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• Preface
• Introductory Notes
• Note On the History of the Text
• Here Beginneth the Prologue to a Rule For Monasteries
• Here Beginneth the Text of the Rule
• Chapter I: Concerning the Different Kinds of Monks
• Chapter II: What Kind of Man an Abbot Ought to Be
• Chapter III: Concerning the Calling of the Brethren to Council
• Chapter IV: What Are the Instruments of Good Works
• Chapter V: Concerning Obedience
• Chapter VI: Concerning Silence
• Chapter VII: Concerning Humility
• Chapter VIII: Concerning the Divine Office At Night
• Chapter IX: How Many Psalms Are to Be Said At the Night Hours
• Chapter X: How Night Praise Is to Be Accomplished In Summer Time
• Chapter XI: How Night Office Is to Be Said On Lord’s Days
• Chapter XII: How the Office of Lauds Is to Be Sung
• Chapter XIII: How Lauds Are to Be Said On Ferias
• Chapter XIV: How Night Office Is to Be Said On the Feasts of Saints
• Chapter XV: In Which Seasons Alleluia Is to Be Said
• Chapter XVI: How the Work of God Is to Be Carried Out During the Day
• Chapter XVII: How Many Psalms Are to Be Sung At These Hours
• Chapter XVIII: In What Order the Psalms Themselves Are to Be Said
• Chapter XIX: Concerning the Discipline of Saying Office
• Chapter XX: Concerning Reverence In Prayer
• Chapter XXI: Concerning the Deans of the Monastery
• Chapter XXII: How the Monks Are to Sleep
• Chapter XXIII: Concerning Excommunication For Offences
• Chapter XXIV: What the Measure of Excommunication Should Be
• Chapter XXV: Concerning Graver Faults
• Chapter XXVI: Concerning Those Who Without the Orders of the Abbot Consort With the Excommunicate
• Chapter XXVII: How Solicitous the Abbot Should Be For the Excommunicate
• Chapter XXVIII: Concerning Those Who Shall Not Have Amended Though Somewhat Often Corrected
• Chapter XXIX: If Brethren Who Go Out From the Monastery Ought to Be Received Back Again
• Chapter XXX: Concerning the Younger Boys, How They Are to Be Corrected
• Chapter XXXI: Concerning the Cellarer of the Monastery, What Sort of a Person He Should Be
• Chapter XXXII: Concerning the Iron Tools and Other Things Belonging to the Monastery
• Chapter XXXIII: Whether Monks Ought to Have Anything of Their Own
• Chapter XXXIV: Whether All Ought to Receive Necessaries Equally
• Chapter XXXV: Concerning the Weekly Kitcheners
• Chapter XXXVI: Concerning the Sick and Infirm Brethren
• Chapter XXXVII: Concerning the Old and Infants
• Chapter XXXVIII: Concerning the Weekly Reader
• Chapter XXXIX: Concerning the Quantity of Foods
• Chapter Xl: Concerning the Quantity of Drink
• Chapter Xli: At What Hours the Brethren Ought to Have Their Meals
• Chapter Xlii: That No One Talk After Compline
• Chapter Xliii: Concerning Those Who Come Late to the Work of God Or to Table
• Chapter Xliv: Concerning Such As Are Excommunicated, How They May Make Satisfaction
• Chapter Xlv: Concerning Those Who Make Mistakes In the Oratory
• Chapter Xlvi: Concerning Those Who Do Amiss In Any Other Matters
• Chapter Xlvii: of Notifying the Hour of the Work of God
• Chapter Xlviii: Concerning the Daily Manual Work
• Chapter Xlix: Concerning the Observance of Lent
• Chapter L: Concerning Brethren Who Are Working At a Distance From the Oratory, Or Are On the Road
• Chapter Li: Concerning Brethren Who Do Not Go Far Away
• Chapter Lii: of the Oratory of the Monastery
• Chapter Liii: of How Guests Are to Be Received
• Chapter Liv: If a Monk Ought to Receive Letters Or Tokens
• Chapter Lv: Concerning the Brethren’s Clothes and Shoes
• Chapter Lvi: Concerning the Abbot’s Table
• Chapter Lvii: Concerning Artificers In the Monastery
• Chapter Lviii: Concerning the Discipline of Those to Be Received As Brethren
• Chapter Lix: Concerning Noblemen’s Sons and Poor Men’s Sons Who Are Offered
• Chapter Lx: Concerning Priests Who By Chance Shall Wish to Live In the Monastery
• Chapter Lxi: Concerning Monks Who Are Strangers, How They Should Be Received
• Chapter Lxii: Concerning the Priests of the Monastery
• Chapter Lxiii: Concerning the Order of the Community
• Chapter Lxiv: Concerning the Election of an Abbot
• Chapter Lxv: Concerning the Provost of the Monastery
• Chapter Lxvi: Concerning the Porter of the Monastery
• Chapter Lxvii: Concerning Brethren Sent On a Journey
• Chapter Lxviii: If Impossibilities Be Enjoined Upon a Brother
• Chapter Lxix: That In the Monastery One Presume Not to Constitute Himself the Patron of Another
• Chapter Lxx: That No One Presume to Strike Another Unlawfully
• Chapter Lxxi: That the Brethren Be Obedient Among Themselves
• Chapter Lxxii: Concerning the Good Zeal Which Monks Ought to Have
• Chapter Lxxiii: Concerning This, Namely That Not Every Observance of Righteousness Is Laid Down In This Rule
• Other Pax Books

CHAPTER IV

WHAT ARE THE INSTRUMENTS OF GOOD WORKS

In the first place, to love the Lord God with the whole heart, the whole soul and the whole strength.

• Then one’s neighbour as if oneself.
• Then, not to kill.
• Not to commit adultery.
• Not to steal.
• Not to covet.
• Not to utter false witness.
• To honour all men.
• To do as one would be done by.
• To deny oneself that one may follow Christ.
• To chastise the body.
• Not to embrace delights.
• To love fasting.
• To relieve the poor.
• To clothe the naked.
• To visit the sick.
• To bury the dead.
• To help in tribulation.
• To console the sorrowing.
• To become a stranger to worldly deeds.
• To prefer nothing to the love of Christ.
• Not to carry anger into effect.
• Not to prolong the duration of one’s wrath.
• Not to retain guile in one’s heart.
• Not to make a false peace.
• Not to abandon charity.
• Not to swear, lest perchance one forswear.
• To utter only truth from heart and mouth.
• Not to return evil for evil.
• Not to do injury, but to suffer it patiently.
• To love enemies.
• Not to curse in return those who curse one, but rather to bless them.
• To bear persecution for righteousness.
• Not to be proud.
• Not to be given to much wine.
• Not to be gluttonous.
• Not given to much sleep.
• Not to be sluggish.
• Not to be given to grumbling.
• Not to be a detractor.
• To put one’s hope in God.
• When one sees any good in oneself to attribute it to God, not to self.
• But to recognize that evil always comes from self and to refer it to self.
• To have wholesome fear of the day of judgment.
• With fear to shrink from hell.
• To long for eternal life with all spiritual desire.
• To have the expectation of death daily before one’s eyes.
• Hour by hour to keep guard over one’s every act.
• To know for certain that God sees one everywhere.
• Forthwith to dash down upon the Rock, even Christ, any evil thoughts approaching the heart: and to lay them open before one’s superior.
• To keep one’s mouth from evil or depraved speech.
• Not to love to speak much.
• Not to speak useless or mirth-provoking words.
• Not to love much or excessive laughter.
• To listen with goodwill to holy reading.
• To be frequently occupied in prayer.
• With tears and groaning daily to confess in prayer to God one’s past sins and concerning those same sins to amend for the future.
• Not to fulfil the desires of the flesh: to hate one’s own will.
• To yield obedience in all things to the abbot’s precepts, even if he himself act contrary to their spirit, the which be far from him: being mindful of that precept of the Lord: “What they say, do ye; but what they do, do ye not.”
• Not to wish to be called holy before one is, but to be so first, whereby one would be so called the more truly.
• By deeds daily to fulfil the precepts of God.
• To love chastity.
• Not to hate anyone.
• Not to harbour jealousy.
• Not to love contention.
• To avoid elation.
• To venerate seniors.
• To love juniors.
• In the love of Christ to pray for one’s enemies.
• In case of discord with anyone to make peace before the setting of the sun.
• And never to despair of the mercy of God.

Behold, these are the instruments of the spiritual art, the which, when they shall have been ceaselessly employed by us day and night and duly given back in the day of judgment, shall be recompensed to us by that reward from God which He promised: “That which the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, and that hath not entered into the human heart, the things which God has prepared for them who love Him.”

And the cloister of the monastery and stability in the community are the workshop wherein we may diligently effect all these works.