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THE desert mothers and fathers highly esteemed the virtue of humility, even describing it as the foundation of the monastic life.  However, their understanding of this virtue must be interpreted in light of their highly enmeshed¹ Greco-Roman culture, in which few things were more important than the honor and privilege (timē/τιμή) due to one’s social, financial, and economic status, and where social progress depended on enmeshment in the relationship between patron and client.²

1 Enmeshment is a psychological term especially employed in family therapy.  It describes a situation in which personal boundaries are diffuse or unclear.  In the context of Roman society it meant that one's sense of self was exclusively defined by social obligations and status.

2 cf. Verboven, Koenraad , “Friendship among the Romans,” The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations in the Roman World, ed. M.Peachin, (Oxf.Univ.Press, 2011), esp. pp. 412-414.

WITHDRAWAL (anachórésis) into the lonely desert was thus a step into FREEDOM from both enmeshment and the perception of the other as principally a means to one’s own end.

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IN the Apophthegmata humility is the fundamental (Poeman, LS 37) and highest Christian virtue (John the Short, LS 22), necessary for salvation (Syncletica, LS 48), and, linked with fear of God, a source of unceasing meditation, (Poeman, LS 32).

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THE desert Abba Arsenius illustrates humility of both possessions and position (LS 6), as well as humble submission of intellect: he is willing to LEARN from the uneducated (LS 7), thus manifesting forgetfulness of an old self and the discovery of a new self through openness to God and the brethren.

 

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Humility as The Willingness to Listen, Learn and Improve (change)

SAINT Benedict inherits from Cassian and the Master a triad of intimately-related virtues that characterize the cenobitic monk: “[Cassian’s] description of humility begins with expressions of obedience and ends with practices related to silence”(Inst 4.39.2).* Taciturnity (“eager listening”) and obedience are thus signs (indiciis) of humility.

 * “His portrait of the humble monk forms the basis for our Rule's great chapter on humility, represented by a ladder on which obedience occurs towards the beginning and stillness towards the end. The three virtues are thus intimately related: one of them[, humility,] includes the other two.” A. deVogüé, Reading Saint Benedict, (Cist./Lit.Pr. 1994), p. 67

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THE Master, Benedict’s principal source, orders these three virtues in four chapters as follows:

§7. OBEDIENCE;

§8. SILENCE;

§9. HOW to ASK;   §10. HUMILITY (Reward, 10.92-120)

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BENEDICT condenses the Master’s four chapters into three, concluding with Chapter 7 which presents humility as a summary and recapitulation* of both obedience and taciturnity

* “Its role as a recapitulation results from a comparison with the two preceding treatises, for obedience and taciturnity are but manifestations of humility.” A. deVogüé, The Rule of St. Benedict, A Doctrinal and Spiritual Commentary, (Cist/Lit.Press) p. 117

§5.OBEDIENCE;

§6.TACITURNITY (restraint in speech/“silence”); and

§7. HUMILITY

THIS should be interpreted in light of:

The first word of the Rule - Listen (ausculta) - a condition / position of attentive receptivity

Prologue 45-50, A School of the Lord's Service (Dominici Schola Servitii):  A context/attitude/posture where listening, humble receptivity of teaching, obedient implementation of teaching leads (in Benedict’s unique additions - vs. 46-49), to change: an expanded heart; sweetly running the ascetical path.

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SAINT Benedict depicts humility as an ascent: however, unlike his predecessors, his ladder not only culminates in love, but uniquely requires that love be present already at the third step or rung.

THE ascent of the ladder of humility occurs in community, where:

[1]The brethren will help one to see more clearly one's need for change (see Rule of Basil, Q.3)

[2] special attention can be offered to those with special needs, both the strong and the weak (ch. 64.19); where the humble young are invited to counsel (ch. 3), the humble sick are served as Christ (ch. 36), and where mutual contemplation of the honor each bears as child of God enables all to rise heavenward together - pariter (ch.72.12).

 

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SAINT Benedict If it is true, as Fr. deVogüé suggests, that chapter 5 on obedience and chapter 6 on taciturnity are manifestations of the virtue of humility, then it is helpful to note that these virtues - and thus also the virtue of humility - enable the monk to grow in the art of contemplating through listening, attentively hearing (as in the ausculta of the Prologue) the other members of the community, especially the superiors, but also the whole community to whom obedience is due (ch. 71), such obedience being “the path by which we go to God.”

MODERN authors such as Lassus have described both the limits of obedience and the obedience superiors (and subjects) owe to the Church