One Rule for All Egypt, and the Choosing of Superiors

Throughout the whole of Egypt and the Thebaid, then, monasteries are not founded at the whim of every man who renounces the world. They last even to the present day through a succession of fathers and their traditions, or are founded so as to last in that way. In these we have noticed that a fixed system of prayers is kept in their evening gatherings and night vigils. For no one is allowed to preside over the gathering of the brothers, or even over himself, until he has not only stripped himself of all his property but has also learned that he is not his own maker and has no authority over his own actions. For whoever renounces the world, whatever property or riches he may have, must seek the shared dwelling of a coenobium, so that he may not pride himself in any way on what he has given up or on what he has brought into the monastery. [a]

He must also be obedient to all, so as to learn that, as the Lord says, he must become a little child again. He must claim nothing for himself on account of his age and the number of his years, which he now counts as lost, since they were spent to no purpose in the world. And since he is only a beginner, and because his apprenticeship in the service of Christ is new, as he knows, he should not hesitate to submit himself even to those younger than he. Further, he is required to accustom himself to work and toil, so that, as the apostle commands, he may provide his daily food with his own hands, either for his own use or for the needs of strangers. In this way he may also forget the pride and luxury of his past life, and gain humility of heart through grinding toil.

So no one is chosen to be set over a community of brothers until the one who is to be placed in authority has learned by obedience what he ought to command those who are to submit to him, and has learned from the rules of the elders what he ought to teach those younger than he. For they say that to rule well, or to be ruled well, takes a wise man, and they call it the greatest gift and grace of the Holy Spirit. For no one can give wholesome commands to those under him except one who has first been trained in all the rules of virtue; nor can anyone obey an elder except one who has been filled with the love of God and made perfect in the virtue of humility. And so we see a variety of rules and regulations in use throughout other districts. For we often have the audacity to preside over a monastery without even having learned the system of the elders. We appoint ourselves abbots before we have, as we ought, professed ourselves disciples, and we are readier to demand that our own inventions be kept than to preserve the well-tried teaching of those who went before us.

But while we meant to explain the best system of prayers to be kept, in our eagerness for the institutions of the fathers we have run ahead, by a hasty digression, into an account we were keeping back for its proper place. So let us now return to the subject before us.