Chp 27 of the Rule of St Benedict & Trullo 102 on Penitential Discipline

As I continue my slow reading of the Rule of St Benedict, I was struck by chapter 27, “How the Abbot Should Care for the Excommunicated” (Qualiter Debeat Abbas Sollicitus Esse Circa Excommunicatos). In this context, “excommunication” has a technical meaning, which Benedict has laid out in the preceding chapters. Basically, “excommunication” means formally disciplining an erring brother who has already—unsuccessfully—been reprimanded twice privately and then once publicly (chp. 23; cf. Matthew 18:15–17).

The degree of this excommunication depends on the severity of the offense. Excommunication for a less serious fault means that he is deprived of table fellowship: he is to eat alone, after the rest of the brothers take their meals, and he should not lead psalms, antiphons, or readings in the oratory (chp. 24). However, a more serious fault carries a more serious degree of excommunication. In this case, the brother “should be banned from both table and oratory,” (suspendatur a mensa simul ab oratorio). He continues to eat alone, with the amount and time determined by the abbot, but his food is not to be blessed; moreover, none of the brothers should associate with him or speak to him, nor even bless him when they pass by (chp. 25). Brothers who associate with the excommunicated in anyway, without the abbot’s order, should themselves be excommunicated (chp. 26). The point of these measures is to bring the erring brother to his senses and lead him to repentance.

St Benedict on Psalmody

St Benedict

I’ve been slowly working through the Rule of St Benedict in Latin, using the Dumbarton Oaks edition. Since in last night’s post on daily Bible reading I mentioned the Orthodox liturgical prescription of reading the Psalter in full once a week, it was interesting to come across the same principle in the Rule this morning. In chapter 18, Benedict lays out a detailed order for when specific psalms should be said in church. He then concludes:

“We urge this in particular: if this distribution of the psalms happens to displease someone, he should arrange it otherwise if he thinks it better, although in any case he must ensure that the entire psalter is sung every week, the full complement of 150 psalms, and is taken up again from the beginning at Sunday Vigils. For those monks who sing less than the entire psalter with the customary canticles in the course of a week show themselves lazy in the service of devotion, since what—as we read—our Holy Fathers energetically completed in a single day, we, more lukewarm as we are, ought to manage in an entire week.”

(Hoc praecipuae commonentes, ut si cui forte haec distributio psalmorum displicuerit, ordinet si melius aliter iudicaverit, dum omnimodis id adtendat ut omni ebdomada psalterium ex integro numero centum quinquaginta pslamorum psallatur et dominico die semper a caput reprendatur ad vigilas. Quia nimis intertem devotionis suae servitium ostendunt monachi qui minus a psalterio cum canticis consuetudinariis per septimanae circulum psallunt, dum quando legamus sanctos patres nostros uno die hoc strenue implesse, quod nos tepidi utinam septimana integra persolbamus. 18.22–24)