George Ovitt, Jr. has published an essay that argues against the usual view that monks did not engage in hard labor and that such labor was considered beneath them. See "Early Christian Attitudes," in the Work of Work, which is on reserve.
Writing of the Rule of St. Benedict, Ovitt says:
"Benedict, first of all, saw manual labor as a necessary part of monastic life because it protects the brothers from the potentially harmful effects of leisure..."
from pages 81-82:
"...In a letter exhorting a young novice to devotion, Jerome cites the proverb that "everyone who is idle is prey to vain desires" and reminds the young man that work is necessary not only for the support of the body but for the support of the soul as well. Hilary of Poitiers, writing midway through the 4th century, notes that bodily infirmity--that is, the need to eat, drink, and sleep--naturally prevents a religious person from practicing continual devotion but that every act, if piously performed, may be seen as a prayer. This point becomes important in future discussions of the spiritual role of manual labor, especially in the context of establishing monastic ideals and rules; Hilary's assertion that ordinary life and the satisfaction of ordinary needs could be sanctified indicates the main direction that Western thought on the role of manual labor in religious life would take."
"Thus in his Institutes, John Cassian, who had traveled to the Egyptian desert to observe the holy men living there late in the 4th century, counseled all of those committed to the religious life to engage in manual labor as a protection against the risks of sloth. Furthermore, Cassian saw in manual labor a value that lay outside the bounds of penance: "for practicing equally the virtues of the body and of the soul, a balance is struck between what the outer man needs and what the inner man finds satisfying." Later on in the Institutes Cassian developed this theme further by showing that Saint Paul set an example by laboring with his hands and that this labor "cures many faults" of both a physical and spiritual nature. Cassian, like Jerome, cited the assiduous labor of the Egyptian and Syrian monks as an example for all Christians, and he noted that the "fruits of one's hands" constitute a true sacrifice to God. However, it must be noted that by the "labor of the hands" Cassian meant not only agricultural labor but also intellectual labor, manuscript copying, and, in the purely penitential vein, redundant physical tasks whose only product was discomfort and the subjugation of the flesh.
"Among the earliest Christian writers, Saint Augustine's influence proved to be most influential, and his views on the role of labor and its products are therefore of particular interest. Augustine's insistence on the omnipotence of God and the dependency of man on God's grace for illumination and salvation led him to insist on the individual's responsibility for correctly evaluating the relative spiritual merit of various worldly pursuits. In De doctrina christiana [On Christian Doctrine], Augustine provides this index of relative utility: "Some things are to be enjoyed, others are to be used, and there are others which are to be enjoyed and used. Those things which are to be enjoyed make us blessed. Those things which are to be used help, and as it were, sustain us as we move toward blessedness in order that we might gain and cling to those things which make us blessed." As is clear from De opere monachorum (On the work of monks)--a text composed in response to a group of monks who claimed that the exhortation to "live as freely as the birds" and not worry about physical sustenance was more binding than the Pauline injunction to labor--the things that can move a Christian toward blessedness include manual labor. Echoing a point made by Basil and John Cassian, Augustine writes that only those who labor and produce an excess of goods can be in a position to practice charity rather than to receive it."
from page 83:
"...In De doctrina christiana, he (Augustine) writes that "Among other arts, some are concerned with the manufacture of a product which is the result of the labor of the artificer, like a house, a bench, a dish, or something of that kind. Others exhibit a kind of assistance to the works of God, like medicine, agriculture, and navigation ... a knowledge of these arts is to be acquired casually and superficially in the ordinary course of life unless a particular office demands a more particular knowledge." Work of all kinds is of personal value to the monk, nun, or layman, for it chastens the flesh and may be offered up to God as a form of devotion; work that is productive is of value to the community of believers because it fills the intervening time of waiting and gives glory to the ingenuity of human beings. In essence, Augustine's view defines the status quo of the 4th through the 12th centuries: some work, some pray, and some fight; all these necessary social functions glorify God and maintain the order that the early church first threatened, then rejuvenated."
"...A survey of the textual background against which medieval monastic labor was practiced may perhaps help to clarify the role played by manual labor in the Christian communities established during the 4th and 5th centuries.
"In the 4th century Egypt, Saint Anthony was acknowledged to have been the perfect model of the anchoristic (solitary) life, whereas Pachomius, founder of a community of monks at Tabemmeso in A.D. 320, was taken to be the model of the cenobitic (communal) life. At Tabennesi the monks raised their own food and worked to supply the community with all its material necessities. Crafts were practiced, trade was conducted with secular communities, and charitable functions were performed for men and women in surrounding communities. Though it was not at all unusual for a religious hermit to perform manual labor--there are numerous examples recorded in the Sayings of the Fathers--the contribution made to the history of monasticism by Pachomius was the organization of communal labor in order to create an economic basis for the religious life."
from pages 86-87:
Ovitt argues that "the later history of medieval monasticism demonstrates that physical needs did not take precedence over the personal spiritual needs of the individual monk, and one must not lose sight of the fact that labor and productivity created a social context for the practice of religion, rather than religion creating a structure supportive of labor." He continues:
"This last point is particularly clear when one examines the Rule composed by Saint Benedict in the mid-6th century, a text known to have been influenced by the Rule of the Master. Benedict, first of all, saw manual labor as a necessary part of monastic life because it protects the brothers from the potentially harmful effects of leisure: "Leisure (otiositas) is the enemy of the soul, and for this reason the brothers must spend a certain amount of time in doing manual work (in labore manuum) as well as the time spent in divine reading (lectione divina)." Manual labor supplements the true work of reading, prayer, and meditation; it assists the monk in their attempts to live "as our fathers and apostles did," and it is specifically designed so that those who are weak are not overwhelmed or driven away: "Let those who are not strong have help so that they may serve [meals] without distress. ..."For Benedict, the very essence of monastic life entails manual labor, and, as de Vogue has shown, the Benedictine Rule assumes that matters such as diet will be determined, in part, by the labor performed by a particular member of the monastic community. Indeed, Benedict's discussion of manual labor occurs in a chapter of the Rule that outlines the basic structure of the monastic day. As Benedict says, 'the labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you have strayed through disobedience,' and the monastery is pictured as the workshop in which the monk labors to perfect his soul and to know his God".
"A different approach to labor and to the organization of monastic life is to be found in the Rule of Saint Columban (ca.543-615), a rule reflecting harsher, more ascetic world of Irish monasticism, where labor was primarily a tool for the mortification of the flesh ("the main purpose of monastic rules is mortification..."). The Irish monks labored in the fields and practiced simple crafts, but "All training, according to the Apostle, for the present seems to be a matter not of joy but of sorrow; nevertheless, it yields a pleasant fruit and a peaceful increase of reward...for indeed what is to be learnt here without sorrow and toil...? How much grief lies in the craftsman's trades? How much toil?" In the rule of Columban, one encounters the ideal of labor as penance, and one sees the extent to which the eremitical ideal persisted within the structure of Western monasticism even as the Benedictines established a monastic ethic that would, by the 12th century, accept productivity and wealth as natural by-products of cooperative labor.
Write a short paper that addresses some of the following questions:
How can you link the ideals of monastic work to some of the texts we have read? How can you link the idea of spiritual work with physical work? Which form of work does our society value more? In which contexts? Can you draw some conclusions about physical and spiritual work and the intellectual work that is the focus of the university? What does contemporary society seem to believe about linking the three types of work? What sorts of physical work go along with the spiritual and the intellectual? What sorts seem to be in conflict with these values?
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