CHAPTER 70
The Rule, Chapter 70 129 all with a blood relationship, gang up in defense of a relative or unite to form their own agenda for the monastery. St. Benedict wants to prevent this from happening. He had good foresight because consanguinity has always been prevalent in Benedictine communities. This does not mean that monks or nuns who are related must disregard their familial ties. It simply means they must avoid any kind of exclusive relationships that are detrimental to their communities.
Chapter 69 of the Rule says something to all of us about avoiding exclusive relationships. Aren't there times when we are inclined to shun other people in the club to which we belong, at the place where we work, or even in our own family?
Do we ever want to discriminate because of sex or religion or race? Do we identify only with our own intimate circle of friends? St. Benedict says that anyone who departs from his teaching in chapter 69 should "be sharply restrained." Here is another instance in the Rule where he speaks in a firm manner. He means what he says.
CHAPTER 70
The Presumption of Striking Another Monk at Will It is unlikely that an abbot in modern times would ever give permission for one monk to strike another. In chapter 70 of the Rule, however, St. Benedict says, "We decree that no one has the authority to excommunicate or strike any of his brothers unless he has been given this power by the abbot." In St.
Benedict's day a permission of this kind could be delegated by the abbot. There may be occasions nowadays when a monk might wish that this custom had never fallen out of use. Oh, if only I could knock some sense into Brother So and So!
130 The Rule, Chapter 70 In the Rule we find several instances where St. Benedict prescribes the use of physical punishment. All of this was written in an age that was much different from our own. The Rule of the Master has this to say in regard to monks who have been excommunicated from community observance: "If the excommunicated brothers show themselves so arrogant that they persist in the pride of their heart and refuse to make satisfaction to the abbot by the ninth hour of the third day, they are to be confined and whipped with rods to the point of death/'1
Now that does seem excessive, doesn't it? St. Benedict does not go that far. The Master may have used "to the point of death" as a figure of speech. But Shenoute, a fifth-century
Egyptian abbot, admitted that one of his monks had died as the result of a severe beating. This was the kind of punishment Shenoute recommended that an abbess use on her delinquent nuns— ten to forty blows on the soles of their feet.
The Irish monks could be beaten for even the slightest infractions. All of the old monastic legislators subjected their monks to corporal punishment for reasons they judged necessary. St. Benedict employs corporal punishment too, but he is moderate in this as he is in everything else.
St. Benedict expects all of his monks to use "moderation and common sense" in dealing with the boys in the monastery. And certainly he expects the same from his monks in their relationship with one another. Shenoute used neither moderation nor common sense in handling a monk of his who was but a young boy. The youngster grew homesick and decided that the next time his father came to visit him, he would ask to go home with him. When Shenoute learned of this, he asked the young monk:
"Is it true that if your father comes, you will go back with him into the world? The boy laughed, and our father said to him: 'Truly, I will send you to your true father." And when he had said this, he sent him away. The young boy