A Short History of Monks and Monasteries

from its introduction in Rome to the time of Benedict o

me, an authentic account of the Egyptian hermits. The story was carried to the Eternal City by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, one of the most remarkable characters in the early church, a ma

ance, albeit, as I trust, clean in heart, excited general disgust, and their story of the tortures and holiness of their Egyptian brethren was received with derision. But men who had faced and conquered the terrors of the desert were not to be so easily repulsed. Aided by other ascetic travele

t is needful to know something of the social and religious condition o

me. When the wretched inebriate embraces a spiritual religion with one foot in the grave, with a constitution completely undermined, and the seeds of death planted, then no repentance or lofty aspiration can prevent physical death. It was so in Rome." The death-throes were long an

ublic baths, temples and libraries. Elegance of manners and acquisitions of wealth indicate specious outward refinement. But these things are not sufficient to guarante

itated by the impact of barbarous forces, but a process slowly prepared and evolved by internal and economic causes." Two of these causes were the dying out of municipal liberty and self-government, and the separation of the upper class from the masses by sharp distributions of wealth and privilege. It is indeed true that these causes contributed to Rome's ruin; that the central government was weak; that the civil service was oppressive and corrupt; that the aristocratic class wa

ing new and expensive forms of sensuous pleasure. The profligacy of the nobles almost surpasses credibility, so that trustworthy descriptions read like works of fiction. Farrar says: "A whole population might be trembling lest they should be starved by the delay of an Alexandrian corn ship, while the upper classes were squandering a fortune at a single banquet, drinking o

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but nominally Christian. Thousands of ecclesiastical adherents were half pagan in their spirit and practice. Harnack declares, "They were too deeply affected by Christianity to abandon it, but too little to be Christians. Pure religiou

es against the departure from apostolic ideals by exalting the standards of the earlier Christianity; these men,

Such trifling folly was fatal. The times demanded men of vigorous spirit, who dared to face the general decline, and cry out in strong tones against it. The age needed moral warriors, with the old Roman courage and love of sacrifice; martyrs willing to rot in prison or shed their blood in the street, not effeminate men, toying with fancy table-covers and tiptoeing across a sprinkled road. "And as a background," says Kingsley, "to all this seething heap of corruption, misrule and misery, hung the black cloud of the barbarians, the Teutonic tribes from whom we derive our best blood, ever coming nearer and nearer, waxing stronger and stronger, to be soon the conquerors of the C?sars and the masters of the world." But there were many pure and sincere Christians--a savin

lpless before the surging floods of vice and superstition. The noble struggles of a few

f ever so dominant? The corruptions of the church in the fourth century are as well authenticated as the purity and moral elevation of Christians in the second century." Even in the early days of Christianity the ruin of Rome was impending, but, at that time, the adherents of the Christian religion were few and poor. They di

lie down at night with wild beasts for companions. They have not yielded to the depravity of the human heart and the temptations of a licentious age. They have conquered sinful appetites by self-abnegation and fasting. They come to a distracted society with a message of peace--a peace won by courageous self-sacrifice. They call men to save their perishing souls by surrendering their wills to God and e

ut degradation, and joyfully responded to the call of righteousness. "Despising themselves," says Kingsley, "despising the

oils of a corrupt court, from the courtesans that usurped the place of the wife, from the insolence and selfishness of men who scorned even

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ts of the desert, and flinging away their trinkets, they hastened to the solitude of the

fficer of rank, read the life of Anthony, and cried to his fellow-soldier: "Tell me, I pray thee, whither all our labors tend? What do we seek? For whom do we carry arms? What can be our greatest hope in the palace but to be friend

aring? These ignorant men rise; they take Heaven by force, and we, with our heartless sciences, behold us wallowing in the flesh and in our blood! Is it shameful to follow them, and are we not rather disgraced b

t official posts or candidates for the highest honors, abandoned all their chanc

aster of the best hearts in the capital. Every one in whom aspiration is still alive, who longs for some

Monastic history, like secular, centers in the biographies of such great men as Anthony, Basil, Jerome, Benedict, Francis, Dominic and Loyola. To understand the character of the powerful

. His failing vision no longer follows the classic pages of Virgil or dwells fondly on the Hebrew of the Old Testament. This is Saint Jerome, the champion of asceticism, the biographer of hermits, the lion of Christian polemics, the translator of the Bible, and the worthy, brilliant, determined foe of a dissolute society and a worldly church. Although he spent thirty-four years of

cked their daughters in their rooms lest they should fall under the influence of his magnetic voice. It was largely owing to his own labors that he could write in after years: "Formerly, according to the testimony of th

some young Christians induced him to visit the catacombs with them. Here, before the graves of Christian martyrs, a quiet and holy influence stole into his heart, that finally led to his conversion and baptism. Embracing the monastic ideal, he gathered around him a few congenial friends, who joined him in a covenant of rigid abstinence and ascetic d

in caves infested by serpents and wild beasts. They lay upon the sands, scorched in summer by the blazing sun, and chilled in winter by the winds that blew from snowcapped mountains. For five years, Jerome dwelt among these demon-fighting recluses. Clad in sackcloth stained by

mpany of monks. These he organized into monasteries. He built a hospital, and established an inn for travelers. Lacking the necessary funds to carry out his projects, he dispatched his brother to the West with instructions to sell what was left of his property, and the proceeds of t

nken eyes of the starved hermit into features positively beautiful, while the rags that hung loosely upon his emaciated frame became garments of lustrous white. "Oh, that I could behold the desert," he cries, "lovelier than any city! Oh, that I could see those lonely spots made into a paradis

dearly loved brother, and settles like a new tiller of Eden on a dangerous island, with the sea roaring round its reefs, while its rough crags, bare rocks and desolate aspect make it more terrible still.... He sees the glory of God which even the apostles saw not, save in the desert. He beholds, it is true, no embattled towns, but he has enrolled his name in the new city. Garments o

st! O retreat, which rejoicest in the friendship of God! What dost thou in the world, my brother, with thy soul greater than the

e desert. The power of personal influence, of inspiring private letters, can hardly be overemphasized in studying the remarkable progress of asceticism. Great awakenings in the moral, as in the political or the social world, may be traced to the profound influence of individuals, whose prophetic insight and moral en

hearts by the fervor of his love, and encouraged the most hopeless by his fiery zeal and heroic faith. As a promoter of monasticism, he clashed with the interests of an enfeebled clergy and a corrupt laity. Nothing could swerve him from his course. False monks might draw terrible rebuk

nts, should show thee the breasts which have nourished thee; though thy father should lie upon the threshold; yet depart thou, treading over thy father, and fly with dry eyes to the standard of t

limbs and my skin from long neglect had become black as an Ethiopian's. Tears and groans were every day my portion; and if drowsiness chanced to overcome my struggles against it, my bare bones, which hardly held together, clashed against the ground. Now although in my fear of hell I had consigned myself to this prison where I had no companions but scorpions and wild beasts, I often found myself amid bevies of girls. Helpless, I cast myself at the feet of Jesus, I watered them with my tears, and I subdued my rebelliou

fies and refines according to the laws of nature. Christianity does not destroy our natural instincts, but gives them a higher and nobler direction." To all this I must assent, but, at the same time, I cannot but reverence that pure passion for holiness which led men, despairing of acquiring virtue in a degenerate age, to flee from the wor

vision interrupted his classical studies for a time. In later years he resumed his beloved Virgil; and he vigorously defended himself against those who charged him with being a Pagan and an apostate on account of his love for

in the humble garb of the nun. As the narrative proceeds I shall let Jerome speak as often as possible, that the reader may become acquainted

till to be seen upon the streets. Jerome writes to Pammachius: "Who would have believed that a last descendant of the consuls, an ornament of the race of Camillus, could make up his mind to traverse

ing desire to achieve holiness, produced this exodus to the Holy Land, which culminated centuries later in the crusades. One was a desire to see the deserts and caves, the abode of hermits famous for piety and miracles. Jerome, as I have shown, invested these lonely retreats and strange charac

erable Paula. Of the stock of the Gracchi, descended from the Scipios, she yet preferred Bethlehem to Rome, and left her palace glittering with gold to dwell in a mud cabin." Her husband was of royal blood and had died leaving her five children. At his death, she gave herself to works of charity. The poor and sick she wrapped in her own blankets. She began to tire of the receptions and other

silent sobs besought her mother to wait until she should be married. But still Paula's eyes were dry as she turned them heavenwards, and she overcame her love for her children by her love for God. She knew herself no more as a mother that she might approve herself a handmaid of Christ. Yet her he

ed Syria and Egypt and the islands of Ponta and Cyprus. At the feet of the hermit fathers she begged their blessing and tried to emulate the virtues she believed they possesse

ue is a mean and vice an excess, or, as we may express it in one short sentence, in nothing too much." Paula swept floors and toiled in the kitchen. She slept on the ground, covered by a mat of goat's hair. Her weeping was incessant. As she meditated over the Scriptures, her tears fell so profusely that her sight was endangered. Jerome warned her to spare her eyes, but she said: "I must disfigure that face which, contrary to God's commandment, I have painted with rouge, white lead and antimony." If this be a si

he rocks, the billows are mountain high, and imminent shipwreck awaits me." Yet Paula, like David, must go the way of all the earth. Surrounded by her followers chanting psalms, she breathed her last.

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to works of charity. Cerealis, an old man, but of consular rank, offered her his fortune that he might consider her less his wife than his daughter. "Had I a wish to marry," was her noble reply, "I should look for a husband and not for an inheritance." Disdaining all enticements to

her money in the stomachs of the poor rather than to keep it at her own disposal." Seldom seen upon the streets, she remained at home, surrounded by virgins and widows, obedient an

anguage: "My voice sticks in my throat; and as I dictate, sobs choke my utterance. The city which has taken the whole world is itself taken." Rude barbarians invaded the sanctity of Marcella's retreat. They demanded her gold, but she pointed to

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words and loving deeds, still stirs the hearts of her sisters who, while they may reject her ascetic ideal, will, nevertheless, try to emulate her noble spirit. As

ons, and with the proceeds founded a hospital into which were gathered the sick from the streets. She nursed the sufferers and washed their ulcers and wounds. No task was beneath her, no sacrifice of personal comfort too great for her love. Many helped her with their gold, but she gave herself. She also aided in establishing a home for strangers at Portus, whic

ested the West in monasticism. Much as their errors and extravagances may be deplored, there is no questi

r weaknesses, the aristocratic pride, the spiritual vanity, we fancy we discover. We must confess that in these women the spirit of the old

cism an

ale order had its counterpart in some sort of a sisterhood. The general moral character of these female associations was higher than that of the

into the desert he placed his sister in the care of some virgins who were living a life of abstinence, apart from society. It is very doubtful if any uniform rule governed these first religious hou

scloses three interesting and notew

an's nature demands loftier employments. A great soul craves occupations and recognizes obligations more in harmony with the true nobility of human nature. Rome had no monitor of the higher life until the monks came with their stories of heroic self-abnegation and unselfish toil. The women felt the force and truth of Jerome's criticism of their trifling follies when he said: "Do

observation amounts to nothing more than a cautionary word against mistaking evils common to all times for special symptoms of excessive immorality. Professor Dill practically concedes the truthfulness of contemporary witnesses, including Jerome, when he says: "Yet, after all allowances, the picture is not a pleasant one. We feel that we are far away from the simple, unworldly devotion of the freedmen and obscure toilers whose existence was hardly known to the great world before the age of the Antonines, and who lived in the spirit of

heir power. All sorts of alliances could then be formed, and if their husbands remonstrated, they, holding the purse strings, were able to say: "If you don't like it you can leave." A profligate himself, the husband usually kept his counsel, and as a reward, dwelt in a palace. "When the Roman matrons became the equal and voluntary companions of their lords," says Gibbon, "a new juris

nselfish in her asceticism than they. It is true the monk forsook all, and to that extent was self-sacrificing, but in his desire for his own salvation, he was prone to neglect every one else. The monk's ministrations were too often confined to those who came to him, b

ate, and, of course, left the convent; but, beginning with Basil, this practice was condemned, and irrevocable vows were

the shell." He therefore tolerated marriage among people contented with ordinary religious attainments, but he thought it incompatible with true holiness. Augustine admitted that the mother and her daughter may be both in heaven, but one a bright and the other a dim star. Some writers, as Helvidius, opposed this view and maintained that there was no special virtue in an unmarried life; that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was also the mother of other children, and as such was an example of Christian virtue. Jerome brought

ore her mirror, and, to the insult of her Maker, strives to acquire something more than her natural beauty. Then come the prattling of infants, the noisy household, children watching for her word and waiting for her kiss, the reckoning up of expenses, the preparation to meet the outlay. On one side you will see a company of cooks, girded for the onslaught and attacking the

d true idea that God may be served in the performance of household and other secular duties. Women fled from such occupations in those days that they might be religious. The disagreeable fact of Peter's marriage was overcome by the assertion that

of Monastic

like his sister Marcella, whom we have met. He it was, of whom the Emperor Theodosius said: "I have met a man who has told me the truth." Well might he so declare, for Ambrose refused him admission to the church at Milan, because his hands were red with the blood of the murdered, and

My son," she said in substance, "my only comfort in the midst of the miseries of this earthly life is to see thee constantly, and to behold in thy traits the faithful image of my beloved husband, who is no more. When you have buried me and joined my ashes with those of your father, nothing will then prevent you from retiring into the monastic li

cal and literary gifts were employed in elevating the ascetic ideal and in unsparing denunciations of the worldly religion of the imperial court. He incurred the furious hatred of the young and beautiful Empress Eudoxia, who united her influence with that of the ambitious

hirty-eight years at Hippo, a Numidian city about two hundred miles west of Carthage, in Africa, Augustine was regarded as the intellectual head not only of North Africa but of Western Christianity. He gathered his clergy into a college of priests, with a community of goods, thus approaching as closely to the regular monastic life as was possible to secular clergymen. He established religious houses and w

sm, condemned its abuses, and ended by sighing for the quiet life of the monk who divided his day between labor,

m. But we must now leave sunny Africa and journey northwar

been banished by Constantine to Treves, in 336. In 346 and 349 he again visited Ga

of Tours. He lived about the years 316-396 A.D. The chronicle of his life is by no means trustworthy, but that is essential neither to popularity nor saintship. Only let a Severus describe h

ss the angels: "Martin, as yet only a catechumen has clothed me with his garment." After leaving the army he became a hermit, and, subsequently, bishop of Tours. He lived for years just outside of Tours in a cell m

rink deep draughts of beer. Such sturdy children of the northern forests naturally disdained dainty morsels of barley bread and small potations of wine. True, Athanasius had said, "Fasting is the food of angels," but these ascetic novices, in their perplexity, could only say: "We are accused of gluttony; but we are Gauls; it

d inexhaustible. "No one ever saw him either gloomy or merry," remarks his biographer. Amid many embarrassments and difficulties he was ever the same, with a countenance full of heavenly serenity. He was a great m

ion tells us he was the uncle of Saint Patrick of Ireland. Churches were dedicated to him in France, Germany, Scotland and England. The festival of his birth is celebrated on the eleventh of November. In Scotland this day still m

as well as of monasticism into the British Isles is shrouded in darkness. A few jewels of fact may be gathered from the legendary rubbish. It is probable that before the days of Benedict, Saint Patrick, independently of Rome, establish

of a British church occurs in the writings of the Venerable Bede (673-735 A.D.), a monk whose numerous and valuable works on English history entitle him to the praise of being "the greatest literary benefactor this or any other nation has produced." He informs us that a British king--Lucius--embraced Christianity during the reign of the Emperor Aurelius, and that missionaries were sent from Rome to Britain about that time. Lingard

s and Op

as quickly struck down, and voices of opposition suddenly hushed. Like a mighty flood the movement swept on,--kings, when so inclined, being powerless to stop it. As Paula was carried fainting from the funeral procession of Bl?silla, her daughter, whispers such as these were audible in the crowd: "Is not this what we have often said? She weeps for her daughter, killed with fasting. How

wretches, enemies of light. I detest these rocks scene of a recent shipwreck." He then goes on to declare that a young and rich friend, impelled by the furies, had fled from men and gods to a living tomb, and was now decaying in that foul retreat. This was no uncommon opinion. But contrast it with what Ambrose said of those same isles: "It is there in these isles, thrown down by God like a collar of pearls upon the sea, that those who would escape fr

e monks and claimed that many of Rome's noblest young men and women were withdrawn from a life of usefulness into the desert. He held that there was really but one class of Christians, namely, those who had faith in Christ, and that a monk could be no more. But Jovinian was far in advance of his age, and it was many years before the truth of his view gained any considerable recognition. He was severely attacke

from them that many fled from society, not to become holy, but to escape slavery and famine; and that many were lazy and immoral. Their "shaven heads lied to God." Avarice, ambition, or cowardice ruled hearts that should have been actuated by a l

s carrying pretended relics, amulets, preservatives, and expecting alms to feed their lucrative poverty and recompense their pretended virtue." It is to the

church, exactly at the time when she was developing more and more into a legal institution and a sacramental establishment, outlined a Christian life-ideal which was inc

immorality was disclosed as well as luminous purity; indolence and laziness as well as the love of sacrifice and toil. So we shall find it down through the centuries. "The East had

to end in that imbecility and failure which overtook the Eastern system. But there came a man who infused new life into the

Rome. "A single monk," says Montalembert, "is about to form there a center of spiritual virtue, and