Saintly Saturday: St. John of Rila

Today is the Feast of St. John of Rila. He is a 9th-10th century monastic of Bulgaria and considered to be the country’s great spiritual ascetic and protector. His life follows a pattern found in many ascetic saints.

Born in a village in the region of what is now Sofia, he was orphaned as a boy. He became a cowherd in hire of a cruel man. It was here that he learned to pray. After being beaten for losing a cow and her calf, he called to God for help. He found the two separated by a raging river. After placing his tattered shirt on the water, he was able to walk on the water in order to save the calf. His master saw this miracle and rewarded John, but being afraid sent him away.

St. John then wandered the wilderness. At first, he lived in a hut, but was driven away by robbers. Later, he lived in a deep cave. He became known for miracle working.

Finally, the monastic feats of St. John began to spread far and wide and he began to attract followers. They built a monastery where St. John was abbot until he died in A.D. 946.

In other words, there is a period where the monastic has some form of patronage — whether as a slave, servant or pupil. Then the monk wanders the wilderness. Finally, followers come and a monastery is built.

Note that this pattern is very similar to the three stages of a D&D character. Lower levels stick close to a home base as they dungeon delve. At mid-levels they explore the wilderness. At high levels, a piece of wilderness is cleared to make way for a stronghold and the attraction of followers. This is also a pattern implied by an understanding of Law vs. Chaos being (Christian) Civilization vs. (Demonic) Wilderness.

I have argued before that adventuring parties can be seen as metaphors for this very monastic pattern; however, there is no real character class that is representative of the Christian monastic tradition. Clerics come the closest, but these are much more akin to what modern gamers see as the holy warrior/paladin than a contemplative monk.

As I mentioned in my last post, there was a moment in the history of the game where such a class was at least being contemplated. I believe that such a class would work in a world where sin is personified by monsters. The issue is figuring out how to differentiate it from a cleric while still making it interesting to play.

Meditating on Monks

I have to admit that I really like monks — both the class and that arm of the Church that choses to take the monastic tonsure. This has to do both with the awe and wonder that I remember having when I was first introduced to the wonderful cinematic madness that comes out of Hong Kong as well as a deep seeded need for the ascetic disciplines of prayer that monastics are privileged to live out on a daily basis.

There is a strain of gamer that gnashes their teeth at the idea of the Hong-Kong-movie-influenced monk class crashing the medieval European party represented by the three core classes of D&D. I am not one of them. In fact, I have come to relish in an amalgam of the monk class and the monk who endeavors to follow St. Paul's dictum to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17).

Let me begin with a documentary that changed my mind about how we traditionally see and understand martial arts. It is called Reclaiming the Blade. Ostensibly, it is a documentary that examines role the sword plays in cinema; however, in doing so it reveals that the systematic martial arts that we normally only associate with Asia also existed in Europe. The difference is how these two cultures used gun powder. Whereas the East declined and even outlawed most military applications, the West embraced gun power as a way of making war. These two different approaches resulted in the continued use and lionization of martial hand-to-hand combat in the East and its increasing irrelevance in the West. Consequently, the Western martial arts were almost entirely lost.

Lest we forget, this Western tradition is ancient. The Greeks had the systemized unarmed combat style we know as Pankration. Alexander the Great took this with him as he conquered India. Shaolin Kung Fu is generally credited to an Indian Bhuddist monk often known as Boddhidharma. Thus, there is a link, though tenuous, between Western and Eastern martial arts.

In addition, if one reads the Life of St. Antony, we see the man who many consider to be the exemplar of monastics wrestling demons:

Thus tightening his hold upon himself, Antony departed to the tombs, which happened to be at a distance from the village; and having bid one of his acquaintances to bring him bread at intervals of many days, he entered one of the tombs, and the other having shut the door on him, he remained within alone. And when the enemy could not endure it . . . coming one night with a multitude of demons, he so cut him with stripes that he lay on the ground speechless from the excessive pain. For he affirmed that the torture had been so excessive that no blows inflicted by man could ever have caused him such torment . . . The next day his acquaintance came bringing him the loaves. And having opened the door and seeing him lying on the ground as though dead, he lifted him up and carried him to the church in the village, and laid him upon the ground. And many of his kinsfolk and the villagers sat around Antony as round a corpse. But about midnight he came to himself and arose, and when be saw them all asleep and his comrade alone watching, he motioned with his head for him to approach, and asked him to carry him again to the tombs without waking anybody.

In a fantasy world where sin is personified and monsters roam the wilderness, it is not a big leap to imagine that monastics (who live in and wander through the wilderness) would learn to use what God had given them — their body — as a primary weapon against these foes.

Thus, I happily populate my own Euro-inspired medieval fantasy world with monks and delight as they pray and punch their way through the wilderness making life safe for civilization.

Adventuring with Antony the Great

Thus tightening his hold upon himself, Antony departed to the tombs, which happened to be at a distance from the village; and having bid one of his acquaintances to bring him bread at intervals of many days, he entered one of the tombs, and the other having shut the door on him, he remained within alone. And when the enemy could not endure it . . . coming one night with a multitude of demons, he so cut him with stripes that he lay on the ground speechless from the excessive pain. For he affirmed that the torture had been so excessive that no blows inflicted by man could ever have caused him such torment . . . The next day his acquaintance came bringing him the loaves. And having opened the door and seeing him lying on the ground as though dead, he lifted him up and carried him to the church in the village, and laid him upon the ground. And many of his kinsfolk and the villagers sat around Antony as round a corpse. But about midnight he came to himself and arose, and when be saw them all asleep and his comrade alone watching, he motioned with his head for him to approach, and asked him to carry him again to the tombs without waking anybody.

Whenever I see this passage, I feel like I am reading a quote from some pulp story written at the beginning of the 20th century. Its descent into the tombs that lie outside a village on the edge of the wilderness and its depiction of combat against demons never fails to inspires me. It makes the inner role-player in me want to take out my OD&D books, roll up a character, hire some henchmen and go exploring underground in search of the unknown.

I am not the only one that the story of Antony as inspired. In fact, it inspired an entire generation. However, that generation lived 1700 years ago and included the likes of St. Augustine of Hippo. This account of delving inside a tomb in order to take on demons in mortal combat is the Life of St. Antony by St. Athanasius the Great. It was read all over the Christian world and was translated from its original Greek into several languages, including the Latin that Augustine read. It sparked an explosion of monastic activity in the 4th century that is still with us today. Interestingly, the work is timeless and I've seen it inspire those of the 21st century just as much as it did those in the 4th.

I wanted to share this excerpt with you to demonstrate how easily the idea of the monk going into the wilderness to combat demons translates to D&D. Anthony is engaged in an activity that many dungeon delving D&D parties have done over the years. It is why I choose the monastic in the desert as a metaphor for a D&D campaign. It is a classic struggle between the forces of Chaos and the forces of Law. It also demonstrates that the sandbox campaign can work beautifully in the context of a Christian or monotheistic backdrop.