Question

[John Paul]

What was the very first order in the church?

[Strictlyinkblot]

Carmelites say they date back to Elijah. Otherwise I'd have to guess Benedictines

[NadaTeTurbe]

The oldest order of monks are basilian, they date back st Basile de Césarée, third century. They are eastern orthodox. 

[marigold]

Actually we maintain just the one order of all monastics, an amazing global brother- and sisterhood That's how it all began, and over time people like St. Benedict and St. Basil (and others) wrote 'rules of life' or 'canons' for their communities and they worked so well that they began to be adopted by other communities as well, eventually becoming established style of 'doing' monastic life, although not like modern Orders in the Roman Catholic Church. For example, some of the famous English abbesses of the early middle ages are recognised as having been 'Benedictines', but I believe this meant they had Benedict's Rule as a general plan for their community life, but they wouldn't have thought of themselves as belonging to a particular official group in the Church called The Benedictine Order. The Diocese of Rome went ahead and multiplied and focused on particular Orders beginning at the turn of the millennium.

[NadaTeTurbe]

In the same time, there was an Irish rule, no ? Or Scottish ? Something in the UK... I studied it this year, but I can't remember at all... 

[Egeria]

I seem to remember that the Cistercians were the first Order (and the Redemptoristines the last). As Marigold notes, the concept of an Order is linked to particular ecclesiological developments in the late Medieval West and so to apply the term to earlier monastics is rather an anachronism.

[John Paul]

The Cistercians!

[Egeria]

But please note that even with the Cistercians, the concept of Order is something of an anomaly as each monastery is autonomous and the Abbot General has rather limited powers. They are more like a communion of communities than the form of Order that developed in the mendicant Orders, and even more so in the Jesuits. (Of course, it is interesting to note how these developments mirror changes in western ecclesiology during the course of the second millennium).

[marigold]

In the same time, there was an Irish rule, no ? Or Scottish ? Something in the UK... I studied it this year, but I can't remember at all... 

​Do you mean the old Celtic forms of monasticism which existed in Ireland, Scotland and parts of England until there was a bunch of Latinisation?

[NadaTeTurbe]

I look at my lesson, and my teacher spoke about "Saint Colomban" who write a rule for irish. 

[Strictlyinkblot]

I thought St. Benedict predated Saint Colomban but I haven't done any study on it. I'm finding the answers you're all coming up with fascinating.

[Gabriela]

I thought St. Augustine's Rule of Life was the first.

[krissylou]

I think there were other Rules running around at the time of Benedict.  His became very popular (in significant part because it was much less strict than the other ones running around).  And I think it was decreed at one point, at least throughout Europe, that All Monasteries Should Use The Rule of Benedict.

So there's a clear continuity with today's OSBs, but still it doesn't really mean the same thing as today when there are some OSBs and some other things and people choose which one to enter.

If you have one order you just have "monasticism."  If you have multiple distinct ones then you have orders!  

[krissylou]

I've heard that the Carmelites and Benedictines often have a good-natured rivalry over which is older (in the Western church at least).

My thought on that is that if you're going back to Elijah, before the time of Christ, you're talking about something different in kind.

But neither of them asked me, so they keep on with their good natured rivalry.

[Nunsuch]

The Cistercians are a reform of the Benedictines, so they are medieval and far from first. The rule of Caesarius of Arles predates Benedict's, I believe, but not that of Basil.