A Short History of Monks and Monasteries. Alfred Wesley Wishart
Paul, close to the dust of the grave, asks, Are new houses springing up in ancient cities? What government directs the world? Little did this recluse know of his fellow-beings and how fared it with the children of men who dwelt in those great cities around the blue Mediterranean. He was dead to the world and knew it no more.
A raven brought the aged brothers bread to eat and the hours glided swiftly away. Anthony returned to get a cloak which Athanasius had given him in which to wrap the body of Paul. So eager was he to behold again his newly-found friend that he set out without even a morsel of bread, thirsting to see him. But when yet three days' journey from the cave he saw Paul on high among the angels. Weeping, he trudged on his way. On entering the cave he saw the lifeless body kneeling, with head erect and hands uplifted. He tenderly wrapped the body in the cloak and began to lament that he had no implements to dig a grave. But Providence sent two lions from the recesses of the mountain that came rushing with flying manes. Roaring, as if they too mourned, they pawed the earth and thus the grave was dug. Anthony, bending his aged shoulders beneath the burden of the saint's body, laid it lovingly in the grave and departed.
Jerome closes this account by challenging those who do not know the extent of their possessions,--who adorn their homes with marble and who string house to house,--to say what this old man in his nakedness ever lacked. "Your drinking vessels are of precious stones; he satisfied his thirst with the hollow of his hand. Your tunics are wrought of gold; he had not the raiment of your meanest slave. But on the other hand, poor as he was, Paradise is open to him; you, with all your gold, will be received into Gehenna. He, though naked, yet kept the robe of Christ; you, clad in your silks, have lost the vesture of Christ. Paul lies covered with worthless dust, but will rise again to glory; over you are raised costly tombs, but both you and your wealth are doomed to burning. I beseech you, reader, whoever you may be, to remember Jerome the sinner. He, if God would give him his choice, would sooner take Paul's tunics with his merits, than the purple of kings with their punishment."
Such was the story circulated among rich and poor, appealing with wondrous force to the hearts of men in those wretched years.
What was the effect upon the mind of the thoughtful? If he believed such teaching, weary of the wickedness of the age, and moved by his noblest sentiments, he sold his tunics wrought of gold and fled from his palaces of marble to the desert solitudes.
But the monastic story that most strongly impressed the age now under consideration, was the biography of Anthony, "the patriarch of monks" and virtual founder of Christian monasticism. It was said to have been written by Athanasius, the famous defender of orthodoxy and Archbishop of Alexandria; yet some authorities reject his authorship. It exerted a power over the minds of men beyond all human estimate. It scattered the seeds of asceticism wherever it was read. Traces of its influence are found all over the Roman empire, in Egypt, Asia Minor, Palestine, Italy and Gaul. Knowing the character of Athanasius, we may rest assured that he sincerely believed all he really recorded (it is much interpolated) of the strange life of Anthony, and, true or false, thousands of others believed in him and in his story. Augustine, the great theologian of immortal fame, acknowledged that this book was one of the influences that led to his conversion, and Jerome, whose life I will review later, was mightily swayed by it.
Anthony was born about 251 A.D., in Upper Egypt, of wealthy and noble parentage. He was a pious child, an obedient son, and a lover of solitude and books. His parents died when he was about twenty years old, leaving to his care their home and his little sister. One day, as he entered the church, meditating on the poverty of Christ, a theme much reflected upon in those days, he heard these words read from the pulpit, "If thou wouldst be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and come, follow me." As if the call came straight from heaven to his own soul, he left the church at once and made over his farm to the people of the village. He sold his personal possessions for a large sum, and distributed the proceeds among the poor, reserving a little for his sister. Still he was unsatisfied. Entering the church on another occasion, he heard our Lord saying in the gospel, "Take no thought for the morrow." The clouds cleared away. His anxious search for truth and duty was at an end. He went out and gave away the remnant of his belongings. Placing his sister in a convent, the existence of which is to be noted, he fled to the desert. Then follows a striking statement, "For monasteries were not common in Egypt, nor had any monk at all known the great desert; but every one who wished to devote himself to his own spiritual welfare performed his exercise alone, not far from the village."
Laboring with his hands, recalling texts of Scripture, praying whole sleepless nights, fasting for several days at a time, visiting his fellow saints, fighting demons, so passed the long years away. He slept on a small rush mat, more often on the bare ground. Forgetting past austerities, he was ever on the search for some new torture and pressing forward to new and strange experiences. He changed his habitation from time to time. Now he lived in a tomb, in company with the silent dead; then for twenty years in a deserted castle, full of reptiles, never going out and rarely seeing any one. From each saint he learned some fresh mode of spiritual training, observing his practice for future imitation and studying the charms of his Christian character that he might reproduce them in his own life; thus he would return richly laden to his cell.
But in all these struggles Anthony had one foe--the arch-enemy of all good. He suggests impure thoughts, but the saint repels them by prayer; he incites to passion, but the hero resists the fiend with fastings and faith. Once the dragon, foiled in his attempt to overcome Anthony, gnashed his teeth, and coming out of his body, lay at his feet in the shape of a little black boy. But the hermit was not beguiled into carelessness by this victory. He resolved to chastise himself more severely. So he retired to the tombs of the dead. One dark night a crowd of demons flogged the saint until he fell to the ground speechless with torture. Some friends found him the next day, and thinking that he was dead, carried him to the village, where his kinsfolk gathered to mourn over his remains. But at midnight he came to himself, and, seeing but one acquaintance awake, he begged that he would carry him back to the tombs, which was done. Unable to move, he prayed prostrate and sang, "If an host be laid against me, yet shall not my heart be afraid." The enraged devils made at him again. There was a terrible crash; through the walls the fiends came in shapes like beasts and reptiles. In a moment the place was filled with lions roaring at him, bulls thrusting at him with their horns, creeping serpents unable to reach him, wolves held back in the act of springing. There, too, were bears and asps and scorpions. Mid the frightful clamor of roars, growls and hisses, rose the clear voice of the saint, as he triumphantly mocked the demons in their rage. Suddenly the awful tumult ceased; the wretched beings became invisible and a ray of light pierced the roof to cheer the prostrate hero. His pains ceased. A voice came to him saying, "Thou hast withstood and not yielded. I will always be thy helper, and will make thy name famous everywhere." Hearing this he rose up and prayed, and was stronger in body than ever before.
This is but one of numerous stories chronicling Anthony's struggles with the devil. Like conflicts were going on at that hour in many another cave in those great and silent mountains.
There are also wondrous tales of his miraculous power. He often predicted the coming of sufferers and healed them when they came. His fame for curing diseases and casting out devils became so extensive that Egypt marveled at his gifts, and saints came even from Rome to see his face and to hear his words. His freedom from pride and arrogance was as marked as his fame was great. He yielded joyful obedience to presbyters and bishops. His countenance was so full of divine grace and heavenly beauty as to render him easily distinguishable in a crowd of monks. Letters poured in upon him from every part of the empire. Kings wrote for his advice, but it neither amazed him nor filled his heart with pride. "Wonder not," said he, "if a king writes to us, for he is but a man, but wonder rather that God has written His law to man and spoken to us by His Son." At his command princes laid aside their crowns, judges their magisterial robes, while criminals forsook their lives of crime and embraced with joy the life of the desert.
Once, at the earnest entreaty of some magistrates, he came down from the mountain that they might see him. Urged to prolong his stay he refused, saying, "Fishes, if they lie long on the dry land, die; so monks who stay with you lose their strength. As the fishes, then, hasten to the sea, so must we to the mountains."
At last the shadows lengthened and waning