Collins 1

Alexis Collins
USCH 1112
Rewrite 1
The Rule of St. Benedict and the Perversion of Humility
In Canto XXIII of Dantes Inferno, we see a mixture of high church officials, particularly
Benedictine monks, suffering eternal torment in one of the lowest chasms of Hell. A once
prestigious order, the Benedictine monks were an order of self-serving hypocrites by the time
Dante had transcribed his Divine Comedy. This way of living was the direct result of their
insufficient guide to monastic life, The Rule of Saint Benedict: a credo full of holes and ideas
antithetical to the Bible. Its insufficiencies led to severe monastic abuse by the time Dante's day
and age came around. Their fate in Dantes Hell is the direct result of Benedicts Rule and its
avocation of a competitive who is the most worthless? contest that relies on a judgment of the
external/actions of a monk, rather than a judgment of his heart.1
In order to understand why Dante feels so strong a dislike for the monks, one must also
understand the different ideas Benedict and Dante have about humility. C.S. Lewis once said,
True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less." This idea resonates
deeply with Dante, and is an important concept to keep in mind when attempting to understand
the perverted nature of humility according to Benedict.
For Dante, a good place to find a concise understanding of humility and pride is in
Cantos X and XII of his Purgatorio, wherein the pilgrim scales the first tier of Purgatory: the tier
of the prideful. On the walls of this tier are examples of humility, and on the floor are
figureheads of the prideful. They serve to make sinners recognize what they are striving to be
1 The Rule of St. Benedict. Bk. IV. pg. 18.

Collins 2

and to remind them of what they have been. The examples of humility are Mary the mother of
Jesus, David and Trajan.2 According to Dante, humility, like Mary, offers up its life in service to
God, in spite of a loss of reputation;3 like David, it unashamedly worships God with no mind to
what others think of it;4 and finally, like Trajan, the greatest Roman emperor, who delayed a
military endeavor in order to seek immediate justice for a widow's murdered son, it takes an
active interest in serving even the most unworthy of humans at any expense. 5 All of these three
upheld God's greatest commandment, to love God with all of one's being, and to love others as
oneself. In other words, humility is in forgetting the self in service of greater ends. Humility,
then, is equated to selflessness.
On the floor of this same tier, we have representations of pride. Lucifer is first and foremost as
the high angel who attempted to equate himself to God, failed, and created ultimate turmoil for
those beneath him on the Great Chain of Being;6 Saul who elected to ignore God's command for
justice against the Amalekites, preserving the best of the animals, women, and slaves for himself,
and who would not submit God's plan for David to be king; 7 and Nimrod, who is now cursed to
speak gibberish for all eternity as a result of his attempts to build a structure into heaven. 8 The
common elements these three individuals share are that they attempted to equate themselves to

2 Purgatorio. Canto X
3 Purgatorio Canto X. 37-44
4 Referring to David's dancing naked in 2 Samuel 6; ibid. X. 64-69
5 Ibid. X. 73-93.
6 Inferno Canto XXXIV; Purgatorio. Canto XII. 25-27.
7 Purgatorio. Canto XII. 40-42. 1 Samuel 15.
8 Inferno. Canto XXXI. 67-81. Gen. 11.

Collins 3

God, they were destructively disobedient to Him, and they inflicted pain on everyone around
them. Pride then, is selfishness
Dante believes that pride is the chief sin, closest to human nature, and is the first sin human
beings must destroy in order to overcome their other transgressions. Humility is the antithesis of
pride. This idea resonates throughout the entire Divine Comedy. In Inferno, all sins and
punishments are the result of an initial pride.
In The Rule of St. Benedict, we can see that Benedict agrees with Dante that humility is
the single most important element in a persons life. He spends more time expanding on the idea
of humility in his book than any other idea. His also believes that humility naturally requires
obedience.9 Lucifer, Saul, and Nimrod all became disobedient (or rebellious) in their pride.
However, in chapter VII of his rule, Benedict encourages a twisted form of competition
that allows too much room for hypocrisy. He says that a monk is "[T]o consider himself
incompetent and worthless with regard to everything he is told to do...to claim that he is beneath
everyone else and worse than them[,]"10 (emphasis added.) The problem with this idea is that if
humility is a direct product of love, it would seek to focus on others before the self. Focusing on
our depraved and wretched nature, as Benedict desires, causes us to necessarily marginalize our
focus on God and others. It also causes us to follow the greatest commandment 11 poorly (if at
all). Instead of lifting others up, the monks are preoccupied with pushing themselves down.

9 Rule of St. Benedict. Chap. V. pg. 19

10 Ibid. Chap. VII. pg. 25.
11 Matt. 22: 37-40.

Collins 4

Another problem arises in chapter IV of the rule where he says, "Confess your past sins
to God each day in prayer with tears and sighs." 12 While Benedict may have intended for this
attitude to be observed in silence (a possibility because silence is heavily emphasized in the
Rule); such an attitude would not help the monks become a favorite of the abbot. Benedict
counter-intuitively recommends that the abbot (head of the monastery) show favoritism if he
finds one "to be better in good deeds and in obedience." 13 The abbot has a lot of power, because
Benedict believes that unhesitating obedience is the chief element of humility. 14 The abbot also
has a lot of rules to uphold and punishments to carry out. For instance, if a monk on kitchen duty
accidentally breaks a sacred plate,15 (what we today call a plate,) he is to immediately drop
everything, run to the abbot, beg forgiveness, and perform whatever penance the abbot sees fit. 16
Wouldnt it be nice if the abbot decreed that you were to spend an hour in your room praying
with many tears and sighs, rather than for you to receive a beating, and later be sent with the
excommunicated for a day? Not only was this a possibility under the human rule of the abbot,
but history shows that such favoritism was rampant in monasteries.
Benedict remains ambiguous regarding whether or not tears and sighs are to be exhibited
in private or not; but if a monk wants to be a favorite of the abbot, he cant very well exhibit
them in private. This attitude is directly contrary to what Jesus says in Matthew, And when you
pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and
12. Ibid. IV. pg. 18
13 Rule of St. Benedict. Chap. V. pg. 19
14 Ibid.
15 Rule of St. Benedict. XXXI. Pg. 52 He must treat all the monasterys utensils and property as if they were sacred
altar vessals.
16 Ibid. XLVI. Pg. 70

Collins 5

on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have
their reward... And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think
that they will be heard for their many words." 17 Or, in the case of Benedict, make certain you
appear of superior obedience, cry a little, and then the abbot will recognize how great you are.
Jesus condemns prayer without sincerity; Benedict ignorantly condones it, which naturally leads
to the hypocrites we see in Hell. Humility should eliminate man's competitive nature and lead us
to be, like Christ, willing to further the lives of others at any cost. Benedict instead encourages
and ironic competition whereby the one who is in last place receives special treatment from the
abbot.
In Canto XXIII, in the sixth hole of lower Hell, the circle of the hypocrites, 18 where some of the
lowest of sinners are found, the pilgrim stumbles across a long line of these monks. Their
punishment is to walk for eternity in lead cloaks that are so heavy their bodies creak under the
weight;19 yet the cloaks appear glimmering and beautiful on the outside. The monks provide no
specific actions that led to their fates. Nonetheless, the fact they are in the circle of hypocrites,
and the nature of their punishment help reveal Dante's opinion about the monks.
There are two primary wrongs that Dante addresses here. First, that righteousness and humility
were all a facade for the monks; and second, that they took these masks out into the world and
harmed the public. Dante is all about making the punishment fit the crime; the beautiful outsides
of the cloaks mirror the beautiful facades of the monks. Mark Musa, a translator of Dante, claims

17 Matt. 6:5,7; NKJV

18 Inferno XXIII. 91-92.
19 Ibid. XXIII. 100-102

Collins 6

in his notes20 that their punishment is a reference to Matthew 23:27, "Woe to you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful
outwardly, but inside are full of dead mens bones and all uncleanness." (NKJV.) Their garb also
signifies the fact that the monks chose to dress in luxurious and expensive clothing, even in times
of war and starvation. Italy was in a time of chaos, famine, turmoil, and depravity. Instead of
offering help to the public as the monasteries flourished, they hoarded their riches.
It is possibly even more interesting that Dante clearly believes the nature of the Benedictine
monks was fundamentally corrupt based on their sheer numbers. However many monks may
have existed, Dante clearly does not believe many of them actually went to Paradise. He depicts
a line of monks large enough to fill an entire looping bolga. The Benedictine monks were
founded in 529 AD, and the pilgrim begins his journey in 1300 AD, so Dante leaves the monks
less than eight-hundred years to accumulate such large numbers.
Now I have to throw Benedict a bone: I'm sure he did not write his rule in order to create
an order notorious for hypocritical self-righteous, Hell-goers. Nonetheless, his main idea, that
self-focused self-loathing is the key to humility, was ineffective and destructive. When a person
spends so much time thinking of his nature (poorly or not) he grows blind to those around him.
He loses the vital ability to love others as himself; either because he no longer loves himself, or
because his focus is centered on himself.
Today, it's easy to look back and criticize the Benedictine monks for their blind spots; but
it is much harder to spot contemporary wrongs. Perhaps folks may think I have been unkind to
poor Benedict, who is only trying to do the right thing; but I am also attempting to offer a
20 Musa, Mark. Note on Canto XXIII. 64-66.

Collins 7

criticism of todays abused doctrines. The abuse of Benedicts doctrine led to a myriad of
problems; but in a society that advocates the less innocent teachings of Nietzche, Darwin, and
Machiavelli, that every person is a rung on the ladder to your success, I foresee problems and
abuses far worse than those of the Benedictine monks. I fear that, as Dantes contemporaries
were unequipped to parry the passive abuses of Benedictine monks, we too may be unequipped
to defend against the active abuses of modern rules.

Works Cited
Trans. Musa, Mark. The Divine Comedy: Volume 1: Inferno. Penguin Classics
Ibid. Volume II: Purgatorio
Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity.