A Rule for Beginners

The first chapter of Benedict’s Rule can be read with the final chapter, where Benedict
describes the Rule as a guide for beginners on the journey to holiness. That is, the Rule is for
most of us. In every generation, there will be a few who are luminous icons of Christ. But the
rest of us are relatively slothful, unobservant, and negligent (73:7). The remedy for this type of
illness is the grace that abounds through community and obedience to a rule of life. That is, we
become less slothful, unobservant, and negligent through dependence on others. The necessity
of such dependence helps us understand Benedict’s strong language in chapter one, on the four
kinds of monks.

In this first chapter, Benedict anticipates Bob Dylan’s, “Gotta Serve Somebody” (from
1979’s Slow Train Coming). There, the poet rehearses a litany of potential masters to which we
can enslave ourselves. But in every chorus, he riffs on the scriptural theme of the two ways, one
way leading to life, and the other to death.

Benedict organizes the four kinds of monks similarly: two kinds lead to life in the LORD,
and two kinds lead to death in the self. The difference between these two groups has everything
to do with the masters they serve.

Benedict has nothing good to say about “sarabites” and “gyrovagues.” The sarabites
appear to enjoy some form of community and stability. But they have no rule to guide them.
They are enslaved to their own whims. The gyrovagues are even worse, because they cannot
stay in one place. They rove about, “slaves to their own wills and gross appetites” (1:11). The
sarabite and the gyrovague are dependent on the capricious human will, unformed by a
well-ordered way of life in community.

These poor slaves haven’t started the journey toward the holiness Benedict observes in
the “anchorites,” those hermits who have passed through the fire of community and obedience
and have come out on the other side “ready with God’s help to grapple single-handed with the
vices of body and mind” (1:5). Like Christ, their master, the anchorites are headed for the
desert. Satan had better be ready.

The Rule isn’t for the anchorites. They live the Rule by second nature. And the Rule isn’t
for the sarabites and gyrovagues. It waits for them. The Rule is for joyful beginners who depend
on a community and obedience to its way of life. Benedict calls this type of monk the “strong
kind” (1:13). Where does this strength come from? From the grace that abounds through the life
of a community well regulated by wisdom. Dependence on such a community forms the strength
a person needs to begin. It is impossible to be independent. And it is difficult to be a beginner,
especially for a long time. Benedict knows this and hopes his Rule will free us from our illusions
of independence so that we have courage for the long journey ahead.