The I.B.Tauris History of Monasticism

The Western Tradition

G.R. Evans

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781848853768
• eBook ISBN: 9780857739889
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: European History

From the earliest centuries of the church, asceticism and the contemplative life have been profoundly important aspects of western Christianity. And in assessing the glories of western civilization, perhaps the best place to start is within medieval monastic institutions, not outside of them. For while monasteries withdrew from the main currents of their societies, until the rise of universities in the 12th century they provided fertile soil and sanctuary to the liberal arts and sciences as well as those who wanted to spend their lives focused upon God. They became the driving cultural forces of Europe, nurturing education, music, manuscript illumination, art and history, agriculture, animal husbandry - all in addition to spiritual guidance. In this first general history of monasticism since 1900, Andrea Dickens explores the cloistered communities and individuals who have aspired to the ascetic ideal in their religious life, assessing the impact they have made on the wider church and its practices.
She discusses some of the best known names in Christian history - including Cuthbert, Columba, Hilda of Whitby, Peter Abelard and Thomas Merton - and traces the monastic impulse from its beginnings in the Egyptian desert through the Rule of St Benedict, Cluny's foundation in 910, the austerity of the Cistercians, the legacy of women's houses, the critique of Luther and Calvin, Trappists and Catholic reform, up to the present-day ecumencial Taize community. Offering a lively and informed overview of western monasticism, the book will be essential reading for students of history and religion as well as the lay reader.

Notes

Introduction

1 For more on these, see here.

2 Bernhard Eckerstorfer, OSB, ‘The Future of Monastic Formation: Reflections from an Austrian Monk’, The American Benedictine Review, 64 (September 2013): 282–305, http://www.communityofthegospel.org/images/The_Future_of_Monastic_Formation.pdf.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Vita Consecrata, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_25031996_vita-consecrata_en.html.

8 Anselm, Proslogion, l, S 1, 97.

9 William of Saint Thierry, The Golden Epistle: A Letter to the Brethren at Mont Dieu 1.120–4, trans. Theodore Berkeley, The Works of William of St Thierry, Cistercian Fathers, 12 (Massachusetts, 1971), 51–2.

10 Thomas Merton on St Bernard, ed. Patrick Hart, Cistercian Publications, 8 (Kalamazoo, 1980), 39.

11 http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_25031996_vita-consecrata_en.html.

12 See here–here.

13 Fulgentius, Vita, Selected Works, trans. Robert B. Eno (Washington, 1997), 8.

14 Ibid., 9.

15 Bede, EH, 122–5.

16 Libri sub oculis dixi et, quia tempus paulo vacantius repperi, posteriora tractando dictavi, cumque mihi spatia largiora suppeterent, Moralia, 3.

17 Modo per contemplationis ascensum, modo per moralitatis instrumentum volui, Moralia, 3.

18 Qui certamina spiritalis pugnae sustinuit, etiam consummatae suae victoriae gesta narravit, Gregory, Moralia, Preface (I. 3), 9.

19 Vita Consecrata, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_25031996_vita-consecrata_en.html (last accessed 5 August 2015).

I. How it all began

1 Gregory of Nyssa (c.335–c.95), writing on Perfection, is one of the early Christian Fathers to to discuss the practice of the imitation of Christ: Life of Macrina, Ascetical Works, trans. Virginia Woods Callahan, Fathers of the Church (Washington, 1966), 93ff.

2 Gabriele Winkler, ‘The origins and idiosyncrasies of the earliest form of asceticism’, The Continuing Quest for God, ed. William Skudlarek (Collegeville, MN, 1982), 9–43, 16–21 for examples.

3 D. Burton-Christie made the practical attempt to search for Biblical references in the ‘sayings’ of the desert fathers, in an endeavour to show that at least some of them are likely to have had access to or knowledge of the necessary texts of the Scriptures: D. Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (Oxford, 1993), 34.

4 Ibid., 43.

5 See here.

6 Winkler, ‘The origins and idiosyncrasies of the earliest form of asceticism’, 11–12.

7 Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert, 45–7.

8 New Revised Standard Version.

9 See here–here.

10 Origen, Contra Celsum, ed. and trans. Henry Chadwick (Cambridge, 1953).

11 Porphyry, Against the Christians: Literary Remains, ed. Joseph Hoffman (Amherst, NY, 1994).

12 Sebastian Guly, ‘The distinction between propatheiai and First Voluntary Movements in Origen’s De Principiis III’, Studia Patristica, 50 (2011): 177–88.

13 Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition (Oxford, 1981), 104.

14 Ibid.

15 http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.mb.txt.

16 P. R. L. Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity, Carl Newell Jackson lectures (Harvard Press, 1978).

17 Corpus Hermeticum, ed. A. D. Nock (Paris, 1960–72), 4 vols.

18 Aristotle, Metaphysics, V, 1013a.

19 On these controversies, see Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Traditi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• I. How it all began
• II. Monks go West
• III. The first Western Rules for monks and nuns
• IV. Coda: Western monasticism takes stock
• V. A new age of monastic experiment
• VI. Reformation and dissolution
• VII. Enlightenment and suppression
• VIII. Nineteenth-century experiments
• IX. Modern Western monasticism
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Plates