Sorry I don’t have the time to make this into one of those annoying online personality quizzes… The other day I was reading the “Rule of St. Benedict” which is a 6th century Christian monastic code. In it, Benedict outline four types of monks in descending order of their worth. It’s interesting to see this, I think, because it makes plain a number of normally hidden assumptions about the proper course of Christian spirituality.

1. Cenobites - According to The Rule: “those living in a monastery, serving under a rule or an abbot“. Of the four types of monks, these are called “the best kind.”
2. Anchorites - These are the hermits who “by the long probation of life in a monastery, have learned to fight against the devil“. Having been prepared by the “army of brothers” they are now able to go out on their own and have God directly help them fight “against the vices of the flesh or of their thoughts“
3. Sarabaites - They are “approved by no rule, experience being their teacher […] Their law is the satisfaction of their desires. For whatever they think good or choice, this they call holy; and what they do not wish, this they consider unlawful.” They are known to congregate in small groups - twos or threes - and act without a shepherd.
4. Gyratory - The worst kind of monks. “During their whole life they are guests, for three or four days at a time, in the cells of the different monasteries, throughout the various provinces; always wandering and never stationary, given over to the service of their own pleasures and the joys of the palate […]”

It’s especially wild, because what he refers to as “gyratory” monks would be wandering sages in other cultures, and would be some of the most highly regarded - depending on where you are. Really the organization of these types though has everything to do with hierarchical control. The cenobite monks are the good little sheep, the corporate team players who always obey their abbot/coach. The anchorites are the players who are allowed to retire once they’ve been fully indoctrinated. The sarabaites are those who operate wholly on their own and have no desire to be part of an abbey. So why is being a sarabaite worse than being a gyratory monk? Because at least the sarabaites keep to their own groups. The gyratory monks are a problem because they slip in and out of hierarchical structures with ease. In so doing, they spread their ways and infect cenobites who surround them with their ideas, possibly encouraging them to stray from the proper course.

So which kind of monk are you?