The Institutes 2.1–2.17

Girded, then, with this double girdle of which we have spoken, let the soldier of Christ next learn what measure of canonical prayers and psalms was established of old by the holy fathers in the regions of the East. As for their quality, and how we can pray without ceasing according to the apostle's saying, we shall set this out in its proper place, as far as the Lord grants, when we begin to relate the conferences of the elders.

For we have found that many in other regions, according to the capacity of their minds — having, as the apostle says, a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge — have set up various patterns and rules for themselves on this matter. Some have decided that twenty or thirty psalms should be said each night, and these drawn out with the melodies of antiphons and the addition of certain chants; others have even tried to exceed this measure; some say eighteen. And in this way we have found a different canon established in different places, and we have seen almost as many patterns and rules adopted as we have seen monasteries and cells. There are some who have thought that even in the daytime offices of prayer, that is, at the third, sixth, and ninth hours, the number of psalms and prayers should be made equal to the number of the hour at which these services are rendered to God; others have chosen to assign six psalms to each of the day's gatherings. Therefore I think it necessary to bring forward the most ancient ordinance of the fathers, which is still observed by the servants of God throughout all Egypt, so that the untrained infancy in Christ of your new monastery may be instructed rather in the very ancient institutions of the most ancient fathers.

Throughout all Egypt and the Thebaid, then, where monasteries are not founded at the whim of each person who renounces the world, but either continue to this day or are founded to endure through the succession and traditions of the elders, we saw a lawful measure of prayers kept in the evening gatherings and the night vigils. For no one is allowed to preside over a gathering of brothers, or even over himself, before he has not only become a stranger to all his possessions but has also learned that he is not even his own master and has no power over himself. For one who renounces this world, whatever possessions and riches he may have, must seek to live in a coenobium in such a way that he does not flatter himself in any way about what he has left or brought into the monastery. He must so obey everyone that he knows that he must return to his former childhood according to the Lord's saying, claiming nothing for himself on account of his age or the number of his years, which he considers lost because spent vainly in the world; but, as befits a beginner and the newness of the apprenticeship which he knows he is serving in the warfare of Christ, he must not hesitate to submit himself even to younger men. He is also compelled to take up the habit of work and sweat, so that, providing his daily food with his own hands according to the apostle's precept, either for his own use or for the needs of visitors, he may forget both the pride and the luxuries of his former life and acquire humility of heart through the contrition of labour. And therefore no one is chosen to preside over a congregation of brothers before he who is to be put in charge has learned by obeying what ought to be commanded to those who will obey, and has grasped from the institutions of the elders what he ought to hand on to the younger. For they declare that to rule well or to be ruled well is the mark of a wise man, and they define it as the highest gift and grace of the Holy Spirit. For no one can lay down wholesome precepts for those who obey except one who has first been trained in all the disciplines of the virtues, and no one can obey an elder except one who is consummated in the fear of God and perfected in the virtue of humility. And the reason why we see a variety of patterns and rules adopted in other provinces is that very often we dare to preside over monasteries without experience of the elders' teaching, and, professing ourselves abbots before we have been disciples, we lay down whatever we please, readier to demand the observance of our own inventions than to keep the tested teaching of our forebears. But while wishing to explain the measure of prayers that ought chiefly to be kept, we have, eagerly drawn on by the institutions of the fathers, anticipated by a hasty digression an account we were reserving for its proper place. Let us now return to our subject.

Throughout all Egypt and the Thebaid, then, as we said, the number of twelve psalms is kept both at the evening and at the night services, with this condition, that after them two readings follow, one from the Old Testament and one from the New. This measure, established of old, has lasted unviolated to this day for so many ages in all the monasteries of those provinces, because the elders affirm that it was not established by human invention but was brought down from heaven to the fathers by the teaching of an angel.

For in the beginnings of the faith, few indeed, but most approved men, were reckoned under the name of monks. They had received their rule of life from the evangelist Mark of blessed memory, who was the first to preside as bishop over the city of Alexandria. They not only kept those great things which we read in the Acts of the Apostles that the church, or the crowds of believers, first practised — "the multitude of believers had one heart and one soul, and none of them said that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. For as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of what they sold and laid them at the feet of the apostles, and it was distributed to each as anyone had need" — but they had also added things far more sublime than these. For withdrawing to more secluded places in the outskirts, they led a life so strict in the rigour of its abstinence that the hard profession of their way of life astonished even those who were strangers to their religion. They applied themselves day and night with such fervour to the reading of the divine Scriptures, to prayer, and to manual work that not even the appetite for food, or the thought of it, troubled them except when hunger pressed on the body every second or third day; and they took food and drink not so much as something desired but as something necessary, and not even this before sunset, so as to join the hours of daylight to the pursuit of spiritual meditation, and the care of the body to the night; and they practised other things far more sublime than these. Anyone who knows less of them from the report of the local people can learn of them from the Church History. At that time, then, when the perfection of that primitive church still endured unviolated among its successors, while the memory was fresh, and the fervent faith of the few had not yet cooled by being spread among the many, the venerable fathers, providing with watchful care for those who would come after, met to discuss what measure should be decreed for daily worship throughout the whole body of the brotherhood, so that they might hand on to their successors an inheritance of piety and peace free from all strife of dissension. They feared, of course, that some discord or variety in the daily services might arise among men sharing the same worship and might some day in the future put forth a seed of error or rivalry or harmful schism. Each one, according to his own fervour and forgetting the weakness of others, thought that what he judged very easy, considering his own faith and strength, should be established, giving too little thought to what was possible for the whole body of the brothers, in which the greater part must also be weak; and in different ways they strove to establish an enormous number of psalms according to the strength of their own minds, some fifty, others sixty, and some, not content even with this number, thought it should be exceeded. And there was among them a holy variety of pious contention about the rule of religion, so much so that the time of the evening service arrived while the most sacred question was still under discussion. When they wished to celebrate the daily rites of prayer, one man rose up in the midst to sing psalms to the Lord. While all sat, as is still the custom in the parts of Egypt, with the whole attention of their hearts fixed on the words of the one singing, he sang eleven psalms, separated by the insertion of prayers, with the verses joined together and pronounced evenly; and completing the twelfth with the response of Alleluia, he was suddenly withdrawn from the eyes of all, and put an end to the question and the ceremonies alike.

From then on, the venerable senate of the fathers, understanding that a general canon had been established for the congregations of the brothers by the teaching of an angel, not without the Lord's dispensation, decreed that this number should be kept both at the evening and at the night gatherings. To these they added two readings, one from the Old Testament and the other from the New, as handed down by themselves and as extraordinary, only for those who wished and who studied to possess the memory of the divine Scriptures by constant meditation. But on the Sabbath or the Lord's day they read both from the New Testament, that is, one from the apostle or the Acts of the Apostles and the other from the Gospels. Those to whom the reading or memorizing of the Scriptures is a concern also do this on all the days of Pentecost.

They begin and end these prayers of which we have spoken in this way: when a psalm is finished they do not immediately fall on their knees, as some of us do in this region, who, before the psalm is well finished, hurry to prostrate ourselves in prayer, rushing to finish the service as quickly as possible. For while we wish to exceed the measure established of old by our forebears, counting the number of the remaining psalms, we are urged on to reach the end, thinking about the refreshment of our tired bodies rather than seeking the benefit and advantage of prayer. With them it is not so. Before they bend their knees, they pray for a little while, and they spend the greater part of the time standing in supplication. Then, after this, they fall to the ground for the briefest moment, as if only adoring the divine mercy, rise up again as quickly as possible, and standing upright again with outstretched hands, as they had prayed standing before, they continue in their prayers. For they say that one who lies too long on the ground is attacked more heavily not only by thoughts but also by sleep. Would that we did not know this to be true from experience and daily habit — we who often, prostrate on the ground, wish this bending of the body to be prolonged, under pretext not so much of prayer as of rest! And when the one who is to gather up the prayer rises from the ground, all rise together, so that no one presumes to bend the knee before he bows or to linger when he has risen from the ground, lest he seem not to have followed the conclusion of the one who gathers up the prayer but to have celebrated his own.

What we have seen in this province, namely that when one person sings, all who stand by join loudly at the end of the psalm in "Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit," we have never heard anywhere in the whole East; there, when the psalm is finished by the one who sings, a prayer follows in silence from all, and this glorification of the Trinity usually concludes only the antiphon.

And since the order of the institutions has brought us in due course to the measure of the canonical prayers, although we are reserving a fuller treatment of them for the conferences of the elders, where we shall set it out more fully when we begin to discuss their quality and continuity in their own words, I nevertheless think it necessary, as the place and the course of the account itself suggest, since the occasion has presented itself, to touch on a few things now as well. In this way, by shaping the movements of the outer man for the time being, and laying as it were certain foundations of prayer now, we may afterwards, with less labour, build the summit of his prayers as well when we begin to discuss the state of the inner man. Above all we provide that, if the end of our life should come first and shut us out from the account we hope to set out at the proper time, God willing, we may at least leave you in this work the beginnings of a matter so necessary — you to whom, in the ardour of your desire, everything is slow. So, while the respite of this life is granted us, we may at least sketch for the time being some outlines of prayer, by which especially those who live in coenobia may be shaped to some extent. At the same time we provide for those who may come across only this book and will be unable to reach that other, so that by its instruction they may be imbued at least in part with the quality of prayer; and just as they have been instructed about the dress and clothing of the outer man, so they may not be ignorant of how they ought to present him for offering spiritual sacrifices. For these little books, which with the Lord's help we are now preparing to compose, will be more fittingly adapted to the observance of the outer man and the institution of the coenobia; the others will rather concern the discipline of the inner man, the perfection of the heart, and the life and teaching of the anchorites.

When, then, they gather to celebrate these services, which they call synaxes, such silence is kept by all that, though so great a multitude of brothers is gathered together, you would think that no one at all was present except the one who rises and sings the psalm in the midst; and especially when the prayer is being completed. In it no one spits, no clearing of the throat makes a noise, no cough sounds, no sleepy yawn is drawn out with jaws parted and gaping, no groans or sighs are uttered that might hinder those standing by; no voice is heard except that of the priest concluding the prayer — unless perhaps one that has escaped the barrier of the mouth through ecstasy of mind and has stolen unnoticed from the heart, when it has been kindled by an immoderate and unbearable fervour of spirit, while what the fiery mind cannot contain within itself tries to escape from the inmost chambers of the breast through a kind of unutterable groaning. But one who, being in a lukewarm state of mind, prays aloud, or lets out of his throat any of the things we have mentioned, and especially is overtaken by yawning, they declare sins doubly: first, because he is guilty in respect of his own prayer, since he offers it negligently; second, because by his undisciplined noise he also interrupts the attention of another who might perhaps have been able to pray more intently. And so they teach that the prayer should be brought to a quick close, lest perhaps, if we linger in it, some overflow of spittle or phlegm should interrupt the ecstasy of our prayer. And therefore, while it is still fervent, it must be snatched quickly, as it were, from the jaws of the enemy; for he, being always hostile to us, stands by as most hostile of all when he sees that we wish to offer prayers to the Lord against him, hastening, by stirring up thoughts or various humours, to draw our mind away from the intentness of supplication, and striving in this way to make it lukewarm after the fervour with which it began. For this reason they consider it more useful that prayers should be short but very frequent: the one, so that by praying to God more often we may cleave to him continually; the other, so that by concise brevity we may avoid the darts of the devil lying in wait, which he is most intent on inflicting on us when we pray.

And therefore they do not try to finish even the psalms they sing in the assembly in one continuous recitation, but divide them, according to the number of verses, into two or three sections with prayers inserted, and complete them separately, part by part. For they take pleasure, not in a multitude of verses, but in the understanding of the mind, pursuing with all their strength this: "I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the mind." And therefore they hold it more useful for ten verses to be sung with reasonable attention than for a whole psalm to be poured out with confusion of mind, which is sometimes produced by the haste of the singer, when, considering the measure and number of the psalms still to be sung, he is concerned not to make the meaning clear to the hearers but to hurry to the end of the synaxis. Finally, if any of the younger men, whether from fervour of spirit or because he is not yet trained, begins to exceed the measure of singing, the progress of the singer is cut short by the elder with a clap, which he gives with his hand on the seat where he sits, making all rise for prayer; he takes every care that no weariness is produced in those sitting by the length of the psalms, by which the singer would not only lose the fruit of understanding for himself but also cause loss to those whom he has made weary of the synaxis by its excess. This too is kept among them with all observance: that with the response of Alleluia no psalm is said except one that is marked in its title with the inscription Alleluia. They divide the twelve psalms mentioned above in this way: if there are two brothers, each sings six; if three, four each; if four, three each. They never sing fewer than this number in the assembly, and so, however great a multitude has gathered, never more than four brothers sing at the synaxis.

This canonical number of twelve psalms mentioned above they lighten by such bodily rest that, when they celebrate these services of the assemblies according to custom, all except the one who has risen to say the psalms in the midst sit on very low seats and hang with the whole attention of their hearts on the voice of the singer. For they are so wearied by fasts and by the work of the whole day and night that, unless they were helped by some such rest, they could not complete even this number standing. For they allow no time to pass free from the practice of work, since they not only strive with all diligence to do with their hands the work that the light of day permits, but also anxiously seek out those kinds of work which not even the thickest darkness of the night can hinder, believing that they will gain a more sublime vision of spiritual contemplation through purity of mind the more devotedly they are intent on the pursuit of work and labour. And therefore they judge that a moderate number of canonical prayers was divinely regulated, so that for those more ardent in faith there might remain room into which the untiring course of their virtue could extend, and yet no weariness from excess might be produced in tired and sick bodies. And so, when the offices of the canonical prayers have been completed according to custom, each one hastens back to his own cell — which he is permitted to inhabit either alone or with just one other, one whom partnership in work, or the training of discipleship and instruction, has joined to him, or at least whom likeness of virtues has made his equal — and there they again celebrate the same office of prayers more earnestly as their own private sacrifice; and none of them gives himself further to the rest of sleep until, when the light of day comes, the daytime work succeeds the night's work and meditation.

Besides the reason that, striving with all diligence, they believe they offer a sacrifice to God from the fruit of their hands, they keep this labour with all care for two reasons, which we too should observe with the same diligence if we aim at perfection. The first is so that the envious enemy, jealous of our purity, against which he always lies in wait above all and is unceasingly hostile, may not defile by some illusion in sleep the purification we have gained by the night psalms and prayers. After the satisfaction we have offered for our negligences and ignorances, and the pardon of our confession begged with abundant groans, he hastens all the more eagerly to stain us if he finds a time of rest, striving to cast down and weaken our confidence especially when he sees that we are reaching towards God more fervently through the purity of our prayers; so that sometimes he tries to disgrace, within the brief space of that hour, those whom he could not wound through the whole night. The second is that, even if no such illusion of the devil arises to be feared, even a pure sleep coming in between breeds sluggishness in a monk who must soon wake, and bringing a slow torpor on the mind blunts its vigour through the whole day, dulls that keenness of perception and drains that richness of heart which can keep us more watchful and stronger through the whole day against all the snares of the enemy. For this reason private vigils are added by them to the canonical vigils and follow them with even greater observance, so that the purification gained by psalms and prayers may not be lost, and a more intent watchfulness, which will guard us more diligently through the day, may be prepared by the night's meditation.

And so they carry out these vigils with the addition of work, lest sleep be able to creep in on them as if they were idle. For just as they allow themselves hardly any time of leisure, so they set no end even to their spiritual meditation. Exercising the powers of body and soul together, they balance the wages of the outer man with the gains of the inner, fixing the weight of work, like a firm and immovable anchor, against the slippery movements of the heart and the unstable fluctuation of thoughts. Bound to it, the restlessness and wandering of the heart can be held within the enclosure of the cell as in a most secure harbour. And so, intent only on spiritual meditation and the guarding of thoughts, it not only does not allow the watchful mind to fall into consent to any evil suggestion, but also guards it from every superfluous and idle thought, so that it cannot easily be discerned by anyone which depends on which: whether they practise unceasing manual work for the sake of spiritual meditation, or whether through the continuity of their work they gain such remarkable progress of the spirit and light of knowledge.

So when the psalms are finished and the daily assembly has been dismissed, as we mentioned above, none of them dares to linger even for a moment or to converse with another; nor does anyone presume, through the whole day, to leave his cell or abandon the work he usually does in it, except perhaps when they are called out to the duty of some necessary work. And when they go out, they carry it out so that no conversation at all takes place among them; each one performs the work enjoined in such a way that, by going over a psalm or some Scripture from memory, he gives no opportunity or time, not only to harmful conspiracy or evil plans, but not even to idle talk, since the service of mouth and heart alike is continually occupied in spiritual meditation. For it is kept with the greatest care that no one, and especially the younger ones, is found to have stood together with another even for a moment, or to have gone aside anywhere together, or to have held each other's hands. If any are found to have committed any of these forbidden things against the discipline of this rule, they are declared guilty of no slight fault, as contumacious and transgressors of the commandments, and they cannot escape even the suspicion of conspiracy and evil plans. Unless they wash away this fault by public penance, with all the brothers gathered together, none of them is allowed to take part in the prayer of the brothers.

Indeed, if anyone has been suspended from prayer for any fault he has committed, no one at all has permission to pray with him until, after penance done prostrate on the ground, his reconciliation and pardon for the fault have been granted publicly by the abbot before all the brothers. They separate and cut themselves off from sharing in his prayer with such care because they believe that one who is suspended from prayer is, according to the apostle, delivered to Satan; and whoever, moved by thoughtless pity, presumes to join in his prayer before he is received back by the elder makes himself an accomplice in his condemnation, voluntarily handing himself over to Satan, to whom the other had been assigned for the correction of his guilt. In this he incurs a still graver guilt, because by mixing with him in the fellowship of conversation or prayer he gives him greater fuel for insolence and nourishes the offender's contumacy for the worse. For by giving him a harmful consolation he will make his heart harder and harder, and will not allow him to be humbled for the reason he had been separated; and through this he will lead him either to think little of the elder's rebuke or to think insincerely about satisfaction and pardon.

The one to whom the summoning of the religious assembly and the care of the synaxis is entrusted does not presume to wake the brothers for the daily vigils at random, as he pleases, or whenever he himself has woken in the night, or as the convenience of his own sleep or sleeplessness urges him. Rather, although daily habit makes him wake at the usual hour, he carefully and frequently examines the time fixed for the assembly by the course of the stars and then calls them to the office of prayers, lest he be found careless in either of two ways: if, overcome by sleep, he lets the appointed hour of the night go by, or if, wishing to sleep and eager for rest, he anticipates it, and so seems to have served, not the spiritual office and the rest of all, but his own rest. We should also know this: among the Egyptians, from the evening of the Sabbath which dawns into the Lord's day until the following evening, the knees are not bent, nor on all the days of Pentecost, and the rule of fasting is not kept on them. The reason for these things will be set out in its place in the conferences of the elders, when the Lord commands. For now our purpose is only to run through the reasons in a brief account, lest the book exceed its restrained measure and burden the reader with weariness or labour.