Library › Latin: Early Christian Writings › Regula Cujusdam Patris
This rule for monks, known as the Rule of a Certain Father, is preceded by an editor’s note recording that Benedict of Aniane quotes it often in his Concordia regularum, together with a similar rule for virgins, and that Smaragdus cites it in his commentary on the Rule of Benedict. The rule opens with the warning that the good reader should bend his mind to Scripture and not Scripture to his mind, and with the image of the bitter cup of the passion, which cures all diseases and which the physician drinks first so that the sick man will not hesitate. It continues with teaching on the vices by which the devil destroys a monk, on contempt for transitory things, and on silence, especially at Mass and at table.
The rule belongs to the monastic tradition shaped by Columbanus and his followers in seventh-century Gaul, with its strong emphasis on discipline and the remedies for vice. Its use by Benedict of Aniane and Smaragdus shows that it remained known in Carolingian reform circles. Its author is not named, and the date is assigned from its place in that tradition.
About this edition. The Latin text comes from Corpus Corporum, the Latin text repository of the University of Zurich (edition: Jacques-Paul Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 66, Parisiis 1847), reused with attribution for non-commercial purposes (CC BY-NC-SA). Every word has been analyzed with LatinCy, a neural language model for Latin — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from Lewis & Short’s A Latin Dictionary.