Regula, caput II
The Three Founding Virtues
Christ establishes the rule upon humility, chastity, and poverty, forbidding personal possessions and directing the abbess to provide all necessities.
At the beginning of this rule, Christ establishes it on three virtues — humility, chastity, and poverty — forbidding the nuns to have anything of their own, but directing the abbess to provide them with everything they need.
True Humility, Chastity, and Poverty
True humility, pure chastity, and voluntary poverty are identified as the beginning of religious life and of salvation.
The beginning, then, of this religious life and of salvation is true humility, and pure chastity, and voluntary poverty.
Renouncing All That Is One's Own
No nun may possess even the smallest thing, and all necessities must be sought from the abbess according to the rule's permission.
Therefore no one is permitted to have anything of their own, not even the smallest thing at all, but not even to possess a single morsel, or to handle it with their hands, nor to have anything of gold or silver, unless perhaps for the inweaving of some work in gold or silver there is a need to touch it — and even this is not allowed without the counsel and permission of the abbess.123 But all necessities are to be looked for from the abbess — namely, proper garments, bedding, and tools for work — and they are to have nothing that the rule does not permit.4
Read the original Latin
In principio huius regule Christus fundat eam super tres virtutes, scilicet humilitatis, castitatis et paupertatis, prohibens monialibus, quod nichil habeant proprium sed abbatissa prouideat eis de omnibus necessariis.
"Principium itaque huius religionis et salutis est vera humilitas et pura castitas atque voluntaria paupertas. Ideo nulli licitum est habere aliquod proprium, nullam omnino rem quamuis minimam, sed nec obulum quidem possidere vel attrectare manibus nec auri quid habere vel argenti, nisi forte pro intextura alicuius operis auri vel argenti tactu opus sit et hoc eciam non absque consilio et licencia abbatisse. Omnia autem necessaria de abbatissa speranda sunt, scilicet indumenta regularia, lectisternia et instrumenta operis, nec quicquam habeant, quod regula non permittit."
Notes
- 1 ↩The word obulum ('a small morsel') is rare; the sense is something very small, rendered here as 'a single morsel' to preserve the concrete image.
- 2 ↩Intextura ('inweaving') is a rare word; the sense is uncertain but likely refers to gold- or silver-thread embroidery or filigree work the nuns may be called to do.
- 3 ↩Abbatisse is ambiguous between genitive ('of the abbess') and ablative ('by/from the abbess'); the context favors the ablative of agent ('by the abbess'), rendered here as 'of the abbess' in natural English.
- 4 ↩Autem here functions adversatively ('But'), marking a shift from the prohibitions to the positive provision through the abbess; it could also be read continuatively, but the adversative reading better fits the contrast.
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