A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

691Historical Documents, 1892, and in full in Thatcher andMcNeal, A Source Book for Mediæval History, 1905.(a) Benedict of Nursia, Regula. (MSL, 66:246.)1. Concerning the kinds of monks and their modes of living.It is manifest that there are four kinds of monks. The first isthat of the cenobites, that is the monastic, serving under a ruleand an abbot. The second kind is that of the anchorites, that isthe hermits, those who have learned to fight against the devil,not by the new fervor of conversion, but by a long probationin a monastery, having been taught already by association withmany; and having been well prepared in the army of the brethrenfor the solitary fight of the hermit, and secure now without theencouragement of another, they are able, God helping them, tofight with their own hand or arm against the vices of the fleshor of their thoughts. But a third and very bad kind of monks arethe sarabites, not tried as gold in the furnace by a rule, experiencebeing their teacher, but softened after the manner of lead; [632]keeping faith with the world by their works, they are known bytheir tonsure to lie to God. Being shut up by twos and threesalone and without a shepherd, in their own and not in the Lord'ssheepfold, they have their own desires for a law. For whateverthey think good and choose, that they deem holy; and what theydo not wish, that they consider unlawful. But the fourth kind ofmonk is the kind called the gyrovagi, who during their whole lifeare guests for three or four days at a time in the cells of differentmonasteries throughout the various provinces; they are alwayswandering and never stationary, serving their own pleasures andthe allurements of the palate, and in every way worse than thesarabites. Concerning the most wretched way of all, it is betterto keep silence than to speak. These things, therefore, beingomitted, let us proceed with the aid of God to treat of the bestkind, the cenobites.