Overview The Rule opens with a hortatory preface, drawing on the Admonitio ad filium spiritualem,James Francis LePree, "Pseudo-Basil's De admonitio ad filium spiritualem: A New English Translation", The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe 13 (2010). in which Saint Benedict sets forth the main principles of the religious life, viz.: the renunciation of one's own will and arming oneself "with the strong and noble weapons of obedience" under the banner of "the true King, Christ the Lord" (Prol. 3). He proposes to establish a "school for the Lord's service" (Prol. 45) in which the "way to salvation" (Prol. 48) shall be taught, so that by persevering in the monastery till death his disciples may "through patience share in the passion of Christ that [they] may deserve also to share in his Kingdom" (Prol. 50, passionibus Christi per patientiam participemur, ut et regno eius mereamur esse consortes; note: Latin and have the same root, cf. Fry, RB 1980, p.167).
Overview The Rule opens with a hortatory preface, drawing on the Admonitio ad filium spiritualem,James Francis LePree "Pseudo-Basil's De admonitio ad filium spiritualem: A New English Translation", The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe 13 (2010). in which Saint Benedict sets forth the main principles of the religious life, viz.: the renunciation of one's own will and arming oneself "with the strong and noble weapons of obedience" under the banner of "the true King, Christ the Lord" (Prol. 3). He proposes to establish a "school for the Lord's service" (Prol. 45) in which the "way to salvation" (Prol. 48) shall be taught, so that by persevering in the monastery till death his disciples may "through patience share in the passion of Christ that [they] may deserve also to share in his Kingdom" (Prol. 50, passionibus Christi per patientiam participemur, ut et regno eius mereamur esse consortes; note: Latin and have the same root, cf. Fry, RB 1980, p.167).