A Short History of Monks and Monasteries. Alfred Wesley Wishart

MONKS

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AND MONASTERIES

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I

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MONASTICISM IN THE EAST

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      The monk is a type of religious character by no means peculiar to Christianity. Every great religion in ancient and modern times has expressed itself in some form of monastic life.

      The origin of the institution is lost in antiquity. Its genesis and gradual progress through the centuries are like the movement of a mighty river springing from obscure sources, but gathering volume by the contributions of a multitude of springs, brooks, and lesser rivers, entering the main stream at various stages in its progress. While the mysterious source of the monastic stream may not be found, it is easy to discover many different influences and causes that tended to keep the mighty current flowing majestically on. It is not so easy to determine which of these forces was the greatest.

      "Monasticism," says Schaff, "proceeds from religious seriousness, enthusiasm and ambition; from a sense of the vanity of the world, and an inclination of noble souls toward solitude, contemplation, and freedom from the bonds of the flesh and the temptations of the world." A strong ascetic tendency in human nature, particularly active in the Orient, undoubtedly explains in a general way the origin and growth of the institution. Various forms of philosophy and religious belief fostered this monastic inclination from time to time by imparting fresh impetus to the desire for soul-purity or by deepening the sense of disgust with the world.

      India is thought by some to have been the birthplace of the institution. In the sacred writings of the venerable Hindûs, portions of which have been dated as far back as 2400 B.C., there are numerous legends about holy monks and many ascetic rules. Although based on opposite philosophical principles, the earlier Brahminism and the later system, Buddhism, each tended toward ascetic practices, and they each boast to-day of long lines of monks and nuns.

      The Hindoo (Brahmin) ascetic, or naked philosopher, as the Greeks called him, exhausted his imagination in devising schemes of self-torture. He buried himself with his nose just above the ground, or wore an iron collar, or suspended weights from his body. He clenched his fists until the nails grew into his palms, or kept his head turned in one direction until he was unable to turn it back. He was a miracle-worker, an oracle of wisdom, and an honored saint. He was bold, spiritually proud, capable of almost superhuman endurance. We will meet him again in the person of his Christian descendant on the banks of the Nile.

      The Buddhist ascetic was, perhaps, less severe with himself, but the general spirit and form of the institution was and is the same as among the Brahmins. In each religion we observe the same selfish individualism,--a desire to save one's own soul by slavish obedience to ascetic rules,--the extinction of natural desires by self-punishment. "A Brahmin who wishes to become an ascetic," says Clarke, "must abandon his home and family and go live in the forest. His food must be roots and fruit, his clothing a bark garment or a skin, he must bathe morning and evening, and suffer his hair to grow."

      The fact to be remembered, however, is that in India, centuries before the Christian Era, there existed both phases of Christian monasticism, the hermit[A] and the crowded convent.

      Dhaquit, a Chaldean ascetic, who is said to have lived about 2000 B.C., is reported to have earnestly rebuked those who tried to preserve the body from decay by artificial resources. "Not by natural means," he said, "can man preserve his body from corruption and dissolution after death, but only through good deeds, religious exercises and offering of sacrifices,--by invoking the gods by their great and beautiful names, by prayers during the night, and fasts during the day."

      When Father Bury, a Portuguese missionary, first saw the Chinese bonzes, tonsured and using their rosaries, he cried out, "There is not a single article of dress, or a sacerdotal function, or a single ceremony of the Romish church, which the Devil has not imitated in this country." I have not the courage to follow this streamlet back into the devil's heart. The attempt would be too daring. Who invented shaved heads and monkish gowns and habits, we cannot tell, but this we know: long before Father Bury saw and described those things in China, there existed in India the Grand Lama or head monk, with monasteries under him, filled with monks who kept the three vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. They had their routine of prayers, of fasts and of labors, like the Christian monks of the middle ages.

      Among the Greeks there were many philosophers who taught ascetic principles. Pythagoras, born about 580 B.C., established a religious brotherhood in which he sought to realize a high ideal of friendship. His whole plan singularly suggests monasticism. His rules provided for a rigid self-examination and unquestioning submission to a master. Many authorities claim that the influence of the Pythagorean philosophy was strongly felt in Egypt and Palestine, after the time of Christ. "Certain it is that more than two thousand years before Ignatius Loyola assembled the nucleus of his great society in his subterranean chapel in the city of Paris, there was founded at Crotona, in Greece, an order of monks whose principles, constitution, aims, method and final end entitle them to be called 'The Pagan Jesuits[B].'"

      The teachings of Plato, no doubt, had a powerful monastic influence, under certain social conditions, upon later thinkers and upon those who yearned for victory over the flesh. Plato strongly insisted on an ideal life in which higher pleasures are preferred to lower. Earthly thoughts and ambitions are to yield before a holy communion with the Divine. Some of his views "might seem like broken visions of the future, when we think of the first disciples who had all things in common, and, in later days, of the celibate clergy, and the cloisteral life of the religious orders." The effect of such philosophy in times of general corruption upon those who wished to acquire exceptional moral and intellectual power, and who felt unable to cope with the temptations of social life, may be easily imagined. It meant, in many cases, a retreat from the world to a life of meditation and soul-conflict. In later times it exercised a marked influence upon ascetic literature.

      Coming closer to Christianity in time and in teaching, we find a Jewish sect, called Essenes, living in the region of the Dead Sea, which bore remarkable resemblances to Christian monasticism. The origin and development of this band, which numbered four thousand about the time of Christ, are unknown. Even the derivation of the name is in doubt, there being at least twenty proposed explanations. The sect is described by Philo, an Alexandrian-Jewish philosopher, who was born about 25 B.C., and by Josephus, the Jewish historian, who was born at Jerusalem A.D. 37. These writers evidently took pains to secure the facts, and from their accounts, upon which