Chapter 68
Brethren who must undertake a journey should recommend themselves to the prayers of the abbot and of all their con freres.1 All the absent brethren should always be remembered in the closing prayers of the Work of God.
On the same day after their return, let these brethren pro strate themselves on the floor of the oratory at all the canonical hours and ask for the prayers of all, on account of the faults they may perhaps have committed on the way, through the sight or sound of evil or by (listening to) frivolous conversation.
And let no one presume to recount anything at all of what he has heard or seen outside the cloister, because this is exceeding ly harmful.2 Should anyone attempt to do this, let him be sub jected to the discipline of the Rule. Let him be dealt with in like manner who undertakes to step outside the boundaries of the monastic enclosure, to go anywhere, or do anything however in significant without the abbot's permission.
SIXTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER
// a Brother is ordered to do impossible Things Should a brother perchance be enjoined to do something dif ficult or impossible, let him, to begin with, accept the command with all meekness and obedience. If, however, he sees that the magnitude of the task is altogether beyond the limits of his strength, let him patiently and respectfully lay before his super ior the grounds for his inability, but not with arrogance or back
1 There still prevails in many monasteries today the beautiful custom of never leaving the monastic precincts without the abbot's (or another superior's) blessing.
That weighty reasons may at time make it necessary to leave the enclosure of the cloister was never seriously questioned by the early cenobites. The monks of St.
Isidor (cf. comments 1 & 3 on the previous two pages) were not constrained "to remain inside their cloister walls by any special regulation or order but by the happy and perfect life they lived there." (cf. Dialogues 11, xii, xxii, & xxiv). In keeping with an old monastic custom, a cenobite never traveled alone, but presum ably with a campanion (cf. Pachomius, Rule 56; and the Holy Rule chap. i).
2 A maxim ascribed to the desert father of monks, Poimen, read: "If you have heard or seen all sorts of things, do not relate or describe them to your brother, for these things stir up mischief just as war does." Pachomius, too, strictly forbade telling at home what one had seen or heard abroad, either while at work or on shipboard (Rule 56, 84, & 86). St. Basil demanded that his monks give a detailed report of their travels to their superior upon their return (Longer Rule 44).
talk or obstinacy. However, should the superior's order and de cision still remain after the brother has made his explanation, let the latter realize that it is more expedient for him so and obey out of love, relying on the help of God.
Excursus.
Impossible Charges.—This 68th chapter deals with orders and tasks that seem impossible or next to impossible to the ordinary monk, though they may not be looked upon in that light by the abbot or superior. St. Benedict's concept of the abbot as a man who possesses the virtue of discretion and his caution to him that he "may not crush the bruised reed" (cf. chap, lxiv) precludes the thought of presuming that such a one would knowingly command the impos sible. This chapter is not discussing "cases of conscience," which are quite conceivable under modern conditions and circumstances, but which St. Bene dict did not have in mind here. Otherwise he could not have said in the last sentence that the monk should nevertheless obey under these conditions.
Pachomius on one occasion arrived at orfe of his monasteries for a visita tion. There he heard that some of the youngsters—these were actually monks
(cf. Holy Rule Chap, lix)—had been secretly climbing into a tall and heavily laden fig tree that stood in the cloister garden and pilfering the figs. The patriarch thought that there might be a source of abuse in this and ordered the gardener, Jonas, to cut down the tree. This Jonas was an unusually "per fect ascetic, who loved God above everything." He had planted all the trees there, in order that the brethren, as well as the guests and residents of the neighborhood, might be amply supplied with fruit. When "the brother heard the order (and the reason for it), he was very much grieved and said to Pach omius: 'This will not happen, Father, for we have reaped from this tree an im mense amount of fruit.' And when Pachomius, who knew of this brother's wonderful virtues and edifying life, saw him so sadly downcast, he did not want to press him further and grieve him beyond bearing" (Second Life xliv).
That is undoubtedly the factual truth of the story, and casts a bright light up on the monk as well as upon the patriarch himself, bringing out the charming consideration of Pachomius and the candor of the gardener, in as much as he did not hesitate to lay before his superior an aspect of the matter that had not been thought of. The demon of gluttony that Pachomius is supposed to have seen sitting in the tree, the withering of the tree itself, and the remorse of the gardener for his disbodience were without question an interpolation on the part of a subsequent narrator. There were, of course, incurable romantics at the time, who could no longer conceive of an abbot open to suggestion or of a perfect monk who could raise objections to the orders of a superior. The Holy Rule itself provides that a monk may and should converse openly with his abbot.
St. Benedict was without doubt aeqainted with the heroic examples of obedience recounted by Cassian in his Institutes (iv, 23-29). At the command of his superior, the monk Johannes irrigated a dried up stump of a tree, in