A Short History of Monks and Monasteries. Alfred Wesley Wishart
kind. The following pathetic incident shows the frightful extent to which they carried this principle, and also illustrates the character of that submission to which the novitiate voluntarily assented: Cassian described how Mutius sold his possessions and with his little child of eight asked admission to a monastery. The monks received but disciplined him. "He had already forgotten that he was rich, he must forget that he was a father." His child was taken, clothed in rags, beaten and spurned. Obedience compelled the father to look upon his child wasting with pain and grief, but such was his love for Christ, says the narrator, that his heart was rigid and immovable. He was then told to throw the boy into the river, but was stopped in the act of obeying.
Yet men, women, and even children, coveted this life of unnatural deprivations. "Posterity," says Gibbon, "might repeat the saying which had formerly been applied to the sacred animals of the same country, that in Egypt it was less difficult to find a god than a man." Though the hermit did not claim to be a god, yet there were more monks in many monasteries than inhabitants in the neighboring villages. Pachomius had fourteen hundred monks in his own monastery and seven thousand under his rule. Jerome says fifty thousand monks were sometimes assembled at Easter in the deserts of Nitria. It was not uncommon for an abbot to command five thousand monks. St. Serapion boasted of ten thousand. Altogether, so we are told, there were in the fifth century more than one hundred thousand persons in the monasteries, three-fourths of whom were men.
The rule of Pachomius spread over Egypt into Syria and Palestine. It was carried by Athanasius into Italy and Gaul. It existed in various modified forms until it was supplanted by the Benedictine rule.
Leaving Egypt, again we cross the Mediterranean into Asia Minor. Near the Black Sea, in a wild forest abounding in savage rocks and gloomy ravines, there dwelt a young man of twenty-six. He had traveled in Egypt, Syria and Palestine. He had visited the hermits of the desert and studied philosophy and eloquence in cultured Athens. In virtue eminent, in learning profound, this poetic soul sought to realize its ideal in a lonely and cherished retreat--in a solitude of Pontus.
The young monk is the illustrious saint and genius,--Basil the Great,--the Bishop of Cæsarea, and the virtual founder of the monastic institution in the Greek church. The forest and glens around his hut belonged to him, and on the other bank of the river Iris his mother and sister were leading similar lives, having abandoned earthly honors in pursuit of heaven. Hard crusts of bread appeased his hunger. No fires, except those which burned within his soul, protected him from the wintry blast. His years were few but well spent. After a while his powerful intellect asserted itself and he was led into a clearer view of the true spiritual life. His practical mind revolted against the gross ignorance and meaningless asceticism of Egypt. He determined to form an order that would conform to the inner meaning of the Bible and to a more sensible conception of the religious life. For his time he was a wise legislator, a cunning workman and a daring thinker. The modification of his ascetic ideal was attended by painful struggles. Many an hour he spent with his bosom friend, Gregory of Nazianza, discussing the subject. The middle course which they finally adopted is thus neatly described by Gregory:
"Long was the inward strife, till ended thus:
I saw, when men lived in the fretful world,
They vantaged other men, but missed the while
The calmness, and the pureness of their hearts.
They who retired held an uprighter post,
And raised their eyes with quiet strength toward heaven;
Yet served self only, unfraternally.
And so, 'twixt these and those, I struck my path,
To meditate with the free solitary,
Yet to live secular, and serve mankind."
Monks in large numbers flocked to this mountain retreat of Basil's. These he banded together in an organization, the remains of which still live in the Greek church. So great is the influence of his life and teachings, "that it is common though erroneous to call all Oriental monks Basilians." His rules are drawn up in the form of answers to two hundred and three questions. He added to the three monastic vows a fourth, which many authorities claim now appeared for the first time,--namely, that of irrevocable vows--once a monk, always a monk.
Basil did not condemn marriage, but he believed that it was incompatible with the highest spiritual attainments. For the Kingdom of God's sake it was necessary to forsake all. "Love not the world, neither the things of the world," embraced to his mind the married state. By avoiding the cares of marriage a man was sure to escape, so he thought, the gross sensuality of the age. He struck at the dangers which attend the possession of riches, by enforcing poverty. An abbot was appointed over his cloisters to whom absolute obedience was demanded. Everywhere men needed this lesson of obedience. The discipline of the armies was relaxed. The authority of religion was set at naught; laxity and disorder prevailed even among the monks. They went roaming over the country controlled only by their whims. Insubordination had to be checked or the monastic institution was doomed. Hence, Basil was particular to enforce a respect for law and order.
Altogether this was an honest and serious attempt to introduce fresh power into a corrupt age and to faithfully observe the Biblical commands as Basil understood them. The floods of iniquity were engulfing even the church. A new standard had to be raised and an inner circle of pious and zealous believers gathered from the multitude of half-pagan Christians, or all was lost.
The subsequent history of Greek monachism has little interest. In Russia, at a late date, the Greek monks served some purpose in keeping alive the national spirit under the Tartar yoke, but the practical benefits to the East were few, in comparison with the vigorous life of the Western monasticism.
Montalembert, the brilliant champion of Christian monasticism, becomes an adverse critic of the system in the East, although it is noteworthy he now speaks of monasticism as it appears in the Greek church, which he holds to be heretical; yet his indictment is quite true: "They yielded to all the deleterious impulses of that declining society. They have saved nothing, regenerated nothing, elevated nothing."
We have visited the hermit in the desert and in the monastery governed by its abbot and its rules. We must view the monk in one other aspect, that of theological champion. Here the hermit and the monk of the monastery meet on common ground. They were fighters, not debaters; fighters, not disciplined soldiers; fighters, not persuading Christians. They swarmed down from the mountains like hungry wolves. They fought heretics, they fought bishops, they fought Roman authorities, they fought soldiers, and fought one another. Ignorant, fanatical and cruel, they incited riots, disturbed the public peace and shed the blood of foes.
Theological discord was made a thousand times more bitter by their participation in the controversies of the time. Furious monks became the armed champions of Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria. They insulted the prefect, drove out the Jews and, to the everlasting disgrace of the monks, Cyril and the church, they dragged the lovely Hypatia from her lecture hall and slew her with all the cruelty satanic ingenuity could devise. Against a background of black and angry sky she stands forth, as a soul through whose reason God made himself manifest. Her unblemished character, her learning and her grace forever cry aloud against an orthodoxy bereft alike of reason and of the spirit of the Nazarene.
The fighting monks crowded councils and forced decisions. They deposed hostile bishops or kept their favorites in power by murder and violence. Two black-cowled armies met in Constantinople, and amid curses fought with sticks and stones a battle of creeds. Cries of "Holy! Holy! Holy!" mingled with, "It's the day of martyrdom! Down with the tyrant!" The whole East was kept in a feverish state. The Imperial soldiers confessed their justifiable fears when they said, "We would rather fight with barbarians than with these monks."
No wonder our perplexity increases and it seems impossible to determine what these men really did for the cause of truth. We have been unable to distinguish the hermit from the beasts of the fields. We hear his groans, see his tears, and watch him struggle with demons. We are disgusted with his filth, amused at his fancies, grieved at his superstition. We pity his agony and admire his courage. We watch the progress of order and rule out of chaos. We see monasteries grow up around damp caves and dismal huts. We behold Simeon praying