A Short History of Monks and Monasteries. Alfred Wesley Wishart
strength proclaimed that his departure was nigh. Bidding farewell to his monks, he retired to an inner mountain and laid himself down to die. His countenance brightened as if he saw his friends coming to see him, and thus his soul was gathered to his fathers. He is said to have been mourned by fifteen thousand disciples.
This is the story which moved a dying empire. "Anthony," says Athanasius, "became known not by worldly wisdom, nor by any art, but solely by piety, and that this was the gift of God who can deny?" The purpose of such a life was, so his biographer thought, to light up the moral path for men, that they might imbibe a zeal for virtue.
The "Life of St. Anthony" is even more remarkable for its omissions than for its incredible tales. While I reserve a more detailed criticism of its Christian ideals until a subsequent chapter, it may be well to quote here a few words from Isaac Taylor. After pointing out some of its defects he continues: there is "not a word of justification by faith; not a word of the gracious influence of the Spirit in renewing and cleansing the heart; not a word responding to any of those signal passages of Scripture which make the Gospel 'Glad Tidings' to guilty men." This I must confess to be true, even though I may and do heartily esteem the saint's enthusiasm for righteousness.
So far I have described chiefly the spiritual experiences of these men, but the details of their physical life are hardly less interesting. There was a holy rivalry among them to excel in self-torture. Their imaginations were constantly employed in devising unique tests of holiness and courage. They lived in holes in the ground or in dried up wells; they slept in thorn bushes or passed days and weeks without sleep; they courted the company of the wildest beasts and exposed their naked bodies to the broiling sun. Macarius became angry because an insect bit him and in penitence flung himself into a marsh where he lived for weeks. He was so badly stung by gnats and flies that his friends hardly knew him. Hilarion, at twenty years of age, was more like a spectre than a living man. His cell was only five feet high, a little lower than his stature. Some carried weights equal to eighty or one hundred and fifty pounds suspended from their bodies. Others slept standing against the rocks. For three years, as it is recorded, one of them never reclined. In their zeal to obey the Scriptures, they overlooked the fact that cleanliness is akin to godliness. It was their boast that they never washed. One saint would not even use water to drink, but quenched his thirst with the dew that fell on the grass. St. Abraham never washed his face for fifty years. His biographer, not in the least disturbed by the disagreeable suggestions of this circumstance, proudly says, "His face reflected the purity of his soul." If so, one is moved to think that the inward light must indeed have been powerfully piercing, if it could brighten a countenance unwashed for half a century. There is a story about Abbot Theodosius who prayed for water that his monks might drink. In response to his petition a stream burst from the rocks, but the foolish monks, overcome by a pitiful weakness for cleanliness, persuaded the abbot to erect a bath, when lo, the stream dried. Supplications and repentance availed nothing. After a year had passed, the monks, promising never again to insult Heaven by wishing for a bath, were granted a second Mosaic miracle.
Thus, unwashed, clothed in rags, their hair uncut, their faces unshaven, they lived for years. No wonder that to their disordered fancy the desert was filled with devils, the animals spake and Heaven sent angels to minister unto them.
The Pillar Saint
But the strangest of all strange narratives yet remains. We turn from Egypt to Asia Minor to make the acquaintance of that saint whom Tennyson has immortalized,--the idol of monarchs and the pride of the East,--Saint Simeon Stylites. Stories grow rank around him like the luxuriant products of a tropical soil. How shall I briefly tell of this man, whom Theodoret, in his zeal, declares all who obey the Roman rule know--the man who may be compared with Moses the Legislator, David the King and Micah the Prophet? He lived between the years 390 and 459 A.D. He was a shepherd's son, but at an early age entered a monastery. Here he soon distinguished himself by his excessive austerities. One day he went to the well, removed the rope from the bucket and bound it tightly around his body underneath his clothes. A few weeks later, the abbot, being angry with him because of his extreme self-torture, bade his companions strip him. What was his astonishment to find the rope from the well sunk deeply into his flesh. "Whence," he cried, "has this man come to us, wanting to destroy the rule of this monastery? I pray thee depart hence."
With great trouble they unwound the rope and the flesh with it, and taking care of him until he was well, they sent him forth to commence a life of austerities that was to render him famous. He adopted various styles of existence, but his miracles and piety attracted such crowds that he determined to invent a mode of life which would deliver him from the pressing multitudes. It is curious that he did not hide himself altogether if he really wished to escape notoriety; but, no, he would still be within the gaze of admiring throngs. His holy and fanciful genius hit upon a scheme that gave him his peculiar name. He took up his abode on the top of a column which was at first about twelve feet high, but was gradually elevated until it measured sixty-four feet. Hence, he is called Simeon Stylites, or Simeon the Pillar Saint.
On this lofty column, betwixt earth and heaven, the hermit braved the heat and cold of thirty years. At its base, from morning to night, prayed the admiring worshipers. Kings kneeled in crowds of peasants to do him homage and ask his blessing. Theodoret says, "The Ishmaelites, coming by tribes of two hundred and three hundred at a time, and sometimes even a thousand, deny, with shouts, the error of their fathers, and breaking in pieces before that great illuminator, the images which they had worshiped, and renouncing the orgies of Venus, they received the Divine sacrament." Rude barbarians confessed their sins in tears. Persians, Greeks, Romans and Saracens, forgetting their mutual hatred, united in praise and prayer at the feet of this strange character.
Once a week the hero partook of food. Many times a day he bowed his head to his feet; one man counted twelve hundred and forty-four times and then stopped in sheer weariness from gazing at the miracle of endurance aloft. Again, from the setting of the sun to its appearance in the East, he would stand unsoothed by sleep with his arms outstretched like a cross.
If genius can understand such a life as that and fancy the thoughts of such a soul, Tennyson seems not only to have comprehended the consciousness of the Pillar Saint, but also to have succeeded in giving expression to his insight. He has laid bare the soul of Simeon in its commingling of spiritual pride with affected humility, and of a consciousness of meritorious sacrifice with a sense of sin. The Saint spurns notoriety and the homage of men, yet exults in his control over the multitudes.
The poet thus imagines Simeon to speak as the Saint is praying God to take away his sin:
"But yet
Bethink thee, Lord, while thou and all the saints
Enjoy themselves in heaven, and men on earth
House in the shade of comfortable roofs,
Sit with their wives by fires, eat wholesome food,
And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls,
I, 'tween the spring and downfall of the light,
Bow down one thousand and two hundred times,
To Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the Saints;
Or in the night, after a little sleep,
I wake: the chill stars sparkle; I am wet
With drenching dews, or stiff with crackling frost.
I wear an undress'd goatskin on my back;
A grazing iron collar grinds my neck;
And in my weak, lean arms I lift the cross,
And strive and wrestle with thee till I die:
O mercy, mercy! wash away my sin.
O Lord, thou knowest what a man I am;
A sinful man, conceived and born in sin:
'Tis their own doing; this is none of mine;