Women of Vision and Action: the Beguines

We live in days of great social upheaval. The late 1100s were much the same. For generations, rural life and agriculture were the unquestioned norm. Now there was a great migration to the towns, which grew rapidly and a new ‘middle class’ of merchants and craftsmen evolved. Also, the Crusades had led thousands of men to their death, leaving an imbalance of women.

The Church was not well placed to cope with this new climate. For centuries, the beating heart of the faith had been in the monasteries, but these were almost always in the country, sticking to ancient traditions and largely out of touch with new social developments. Many had grown rich and complacent and cared little for service and evangelism. Women who wanted to live radically for God had few openings. The time was ripe for a new expression of the kingdom of God, and the Beguines rose to the challenge.

This was a spontaneous movement that began with a group of praying women in Liège, Belgium, in the 1190s. Not wanting either of the usual options of marriage or a nunnery, these radical women pioneered a new form of community. They pledged themselves to prayer, poverty and celibacy. Seeing how society was changing, they chose to stay in the towns, especially the poor suburbs, where they could serve the people with Jesus’ love.

Adult women during the Middle Ages were expected to live under the guardianship of a man, either within the household as a wife and mother, or dedicated to the Church and living in a convent as a nun. The Beguines questioned this concept and lived outside of these set boundaries. Women who entered Beguinages (Beguine houses and/or convents) were not bound by permanent vows, in contrast to women who entered convents. They could enter Beguinages having already been married and they could leave the Beguinages to marry. Some women even entered the Beguinages with children.

They aimed to recover the simplicity, love and outreach of the early Church. They preached (which was not allowed), and in the language of the people, not Latin. Their communal settlements had a hospital, a place of worship, and work-shops for spinning, lace-making and other crafts that were to generate an income. They held literacy classes for poor children, supported widows, and took in orphans. And at every turn, they proclaimed God’s love for the poor.

Beguines had no mother-house, nor common rule, nor any appointed head the order. Every community was complete in itself and fixed its own order of living. Later many adopted the rule of the Third Order of Saint Francis. These communities were varied in terms of the social status of their members; some of them only admitted ladies of high degree; others were exclusively reserved for persons in humble circumstances; others again opened their doors wide to women of every condition, and these were the most densely peopled. Several, like the great Beguinage of Ghent, numbered around a thousand.

In the beginning, the clergy's attitude towards Beguines was ambivalent. The groups were religious and the women were dedicated to chastity and charity, which could not be condemned in any way. However, the fact that they existed without men (except for priests and confessors to lead them) was suspect to the ecclesiastical hierarchy. For this and many other reasons, many Beguines came to be known as heretics and were persecuted as such. Though they were never an approved religious order, they were at one point granted special privileges and exemptions customary for approved orders. The Church, however, did not approve of their lack permanent vows. Women were not supposed to have that much freedom.

A male offshoot began, taking the name Beghards, but never made the same impact as the women - perhaps because they were not so very different from the Franciscan friars. It was the Beguines, the women of vision who put that vision into action and gave it a demonstrable structure, who made the mark for God. They had heard the pulse of the society God had placed them in, and met its need. The movement multiplied, and by 1270 there were Beguine communities in most towns in Belgium, Holland and North Germany.

Tertullian: the Courage to Stir Up, part 2

Christians are called to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. They are also part of the "Church militant", engaged in a spiritual conflict against dark forces, both spritual and institutional. To break through these, and to pierce the dullness and oppression which can sometimes settle on Christians, requires "breakthrough people". This is primarily, but not exclusively, the work of 'the apostles and prophets' [1 Corinthians 12:28]. Tertullian was certainly one of these. He saw what was dulling the Church's edge and confronted it, appealing to each heart to part with its idols. Away with mottled Christianity! , he wrote; in other words, be one thing or the other.

Some recent commentators have called Tertullian a bigot. He was indeed no lamb, and we may wince at some overblown stances, e.g. his almost gleeful account of the torments of the lost in hell. But we must understand the debating codes of his time and not judge solely by today's. For example, Tertullian was fond of paradox. He will often push an issue to its purest form, in order to see the real nature of the thing under examination. He did not value the 'fruitful ambiguity' of the heretic. For him, something is true if Christ taught it, the apostles passed it on, and it is found in the Scriptures. It is therefore fixed and pretty much non-negotiable. One of his works (none of which is especially long) has 186 references to the word 'truth'.

In our day, it is not uncommon among Protestants in the West to look with grudging admiration at the Pope for knowing exactly where the Roman Catholic Church stands and not deviating from it, however great the flak, while liberals in other denominations seek to nuance and reinterpret things. Bigotry? More likely, the same dogged commitment to truth as Tertullian held. He too laid down the express rule that no speculation outside the ‘Rule of Faith’ was permissible.

We see this most starkly in Tertullian's writings against heretics, which did a lot to strengthen the cause of orthodoxy. One writing is called, rather opaquely, "The Prescription of Heretics." This is an older meaning of 'prescription'. It meant the cutting short of a question by the refusal to hear the adversary's arguments, on the ground that key points are already in place which cut the ground from under his feet. So, for Tertullian, it is of no use to listen to heretics' arguments or refute them, for we have a number of antecedent proofs that they do not deserve a hearing.

This, then, is 'permitted bigotry,' and it gives him the solid ground and the confidence to lay into any who deviate from it or hold unbiblical opinions. In our day, scientific atheism insists that any and every point of belief should be proven, and many Christians perform various contortions to try to do so. There is something refreshing in Tertullian's assurance, for example about the Resurrection: it is true precisely because it is impossible. The end of the matter.

Tertullian: the Courage to Stir Up, Part 1

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus was born at Carthage in North Africa around AD 155, son of a Roman centurion. He trained as a lawyer and had a razor-sharp mind. Little of his early life is known, but at about 40 he became a Christian. Immediately, he began to write - and Christendom hardly knew what had hit it!

He didn't ‘do’ much reasoned theology; he confronted. Wrong teachings, sloppy morals, lax leaders, cowardly faith, Tertullian laid into them all. His writing is passionate, with holy sarcasm - and at times still funny even today. You sense a 'wildness', a burning heart for integrity and justice, contemptuous of all compromise. Even so, Tertullian was deeply conscious of his personal failings; he wrote a piece on patience because he knew he had to learn it. Here are some examples:

At a time of fierce persecution, when many favoured fleeing, he wrote: The blood of the martyrs is [the] seed [of the church], adding that once you start fleeing, you will never stop fleeing!

Seeing the growing emphasis on education in church leadership, he cried: What has Athens [headquarters of Greek philosophy] got to do with Jerusalem!”

He took aim at worldly pursuits: All public entertainment damages the spirit.

He castigated the folly of persecutors: If the Tiber rises too high, or the Nile too low, the remedy is always to feed Christians to the lions.

He understood the fleshly human nature that he was confronting: The first reaction to truth is hatred.

Perhaps most biting of all is his judgement on self-centred living: Whoever lives only to benefit himself, benefits the world only when he dies!

In 202, at the height of his influence, Tertullian shocked everyone by joining a fringe movement called the Montanists. They spoke in tongues, prophesied, had dreams and visions, and promoted strict holy living. The mainstream Church immediately sidelined him but he didn't care. His prophetic heart chose spiritual life and movement before popularity.

Still his pen carried all before it. He defended celibacy; opposed military service; cried out against gladiator sports; promoted fasting and spiritual discipline; exhorted Church members to refuse any job carrying worldly prestige; and urged Christians not to accept any bishop who wasn't a spiritual man.

Tertullian died about 225. He stands out from the crowd as one who never lost his edge or his nerve. A colleague called him 'the first, the best, the incomparable'. Today, 1800 years on, his works are still read and valued by those who appreciate sharp-edged, confrontational writing and "aggressive" Christianity. Much of that confrontation, at least in his earlier writings, was against heretics, but Tertullian is also remembered as the first of the Church Fathers to formulate a doctrine of the Trinity.

Bernard of Clairvaux: Heart Love for Jesus

It's saying something when Protestant trailblazer Martin Luther, scourge of all things 'monkish', can write of one: He was the best monk that ever lived, whom I admire beyond all the rest put together. The object of his praise was Bernard of Clairvaux.

Bernard was born in 1090 in central France, son of a knight. In those days you expressed a radical commitment to Jesus by becoming a monk. Bernard had loved God from childhood, and at 22 he joined the monastery with the strictest lifestyle in the area, a foundation of the Cistercians. Such was his personal charisma that his uncle, several brothers, cousins and friends all went with him! In community his leadership skills were recognised. After only three years he was sent out to plant a new community, at Clairvaux, where he spent the remaining 28 years of his life.

Yet he couldn’t always be at home. His powerful intellect, big heart, and ability to sort out problems, were often called on by the Pope. He was sent to reconcile feuding towns. He thundered against bishops living in splendour and injustice. He put a stop to anti-Jewish riots in Germany (he is listed in Jewish chronicles as ‘a righteous Gentile’). He upheld Christian truth against false teachings. And this he did, not by human strength alone, but by the godliness and attractiveness of his spirit. He gained the nickname ‘Dr. Mellifluous’: the teacher whose teachings are as sweet as honey. When he died, he had founded 68 communities, and all of Europe mourned ‘the greatest saint of the age’.

The only blot on his reputation, viewed through today's eyes, is that he played his part in stirring up the Second Crusade against the Moslems. The charge is not wholly fair: he initially refused to do it, but was forced to by the Pope.

Bernard's life was energetic and involved in many areas, but his chief passion was not for public life but for the secret place of prayer and adoration. Not only teaching books flowed from his pen, but also hymns, poems and a deep meditation on the Song of Solomon (likening it to Christ and the human soul). His famous dictum is perhaps more vital today than in any previous centruy: God is known best by loving Him.

Here is a taster, taken from his most famous hymn:

Jesus, the very thought of Thee with sweetness fills the breast; But sweeter far Thy face to see, and in Thy presence rest... O Jesus, light of all below, Thou fount of living fire, Surpassing all the joys we know and all we can desire!