10.19 HS Notes - Benedictine Monasticism Writes rule in...

Benedictine Monasticism
- Writes rule in about 540
- The form of monastic life for about 500 years in the West
o Dominates in Europe, and it is still with us today
o 500 years after Benedict’s life, monasticism starts taking on different forms
 Carthusians were one order that developed; no one knew what it was like except Carthusian monks
who left the order
 Carthusians let a film crew in to document their life – they don’t speak unless in special meetings
• Get together 8 times a day outside of mass to pray the divine office; have one communal meal a
week, otherwise they have ‘chapters’
- 2 things fundamental in understanding pre-modern religion
o Cosmology (conception/study of the universe)
 3 features:
• 1) Natural world testifies to divine purpose and action (catifiler turning into butterfly is a work of
only God – God-like figure is active in the world
• 2) God was implicated in the very existence of society (society only can exist with some sort of
God as a foundation – idea of natural law….there are certain laws which constitute moral