The Monastic Rules of Visigothic Iberia - eTheses Repository ...

3.8 Uses of Literacy
The most common activity involving written texts in monastic daily life was lectio.
There is no explicit indication in the monastic rules that lectio should necessarily be a solitary
activity, as later medieval lectio divina often was, although some evidence suggests that it
was not always a group activity. For example, when Isidore mentions checking books out, he
says: “omnes codices custos sacrarii habeat deputatos a quo singulos singuli fratres
accipiant”. 227 Alliteration aside, the implication here is perhaps of individual monks
checking books out for individual study. The idea of lectio more generally is present in most
of the monastic rules and is far more widespread than a sole monastic practice. Augustine,
for example, recommended it to the wife of Antoninus, 228 and before Christian practice, it
had been a Jewish one (Lawless 1987: 48). The activity is also especially prevalent in the
Rule of Benedict, where its purpose was paraenetic: “in the monasteries, the reading of
theological texts for the edification of the listening monastic community was a spiritual
discipline” (Dunphy 2004: 113). As such, the reading of pagan writings was generally
frowned upon, a fact specifically referred to by Isidore when he warns that “gentilium libros
uel haereticorum uolumina monachus legere caueat”. 229
There exists no explicit evidence in the monastic rules as to what kind of material
would have been read during lectio, although this lack of dogma perhaps better indicates the
reading of a wide range of texts. It was noted above that pagan readings were frowned upon
and in most cases banned, and some scholars have liked to see the contents of the Nag
227 Rule of Isidore 8.
228 Epistle 20.3, “illud sane admonuerim religiosissimam prudentiam tuam, ut timorem dei non
inrationabilem uel inseras infermiori uasi tuo uel nutrias diuina lectione grauique conloquio”.
229 Rule of Isidore 8.3.
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