Benedict's monks did not expel the hermit
the Eastern idea of hermits was practically expelled by the Western idea of monks.
Benedict's Rule offers a more complicated account of the relationship. Chapter 1 treats hermits as a kind of monk, not as the opposite of monks. Its approved hermit first trains in a monastery, learning from the brothers before undertaking solitary spiritual combat. Benedict then chooses to legislate for cenobites, monks living together under a rule and abbot. The contrast is between two forms within monasticism, and community can prepare someone for solitude. Rule, chapter 1.
The same text supports Chesterton's perception of brotherly asceticism: chapter 72 calls for patience with one another's weaknesses and concern for another's benefit. Yet chapter 73 commends Basil's Rule among the guides to further perfection, complicating the impression that Western community simply supplanted an alien Eastern ideal. These references occur in the sixth-century Rule, inspected here in Leonard J. Doyle's 1948 translation, rather than in a modern reconstruction of monastic practice. Chesterton makes a suggestive analogy between divine and monastic fellowship, but the founding rule of Western Benedictine community does not support his sharp geographical genealogy.
Sources
Revision 1 of 1 · 2026-11-07 · Suggest an edit