Chapter 28
For the abbot is bound to exercise the greatest care and pro ceed with ali sagacity and diligent effort, lest any of the sheep placed in his charge be lost.1 Let him realize that he has taken upon himself a (loving) solicitude for sick souls and not a tyran ny2 over healthy ones; and let him fear that threat of the pro phet through whom the Lord spoke: "what you saw to be fat you took for yourselves, and what you saw to be lean you cast away" (cf. Ezech. xxxiv, 3). Let him also imitate the fatherlybenevolent example of the good shepherd, who, leaving the nine ty and nine sheep behind him in the hills, went in search of the single sheep that had strayed; and so great was his compassion for its weakness that he deigned to carry it back to the flock on his own shoulders.
TWENTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER
Those who, often corrected, do not amend If a brother has been frequently corrected for any transgres sion whatsoever, indeed, if he has even been excommuni cated and does not do better, let a much sterner correction be fall him, that is: let one proceed against him with corporal punishment.
But if, even then, he does not change for the better, or should he perhaps—which heaven forbid—inflated with pride, want to defend his conduct, let the abbot proceed like a wise physician; if he has applied poultices and the salves of admonishment, if he has tried the medicine of Holy Scripture, and, last of all, the ' If in the first of this chapter the abbot is spoken of as a physician, he is now called a shepherd. The word sagacitas, which we render here with the likely
English equivalent, "sagacity" (German — Scharfsinn), really signifies the "keen scent of the beagle." The abbot does not wait until the delinquent comes to him but literally pursues him in order to bring him back.
2 With this word the early Christians characterized that lawless, selfglorifying, in considerate, and self-centered spirit of dominance that spurned all good advice and would be answerable to no one. Tyranny is the very embodiment of bad government. St. Benedict wanted to remove from the picture of his abbot every feature and vestige that could remind one of a despot. Over against this concept of a tyrant, he set up the wondrous picture of the Good Shepherd, which early
Christendom (especially since Origen) surrounded with extraordinary love and reverence.
brand iron of excommunication or the stripes of the rod, and if even then he sees that his zeal has been of no avail, let him also have recourse to what is stronger still, namely, his own prayers and those of all the brethren, so that the Lord who can do all things may bring about the cure of the sick brother.*
If, however, he will not let himself he healed even in this way, then at last, let the abbot apply the surgeon's knife, as the Apostle said: "Put away the evil one from amongst you" (cf. 1
Cor. v, 13); and again: "If the unbeliever goes, let him go (1 Cor. vii, 15); so that one scabby sheep may not infect the whole flock.
Excursus.
Christ, the Physician.-—Consistently, early Christendom revered and loved Christ also as the Physician. The Gospels picture the Lord as the Healer of both bodies and souls. No disease of either body or soul could be too loath some for him to display his interest and his sympathy. Origen, above all others, manifested a special love for him in that capacity (cf. e.g., his Homily on Osee viii, 6). The Apostolic Constitutions (of c. 380), apparently addressed and sent to each bishop personally, said: "Likewise, you should heal all sin ners as a sympathetic physician, in that you bring to bear upon them healing drugs that are calculated to cure them. Shrink not from surgery or from the use of desiccating powders; make use of bandages, administer mild and cura- . tive medicines, and be lavish with words of comfort as well as with easing compresses. If, however, the wound or sore is deep or open, then nurse it along with plasters, so that it may fill out and heal over again like a healthy surface. But if it should suppurate, cleanse it with antiseptic powder, that is, with a reprimand; should it have become swollen with proud flesh, reduce it again with strong salves, that is, with threats of the judgment; or if it eats it self away, cauterize it with the iron and cut away the purulent ulcer, namely, by the imposition of fasts. Have you done all this and found that from head to foot there is no surface upon which an easing application can be laid, whether
* (A remarkable example of faith in the power of prayer, and of the same time of its limitations in the face of human obduracy, is related in the life of Abbot, later
Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, founder of St. Vincent Archabbey and president for life of the American Cassinese Congregation. When he was informed that the noted German theologian, Dr. Johann Joseph Ignaz von Dollinger, who had re fused to abide by the Vatican Council's decree on papal infallibility and had been excommunicated (1871), was on his deathbed, he solicited the prayers of all his monks and lay-Brothers, in the hope that the man would be reconciled to the Church before he died. Dr. Dollinger (f 1890), for whom the Archabbot had a great regard, had been his teacher at the University of Munich. But in this case as in many others, all the prayers seem to have been of no avail. He apparently died unrepentant. God simply will not interfere with the freedom of the human will nor use force to make it comply. The translator)