Called to Community. Thomas Merton
word derived from the Greek paroikia, which meant “neighbor” but also “sojourner” or “pilgrim.” So, just as “parish” is similar to “pariah” in English, the name would have reminded Christians they were outcasts and exiles in a foreign land.
Palestinian roads were treacherous, consisting of packed earthen pathways, usually narrow and winding around the many mountains in the region. Persecution forced whole families of Christians to follow these dusty trails to new cities, where they formed tightly-knit communities of a few dozen people. In times of difficulty, Christians relied on one another for basic needs. For instance, if Christians were imprisoned, they counted on the community to bring them food and care for them. Such pressures bound the parish together into a family unit, sometimes called “the household of faith.”
The development of Roman highways – between eight and thirty feet wide; built in courses of gravel, sand, and pavement; engineered to efficiently drain water away – not only made life easier but also aided the spread of Christianity throughout the empire. As external pressures relaxed, Christians’ dependence on one another likewise waned. By the end of the third century, the parish had morphed from a countercultural community into an administrative jurisdiction of the institutional church. This shift occurred at different rates in different regions, but by the end of the fourth century Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire and firmly established in major urban areas. From this point until the modern period, Christians in Europe would live in tension between a supposedly “Christian” society and the communal ideal of the early church.
Ironically, one man credited with the renewal of Christian community spent most of his life living as a hermit in the Egyptian desert. Anthony was born in 250 to an affluent family in Lower Egypt. His parents died while he was young, and Anthony received a significant inheritance. One day, entering a church just as the gospel was being read, he heard the lector say: “If anyone would be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Immediately Anthony sold his possessions and distributed the money to the poor. He lived as an outcast on the margins of the village, seeking God alone in the wilderness. For twenty years, he prepared the way of the Lord through prayer, fasting, and vigils. As his reputation grew, others followed him down the deserted highway into the wilderness, settling in individual cells near him. These pilgrims were called “monks,” from the Greek monos, which means “alone.”
Although Christianity was now accepted throughout the empire, some Christians believed the faith to be weakened, diluted by its social respectability and assimilated to prevailing cultural norms. Inspired by Anthony’s example to recover the original vision of Jesus’ followers, many divested themselves of property and worldly concerns, leaving even the security of marriage to pursue a simple life of prayer and manual labor. For them, commitment to God was not a matter of words (they spoke few) but of action. They eschewed luxury in all forms, preferring simple food, plain dress, and basic shelter. They even surrendered their autonomy by submitting themselves to the oversight of a spiritual elder called an abbot (from abba, “father”). These decisions eventually evolved into the three monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
The “way of the Lord” was soon jammed with traffic as waves of would-be monks entered the deserts of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. The men began to join together in large colonies, meeting occasionally for prayer and communion. This common life was given form by Pachomius, who organized the monks into communal houses under the leadership of an elder. The men ate together, held their goods in common, and followed a common order of communal prayer, manual labor, and later, bible study. Their way of life was called cenobitic, from the Greek koinos biosi, “common life.” Within a few years, Pachomius had three thousand followers, and by the mid-fourth century there were several men’s houses and, situated on the other side of the Nile, at least one house for women. After Pachomius died his followers wrote down his communal rules, which were published in Latin by Jerome and became well known, the first of many such communal covenants.
At the time, most of the monks who left the city for the desert were uneducated laymen dissatisfied with the worldliness of the church. Basil of Caesarea, a well-educated nobleman from Cappadocia, was an exception. He attempted to incorporate monastic principles in an urban setting under the guidance of church leaders. He wrote his own Rule and established a community at his family’s estate near the Black Sea. His goal was to balance the individualism and personal holiness of the desert monks with Jesus’ call to engage the world with acts of justice and mercy. To that end, Basil built one of the world’s first hospitals in his community, a place to offer hospitality especially to those who could not afford medical care. The hospital was an integral part of the intentional community, which was named the Basiliad after its founder. Physicians and nurses lived on the grounds, as did students studying at the attached medical school. The complex also included space to host travelers and provide education. Basil’s Rules remain the basis for monastic life in the Orthodox churches of Turkey, Greece, Syria, and Russia.
Until the fourth century, communal activity was concentrated in the east, but all roads lead to Rome. Monastic ideals arrived by way of travelers from Egypt and Syria and through stories being published about the monks. John Cassian lived among the eastern monks for years, then wrote several influential books in Latin about what he had learned. His audience was a new generation of urban Christians forming communities in cities across Europe. Many were inspired to retread the Palestinian roads Jesus had walked, including a number of aristocratic Roman women. Under the guidance of Jerome, this circle of heiresses adopted a life of simplicity, common prayer, fasting, and charitable works. One of the women, Melania the Elder, moved to Jerusalem in 378 and led a community of about fifty women on the Mount of Olives. Many of these women took vows of celibacy and devoted themselves to biblical study. Another community was established at Bethlehem. Back in Italy, the bishop Ambrose formulated policies for the many young women who wanted to live out the gospel around Milan.
Like Basil, the French bishop Caesarius of Arles believed that monastic ideals should be integrated into the life of the parish church. Caesarius preached hundreds of sermons to his congregation on prayer, fasting, chastity, compassion, and social justice throughout the fifth century. He exhorted all the Christians in the twenty-five or so rural parishes of his diocese to practice mutual love and responsibility for one another – to be communities. His sermons continued to circulate for centuries after his death, inspiring generations of Christians to live out radical Christian values in their everyday lives.
Outside of the New Testament, perhaps no text has been as important to the development of Christian community as the Rule of Benedict, written in the early sixth century and shaped by the writings of John Cassian and the anonymously written Rule of the Master. Benedict, a Roman nobleman, left Rome for the countryside, where he established several monastic communities. Everyone in the community shared the responsibilities of tending the farm and the kitchen. Work was punctuated eight times each day by common prayer called “the hours.” Benedict’s vision for common life – which integrated work and prayer, solitude and community, personal responsibility and authority – was extraordinarily successful, and remained the paradigm for Christian communities for well over a millennium. His emphasis on stability and fidelity to a particular locality would become hallmarks of intentional Christian community.
As the roads of the crumbling empire fell into disrepair, the monasteries became isolated, scattered outposts. The monks were fantastically successful – erudite and wealthy – but they lost themselves in contemplation. The monastic life of prayer and study became professionalized and the way of simplicity and manual labor was eventually lost. Caricatures of fat monks began to appear in this period. A series of reforms in the Middle Ages struggled to recover Benedict’s original vision, first the Cluniac reforms in the tenth century, then the Carthusians in the eleventh. The Cistercians likewise attempted to restore the simplicity of the original Benedictine spirit; they made time for more manual labor, stripped their chapels of rich art and décor, and adopted a simple worship style. Much later, the Trappists would re-reform the Cistercians, adding their own emphasis on silence.
Despite these reforms, the monasteries could not contain the radical impulse of Christianity. Europe was undergoing major social and economic change during the twelfth century, moving from a feudal, village-centered