we should be loyal to any particular age. Our loyalty is due to truth and to the great principle which the Church of England proclaims, the tradition of the undivided Church.’ ” 5 This is not the place to discuss how far and how seriously men like Gore and Benson misunderstood the great theologians of the Medieval West. Here all we need remark is that both men had known at first hand the abstract and intellectualized theology of post-reformation Protestantism and Catholicism, and both men had an instinctive attraction toward that theology of experience which characterized the Church of the first ten centuries in East and West alike, and which found so fine a flowering in the West in the Cistercian revival. The attempt to see that revival against its Greek patristic background is one which they would have found eminently congenial and worthwhile. In the case of Fr Benson himself this led to a profoundly monastic way of theologizing which won “the special admiration’’ of Merton. Note too, Benson’s statement that our loyalty is not due to any one particular age. The appeal to the tradition of the un¬ divided Church is not an appeal to a static and clearly delimited past. The Holy Spirit has not ceased to act in and inspire the Church throughout the centuries of separations. But it is the recognition of a certain wholeness and balance in the period of the first twelve centuries, which provides a criterion by which later developments may be measured and in some sense judged. It is in this sense, that the title traditionally given to St Bernard, “last of the Fathers,” suggests an important truth. 6 5.

Charles Gore quoted in A. M. Allchin, The Spirit and the Word

(London:

Faith Press, 1963) p. 46.

6. Cf. for instance the attitude implicit in Aelred Squire’s remarkable work Asking the Fathers (London:

SPCK, 1973).

The author makes great use of

authors later than the twelfth century, and yet recognizes a certain wholeness and clarity in the combined witness of East and West in the earlier centuries.

480

A. M. Allchin

Thus it is that at least in the earlier stages of the ecumenical movement of this century, particularly the period from about 1910 to 1950 Anglicans seem to have been called to play a quite disproportionate role in the work of Christian unity, and that among them members of religious com¬ munities though few in numbers had a prominent part. I think particularly of men like Walter Frere and Charles Gore of Mirfield, and Herbert Kelly and Gabriel Hebert of Kelham. It is important to underline the fact that this movement is not something which takes place in indifference to truth, or by slurring over vital distinctions. The movement toward unity, in so far as it is guided by the Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth, may well bring us to positions which we did not see before. But this is the result of a way of dialogue which is prepared to be open to the other, and to recognise that the truth of God is always something greater than our compre¬ hension of it, in this sense an eminently monastic way. Fr Gabriel Hebert after very long experience of work for unity describes this method with a masterly simplicity. “All con¬ troversy between Christians needs to start from the unity which God has made. The right way of controversy starts from the realization that our opponent in the controversy is our brother. I must treat my opponent as my brother in Christ. I must try to understand what are the things which the Lord has taught him and his friends, what is the way by which he has led them. His ways of worship, his ways of thinking, are different from those which I have learned. I must try to get him to tell me. I must not do all the talking. I must try to learn what is the background of his strange views, and the questions to which he thinks that are the answer. Perhaps, if I am patient, he will opportunity to express my views, in answer to his Father Gabriel goes on to speak about the wrong

those views give me the questions.’’ way of con¬

troversy with which we are “all too familiar,’’ and he con¬ cludes, “Yet there is a Ground of Unity deeper than all our differences. It consists in the fact that Christ died on the cross for the salvation of all mankind. The Ground of Unity is in the

Monastic Life and Unity in Christ

481

Son of God. And because the Truth of God is greater than my understanding of it, I must not speak as if I or my people were capable of grasping and expressing the whole truth, and I must endeavor to save my opponent from taking up a similar false position.” 7 How vital in this approach to the living truth of God, per¬ sonal meetings are, we have all ourselves experienced. In the light which comes from encounter in Christ and in the Spirit, old and intractable doctrinal difficulties do not at once disappear, but they are seen in a wholly new perspective. A striking example of this took place in the visit which Fr Dumitru Staniloae made to England in the summer of 1970, particularly during his stay at Fairacres. We become aware that God himself is taking the initiative, and restoring the circulation, too long interrupted, of love and life between the members of the one body. One of the most moving and per¬ ceptive accounts of such meetings at depth is to be found in Dom Andre Louf’s article, Notes on a Pilgrimage,8 which might well act as a text for meditation during our conference. We seem in our day often to lack the grace of spiritual fatherhood. But God gives us in full measure the grace of spiritual friendship and spiritual brotherhood, when those who have been estranged come together in renewed love and understanding. It may well be asked what relevance this excursus into Anglican history and the development of the ecumenical movement has to a meeting of Cistercians and Eastern Orthodox. I hope that it begins to become a little clearer. For the Anglicans to be involved in this meeting is not some¬ thing accidental or peripheral to their Church tradition. Rather in so far as they are true to that tradition, and in particular in so far as they are true to the insights given in and through the recovery of the religious life, they find themselves ines¬ capably involved in any attempt to see more clearly the nature of the great tradition of life in Christ and the Spirit, 7.

A. G. Hebert, Fundamentalism and the Church of God (1957) pp.

14-15. 8. Cistercian Studies 5 (1971) 133-153.

482

A. M. Allchin

any attempt to find how to live that life more truly and pro¬ foundly at the present day. More than one hundred years ago Bishop Westcott, one of the greatest pastors and theo¬ logians of the Church of England in the nineteenth century, preached a notable sermon in which he described how God had raised up great spiritual leaders at different epochs of crisis in the Church’s history, Antony, Benedict, Francis, Ignatius of Loyola. He prayed that God would raise up men of like vision to strengthen the Church to face the impos¬ sibilities of the nineteenth century.9 As it is increasingly seen that the movement towards unity among Christian is not something which concerns doctrine alone, nor practical col¬ laboration alone, but the renewal of the whole of the Church’s life and faith, so it will be increasingly seen that it is the life and work of prayer which stands at the heart of all true searching after unity. The key place of the monasteries and communities within this work will come to be more widely recognised. So far we have spoken only in terms of unity among Christians, and that in itself is a great and arduous theme. But already in the last century men like Westcott were looking far beyond the boundaries of the old Christendom. It is reported that he said that whereas Greece had provided the categories of thought which served the Church to articulate its faith in Christ the Incarnate Word, it would be perhaps the traditions of India which would provide the terms with which to articulate our faith in the life-giving and indwelling Spirit. The dialogue of religions which Westcott saw with a prophetic eye, is now upon us. Events have overtaken us. It is necessary that at this point we should be as lucid as we can, and make certain essential distinctions. The use of the word “ecumenism” to cover both the dialogue between Christians and the dialogue between Christians and men of other faiths, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, seems liable to lead to considerable confusion. We need to recognize that 9. For an account of the sermon see A.M. Allchin, The Silent Rebellion (London: SCM Press, 1958) pp. 219-223.

Monastic Life and Unity in Christ

483

there is a great difference between meetings between those who share a common faith in Jesus as Lord, a common bap¬ tism, a common acceptance of the authority of the Scriptures, a common Trinitarian and Christological faith as formulated in the first Councils of the Church, a common faith in the real activity of God in the Church’s sacraments, and these are things which would unite Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Anglicans and the majority of Protestant Christians, and those who have none of these things in common. In the case of Judaism and Islam of course there is a considerable heritage of Abrahamic faith which we share in common. But this is already to put things on a very different footing. When we come to Hinduism or Buddhism, the relationship is more distant and remote. Yet when this has been said and clearly acknowledged, we must also recognise that there is much in common between these two different kinds of dialogue. Many of the points of ecumenical method which we quoted from Fr Hebert would apply as well to meetings between Christians and Buddhists as to meetings between Catholics and Orthodox. In both cases there is the recognition that God’s activity and presence are not bounded by our human understanding of them, there is the joyous discovery that he is coming to meet us in places and people where we had not expected to find him. It seems to me that the development of the movement toward unity within Christendom has been a providential preparation for a new meeting between Christians and men of other faiths, a meeting which will reveal to us in hitherto unsuspected ways, more of the true dimensions of the mystery of God’s love made manifest in Christ. This will free us Western Christians from our terrible tendency to seek to hold on to God, to control and manipulate him, and will release us again to be able to adore in silence his total otherness, his total nearness. In this meeting, the specifically monastic and contemplative element will be even more necessary than in the dialogue between Christians. This will be so in part, because at least

484

A. M. Allchin

in the case of Buddhism, we are meeting a religion which is still overtly structured around the monastic life in the way in which Christianity was in the Middle Ages. More however, it will be because in the encounter between traditions of life and prayer and discipline whose whole doctrinal articulation is so totally different, the need for silence, humility, readi¬ ness to wait, readiness to recognise the inadequacy of all words to express the Word will be particularly vital. It is here that the particular contribution of the contemplative is indispensable, the one who, while remaining true to the specific tradition which he has received, has yet in and through that tradition grown to be able to embrace all men, and the whole universe in a single love. Such a man “is fully ‘Catholic’ in the best sense of the word. He has a unified vision and experience of the one truth shining out in all its various manifestations, some clearer than others, some more definite and more certain than others. He does not set these partial views up in opposition to each other but unifies them in a dialectic or insight of complementarity. With this view of life he is able to bring perspective, liberty and spontaneity into the lives of others. The finally integrated man is a peace-maker....”10 Or to quote an older Cistercian writer, “When we have celebrated our first Sabbath in the peace of our own hearts, we can goon to consider how this heart of ours must be enlarged, so as to become a great hospice in which to welcome all who have need of our sympathy when they are sorrowful, or who would have us rejoice with them when they are glad.... Each one of us must feel in his soul how charity binds him to each one of his fellow men. There must be no room in our hearts for envy or indignation, for suspicion or moroseness. On the contrary, we must gather all the world to our hearts to share in our peace, and embrace and cherish our fellow men so as to have one heart and one mind with them all.”11Here when the love of God dwells and 10. Thomas Merton, Contemplation in a World of Action (New York: Doubleday, 1971) p. 212. 11. St Aelred of Rievaulx, The Mirror of Charity, trs. G. Webb and A. Walker (1962) p. 85. If Merton's friends knew that what he wrote was true

Monastic Life and Unity in Christ

485

acts in and through the love of man, the true dimensions of the human heart, or, if you prefer, the human person are re¬ vealed. In Christ, through the Spirit, in each one all are present, all are united in a single bond of love.12r At the beginning of this paper the question was raised whether mankind is likely to have any long future to look forward to on this planet. This question is one which has to be faced simply in terms of the human and scientific cal¬ culation of probabilities. Not only do we have the possibility of making the planet very rapidly uninhabitable by the indis¬ criminate use of atomic weapons, we also have to face the prospect that even if we escape the horrors of war and famine, at our present rate of population growth and of technological and industrial development we are liable to use up all the supplies of natural fuels and of the mineral deposits of our planet within a not too distant future. Sir Kingsley Dunham, one of the most eminent of British geo¬ logists, giving the Presidential address at the inaugural meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1973 stressed the need for much more and better information about the environmental situation. But he also underlined the fact that on the most sober estimates at present available, it seems likely that all the earth’s supplies of petroleum would be exhausted within one hundred years, and all its supplies of coal within three hundred. Mankind in our century is faced with the need to find a power and prin¬ ciple of unity among men with an urgency which has never faced us before. We have become so numerous; the planet has become so small. At the same time we are suddenly faced with another and more complex problem: How to of himself from the sense of liberation which his presence brought, we may suppose that pre-eminently what St Aelred wrote was true in his own exper¬ ience as father of so large and heterogeneous a family. 12.

See for a classical Western exposition of this theme, Chapters 5-10 of

The Book of ‘The Lord be with You, ' by St Peter Damian.

For an Eastern

expression, the passage of St Isaac of Syria “What is a charitable heart?...’’ quoted by V. Lossky in The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. Ill, is highly characteristic.

A.M. Allchin

486

change the main thrust of the

development of Western

society as it has shown itself in the last three centuries. Un¬ less Western man can find within himself in hesychia and contemplation, in pingue otium and inner striving, that ful¬ fillment which in the last three hundred years he has sought primarily in the investigation and mastery of the world around him, it looks as though we are headed for an inevitable and irretrievable disaster. At such a moment the rediscovery of the inner resources of man, of the true sources of human unity and integration has become a matter of life and death. We need to draw on the whole richness of the Christian tradition of the inner life, preserved in so large measure in Eastern Orthodoxy, though never dying out within our Western Churches. We need also to be ready to learn all the human wisdom which has accu¬ mulated over the centuries in the religious traditions of the further East, confident that where so many men and women have sought for the eternal in prayer and silence, in discipline and renunciation, there the Word and Spirit of God will have been at work, and that much of the divine economy of man’s salvation is still to be revealed to us. We need to be aware that the subject matter of our meeting here is neither purely academic nor peripheral to the world’s needs. Above all we need to rediscover the priority of God’s being and God’s acts; that despite all the stupidity of man, and through all the stupidity of man, his creative and redeeming energies are at work. “God does not exempt us from difficulty, but in the midst of difficulty he makes inexpressible joy to well up from the depth of the heart—no not from the depth, but through the depth—through the depth of our heart it wells up, but it wells up from God himself....The door is opened between the heart and God from whom it comes and through that open door of the heart we may see the Joy of God who gives us our being.” 13 Canterbury Cathedral 13.

A. M. Allchin

R. M. Benson, Unpublished Retreat Addresses (?1873).

REPORT ON THE ORTHODOX-CISTERCIAN SYMPOSIUM OXFORD, 26 AUGUST—1 SEPTEMBER, 1973

During the last few years, three Symposia have been de¬ voted to studying the Cistercian tradition. This year, some seventy persons from twenty-four countries and five con¬ tinents gathered together at Mansfield College, Oxford, Eng¬ land, for a fourth Symposium which was to study the relation between the Cistercian tradition and that of the Christian East. The assembly included not only monks and nuns but also distinguished clerical and lay scholars belonging to the Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican and Protestant Churches. The atmosphere of the Symposium was very fraternal, and the personal contacts and the meetings either in small groups or in plenary sessions proved very fruitful. Each day the participants shared in the same liturgy, which was Cistercian, Orthodox or Anglican according to the day. This sharing in the same worship was a source of joy and expressed a real unity, although the impossibility of sharing in the same Eucharistic communion was painfully experienced. Thirty-six papers had been written for the Symposium and distributed beforehand to the participants. They dealt with different aspects of the Eastern and the Cistercian traditions, their inter-relations and various other topics closely or remotely connected with them. With these papers as a basis, the first three days were devoted to the study of the Eastern 487

488

Report on Oxford Symposium

and Cistercian traditions and the last two days to the relations between them in the Middle Ages and our own times. Spiritual Kinship

At the close of these few days of fraternal communion, we wish to make an initial evaluation of what has emerged from our experience together. We find, first of all, that there exists between us more similarities than we had previously thought. A deep kinship not only unites the spiritual tradition of the Christian East with that of the Cistercians in the West, but also embraces the Anglican tradition of monastic contemplative life. This kinship expresses itself in a basically common doctrine on the ways of Christian experience. Themes such as the image and likeness of God in man, ascesis disposing the monk for prayer (theoria), purity of heart, deification, prayer in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and transparency of all crea¬ tion to the light of the glorified Christ, are shared by the spiritualities of both East and West. The clear-cut distinction we tend to make between East and West is artificial, and it was mentioned that when the Cistercian authors read the Greek Fathers, they did not consider them as Eastern but simply as Christian. On a more concrete level, the kinship between the monastic tradition of the Orthodox Churches and that of the Cistercians derives from their similar styles of life and the similar values that animate their lived experience. A description of the lived spirituality of present day Cistercians was judged to be equally applicable to hesychastic monks of the Christian East. This similarity is founded on many factors. Direct quo¬ tations from the Greek Fathers are not frequent in the Cis¬ tercian authors of the twelfth century. However, the monastic sources that they used, especially Cassian and the Rule of St Benedict, were rooted in the tradition of the early Eastern monasticism, and the Greek Fathers were widely used by the Latin Fathers that the Cistercians read, especially Ambrose and Augustine. Furthermore, the Eastern flavor that we find among the Cistercians was a characteristic of the

Report On Oxford Symposium

489

whole culture of the twelfth century. Therefore, it is para¬ doxically their openness to their time that made the early Cistercians so open to the influence of the Eastern tradition and made them read the ordinary sources with a new eye. In our own time, as we have experienced during the present Symposium, monks from East or West, Orthodox, Anglican or Catholic, have much to gain from a fraternal en¬ counter in a spirit of seeking and an atmosphere of openness and mutual trust. The Nature of Theology

Many of our exchanges dealt with the distinction between apophatic and cataphatic theology. It was noted that we should perhaps speak of apophatic and cataphatic ways rather than theologies, since any theology must necessarily use the two ways, although insisting more on one or the other. The two ways differ in stressing either the absolute or the relative unknowability of God in Himself. Very few Cistercian authors can be considered as apophatic. However, most of them use to some extent the apophatic way, which was always present in the West although in differing degrees. The study of the nature of theology led us to consider the distinction between monastic and speculative theology. Monastic theology is much closer to lectio divina. However, in his study of the Scriptures and Tradition, the monk has the same duty as anybody else to respect the truth and therefore to use the technical tools provided by contemporary science. Furthermore, just as the Fathers of the Church and the great monastic authors of the first centuries used the language and categories of the philosophies of their time to express and convey their experience and doctrine, so the monks of today should be capable of expressing their faith and experience with the tools provided by contemporary culture. Ecumenical Value

Our common feeling of spiritual kinship has several reper¬ cussions which we consider of special importance at the present time. The very fact of this similarity of spirituality is of great

value

in

the

ecumenical

relations

between our

490

Report on Oxford Symposium

respective Churches. Christian life is the life of the risen Christ, poured out by the Holy Spirit in the human spirit. In him we cry “Abba!” to our common Father. If the Christian ecumenical movement finds obstacles in its path towards full unity, it may well be due to forgetting this spiritual core of our different traditions. Union at the level of prayer and life in Christ provides the only context in which dogmatic and historical differences can be discussed and ultimately resolved. This ecumenical dimension of contacts between Orthodox monasticism and western Cistercians is understood more clearly by considering the historical context of the founding of Citeaux. Until the eleventh century the East and West shared a common heritage of patristic spirituality. The separation which occurred then left intact this common approach to the Christian Mystery. Thus, when Citeaux was founded in 1098 the Cistercian Fathers were able to draw freely upon the same patrimony of spiritual experience as did their Eastern brothers. We have seen that they did this more by similarity of life, inspiration and ideals, than through direct literary dependence. This basic unity in prayer, spirit and life persists, despite the fact that for nine hundred years our monastic movements have been living in Churches grown apart through acute division between their respective theologies and ecclesial dis¬ ciplines. Our meeting therefore carries with it deep meaning for the movement toward full Christian unity. Because of this, we have sent a brief message to the World Council of Churches and the Secretariat for Christian Unity. Mutual Contribution We have asked ourselves what more immediate benefits this meeting can bring to our monastic families. The Cister¬ cians look upon it as an expression of their need for a more vital contact with the spiritual roots of their monastic voca¬ tion. It is not merely a question of evaluating the influences of Eastern tradition on the Cistercian Fathers, but above all of becoming more sensitive, in mind and heart, to an attitude

Report on Oxford Symposium

491

toward God, man and creation which was held in common by both East and West during the first Christian centuries. This patristic spirituality, based on Sacred Scripture and the Liturgy and orientated to prayer, has been well preserved in Orthodox monasticism. We have analysed several of its fundamental themes. Present day Cistercians can find in it an approach to the Christian Mystery which unites mind and heart in an integral openness to the Holy Spirit, so that the whole man may be at peace in Christ and may savor those things that are not seen. This contemplative heritage of un¬ divided Christendom seems especially important for Cister¬ cians during the present time of unrest, seeking and renewal in Western society. More particularly, however, Orthodox monasticism chal¬ lenges the Western monastic Orders to examine more atten¬ tively their position toward secularizing tendencies in modern society. A sense of the transcendence of God, expressed in the radical demands of Jesus to his disciples, is at the heart of the monastic calling. Adaptations to the contemporary world must not compromise this central element. Connected with this is a certain integration of doctrine and life in which the radical nature of Christ’s call to the desert requires a more total docility of the intellect to the Spirit’s action in the depths of the heart. For the Orthodox monk, all human activity must be in direct continuity with our faith. He invites his Western brother to examine his personal balance between action and contemplation. The importance given in the East to spiritual Fatherhood is a matter to which the West pays more and more attention. The Orthodox members of the Symposium, for their own part, also considered their encounter with Cistercian monas¬ ticism to be really fruitful. They appreciated the fraternal mode of relationship within the monastic community, which has developed in the West, and which is complementary to spiritual Fatherhood. They noted also the great respect for the individual person, which they considered one of the char¬ acteristics of the Western monasticism. Then, the fact that

492

Report on Oxford Symposium

the Cistercian monasticism has been able to integrate many elements of the evolution of the whole Western society and remain authentically alive is of great importance for the East in our time. Some other features of Western monasticism which could help foster an environment of recollection and prayer were mentioned, especially a spirit of organization and exactness in the fulfilment of one’s daily activity. This fidelity is not an expression of legalism but a sign of respect toward God and man. The use of the tools of intellectual formation and scholarship is another of those features, and it was observed that the contemporary patristic and monastic revival within Orthodoxy owes much to critical editions and translations of the early Church Fathers made in the West. The desire was expressed for a publication in Eastern translations of the most important works of the Western traditions. On a different level, dialogue between Orthodox and Cistercian monasticism can help both to appreciate better the riches of their own spiritual tradition. The fact is that hesychastic spirituality will not be the same in East and West, and it is psychologically very difficult to change one’s own interior frame of reference after a certain time spent in a par¬ ticular religious tradition. In love, prayer and fraternal acceptance, avoiding spiritual fads, Eastern and Western monks should strive together for repentance and for openness to the activity of the Spirit in their respective traditions which have so much in common. In this way, the Spirit of Truth will lead them until they meet together at the wedding feast of the Lamb. Future Orientation

In a sense, our few days of dialogue and prayer have been too rich and varied. This has no doubt been inevitable, given the lack of previous meetings of this type. But the progress made during these seven days has been great. Love of our monastic brothers has

penetrated

much

deeper

into our

hearts, and knowledge of our spiritual kinship has been born or has grown. Gratitude to God the Father and to our Lord

Report on Oxford Symposium

493

Jesus Christ springs up from our hearts for this grace, which carries with it a serious responsibility. For the future, we are aware that personal contacts and occasional visits among houses of our different traditions are irreplaceable as a means of growth in unity. More than many meetings, a shared experience of our respective spiritual traditions would seem to be the best way to carry on the work of the Spirit who has been and who remains in our midst.

MESSAGE TO THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES AND THE SECRETARIAT FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY

1. The meeting of the Orthodox-Cistercian Symposium took place in Oxford from August 26—September 1st, 1973, spon¬ sored by members of a number of Cistercian Communities, and by the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius. It was an occasion which brought together monks and nuns, Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican, and a number of scholars, clerical and lay, of different Christian traditions. The members were drawn from all the continents and many nationalities. The meeting was in continuation of the series of Symposia held in North America to study the origins and present development of the Cistercian tradition. At the end of the Symposium the following statement was approved. 2. During our days of living and praying together, we have become aware, with great joy, of the deep unity which exists between us as members of monastic communities coming from different Church traditions. We have also come to see more clearly the significance which the monastic life has for the Church and the world far beyond the boundaries of the monastic institution. In this the contribution of the non-mon¬ astic members has been of vital importance. Serious dif¬ ferences between our Churches remain, but they have not prevented God the Holy Spirit from opening our hearts and minds to one another in new understanding and love. 494

Message to the World Council of Churches

495

3. The monastic life in itself is a great sign of the unity of the Christian people in despite of all their divisions. Monks of East and West recognize in one another a common life and a common experience. All appeal to a common history ex¬ tending through the first thousand years of the Church’s life. The study of Cistercian life and spirituality from its origins to this day, reveals the continuing similarities between the two traditions. The importance of this fact for relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church should be clearly evident. It is also significant in relation to Anglicanism and the Protestant world. Here communities of men and women devoted to a common life of prayer and service have come to birth within the last hundred and forty years. These communities are aware of a strong affinity with the monastic tradition of Orthodoxy and Catholicism. 4.

We believe that the significance of these facts for the

whole movement towards Christian unity has not been suf¬ ficiently recognised, and we recommend that meetings such as this one should be more widely encouraged. Our ex¬ perience here has helped us to realise the deep unities in the tradition of prayer and devotion which have persisted through times of acute division and conflict. Unity at the level of prayer and life in Christ provides, we believe, the context in which today dogmatic and historical differences can be profitably discussed and by God’s grace resolved. Growth towards unity in spirituality is important also in relation to the present search for the experience of God which is found within the Churches and outside them, and in relation to the growing dialogue between the Christian faith and the other religious traditions of mankind. 5. Among the many ways of serving God which have existed in the Church during the centuries, the monastic life has played a central part in sustaining and fostering the living knowledge and experience of God, who reveals himself to us in Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Spirit is present and active in the Church. This life is a particular way of living out the commitment made by all Christians in their

496

Message to the World Council of Churches

baptism. In our time mankind is faced with new and unpre¬ cedented dangers and opportunities, among them those caused by technological advance. At such a moment the wit¬ ness of a life of total self-offering to God, and of reverence for men and all created things, can be of vital significance in the recovery of persona! and social sanity and balance. The inward journey in which man grows in love and knowledge in response to the Spirit and the Word of God, leads us in Christ even now through death and resurrection to fullness of life. 6. Monks and nuns share with their fellow Christians an awareness of their constant need for repentance, for forgive¬ ness and for openness to the activity of the Holy Spirit. They believe that their communities stand for the truth that here in this world, God can be known, loved and adored, and that in Him alone man can find fulfilment. In the Spirit, we are enabled to enter through Christ, into the kingdom of the Father.

497

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

General Chairman

Father M. Basil Pennington ocso, STL, JCL, Saint Joseph’s Abbey, Spencer MA 01562 USA Organizing Committee

Canon A. M. Allchin, B Cathedral, England

Litt.,

MA

(Oxon)

Canterbury

Sister Benedicta Ward slg, BA, Convent of the Incarnation, Fairacres, Oxford England Archimandrite Kallistos Ware, BA, MA, D Phil. (Oxon), Saint John’s Monastery, Patmos Chairpersons

Professor Bernard Hamilton, D Phil., Nottingham University, England Professor Elizabeth Kennan, PhD, Director of the Byzantine and Medieval Program, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA Conclusions Committee

Hieromonk Symeon Bruschweiler, B Th, B LL, Monastery of Saint John the Baptist, Tolleshunt Knights, Malden, Essex, England Dom Augustine Roberts ocso, STL, Superior, Monasterio de Nuestra Senora de los Angelos, Casilla 34, Azul (BA) Argentina Sister Anne Saword ocso, BA, Editor, Cistercian Studies, Abbaye Notre Dame de la Paix, B-6460, Chimay, Belgium Reverend Martin Lee Smith, MA (Oxon.), Society of Saint John the Evangelist, Cowley, Oxford, England Abbot Armand Veilleux ocso, STD, Abbaye de Notre Dame de Mistassini, P. Q., Canada

Participants

498

Orthodox

Doctor John

D.

Anderson,

PhD,

Washington

University,

Washington, DC, USA Archimandrite Barnabas, BA, Editor, Orthodox Observer, Mynachdy Sant Elias, Tylwch, Llankdloes, Monts., Great Britain Doctor Sergius Bolshakoff, Abbaye Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, 59 —Godewaersvelde, France Doctor Nadejda Gorodetsky, Professor-Emeritus,

Oxford

University, England Father Lucian Grafton, Tredegar Square, London, England Captain Patrick Hodson, BA (Oxon.), 42 King George V Cottages, Minley Road, Farnborough, Hants. England Mrs Mary Hodson, King George V Cottages, Farnborough, Hants, England Brother Anthony Koumantos, B. Theol., Holy Monastery of Simonopetra, Mount Athos, Greece Doctor Carlos Leret, Bristol, England Professor John Lindsay Opie, PhD, University of Milan, Italy Bishop Antonie Plamadeala, STD, DDLT, Assistant to the Patriarch, Bucharest, Romania Hieromonk Seraphim (de Scouratov), D Phil., D Theol., St Symeon’s House, Oswaldkirk, York, England Metropolitan Emilianos Timaides, Ecumenical Patriarchate Liaison Office, The World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland Doctor Nicolas Zernov, MA, D Phil., DD (Oxon.), ProfessorEmeritus, Oxford University, Saints Gregory Macrina Orthodox Center, Oxford, England

and

Cistercians

Brother Romuald Baker ocso. Saint Joseph’s Abbey, Spencer MA 01562 USA Abbot John Eudes

Bamberger

ocso,

BS,

MD,

Secretary

General of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, Our Lady of the Genesee Abbey, Piffard NY 14553 USA

Participants

499

Sister M. Bede ocso, Prioress, Holy Cross Abbey, Stapehill, Wimborne, Dorset BH21 2EA England Father Laurence Bourget ocso. Spencer MA 01562 USA

Saint

Joseph’s

Abbey,

Father Michael Casey, ocso, MA STL, Tarrawarra Abbey, Yarra Glen 3775 Australia Father Hilary Costello ocso, Mount Saint Bernard Abbey, Coalville, Leicester, England Brother James Deadman ocso, B Elon. Sc., B Comm., H. Dip. Ed., STL, Our Lady of Victory Abbey, Lumbwa, Kenya, East Africa Sister Cecilia Drabbe, ocso, Abdij Koningsoord, BerkelEnchot, N. Br., The Netherlands Abbot Aengus Dunphy ocso, Our Lady of Bethelem Abbey, Portglenone, County Antrim, North Ireland Father Martin Garry ocso, STL, Bolton Abbey, Moone, County Kildare, Ireland Sister M. John ocso, Holy Cross Abbey, Stapehill, Wimborne, Dorset, England Father Bede Lackner o cist, PhD, University of Texas in Arlington, USA Father Gabriel Mauger ocso, STL, Abbaye de Notre Dame du Lac, Oka PQ Canada Father Hugh McCaffery ocso, Mount Melleray Abbey, Cappoquin, Ireland Father Edmund Mikkers ocso, STL, Editor, Citeaux, Sint Benedictus Abdij, Achel B-3581 Belgium Brother Hugh Montague o cist, Saint Mary’s Monastery, New Ringgold PA USA Father John Morson ocso, PhD, DD, Mount Saint Bernard’s Abbey, Coalville, Leicester, England Father Gregory Norman o cist, STL, Saint Mary’s Monastery, New Ringgold, PA 17960 USA Father Joseph O’Dea ocso, STL, L Eccles. His., Prior, Sancta Maria Abbey, Nunraw, Haddington, Scotland Sister Leonie Otten ocso, Abbey of Our Lady of Praise, Butende, Masaka, Uganda, East Africa

500

Participants

Brother Hugh Randolph ocso, MA (Oxon.), Sancta Maria Abbey, Nunraw, Haddington, Scotland Brother Francis Smyth ocso, B Sc., Mount Saint Joseph’s Abbey, Roscrea, Ireland Abbot Ambrose Southey ocso, JCL, Abbot General, Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, Monte Cistello, Via Laurentina 289, 00142 Rome, Italy Sister Marcella Troosters ocso, Abdij O. L. Vr. van Nazareth, 2160 Brecht, Belgium Father Chrysogonus Waddell ocso, STL, Gethsemani Abbey, Trappist KY 40073 USA Father Laurence Walsh ocso, Prior, Mount Saint Joseph’s Abbey, Roscrea, Ireland Father Aelred Williams ocso, PhL, Caldey Abbey, off Tenby, Pembs. Wales Others

Sister Anna slg, MA (Oxon.), Hope House, 269 Alliance Avenue, Belfast 14 North Ireland Sister Lucia M. Antonissen osb, Prioress, Priory Close, London, England Sister Brigitta csmv, Springfield Saint Mary’s, Oxford, England Father Aldhelm Cameron-Brown osb, MA, Prinknash Abbey, Gloucester, England Martha E. Driscoll, BSFS, MFA, 66 Harlow Street, Arlington MA 02174 USA Sister Eileen Mary slg. Convent of the Incarnation, Fairacres, Oxford, England Doctor E. Rozanne Elder, PhD, Editorial Director, Cistercian Publications; Director, Institute for Cistercian Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo MI 49008 USA Rand Zachary Engel, AB, Rowe Avenue, Rockport MA USA George Every, BA, 7 Lenton Avenue, Nottingham, England Father Edward J. Farrell, STL, MA, Sacred Heart Seminary, Detroit MI USA Garth Lowther Fowder, Merton College, Oxford, England

501

Participants

Sister Elizabeth Funder osb, BA, Benedictine Monastery, Pennant Hills, N.S.W. Australia Professor Ferruccio Gastaldelli, PhD, Salesianum, Rome, Italy Brother Nicholas Gendle op, MA (Oxon.), Blackfriars, Oxford, England Sister Teresa Gillin osb, Benedictine Monastery, Hills N.S.W. Australia

Pennant

Reverend Clementina Mary Gordon, BD, Minister in Charge, Saint Mary’s Close, Witney, North Oxford, England Nicholas Groves, BA, MA, University of Chicago, IL USA Sister Hallel, BA, HECIF, Respnsable, Bethleem, Rowe de Poligny 77140 Nemours, France Mary Hansbury, BA, MA, 208 E. Evergreen Avenue, Philadelphia PA 19118 USA Brother Ignatius Hauken op, Blackfriars, Oxford, England Mrs Elizabeth Healey, BA, 132 Teignmouth Road, Birming¬ ham 29 England Brother Anthony Ipsaro sm, PhD, University of Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA Margaret King, MA, The Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo MI 49008 USA Marguerite Andree Kuhn-Rgnier, BA, (Oxon.), Saint Anne’s College, Oxford, England Brother Placid Lawson osb, Nashdom

Abbey

Burnham,

Bucks, England Dom Jean Leclercq osb, STD, D Litt., FBA, Clervaux Abbey, Luxembourg Sister Margaret Clare ohp, BA, Saint Hilda’s Priory, Whitby, Yorkshire, England Professor Bernard McGinn, STD, University of Chicago, IL USA Professor John O. Meany, PhD, University of Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA Brother Aidan Nicholls op, Blackfriars, Oxford, England Brother Philip Noble ssje, Cowley, Oxford, England Professor Joseph T. Pace, PhD, Saint Peter’s College, Jersey City NJ USA

502

Participants

Sister Paschal osb, Regina Pacis Priory, Priory Close, London, England Doctor J. D. Robison, PhD, Mount Saviour Monastery, Pine City NY USA The Rev’d Ernest Gordon Rupp, FBA, DD, Hon. DD, Hon. D Theol., Principal, Wesley House, Cambridge University, England Father John Saward,

BA,

B

Litt.,

MA

(Oxon.),

Lincoln

College, Oxford, England tProfessor Patrick Sheldon-Williams, D Phil. (Oxon.), Oxford University, England The Rev’d Doctor Ernst Sublies, PhD, Saint Michael’s College The University of Toronto, Canada G.L.J. Smerillo, BA (Oxon.), Pembroke

College,

Oxford,

England Professor John R. Sommerfeldt, AB, AM, PhD, Executive Director, Institute of Cistercian Studies, Director, The Institute of Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008 USA Dom Alfred Spencer osb, Prior, Pluscarden Priory, Elgin, Moray, Scotland Father Alfred Squire op, MA (Oxon.), Katolsk Sokneprestembete, Lillehammar, Norway Sister Sylvia Mary esmv, Saint Mary’s Convent, Wantage, Oxford, England Professor Thomas Michael Tomasic, AB, MA, PhD, Chair¬ man, Ohio Conference of Medieval Studies, John Carroll University, Cleveland OH 44118 USA Reverend Father Gerald C. Triffitt ssje, BA, Superior General, Society of Saint John the Evangelist, Cowley, Oxford, England Professor John M. Trout, AB, AM, PhD, Hanover College, IN USA Doctor Eugene de Varallji, MA (Oxon.), Oxford University, England Bishop Peter Walker, DD, Christ Church, Oxford, England Abbot Wilfrid Weston osb, Nashdom Abbey, Burnham, Bucks, England

Participants

503

Father Barry Whelan, BA, MDiv., The Cottage, 1810 Sixth Avenue, Rock Island, IL 61201 USA Father David H. Williams, BA, MA, The Vicarage, Six Bells, Abertillery, N. Mons., Gwent, Great Britain Dame Hilda Wood osb, Saint Mary’s Close, Witney, North Oxford, England

504 LIST OF PAPERS

A.M. Allchin, “Monastic Life and Unity in Christ,” above, p. 474 John D. Anderson, “The Use of Greek Sources by William of St Thierry, especially in the Enigma Fidei," above, p. 242 John Eudes Bamberger ocso, “Thomas Christian East,” above, p. 440 Sergius

Merton

and the

Bolshakoff, “Cistercian Monasteries Seen by Orthodox Observer,” in a forthcoming book

Symeon Bruschweiler, Silouan,”

an

“The Spiritual Teaching of Staretz

above, p. 143

Hilary Costello ocso, “Hesychasm in the English Cistercians of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” above, p. 332 E. Rozanne Elder, “William of Saint Thierry and the Greek Fathers: Evidence from Christology,” above, p. 254 George Every, “Pseudo-Dionysius,”

above, p. 81

Ferruccio Gastaldelli, “Proposed Inventory for the Fathers in the Library of Clairvaux,”

Greek

above, p. 401 Nicholas Gendle op, "Gloria Dei vivens homo:

vita hominis

A Study of the Mystical Theology of St. Irenaeus of Lyons,” The Thomist Visio Dei.

Nadejda Gorodetsky, “Saint Tikhon Zadonsky,” above, p. 120 Nicholas Groves, “A Study of the Theme of Purity of Heart in Hugh of Pontigny and the Fathers of the Undivided Church,” above, p. 304 Bernard Hamilton, “The Cistercian in the Crusade States,” above, p. 405

Papers

505

Bede Lackner o cist, “Early Citeaux and the East,” above, p. 373-400 Jean Leclercq osb “Monasticism and One World” Hugh McCaffery ocso, “Apophatic Denis and the Abbot of Stella” Bernard McGinn, “Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cister¬ cians,” above, p. 200. John O. Meany and Anthony Ipsaro sm, “Depth Psychology and the Experience of Hesychast Prayer,” in a forthcoming book Edmund Mikkers ocso, “Image and Likeness: of John of Ford,” above, p. 352.

The Doctrine

John Morson ocso, “Chalcedon, Nijmegen and Igny:

Phases

in the Development of Christology” M. Basil Pennington ocso, “Three Stages of Spiritual Growth According to St Bernard,” Studia Monastica 11 (1969) 315-326 E.G. Rupp, “A Devotion of Rapture in English Puritanism” John Saward, “The Fool for Christ’s Sake in Monasticism, East and West,” above, p. 48. Anne Saword ocso, “Man as the Image of God in the Works of William of St Thierry,” above, p. 267. I.P. Sheldon-Williams, “Eriugena and Citeaux” Aelred

Squire

op,

“The

Cistercians

and

the

Eastern

Fathers,” above, p. 168. Ernest Sublies, “The Man of God Then and Now” Sylvia Mary esmv, “Symeon the New Theologian and the Way of Tears,” above, p. 95.

Papers

506

Thomas Michael Tomasic, “William of Saint-Thierry and Saint Gregory of Nyssa: An Expedition of Structures” Emilianos

Timiadis, Death,”

“Monks

and Their Consideration

of

Diakonia, 9 (1974) 328-342

John Trout, “Alan the Missionary”

Citeaux

Chrysogonus Waddell ocso, “The Eastern Monastic Fathers and the Reform of Ranee,” above, p. 423. Benedicta Ward slg, “The Desert Myth,” above, p. 183. Kallistos

Ware,

“Silence

Hesychia,”

in

Prayer:

The

Meaning

of

above, p. 22.

David H. Williams, “Cistercian Settlement in the Lebanon,” Citeaux 25 (1974) 61-74 Rowan Williams, “Bread in the Wilderness: The Monastic Ideal of Thomas Merton and Paul Evdokimov,” above, p. 452.

507

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ADHL

Archives

d'histoire

moyen-age

AP

doctrinale

et

litteraire

du

(Paris, 1926/27-)

Apophthegmata

PG

patrum.

65.

ET

by

Benedicta Ward slg (Oxford: Mowbrays - Kala¬ mazoo; Cistercian Publications [CS 59] 1975) ASOC

Analecta

Sacri

Cisterciensia

Canivez

Ordinis

Cisterciensis;

Analecta

(Rome, 1945-)

J. M. Canivez. Statuta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis

Cisterciensis

ab

anno

1116

ad annum

1786, 6 vols., Bibliotheque de la Revue d’histoire ecclesiastique, (Louvain, 1933-)

CF

Cistercian Fathers Series (Spencer MA, Washing¬ ton DC, Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian Publications, 1970-)

Coll.

Collectanea o.c.r.; Collectanea cisterciensia (Rome

1934-)

cs

Cistercian Studies Series (Spencer MA, Washing¬ ton DC, Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian Publications, 1969-)

CSEL

Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Temsky, 1882-)

DS

Dictionnaire de Spiritualite (Paris:

Beauchesne,

1937Ep(p).

Letter(s).

NEB

New English Bible

OB

Sancti Bemardi opera,

ed. J. Leclercq, C. H. Talbot, H. M. Rochais (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1957-)

OC

L. Janauschek, Originum Cisterciensium, vol. 1 (Vienna, 1877-)

Abbreviations

508 PG

Patrologiae

cursus

completus,

series

Graeca

(Paris, 1857-1866) PL

Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina (Paris

1844-1864) RB

Regula monachorum sancti Benedicti; Rule of St Benedict

ROL

Revue de l'Orient Latin

RTAM

Recherches de theologie ancienne et medievale

(Louvain, 1929-) SC

Sources chretiennes (Paris: Cerf. 1943-)

ABBREVIATIONS FOR THE WORKS OF ST BERNARD Asspt

Sermones in Assumptione B.M.V.; OB 5:228-261

Csi

De consideratione libri V; OB 3:379-493

SC

Sermones super Cantica canticorum; OB 1-2 ABBREVIATIONS FOR THE WORKS OF WILLIAM OF ST THIERRY

Aenig

Aenigma fidei; PL 180:397-446; CF 9

Brev cant

Brevis commentatio in Cantica Canticorum

Cant

Expositio super Cantica Canticorum; PL 180:473546; SC 82; CF 6

Ep frat

Epistola ad fratres de Monte Dei; Pain de Citeaux 35-36; CF 12

Exp Rm

Expositio in epistolam Pauli ad Romanos; 180:547-694

PL

Med

Meditativae orationis; PL 180:205-248; CF 3

Nat am

De natura et dignitate amoris; PL 184:379-408

Nat corp

De natura corporis et animae; PL 180:695-726; CF 24

Scriptural abbreviations and citations conform to The Jerusa lem Bible. Vulgate variations appear in brackets.

509 CISTERCIAN FATHERS SERIES The Cistercian Fathers series makes the works of twelfthcentury Cistercian spiritual writers available in modern English translation. Based on the most recently established critical texts, the translations are accompanied by intro¬ ductions, notes and indices prepared by qualified scholars. Bernard of Clain’aux

CF 1

Treatises I (Apology to Abbot William, On Precept and Dispensation]

CF 4

Sermons on the Song of Songs I

CF 7

Sermons on the Song of Songs II

CF 13

Treatises II

(On the Steps of Humility, On Loving

God]

CF 19

Treatises III (In Praise of the New Knighthood, On Grace and Free Will] Aelred of Rievaulx

CF 2

Treatises I

(On Jesus at Twelve Years Old, Rule

for Recluses, Pastoral Prayer]

CF 5

Spiritual Friendship William of Saint Thierry

CF 3

Meditations, Prayer, On Contemplating God

CF 6

On the Song of Songs

CF 9

The Enigma of Faith

CF 12

The Golden Epistle Guerric of Igny

CF 8

Liturgical Sermons I

CF 32

Liturgical Sermons II

Date Due

BX 3401 .077 1973

Orthodox-Cistercian Sympo One yet two : monastic traditi

0

63 0076175

TRENT UNIVERSITY

BX3401 .