§ 29. Development of Monasticism.

In the historical development of the monastic institution we must distinguish four stages. The first three were com pleted in the fourth century; the remaining one reached ma turity in the Latin church of the middle age.

The first stage is an ascetic life as yet not organized nor separated from the church. It comes down from the anteNicene age, and has been already noticed. It now took the form, for the most part, of either hermit or cœnobite life, but continued in the church itself, especially among the clergy, who might be called half monks.

The second stage is hermit life or anchoretism.' It arose in the beginning of the fourth century, gave asceticism a fixed and permanent shape, and pushed it to even external separation from the world. It took the prophets Elijah and John the Baptist for its models, and went beyond them. Not content with partial and temporary retirement from common life, which may be united with social intercourse and useful labors, the consistent anchoret secludes himself from all society, even from kindred ascetics, and comes only exceptionally into contact with human affairs, either to receive the visits of admirers of every class, especially of the sick and the needy (which were very frequent in the case of the more celebrated monks), or to appear in the cities on some extraordinary occasion, as a spirit from another world. His clothing is a hair shirt and a wild beast's skin; his food, bread and salt; his dwelling, a cave; his employment, prayer, affliction of the body, and conflict with satanic powers and wild images of fancy. This mode of life was founded by Paul of Thebes and St. Anthony, and came to perfection in the East. It was too eccentric and unpractical for the West, and hence less frequent there, especially in the rougher climates. To the female sex it was entirely unsuited. There was a class of hermits, the Sarabaites in Egypt, and the Rhemoboths in Syria, who lived in bands of at least two or

1 From ἀναχωρέω to retire (from human society), ἀναχωρητής, ἐρημίτης (from ipnula, a desert). The word uovaxós (from μóvos, alone, and μováČew, to live alone), monachus (whence monk), also points originally to solitary, hermit life, bat is commonly synonymous with cœnobite or friar.

th: together; but their quarrelsomeness, occasional intemper. ance, and opposition to the clergy, brought them into ill repute.

The third step in the progress of the monastic life brings us to cœnobitism or cloister life, monasticism in the ordinary sense of the word.' It originated likewise in Egypt, from the example of the Essenes and Therapeutæ, and was carried by St. Pachomius to the East, and afterward by St. Benedict to the West. Both these ascetics, like the most celebrated orderfounders of later days, were originally hermits. Cloister life is a regular organization of the ascetic life on a social basis. It recognizes, at least in a measure, the social element of human nature, and represents it in a narrower sphere secluded from the larger world. As hermit life often led to cloister life, Bo the cloister life was not only a refuge for the spirit weary of the world, but also in many ways a school for practical life in the church. It formed the transition from isolated to social Christianity. It consists in an association of a number of an chorets of the same sex for mutual advancement in ascetic holiness. The coenobites live, somewhat according to the laws of civilization, under one roof, and under a superintendent or abbot.' They divide their time between common devotions and manual labor, and devote their surplus provisions to charity; except the mendicant monks, who themselves live by alms. In this modified form monasticism became available to the female sex, to which the solitary desert life was utterly im practicable; and with the cloisters of monks, there appear at once cloisters also of nuns." Between the anchorets and the co

1 Kowóẞlov, cœnobium; from kods Blos, vita communis; then the congregation of monks; sometimes also used for the building. In the same sense μávdpa, stable, feld, and μovartńpiov, claustrum (whence cloister). Also xaupai, lauræ (literally, streets), that is cells, of which usually a number were built not far apart, so as to form a hamlet. Hence this term is often used in the same sense as monasterium. The singular, Aaûpa, however, answers to the anchoret life. On this nomenclature of monasticism comp. Du Cange, in the Glossarium mediæ et infimæ Latinitatis, under the respective words.

• Ηγούμενος, ἀρχιμανδρίτης, ἀββᾶς, i. e. father, hence abbot. A female superin tendent was called in Syriac auuâs, mother, abbess.

From nonna, i. e. casta, chaste, holy. The word is probably of Coptic origin, and occurs as early as in Jerome. The masculine nonnus, monk, appears frequently in the middle age. Comp. the examples in Du Cange, a. v.

nobites no little jealousy reigned; the former charging the lat ter with ease and conformity to the world; the latter accusing the former of selfishness and misanthropy. The most eminent church teachers generally prefer the cloister life. But the hermits, though their numbers diminished, never became extinct. Many a monk was a hermit first, and then a cœnobite; and many a cœnobite turned to a hermit.

The same social impulse, finally, which produced monastic congregations, led afterward to monastic orders, unions of a number of cloisters under one rule and a common government. In this fourth and last stage monasticism has done most for the diffusion of Christianity and the advancement of learning,' has fulfilled its practical mission in the Roman Catholic church, and still wields a mighty influence there. At the same time it became in some sense the cradle of the German reformation. Luther belonged to the order of St. Augustine, and the monastic discipline of Erfurt was to him a preparation for evangelical freedom, as the Mosaic law was to Paul a schoolmaster to lead to Christ. And for this very reason Protestantism is the end of the monastic life.

§ 30. Nature and Aim of Monasticism.

Monasticism was from the first distinguished as the contemplative life from the practical.' It passed with the ancient church for the true, the divine, or Christian philosophy,' an unworldly, purely apostolic, angelic life. It rests upon an

1 Hence Middleton says, not without reason: "By all which I have ever read of the old, and have seen of the modern monks, I take the preference to be clearly due to the last, as having a more regular discipline, more good learning, and less superstition among them than the first."

• Βίος θεωρητικός, and βίος πρακτικός, according to Gregory Nazianzen and others. Throughout the middle age the distinction between the vita contemplativa and the vita activa was illustrated by the two sisters of Lazarus, Luke x. 88-42.

* Η κατὰ θεὸν οι Χριστὸν φιλοσοφία, ἡ ὑψηλή φιλοσ., i. e. in the sense of the ancients, not so much a speculative system, as a mode of life under a particular rule. So in the Pythagoreans, Stoics, Cynics, and Neo-Platonists. Ascetic and philosopher are the same.

4 Αποστολικός βίος, ὁ τῶν ἀγγέλων βίος, vita angelica ; after an unwarranted application of Christ's word respecting the sexless life of the angels, Matt. xxii. §d,

earnest view of life; upon the instinctive struggle after perfect dominion of the spirit over the flesh, reason over sense, the supernatural over the natural, after the highest grade of holiness and an undisturbed communion of the soul with God; but also upon a morbid depreciation of the body, the family, the state, and the divinely established social order of the world. It recognizes the world, indeed, as a creature of God, and the family and property as divine institutions, in opposition to the Gnostic Manichæan asceticism, which ascribes matter as such to an evil principle. But it makes a distinction between two grades of morality: a common and lower grade, democratic, so to speak, which moves in the natural ordinances of God; and a higher, extraordinary, aristocratic grade, which lies beyond them and is attended with special merit. It places the great problem of Christianity not in the transformation, but in the abandonment, of the world. It is an extreme unworldliness, over against the worldliness of the mass of the visible church in union with the state. It demands entire renunciation, not only of sin, but also of property and of marriage, which are lawful in themselves, ordained by God himself, and indispensable to the continuance and welfare of the human race. The poverty of the individual, however, does not exclude the possession of common property; and it is well known, that some monastic orders, especially the Benedictines, have in course of time grown very rich. The cœnobite institution requires also absolute obedience to the will of the superior, as the visible representative of Christ. As obedience to orders and sacrifice of self is the first duty of the soldier, and the condition of military success and renown, so also in this spiritual army in its war against the flesh, the world, and the devil, monks are not allowed to have a will of their own. To them may be applied the lines of Tennyson:

1

"Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs but to do and die."

which is not presented here as a model for imitation, but only mentioned as an argument against the Sadducees.

1 In his famous battle poem: "The Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, first ed. 1854.

Voluntary poverty, voluntary celibacy, and absolute obedience form the three monastic vows, as they are called, and are supposed to constitute a higher virtue and to secure a higher reward in heaven.

But this threefold self-denial is only the negative side of the matter, and a means to an end. It places man beyond the reach of the temptations connected with earthly possessions, married life, and independent will, and facilitates his progress toward heaven. The positive aspect of monasticism is unreserved surrender of the whole man, with all his time and strength, to God; though, as we have said, not within, but without the sphere of society and the order of nature. This devoted life is employed in continual prayer, meditation, fasting, and castigation of the body. Some votaries went so far as to reject all bodily employment, for its interference with devotion. But in general a moderate union of spiritual exercises with scientific studies or with such manual labor as agriculture, basket making, weaving, for their own living and the support of the poor, was held not only lawful but wholesome for monks. It was a proverb, that a laborious monk was beset by only one devil; an idle one, by a legion.

With all the austerities and rigors of asceticism, the monastic life had its spiritual joys and irresistible charms for noble, contemplative, and heaven-aspiring souls, who fled from the turmoil and vain show of the city as a prison, and turned the solitude into a paradise of freedom and sweet communion with God and his saints; while to others the same solitude became a fruitful nursery of idleness, despondency, and the most perilous temptations and ultimate ruin.'

§ 31. Monasticism and the Bible.

Monasticism, therefore, claims to be the highest and purest form of Christian piety and virtue, and the surest way to

'Comp. the truthful remark of Yves de Chartres, of the twelfth century, Ep. 192 (quoted by Montalembert): "Non beatum faciunt hominem secreta sylvarum, cacumina montium, si secum non habet solitudinem mentis, sabbatum cordis, tran quillitatem conscientiæ, ascensiones in corde, sine quibus omnem solitudinem cómitantur mentis acedia, curiositas, vana gloria, periculosæ tentationum procellæ."