Chapter 41
FORTY-FIRST CHAPTER
The Hours at which the Brethren should dine From the sacred Feast of Easter until Pentecost, the brethren should dine at the sixth hour and sup in the evening.1 During the entire summer, from Pentecost on, however, unless the brethren must labor in the fields2 or the heat of the summer is too oppressive, let the brethren fast until the ninth hour on Wednesdays and Fridays.3 On the other days of the week, let them dine at the sixth hour. (On such days) if there is labor in the fields or the summer heat is extreme, this sixth hour shall be adhered to, but that should be left to the discretion of the abbot.
Let him also regulate and arrange all things that souls will be saved and that whatever the brethren work at they may perform without any actual grounds for murmuring.4
However, from the 14th day of September until Lent, let them always dine at the ninth hour. But during Lent until Easter they shall dine in the evening.
The hour for vespers should be so regulated that the diners will not need the light of a lamp, but that everything may be finished while it is still daylight. At all times, however, whether it is a question of an evening meal (when there are two meals in the day) or a question of a repast (when there is only one meal), let the hour be so moderated that all things can take place while the daylight lasts. 5
' During the joyful Easter period, there should be no fasting. This custom already prevailed in the cloister of St. Pachomius (Rule, Prologue 5).
2 According to the famous desert father, Poimcn, agriculture and farm manage ment was no work for monks. St. Basil tolerated it only so long as it did not in terfere or interrupt the monastic order (Longer Rules 50). The hermit father,
Hor, planted groves of trees where there had previously been but a heath (Rufinus,
Historia Monachorum Hi). The monks of St. Serapion hired themselves out dur ing harvest time, both for their own support and for that of the poor. Even as far as the Holy Rule was then concerned, manual labor in the fields was excep tional. Manual labor of that kind, particularly in the later centuries, was perform ed by serfs or peasant bondservants.
3 These two days were early Christian days of penance, and as such originated in the primitive Church (cf. Zwoljapostellehre viii, I). St. Pachomius prescribed them as fast days for his monks (loc. tit.). In his Historia Monachorum. Rufinus gives them a mystical significance, since he traces them back to the betrayal of Judas and the death of the Lord (chap. viii).