Chapter 34
Institutes vii, 19). Judas. Ananias and Saphira became deterrent examples for monks who were slow to carry out their promises of "renunciation" (Cassian
Ibid., 23-25). Abbot Macarius was considered the perfect example of com plete self-divestment. On one occasion as he was returning to his cell, he found there a man in the act of plundering his humble abode. Instead of objecting, he worked along with the robber and helped him to load his mule. Then he dismissed the thief, saying: "We brought nothing with us into the world, and we can take nothing with us out of it. The Lord gave it; as he wanted it, so it was done. Praised be the Lord!"
The basic thought, therefore, beneath monastic poverty is not abject penury but complete freedom to serve God—in a word, an unreserved obla tion of oneself to the Lord.
THIRTY-FOURTH CHAPTER
Whether all should receive Necessaries in like Measure As it was written: "Distribution was made to everyone as he had need" (Acts iv, 35). By this we do not mean to imply that there should be respect of persons—which heaven forbid—but that consideration should be had for their weaknesses. He that has need of less should thank God and not be grieved; he that has need of more should humble himself for his frailty and not be conceited on account of the indulgence that has been granted him; and then all the members will be at peace.1
Above all, let not the vice of murmuring manifest itself under any pretext whatever or by any word or insinuation. If anyone be detected doing this, let him be subjected to more severe chastisement.2
1 St. Benedict's monastery is no depersonalized commune, no soulless collective, in which everything is done mechanically, in a pre-patterned schema, but a living organism, where each member has his own characteristic importance. It is the task of its head, the abbot, to fit every member into the organism and to promote his welfare for the good of the whole. Nor in the aliottment of necessary things, does there prevail any mathematically uniform distribution, but a discreet regard for personal needs and temperaments. Here once more the first Church of Jerusalem served St. Benedict as a pattern. At the very bottom of it all rests the virtue of charity, which prevents the whole body from becoming ossified. "Char ity is the yardstick for food, speech, clothing, and deportment. The members have joined themselves together for the sake of the one love, and they all breathe the air of the same charity. To violate charity is felt to be an injury to God himself.
If there is anything that stands in the way of charity, it is immediately set upon and cast out. Without charity all is vain; but with it all is perfect" (St. Augustine,
Sitten der katholischen Kirche I, xxxiii). Cf. also HR. chap, liii, Excursus II.
2 The Holy Rule mentions "murmuring" quite often (cf. chap, iv, 39; v, xxiii, xxxv, xl, xli, & liii). The monk can really have no strictly just grounds for com-