Martyrs, Monks, and Mystics
Dr. Brandon Beck
Lay Chaplain, COHI
Monk, The OOOW
Church of reconciliation, san antonio, TX
Theology Student, Brite Divinity School
Christine Valters Paintner, in The Artist’s Rule, a book-guide using The Rule of Benedict and artistic/creative prompts to “nurture your creative soul with monastic wisdom,” describes the Benedictine vow to stability using a quote from Edward C. Sellner’s Finding the Monk Within: “Stability is perceived as an antidote to the restlessness of mind and heart in which a person searches for new experiences, new relationships, and new geographical locations to escape difficulties or to solve problems by avoiding them.” Paintner says that Sellner breaks this stability into three types: “stability of place, stability of community, and stability of heart. (page 71)
I am currently enrolled in a course on the history of spirituality aptly named “Martyrs, Monks, and Mystics.” We’ve read primary texts by and about Perpetua and Felicity, Bernard of Clairvaux, Antony, Guigo, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Mechtild, and Meister Eckhart thus far.
In Chapter One of his Rule, St. Benedict identifies four types of monastics in his time - cenobites, anchorites, sarabites, and gyrovagues:
It is well known that there are four kinds of monastics. The first kind is cenobites, that is, those in monasteries who live under a rule and a superior.
The second kind is anchorites or hermits, that is, those who, no longer in the first fervor of their conversion, but tested by long monastic practice and the help of many others, have already learned to fight against the devil…
The third kind is the sarabites, the most detestable monastics, who have been tested by no rule under the hand of a master, “as gold is tried in the fire,” (cf. Prov 27:21) but have a nature soft as lead. Still keeping faith with the world by their works, they lie to God by their tonsure. Living in twos and threes or even singly, without a shepherd, they are enclosed not in God’s sheepfold but in their own…
The fourth kind is called gyrovagues, who spend their whole lives drifting from one region to another, staying as guests for three or four days at a time in different monasteries. (Sutera’s translation, pages 25-6)
In her commentary, Sr. Sutera shares that Benedict repeats his classifications from Cassian and the Master. She, like Benedict, finds sarabites and gyrovagues to be lacking in the stability and wisdom and spiritual fortitude of cenobites. Sutera comments that “cenobite” is derived from koinonia - Greek for community. (26-7)
I wonder, how would Benedict (and Cassian, the Master, and Sutera) classify these spiritual classics I’ve been studying? They’ve all exhibited stability in their love of Christ and their commitment to live and even die for their beliefs. They’ve all exhibited stability to the community of believers to which they belonged. They’ve all exhibited stability to the place where they lived. Some, like Bernard and Guigo, lived in communities under superiors and rules. Some like Perpetua and Felicity were part of the world; perhaps they were not monks at all. Certainly history has classified them as martyrs and not monks. The definition of sarabite fits them quite well, although I would never consider them as “soft” or as ones who “lie to God.”
Today, a type of monasticism called “21st Century monasticism" or “new monasticism” has gained attention in scholarship. The name and concept is derived from a comment theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer made in 1935: “The restoration of the church will surely come only from a new type of monasticism which has nothing in common with the old but a complete lack of compromise in a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ.” (Bonhoeffer, a letter to his brother Karl-Friedrick 14 Jan 1935) In essence, Bonhoeffer called us all to be sarabites, possibly even gyrovague-sarabites. But in a way vastly different from the way Benedict perceived sarabites and gyrovagues to be. For Bonhoeffer, new monasticism must be very stable - in place, community, and most especially heart.
As members of Community of Hope, International, we are “new monastics” called to “live[] in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount in the discipleship of Christ” when you really look at our mission to “serve others through compassionate listening.”
Listen to the words of the Sermon on the Mount in the NIV:
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
Here we are in the world, not conformed to it but in it, committed to following Jesus’ teachings in order to love each other more. We go from “house to house” listening for the “still small voice of God” in each person we meet. They may be “poor in spirit,” or they may “mourn,” be “meek” or “hunger and thirst for righteousness”; always we are a stable presence listening to them and showing God’s mercy and comfort.
Their “restless mind[s] and heart[s]” can be comforted by our stable willingness to be part of a monastic community that looks a little different than Benedict’s.
I wonder if there’s power in knowing that we’re still doing things the same way even though we’re doing them differently?