Early Double Monasteries: A Paper read before the Heretics' Society on December 6th, 1914Stoney, Constance
History
Early Double Monasteries: A Paper read before the Heretics' Society on December 6th, 1914
Stoney, Constance
Monasticism and religious orders; Speeches, addresses, etc.
This settlement soon became a proper nunnery under the control of the
superior of the monks, who delegated elderly men to care for its
discipline. With the exception of regulations concerning dress, both
monks and nuns observed the same rule which S. Pachomius wrote for
them[3]. It was very simple. There were to be twelve prayers said
during the day, twelve at twilight, twelve at night, and a psalm at each
meal. Mass was celebrated on Saturday and Sunday. Meals were to be eaten
all together and the amount of food was unlimited. A monk could eat or
fast as he pleased, but the more he ate, the more work must he do. They
were to sleep three in a cell. No formal vows were to be taken, but the
period of probation before entry into the community, was to be three
years. The men provided the food, and did the rough work for the women,
building their dwellings, etc., while the women made clothes for the
men. When a nun died her companions brought her body to the river bank
and then retired; presently some monks fetched away the body, rowed back
across the Nile, and buried it in their cemetery.[4]
That the communities of S. Basil and his sister Macrina (also in the C4)
were of this type, may be seen from the rule of S. Basil. The
communities, like those of Pachomius, were on opposite banks of a
river--in this case, the Iris; and Macrina's nunnery is supposed to have
been in the village of Annesi, near Neo-Caesarea, and founded 357 A.D.
In her nunnery lived her mother and her younger brother Peter, who
afterwards became a priest. The life of this saintly family and the
relation between the two communities may be learned from the charmingly
written Life of S. Macrina by her brother Gregory of Nyssa.[5]
The Rule of S. Basil is written in the form of question and answer, and
much of it refers to the relations between monks and nuns, while all
impress upon the religious the duty of giving no occasion to the enemy
to blaspheme. "May the head of the monastery speak often with the
abbess? May he speak with any of the sisters other than the abbess, on
matters of faith? May the abbess be angry if a priest orders the sisters
to do anything without her knowledge? If a sister refuses to sing the
psalms, is she to be compelled to do so?" All the answers urge both
parts of the community to avoid giving ground for scandal. The nuns, in
this case, seem to have had a separate church, for Gregory speaks of the
"Chorus of Virgins" who awaited him when he came to visit his sister
Macrina on her death bed. There were, too, schools for boys and girls
attached to S. Basil's house, for he makes regulations concerning their
education.
There is practically no evidence for double monasteries in the C5, but
at the opening of the C6 we find them again. In the West the earliest
monastic communities had been founded by S. Martin of Tours, first at
Milan in 371 and afterwards in Gaul, which from then became the chief
monastic centre.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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