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:''For all orders and groups following the Rule of St. Augustine of Hippo, see Augustinians'' Canons Regular are priests living in community under the Rule of St. Augustine ("regula" in Latin), and sharing their property in common. Distinct from monks, who live a cloistered, contemplative life and sometimes engage in ministry to those from outside the monastery, the purpose of the life of a canon is to engage in public ministry of liturgy and sacraments for those who visit their churches (historically the monastic life was by its nature lay, whereas canonical life was essentially clerical). Distinct from Clerks Regular (Regular Clerics)—an example of which is the Society of Jesus—they are members of a particular community of a particular place, and are bound to the public praying of the Liturgy of the Hours in choir. Secular canons, by contrast, belong to a community of priests attached to a church but do not take vows or live in common under a Rule. Canons Regular are sometimes called Black or White Canons, depending on the color of the religious habit worn by the congregation to which they belong. Canons live together in community and take the three vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience; though this is a later development, the first communities of Canons took vows of common property and stability. Some congregations of Canons Regular have retained the vow of stability. Famous Canons Regular include the only Englishman to sit in the Chair of St. Peter, Pope Adrian IV, the renowned mystic, Thomas à Kempis, and the Christian humanist, Desiderius Erasmus. The Canons Regular (usually following the Rule of Augustine, and hence called Augustinian Canons) are not to be confused with the Order of Saint Augustine which was to begin as a completely distinct entity via papal edicts of the year 1256. Pope Urban II, who was in office from 1088 to 1099, wrote of two forms of religious life: the monastic (like the Benedictines and Cistercians) and the canonical (like the Augustinian canons). He likened the monks to the role of Mary, and the canons to that of her sister, Martha. These clergy were called 'canon' because their names were kept in a list known as a 'kanon', a Greek word meaning 'rule'.〔 The monks sought to reflect supernatural order and stability within their monasteries, with examples of worship, farming, medical care, librarianship, learning, etc. The canons worked in the disorder of the towns and cities, where the worship, medicines, education and the skills of the enclosed Benedictines were not present to the growing numbers of urban dwellers. By the year 1125 hundreds of communities of Canons had sprung up in Western Europe. Usually they were quite autonomous of one another, and varied in their ministries.〔 One obvious place where a group of priests was required was within a cathedral, where there were many Masses to celebrate and the Divine Office to be prayed together in community. Canons often came to be associated with cathedrals, but other groups of canons also established themselves in smaller centres.〔 When, in and after the 11th century, the various congregations of Canons Regular were formed, and adopted the Rule of St. Augustine, they were usually called ''Canonici Regulares Ordinis S. Augustini Congregationis'', and in England "Austin Canons" or "Black Canons", but there have always been canons regular who never adopted the Rule of St. Augustine. In a word, canons regular may be considered as the genus, and Austin Canons as the species; or all Austin Canons are canons regular, but not all canons regular are Austin canons. ==Background== According to St. Thomas Aquinas, a canon regular is essentially a religious cleric; "The Order of Canons Regular is necessarily constituted by religious clerics, because they are essentially destined to those works which relate to the Divine mysteries, whereas it is not so with the monastic Orders." This is what constitutes a canon regular and what distinguishes him from a monk. The clerical state is essential to the Order of Canons Regular, whereas it is only accidental to the Monastic Order. Erasmus, himself a canon regular, declared that the canons regular are a "median point" between the monks and the secular clergy. The outer appearance and observances of the canons regular can seem very similar to those of the monks. This is because the various reforms borrowed certain practices from the monks for the use of the canons.〔 According to St. Augustine, a canon regular professes two things, "sanctitatem et clericatum". He lives in community, he leads the life of a religious, he sings the praises of God by the daily recitation of the Divine Office in choir; but at the same time, at the bidding of his superiors, he is prepared to follow the example of the Apostles by preaching, teaching, and the administration of the sacraments, or by giving hospitality to pilgrims and travellers, and tending the sick.〔 St. Augustine’s teaching and example has become the heritage of the Church as it sets about bringing to life again the common life of clerics.〔 The canons regular do not confine themselves exclusively to canonical functions. They also give hospitality to pilgrims and travelers on the Great St. Bernard and on the Simplon, and in former times the hospitals of St. Bartholomew's Smithfield, in London, of S. Spirito, in Rome, of Lochleven, Monymusk and St. Andrew's, in Scotland, and others like them, were all served by canons regular. Many congregations of canons worked among the poor, the lepers, and the infirm. The clerics established by St. Patrick in Ireland had a Guest House for pilgrims and the sick whom they tended by day and by night. And the rule given by Chrodegang to his canons enjoined that a hospital should be near their house that they might tend the sick.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「canons regular」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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