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Rule

St Benedict of Nursia, tr. Hunter Blair, 1907

Chapter 62

IF any Abbot desire to have a priest or deacon ordained for his Monastery, let him choose from among his monks one who is worthy to fulfil the priestly office. And let him that is ordained beware of arrogance and pride, and presume to do nothing that is not commanded him by the Abbot, knowing that he is now all the more subject to regular discipline. Let him not, by reason of his priesthood, become forgetful of the obedience and discipline of the Rule, but advance ever more and more in godliness. Let him always keep the place due to him according to his entrance into the Monastery, except with regard to his office at the altar, or unless the choice of the community and the will of the Abbot should raise him to a higher place for the merit of his life. Nevertheless, let him know that he must observe the rules prescribed by the deans or provosts. Should he presume to do otherwise, he shall be judged, not as a priest, but as a rebel; and if after frequent warning he do not correct himself, let recourse be had to the intervention of the Bishop.¹ If even then he will not amend, and his guilt is clearly shewn, let him be cast forth from the Monastery, provided his contumacy be such that he will not submit nor obey the Rule.

Notes

Note X (p. 166).—Episcopus adhibeatur in testimonium. These words are usually interpreted to mean that the Bishop was to be actually called upon to intervene in the case of a refractory priest. Taken in conjunction with the appeal to the Ordinary prescribed in the event of an improper election to the abbacy (chap. lxiv.), they seem to shew that St. Benedict did not, in laying down his Rule, contemplate that exemption from episcopal authority which his Order afterwards enjoyed. It has been maintained, indeed, that no trace of such exemption is to be found previous to the time of St. Gregory the Great (590-604). P. Bouix, however (De jure Regularium, II., cap. 2. § 1), clearly shews that there were instances of this immunity, at least in the Eastern and African Churches, two centuries or more before the above date, and therefore considerably anterior to the time of St. Benedict.