1. 2. First, the reason you have been gathered together into one is that you may live in harmony in the house and have one soul and one heart on the way to God.

1. 3. And do not call anything your own, but let everything be held in common among you, and let your superior distribute food and clothing to each of you, not equally to all, because you are not all equally strong, but rather to each one as he has need. For this is what you read in the Acts of the Apostles, that they had everything in common, and distribution was made to each as anyone had need (Acts 4:32, 35).

1. 4. Those who possessed something in the world, when they entered the monastery, should freely will it to be held in common.

1. 5. But those who had nothing should not seek in the monastery the things they could not have even outside it. Nevertheless, let what they need be granted to their weakness, even if their poverty, when they were outside, could not find even the necessities of life. Only let them not think themselves fortunate on the grounds that they have found food and clothing of a kind they could not find outside.

1. 6. Nor should they hold their heads high because they are now associated with people they would not have dared to approach outside; rather, let them lift up their hearts and not seek empty earthly things, lest monasteries come to benefit the rich rather than the poor, if the rich are humbled there while the poor are puffed up.

1. 7. But then again, those who seemed to be something in the world should not look down on their brothers who have come to that holy fellowship out of poverty. Let them instead take pride not in the standing of their wealthy parents but in the fellowship of their poor brothers. And let them not be exalted if they have contributed something of their own resources to the common life, nor take more pride in their riches because they share them with the monastery than they would if they enjoyed them in the world. For whereas every other kind of wickedness shows itself in doing evil deeds, pride lies in wait even for good deeds, to destroy them; and what does it profit to scatter one's goods by giving to the poor and to become poor oneself, when the wretched soul is made prouder by despising riches than it had been by possessing them?

1. 8. Live, therefore, all of you, with one mind and in harmony, and honor in one another the God whose temples you have become.

2. 1. Be diligent in prayer at the hours and times appointed.

2. 2. In the oratory let no one do anything other than what it was made for, the thing from which it also takes its name; so that if some, even outside the appointed hours, should wish to pray when they have time free, they may not be hindered by anyone who has thought to do something else there.

2. 3. When you pray to God in psalms and hymns, let what is uttered with the voice be pondered in the heart.

2. 4. And do not sing anything except what you read is to be sung; whatever is not written to be sung is not to be sung.

3. 1. Subdue your flesh by fasting and by abstaining from food and drink, so far as your health allows. But when someone cannot fast, let him still take no food outside the hour of the meal, unless he is ill.

3. 2. When you come to the table, until you rise from it, listen without commotion or wrangling to what is customarily read to you; and let not your mouths alone take in food, but let your ears also hunger for the word of God.

3. 3. Those who are weak because of their former manner of life, if they are treated differently in their diet, ought not to be a source of annoyance to the others or to seem unjust to those whom a different upbringing has made stronger. Nor should the stronger think the others more fortunate because they receive what they themselves do not, but should rather congratulate themselves that they have a strength the others lack.

3. 4. And if to those who have come to the monastery from a more delicate way of life something is given by way of food, clothing, bedding, or covering that is not given to others who are stronger and therefore more fortunate, those to whom it is not given ought to consider how far the former have come down, from their life in the world, to this present one, even though they have not been able to reach the frugality of others who are stronger in body. Nor should all of them want to receive what they see a few receiving more abundantly, not because those few are being honored, but because they are being borne with; otherwise a detestable perversity might arise, namely, that in a monastery, where the rich become hardworking so far as they can, the poor become delicate.

3. 5. Of course, just as the sick must take less so as not to be burdened, so too after illness they are to be treated in such a way that they recover more quickly, even if they came from the lowliest poverty of the world; their recent illness has conferred on them, as it were, what their former habit conferred on the rich. But when they have regained their former strength, let them return to their more fortunate manner of life, which befits the servants of God all the more the less they are in need. And let not pleasure keep them there, now that they are strong, where necessity had brought them when they were weak. Let those count themselves the richer who are the stronger in bearing with little; for it is better to need less than to have more.

4. 1. Let your dress not be conspicuous, and do not seek to please by your clothes but by your character.

4. 2. When you go out, walk together; when you reach where you are going, stay together.

4. 3. In your walking, in your standing, in all your movements, let nothing be done that would offend anyone's sight, but only what befits your holiness.

4. 4. Your eyes, even if they fall upon some woman, should fix on none. For you are not forbidden to see women when you go out, but to desire them, or to want to be desired by them, is sinful. Desire for women is not aroused, and does not arouse, by touch and feeling alone, but also by the gaze. And do not say that you have chaste minds if you have unchaste eyes, because an unchaste eye is the messenger of an unchaste heart. And when hearts, even with the tongue silent, signal their unchastity to one another by a mutual look and take pleasure in each other's ardor according to the desire of the flesh, then, even though their bodies remain untouched by any unclean violation, chastity itself flees from their conduct.

4. 5. The man who fixes his eye on a woman and delights in having hers fixed on himself should not suppose that he is unseen by others when he does this; he is seen indeed, even by those by whom he thinks he is not seen. But suppose he were hidden and seen by no human being—what will he do about that observer from above, from whom nothing can be hidden? Is he to be thought not to see, on the grounds that he sees the more patiently the more wisely he sees? Let the holy man, then, fear to displease him, lest he wish to give a woman wicked pleasure. Let him remember that he sees all things, lest he wish to look at a woman wickedly. For the fear of him is commended in this matter too, where it is written: An abomination to the Lord is the man who fixes his eye (See Prov 27:20).

4. 6. When, therefore, you are together in church and wherever else women are present, guard one another's chastity; for God, who dwells in you, will in this way also guard you by means of yourselves.

4. 7. And if you notice in any one of you this wantonness of the eyes that I am speaking of, admonish him at once, so that what has begun may not go further but be corrected immediately.

4. 8. But if, even after being admonished, you see him do the same thing again, whether on that day or any other, then whoever has been able to discover this should report him to be healed, as though he were wounded; yet only after it has first been shown to a second or a third, so that he may be convicted by the mouth of two or three and restrained with fitting severity. And do not judge yourselves to be ill-disposed when you report this. For you are rather not innocent if, by keeping silent, you allow your brothers to perish, when by reporting them you could correct them. For if your brother had a wound on his body that he wanted to hide, because he was afraid to be healed, would it not be cruel of you to keep silent and merciful to disclose it? How much more, then, ought you to bring it to light, lest it fester more ruinously in his heart?

4. 9. But before he is shown to others by whom he is to be convicted should he deny it, he ought first to be brought before the superior, in case, having neglected to amend after being admonished, he might still—being rebuked more privately—not become known to the rest. If, however, he denies it, then others are to be brought in while he is unaware, so that now before all he may be charged not by one witness but convicted by two or three. And once convicted, he ought to submit to corrective punishment at the discretion of the superior, or even of the priest to whose charge such matters belong. And if he refuses to bear it, then, even if he does not depart of his own accord, let him be cast out of your fellowship. For this too is done not out of cruelty but out of mercy, lest by his deadly contagion he destroy many others.

4. 10. And what I have said about not fixing the eye is to be observed carefully and faithfully in the case of other sins as well—in detecting them, forbidding them, reporting them, convicting them, and punishing them—with love for people and hatred for their vices.

4. 11. But whoever has gone so far into evil as to receive letters or any little gifts secretly from some woman, if he confesses this of his own accord, let him be spared and prayed for; but if he is caught and convicted, let him be more severely corrected at the discretion of the priest or the superior.

5. 1. Keep your clothes in one place, in the charge of one or two, or of as many as suffice to shake them out so that they are not damaged by moths; and just as you are fed from one storeroom, so let you be clothed from one wardrobe. And, if it can be done, let it not be your concern what is brought out for you to wear as the season requires—whether each of you gets back what he had handed in, or something else that another had had—provided that to no one is denied what he needs. But if from this there arise quarrels and grumblings among you, when someone complains that he has received worse than he had before, and that it is beneath him to be clothed as another of his brothers was clothed, then judge from this how far you fall short in that interior holy garment of the heart, you who quarrel over the garment of the body. Yet if your weakness is borne with, so that you do get back what you had handed in, still keep what you put away in one place, under common keepers.

5. 2. In this way, to be sure, let no one work at anything for himself, but let all your works be done in common, with greater zeal and readier eagerness than if each of you were doing his own. For love, of which it is written that it does not seek its own (1 Cor 13:5), is understood in this sense: that it puts what is common before what is its own, not what is its own before what is common. And so, the more you care for the common good rather than your own, the more you will know you have made progress; so that in all the things that passing necessity makes use of, the love that endures may stand supreme.

5. 3. It follows, therefore, that even if someone gives something to his own children, or to others who are bound to him by some tie of kinship and are settled in the monastery—whether some garment or anything else to be reckoned among the necessities—it is not to be accepted secretly, but is to be at the disposal of the superior, so that, when it has been added to the common stock, it may be supplied to whoever needs it.

5. 4. Let your clothes be washed at the discretion of the superior, whether by yourselves or by fullers, lest an excessive craving for clean clothing contract inner filth in the soul.

5. 5. The washing of the body too, where the necessity of illness compels it, is by no means to be refused, but is to be done without grumbling on medical advice, so that, even if he is unwilling, a man does what must be done for his health when the superior orders it. But if he is willing, and it happens not to be helpful, let him not obey his own craving. For sometimes what gives pleasure is believed to do good even when it does harm.

5. 6. Finally, if there is a hidden pain in the body, let a servant of God who says what is hurting him be believed without hesitation; yet if it is not certain whether what gives him pleasure is helpful for healing that pain, let a physician be consulted.

5. 7. And let them not go to the baths, or wherever it is necessary to go, in fewer numbers than two or three. Nor shall the one who has need to go somewhere go with those he himself wishes, but with those the superior directs.

5. 8. The care of the sick—whether of those who are to be built up again after an illness, or of those suffering from some weakness even without a fever—ought to be entrusted to some one person, so that he himself may request from the storeroom what he has seen each one needs.

5. 9. And whether they are put in charge of the storeroom, or of the clothing, or of the books, let them serve their brothers without grumbling.

5. 10. Let books be requested at a set hour each day; whoever requests one outside that hour is not to receive it.

5. 11. But as for clothing and shoes, when they are needed by those who lack them, let those in whose charge are the things requested not delay to give them.

6. 1. Either have no quarrels at all, or end them as quickly as possible, lest anger grow into hatred, and make a beam out of a splinter, and make the soul a murderer. For this is what you read: Whoever hates his brother is a murderer (1 John 3:15).

6. 2. Whoever has injured another by abuse, or cursing, or even the charge of a crime, should remember to repair what he has done by making amends as quickly as possible, and the one who has been injured should let it go without dispute. But if they have injured each other, they will have to forgive each other the debts they owe, for the sake of your prayers, which the more frequently you offer them, the more wholesome they ought to be. But the better man is the one who, although often tempted to anger, nevertheless hastens to obtain forgiveness from the one he knows he has wronged, rather than the one who is more slowly roused to anger and more reluctantly brought to ask for pardon. But whoever never wants to ask for pardon, or does not ask from the heart, is in the monastery to no purpose, even if he is not cast out of it. Spare yourselves, then, from harsher words; and if such words have gone forth from your mouth, do not be reluctant to bring forth from that same mouth the remedies by which the wounds were made.

6. 3. But when the demands of discipline, in restraining those under you, compel you to speak harsh words, then, even if you feel that you yourselves have gone too far in them, you are not required to ask their pardon, lest among those who ought to be subject to you the authority to govern be broken while too much humility is preserved. Yet pardon must be sought from the Lord of all, who knows with how much goodwill you love even those whom you perhaps rebuke more than is just. And the love among you ought to be not carnal but spiritual.

7. 1. Let the superior be obeyed as a father, with the honor due to him kept up, lest God be offended in him; and much more the priest, who has charge of you all.

7. 2. That all these things, then, may be observed, and that, if anything has not been observed, it may not be carelessly passed over but seen to for amendment and correction, will pertain chiefly to the superior; in such a way, however, that he refer to the priest, whose authority among you is greater, whatever exceeds his own measure or strength.

7. 3. But let the one who is set over you not count himself happy in lording it with power, but in serving with love. In honor before you let him be set above you; in fear before God let him be cast down beneath your feet. Toward all let him show himself an example of good works; let him rebuke the unruly, comfort the fainthearted, support the weak, and be patient toward all. Let him gladly uphold discipline and inspire awe. And although both are necessary, let him still desire to be loved by you more than feared, always remembering that he must render an account of you to God.

7. 4. Hence by obeying, you have mercy not only on yourselves but also on him, since among you, the higher his place, the greater the danger in which he stands.

8. 1. May the Lord grant that you observe all these things with love, as lovers of spiritual beauty and giving off the good fragrance of Christ by a good way of life, set not as slaves under the law but as free people under grace.

8. 2. And that you may be able to look at yourselves in this little book as in a mirror, and not neglect anything through forgetfulness, let it be read to you once a week. And where you find yourselves doing the things that are written here, give thanks to the Lord, the giver of all good things. But where any one of you sees that something is lacking in himself, let him grieve over the past, be on guard for the future, praying that his debt may be forgiven him and that he may not be led into temptation.