(10) Monks & Stoics

For nigh on three decades I have lived on the sidelines of the
great Benedictine Monastic Tradition and the Wisdom of the Stoa.
In due course I wished to reconcile these two magnificent spiritual
currents of Western Civilization--and started looking for any few
connections there might be.

The only serious comparison in common that I discovered was that
of "apatheia." It runs through both monasticism and stoicism.

Apatheia in the Benedictine Order is connected with the formation
of the monk, and in Latin terms it involves what is called "conversio
morum." The Benedictine need control his/her passions via
detachment--as does the Stoic--that's apatheia! In community,
the Benedictine has reinforcement and structures that lends to
this effort.

There's the order of the day, mainly involving liturgical prayer, work,
and study duties. And there's the great Rule of St. Benedict that
prescribes all this in detail. The aim is one of conversion. In their
case the Benedictine monk is aiming towards Christian perfection.

In the case of the modern Stoic, apatheia is left more to the
individual--though there are books and perhaps philosophy
classes. Ancient Stoics might have enjoyed more reinforcement
than the modern Stoic, in that the Stoa was far more pervasive
in the Mediterranean World than in our own times. Nonetheless,
the Stoic aims towards the perfection of the Sage.

There's also some possible historical connections between the two
traditions. First, the monastic founder--St. Benedict of Nursia--was a
Roman aristocrat, likely schooled in a classical education. So it's
possible he was fairly aware of some of the earlier tenets of stoicism,
as other Christian Fathers surely were, as exemplified by their
writings. Anyway the notion of apatheia transferred easily from the
Stoic to the Monk, though the aim standing behind such behavior
may have differed.

After the Fall of the Roman Imperium, with the onslaught of the Dark
Ages, it seemed as if the great writings of the Classical philosophers
were lost. But fortunately for us, medieval Benedictine monks got
around and acquired some of this lost classical mother-lode from the
Muslims. And these great classical books we read today were main-
tained and perpetuated by generations of Benedictine monks in their
scriptoriums. Indeed, these monks became quite enamored of
classical thought and eventually worked a lot of that thought into
their own monastic theology.

But naturally there are also considerable differences. One major
difference between the Benedictine Tradition and the Stoic Tradition
is that of "aim." And their outlook had to be colored by their aims.
From their outset, Benedictines declared their community to be a
"School of the Lord's Service." One might immediately think this
some kind of evangelical dictum, but not so. What it meant was that
the monastic community was the resource--the school--for the
individual monk to attain towards Christian perfection via conversio
morum, via apatheia.

Today the modern Stoic seems somewhat aimless in comparison.
Yes, there's a small trickle of individuals looking for a better form of
living in this world. Perhaps they are looking for a certain content-
ment, a way of managing the chaos that life oft presents in one way
or another. But beyond these individual pursuits, does the modern
Stoic aim towards any greater goals? Hence there are...

Questions: Early Christianity, out of which the Benedictine Tradition
grew, stressed the "Body of Christ" on several levels. One level was
more immediate. It was about building the Body of Christ which was
the Church. In time, for some in the Church and many in the
Benedictine Tradition, another level of approach became that of
building-up the world that had also come to represent the Body of
Christ.

Now are there such aims in the Stoic Tradition? I'm not sure modern
Stoics have moved much beyond their own individual consideration.
However, I have read that ancient Stoics did hold to a certain outlook.
One such account sticks in my mind. For the ancient Stoic, the "goal"
of man is to live in agreement with world design: the cosmic citizen!
As a cosmic citizen, man has a loyalty and obligation to all things in
that city--the world, the cosmos, man's essential worth, universal
brotherhood.

Now if this goal is still considered viable, than it would seem the
modern Stoic has a target. From encyclopedic accounts, the Stoic
wise man was independent of the society in which he lived. Yet a
man could become more virtuous only by exercising his virtue in
his relations with other men, and the exercise of virtue was to be
found in areas demanding responsibility. Thus it was necessary for
the Stoic to earn his living and take part in public life.

There's surely no doubt that many ancient Stoics did indeed take
part in public leadership. The teachers of the Stoa, in their own
way, were educating the young ruling classes of the Roman Empire,
surely in the hope of seeing, eventually, a more humane and
rational public service.

As for the Benedictines, regardless their religious outlook, they
have always provided public service. In the Dark Ages they
actually helped re-teach the peasantry the rudiments of agri-
culture and fisheries. In time they established "outer" schools
for the ruling classes. And towns (and eventually cities) built
around the hub of the monastery. Today Benedictines can be
found outside the cloister, not only working in churches but also
in public service such as in hospitals and in teaching.