Part 74 (1/2)

Abbot: Will you promise obedience according to the Rule of St. Benedict?

Answer: I will.

Abbot: May G.o.d give you his aid.

Then the novice, or some one at his request, reads the aforesaid profession, and when it has been read he places it upon his head, and then upon the altar. After this, when he has prostrated himself on his knees in four directions in the form of a cross, he says the verse: Receive me, O Lord, etc. And then the _Gloria Patri_, the _Kyrie Eleison_, the _Pater Noster_ and the Litany are said, the novice remaining prostrate on the ground before the altar, until the end of the ma.s.s. And the brothers ought to be in the choir kneeling while the Litany is said. When the Litany has been said, then shall follow very devoutly the special prayers as commanded by the Fathers, and immediately after the communion and before the prayer is said, the garments of the novice, which have been folded and placed before the altar, shall be blessed with their proper prayers; and they shall be anointed and sprinkled with holy water by the abbot. After _Ite, missa est_(277) the novice rises from the ground, and having put off his old garments which were not blessed he puts on those which have been blessed, while the abbot recites: _Exuat te Dominus_, etc.

And when the kiss has been given by the abbot, all the brothers in turn give him the kiss of peace, and he shall keep silence for three days continuously after this, going about with his head covered and receiving the communion every day.

(_b_) From Theodore of Canterbury, _ibid._, 827.

In the ordination of monks the abbot ought to say ma.s.s, and say three prayers over the head of the novice; and for seven days he veils his head with his cowl, and on the seventh day the abbot takes the veil off.

(_c_) The Vow. From another form, _ibid._

I promise concerning my stability and conversion of life and obedience according to the Rule of St. Benedict before G.o.d and His saints.

105. Foundation of Medival Culture and Schools

Schools never wholly disappeared from Western society, either during the barbarian invasion or in the even more troublous times that followed.

Secular schools continued throughout the fifth century. During the sixth century they gave way for the most part to schools fostered by the Church, or were thoroughly transformed by ecclesiastical influences. In the fifth and sixth centuries, the great compends were made that served as text-books for centuries. Boethius, Ca.s.siodorus, Isidore of Seville, and Bede represent great steps in the preparation for the medival schools.

But, apart from the survival of old schools, there was a real demand for the establishment of new schools. The new monasticism needed them. It required some reading and study every day by the monks. As children were constantly being received, ordinarily at the age of seven, these _oblati_ needed instruction. The monastic schools, which thus arose, early made provision for the instruction of those not destined for the monastic life in the external schools of the monasteries. Then again, the need of clergy with some literary training, however simple, was felt, especially as the secular schools declined or were found not convenient, and conciliar action was taken in various countries to provide for such education. In the conversion of the English, schools seem very early to have been established, and the encouragement given these schools by the learned Theodore of Tarsus, archbishop of Canterbury, bore splendid fruit, not merely in the great school of Canterbury but still more in the monastic schools of the North, at Jarrow and Wearmouth and at York. It was from the schools in the North that the culture of the Frankish kingdom under Charles the Great largely came. There was always a marked difference of opinion as to the value of secular literature in education, as is shown by the att.i.tude already taken by Gregory the Great in his letter to Desiderius of Vienne, a letter which did much to discourage the literary study of the cla.s.sics.

(_a_) Augustine, _De Doctrina Christiana_, II, 40 ( 60). (MSL, 34:63).

The Christians use of heathen writers.

The whole book should be examined carefully to see the working out of the same idea in detail. St. Augustine was a man of literary culture, although he was imperfectly acquainted with Greek. He speaks from his own experience of the help he had derived from this culture. The work _On Christian Doctrine_ is, in fact, not at all a treatise on theology but on pedagogy, and was of immense influence in the Middle Ages.

If those who are called philosophers and especially the Platonists have said anything true and in harmony with the faith, we ought not only not to shrink from it, but rather to appropriate it for our own use, taking it from them as from unlawful possessors. For as the Egyptians had not only the idols and heavy burdens, which the people of Israel hated and fled from, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver and clothing which the same people on going out of Egypt secretly appropriated to themselves as for a better use, not on their own authority but on the command of G.o.d, for the Egyptians in their ignorance lent those things which they themselves were not using well [Ex. 3:22; 12:35]; in the same way all branches of heathen learning have not only false and superst.i.tious fancies and heavy burdens of unnecessary toil which each of us, in going out under the leaders.h.i.+p of Christ from the fellows.h.i.+p of the heathen, ought to hate and avoid; but they contain also liberal instruction which it is well to adapt to the use of truth and some most useful precepts of morality; and some truths in regard even to the wors.h.i.+p of the one G.o.d are found among them. Now these are, so to speak, their gold and silver, which they themselves did not create, but dug, as it were, out of certain mines of G.o.ds providence, which are everywhere scattered abroad, and are perversely and unlawfully misused to the wors.h.i.+p of devils. These, therefore, the Christian, when he separates himself in spirit from the miserable fellows.h.i.+p of these men, ought to take away from them for their proper use in preaching the Gospel. Their clothing also, that is, human inst.i.tutions, adapted to that intercourse with men which is indispensable for this life, it is right to take and to have so as to be turned to Christian use.

(_b_) John Ca.s.sian. _Inst.i.tutiones_, V, 33, 34. (MSL, 49:249.)

Ca.s.sian, born 360, was one of the leaders of the monastic movement. He founded monasteries near Ma.r.s.eilles, and did much to spread the monastic movement in Gaul and Spain. His _Inst.i.tutiones_ and _Collationes_ were of influence, even after his monasteries had been entirely supplanted by the Benedictines.

The opinion here given is probably that prevalent in the monasteries in Egypt. It is utterly different from the spirit of Basil, and the great theologians of Asia Minor who, in the matter of secular studies, hold the same opinion as the older Alexandrian school of Clement and Origen.

Ch. 33. We also saw the abbot Theodore, a man endowed with the utmost holiness and with perfect knowledge not only of things of the practical life but also of the meaning of the Scriptures, which he had acquired, not so much by study and reading, or secular scholars.h.i.+p, as by purity of heart alone; since he was able only with difficulty to understand or speak even but a few words in the Greek language. This man, when he was seeking an explanation of some most difficult question, continued indefatigably seven days and nights in prayer until, by a revelation of the Lord, he knew the answer to the question propounded.