1851.] Fourth Century. 239 and we can readily suppose there would be no lack of tolerably educated candidates for the ministry. From the commencement of the fourth century, the inducements to enter the ecclesiastical ranks, were of the most powerful kind. They appealed not merely to the religious feelings of the more ardent and devout, but to the ambition of worldly minded men. The church had already gained an external conquest over the world. Bishops were nearly its sovereigns, and priests and ecclesiastics were sharers in their immunities and advantages. The hope of honor, emolument, influence, power, called loudly upon aspiring and able youth to consecrate themselves to the church, and prepare themselves for the superintendence of its affairs. Many generous and devoted young men entered upon the ministry with honest aims, and hearts ready for sacrifice, while others of feebler faith and more doubtful piety were not repelled by any expectation of hardship from the inviting field; and others still of much baser character and motive, embraced the sacred office as the surest means to comfort and aggrandizement. The clergy of each diocese, with their bishop, formed a privileged society by themselves. Freed from all personal taxes and public burdens, especially such as are connected with military service, and under which the laity groaned-all comfortably supported, if not absolutely rich, enjoying the best society which the times afforded, reverenced for sanctity by the people, having the means of improvement in their hands, with a fair prospect for wealth and promotion in view, it would be strange if in this state of things the ranks of the clergy were not filled to overflowing. Such was in fact the case; and as the church became corrupt, and introduced heathenish ceremonies into her simple worship, an increased multitude of clerical leaders and subordinates could find at least a nominal occupation in the sacerdotal robe. In the cathedrals of Constantinople and Carthage, the clerical establishment contained no less than some five hundred ecclesiastical functionaries.1 Opportunities were not wanting for suitable preparatory instruction. We have already seen, that in every diocese there was at least one general or cathedral school, designed not only to instruct catechumens of whatever age, in the faith, but also to carry forward in the principles of Christian learning, those young men who aspired to the sacred profession. These schools were at first under the immediate personal superintendence of the bishops. But when these 1 Neander, Vol. II. p. 151, Gibbon, Vol. II. p. 423, Guizot's History of Civilization, Vol. I. p. 64. officers came afterwards to be involved more and more in the complicated affairs of the church, they appointed learned men to act under their general supervision, as teachers of the young. With such masters, the cathedral schools were gradually formed into organizations which were the germs or foreshadowings of those great seminaries of learning which adorn modern ages. It does not appear that the profane sciences were taught in Christian schools previous to the fourth century. But from that time Christians availed themselves to a considerable extent of the famous pagan classical seminaries which flourished in all the great cities of civilized Europe. Christian masters, also, though professedly confining themselves to theology and morality, introduced human science as not without its utility in enabling one to understand and defend the dogmas of the church.1 THE DARK AGES. We have come to the time when the civilized world was visited by a shipwreck of literary institutions, and the general destruction of literature and science in society. The repeated and overwhelming irruptions of the Northern barbarians upon civilized Europe, produced universal desolation, especially as respects those studies which refine and elevate mankind. "The gradation," say the Benedictines, "is very remarkable. The irruption of the barbarians caused the entire ruin of the empire; the ruin of the empire destroyed ambition to cultivate the sciences; want of ambition occasioned negligence, and contempt of letters; these produced idleness, which as a necessary consequence, was followed by ignorance; and ignorance plunged its victims into anarchy and vice."" About A. D. 500, monasteries began to be established in Europe, and the benefactions of the liberal were henceforth given to them, instead of the clergy. These institutions acquired immense possessions, which, according to the will of the donor, were spent in supporting monks, in hospitality, in aiding the poor, "in schooling and educating of youth," and in other pious works.3 Monasticism arose at a very early period in the East. The original monks were eremites; in Egypt and in Syria they dwelt for a time alone. Afterwards, being formed into associations, they lived secluded from the world, and passed their time in labor, devotional services, and in begging their support. In the West, the institution was from 1 Histoire Literaire de la France. Par Benedictins. 2 Lit. His. Ben. Tome II. p. 31. Tome I. 8 Fra Paolo Sarpi. Benef. p. 9. 1851.] Monasteries. 241 the beginning of a more human-like and elevating character. It was designed for religious men who, in retirement from the world, might find enjoyment and discharge duty in Christian studies, devotional services, self-discipline, useful labor and beneficent deeds. Religion fled to them as a covert from the times, and literature and science were saved from utter destruction, by finding an asylum in these retreats. Indeed, of many of them, schools were at first the leading characteristics. The theological coenobium under Schaumburgus was intended chiefly for a school and an ecclesia of theologians.1 Monasteries were founded in Gaul and other parts of Europe, originally without much expense to the public. When an association was formed for the purpose, as much wild land was ceded to them as they would cultivate, and their time was divided between prayers, study, and labor on the soil. After preparatory attention to the arts, the time devoted to study was spent upon the great works of the Latin and Greek fathers, and upon the Scriptures. Every convent had its library, and many of the feebler monks were employed in copying ancient manuscripts, instead of working upon the soil. Although their primary business was with spiritual learningfor almost the whole of the Latin and Greek classics which have come down to us, we are indebted to their indefatigable labors. Every monastery had its school for the instruction of the youth who came thither to embrace the monastic life. In them were trained some of the finest minds of the age. Of the famous monastery of the Isle de Levins, it was said by S. Caesaire, "that here excellent monks were educated and sent out for Bishops in all the provinces. They were received small, and were returned great. From being weak and without experience, in understanding and influence they became kings. The institution raised its members to the highest degree of virtue, even to Jesus Christ, on the wings of charity and humility." 2 Monasteries were multiplied to an almost incredible extent. It is said that there were no less than 15,000 connected with the Benedictines at one time. They were open on easy conditions, to all classes. The rich and the noble often sent in their sons to be educated for the church. The poor, especially orphans, and many of them from early childhood, were received on charity; while the middling classes, and the wealthy, if they pleased, could here find an asylum for life, on condition of assenting to the rules of the order, and contributing their possessions to the common stock. The cause of this wonderful rush to the monasteries, may be found in the circumstances of the times. 1 Magdeburgh Centuries, seventh century, p. 89. 2 Ben. Tome II. p. 39. Some were moved by a fervent religious spirit; some by conscious crimes or sins mistaking the true means of expiation; but very many were driven by the public confusion which prevailed, by terror of the barbarians, by the exorbitant demands of the ruling powers, and by a knowledge of the fact which soon became general, that these humble abodes of the professedly self-renouncing, were the true, and after a time almost the only roads to preferment and honor in the church.1 Consequently, says Gibbon," whole legions were buried in these religious sanctuaries. Here, peasants, slaves, mechanics, as well as some noblemen and noblemen's sons found shelter and subsistence." "2 About the time when so many monasteries were founded on the continent by Jerome, Columban, Benedict and others, Christianity was propagated in Ireland by St. Patrick and monasteries were established in that region. "The lands which he received as presents from converted chieftains he applied to the founding of cloisters which were designed to serve as nursing schools for teachers of the people and from them was to proceed the civilization of the country." The monastery of Bangor, in Flintshire, where the world-renowned missionary Columban was educated, contained at one time above 2000 brethren. He was the founder of the famous school of the prophets in Iona, which though a monastic institution, was for a long period, after the middle of the sixth century, the great light of insular Europe. Many similar establishments sprung up in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, so that during the next 400 years not less than a hundred convents rose and flourished, on the model of Iona. There were other facilities for ministerial education. The great schools at Alexandria and Athens still flourished though not perhaps in all their glory. There were schools also in Rome, Constantinople and other places which Christian princes still patronized—some of them like Amalasontha, regent for her son Athalerick about A. D. 530, pledging the teachers their full salary out of the public treasures.* The bishop Etherius collected the boys of his community, instructed each one in letters; eique agros et vineas largitus est, as the citizens bestowed their liberality on him. Patroclus built an oratorium in which he instructed boys for the church. Gregory the Great established a school of young singers which he himself directed and to which he gave revenues and dwelling-houses at Rome. Even to the 1 Neander, Vol. II. p. 261. 2 Gib. IV. p. 378. 8 Neander, Vol. II. p. 124. 4 Schröckh's Christliche Kirchengeschichte, Theil XVI. 60, 61. 5 Magdeburgh Centuries, Vol. II. sixth century, p. 205. 1851.] Seventh and Eighth Centuries. 243 ninth century there were those who pretended to show the bed on which lying he used to sing, and the rod with which he threatened the boys. There were few examples among the religious teachers of this darkening period who attempted to communicate even the elements of philological learning, but sacred psalmody was indispensable to a good theological education. When we think of the Gregorian chant, we cannot but respect the taste of its author, enemy as he was to secular learning. At the council of Vaunce A. D. 592, It was ordered that all ministers according to the salutary custom observed through all Italy should take the young unmarried readers into their houses, teach them psalms, keep them to the reading of the holy Scriptures and instruct them in the law of the Lord. 2 Though ignorance, in the sixth century had become deplorable, yet some of the old secular schools still survived. There were also a great number of cathedral schools, one at least in every diocese, under the direction of the bishop or of some scholar or scholars appointed by him. These were spread all over Gaul and other parts of christianized Europe. In them youth were instructed to some extent in the liberal arts, by way of preparation for those sacred studies which constituted the principal business of the schools. Pausing a moment at the commencement of the seventh century, we can see, on looking back over the preceding three hundred years -that up to this time there could have been no want of clergymen, qualified according to the ideas of the times, for the sacred office. The vast wealth of the church, the power and immunities of its ministers, cathedral schools, and cloisters confusion in civil affairs, driving many of the first minds into the monastic seminaries— the ease with which any young man could obtain an education for the ministry — learning concentrated in the ecclesiastical orders, preferment to be hoped for chiefly in the line of the same - these circumstances would naturally crowd the clerical ranks to their utmost capacity. From this period, viz. the end of the sixth century, down to the time of Charlemagne towards the close of the eighth, the same general system of theological education was preserved. The episcopal schools still sustain themselves though in waning glory. Distinguished prelates, lights of the age, if lights they should be called, superintended the instruction of these seminaries of knowledge. In the diocese of Vienne the number of the schools was prodigious. Within these 1 Schröckh's Christliche Kirchengeschichte, Theil XVI. 63. 8 Ben. Lit. Vol. III. p. 30, 31. 2 Ibid. 64. 4 Ben. III. 425, 428. |