Admiration

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• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints (2023)

  12. Saints and the Protestant Reformation Francis and Ignatius were ordained as priests and drew up plans for a new order. They quickly established a college to train potential missionaries. The order was soon recruited by the Portuguese crown to provide missionaries to India and Southeast Asia, where Portugal had recently established colonies. In 1540, Francis Xavier left for India, while Ignatius remained behind to manage and expand the order. He died in Rome in 1556. Francis, meanwhile, traveled extensively throughout Southeast Asia. At first, he ministered to Portuguese sailors and soldiers. He worked in the hospital and founded a Jesuit headquarters in Goa. He soon turned to efforts to convert local tribes and high-ranking Hindu elites, expanding his efforts into Japan by 1549. He was awaiting passage to mainland China when he died of fever in 1552. The legacy of these founders and their order is difficult to parse. Jesuit missionaries were a powerful tool in the hands of European monarchs, who sought to occupy and often enslave indigenous peoples. They ministered to oppressed peoples with the aim of converting them and making them more accepting of the systemic abuse and erasure of their culture. At the same time, Jesuit scholars and missionaries are the reason that some religious texts and languages survived the European onslaught. They sought to understand the peoples they ministered to. These interactions produced new and evolving religious forms, revitalizing saints’ cults to meet the needs of different peoples. Benedict the Moor Benedict, also known as Benedict the Moor or Benedict of San Fratello, was born in 1526 in Sicily to enslaved parents. The earliest testimony on his life and reputation, from those who knew him, called him “Saint Slave,” but later hagiographies claimed that he was freed at birth for unspecified reasons, despite his siblings remaining enslaved. He worked for a time as a shepherd, which brought him into the ambit of Franciscan hermits living on a remote hillside. Benedict joined them, first as a cook and later as a lay brother. In his late 30s, the community was dissolved as part of the Tridentine reforms, and he joined the Franciscan 92 12. Saints and the Protestant Reformation convent in Palermo. Once more, he worked as their cook, later rising to trusted roles teaching young novices and even to leadership of the community. He remained humble throughout his life, even returning to the kitchens in his final years. Benedict died in 1589, but it took nearly 150 years for his beatification and more than 200 years until he was finally canonized in 1807. But well before that, Benedict was openly venerated as a saint in major cities in Spain, Mexico, and Brazil. Today, he, along with Martín de Porres, is venerated as patron saint of African Americans. Benedict’s brethren noted that the kitchens never ran out of food when he presided over them. He was also credited with healing abilities. 93

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  190 Lecture 26: Benedictine Monasticism and Its Influence o Obedience to the Rule and the abbot (the head of the monastery) structures the entire way of life. Benedict closely connects disobedience to pride and obedience to humility, and he envisages the return to God as an ascent (paradoxically) up a ladder of increased degrees of humility. o The monk does not seek to do his own will but God’s. Effectively, though, God’s will is mediated by the Rule and the abbot. • Benedict explicitly embraces the “common life” (coenobites ) precisely because it provides a “school of the Lord’s service” for beginners. He admires hermits because they are heroic, but his beginners are not ready for that. In contrast, he despises those who call themselves monks but only wander about in aimless pursuits. o Benedict’s Rule does not demand severe physical asceticism. In fact, in matters of clothing, food, and drink, his monks were probably more comfortable—because more secure—than the majority of peasants in the 6 th century. o The asceticism demanded by the Rule is precisely that of life together, avoiding murmuring and cultivating charity in the daily grind of life lived in a face-to-face community. o The distinctive Benedictine vows, besides obedience, are stability (to live in one community until death) and conversatio morum, a continual “conversion of life” in the context of community. o Benedictines do not take a vow of poverty even though “a monk shall call nothing at all his own”; instead, they have a community of possessions, all of which are subject to the disposition of the abbot. Once more, the emphasis is on sharing rather than on heroic self-dispossession. o The monk’s life of celibacy is not the subject of a vow but a corollary of a single-gender community. Benedict’s sister

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  196 eporuE nretseW fo noitazilegnavE :72 erutceL Sixty years after Damasus, Leo I (440–461) opposed o Pelagianism—the teaching that God’s grace was not necessary to live a moral life—and was the critical player in forming the orthodox position in the monophysite controversy, with his “Tome of Leo” anticipating the dogma established by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. He believed in the divine and scriptural basis for the primacy of Rome and exercised it vigorously. • By far the most important pope in this sequence is Gregory I (“the Great”), who lived from 540 to 604 and was pope from 590 to 604. The son of a senator, Gregory was prefect of the city of Rome in o 573; abandoning his municipal role, he sold all his possessions and founded six Benedictine monasteries in Sicily and one in Rome (St. Andrew), which he then entered as a simple monk. But Gregory was too capable to live a secluded life entirely. o Pope Pelagius II appointed him as delegate to the Byzantine court in 579, and he asserted the primacy of Rome over Constantinople; in 585, he returned to the monastery and was elected abbot. In 590, he was elected pope. Facing the challenges of o Ostrogoth/Byzantine wars and the aftereffects of the Justinian plague, he struck a separate treaty with the Lombards in 592– 593, asserting independence from the Byzantine presence in Ravenna. In 596, Gregory sent Augustine and 40 other monks to England, o thus establishing the monastic character of Catholicism there and a basis for further evangelization. He gave privileges to monks, which made them more directly dependent on the papacy. Gregory made significant contributions to the shape of the o Roman Mass (the signs of which remain in the so-called Gregorian Sacramentary). His voluminous writings (Book of

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  88 Lecture 12: The Beginnings of Christian Philosophy Origen of Alexandria • With Origen of Alexandria (c. 185–254), the place of a philosophical Christianity was firmly secured. • An indication of the changing face of Christianity is the fact that Origen was born of Christian parents and raised from childhood in the faith. o His father was martyred in the persecution of 202. When Clement fled the city, Origen took over (at the age of 17!) as head of the Alexandrian catechetical school. o He traveled to Rome and Arabia, settled for a time in Palestine, returned to Alexandria, and finally settled in Caesarea. As a priest, he preached regularly on the Scriptures. o We saw earlier that he wrote fervently on the ideal of martyrdom. In the persecution of Decius (250), Origen was imprisoned and tortured but steadfastly professed the faith. He died soon after, not technically a martyr but certainly a confessor of the faith. • Origen was a prodigy of scholarship; although only a small portion of his work has survived, it was vast. o As a biblical scholar, he produced a six-column version of the Old Testament in Hebrew, a transliteration, the Septuagint, and three other Jewish Greek translations, complete with critical apparatus. He also wrote commentaries on many books of the Bible and countless homilies. o He was Christianity’s first systematic theologian, attempting to align the truths of the faith with a wider understanding of reality established by reason. In his First Principles, Origen placed the Christian faith within a wide-ranging and ambitious vision— basically Platonic—of the derivation of all being from God and the eventual restoration of all creatures in God (apokatastasis). 89 o Although Origen was careful to observe traditional teaching, his bold vision, pushed to an extreme by later disciples, led to the eventual condemnation of “Origenism.” • Origen wrote a massive apologetic work, Against Celsus, that demonstrated not only his loyalty to the faith but his enormous learning and sophistication as a thinker. Celsus was a philosopher and author of the True Word (178), an attack on Christianity as ignorant, superstitious, and impious. Origen’s response is a masterpiece of apologetic, securely locating Christianity within the world of ancient learning. The Future of Christian Philosophy • The development of this strand of philosophically colored Christianity was of considerable importance for the future. • The ancient philosophical conviction that right morals derived from right opinion (“orthodoxy”) reinforced the emphasis on doctrine within the Christian tradition. • Equally, the heritage of philosophy as a “way of being religious as moral transformation” found expression in later forms of monasticism. Daniélou (Mitchell, trans.), Origen. Lilla, Clement of Alexandria. 1. Discuss the analysis of Greco-Roman and Christian religion in terms of “ways of being religious.” What are the benefits and deficits of such an analysis? 2. Consider the distinctive insistence in religion on linking “right thinking” and “right behavior.” Suggested Reading Questions to Consider

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  193 for practicing charity in a community where people are committed to each other for life. o Benedict sees the common life as a time of preparation for the higher states of commitment, as in the life of the hermit. o For many who lived it, however, the life was sufficiently rigorous and demanding to require a lifetime of dedication to accomplish true obedience. o As monasteries became more prosperous, the “school” dimension came to the fore, and monasteries formed the basic source of both Christian discipleship and learning for centuries. The Legacy of Benedictinism • Pope Gregory I (“the Great”) was himself a Benedictine monk and wrote the biography of Benedict. He used Benedictine monks as the instruments for the restoration of the church in England. • In 596, Gregory sent Augustine, the prior of the monastery of Saint Andrew in Rome, together with other monks, to England and made him the archbishop of Canterbury. • Augustine converted King Ethelbert, whose wife, Bertha, was already Christian, and through the king, England rapidly became Catholic. • The Benedictine monasteries, which fit so well within the manorial system of medieval society, became places that exemplified and enabled a deeper commitment to the faith. English monks in particular were critical to the next stage of evangelization in Europe. • Perhaps the most remarkable testimony to the work of Benedict is that despite a long series of repressions and reforms, the way of life according to his Rule continues to be lived by men and women around the world to the present day. Not many 1,500-year-old books have worn as well. 194 Lecture 26: Benedictine Monasticism and Its Influence Casey and Tomlin, Introducing the Rule of Benedict. Knowles, Christian Monasticism. 1. How did the Rule of Benedict provide an accessible form of the “life of perfection” in a way earlier rules had not? 2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of understanding the path to God as mediated by “a Rule and an abbot”? Suggested Reading Questions to Consider

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  88 Lecture 12: The Beginnings of Christian Philosophy Origen of Alexandria • With Origen of Alexandria (c. 185–254), the place of a philosophical Christianity was firmly secured. • An indication of the changing face of Christianity is the fact that Origen was born of Christian parents and raised from childhood in the faith. o His father was martyred in the persecution of 202. When Clement fled the city, Origen took over (at the age of 17!) as head of the Alexandrian catechetical school. o He traveled to Rome and Arabia, settled for a time in Palestine, returned to Alexandria, and finally settled in Caesarea. As a priest, he preached regularly on the Scriptures. o We saw earlier that he wrote fervently on the ideal of martyrdom. In the persecution of Decius (250), Origen was imprisoned and tortured but steadfastly professed the faith. He died soon after, not technically a martyr but certainly a confessor of the faith. • Origen was a prodigy of scholarship; although only a small portion of his work has survived, it was vast. o As a biblical scholar, he produced a six-column version of the Old Testament in Hebrew, a transliteration, the Septuagint, and three other Jewish Greek translations, complete with critical apparatus. He also wrote commentaries on many books of the Bible and countless homilies. o He was Christianity’s first systematic theologian, attempting to align the truths of the faith with a wider understanding of reality established by reason. In his First Principles, Origen placed the Christian faith within a wide-ranging and ambitious vision— basically Platonic—of the derivation of all being from God and the eventual restoration of all creatures in God (apokatastasis). 89 o Although Origen was careful to observe traditional teaching, his bold vision, pushed to an extreme by later disciples, led to the eventual condemnation of “Origenism.” • Origen wrote a massive apologetic work, Against Celsus, that demonstrated not only his loyalty to the faith but his enormous learning and sophistication as a thinker. Celsus was a philosopher and author of the True Word (178), an attack on Christianity as ignorant, superstitious, and impious. Origen’s response is a masterpiece of apologetic, securely locating Christianity within the world of ancient learning. The Future of Christian Philosophy • The development of this strand of philosophically colored Christianity was of considerable importance for the future. • The ancient philosophical conviction that right morals derived from right opinion (“orthodoxy”) reinforced the emphasis on doctrine within the Christian tradition. • Equally, the heritage of philosophy as a “way of being religious as moral transformation” found expression in later forms of monasticism. Daniélou (Mitchell, trans.), Origen. Lilla, Clement of Alexandria. 1. Discuss the analysis of Greco-Roman and Christian religion in terms of “ways of being religious.” What are the benefits and deficits of such an analysis? 2. Consider the distinctive insistence in religion on linking “right thinking” and “right behavior.” Suggested Reading Questions to Consider

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints (2023)

  8. Mendicants: Francis of Assisi and Louis of Toulouse He was born in 1274 to Charles II of Anjou, ruler of an extensive Mediterranean empire. We know little of Louis’s early childhood, though we can extrapolate from other noble childhoods that he likely would have been raised by servants and given a strong religious education. His family’s dynasty was founded by Louis’s grandfather Charles I, a son of the French king Louis VIII. When Louis was young, his father was captured during a naval fight in the Bay of Naples and imprisoned by the Aragonese, and his grandfather died months later. After 2 years of Charles II’s captivity, his sons sent a joint letter to the English king Edward I asking for his help in arranging their father’s release. Edward agreed, and in 1288, Charles II agreed to give the Aragonese three of his sons as hostages, plus 60 nobles and 50,000 marks of silver—about $30 million in today’s money. This marked a turning point in Louis’s youth. He and his brothers Robert and Raymond Berenger were given to the Aragonese in the hostage swap. At the time, Louis would have been 14, and his brothers would have been 12 and 8. The boys lived with the Aragonese court for 7 years, until the war ended in 1295. They seem to have been treated well and allowed to pursue their usual pastimes, including study. Their teachers were Franciscan friars, and this inspired both Louis and Robert with a reverence for the order that lasted the rest of their lives. Louis, in particular, was struck by Francis’s commitment to extreme poverty. During their captivity, the young princes apparently wrote to Peter John Olivi, a theologian who embraced a radical interpretation of the Franciscan vow of poverty, in part to discuss Louis’s desire to enter the Franciscan order. Olivi declined, fearing being accused of radicalizing the prince but praising the brothers’ devotion to Christ. His letter to them, written in May 1295, still survives. Sources who served Louis during his time in Catalonia testified at his canonization process that this was when the prince vowed to become a Franciscan and take holy orders. 59 8. Mendicants: Francis of Assisi and Louis of Toulouse 60

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  56 Lecture 8: Forms of Witness—martyrdom and apologetic of being restored to life by him; but for you there will be no resurrection to life” (2 Macc. 7:14). • The Gospel of John and the book of Revelation depict Jesus as a witness to God in the face of death. o In John’s Gospel, Jesus tells Pontius Pilate, “For this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37). And before his death, he tells his followers, “You must bear witness as well, for you have been with me from the beginning” (15:27). o The book of Revelation, in turn, calls Jesus the faithful witness in the shedding of his blood (1:5, 3:4), and his followers are also witnesses (19:10). • In the 2 nd century, martyrdom came to be regarded by many believers as the perfect form of discipleship. They saw themselves conforming completely to the pattern of suffering for others in witness to God’s truth that was established by Jesus. o Already Paul had spoken of believers “bearing in their body the death of Jesus” (2 Cor. 4:10), and if they are thus totally conformed to Christ in his death, they can hope to share in his Resurrection (Phil. 3:11). o Those who “confess Christ” in the face of persecution, torture, and the threat of death but fall short of actual death were accorded second rank of honor as witnesses and came to be called “confessors.” Notable and Anonymous Martyrs • The tradition of martyrdom in Christianity began with the apostles, especially Stephen, who was, according to Acts, put to death by stoning by the Jewish court, and Peter and Paul, who were killed in the persecution in Rome under Nero. The tradition continued in the 2 nd and 3rd centuries among both notable and anonymous believers. 57 • Three highly visible Christian leaders bore witness in a way that glorified martyrdom. o Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, was arrested circa 107 and was carried to Rome as a captive for execution; in seven letters to churches in Asia Minor, he exalts in the death he faces under the emperor Trajan. He begs the Roman Christians not to intervene when he arrives, seeing martyrdom as the completion of his discipleship. o Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, collected the letters of Ignatius, and himself wrote a letter of exhortation to the Philippians. His execution in 155–156 was celebrated by The Martyrdom of Polycarp, which explicitly connects his witness to that of Jesus. o The Christian philosopher Justin was condemned as a Christian and suffered martyrdom under the emperor Marcus Aurelius During the reign of the emperor Trajan, Ignatius told the Romans: “I will not only be called a Christian but found to be one,” meaning, in his death. © Hemera/Thinkstock.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  monasteries. A legend told of Boniface is that he tested the power of a pagan god by felling an oak dedicated to the deity; when a wind blew down the tree as he began cutting and no punishment came to the missionary, the crowd viewing the scene converted to the Christian God. Boniface worked under the protection of Charles Martel, and o in 732, Gregory III appointed him archbishop of all Germany. Martel divided Germany into four dioceses and made Boniface metropolitan (primate) over Germany east of the Rhine (Mainz). At the Concilium Germanicum o in 743, Boniface worked for the reform of the clergy—a constant preoccupation in an age when lack of learning and training often led to less-than- adequate ministers. Boniface then went to work again in Frisia, where he was killed in 754. His life was written by Willibald shortly after his death. Scholar Monks • The monasteries founded by such missionaries as Willibrord and Boniface served as centers of worship, as well as of civilization. The Venerable Bede, a Two monk-scholars of the era give classic scholar-monk, wrote evidence for impressive levels biblical commentaries; texts on computation, grammar, of knowledge and scholarship, and natural science; lives of illustrating the role of monasteries saints; and the monumental as centers of cultural diffusion. Ecclesiastical History of the English People. 199 .kcotsknihT/moc.sotohP ©

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The story of Landolfo Rufolo is the first in the Decameron to be set in the south, and there is no mistaking the tone of nostalgic affection with which Boccaccio describes the Amalfi coast in its opening paragraph. There is also more than a hint of admiration for the spirit of enterprise that has brought prosperity to the numerous merchants who settled in a region familiar to the writer from the days of his youth. The story contains only two characters, Landolfo and the peasant woman who restores him to health after dragging him from the sea off the shore of Corfu. Like most of Boccaccio’s characters, neither is developed in any great psychological depth, their personalities emerging fully formed from the events of the narrative. The distinguishing feature of Landolfo is his acquisitiveness, the motivating force behind all of his actions. The narrator focuses attention on the vicissitudes of the chief character, for which the sea is a sort of emblematic leitmotif. The sea is in fact the most important recurrent image in the narratives of the Second Day, playing a prominent role not only in the tale of Landolfo, but also in those of Beritola (II, 6), Alatiel (II, 7) and Paganino (II, 10). It also features briefly in the stories of Andreuccio (II, 5), the Count of Antwerp (II, 8) and Bernabò and Zinevra (II, 9). The image of the sea, ideal for representing the vicissitudes of Fortune, acts as a link between the main theme of the Second Day and the world of commerce that is depicted in so many of the stories.

• From Trash (1988)

  Cursing don’t get a job. . . . Bitching don’t make the beds and screaming don’t get the tomatoes planted. They had laughed together then, speaking a language of old stories and older jokes. You tell him. I said. Now girl, you listen to me. The power in them, the strength and the heat! How could anybody not love my mama, my aunts? How could my daddy, my uncles, ever stand up to them, dare to raise hand or voice to them? They were a power on the earth. I breathed deep, watching my aunt rock on her stance, settling her eye on the balls, while I smelled chicken gravy and hot grease, the close thick scent of love and understanding. I used to love to eat at Aunt Alma’s house, all those home-cooked dinners at the roadhouse; pinto beans with peppers for fifteen, nine of them hers. Chowchow on a clean white plate passed around the table while the biscuits passed the other way. My aunt always made biscuits. What else stretched so well? Now those starch meals shadowed her loose shoulders and dimpled her fat white elbows. She gave me one quick glance and loosed her stroke. The white ball punched the center of the table. The balls flew to the edges. My sixty-year-old aunt gave a grin that would have scared piss out of my Uncle Bill, a grin of pure, fierce enjoyment. She rolled the stick in fingers loose as butter on a biscuit, laughed again, and slid her palms down the sides of polished wood, while the anger in her face melted into skill and concentration. I rocked back on my stool and covered my smile with my wet hair. Goddamn! Aunt Alma pushed back on one ankle, swung the stick to follow one ball, another, dropping them as easily as peas on potatoes. Goddamn! She went after those balls like kids on a dirt yard, catching each lightly and dropping them lovingly. Into the holes, move it! Turning and bracing on ankles thickened with too many years of flour and babies, Aunt Alma blitzed that table like a twenty-year-old hustler, not sparing me another glance. Not till the eighth stroke did she pause and stop to catch her breath. “You living like this—not for a man, huh?” she asked, one eyebrow arched and curious. “No.” I shrugged, feeling more friendly and relaxed. Moving like that, aunt of mine I wanted to say, don’t tell me you don’t understand. “Your mama said you were working in some photo shop, doing shit work for shit money. Not much to show for that college degree, is that?” “Work is work. It pays the rent.” “Which ought not to be much here.” “No,” I agreed, “not much. I know,” I waved my hands lightly, “it’s a wreck of a place, but it’s home. I’m happy here. Terry, Casey and everybody—they’re family.” “Family.”

• From Austerlitz (2001)

  password three or four times, syllable by syllable, before I looked up and said: Excuse me, sir, but what does it mean? To which Penrith-Smith replied: I think you will find it is a small place in Moravia, site of a famous battle, you know. And sure enough, the Moravian village of Austerlitz was discussed at great length during the next school year, for the curriculum in the Lower Sixth included European history, generally regarded as a complicated and not entirely safe subject, so that as a rule it was confined to the period from 1789 to 1814 which ended with a great English victory. The master who was to teach us this period—both glorious and terrible, as he often emphasized—was one André Hilary, who had only just taken up his post at Stower Grange after being demobbed and who, as it soon turned out, was familiar with every detail of the Napoleonic era. André Hilary had studied at Oriel College, but had grown up surrounded by an enthusiasm for Napoleon going back through several generations of his family. His father, so he once told me, said Austerlitz, had him baptized André in memory of Marshal Masséna, Duke of Rivoli. Hilary could trace the orbit of the Corsican comet, as he put it, across the sky from its very beginning to its extinction in the South Atlantic Ocean, enumerating all the constellations through which it passed, and the events and characters on which it cast light at any point of its ascendancy or decline, speaking without any preparation and just as if he had been there himself. The Emperor’s childhood in Ajaccio, his studies at the military academy of Brienne, the siege of Toulon, the stresses and strains of the Egyptian expedition and his return over a sea full of enemy ships, the crossing of the Great St. Bernard, the battles of Marengo, Jena and Auerstedt, of Eylau and Friedland, of Wagram, Leipzig, and Waterloo— Hilary brought it all vividly to life for us, partly by recounting the course of these events, often passing from plain narrative to dramatic descriptions and then on to a kind of impromptu performance distributed among several different roles, from one to another of which he switched back and forth with astonishing virtuosity, and partly by studying the gambits of Napoleon and his opponents with the cold intelligence of a nonpartisan strategist, surveying the entire landscape of those years from above with an eagle eye, as he once and not without pride remarked. Most of us were deeply impressed by Hilary’s history lessons, not least, said Austerlitz, because very often, probably owing to his suffering from slipped disks, he gave them while lying on his back on the floor, nor did we find this at all comic, for it was at such times that Hilary spoke with particular clarity and authority. His undoubted piéce de résistance was the battle of Austerlitz. He spoke on it at length, describing the terrain, the highway leading east from Briinn to Olmiitz, with the hilly Moravian countryside on its left and the Pratzen heights on its right, the curious cone-shaped mountain which

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  118 ytinaitsirhC lacidaR sa msicitsanom :61 erutceL Among the notable figures on whom Palladius reports are o wealthy patronesses, such as Macrina, a Roman matron who used her massive fortune to establish and support monastic foundations and meet the practical needs of the monks. Here, we see the practice of patronage in yet another form. The Influence of Monasticism • Monasticism found a permanent place within Christianity and exercised enormous influence from the first. • It was important to the imperial church of the 4th to the 6th centuries. Many bishops of those centuries were drawn from monastic o ranks and were, thus, leaders who were ascetical, celibate, and often scholarly, shaped by the discipline and sharing the outlook of monastic life. Monks served as “foot soldiers” in the fierce doctrinal wars o of these centuries. They were the most activist, mobile, and militant Christians; it was not unknown for them to riot in patriarchal cities in support of one doctrine or another. • The role of monasticism in the long run was equally important. Through the ages, monasteries provided a constant “alternative o lifestyle” that enabled Christians to express their discipleship in more radical fashion. They were an outlet for those with reforming impulses, and while not always approved by more enculturated Christians, they were always admired. At some times and places, monasteries provided centers o for reform through knowledge and practice. In the early medieval period of the West, monasteries preserved and copied manuscripts and taught the techniques of agriculture. Suggested Reading Chitty, The Desert a City. Harmless, Desert Christians. Questions to Consider 1. What characteristics of early monasticism justify calling it a “white martyrdom”? 2. Discuss the symbiotic relationship between desert monks and their urban patrons and admirers. 119

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  191 Scholastica was abbess over female Benedictines, who also lived by the Rule. • The system of governance for the monastery outlined by Benedict is widely admired for its careful checks and balances. o The abbot is elected by the monks and serves for life or until he retires; monks are to be obedient to the abbot, but the abbot also is to be obedient to the Rule. o The abbot is not only checked from tyrannical behavior by the Rule but must also consult with the chapter of monks and get their counsel on important decisions. The monks can appeal to the abbots of other monasteries should their abbot prove tyrannical. Indeed, monasteries have regular outside visitations to check on the state of the community as a whole. o The abbot appoints a prior and subprior as administrators, and the Rule specifies a number of important positions that are filled by capable monks appointed by the abbot: porter, novice master, cellarer, and perhaps most significant, guest master. Benedictines make hospitality the most important expression of Christ’s love, especially the welcoming of the poor, who “are to be received as Christ.” • The “school of the Lord’s service” is organized according to the broad categories of work (labora) and prayer (ora). o Work involves all the tasks required of the common life (cooking, washing, tailoring, baking, receiving guests), as well as the tasks of supporting the community through farming and herding. Work is as essential as prayer: The cellarer is to regard the implements for work as though they were “the vessels of the altar.” o In some monasteries, especially at founding or in difficult circumstances, all the monks performed manual labor. In better established monasteries, where division of labor was possible, the “choir monks” devoted themselves to the full life of prayer

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  188 ecneuflnI stI dna msicitsanoM enitcideneB :62 erutceL Benedictine Monasticism and Its Influence Lecture 26 In the last lecture, we saw the importance of the Frankish conquests and the consolidation of Frankish rule under Charlemagne as the Holy Roman Emperor, which involved, as well, a commitment to Catholicism and to the bishop of Rome. We have also sketched the basics of feudalism as the political-cultural context for medieval Christianity, and we saw briefly how monasteries both fit and caused some tension within this cultural system. Monasteries established cells of Christian life throughout Europe that contributed to the agricultural economy and served as examples of Augustine’s “city of God.” In this lecture, we’ll look in particular at Benedictine monasticism, highlighting the key role it played in shaping medieval Christianity in the West. Benedict of Nursia • The true founder of Western monasticism is Benedict of Nursia (c. 480–c. 550), often called the patriarch of Western monasticism because of the widespread influence of his Rule for monks (also called the Benedictine Rule). • The few details of Benedict’s life are known from the brief biography provided shortly after his death by Pope Gregory I (Dialogues 2). The The great achievement account is highly laudatory and contains of Benedict, his Rule a considerable amount of legendary for monks, sought to describe a life that material. Gregory sought to portray anyone of good will Benedict and his sister Scholastica along could live; his work the lines of biblical saints. represents a “school Born in Nursia in the region of of the Lord’s service” o for what we might call Umbria, Benedict was educated in “beginners” to the Rome, but for reasons unknown— religious life. .kcotsknihT/aremeH ©

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  118 Lecture 16: monasticism as Radical Christianity o Among the notable figures on whom Palladius reports are wealthy patronesses, such as Macrina, a Roman matron who used her massive fortune to establish and support monastic foundations and meet the practical needs of the monks. Here, we see the practice of patronage in yet another form. The Influence of Monasticism • Monasticism found a permanent place within Christianity and exercised enormous influence from the first. • It was important to the imperial church of the 4 th to the 6 th centuries. o Many bishops of those centuries were drawn from monastic ranks and were, thus, leaders who were ascetical, celibate, and often scholarly, shaped by the discipline and sharing the outlook of monastic life. o Monks served as “foot soldiers” in the fierce doctrinal wars of these centuries. They were the most activist, mobile, and militant Christians; it was not unknown for them to riot in patriarchal cities in support of one doctrine or another. • The role of monasticism in the long run was equally important. o Through the ages, monasteries provided a constant “alternative lifestyle” that enabled Christians to express their discipleship in more radical fashion. They were an outlet for those with reforming impulses, and while not always approved by more enculturated Christians, they were always admired. o At some times and places, monasteries provided centers for reform through knowledge and practice. In the early medieval period of the West, monasteries preserved and copied manuscripts and taught the techniques of agriculture. 119 Chitty, The Desert a City. Harmless, Desert Christians. 1. What characteristics of early monasticism justify calling it a “white martyrdom”? 2. Discuss the symbiotic relationship between desert monks and their urban patrons and admirers. Suggested Reading Questions to Consider

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  237 Universities and Theology Lecture 33 O ne of the most impressive signs of a mature Christian culture in the High Middle Ages was the development of universities. As we have seen, the desire for higher learning within Christianity was never completely lost, even during the most chaotic periods of life in the West. Universities, though, were a new invention in the West; they emerged when they did because of the convergence of a number of factors. In a flash, over the span of some 80 years, four great universities were founded in Europe that quickly became important centers of learning and eventually contributed heavily to social change: Bologna in 1119, Paris in 1150, Oxford in 1167, and Cambridge in 1200. Context for the Emergence of Universities • The convergence of a number of factors set the stage for the emergence of universities in the 12 th and 13 th centuries. We have already noted the increased wealth and security in Europe based on predictably good weather, steady crops, and successful trade—all these, plus population growth in urban areas, set the context for leisure as the basis of culture. Of considerable significance also was the production of manuscripts in monastery scriptoria, which reached a point of sufficient dissemination to enable shared learning at a higher level. • The development of a professional clergy, as in the Franciscans and Dominicans, as well as the development of a professional diplomatic corps, demanded higher levels of education. The ordinary clergy would remain woefully undereducated within Catholicism until the Counter-Reformation of the 16 th century, but both monks and mendicants represented the most learned people of the medieval world.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  “Shit, I didn’t know I called you. Maybe I hit the wrong button. Sorry, ’bout that.” “Girl, stop lying. You hit up the right person, all right. The number showed up on my caller ID several times. No one makes a mistake that much. You gonna tell me your name now?” “Like I said, calling you was an accident. I made a mistake. My name is not perfect, it’s Yani.” “Well, I’m Life. I see you got some sass in your blood, Yani.” “Maybe. And what if I do?” I answered. After a few awkward moments we laughed and joked for hours. Soon, every time Smooth let me down, I began calling Life for my nightly fix. Life stimulated my mind and body with his dreams. He worked at a record shop, but was trying to negotiate and lease his beats to major rap labels, while shopping record deals for independent artists at the same time. Life was passionate about his craft, and I definitely was feeling that. “So why do they call you Life? I thought you were a straight thug when I met you. Is Life your real name?” I asked. “Nah, but life is what I’m all about. My biggest fear is becoming a statistic out here ’cause someone else is playing street games that don’t got nothing to do with me. I used to be in the drug game, but I left hustling a long time ago. I reevaluated a lot of shit after I lost my little brother to a senseless act of violence. That’s when I changed my name to Life. Through me, he lives—he still has life. Yo, my biggest wish is to put my bid in in the music game and have a queen standing right beside me when I make those millions. Shit is pointless if I ain’t got a wife and some kids to love. My dreams and goals are what keep my nose to the grind and help me stay on point. Ya feel me, Yani?” My heart fluttered. Life was so down-to-earth that I felt like I’d known him for ten years. He was about much more than Smooth. It finally hit me that Smooth had no dreams, except chasing dollars and poisoning our people. Smooth had a selfish, shallow streak that didn’t bother me when I was younger. But as I grew older, that shit grew stale. Life had goals and ambition. He never cut me off like Smooth often did when he had to leave to handle his business on the block. Hell, Life even helped me admit that I dabbled in poetry. When I did admit it, he asked me to read him some of my work. I dug in my closet and pulled out an overstuffed binder that Smooth Willie knew existed, but had never cared to inquire about. “Read somethin’ to me, Ma. Got anything wit hotness for me?” Life asked.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  189 quite possibly simply the desire for holiness—he left secular life to live as a hermit in Subiaco (about 40 miles east of Rome). He was there joined by followers and founded a community, possibly even a group of monasteries. o He moved with a small group of disciples to Monte Cassino (midway between Rome and Naples) and founded the monastery that became the mother house for all Benedictines, surviving repeated destructions and rebuildings. The most recent reconstruction followed the Allied bombing in World War II to dislodge Nazi soldiers, who used the monastery as a mountain fortress. • Benedict’s great achievement was his Rule for monks, composed circa 540 in lapidary Latin. It is widely and properly regarded as one of the most impressive constitutions ever composed, providing a version of the monastic life possible to very ordinary people. Earlier founders seemed to envisage monks seeking a harsh and demanding regimen. Benedict sought to construct a life that anyone with good will could live. o Benedict did not make any claim to originality: His rule freely acknowledges his debt to such earlier monastic teachers as Basil, Augustine, and above all, John Cassian. In his epilogue, he recommends these authors as spiritual reading. o Benedict’s modesty makes more puzzling the lack of reference to a monastic rule on which he clearly relied, the anonymous Rule of the Master. We know nothing about the origin of this longer rule: Was it a draft for Benedict’s Rule, or was his Rule an epitome? Whatever the literary relationship between the two, Benedict’s genius is shown in the brevity and clarity of his version. The Benedictine Rule • The prologue sets the framework of the Rule, summoning the disciple to “hearken to the words of the master” and return to God by way of obedience after having turned away from God by disobedience.

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  Scholastica was abbess over female Benedictines, who also lived by the Rule. • The system of governance for the monastery outlined by Benedict is widely admired for its careful checks and balances. The abbot is elected by the monks and serves for life or until o he retires; monks are to be obedient to the abbot, but the abbot also is to be obedient to the Rule. The abbot is not only checked from tyrannical behavior by the o Rule but must also consult with the chapter of monks and get their counsel on important decisions. The monks can appeal to the abbots of other monasteries should their abbot prove tyrannical. Indeed, monasteries have regular outside visitations to check on the state of the community as a whole. The abbot appoints a prior and subprior as administrators, and o the Rule specifies a number of important positions that are filled by capable monks appointed by the abbot: porter, novice master, cellarer, and perhaps most significant, guest master. Benedictines make hospitality the most important expression of Christ’s love, especially the welcoming of the poor, who “are to be received as Christ.” • The “school of the Lord’s service” is organized according to the broad categories of work (labora) and prayer (ora). Work involves all the tasks required of the common life o (cooking, washing, tailoring, baking, receiving guests), as well as the tasks of supporting the community through farming and herding. Work is as essential as prayer: The cellarer is to regard the implements for work as though they were “the vessels of the altar.” In some monasteries, especially at founding or in difficult o circumstances, all the monks performed manual labor. In better established monasteries, where division of labor was possible, the “choir monks” devoted themselves to the full life of prayer 191