By Alex Fogleman
Clothes may make the man, but they do not make the monk.
That may not be exactly the way Greg Peters would put it. But the burden of Peters’ most recent book, The Monkhood of All Believers, is to show that the high calling of monks is none other than the call of all baptized believers—to be single-mindedly devoted to Christ.
“It is not only (nor primarily) what is on the outside that makes the monk (i.e., a habit or living in a monastery) but what is on the inside; that is, the inner life of the monk, not its outward, visible manifestations, is what truly makes one a monk, though the two are related.”
Peters is not making this up, or jettisoning some 1700 years of institutional monasticism, where faithful Christians have committed to poverty, simplicity, and celibacy. For Peters, as he argues in the first chapter, the vision of monastic life as the pursuit of single-mindedness is apparent in the way many early Christians talked about monastic life. What emerges is a common consensus pointing towards what Peters calls “interiorized monasticism,” that is, the sense that what really makes the monk is the spiritual disposition and sense of intentional directedness towards God in all things.
The earliest known use of the word “monk” (in Greek, μοναχός) as a description of a status in the church goes back to the early fourth century, though in all likelihood it was used in some loosely technical sense by the late third. Eusebius of Caesarea, writing the first decades of the fourth century, is the first known ecclesiastical writer to use the term, and when he does so, Peters notes, following E. A. Judge, “he is concerned to use the various renderings to show that μοναχοί are ‘single-minded’ in a general moral sense,” not simply in the fact that they live alone or are secluded from civilization (27).
In other words, at the very origins of the monastic tradition, the basic meaning attached to monasticism was not about where one lived, what one wore, or whether one was married or not. A monk was characterized by the desire to pursue a “solitary” devotion of heart and mind. Peters looks at the writings of Augustine, John Cassian, and Pseudo-Dionysius to show how, despite the wide variety of contexts in which these figures understood monasticism, each retained the sense that monasticism was about more than a social descriptor or station in life. It was about living an intentional, focused, and unified life in God.
St. Augustine sending out monks
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine (d. 431), for example, in a sermon on Psalm 133 (“how good it is when brothers dwell in unity”), found the origins of monastic life in the apostolic church as depicted in Acts 2 and 4. These archetypal monks were, to be sure, those who gathered “together in one place” and held “all things in common.” But even more important was the fact that they were of “one heart and one mind.” The purpose of holding material goods in common was not simply for the relief of financial burdens. The purpose of “dwelling together in unity” was that it enabled them to seek unity with God in heart and mind. The structures of the unified community were meant to foster a unified heart directed to God.
John Cassian
St. John Cassian
John Cassian (d. mid-430s), Augustine’s contemporary who brought the wisdom of the Egyptian and Palestinian monks to the West, would seem a more likely figure to identify monks by their lifestyle, clothing, or social withdrawal. Yet again, however, Cassian articulates a distinction between the “outer” and “inner” person—correlating to coenobitic and anchoritic monks (those who live together and alone, respectively)—in a way that integrally connects inner and outer, with an overall goal of curating single-minded devotion.
Cassian, like Augustine, also locates the origins of monasticism in the church depicted in the Book Acts, with a similar emphasis on the common life as a means of attaining simplicity of heart and mind towards God. Cassian also warns of a kind of monk (the “sarabaite”) who merely wears the habit but is not a monk internally. In all these ways, Peters finds Cassian teaching that “it is more about one’s inner disposition than about one’s outer conduct, though the two are certainly connected” (38). The “connection” is an interesting one, and it will be worth pursuing further. For it seems clear that the external things play an important role in shaping the inner disposition. But for now, we can note that Cassian, like Augustine, also considers the chief goal of monastic life to be attaining single-minded devotion.
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
Pseudo-Dionysius (or Denis) is the third main figure surveyed in Peters’ initial chapter defining the monk. Writing in the late fifth or early sixth century, and drawing on Syriac and Jewish ascetical views, Pseudo-Dionysius articulated Christian existence in reference to a hierarchical order, the goal of which was “to enable beings to be as like as possible to God and to be at one with him” (Celestial Hierarchy 3.1).
St. Dionysius the Areopagite
Within their place in the hierarchy, a monk was one who “because of the purity of their duty and service to God and because of their lives, far from being scattered, are monopolized by their unifying and sacred recollection which excludes all distraction and enables them to achieve a singular mode of life conforming to God and open to the perfection of God’s love” (Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 6.1.3). Out of the fragmentation of life, the monk modeled a life of simplicity and unity of purpose.
“A monk was one who “because of the purity of their duty and service to God and because of their lives, far from being scattered, are monopolized by their unifying and sacred recollection which excludes all distraction and enables them to achieve a singular mode of life conforming to God and open to the perfection of God’s love” ”
Other greater monastic leaders and writers also articulated monastic life in terms of its purpose in cultivating single-minded purpose and devotion. But Peters convincingly articulates one of the central themes of the early Christian identification of the monk.
“Though monasticism is associated historically with celibacy and other forms of asceticism (such as poverty, stability, and unwavering obedience), single-mindedness is another consistent element of monasticism, and the one that seems to be more essential in the earliest tradition . . . . Thus, to be a monk is to be one, not divided; to be unified in one’s goal of coming into union with God. Though many believers live in a multitudinous manner, a μοναχός will set herself apart by living simply and singly. A monk is single-minded” (42).
“Thus, to be a monk is to be one, not divided; to be unified in one’s goal of coming into union with God. Though many believers live in a multitudinous manner, a μοναχός will set herself apart by living simply and singly. A monk is single-minded”
Peters’ book presents, as one of the back-cover blurbs has it, a “winsome recovery of monasticism.” Its ecumenical spirit is apparent on every page. And while largely drawing on historical sources, his aims are constructive: namely, to help the church today, especially Protestants, recover the spiritual potential of the monastic wisdom.
There’s also so much potential for a book like this to help catechists think about their task. The structures and routines of catechesis are all very important, yet we will miss something crucial if we do not remember that the goal of catechesis is to prepare single-minded Christians. If this calling is for all baptized Christians, then those preparing for baptism should be “setup,” as it were, to begin living the Christian life in just this way. Out of the multitudinous manner in which most of us live, the genius of the monks is to guide our attention to the simplicity of purity in heart.