MONASTIC TOPICS IN GENERAL
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SHENOUTE OR THE PITFALLS
OF
MONASTICISM Armand Veilleux THE LIFE OF SHENOUTE is not one of the brightest pages of the history of monasticism.
It
deserves
to
be
known
nevertheless,
for
in
monastic
tradition
the
disconcerting figure of the great Shenoute
constitutes
a
tragic phenomenon that compels us to consider seriously some pitfalls inherent in the monastic institution itself. How can one explain that a man whom all agree in calling
authoritarian,
harsh,
and
violent,
and
whose
spirituality,
lacking
any
mystical
dimension,
his
best
specialist
(J.
Leipoldt) describes as `christ-less' (christlose Frömmigkeit),
was able for more than eighty years-he died at the age of
118—to impose his authority
on
a
host
of
disciples
who
seem
to
have
reached
at
one
point
the
startling
figure
of
2200
monks and 1800 nuns? What motives could have attracted
to
him
those
masses
of
disciples
among
whom,
moreover,
movements
of
revolt
against
the
master's
authoritarianism
seem
at
times
to
have
reached
an
endemic
stage?
Motivations
of
a
socio-economic
character
must
have
played
a
role,
but
they
were
certainly
not
the
only
reasons.
We
believe
that
a
more
profound
explanation
is
to
be
sought
in
the
history
of
the
religious
phenomenon
throughout
the
ages.
Let
us
try
to
situate
Shenoute
in
that
much
broader
context,
rather
than
merely
in
that
of
monastic
Egypt
of
the
fourth
and
fifth
centuries. Primitive cultures are
overwhelming.
The
great
archetypes
by
which
the
collective
subconscious
expresses
itself
have
a
very strong hold on a people
whose
cohesion
and
unity
are
preserved by priests, soothsayers,
and
sorcerers
through
a
well-structured system
of
myths,
rituals,
and
moral
codes.
As
long
as
collective
survival
is
not
firmly
ensured,
there
is
no
place
for
the
elaboration
of
an
individual
experience
and
for
the
blossoming
forth
of
personal
consciousness.
Any
effort
by
an
individual
to
pursue
a
personal
journey
beyond
the
framework
offered
by
the
surrounding
culture
is
excluded.
In
the
beginning,
such
an
effort
would
be
simply
impossible
and
therefore
unthinkable;
when
it
becomes
possible
it
is
forbidden;
and,
finally,
when
it
becomes
a
temptation
for
a
great
number
it
is
severely
repressed. Once begun, however,
that
evolution
is
irreversible.
A
day
comes when collective survival is sufficiently
ensured
to
allow toleration of some degree of creative marginality. Then the person emerges. The individual relates
not
only
to
the
group but to each member of it. Bonds are established between persons, and marriage, for example,
becomes
a
relationship
between
two
persons
and
no
longer
only
between
two clans. Then some individuals personally
and
consciously
live the relationship to the Transcendent which had until then been kept in the collective subconscious.
Personal
vocations are discerned and mystical experiences are lived. It was at such a cultural and religious
breakthrough
that
Abraham heard the call to leave behind all the security— material, psychological, religious—provided by his immediate
environment
in
order
to
launch
out
on
a
personal
journey
whose
various
stages
and
final
step
he
could
not
foresee.
It was in the same period, in early India, that the munis fled
to
the
forests
to
listen
to
their
Atman
and
to
encounter Brahman, the principle of Being. Such individual
experiences
have
an
impact
on
the
collective psyche, and a religious movement
takes
form.
The
number
of
those
who
hear
the
call
and
answer
it
increases.
We
think of the time of the rishis
of
Vedic
India
and
of
the
patriarchs and Moses in Israel. A mystical experience develops and the
collective
memory
of
it
comes
to
be
recorded in traditions, beliefs, and rituals. A religion is born; by assuring a functional role the religious
movement
becomes
a system. By this time a plateau has been reached in the pendulum movement between group spirit
and
personal
creativity,
in
the
tension
between
the
collective
and
the
individual
poles. That equilibrium will, generally,
last
several
centuries. After a few centuries
of
what
gradually
becomes
a
respectable mediocrity, the movement
toward
a
more
personal religion manifests
itself
in
personal
experiences
of
a
particular intensity, like that of Siddhartha Gautama in India, or of the
great
prophets
in
Israel.
They
are
solitary
seekers
who
do not try to gather disciples but are anxious to
share
their
deep
spiritual
experience
with
all
their
people.
When
communities
do
form
around
their
experience
and
teaching,
they
do
so
by
the
somewhat
natural
grouping
of
those
who
share
the same experience under their inspiration. In this
way
the
buddhist
Sangha
was
born;
and
in
the
same
way
the
fellowships
of
the
poor
of
Yahweh
developed
in
Israel
during
the
exile, as, a little later, did the groups of hasidîm among whom there blossomed a spiritual attitude impregnated
with
mysticism
that
would
serve
as
a
seedbed
for
early
christian
asceticism. On that spiritual movement of the hasidîm
(or
Hassidaeans)
a
few
centuries
before
Christ,
a
kind
of
outgrowth
developed
called
Essenism
which
expressed
itself
especially
in
the
monastic
community
of
Qumran
and
in
the
communities
of
Therapeutes
in
the
diaspora.
It
was
an
involution
rather
than
an
evolution.
In
reaction
to
the
religious
and
political
compromises of the Hasmonaean dynasty, but also in reaction to the insecurity provoked by the opening up of Late
Judaism
to
various
esoteric
currents,
Essenism
was
a
frantic
search
for
security.
These
people
left
society
to
take
refuge
in the warm security of a religious system as all-pervading
as
that
of
primitive
cultures,
under
the
all-present
personality
of
the Teacher of Righteousness. Gnosticism, at
the
same
epoch
a
very
widespread
current
of
thought throughout the East, and one
which
reached
its
peak
during
the
first
few
centuries
of
the
christian
era,
was
also a movement of withdrawal into
a
form
of
collectivism
leading to individualism rather than to personal development. The mythological frescoes and
the
philosophical
and
theological constructions of the gnostic systems were not lacking in grandeur and beauty. The
masters
of
these
various
schools
—
Marcion,
Basilides, Valentinus, for example
—
were
brilliant,
powerful
personages,
often
more
inspiring
than
the
heresiologists who fought against them.
It
is
not
surprising
that they attracted numerous disciples in search of security. At a time when mankind, especially
after
the
revelation
of
a
personal
God
in
Jesus,
was
reaching
a
new
awareness
of
the
dignity
and
inalienable
responsibility
of
the
human
person,
gnosticism appeared as an escape into the past, as a search
for
security
in
well-organised
systems
where
all
human
problems
received
a
simple
formulation
and
a
firm
answer,
both
guaranteed by the authority of a master invested with powers from
above. Jesus of Nazareth's
message
was
much
more
disquieting.
He did not elaborate a new mythology
and
did
not
propose
a
new doctrinal system or a new moral code. He simply witnessed to his own human and spiritual
experience:
he
said
that
he
had
a
Father
with
whom
he
established
a
personal
relationship of love, from whom he
had
received
a
personal
mission,
and
whose
will
he
made
his
own.
He
and
his
Father
were
one.
And
he
taught
that
all
of
us
are
called
to
live
the
same experience: if we love him and
accomplish
his
commandments
his
Father
will
love
us,
he
and
his
Father
will
come and make their dwelling in us,
and
we
too
will
be
one
with his Father and with him. Everyone is invited to work out the consequences and face the demands
which
such
an
experience makes in his own personal life. Christian monasticism,
in
spite
of
marked
similarities
to
that of Qumran, is actually poles apart
from
it.
And
notwithstanding some common concepts it may share with gnosticism, it manifests another world of thought
and
radically
different
spiritual
attitudes.
The
first
great
figures
of christian monasticism in Egypt—Antony,
Makarios,
Amoun,
for
example—were
eminently
liberated
human
beings,
deeply
in
touch
with
their
heart
and
with
God.
Out
of
fidelity
to
a
clearly-heard
call,
they
decided
to
pursue
their
spiritual
journey beyond all that was offered them by the religious and cultural environment of the Church and society
of
their
time.
As
much
as
they
were
free
and
intransigent
in
pursuing
their
pilgrimage
on
untrodden
paths,
they
also
maintained
a profound solidarity with men and women of their
time.
Their
aim
was
nothing
less
than
a
personal
encounter
with
God
beyond
all
human
mediations. They did not remain
alone
very
long.
Their
example
released a similar call in many others.
Almost
against
their
will they became guides on the way of solitary spiritual adventure. To no one did they offer
ready-made
maps
for
the
journey;
rather
they
helped
each
one
invent
his
own
unique path. With Pachomius something
different
happened,
although
always in the same line. Pachomius
founded
a
community
and
established
a
rule
of
life.
He
understood
that
if
a
solitary
journey toward the discovery of God's
will
and
the
realisation of the unique and inalienable 'name' he has given each person can be accomplished in an anchoretic
solitude,
it
can
also be accomplished in a community of brothers who respect and support that maturation.
In
relation
to
the
surrounding
religious
'culture'
the
cenobitic
community
constitutes a form of 'sub-culture'
where
a
particular
type
of
experience of God is fostered and supported. The rule that structures the life of that group is
conceived
as
a
way
and
not
as a limit. The various precepts of that rule are so many signposts along the road. The monk
must
be
constantly
listening to the Spirit
and
to
his
own
heart. Each form of monasticism
has
its
advantages
and
its
riches,
but also its limitations and its pitfalls.
The
principal
pitfall
of
cenobitism lies in the danger that pressure exercised by the collectivity on the individual can easily
overwhelm
and
paralyse him, and risk hampering the growth of its members instead of fostering it. The cenobitic
community
fulfills
its
role of being a growth environment inasmuch as it maintains the proper balance between its various
constitutive
elements. It was at this point
in
the
evolution
of
christian
monasticism in Egypt that Shenoute came
into
the
picture.
The
great White Monastery near the town of Akhmîm, where he spent some one hundred years of monastic
life,
was
never
a
pachomian
monastery.
Its
founder,
Pjol,
Shenoute's
uncle, had simply adopted the rule
of
the
pachomian
monasteries, modifying it in many respects, especially in the direction of greater austerity. Shenoute
accentuated
still
more
that
tendency to exaggeration. With that, we are very far from real pachomian spirituality. In the case of Shenoute
and
the
monastic
movement
which he directed and by which he was borne, just as in the cases of Qumran and of gnosticism, we are confronted with a kind of fall-back. In opposition to
a
developing
community
spirit and a greater importance given to personal vocation and its demands, there is manifested
an
instinctive
reaction
toward the old, well-structured collectivism, which always remains a temptation to human beings.
In
a
massively
insecure
society,
the
strongly
structured
form
of
monasticism
at
the White Monastery and the very strong
personality
of
the
`prophet' Shenoute (for so he is called) provided thousands of Egyptian fellahîn with the
dose
of
security
they
needed
to
quieten their existential and religious anguish. They did not come seeking—and
Shenoute
did
not
offer
them—guidance
and support to help them walk confidently
in
the
way
of
a
fuller realisation of their personal spiritual self and of their identification with Christ, but rather
they
were
looking
for
strong authority and a rigorous and detailed rule that would assure their
escape
from
perdition
and
their
eternal
salvation. Pachomius came to
know
Christianity
through
experiencing
the
active
charity
of
a
community
of
Christians,
and
he
found
his
spiritual
food
in
the
Gospel,
which
he
knew
by
heart. It was in the New Testament
that
he
had
discovered
his
sense of Community. Even without the philosophical jargon of the School
of
Alexandria
he
was
profoundly
mystical.
He
was a demanding spiritual father, always
calling
his
disciples
to further growth, but he also had an understanding of human weakness and was attentive to the laws
of
spiritual
growth.
Shenoute, on the other hand, was a force of nature, a volcano in perpetual eruption. Generally leading
his
troops
with
a
rod,
he
could
also
at
times
forget
himself
to
the
point
of
being
meek.
(According
to
the
witness
of
one
of
his
own
letters, we know that one of his monks
died
as
a
consequence
of blows he administered.) He acted as an inspired prophet and founded his teaching on an inspiration
received
directly
from above. Without theological formation, he made himself a hunter of heretics, besides leading
armed
expeditions
to
overthrow idols and pagan temples. There was nothing mystical about him, but he had a greatly
voluntarist
approach
to
spiritual life, He was also an enemy of studies and science, although
he
himself
had
received
a
good
intellectual
formation
(which is generally the case with all
those
who
throughout
monastic history have been opposed to studies by monks; de Rancé is another example). Shenoute's monasticism,
like
his
religion,
was
a
functional
one: a certain number of conditions
had
to
be
fulfilled
in
order to obtain a certain result. Everyone knows that a functional religion never leads to
a
personal
experience
of
God, but history oftentimes proves that it is the best means for engendering
mediocrity.
To
believe
that
one
is
a
monk
because one lives in a monastery, observes
all
the
precepts
of
the Rule and has firmly poured himself into the 'monastic' mold is the best means never really
to
become
a
monk
at
all.
Benedict of Nursia was very conscious of this when he observed at the end of his Rule that he had simply indicated
a
minimum
by
which
to
reach
a
respectable
mediocrity;
to
those
who
wanted
to
pursue
the
journey
and
to
pass
beyond
what the support of the collective structure could give, he proposed the examples and the teachings of the Elders. If it is interesting
and
useful
to
analyse
the
case
of
Shenoute and of his White Monastery, this
is
because
it
is
far
from
being
an
isolated
one.
Of
course,
few
abbots
were
at
the
head
of
their
communities
for
over
eighty
years,
few
also
used violence as Shenoute did, and
few
monasteries
were
ever as populous as the White Monastery! But it is a fact all the same that if we consider the formal
aspect,
that
is,
the
type of superiorship exercised by Shenoute, many a Shenoute can be found in monastic history, and
his
kind
is
not
altogether
absent
from
the
contemporary
scene.
In
general
they
are men who are
superior
and
fascinating
in
many
respects.
In the Middle
Ages
a
Bernard
of
Clairvaux,
though
without
the harshness, had much in common with
Shenoute.
Think
of the crowds of disciples brought back to Clairvaux after each razzia in the capitals
of
Europe,
at
odds
with
the
tradition of the Elders and with the Rule of Benedict, which insists on the necessity of adequately
testing
the
right
intention of the candidates. Think most of all of his zeal against heretics.
Although
he
used
different
methods,
his
relentless
hounding of Abelard was as violent
as
Shenoute's
actions
toward Nestorius. Providing great psychological
security
by
their
skill
in
formulating simply and solving radically
any
given
problem,
the Shenoutes are always very influential in deliberative assemblies. Moreover, the great number
of
disciples
they
often attract to the monastery seems to prove the correctness of their approach. But beyond the
work
of
grace,
the
recruitment
of
a
community
depends
on
various
other
factors, one of them being the type of
equilibrium
established
within the given community between the various elements of common life. Saint Benedict defines cenobites as
monks
who
have
chosen
to
live
in
a
community,
under
a
rule
and
an
abbot.
The community's equilibrium implies
a
healthy
tension
among
those
three
poles:
community,
rule,
and
abbot.
That
equilibrium
is
difficult
to
maintain;
the
tension
is
demanding
and rarely attracts crowds. But as soon as the tension is broken in favour of one of the poles,
everything
becomes
easier
and
the
takers
are
usually
more
numerous. A few decades ago, when a type of democratic
spirit
was
popular, a monastery where the communal and dialogal aspects were strongly stressed had
a
good
chance
of
attracting
many
candidates.
That
period
seems
to
be
over.
Nowadays,
young
persons
who
have
grown
up
in
a
universe
of
insecurity (in political, economic,
and
social
life
as
well
as
in
school and often also in the family) gather more easily where a strong stress is put either on the
rule
(i.e.
a
firmly
structured life-style), or on the charismatic role of the father or the mother. This corresponds fairly
well
to
a
fundamentalist
tendency found at all levels of society in the West nowadays. But it is an alarming tendency, for
the
demarcation
line
between fundamentalism and fanaticism is very tenuous and very easily crossed—generally in the
name
of
very
high
ideals. For many candidates today, the monastery
is
a
port
of
arrival, where a difficult and at times tormented journey on the stormy sea of the world comes to
an
end.
They
contemplate
spending
their
lives
in
harbour,
as
in
a
kind
of
spiritual
refugee camp. They need a White Monastery;
and
every
White
Monastery needs its Shenoute. For others, however, the monastery is not a port of arrival but
a
port
of
call
from
which constant expeditions on the high seas are possible (which in no way implies leaving the
enclosure
of
the
monastery).
It
is
the
place
they
have
chosen
for
carrying
on an ever new journey, a search beyond
all
institutional
mediations toward the encounter with God who is beyond everything that can be said of him and
who
is
other
than
everything that is taught about him by those who think they can easily speak of him. These pilgrims
of
the
Absolute
need to live in communion with other frontier runners, under the guidance of an higoumenos, according to the beautiful name given the abbot by an
ancient
tradition,
that
is,
someone
who
guides
others
on
the
way.
Neither
a
White
Monastery
nor
a
Shenoute
could
answer
their
spiritual needs. At every moment of history, religious
movements
are
coming to birth; most of them have an ephemeral existence of a few decades or a few centuries.
Monasticism
is
a
trans-
cultural
phenomenon
that
has
existed
for
thousands
of
years.
It
has
been
able
to
survive
not
only
all
the
crises
of
society
and of the Church, but even its own
periods
of
decadence.
Like the phoenix it renews itself. Periodically, after, sometimes rather long, phases of larval
existence,
it
recovers
the
freshness and the dynamism of a butterfly emerging from the cocoon. But much collective discernment
is
required
to
be
able to recognise in today's chrysalis tomorrow's butterfly; for it is not enough to enter one's
cocoon
to
be
borne
anew. Throughout the world,
in
every
culture,
in
all
religions
and
every walk of life there are nowadays—as
much
as
at
any
earlier
time
and
probably
more
than
at
any
earlier
time—
women
and
men
thirsty
for
the
Absolute,
open
to
the
Breath
of Life of which Paul speaks in chapter 8 of his Epistle
to
the
Romans,
and
straining
toward
that
surplus
of
life,
unforeseeable
and
unimaginable,
that
is
always
offered
to
them
from
on high. They live in a tent, nomads of the Absolute,
frontier
runners,
always
ready
to
receive
under
a
new
form
the
'name'
that engenders in them their inner being, accepting the various institutional mediations, but refusing to be imprisoned
by
them.
In
them,
the
monastic
charism
survives,
more
perhaps
than in all the official institutional forms, even if these have been retouched according to Vatican II. And when the monastic
institution
itself
comes
to
realise
a
new
phase
of
growth,
as
it
has
done
at
various
times
in
the
past, it will not be through a reform (`adapted'
though
it
be)
of
its
existing
structures,
but
by
the
regrouping
of
all
these
solitary
wayfarers,
in
one
form
or
another,
in
a
sort
of
great
universal
monastic
order.
That
network
exists
already;
it
has
still
to
invent
its
visible
mode
of
expression.
One
must
hope
that
a
few
elements
of
that
network
will
then
be
found
in
every
White
Monastery. Armand
Veilleux N.D. de Mistassini |
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