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Course 20 · Lesson 7.1

What a rule of life is, and what the word rule meant for Benedict

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 20 outline

Module 1: Spiritual Formation and the Doctrines Behind Prayer

  1. What spiritual formation means in Scripture and tradition
  2. How the Trinity, the Incarnation and grace shape Christian prayer
  3. A map of the prayer traditions: Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant
  4. Ways and stages of growth: purgation, illumination and union, and their critics

Module 2: The Desert and Early Monasticism

  1. Anthony, Athanasius and the beginning of the desert movement
  2. The sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers: how to read them
  3. John Cassian and the eight thoughts that trouble the mind
  4. From the hermit to the community: Pachomius, Basil and Benedict

Module 3: Praying with Scripture and with the Church

  1. Lectio divina: its history and the four movements
  2. The Psalms as the prayer of the church
  3. The Divine Office and the Liturgy of the Hours: hours, texts and structure
  4. Using the daily office alone, and the Protestant daily prayer tradition

Module 4: Hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer

  1. Stillness and the prayer of the heart in the early Eastern church
  2. The Jesus Prayer: its words, its sources and its history
  3. Gregory Palamas and the fourteenth century controversy over light and energies
  4. Practice and cautions: the role of a guide and the warnings of the tradition

Module 5: Fasting, Discernment and Spiritual Direction

  1. Fasting in Scripture and in the three traditions
  2. Asceticism: its purpose, its dangers and its abuses
  3. The discernment of spirits from Antony and Cassian to Ignatius of Loyola
  4. Spiritual direction: the elder, the confessor, the pastor and the mentor

Module 6: Contemplation and Action

  1. Mary and Martha: how the church has read the two lives
  2. Prayer that issues in service: Benedict, Brother Lawrence and the Reformers on vocation
  3. When practice goes wrong: pride, quietism and spiritual experience without doctrine

Module 7: Building a Rule of Life

  1. What a rule of life is, and what the word rule meant for Benedict
  2. Choosing practices: Scripture, prayer, fasting, rest and service
  3. Dryness, failure and starting again
  4. Reviewing and adjusting a rule over time

All courses

Program / Course 20: Spiritual Theology / Lesson 7.1

What you will learn

  • Explain the origin of the word rule and what Benedict meant by it.
  • Describe a rule of life as a pattern of practices that shapes a life toward a purpose.
  • Compare Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant ways of using rules, including the objection that rules compete with grace.
  • State the theological reasons for having a rule and the purposes it should serve.

The big idea

A rule of life is a pattern of practices, fixed in advance and kept over time, that helps a person live toward a purpose. The word comes from the Latin regula, which Benedict used for his guide to the monastic life. For Benedict, a rule is not a legal code but a school: a framework of prayer, work and community in which a person can learn to seek God. The traditions differ on how far rules should bind and who should make them. They agree that a person who has no pattern is at the mercy of mood and circumstance, and that a rule is only a means.

Key terms

Regula
Latin for rule, from a word for a straight rod or ruler. It names a guide or measure that keeps something straight.
Rule of life
A pattern of regular practices, such as prayer, reading, rest, service and fellowship, adopted to shape a life toward God.
Kanon (prayer rule)
In Orthodox use, the set of prayers that a person agrees to say daily, usually fixed with a confessor.
Third order
In Catholic tradition, an association of lay people who follow a rule linked to a religious order, such as the Franciscans or Dominicans, while living in the world.
Legalism
Treating rules as a way of earning God’s favor or as ends in themselves. Protestants often name it as the danger of rules.
Conversion of manners
A phrase in Benedict’s Rule, from the Latin conversatio morum, often read as a lifelong commitment to a changing way of life.

Background

The idea of a rule is older than Benedict. Pachomius, Basil and Augustine all wrote guides for communities, and the desert elders gave their disciples counsel on how to order their days. Benedict, writing in the sixth century, drew on these and on an anonymous work called the Rule of the Master, and produced a Rule that was lasting because it was moderate and clear. By the Middle Ages most Western monasteries followed it. Its influence has reached lay Christians through oblates and through its use as a source of wisdom for families and congregations.

In modern use, a rule of life is any plan of regular practices that a person adopts in order to live out their faith. Many Christians use it without the name. A person who prays each morning and attends church each week has a rule of a kind. This lesson looks at the meaning of the word in Benedict and the reasons the tradition gives for having a rule. Course 25 deals with the practical building of a rule, and this lesson does not repeat it.

The topic raises a question that Protestants in particular press. Does a rule risk replacing trust in Christ with trust in one’s own performance? The traditions answer differently, and the answers are given below.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Benedict’s meaning of rule

Benedict begins his Prologue with the words listen, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend with the ear of your heart. He says that he intends to establish a school of the Lord’s service, and hopes to set down nothing harsh or burdensome. At the end he calls the Rule a little rule for beginners (chapter 73) and points beyond it to Scripture, the Fathers and Cassian.

The word suggests measure and guidance. A rule keeps a life straight, as a ruler keeps a line straight. It is also a stable structure within which growth can take place, like a trellis for a vine. Benedict expects the abbot to adapt details to persons, and the Rule itself says that it may be adjusted with discretion.

Step 2: Why have a rule at all

The traditions give several reasons. First, habits shape character. Aristotle observed this in ethics, and Aquinas took up the idea in his account of virtue: what a person does regularly forms who they become. Second, a rule relieves the burden of choice and mood. A person who prays at a set hour does not have to decide each day whether to pray. Third, a rule gives a measure by which to notice drift. Fourth, a rule can be shared, so that others can encourage and correct.

These reasons agree with Jesus’ own habits: he went to the synagogue on the sabbath as was his custom (Luke 4:16) and withdrew regularly to pray (Luke 5:16).

Step 3: Rules in the three traditions

In Catholic tradition, rules belong to religious orders, and lay people may adopt a rule through a third order or as an oblate. Francis de Sales taught lay people to order their devotions in the Introduction to the Devout Life. In Orthodox tradition, a layperson usually has a prayer rule set with a confessor, and monks follow the rule of their monastery. Protestants have used rules in various ways. Wesley’s General Rules for the Methodist societies required avoiding harm, doing good and attending the ordinary means of grace. Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying, from the seventeenth century, gave Anglicans a plan of rules for each day.

In many Protestant churches the word rule is rarely used, yet members practice something similar: daily Scripture reading, weekly worship, tithing and service.

Step 4: The objection from grace

Protestant teaching on justification by faith raises a real concern. Paul writes to the Galatians that those who rely on works of the law are under a curse, and that Christ has set believers free (Galatians 3 and 5). If a rule is treated as a way to earn God’s acceptance, it contradicts the gospel. Luther’s complaint against monastic vows was of this kind.

Defenders reply that a rule can be held as a response to grace and not as a ladder. Catholic and Orthodox writers insist that the rule serves love and is itself sustained by grace. Many Protestants agree that spiritual disciplines are valuable provided they are held without self-righteousness. The test is whether the rule leads a person to depend on God or on themselves.

Step 5: What a rule is for

Taken together, the traditions suggest that a rule has a purpose beyond itself: to seek God, to love neighbor, to grow in holiness. A rule is also held under discretion. Benedict insists on moderation and on reading the Rule with attention to persons. A rule that becomes an idol, or that crushes the person, has lost its purpose. The wise course is to adopt a modest rule, test it, hold it loosely and review it with a counselor.

  1. What practices already make up the rule of my life, whether or not I call it that?
  2. How do I react to the idea of fixed commitments in prayer?
  3. What do I fear a rule would do to me?
  4. How can I hold a rule as a response to grace and not a way of earning it?
  5. What purpose would I want a rule to serve?
  6. Who could help me keep and review a rule?

Examples

A trellis

A gardener who plants a vine without a trellis finds it sprawling on the ground. The trellis does not make the vine grow, but it gives the growth a direction. Benedictine writers often use this image for a rule. (An illustration, not a quotation.)

Wesley’s three rules

Wesley’s General Rules for the societies asked members to do no harm, to do good and to attend the ordinary means of grace, such as prayer, Scripture, the Lord’s Supper and fasting. The rules were few and public, and members were reviewed regularly. (A summary of the rules.)

A rule held too tightly

A woman adopts a long morning rule and feels guilty and anxious on the days she misses it, treating the failure as a sign of unfaithfulness. Her pastor suggests shortening it and reading Galatians 5:1. The rule is meant to serve freedom. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic teaching values rules of life, from the great monastic rules to the guidance for lay people in third orders and in the writings of Francis de Sales. The Church holds that a rule supports freedom and charity, and that it should be adapted to a person’s state of life and counsel.

Orthodox

Orthodox Christians typically receive a prayer rule from a priest or spiritual father, scaled to their strength. Orthodox writers caution against taking on more than one can keep, and treat the rule as a means of attention and obedience, not as an end.

Protestant

Protestants affirm the value of regular disciplines and warn against using them to earn favor. Reformed, Lutheran, Methodist and evangelical churches each have forms of regular practice, though few use the term rule. Some Protestants have recently adopted the term in a lighter sense, as a plan for formation.

Scholarly view

Historians of monasticism note that Benedict’s Rule borrowed heavily from earlier texts and became standard through the efforts of later reformers, such as Benedict of Aniane under Charlemagne’s son Louis the Pious. Social scientists note the effect of regular routines on habit and wellbeing, while religious traditions interpret them differently.

Why it matters

Most people who try to pray regularly fail within weeks, and often decide that they lack discipline or faith. Understanding what a rule is, and what it is for, can change the picture: a rule is a modest structure for growth, held with discretion and in dependence on grace. This lesson prepares the practical work of the remaining lessons.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: A rule of life is only for monks.

Correction: Lay people have long used rules, in third orders, in Orthodox prayer rules and in Protestant societies like Wesley’s.

Misunderstanding: A rule is a legal code that earns God’s favor.

Correction: Benedict calls his rule a school and a little rule for beginners. All three traditions teach that grace comes first and that a rule serves love.

Misunderstanding: A good rule is strict and demanding.

Correction: Benedict, Orthodox elders and Protestant pastors all advise moderation. A rule that cannot be kept is not good.

Misunderstanding: Missing the rule means failure.

Correction: The tradition expects lapses and teaches starting again. The next lessons look at dryness and failure.

Knowledge check

What does regula mean and how did Benedict use it?

It is Latin for a rule, from a word for a straight rod or measure. Benedict used it for a guide to the monastic life that he called a school of the Lord’s service and a little rule for beginners. He meant a framework for growth under discretion, not a harsh code.

Give two reasons the tradition gives for having a rule.

Habits shape character, so regular practice forms a person. A rule also relieves the burden of daily choice and mood, gives a measure for noticing drift and can be shared with others who encourage and correct. Jesus’ own regular habits are cited in support.

What is the Protestant concern about rules, and how is it answered?

That rules may become a way of earning God’s favor, which Paul opposes in Galatians. Defenders answer that a rule can be held as a response to grace, in dependence on God, and that it serves love and freedom. The test is whether it leads to trust in God.

How do Orthodox Christians typically use a prayer rule?

A layperson receives a prayer rule from a priest or spiritual father, scaled to their strength, and keeps it daily. Orthodox teachers warn against taking on more than one can keep, and treat the rule as a means of attention and obedience.

Think it through

  1. What would it mean to see a rule as a trellis and not a cage?
  2. Which of Benedict’s reasons for a rule appeals to you, and which makes you uneasy?
  3. How might Paul’s teaching in Galatians shape how you hold a rule?

Independent assignment

Reading the Prologue

In your notebook, write 350 to 500 words. Read the Prologue and chapter 73 of the Rule of Benedict. Note the images Benedict uses for the rule and what he hopes it will do. Then write a paragraph stating, in your own words, what a rule is for, and another on how you would guard against using one to earn favor. Do not share this with anyone.

Further study