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If the community is large, let brothers of good reputation and holy life be chosen from among them and appointed Deans: they shall take care of their deaneries in all things, according to God’s commandments and the orders of their Abbot.
Si maior fuerit congregatio, eligantur de ipsis fratres boni testimonii et sanctae conversationis et constituantur decani: qui sollicitudinem gerant super decanias suas in omnibus, secundum mandata Dei et praecepta Abbatis sui.
The men who are chosen to be deans, with whom the Abbot may safely share his burdens, are not to be chosen by their order, but according to the merit of their lives and their knowledge of wisdom.
Qui decani tales eligantur, in quibus securus Abbas partiatur onera sua, et non eligantur per ordinem, sed secundum vitae meritum, et sapientiae doctrinam.
But if any of them is found to be blameworthy, being puffed up with pride, he should be corrected once, then again, and a third time. If he refuses to correct his ways, let him be removed, and another, who is worthy, put in his place.
Quod si quis ex eis aliqua forte inflatus superbia repertus fuerit reprehensibilis: correptus semel, et iterum, et tertio, si emendare noluerit, deiiciatur, et alter in loco eius, qui dignus est, subrogetur.
And we order the same to be done regarding the Prior.
Et de praeposito eadem constituimus.
Comment
We are now in the practical section of the Rule. St Benedict lays down guidelines for how to manage a large community; he himself attracted many, many people who wished to become monks so this must have come from his own experience.
Deans are to be set up to manage groups of monks in their daily activities - work, study, etc. This follows Roman army custom and also, according to Dom Delatte, practice in the Egyptian desert communities. This kind of structure goes back even further, to Exodus chapter 28, when Moses appoints overseers for the people, to share his burdens.
In the modern world, given that none of us are in the Roman army, we see this principle in the modern workplace: a manager is set over a group of employees, usually a grouping which carries out a specific task. We have no reason to think it was any different in St Benedict’s monasteries. Younger monks would do most of the manual labour, such as the growing of crops, the making of items for the monastery such as habits and other garments, the laundry, etc. The list goes on. As these groups would be occupied with specific tasks at specific times, it makes sense for someone to supervise them and make any adjustments to their monastic routine required. For example, if they are involved in harvesting crops, they may not be able to make it back to the monastery for the day hours and may need to take their refreshment in the fields. This would all be organised by the dean. In fact the word “sollicitudinem” also carries a meaning of anxiety, not just care in an abstract sense. They must be anxious about the wellbeing of their charges.
St Benedict says very specifically that these men are not to be chosen by their “order” - that is, the date of their entry into the monastery or age - but by the merit of their lives. Elsewhere he talks about not preferring one monk over another due to his noble birth so he could also be referring to that. So St Benedict could be credited with inventing the principle of recruitment on merit alone!
He also foresees the possibility of bad behaviour by these deans. Human nature being what it is, even a monk can be tempted to behave badly once he has been given a position of authority. He should be corrected three times and if he fails to improve, he should be removed from his position. This principle is also echoed in employment practice - at least in the UK - where we have a series of warnings before dismissal.
St Benedict also says that the superior should be treated in the same way. This is usually translated as “prior” but it actually means “overseer” or “commander”. In English, the common word for this role is Provost. So there could be a hierarchical structure here, with deans, then an intermediary commander, then the Prior. St Benedict’s Rule is flexible enough to adjust to all sizes of community. In a modern organisation, there may be a CEO/Managing Director in overall charge of the strategy and plans of the Company, with a series of directors and managers below them to actually put the strategy into action.
It’s worth noting that the monastery is not a democracy; these people are chosen (whether by the Abbot or Prior is not clear) and not elected, which is the way the world of work also operates today. As we saw in the earlier chapter about the Abbot, he is in ultimate control and he bears the responsibility for his actions before God. He must take actions in the best interests of the souls of his monks; that could mean removing a superior who is treating his monks badly, to protect the monks; or equally, if he sees a superior’s soul is in danger due to pride, to remove him from his position for that reason. These days we sometimes forget that angle, focussing on the person’s actions rather than his soul.
In the modern Catholic church, the post of Dean has largely disappeared and it isn’t much used in monasteries either, though in the UK, dioceses appear to be organised into deaneries - collections of geographically close churches. The position of Dean has survived more commonly in the Anglican church, with Cathedral churches mostly having a Dean - a supervising priest for the Cathedral whose job often involves looking after the fabric and the various people working in the Cathedral.
For St Benedict, the role of Dean was both a practical and spiritual one; the Dean acts like a father to their charges, and this reinforces the concept of the monastery as family.