Description
Book SynopsisWestern Monastic Spirituality presents three authors as individuals, certainly, but also as textual informants who, like road markers, represent a line of the development of a Western monastic spiritual tradition. John Cassian (ca. 360–435) helped bring the wisdom of northern Egyptian ascetical life of the late fourth century to southern France in the early fifth century. Caesarius of Arles (468/470–542), drawing on his own monastic experience and Augustine’s monastic rule, composed a rule for a women’s monastery in the city of Arles. Not many years later, Benedict wrote the most influential rule in Western monasticism, one that still regulates the lives of monks today all over the world. These three texts, when looked at serially and together, offer a theology of monastic spirituality, an example of a relatively short but comprehensive early monastic rule, and a present day Benedictine interpretation of how Benedict’s monastic spirituality can be summed up in a short present day digest of his rule. Reflection on early Western monasticism retrieves some basic Christian spiritual values that should inform life today outside the monastery in a busy, secular culture.
Table of ContentsI – Introduction to Western Monasticism | 1
II – The Texts | 21
John Cassian: Conference 1.
First Conference on Abba Moses | 23
Caesarius of Arles: The Rule for Nuns | 47
Saint Benedict: Selected Chapters from The Rule of Saint Benedict | 91
III – Retrieving Values from Monastic Spirituality for Active Life in Secular Society Today | 107
Further Reading | 125
About the Series | 127
About the Editors | 133
