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History of the Christian

By Philip Schaff

CH304

VOLUME 3. The , 311 to 600 AD

Chapter 4: The Rise and Progress of

History of the Christian Church Volume 3. The Middle Ages, AD 311 to 600

Table of Contents

CH304 Chapter 4: The Rise and Progress of Monasticism ...... 3 3.28. Origin of . Comparison with other forms of ...... 3 3.29. Development of Monasticism...... 7 3.30. Nature and Aim of Monasticism...... 8 3.31. Monasticism and the ...... 9 3.32. Lights and Shades of Monastic Life...... 11 3.33. Position of in the Church...... 16 3.34. Influence and Effect of Monasticism...... 17 3.35. and St. Anthony...... 19 3.36. Spread of Anchoritism ...... 25 3.37. St. Symeon and the Pillar ...... 26 3.38. Pachomius and the life...... 28 3.39. Fanatical and Heretical Monastic Societies in The East...... 29 3.40. Monasticism in the West. Athanasius, , Augustine, Martin of Tours...... 30 3.41. St. as a ...... 33 3.42. St. Paula...... 37 3.43. ...... 38 3.44. The Rule of St. Benedict...... 39 3.45. The . Cassiodorus...... 41 3.46. Opposition to Monasticism. Jovinian...... 42 3.47. Helvidius, Vigilantius, and Aerius...... 45

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Chapter 4: The Rise and Progress of Historiae Eremiticae, libri x. Antw. 1628. ACTA SANCTORUM, quotquot toto orbe coluntur, Antw. Monasticism 1643–1786, 53 vols. fol. (begun by the Jesuit SOURCES. Bollandus, continued by several scholars of his order, called Bollandists, down to the 11th Oct. 1. Greek: in the ’ days, and resumed in SOCRATES: Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. cap. 23 sqq. 1845, after long interruption, by Theiner and SOZOMEN: H. E. l. i. c. 12–14; iii. 14; vi. 28–34. others). D’ACHERY and MABILLON (Benedictines): PALLADIUS (first a monk and of the Acta Sanctorum ordinis S. Benedicti, Par. 1668– younger Macarius, then of Helenopolis in 1701, 9 vols. fol. (to 1100). PET. HELYOT Bithynia, ordained by Chrysostom; †431): (Franciscan): Histoire des ordres monastiques Historia Lausiaca (Ἱστορία πρὸς Λαῦσον, a court religieux et militaires, Par. 1714–’19, 8 vols. 4to. officer under Theodosius II, to whom the work ALBAN BUTLER (R.C.): The Lives of the Fathers, was dedicated), composed about 421, with , and other principal Saints (arranged enthusiastic admiration, from personal according to the calendar, and acquaintance, of the most celebrated completed to the 31st Dec.), first 1745; often contemporaneous ascetics of . THEODORET since (best ed. Lond. 1812–’13) in 12 vols.; (†457): Historia religiosa, seu ascetica vivendi another, Baltimore, 1844, in 4 vols). GIBBON: ratio (φιλόθεος ἱστορία), biographies of thirty chap. xxxvii. (Origin, Progress, and Effects of Oriental and monks, for the most Monastic Life; very unfavorable, and written in part from personal observation. NILUS the Elder lofty philosophical contempt). HENRION (R.C.): (an anchoret on Mt. Sinai, † about 450): De vita Histoire des ordres religieux, Par. 1835 (deutsch ascetica, De exercitatione monastica, Epistolæ bearbeitet von S. Fehr, Tueb. 1845, 2 vols.). F. V. 355, and other writings. BIEDENFELD: Ursprung u. s. w. saemmtlicher 2. : Moenchsorden im Orient u. Occident, Weimar, 1837, 3 vols. SCHMIDT (R.C.): Die Moenchs-, (†410): Histor. Eremitica, S. Vitae Nonnen-, u. geistlichen Ritterorden nebst Patrum. (about 400): Dialogi Ordensregeln u. Abbildungen., Augsb. 1838, sqq. III. (the first dialogue contains a lively and H. H. MILMAN (Anglican): History of Ancient entertaining account of the Egyptian monks, , 1844, book iii. ch. 11. H. RUFFNER whom he visited; the two others relate to Martin (Presbyterian): The Fathers of the Desert, New of Tours). CASSIANUS (†432): Institutiones York, 1850, 2 vols. (full of curious information, coenobiales, and Collationes Patrum (spiritual in popular form). Count de MONTALEMBERT conversations of eastern monks). (R.C.): Les Moines d’Occident depuis St. Bénoit Also the ascetic writings of ATHANASIUS (Vita jusqu’à St. Bernard, Par. 1860, sqq. (to embrace Antonii), BASIL, GREGORY NAZIANZEN, CHRYSOSTOM, 6 vols.); transl. into English: The Monks of the NILUS, ISIDORE OF , among the Greek; West, etc., Edinb. and Lond. 1861, in 2 vols. (vol. AMBROSE, AUGUSTINE, JEROME (his Lives of i. gives the history of monasticism before St. anchorites, and his letters), CASSIODORUS, and Benedict, vol. ii. is mainly devoted to St. GREGORY THE GREAT, among the Latin fathers. Benedict; eloquently eulogistic of, and LATER LITERATURE. apologetic for, monasticism). OTTO ZÖECKLER: Kritische Geschichte der Askese. Frankf. a. M. L. HOLSTENIUS (born at Hamburg 1596, a Protest., 1863. Comp. also the relevant sections of then a Romanist convert, and librarian of the TILLEMONT, FLEURY, SCHRÖECKH (vols. v. and viii.), Vatican): Codex regularum monastic., first Rom. NEANDER, and GIESELER. 1661; then, enlarged, Par. and Augsb. in 6 vols. fol. The older Greek MENOLOGIA (μηνολόγια), and 3.28. Origin of Christian Monasticism. MENÆA (μηναῖα), and the Latin CALENDARIA and Comparison with other forms of MARTYROLOGIA, i.e. church calendars or indices of days (days of the earthly death and Asceticism. heavenly birth) of the saints, with short HOSPINIAN: De origine et progressu monachatus, biographical notices for liturgical use. P. l. vi., Tig. 1588, and enlarged, Genev. 1669, fol. J. HERBERT ROSWEYDE (Jesuit): Vitae Patrum, sive A. MOEHLER (R.C.): Geschichte des Moenchthums

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in der Zeit seiner Entstehung u. ersten before our era, and the numerous other Ausbildung, 1836 (in his collected works, sacred books of the Indian , enjoin by Regensb. vol. ii. p. 165 sqq.). TAYLOR example and precept entire abstraction of (Independent): Ancient Christianity, Lond. thought, seclusion from the world, and a 1844, vol. i. p. 299 sqq. A. VOGEL: Ueber das variety of and meritorious acts of Moenchthum, Berl. 1858 (in the “Deutsche Zeitschrift fuer christl. Wissenschaft,” etc.). P. self-mortification, by which the devotee SCHAFF: Ueber den Ursprung und Charakter des assumes a proud superiority over the vulgar Moenchthums (in Dorner’s, etc. “Jahrbuecher herd of mortals, and is absorbed at last into füer deutsche Theol.,” 1861, p. 555 ff.). J. CROPP: the divine fountain of all being. Origenes et causae monachatus. Gott. 1863. The ascetic system is essential alike to In the beginning of the fourth century Brahmanism and , the two opposite monasticism appears in the history of the and yet cognate branches of the Indian church, and thenceforth occupies a religion, which in many respects are similarly distinguished place. related to each other as is to Beginning in Egypt, it spread in an irresistible Christianity, or also as Romanism to tide over the East and the West, continued to . be the chief repository of the Christian life Buddhism is a later of down to the times of the Reformation, and Brahmanism; it dates probably from the sixth still remains in the Greek and Roman century before Christ (according to other churches an indispensable institution and the accounts much earlier), and, although most productive seminary of saints, priests, subsequently expelled by the Brahmins from and . Hindustan, it embraces more followers than With the ascetic tendency in general, any other heathen religion, since it rules in monasticism in particular is found by no Farther India, nearly all the Indian islands, means only in the Christian church, but in Japan, Tibet, a great part of China and Central other , both before and after Christ, Asia to the borders of Siberia. especially in the EaSt. It proceeds from But the two religions start from opposite religious seriousness, enthusiasm, and principles. ambition; from a sense of the vanity of the Brahman asceticism proceeds from a world, and an inclination of noble pantheistic view of the world, the Buddhist toward solitude, contemplation, and freedom from an atheistic and nihilistic, yet very from the bonds of the flesh and the earnest view; the one controlled by the idea temptations of the world; but it gives this of the absolute but abstract unity and a tendency an undue predominance over the feeling of contempt of the world, the other by social, practical, and world-reforming spirit of the idea of the absolute but unreal variety and religion. a feeling of deep grief over the emptiness and Among the the ascetic system may be nothingness of all ; the one is traced back almost to the time of , predominantly objective, positive, and certainly beyond Alexander the Great, who idealistic, the other more subjective, negative, found it there in full force, and substantially and realistic; the one aims at an absorption with the same characteristics which it into the universal spirit of Brahm, the other presents at the present day. consistently at an absorption into nonentity, Let us consider it a few moments. if it be true that Buddhism starts from an atheistic rather than a pantheistic or dualistic The Vedas, portions of which date from the basis. fifteenth century before Christ, the of Menu, which were completed before the rise “Brahmanism”—says a modern writer on the of Buddhism, that is, six or seven centuries subject—“looks back to the beginning,

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Buddhism to the end; the former loves remarkable resemblance to that of the Roman cosmogony, the latter eschatology. that Roman missionaries Both reject the existing world; the Brahman thought it could be only explained as a despises it, because he contrasts it with the diabolical imitation. higher being of Brahma, the Buddhist bewails But the original always precedes the it because of its unreality; the former sees caricature, and the ascetic system was in all, the other emptiness in all.” Yet as completed in India long before the all extremes meet, the abstract all-entity of introduction of Christianity, even if we should Brahmanism and the equally abstract non- trace this back to St. Bartholomew and St. entity or vacuity of Buddhism come to the Thomas. same thing in the end, and may lead to the The Hellenic heathenism was less serious and same ascetic practices. contemplative, indeed, than the Oriental; yet The asceticism of Brahmanism takes more the the Pythagoreans were a kind of monastic direction of anchoritism, while that of society, and the Platonic view of matter and Buddhism exists generally in the social form of body not only lies at the bottom of the of regular life. Gnostic and Manichean asceticism, but had The Hindu monks or gymnosophists (naked much to do also with the of and ), as the Greeks called them, live the Alexandrian School. in woods, caves, on mountains, or rocks, in Judaism, apart from the ancient Nazarites, poverty, , abstinence, silence: had its Essenes in and its sleeping on straw or the bare ground, Therapeutæ in Egypt; though these betray the crawling on the belly, standing all day on intrusion of foreign elements into the Mosaic tiptoe, exposed to the pouring rain or religion, and so find no mention in the New scorching sun with four fires kindled around Testament. them, presenting a savage and frightful Lastly, Mohammedanism, though in mere appearance, yet greatly revered by the imitation of Christian and pagan examples, multitude, especially the women, and has, as is well known, its dervishes and its performing miracles, not infrequently . completing their austerities by suicide on the Now were these earlier phenomena the stake or in the waves of the Ganges. source, or only analogies, of the Christian Thus they are described by the ancients and monasticism? That a multitude of foreign by modern travelers. usages and rites made their way into the The Buddhist monks are less fanatical and church in the age of Constantine, is extravagant than the Hindu Yogis and Fakirs. undeniable. They depend mainly on , , Hence many have held, that monasticism also psalmody, intense contemplation, and the use came from heathenism, and was an of the whip, to keep their rebellious flesh in from apostolic Christianity, which Paul had subjection. plainly foretold in the Pastoral . They have a fully developed system of But such a view can hardly be reconciled with monasticism in connection with their the great place of this phenomenon in history; priesthood, and a large number of ; and would, furthermore, involve the entire also nunneries for female devotees. ancient church, with its greatest and best The Buddhist monasticism, especially in representatives both east and west, its Tibet, with its vows of celibacy, poverty, and Athanasius, its Chrysostom, its Jerome, its obedience, its common meals, readings, and Augustine, in the predicted apostasy from the various pious exercises, bears such a .

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And no one now hold, that these men, The precise degree of this influence, and the who all admired and commended the exact proportion of Christian and heathen monastic life, were antichristian errorists, ingredients in the early monasticism of the and that the few and almost exclusively church, were an interesting subject of special negative opponents of that asceticism, as investigation. Jovinian, Helvidius, and Vigilantius, were the The germs of the Christian monasticism may sole representatives of pure Christianity in be traced as far back as the middle of the the Nicene and next following age. second century, and in fact faintly even in the In this whole matter we carefully anxious ascetic practices of some of the distinguish two forms of asceticism, Jewish in the apostolic age. antagonistic and irreconcilable in spirit and This asceticism, particularly fasting and principle, though similar in form: the Gnostic celibacy, was commended more or less dualistic, and the Catholic. distinctly by the most eminent ante-Nicene The former of these did certainly come from fathers, and was practised, at least partially, heathenism; but the latter sprang by a particular class of Christians (by Origen independently from the Christian spirit of even to the unnatural extreme of self- self-denial and longing for moral perfection, emasculation). and, in spite of all its excrescences, has So early as the Decian persecution, about the fulfilled an important mission in the history year 250, we meet also the first instances of of the church. the flight of ascetics or Christian philosophers The pagan monasticism, the pseudo-Jewish, into the wilderness; though rather in the heretical Christian, above all the Gnostic exceptional cases, and by way of escape from and Manichean, is based on in irreconcilable personal danger. metaphysical dualism between mind and So long as the church herself was a child of matter; the Catholic Christian Monasticism the desert, and stood in abrupt opposition to arises from the moral conflict between the the persecuting world, the ascetics of both spirit and the flesh. sexes usually lived near the congregations or The former is prompted throughout by in the midst of them, often even in the spiritual pride and selfishness; the latter, by families, seeking there to realize the ideal of humility and love to God and man. Christian perfection. The false asceticism aims at annihilation of But when, under Constantine, the of the the body and pantheistic absorption of the population of the empire became nominally human being in the divine; the Christian Christian, they felt, that in this world-church, strives after the of the body and especially in such cities as , personal fellowship with the living God in Antioch, and , they were not at ChriSt. And the effects of the two are equally home, and voluntarily retired into waste and different. desolate places and mountain clefts, there to Though it is also unquestionable, that, work out the of their souls notwithstanding this difference of principle, undisturbed. and despite the condemnation of Thus far monasticism is a reaction against the and , the heathen dualism secularizing -church system and the exerted a powerful influence on the Catholic decay of discipline, and an earnest, well- asceticism and its view of the world, meant, though mistaken effort to save the particularly upon anchoritism and virginal purity of the Christian church by monasticism in the East, and has been fully transplanting it in the wilderness. overcome only in evangelical Protestantism.

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The moral corruption of the , Such natures, once seized with religious which had the appearance of Christianity, but enthusiasm, were eminently qualified for was essentially heathen in the whole saints of the desert. framework of society, the oppressiveness of taxes the extremes of despotism and slavery, 3.29. Development of Monasticism. of extravagant luxury and hopeless poverty, In the historical development of the monastic the repletion of all classes, the decay of all institution we must distinguish four stages. productive energy in science and art, and the The first three were completed in the fourth threatening incursions of barbarians on the century; the remaining one reached maturity frontiers—all favored the inclination toward in the of the middle age. solitude in just the most earnest minds. The first stage is an ascetic life as yet not At the same time, however, monasticism organized nor separated from the church. afforded also a compensation for martyrdom, It comes down from the ante-Nicene age, and which ceased with the Christianization of the has been already noticed. state, and thus gave place to a voluntary It now took the form, for the most part, of martyrdom, a self-destruction, a sort either or cenobite life, but continued of religious suicide. in the church itself, especially among the In the burning deserts and awful caverns of , who might be called half monks. Egypt and Syria, amidst the pains of self- The second stage is hermit life or torture, the mortification of natural desires, anchoritism. and relentless battles with hellish monsters, the ascetics now sought to win the crown of It arose in the beginning of the fourth heavenly glory, which their predecessors in century, gave asceticism a fixed and the times of persecution had more quickly permanent shape, and pushed it to even and easily gained by a bloody death. external separation from the world. The native land of the monastic life was It took the prophets Elijah and John the Egypt, the land where Oriental and Grecian Baptist for its models, and went beyond them. literature, , and religion, Christian Not content with partial and temporary and Gnostic heresy, met both in retirement from common life, which may be friendship and in hostility. united with social intercourse and useful Monasticism was favored and promoted here labors, the consistent anchoret secludes by climate and geographic features, by the himself from all society, even from kindred oasis-like seclusion of the country, by the ascetics, and comes only exceptionally into bold contrast of barren deserts with the contact with human affairs, either to receive fertile valley of the Nile, by the superstition, the visits of admirers of every class, especially the contemplative turn, and the passive of the sick and the needy (which were very endurance of the national character, by the frequent in the case of the more celebrated example of the Therapeutæ, and by the moral monks), or to appear in the cities on some principles of the Alexandrian fathers; extraordinary occasion, as a spirit from especially by Origen’s theory of a higher and another world. lower morality and of the merit of voluntary His clothing is a hair shirt and a wild beast’s poverty and celibacy. skin; his food, bread and salt; his dwelling, a Aelian says of the Egyptians, that they bear cave; his employment, prayer, affliction of the the most exquisite torture without a murmur, body, and conflict with satanic powers and and would rather be tormented to death than wild images of fancy. compromise truth. This mode of life was founded by Paul of Thebes and St. Anthony, and came to

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 8 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course perfection in the EaSt. It was too eccentric In this modified form monasticism became and unpractical for the West, and hence less available to the female sex, to which the frequent there, especially in the rougher solitary desert life was utterly impracticable; climates. and with the cloisters of monks, there appear To the female sex it was entirely unsuited. at once cloisters also of . There was a class of , the Sarabaites in Between the anchorites and the cenobites no Egypt, and the Rhemoboths in Syria, who little jealousy reigned; the former charging lived in bands of at least two or three the latter with ease and conformity to the together; but their quarrelsomeness, world; the latter accusing the former of occasional intemperance, and opposition to selfishness and misanthropy. the clergy, brought them into ill repute. The most eminent church teachers generally The third step in the progress of the monastic prefer the cloister life. life brings us to coenobitism or cloister life, But the hermits, though their numbers monasticism in the ordinary sense of the diminished, never became extinct. word. Many a monk was a hermit first, and then a It originated likewise in Egypt, from the cenobite; and many a cenobite turned to a example of the Essenes and Therapeutæ, and hermit. was carried by St. Pachomius to the East, and The same social impulse, finally, which afterward by St. Benedict to the WeSt. Both produced monastic congregations, led these ascetics, like the most celebrated order- afterward to monastic orders, unions of a founders of later days, were originally number of cloisters under one rule and a hermits. common government. Cloister life is a regular organization of the In this fourth and last stage monasticism has ascetic life on a social basis. done most for the diffusion of Christianity It recognizes, at least in a measure, the social and the advancement of learning, has fulfilled element of human nature, and represents it in its practical mission in the a narrower sphere secluded from the larger church, and still wields a mighty influence world. there. As hermit life often led to cloister life, so the At the same time it became in some sense the cloister life was not only a refuge for the cradle of the German reformation. spirit weary of the world, but also in many Luther belonged to the order of St. Augustine, ways a school for practical life in the church. and the monastic discipline of Erfurt was to It formed the transition from isolated to him a preparation for evangelical freedom, as social Christianity. the Mosaic was to Paul a schoolmaster to It consists in an association of a number of lead to ChriSt. And for this very reason anchorites of the same sex for mutual Protestantism is the end of the monastic life. advancement in ascetic holiness. 3.30. Nature and Aim of Monasticism. The cenobites live, somewhat according to Monasticism was from the first distinguished the laws of civilization, under one roof, and as the contemplative life from the practical. under a superintendent or . It passed with the ancient church for the true, They divide their time between common the divine, or , an devotions and manual labor, and devote their unworldly purely apostolic, angelic life. surplus provisions to ; except the mendicant monks, who themselves live by It rests upon an earnest view of life; upon the alms. instinctive struggle after perfect dominion of the spirit over the flesh, reason over sense,

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 9 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course the over the natural, after the constitute a higher and to secure a highest grade of holiness and an undisturbed higher reward in heaven. of the with God; but also But this threefold self-denial is only the upon a morbid depreciation of the body, the negative side of the matter, and a means to an family, the state, and the divinely established end. social order of the world. It places man beyond the reach of the It recognizes the world, indeed, as a creature temptations connected with earthly of God, and the family and property as divine possessions, married life, and independent institutions, in opposition to the Gnostic will, and facilitates his progress toward Manichean asceticism, which ascribes matter heaven. as such to an evil principle. The positive aspect of monasticism is But it makes a distinction between two unreserved surrender of the whole man, with grades of morality: a common and lower all his time and strength, to God; though, as grade, democratic, so to speak, which moves we have said, not within, but without the in the natural ordinances of God; and a sphere of society and the order of nature. higher, extraordinary, aristocratic grade, This devoted life is employed in continual which lies beyond them and is attended with prayer, , fasting, and castigation of special merit. the body. It places the great problem of Christianity not Some votaries went so far as to reject all in the transformation, but in the bodily employment, for its interference with abandonment, of the world. devotion. It is an extreme unworldliness, over against But in general a moderate union of spiritual the worldliness of the mass of the visible exercises with scientific studies or with such church in union with the state. manual labor as agriculture, basket making, It demands entire renunciation, not only of weaving, for their own living and the support sin, but also of property and of , of the poor, was held not only lawful but which are lawful in themselves, ordained by wholesome for monks. God himself, and indispensable to the It was a proverb, that a laborious monk was continuance and welfare of the human race. beset by only one devil; an idle one, by a The poverty of the individual, however, does legion. not exclude the possession of common With all the austerities and rigors of property; and it is well known, that some asceticism, the monastic life had its spiritual monastic orders, especially the Benedictines, joys and irresistible charms for noble, have in course of time grown very rich. contemplative, and heaven-aspiring souls, The cenobite institution requires also who fled from the turmoil and vain show of absolute obedience to the will of the , the city as a prison, and turned the solitude as the visible representative of Christ. As into a paradise of freedom and sweet obedience to orders and of self is the communion with God and his saints; while to first duty of the soldier, and the condition of others the same solitude became a fruitful military success and renown, so also in this nursery of idleness, despondency, and the spiritual army in its war against the flesh, the most perilous temptations and ultimate ruin. world, and the devil, monks are not allowed to have a will of their own. 3.31. Monasticism and the Bible. Voluntary poverty, voluntary celibacy, and Monasticism, therefore, claims to be the absolute obedience form the three monastic highest and purest form of Christian piety and vows, as they are called, and are supposed to virtue, and the surest way to heaven.

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Then, we should think, it must be There is not a trace of monkish austerity and preëminently commended in the Bible, and ascetic rigor in his life or precepts, but in all actually exhibited in the life of Christ and the his acts and words a wonderful harmony of apostles. freedom and purity, of the most But just in this biblical support it falls short. comprehensive charity and spotless holiness. The advocates of it uniformly refer first to the He retired to the mountains and into solitude, examples of Elijah, Elisha, and John the but only temporarily, and for the purpose of Baptist; but these stand upon the legal level of renewing his strength for active work. the , and are to be looked upon Amidst the society of his disciples, of both as extraordinary personages of an sexes, with kindred and friends, in Cana and extraordinary age; and though they may be Bethany, at the table of publicans and sinners, regarded as types of a partial anchoritism and in intercourse with all classes of the (not of cloister life), still they are nowhere people, he kept himself unspotted from the commended to our imitation in this world, and transfigured the world into the particular, but rather in their influence upon kingdom of God. the world. His poverty and celibacy have nothing to do The next appeal is to a few isolated passages with asceticism, but represent, the one the of the , which do not, indeed, condescension of his redeeming love, the in their literal sense require the renunciation other his ideal uniqueness and his absolutely of property and marriage, yet seem to peculiar relation to the whole church, which recommend it as a special, exceptional form alone is fit or worthy to be his bride. of piety for those Christians who strive after No single daughter of could have been an higher perfection. equal partner of the Saviour of mankind, or Finally, as respects the spirit of the monastic the representative head of the new creation. life, reference is sometimes made even to the The example of the sister of Lazarus proves poverty of Christ and his apostles, to the only, that the contemplative life may dwell in silent, contemplative Mary, in contrast with the same house with the practical, and with the busy, practical , and to the the other sex, but justifies no separation from voluntary community of goods in the first the social ties. Christian church in . The life of the apostles and primitive But this monastic interpretation of primitive Christians in general was anything but a Christianity mistakes a few incidental points hermit life; else had not the spread so of outward resemblance for essential identity, quickly to all the cities of the Roman world. measures the spirit of Christianity by some Peter was married, and travelled with his isolated passages, instead of explaining the wife as a . latter from the former, and is upon the whole a miserable emaciation and caricature. Paul assumes one marriage of the clergy as the rule, and notwithstanding his personal makes upon all men virtually the and relative preference for celibacy in the same moral demand, and knows no then oppressed condition of the church, he is distinction of a religion for the masses and the most zealous advocate of evangelical another for the few. freedom, in opposition to all legal bondage , the model for all believers, was neither and anxious asceticism. a cenobite, nor an , nor an ascetic of Monasticism, therefore, in any case, is not the any kind, but the perfect pattern man for normal form of Christian piety. universal imitation. It is an abnormal phenomenon, a humanly devised service of God, and not rarely a sad

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 11 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course enervation and repulsive distortion of the Moral earnestness and religious enthusiasm Christianity of the Bible. were accompanied here, as formerly in And it is to be estimated, therefore, not by the martyrdom, though even in larger measure extent of its self-denial, not by its outward than there, with all kinds of sinister motives; acts of self-discipline (which may all be found indolence, discontent, weariness of life, in heathenism, Judaism, and misanthropy, ambition for spiritual Mohammedanism as well), but by the distinction, and every sort of misfortune or Christian spirit of humility and love which accidental circumstance. animated it. Palladius, to mention but one illustrious For humility is the groundwork, and love the example, tells of , that, from all-ruling principle, of the Christian life, and indignation against his wife, whom he the distinctive characteristic of the Christian detected in an act of infidelity, he hastened, religion. with the current oath of that day, “in the name of Jesus,” into the wilderness; and Without love to God and charity to man, the immediately, though now sixty years old, severest self-punishment and the utmost under the direction of Anthony, he became a abandonment of the world are worthless very model monk, and attained an before God. astonishing degree of humility, simplicity, and 3.32. Lights and Shades of Monastic Life. perfect submission of will. The contrast between pure and normal Bible- In view of these different motives we need Christianity and abnormal Monastic not be surprised that the moral character of Christianity, will appear more fully if we the monks varied greatly, and presents enter into a close examination of the latter as opposite extremes. it actually appeared in the ancient church. Augustine says he found among the monks The extraordinary rapidity with which this and nuns the best and the worst of mankind. world-forsaking form of piety spread, bears Looking more closely, in the first place, at witness to a high degree of self-denying moral anchoritism, we meet in its history earnestness, which even in its mistakes and unquestionably many a heroic character, who vagrancies we must admire. attained an incredible mastery over his Our age, accustomed and wedded to all sensual nature, and, like the Old Testament possible comforts, but far in advance of the prophets and , by their mere Nicene age in respect to the average morality appearance and their occasional preaching, of the masses, could beget no such ascetic made an overwhelming impression on his extremes. contemporaries, even among the heathen. In our estimate of the diffusion and value of St. Anthony’s visit to Alexandria was to the monasticism, the polluting power of the gazing multitude like the visit of a messenger theatre, oppressive taxation, slavery, the from the other world, and resulted in many multitude of civil wars, and the hopeless conversions. condition of the Roman empire, must all come His emaciated face, the glare of his eye, his into view. spectral yet venerable form, his contempt of Nor must we, by any means, measure the the world, and his few aphoristic sentences moral importance of this phenomenon by told more powerfully on that age and people numbers. than a most elaborate sermon. Monasticism from the beginning attracted St. Symeon, standing on a column from year persons of opposite character and from to year, fasting, praying, and exhorting the opposite motives. visitors to repentance, was to his generation a

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 12 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course standing miracle and a sign that pointed them the lips, as the heathen do, but with all the to heaven. heart. Sometimes, in seasons of public calamity, But Paul the Simple said daily three hundred such hermits saved whole cities and , counting them with pebbles, which provinces from the imperial wrath, by their he carried in his bosom (a sort of ); effectual intercessions. when he heard of a who prayed seven When Theodosius, in 387, was about to hundred times a day, he was troubled, and destroy Antioch for a sedition, the hermit told his distress to Macarius, who well Macedonius met the two imperial answered him: “Either thou prayest not with commissaries, who reverently dismounted thy heart, if thy conscience reproves thee, or and kissed his hands and feet; he reminded thou couldst pray oftener. them and the emperor of their own weakness, I have for six years prayed only a hundred set before them the value of men as immortal times a day, without being obliged to images of God, in comparison with the condemn myself for neglect.” Christ ate and perishable statues of the emperor, and thus drank like other men, expressly saved the city from demolition. distinguishing himself thereby from John, the The heroism of the anchoretic life, in the representative of the old covenant; and Paul voluntary renunciation of lawful pleasures recommends to us to use the gifts of God and the patient endurance of self-inflicted temperately, with cheerful and childlike pains, is worthy of admiration in its way, and gratitude. not rarely almost incredible. But the renowned anchoret and presbyter But this moral heroism—and these are the Isidore of Alexandria (whom Athanasius weak points of it—oversteps not only the ordained) touched no meat, never ate enough, present standard of Christianity, but all sound and, as Palladius relates, often burst into measure; it has no support either in the tears at table for shame, that he, who was theory or the practice of Christ and the destined to eat angels’ food in paradise, apostolic church; and it has far more should have to eat material stuff like the resemblance to heathen than to biblical irrational brutes. precedents. Macarius the elder, or the Great, for a long Many of the most eminent saints of the desert time ate only once a , and slept standing differ only in their Christian , and and leaning on a staff. in some Bible phrases learnt by rote, from The equally celebrated younger Macarius Buddhist fakirs and Mohammedan dervishes. lived three years on four or five ounces of Their highest virtuousness consisted in bodily bread a day, and seven years on raw herbs exercises of their own devising, which, and pulse. without love, at best profit nothing at all, very Ptolemy spent three years alone in an often only gratify spiritual vanity, and unwatered desert, and quenched his thirst entirely obscure the gospel way of salvation. with the dew, which he collected in December To illustrate this by a few examples, we may and January, and preserved in earthen choose any of the most celebrated eastern vessels; but he fell at last into skepticism, anchorites of the fourth and fifth centuries, as madness, and debauchery. reported by the most credible Sozomen tells of a certain Batthaeus, that by contemporaries. reason of his extreme abstinence, worms The holy Scriptures instruct us to pray and to crawled out of his teeth; of Alas, that to his labor; and to pray not only mechanically with eightieth year he never ate bread; of Heliodorus, that he spent many nights

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 13 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course without sleep, and fasted without In Mesopotamia there was a peculiar class of interruption seven days. anchorites, who lived on grass, spending the Symeon, a Christian Diogenes, spent six and greater part of the day in prayer and singing, thirty years praying, fasting, and preaching, and then turning out like beasts upon the on the top of a pillar thirty or forty feet high, mountain. ate only once a week, and in fast times not at Theodoret relates of the much lauded all. Akepsismas, in Cyprus, that he spent sixty Such heroism of abstinence was possible, years in the same cell, without seeing or however, only in the torrid climate of the speaking to any one, and looked so wild and East, and is not to be met with in the West. shaggy, that he was once actually taken for a wolf by a shepherd, who assailed him with Anchoritism almost always carries a certain stones, till he discovered his error, and then cynic roughness and coarseness, which, worshipped the hermit as a . indeed, in the light of that age, may be leniently judged, but certainly have no affinity It was but a step from this kind of moral with the morality of the Bible, and offend not sublimity to beastly degradation. only good taste, but all sound moral feeling. Many of these saints were no more than low The ascetic holiness, at least according to the sluggards or gloomy misanthropes, who Egyptian idea, is incompatible with would rather company with wild beasts, with cleanliness and decency, and delights in filth. lions, wolves, and hyenas, than with immortal men, and above all shunned the face of a It reverses the maxim of sound evangelical woman more carefully than they did the devil. morality and modern Christian civilization, that cleanliness is next to godliness. Sulpitius Severus saw an anchorite in the , who daily shared his evening meal Saints Anthony and , as their with a female wolf; and upon her admirers, Athanasius the Great and Jerome discontinuing her visits for some days by way the Learned, tell us, scorned to comb or cut of for a theft she had committed, he their hair (save once a year, at ), or to besought her to come again, and comforted wash their hands or feet. her with a double portion of bread. Other hermits went almost naked in the The same writer tells of a hermit who lived wilderness, like the Indian gymnosophists. fifty years secluded from all human society, in The younger Macarius, according to the the clefts of Mount Sinai, entirely destitute of account of his disciple Palladius, once lay six clothing, and all overgrown with thick hair, months naked in the morass of the Scetic avoiding every visitor, because, as he said, desert, and thus exposed himself to the intercourse with men interrupted the visits of incessant attacks of the gnats of , the angels; whence arose the report that he “whose sting can pierce even the hide of a held intercourse with angels. wild boar.” He wished to punish himself for It is no recommendation to these ascetic his arbitrary revenge on a gnat, and was there eccentricities that while they are without so badly stung by gnats and wasps, that he Scripture authority, they are fully equaled was thought to be smitten with leprosy, and and even surpassed by the strange modes of was recognized only by his voice. self-torture practised by ancient and modern St. Symeon the Stylite, according to Hindu devotees, for the supposed benefit of Theodoret, suffered himself to be incessantly their souls and the gratification of their vanity tormented for a long time by twenty in the presence of admiring spectators. enormous bugs, and concealed an abscess full Some bury themselves—we are told by of worms, to exercise himself in patience and ancient and modern travelers—in pits with meekness.

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 14 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course only small breathing holes at the top, while against overvaluing solitude, reminding them others disdaining to touch the vile earth, live of the proverb of the Preacher, iv. 10: “Woe to in iron cages suspended from trees. him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath Some wear heavy iron collars or fetters, or not another to help him up.” drag a heavy chain fastened by one end round The cloister life was less exposed to these their privy parts, to give ostentatious proof of errors. their chastity. It approached the life of society and Others keep their fists hard shut, until their civilization. finger nails grow through the palms of their Yet, on the other hand, it produced no such hands. heroic phenomena, and had dangers peculiar Some stand perpetually on one leg; others to itself. keep their faces turned over one shoulder, Chrysostom gives us the bright side of it from until they cannot turn them back again. his own experience. Some lie on wooden beds, bristling all over “Before the rising of the sun,” says he of the with iron spikes; others are fastened for life monks of Antioch, “they rise, hale and sober, to the trunk of a tree by a chain. sing as with one mouth to the praise of Some suspend themselves for half an hour at God, then bow the knee in prayer, under the a time, feet uppermost, or with a hook thrust direction of the abbot, read the holy through their naked back, over a hot fire. Scriptures, and go to their labors; pray again Alexander von Humboldt, at Astracan, where at nine, twelve, and three o’clock; after a good some Hindus had settled, found a Yogi in the day’s work, enjoy a simple meal of bread and vestibule of the temple naked, shrivelled up, salt, perhaps with oil, and sometimes with and overgrown with hair like a wild beast, pulse; sing a thanksgiving , and lay who in this position had withstood for twenty themselves on their pallets of straw without years the severe winters of that climate. care, grief, or murmur. A Jesuit missionary describes one of the class When one dies, they say: ‘He is perfected;’ called Tapasonias, that he had his body and all pray God for a like end, that they also enclosed in an iron cage, with his head and may come to the eternal sabbath-rest and to feet outside, so that he could walk, but the vision of Christ.” Men like Chrysostom, neither sit nor lie down; at night his pious Basil, Gregory, Jerome, Nilus, and Isidore, attendants attached a hundred lighted lamps united theological studies with the ascetic to the outside of the cage, so that their master exercises of solitude, and thus gained a could exhibit himself walking as the mock copious knowledge of Scripture and a large light of the world. spiritual experience. In general, the hermit life confounds the But most of the monks either could not even fleeing from the outward world with the read, or had too little intellectual culture to mortification of the inward world of the devote themselves with advantage to corrupt heart. contemplation and study, and only brooded over gloomy feelings, or sank, in spite of the It mistakes the duty of love; not rarely, under unsensual tendency of the ascetic principle, its mask of humility and the utmost self- into the coarsest and denial, cherishes spiritual pride and jealousy; image . and exposes itself to all the dangers of solitude, even to savage barbarism, beastly When the religious enthusiasm faltered or grossness, or despair and suicide. ceased, the cloister life, like the hermit life, became the most spiritless and tedious Anthony, the father of anchorites, well understood this, and warned his followers

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 15 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course routine, or hypocritically practised A characteristic trait of monasticism in all its vices. forms is a morbid aversion to female society For the monks carried with them into their and a rude contempt of married life. solitude their most dangerous enemy in their No wonder, then, that in Egypt and the whole hearts, and there often endured much fiercer East, the land of monasticism, women and conflicts with flesh and blood, than amidst the domestic life never attained their society of men. dignity, and to this day remain at a very low The temptations of sensuality, pride, and stage of culture. ambition externalized and personified Among the rules of Basil is a prohibition of themselves to the anchorites and monks in speaking with a woman, touching one, or hellish shapes, which appeared in visions and even looking on one, except in unavoidable dreams, now in pleasing and seductive, now cases. in threatening and terrible forms and colors, Monasticism not seldom sundered the sacred according to the state of mind at the time. bond between husband and wife, commonly The monastic imagination peopled the with mutual consent, as in the cases of deserts and solitudes with the very worst Ammon and Nilus, but often even without it. society, with swarms of winged demons and Indeed, a law of Justinian seems to give either all kinds of hellish monsters. party an unconditional right of desertion, It substituted thus a new kind of while yet the word of God declares the for the heathen , which were generally marriage bond indissoluble. supposed to be evil spirits. The Council of Gangra found it necessary to The monastic demonology is a strange oppose the notion that marriage is mixture of gross superstitions and deep inconsistent with salvation, and to exhort spiritual experiences. wives to remain with their husbands. It forms the romantic shady side of the In the same way monasticism came into otherwise so tedious monotony of the conflict with love of kindred, and with the secluded life, and contains much material for relation of parents to children; the history of ethics, psychology, and misinterpreting the Lord’s command to leave pathology. all for His sake. Especially besetting were the temptations of Nilus demanded of the monks the entire sensuality, and irresistible without the suppression of the sense of blood utmost exertion and constant watchfulness. relationship. The same saints, who could not conceive of St. Anthony forsook his younger sister, and true chastity without celibacy, were saw her only once after the separation. disturbed, according to their own confession, His disciple, , when he became a monk, by unchaste dreams, which at least defiled the vowed never to see his kindred again, and imagination. would not even speak with his sister without Excessive asceticism sometimes turned into closing his eyes. unnatural vice; sometimes ended in madness, Something of the same sort is recorded of despair, and suicide. Pachomius. Pachomius tells us, so early as his day, that Ambrose and Jerome, in full earnest, enjoined many monks cast themselves down upon virgins the cloister life, even against the precipices, others ripped themselves up, and will of their parents. others put themselves to death in other ways.

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When Hilary of Poictiers heard that his 3.33. Position of Monks in the Church. daughter wished to marry, he is said to have As to the social position of monasticism in the prayed God to take her to himself by death. system of ecclesiastical life: it was at first, in One Mucius, without any provocation, caused East and West, even so late as the council of his own son to be cruelly abused, and at last, , regarded as a lay institution; but at the command of the abbot himself, cast him the monks were distinguished as religiosi into the water, whence he was rescued by a from the seculares, and formed thus a middle of the cloister. grade between the ordinary laity and the Even in the most favorable case monasticism clergy. falls short of harmonious moral development, They constituted the spiritual nobility, but and of that symmetry of virtue which meets not the ruling class; the aristocracy, but not us in perfection in Christ, and next to him in the hierarchy of the church. the apostles. “A monk,” says Jerome, “has not the office of a It lacks the finer and gentler traits of teacher, but of a penitent, who endures character, which are ordinarily brought out suffering either for himself or for the world.” only in the school of daily family life and Many monks considered ecclesiastical office under the social ordinances of God. incompatible with their effort after Its morality is rather negative than positive. perfection. There is more virtue in the temperate and It was a proverb, traced to Pachomius: “A thankful enjoyment of the gifts of God, than in monk should especially shun women and total abstinence; in charitable and well- , for neither will let him have peace.” seasoned speech, than in total silence; in Ammonius, who accompanied Athanasius to connubial chastity, than in celibacy; in self- , cut off his own ear, and threatened to denying practical labor for the church. cut out his own tongue, when it was proposed than in solitary asceticism, which only pleases to make him a bishop. self and profits no one else. Martin of Tours thought his miraculous Catholicism, whether Greek or Roman, cannot power deserted him on his transition from dispense with the monastic life. the cloister to the bishopric. It knows only moral extremes, nothing of the Others, on the contrary, were ambitious for healthful mean. the episcopal chair, or were promoted to it against their will, as early as the fourth In addition to this, Popery needs the monastic century. orders, as an absolute monarchy needs large standing armies both for conquest and The of were usually defence. ordained priests, and administered the among the brethren, but were But evangelical Protestantism, rejecting all subject to the bishop of the . distinction of a twofold morality, assigning to all men the same great duty under the law of Subsequently the cloisters managed, through God, placing the of religion not in special papal grants, to make themselves outward exercises, but in the heart, not in independent of the episcopal jurisdiction. separation from the world and from society, From the tenth century the clerical character but in purifying and sanctifying the world by was attached to the monks. the free spirit of the gospel, is death to the In a certain sense, they stood, from the great monastic institution. beginning, even above the clergy; considered themselves preëminently conversi and religiosi, and their life vita religiosa; looked down with contempt upon the ;

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 17 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course and often encroached on their province in It was Christianity in monasticism which has troublesome ways. done all the good, and used this abnormal On the other hand, the cloisters began, as mode of life as a means for carrying forward early as the fourth century, to be most fruitful its mission of love and peace. seminaries of clergy, and furnished, especially In proportion as monasticism was animated in the East, by far the greater number of and controlled by the spirit of Christianity, it bishops. proved a blessing; while separated from it, it The sixth novel of Justinian provides that the degenerated and became at fruitful source of bishops shall be chosen from the clergy, or evil. from the . At the time of its origin, when we can view it In dress, the monks at first adhered to the from the most favorable point, the monastic costume of the country, but chose the life formed a healthful and necessary simplest and coarsest material. counterpart to the essentially corrupt and doomed social life of the Graeco-Roman Subsequently, they adopted the and a empire, and the preparatory school of a new distinctive uniform. Christian civilization among the Romanic and 3.34. Influence and Effect of Monasticism. Germanic nations of the middle age. The influence of monasticism upon the world, Like the hierarchy and the papacy, it belongs from Anthony and Benedict to Luther and with the disciplinary institutions, which the Loyola, is deeply marked in all branches of spirit of Christianity uses as means to a the history of the church. higher end, and, after attaining that end, casts Here, too, we must distinguish light and aside. shade. For it ever remains the great problem of The operation of the monastic institution has Christianity to pervade like leaven and been to some extent of diametrically opposite sanctify all human society in the family and kinds, and has accordingly elicited the most the state, in science and art, and in all public diverse judgments. life. “It is impossible,” says Milman, “to survey The old Roman world, which was based on monasticism in its general influence, from the heathenism, was, if the moral portraitures of earliest period of its inworking into Christianity, Salvianus and other writers of the fourth and without being astonished and perplexed with its fifth centuries are even half true, past all such diametrically opposite effects. transformation; and the Christian morality Here it is the undoubted parent of the blindest therefore assumed at the outset an attitude of ignorance and the most ferocious bigotry, downright hostility toward it, till she should sometimes of the most debasing licentiousness; grow strong enough to venture upon her there the guardian of learning, the author of regenerating mission among the new and, civilization, the propagator of humble and though barbarous, yet plastic and germinal peaceful religion.” nations of the middle age, and plant in them The apparent contradiction is easily solved. the seed of a higher civilization. It is not monasticism, as such, which has Monasticism promoted the downfall of proved a blessing to the church and the heathenism and the victory of Christianity in world; for the monasticism of India, which for the Roman empire and among the barbarians. three thousand years has pushed the practice It stood as a warning against the worldliness, of mortification to all the excesses of frivolity, and immorality of the great cities, delirium, never saved a single soul, nor and a mighty call to repentance and produced a single benefit to the race. conversion.

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It offered a quiet refuge to souls weary of the In patristic and antiquarian learning the world, and led its earnest disciples into the Benedictines, so lately as the seventeenth sanctuary of undisturbed communion with century, have done extraordinary service. God. Finally, monasticism, at least in the West, It was to invalids a hospital for the cure of promoted the cultivation of the soil and the moral diseases, and at the same time, to education of the people, and by its healthy and vigorous enthusiasts an arena for industrious transcriptions of the Bible, the the exercise of heroic virtue. works of the , and the ancient It recalled the original unity and equality of classics, earned for itself, before the the human race, by placing rich and poor, Reformation, much of the credit of the high and low upon the same level. modern civilization of . It conduced to the abolition, or at least the The traveler in France, , , Germany, mitigation of slavery. England, and even in the northern regions of Scotland and Sweden, encounters It showed hospitality to the wayfaring, and innumerable traces of useful monastic labors liberality to the poor and needy. in the ruins of abbeys, of chapter houses, of It was an excellent school of meditation, self- convents, of and hermitages, from discipline, and spiritual exercise. which once proceeded educational and It sent forth most of those catholic, missionary influences upon the surrounding missionaries, who, inured to all hardship, hills and forests. planted the standard of the cross among the These offices, however, to the progress of arts barbarian tribes of Northern and Western and letters were only accessory, often Europe, and afterward in Eastern Asia and involuntary, and altogether foreign to the South America. intention of the founders of monastic life and It was a prolific seminary of the clergy, and institutions, who looked exclusively to the gave the church many of her most eminent religious and moral education of the soul. bishops and , as Gregory I and Gregory In seeking first the kingdom of heaven, these VII. other things were added to them. It produced saints like Anthony and Bernard, But on the other hand, monasticism withdrew and trained divines like Chrysostom and from society many useful forces; diffused an Jerome, and the long succession of schoolmen indifference for the family life, the civil and and mystics of the middle ages. military service of the state, and all public Some of the profoundest theological practical operations; turned the channels of discussions, like the tracts of Anselm, and the religion from the world into the desert, and Summa of , and not a few of so hastened the decline of Egypt, Syria, the best books of devotion, like the “Imitation Palestine, and the whole Roman empire. of Christ,” by Thomas a Kempis, have It nourished , often raised proceeded from the solemn quietude of storms of popular agitation, and rushed cloister life. passionately into the controversies of Sacred hymns, unsurpassed for sweetness, theological parties; generally, it is true, on the like the Jesu dulcis memoria, or tender side of orthodoxy, but often, as at the emotion, like the Stabat mater dolorosa, or Ephesian “council of robbers,” in favor of terrific grandeur, like the Dies irae, dies illa, heresy, and especially in behalf of the crudest were conceived and sung by mediæval monks superstition. for all ages to come.

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For the simple, divine way of salvation in the monastic system, as the boldest and most free gospel, it substituted an arbitrary, eccentric, of the apostles had been the strictest of the ostentatious, and pretentious sanctity. Pharisees. It darkened the all-sufficient merits of Christ 3.35. Paul of Thebes and St. Anthony. by the glitter of the over-meritorious works I. ATHANASIUS: Vita S. Antonii (in Greek, Opera, of man. ed. Ben. ii. 793–866). The same in Latin, by It measured virtue by the quantity of outward EVAGRIUS, in the fourth century. JEROME: Catal. c. exercises instead of the quality of the inward 88 (a very brief notice of Anthony); Vita S. Pauli disposition, and disseminated self- Theb. (Opera, ed. Vallars, ii. p. 1–12). SOZOM: H. righteousness and an anxious, legal, and E. l. i. cap. 13 and 14. SOCRAT.: H. E. iv. 23, 25. mechanical religion. II. ACTA SANCTORUM, sub Jan. 17 (tom. ii. p. 107 It favored the idolatrous veneration of Mary sqq.). TILLEMONT: Mem. tom. vii. p. 101–144 (St. and of saints, the worship of images and Antoine, premier père des solitaires d’Egypte). BUTLER (R.C.): Lives of the Saints, sub Jan. 17. relics, and all sorts of superstitious and pious MOEHLER (R.C.): Athanasius der Grosse, p. 382– . 402. NEANDER: K. G. iii. 446 sqq. (Torrey’s Engl. It circulated a mass of visions and miracles, ed. ii. 229–234). BOEHRINGER: Die Kirche Christi which, if true, far surpassed the miracles of in Biographien, i. 2, p. 122–151. H. RUFFNER: l.c. Christ and the apostles and set all the laws of vol. i. p. 247–302 (a condensed translation from nature and reason at defiance. Athanasius, with additions). K. HASE: K. Gesch. 3.64 (a masterly miniature portrait). The Nicene age is full of the most absurd monks’ fables, and is in this respect not a whit The first known Christian hermit, as distinct behind the darkest of the middle ages. from the earlier ascetics, is the fabulous PAUL OF THEBES, in Upper Egypt. Monasticism lowered the standard of general morality in proportion as it set itself above it In the twenty-second year of his age, during and claimed a corresponding higher merit; the Decian persecution, A.D. 250, he retired to and it exerted in general a demoralizing a distant cave, grew fond of the solitude, and influence on the people, who came to lived there, according to the legend, ninety consider themselves the profanum vulgus years, in a grotto near a spring and a palm mundi, and to live accordingly. tree, which furnished him food, shade, and clothing, until his death in 340. Hence the frequent lamentations, not only of , but of Chrysostom and of Augustine, In his later years a raven is said to have over the indifference and laxness of the brought him daily half a loaf, as the ravens Christianity of the day; hence to this day the ministered to Elijah. mournful state of things in the southern But no one knew of this wonderful saint, till countries of Europe and America, where Anthony, who under a higher impulse visited monasticism is most prevalent, and sets the and buried him, made him known to the extreme of ascetic sanctity in contrast with world. the profane laity, but where there exists no After knocking in vain for more than an hour healthful middle class of morality, no at the door of the hermit, who would receive blooming family life, no moral vigor in the the visits of beasts and reject those of men, he masses. was admitted at last with a smiling face, and In the sixteenth century the monks were the greeted with a holy kiss. bitterest enemies of the Reformation and of Paul had sufficient curiosity left to ask the all true progress. question, whether there were any more And yet the greatest of the reformers was a idolaters in the world, whether new houses pupil of the convent, and a child of the were built in ancient cities and by whom the

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 20 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course world was governed? During this interesting But he remarks, in the prologue, that many conversation, a large raven came gently flying incredible things are said of him, which are and deposited a double portion of bread for not worthy of repetition. the saint and his guest. “The Lord,” said Paul, If he believed his story of the grave-digging “ever kind and merciful, has sent us a dinner. lions, it is hard to imagine what was more It is now sixty years since I have daily credible and less worthy of repetition. received half a loaf, but since thou hast come, In this Paul we have an example, of a Christ has doubled the supply for his canonized saint, who lived ninety years soldiers.” After thanking the Giver, they sat unseen and unknown in the wilderness, down by the fountain; but now the question beyond all fellowship with the visible church, arose who should break the bread; the one without Bible, public worship, or sacraments, urging the custom of hospitality, the other and so died, yet is supposed to have attained pleading the right of his friend as the elder. the highest grade of piety. This question of monkish etiquette, which How does this consist with the common may have a moral significance, consumed doctrine of the Catholic church respecting the nearly the whole day, and was settled at last necessity and the operation of the means of by the compromise that both should seize the grace? Augustine, blinded by the ascetic spirit loaf at opposite ends, pull till it broke, and of his age, says even, that anchorites, on their keep what remained in their hands. level of perfection, may dispense with the A drink from the fountain, and thanksgiving Bible. to God closed the meal. Certain it is, that this kind of perfection The day afterward Anthony returned to his stands not in the Bible, but outside of it. cell, and told his two disciples: “Woe to me, a The proper founder of the hermit life, the one sinner, who have falsely pretended to be a chiefly instrumental in giving it its monk. prevalence, was ST. ANTHONY of Egypt. I have seen Elijah and John in the desert; I He is the most celebrated, the most original, have seen St. Paul in paradise.” Soon and the most venerable representative of this afterward he paid St. Paul a second visit, but abnormal and eccentric sanctity, the found him dead in his cave, with head erect “ of the monks,” and the “childless and hands lifted up to heaven. father of an innumerable seed.” He wrapped up the corpse, singing Anthony sprang from a Christian and and hymns, and buried him without a spade; honorable Coptic family, and was born about for two lions came of their own accord, or 251, at Coma, on the borders of the Thebaid. rather from supernatural impulse, from the Naturally quiet, contemplative, and reflective, interior parts of the desert, laid down at his he avoided the society of playmates, and feet, wagging their tails, and moaning despised all higher learning. distressingly, and scratched a grave in the sand large enough for the body of the He understood only his Coptic , departed saint of the desert! Anthony and remained all his life ignorant of Grecian returned with the coat of Paul, made of palm literature and secular science. leaves, and wore it on the solemn days of But he diligently attended divine worship Easter and . with his parents, and so carefully heard the The learned Jerome wrote the life of Paul, Scripture lessons, that he retained them in some thirty years afterward, as it appears, on memory. the authority of Anathas and Macarius, two Memory was his library. He afterward made disciples of Anthony. faithful, but only too literal use of single

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 21 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course passages of Scripture, and began his But to reach a still higher level of ascetic discourse to the hermits with the very holiness, he retreated, after the year 285, uncatholic-sounding declaration: “The holy further and further from the bosom and Scriptures give us instruction enough.” In his vicinity of the church, into solitude, and thus eighteenth year, about 270, the death of his became the founder of an anchoritism strictly parents devolved on him the care of a so called. younger sister and a considerable estate. At first he lived in a sepulcher; then for Six months afterward he heard in the church, twenty years in the ruins of a castle; and last just as he was meditating on the apostles’ on Mount Colzim, some seven hours from the implicit following of Jesus, the word of the Red Sea, a three days’ journey east of the Nile, Lord to the rich young ruler: “If thou wilt be where an old cloister still preserves his name perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give to and memory. the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in In this solitude he prosecuted his ascetic heaven; and come and follow me.” This word practices with ever-increasing rigor. was a voice of God, which determined his life. Their monotony was broken only by basket He divided his real estate, consisting of three making, occasional visits, and battles with the hundred acres of fertile land, among the devil. inhabitants of the village, and sold his In fasting he attained a rare abstemiousness. personal property for the benefit of the poor, His food consisted of bread and salt, excepting a moderate reserve for the support sometimes dates; his drink, of water. of his sister. Flesh and wine he never touched. But when, soon afterward, he heard in the church the exhortation, “Take no thought for He ate only once a day, generally after sunset, the morrow,” he distributed the remnant to and, like the presbyter Isidore, was ashamed the poor, and entrusted his sister to a society that an immortal spirit should need earthly of pious virgins. nourishment. He visited her only once after—a fact Often he fasted from two to five days. characteristic of the ascetic depreciation of Friends, and wandering , who always natural ties. had a certain reverence for the saints of the He then forsook the hamlet, and led an ascetic desert, brought him bread from time to time. life in the neighborhood, praying constantly, But in the last years of his life, to render according to the exhortation: “Pray without himself entirely independent of others, and to ceasing;” and also laboring, according to the afford hospitality to travelers, he cultivated a maxim: “If any will not work, neither should small garden on the mountain, near a spring he eat.” What he did not need for his slender shaded by palms. support, he gave to the poor. Sometimes the wild beasts of the forest He visited the neighboring ascetics, who were destroyed his modest harvest, till he drove then already very plentiful in Egypt, to learn them away forever with the expostulation: humbly and thankfully their several eminent “Why do you injure me, who have never done ; from one, earnestness in prayer; from you the slightest harm? Away with you all, in another, watchfulness; from a third, the name of the Lord, and never come into my excellence in fasting; from a fourth, neighborhood again.” He slept on bare meekness; from all, love to Christ and to ground, or at best on a pallet of straw; but fellow men. often he watched the whole night through in Thus he made himself universally beloved, prayer. and came to be reverenced as a friend of God.

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The anointing of the body with oil he They are the reflex of our thoughts and despised, and in later years never washed his fantasies. feet; as if filthiness were an essential element If thou art carnally minded, thou art their prey; of ascetic perfection. but if thou rejoicest in the Lord and occupiest His whole wardrobe consisted of a hair shirt, thyself with divine things, they are powerless.… The devil is afraid of fasting, of prayer, of a sheepskin, and a girdle. humility and good works. But notwithstanding all, he had a winning His illusions soon vanish, when one arms friendliness and cheerfulness in his face. himself with the .” Conflicts with the devil and his hosts of Only in exceptional cases did Anthony leave demons were, as with other solitary saints, a his solitude; and then he made a powerful prominent part of Anthony’s experience, and impression on both Christians and heathens continued through all his life. with his hairy dress and his emaciated, The devil appeared to him in visions and ghostlike form. dreams, or even in daylight, in all possible In the year 311, during the persecution under forms, now as a friend, now as a fascinating Maximinus, he appeared in Alexandria in the woman, now as a dragon, tempting him by of himself gaining the ’s crown. reminding him of his former wealth, of his He visited the in the mines and noble family, of the care due to his sister, by prisons, encouraged them before the tribunal, promises of wealth, honor, and renown, by accompanied them to the scaffold; but no one exhibitions of the difficulty of virtue and the ventured to lay hands on the saint of the facility of vice, by unchaste thoughts and wilderness. images, by terrible threatening of the dangers and punishments of the ascetic life. In the year 351, when a hundred years old, he showed himself for the second and last time Once he struck the hermit so violently, in the metropolis of Egypt, to bear witness for Athanasius says, that a friend, who brought the orthodox faith of his friend Athanasius him bread, found him on the ground against , and in a few days converted apparently dead. more heathens and heretics than had At another time he broke through the wall of otherwise been gained in a whole year. his cave and filled the room with roaring He declared the Arian denial of the divinity of lions, howling wolves, growling bears, fierce Christ worse than the venom of the serpent, hyenas, crawling serpents and scorpions; but and no better than heathenism which Anthony turned manfully toward the worshipped the creature instead of the monsters, till a supernatural light broke in Creator. from the roof and dispersed them. He would have nothing to do with heretics, His sermon, which he delivered to the and warned his disciples against intercourse hermits at their request, treats principally of with them. these wars with demons, and gives also the key to the interpretation of them: Athanasius attended him to the gate of the city, where he cast out an evil spirit from a “Fear not Satan and his angels. Christ has girl. broken their power. The best weapon against them is faith and An invitation to stay longer in Alexandria he piety.… The presence of evil spirits reveals itself declined, saying: “As a fish out of water, so a in perplexity, despondency, hatred of the monk out of his solitude dies.” Imitating his ascetics, evil desires, fear of death.… They take example, the monks afterward forsook the the form answering to the spiritual state they wilderness in swarms whenever orthodoxy find in us at the time. was in danger, and went in long

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 23 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course with wax tapers and responsive singing yourselves so much trouble to see a fool?” through the streets, or appeared at the They explained, perhaps ironically, that they councils, to contend for the orthodox faith took him rather for a wise man. with all the energy of fanaticism, often even He replied: “If you take me for a fool, your with physical force. labor is lost; but if I am a wise man, you Though Anthony shunned the society of men, should imitate me, and be Christians, as I am.” yet he was frequently visited in his solitude At another time, when taunted with his and resorted to for consolation and aid by ignorance, he asked: “Which is older and Christians and heathens, by ascetics, sick, and better, mind or learning?” The mind, was the needy, as a heaven-descended physician of answer. Egypt for body and soul. “Then,” said the hermit, “the mind can do He enjoined prayer, labor, and care of the without learning.” “My book,” he remarked on poor, exhorted those at strife to the love of a similar occasion, “is the whole creation, God, and healed the sick and demoniac with which lies open before me, and in which I can his prayer. read the word of God as often as I will.” The Athanasius relates several miracles blind church-teacher, Didymus, whom he met performed by him, the truth of which we in Alexandria, he comforted with the words: leave undecided though they are far less “Trouble not thyself for the loss of the incredible and absurd than many other outward eye, with which even flies see; but monkish stories of that age. rejoice in the possession of the spiritual eye, with which also angels behold the face of God, Anthony, his biographer assures us, never and receive his light.” Even the emperor boasted when his prayer was heard, nor Constantine, with his sons, wrote to him as a murmured when it was not, but in either case spiritual father, and begged an answer from thanked God. him. He cautioned monks against overrating the The hermit at first would not so much as gift of miracles, since it is not our work, but receive the letter, since, in any case, being the grace of the Lord; and he reminds them of unable to write, he could not answer it, and the word: “Rejoice not, that the spirits are cared as little for the great of this world as subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because Diogenes for Alexander. your names are written in heaven.” To Martianus, an officer, who urgently besought When told that the emperor was a Christian, him to heal his possessed daughter, he said: he dictated the answer: “Happy thou, that “Man, why dost thou call on me? I am a man, thou worshippest Christ. Be not proud of thy as thou art. earthly power. If thou believest, pray to God, and he will hear Think of the future judgment, and know that thee.” Martianus prayed, and on his return Christ is the only true and eternal king. found his daughter whole. Practice and love for men, and care for Anthony distinguished himself above most of the poor.” To his disciples he said on this his countless disciples and successors, by his occasion: “Wonder not that the emperor fresh originality of mind. writes to me, for he is a man. Though uneducated and limited, he had Wonder much more that God has written the sound sense and ready mother wit. law for man, and has spoken to us by his own Son.” Many of his striking answers and felicitous sentences have come down to us. During the last years of his life the patriarch of monasticism withdrew as much as possible When some heathen philosophers once from the sight of visitors, but allowed two visited him, he asked them: “Why do you give

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 24 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course disciples to live with him, and to take care of His eyesight was clear to the end, and his him in his infirm old age. teeth sound, though by long use worn to mere When he felt his end approaching, he stumps. commanded them not to embalm his body, He retained also the perfect use of his hands according to the Egyptian custom, but to bury and feet, and was more robust and vigorous it in the earth, and to keep the spot of his than those who are accustomed to change of interment secret. food and clothing and to washing. One of his two sheepskins he bequeathed to His fame spread from his remote dwelling on the bishop Serapion, the other, with his the lone mountain over the whole Roman underclothing, to Athanasius, who had once empire. given it to him new, and now received it back What gave him his renown, was not learning worn out. nor worldly wisdom, nor human art, but What became of the robe woven from palm alone his piety toward God.… And let all the leaves, which, according to Jerome, he had brethren know, that the Lord will not only inherited from Paul of Thebes, and wore at take holy monks to heaven, but give them Easter and Pentecost, Athanasius does not tell celebrity in all the earth, however deep they us. may bury themselves in the wilderness.” After this disposition of his property, Anthony The whole Nicene age venerated in Anthony a said to his disciples: “Children, farewell; for model saint. Anthony goes away, and will be no more with This fact brings out most characteristically you.” With these words he stretched out his the vast difference between the ancient and feet and expired with a smiling face, in the the modern, the old Catholic and the year 356, a hundred and five years old. evangelical Protestant conception of the His grave remained for centuries unknown. nature of the Christian religion. His last will was thus a protest against the The specifically Christian element in the life worship of saints and relics, which, however, of Anthony, especially as measured by the it nevertheless greatly helped to promote. Pauline standard, is very small. Under Justinian, in 561, his bones, as the Nevertheless we can but admire the needy Bollandists and Butler minutely relate, were magnificence, the simple, rude grandeur of miraculously discovered, brought to this hermit sanctity even in its aberration. Alexandria, then to Constantinople, and at last Anthony concealed under his sheepskin a to Vienne in South France, and in the eleventh childlike humility, an amiable simplicity, a century, during the raging of an epidemic rare energy of will, and a glowing love to God, disease, the so-called “holy fire,” or “St. which maintained itself for almost ninety Anthony’s fire,” they are said to have years in the absence of all the comforts and performed great wonders. pleasures of natural life, and triumphed over Athanasius, the greatest man of the Nicene all the temptations of the flesh. age, concludes his biography of his friend By piety alone, without the help of education with this sketch of his character: “From this or learning, he became one of the most short narrative you may judge how great a remarkable and influential men in the history man Anthony was, who persevered in the of the ancient church. ascetic life from youth to the highest age. Even heathen contemporaries could not In his advanced age he never allowed himself withhold from him their reverence, and the better food, nor change of raiment, nor did he celebrated Synesius, afterward a even wash his feet. bishop, before his conversion reckoned Yet he continued healthy in all his parts. Anthony among those rare men, in whom

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 25 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course flashes of thought take the place of the moral contrast between the monastic life reasonings, and natural power of mind makes and the world. schooling needless. The elder Macarius introduced the hermit life 3.36. Spread of Anchoritism in the frightful desert of Scetis; Amun or Ammon, on the Nitrian mountain. The example of Anthony acted like magic upon his generation, and his biography by The latter was married, but persuaded his Athanasius, which was soon translated also bride, immediately after the nuptials, to live into Latin, was a for the times. with him in the strictest abstinence. Chrysostom recommended it to all as before the end of the fourth century there instructive and edifying reading. were in Nitria alone, according to Sozomen, five thousand monks, who lived mostly in Even Augustine, the most evangelical of the separate cells or laurae, and never spoke with fathers, was powerfully affected by the one another except on Saturday and Sunday, reading of it in his decisive religious struggle, when they assembled for common worship. and was decided by it in his entire renunciation of the world. From Egypt the solitary life spread to the neighboring countries. In a short time, still in the lifetime of Anthony, the deserts of Egypt, from Nitria, south of HILARION, whose life Jerome has written Alexandria, and the wilderness of Scetis, to graphically and at large, established it in the Libya and the Thebaid, were peopled with wilderness of Gaza, in Palestine and Syria. anchorites and studded with cells. This saint attained among the anchorites of A mania for monasticism possessed the fourth century an eminence second only , and seized the people of all to Anthony. classes like an epidemic. He was the son of pagan parents, and grew up As martyrdom had formerly been, so now “as a rose among thorns.” He went to school monasticism was, the quickest and surest in Alexandria, diligently attended church, and way to renown upon earth and to eternal avoided the circus, the gladiatorial shows, reward in heaven. and the theatre. This prospect, with which Athanasius He afterward lived two months with St. concludes his life of Anthony, abundantly Anthony, and became his most celebrated recompensed all self-denial and mightily disciple. stimulated pious ambition. After the death of his parents, he distributed The consistent recluse must continually his inheritance among his brothers and the increase his seclusion. poor, and reserved nothing, fearing the example of Ananias and Sapphira, and No desert was too scorching, no rock too remembering the word of Christ: “Whosoever forbidding, no cliff too steep, no cave too he be of you, that forsaketh not all that he dismal for the feet of these world-hating and hath, he cannot be my disciple.” He then man-shunning enthusiasts. retired into the wilderness of Gaza, which Nothing was more common than to see from was inhabited only by robbers and assassins; two to five hundred monks under the same battled, like Anthony, with obscene dreams abbot. and other temptations of the devil; and so It has been supposed, that in Egypt the reduced his body—the “ass,” which ought to number of anchorites and cenobites equaled have not barley, but chaff—with and the population of the cities. night watchings, that, while yet a youth of The natural contrast between the desert and twenty years, he looked almost like a the fertile valley of the Nile, was reflected in skeleton.

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He never ate before sunset. prayer and , and made the way to Prayers, psalm singing, Bible recitations, and heaven for themselves so passing hard, that basket weaving were his employment. one knows not whether to wonder at their unexampled self-denial, or to pity their His cell was only five feet high, lower than his ignorance of the gospel salvation. own stature, and more like a sepulchre than a dwelling. On this giddy height the anchoretic asceticism reached its completion. He slept on the ground. ST. SYMEON THE STYLITE, originally a shepherd He cut his hair only once a year, at Easter. on the borders of Syria and Cilicia, when a The fame of his sanctity gradually attracted boy of thirteen years, was powerfully affected hosts of admirers (once, ten thousand), so by the beatitudes, which he heard read in the that he had to change his residence several church, and betook himself to a cloister. times, and retired to Sicily, then to Dalmatia, He lay several days, without eating or and at last to the island of Cyprus, where he drinking, before the threshold, and begged to died in 371, in his eightieth year. be admitted as the meanest servant of the His legacy, a book of the and a rude house. mantle, he made to his friend Hesychius, who He accustomed himself to eat only once a took his corpse home to Palestine, and week, on Sunday. deposited it in the cloister of Majumas. During he even went through the whole The Cyprians consoled themselves over their forty days without any food; a fact almost loss, with the thought that they possessed the incredible even for a tropical climate. spirit of the saint. The first attempt of this kind brought him to Jerome ascribes to him all manner of visions the verge of death; but his constitution and miraculous cures. conformed itself, and when Theodoret visited 3.37. St. Symeon and the Pillar Saints. him, he had solemnized six and twenty Lent Respecting St. Symeon, or Simeon Stylites, we seasons by total abstinence, and thus have accounts from three contemporaries and surpassed Moses, Elias, and even Christ, who eye witnesses, ANTHONY, COSMAS, and especially never fasted so but once. THEODORET (Hist. Relig. c. 26). The latter Another of his extraordinary inflections was composed his narrative sixteen years before the to lace his body so tightly that the cord death the saint. pressed through to the bones, and could be EVAGRIUS: H. E. i. c. 13. The ACTA SANCTORUM and cut off only with the most terrible pains. BUTLER, sub Jan. 5. UHLEMANN: Symeon, der erste Saeulenheilige in Syrien. Leipz. 1846. (Comp. This occasioned his from the also the fine poem of A. TENNYSON: St. Symeon cloister. Stylites, a monologue in which S. relates his own He afterward spent some time as a hermit experience.) upon a mountain, with an iron chain upon his It is unnecessary to recount the lives of other feet, and was visited there by admiring and such anchorites; since the same features, even curious throngs. to unimportant details, repeat themselves in When this failed to satisfy him, he invented, in all. 423, a new sort of holiness, and lived, some But in the fifth century a new and quite two days’ journey (forty miles) east of original path was broken by Symeon, the Antioch, for six and thirty years, until his father of the Stylites or pillar saints, who death, upon a pillar, which at the last was spent long years, day and night, summer and nearly forty cubits high; for the pillar was winter, rain and sunshine, frost and heat, raised in proportion as he approached heaven standing on high, unsheltered pillars, in and perfection.

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Here he could never lie nor sit, but only stand, candlestick, and to the sun itself, which sheds or lean upon a post (probably a banister), or its rays on every side. devoutly bow; in which last posture he almost He asks the objector to this mode of life to touched his feet with his head—so flexible consider that God often uses very striking had his back been made by fasting. means to arouse the negligent, as the history A spectator once counted in one day no less of the prophets shows; and concludes his than twelve hundred and forty-four such narrative with the remark: “Should the saint genuflexions of the saint before the Almighty, live longer, he may do yet greater wonders, and then gave up counting. for he is a universal ornament and honor of He wore a covering of the skins of beasts, and religion.” a chain about his neck. He died in 459, in the sixty-ninth year of his Even the holy he took upon his age, of a long-concealed and loathsome ulcer pillar. on his leg; and his body was brought in solemn to the metropolitan There St. Symeon stood many long and weary church Of Antioch. days, and , and months, and years, exposed to the scorching sun, the drenching Even before his death, Symeon enjoyed the rain, the crackling frost, the howling storm, unbounded admiration of Christians and living a life of daily death and martyrdom, heathens, of the common people, of the kings groaning under the load of sin, never of Persia, and of the emperors Theodosius II., attaining to the true comfort and peace of Leo, and Marcian, who begged his blessing soul which is derived from a child-like trust in and his counsel. Christ’s infinite merits, earnestly striving No wonder, that, with all his renowned after a superhuman holiness, and looking to a humility, he had to struggle with the glorious reward in heaven, and immortal temptations of spiritual pride. fame on earth. Once an angel appeared to him in a vision, Yet Symeon was not only concerned about his with a chariot of fire, to convey him, like own salvation. People streamed from afar to Elijah, to heaven, because the blessed spirits witness this standing wonder of the age. He longed for him. spoke to all classes with the same He was already stepping into the chariot with friendliness, mildness, and love; only women his right foot, which on this occasion he he never suffered to come within the wall sprained (as his thigh), when the which surrounded his pillar. phantom of Satan was chased away by the From this original , as a mediator sign of the cross. between heaven and earth, he preached Perhaps this incident, which the Acta repentance twice a day to the astonished Sanctorum gives, was afterward invented, to spectators, settled controversies, vindicated account for his sore, and to illustrate the the orthodox faith, extorted laws even from danger of self-conceit. an emperor, healed the sick wrought Hence also the pious monk Nilus, with good miracles, and converted thousands of heathen reason, reminded the ostentatious pillar Ishmaelites, Iberians, Armenians, and saints of the proverb: “He that exalteth Persians to Christianity, or at least to the himself shall be abased.” Christian name. Of the later stylites the most distinguished All this the celebrated Theodoret relates as an were († 490), in the vicinity of eyewitness during the lifetime of the saint. Constantinople, and Symeon the younger († He terms him the great wonder of the world, 592), in Syria. and compares him to a candle on a

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The latter is said to have spent sixty-eight Christian faith, and, after his discharge from years on a pillar. the military service, received . In the East this form of sanctity perpetuated Then, in 313, he visited the aged hermit itself, though only in exceptional cases, down Palemon, to learn from him the way to to the twelfth century. perfection. The West, so far as we know, affords but one The saint showed him the difficulties of the example of a stylite, who, according to anchorite life: “Many,” said he, “have come Gregory of Tours, lived a long time on a pillar hither from disgust with the world, and had near Treves, but came down at the command no perseverance. of the bishop, and entered a neighboring Remember, my son, my food consists only of cloister. bread and salt; I drink no wine, take no oil, 3.38. Pachomius and the Cloister life. spend half the night awake, singing psalms and meditating on the Scriptures, and On St. Pachomius we have a biography sometimes pass the whole night without composed soon after his death by a monk of Tabennae, and scattered accounts in PALLADIUS, sleep.” Pachomius was astounded, but not JEROME (Regula Pachomii, Latine reddita, Opp. discouraged, and spent several years with Hieron. ed. Vallarsi, tom. ii. p. 50 sqq.), RUFINUS, this man as a pupil. SOZOMEN, &c. Comp. TILLEMONT, tom. vii. p. 167– In the year 325 he was directed by an angel, 235, and the Vit. Sanct. sub Maj. 14. in a vision, to establish on the island of Though the strictly solitary life long Tabennae, in the Nile, in Upper Egypt, a continued in use, and to this day appears here society of monks, which in a short time and there in the Greek and Roman churches, became so strong that even before his death yet from the middle of the fourth century (348) it numbered eight or nine cloisters in monasticism began to assume in general the the Thebaid, and three thousand (according form of the cloister life, as incurring less risk, to some, seven thousand), and, a century being available for both sexes, and being later, fifty thousand members. profitable to the church. The mode of life was fixed by a strict rule of Anthony himself gave warning, as we have Pachomius, which, according to a later legend, already observed, against the danger of entire an angel communicated to him, and which isolation, by referring to the proverb: “Woe to Jerome translated into Latin. him that is alone.” To many of the most The formal reception into the society was eminent ascetics anchoritism was a stepping preceded by a three-years’ probation. stone to the cenobite life; to others it was the Rigid vows were not yet enjoined. goal of coenobitism, and the last and highest round on the ladder of perfection. With spiritual exercises manual labor was united, agriculture, boat building, The founder of this social monasticism was basketmaking, mat and coverlet weaving, by PACHOMIUS, a contemporary of Anthony, like which the monks not only earned their own him an Egyptian, and little below him in living, but also supported the poor and the renown among the ancients. sick. He was born about 292, of heathen parents, in They were divided, according to the grade of the Upper Thebaid, served as a soldier in the their ascetic piety, into four and twenty army of the tyrant Maximin on the expedition classes, named by the letters of the Greek against Constantine and Licinius, and was, alphabet. with his comrades, so kindly treated by the Christians at Thebes, that he was won to the They lived three in a cell.

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They ate in common, but in strict silence, and The latter provided his monasteries and with the face covered. nunneries with clergy, and gave them an They made known their wants by signs. improved rule, which, before his death (379), was accepted by some eighty thousand The sick were treated with special care. monks, and translated by Rufinus into Latin. On Saturday and Sunday they partook of the He sought to unite the virtues of the anchorite communion. and cenobite life, and to make the institution Pachomius, as abbot, or , took useful to the church by promoting the the oversight of the whole; each cloister education of youth, and also (as Athanasius having a separate superior and a steward. designed before him) by combating Arianism Pachomius also established a cloister of nuns among the people. for his sister, whom he never admitted to his He and his friend Gregory Nazianzen were the presence when she would visit him, sending first to unite scientific theological studies her word that she should be content to know with the ascetic exercises of solitude. that he was still alive. Chrysostom wrote three books in praise and In like manner, the sister of Anthony and the vindication of the monastic life, and exhibits it wife of Ammon became centres of female in general in its noblest aspect. cloister life, which spread with great rapidity. In the beginning of the fifth century, Eastern Pachomius, after his conversion never ate a monasticism was most worthily represented full meal, and for fifteen years slept sitting on by the elder , a pupil and a stone. venerator of Chrysostom, and a copious Tradition ascribes to him all sorts of miracles, ascetic writer, who retired with his son from even the gift of tongues and perfect dominion a high civil office in Constantinople to Mount over nature, so that he trod without harm on Sinai, while his wife, with a daughter, serpents and scorpions, and crossed the Nile travelled to an Egyptian cloister; and by the on the backs of crocodiles! abbot Isidore, of Pelusium, on the principal Soon after Pachomius, fifty monasteries arose eastern mouth of the Nile, from whom we on the Nitrian mountain, in no respect have two thousand epistles. inferior to those in the Thebaid. The writings of these two men show a rich They maintained seven bakeries for the spiritual experience, and an extended and benefit of the anchorites in the neighboring fertile field of labor and usefulness in their Libyan desert, and gave attention also, at least age and generation. in later days, to theological studies; as the 3.39. Fanatical and Heretical Monastic valuable manuscripts recently discovered Societies in The East. there evince. Acta Concil. Gangrenensis, in MANSI, ii. 1095 sqq. From Egypt the cloister life spread with the EPIPHAN.: Haer. 70, 75 and 80. SOCR.: H. E. ii. 43. rapidity of the irresistible spirit of the age, SOZOM.: iv. 24. THEODOR.: H. E. iv. 9, 10; Fab. haer. over the entire Christian East. The most iv. 10, 11. Comp. NEANDER: iii. p. 468 sqq. (ed. eminent fathers of the Greek church were Torrey, ii. 238 sqq.). either themselves monks for a time, or at all Monasticism generally adhered closely to the events friends and patrons of monasticism. orthodox faith of the church. Ephraim propagated it in Mesopotamia; The friendship between Athanasius, the Eustathius of Sebaste in and father of orthodoxy, and Anthony, the father Paphlagonia; Basil the Great in Pontus and of monasticism, is on this point a classical Cappadocia. fact.

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But also, and Eutychianism, the bonds of sense, and raises it above the Monophysitism, Pelagianism, and other need of instruction and the means of grace. heresies, proceeded from monks, and found The gospel history they declared a mere in monks their most vigorous advocates. allegory. And the monastic enthusiasm ran also into But they concealed their pantheistic ascetic heresies of its own, which we must and antinomianism under external notice here. conformity to the Catholic church. 1. The EUSTATHIANS, so named from When their principles, toward the end of the Eustathius, bishop of Sebaste and friend of fourth century, became known, the Basil, founder of monasticism in Armenia, persecution of both the ecclesiastical and the Pontus, and Paphlagonia. civil authority fell upon them. This asserted that marriage debarred Yet they perpetuated themselves to the from salvation and incapacitated for the seventh century, and reappeared in the clerical office. Euchites and Bogomiles of the middle age. For this and other extravagances it was condemned by a council at Gangra in 3.40. Monasticism in the West. Athanasius, Paphlagonia (between 360 and 370), and Ambrose, Augustine, Martin of Tours. gradually died out. I. AMBROSIUS: De Virginibus ad Marcellinam sororem suam libri tres, written about 377 (in 2. The AUDIANS held similar principles. the Benedictine edition of Ambr. Opera, tom. ii. Their founder, Audius, or Udo, a layman of p. 145–183). AUGUSTINUS (A.D. 400): De Opere Syria, charged the clergy of his day with Monachorum liber unus (in the Bened. ed., tom. immorality, especially avarice and vi. p. 476–504). SULPITIUS SEVERUS (about A.D. extravagance. 403): Dialogi tres (de virtutibus monachorum After much persecution, which he bore orientalium et de virtutibus B. Martini); and De Vita Beati Martini (both in the Bibliotheca patiently, he forsook the church, with his Maxima vet. Patrum, tom. vi. p. 349 sqq., and friends, among whom were some bishops and better in Gallandi’s Bibliotheca vet. Patrum, tom. priests, and, about 330, founded a rigid viii. p. 392 sqq.). monastic sect in Scythia, which subsisted II. J. MABILLON: Observat. de monachis in perhaps a hundred years. occidente ante Benedictum (Praef. in Acta Sanct. They were Quartodecimans in the practice of Ord. Bened.). R. H. MILMAN: Hist. of Latin Easter, observing it on the 14th of Nisan, Christianity, Lond. 1854, vol. i. ch. vi. p. 409– according to Jewish fashion. 426: “Western Monasticism.” Count de MONTALEMBERT: The Monks of the West, Engl. Epiphanius speaks favorably of their translation, vol. i. p. 379 sqq. exemplary but severely ascetic life. In the Latin church, in virtue partly of the 3. The EUCHITES or MESSALIANS, also called climate, partly of the national character, the Enthusiasts, were roaming mendicant monks monastic life took a much milder form, but in Mesopotamia and Syria (dating from 360), assumed greater variety, and found a larger who conceived the Christian life as an field of usefulness than in the Greek. unintermitted prayer, despised all physical It produced no pillar saints, nor other such labor, the moral law, and the sacraments, and excesses of ascetic heroism, but was more boasted themselves perfect. practical instead, and an important They taught, that every man brings an evil instrument for the cultivation of the soil and demon with him into the world, which can the diffusion of Christianity and civilization only be driven away by prayer; then the Holy among the barbarians. Ghost comes into the soul, liberates it from all

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Exclusive contemplation was exchanged for into the shade by whole hosts of Christian alternate contemplation and labor. virgins. “A working monk,” says Cassian, “is plagued From Rome, monasticism gradually spread by one devil, an inactive monk by a host.” Yet over all Italy and the isles of the it must not be forgotten that the most Mediterranean, even to the rugged rocks of eminent representatives of the Eastern the Gorgon and the Capraja, where the monasticism recommended manual labor and hermits, in voluntary exile from the world, studies; and that the Eastern monks took a took the place of the criminals and political very lively, often rude and stormy part in victims whom the justice or tyranny and theological controversies. jealousy of the emperors had been And on the other hand, there were Western accustomed to banish thither. monks who, like Martin of Tours, regarded AMBROSE, whose sister, Marcellina, was labor as disturbing contemplation. among the first Roman nuns, established a ATHANASIUS, the guest, the disciple, and monastery in Milan, one of the first in Italy, subsequently the biographer and eulogist of and with the warmest zeal encouraged St. Anthony, brought the first intelligence of celibacy even against the will of parents; monasticism to the West, and astounded the insomuch that the mothers of Milan kept their civilized and effeminate Romans with two live daughters out of the way of his preaching; representatives of the semi-barbarous desert- whilst from other quarters, even from sanctity of Egypt, who accompanied him in Mauritania, virgins flocked to him to be his exile in 340. consecrated to the solitary life. The one, Ammonius, was so abstracted from The coasts and small islands of Italy were the world that he disdained to visit any of the gradually studded with cloisters. wonders of the great city, except the tombs of AUGUSTINE, whose evangelical principles of St. Peter and St. Paul; while the other, Isidore, the free grace of God as the only ground of attracted attention by his amiable simplicity. salvation and peace were essentially The phenomenon excited at first disgust and inconsistent with the more Pelagian theory of contempt, but soon admiration and imitation, the monastic life, nevertheless went with the especially among women, and among the then reigning spirit of the church in this decimated ranks of the ancient Roman respect, and led, with his clergy, a monk-like nobility. life in voluntary poverty and celibacy, after the pattern, as he thought, of the primitive The impression of the first visit was church of Jerusalem; but with all his zealous afterward strengthened by two other visits of commendation he could obtain favor for Athanasius to Rome, and especially by his monasticism in North Africa only among the biography of Anthony, which immediately liberated slaves and the lower classes. acquired the popularity and authority of a monastic gospel. He viewed it in its noblest aspect, as a life of undivided surrender to God, and undisturbed Many went to Egypt and Palestine, to devote occupation with spiritual and eternal things. themselves there to the new mode of life; and for the sake of such, Jerome afterward But he acknowledged also its abuses; he translated the rule of Pachomius into Latin. distinctly condemned the vagrant, begging monks, like the Circumcelliones and Gyrovagi, Others founded cloisters in the neighborhood and wrote a book (De opere monachorum) of Rome, or on the ruins of the ancient against the monastic aversion to labor. temples and the forum, and the frugal number of the heathen vestals was soon cast Monasticism was planted in Gaul by MARTIN OF TOURS, whose life and miracles were

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 32 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course described in fluent, pleasing language by his There was nothing in his mouth but Christ; disciple, Sulpitius Severus, a few years after nothing in his heart but piety, peace, and his death. sympathy. This celebrated saint, the patron of fields, was He used to weep for the sins of his enemies, born in Pannonia (Hungary), of pagan who reviled him with poisoned tongues when parents. he was absent and did them no harm.… Yet he He was educated in Italy, and served three had very few persecutors, except among the years, against his will, as a soldier under bishops.” The biographer ascribes to him Constantius and Julian the Apostate. wondrous conflicts with the devil, whom he imagined he saw bodily and tangibly present Even at that time he showed an uncommon in all possible shapes. degree of , humility, and love. He tells also of visions, miraculous cures, and He often cleaned his servant’s shoes, and once even, what no oriental anchoret could boast, cut his only cloak in two with his sword, to three instances of restoration of the dead to clothe a naked beggar with half; and the next life, two before and one after his accession to night he saw Christ in a dream with the half the bishopric; and he assures us that he has cloak, and plainly heard him say to the angels: omitted the greater part of the miracles “Behold, Martin, who is yet only a which had come to his ears, lest he should catechumen, hath clothed me.” He was weary the reader; but he several times baptized in his eighteenth year; converted his intimates that these were by no means mother; lived as a hermit in Italy; afterward universally credited, even by monks of the built a monastery in the vicinity of Poitiers same cloister. (the first in France); destroyed many idol temples, and won great renown as a saint and His piety was characterized by a union of a worker of miracles. monastic humility with clerical arrogance. About the year 370 he was unanimously At a supper at the court of the tyrannical elected by the people, against his wish, bishop emperor Maximus in Trier, he handed the of Tours on the Loire, but in his episcopal goblet of wine, after he himself had drunk of office maintained his strict monastic mode of it, first to his presbyter, thus giving him life, and established a monastery beyond the precedence of the emperor. Loire, where he was soon surrounded with The empress on this occasion showed him an eighty monks. idolatrous veneration, even preparing the He had little education, but a natural meal, laying the cloth, and standing as a eloquence, much spiritual experience, and servant before him, like Martha before the unwearied zeal. Lord. Sulpitius Severus places him above all the More to the bishop’s honor was his protest Eastern monks of whom he knew, and against the execution of the Priscillianists in declares his merit to be beyond all Treves. expression. Martin died in 397 or 400: his funeral was “Not an hour passed,” says he, “in which attended by two thousand monks, besides Martin did not pray.… No one ever saw him many nuns and a great multitude of people; angry, or gloomy, or merry. and his grave became one of the most frequented centres of pilgrimage in France. Ever the same, with a countenance full of heavenly serenity, he seemed to be raised In Southern Gaul, monasticism spread with above the infirmities of man. equal rapidity. , an ascetic writer and a Semipelagian († 432), founded two cloisters

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 33 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course in Massilia (), where literary To rare talents and attainments, indefatigable studies also were carried on; and Honoratus activity of mind, ardent faith, immortal merit (after 426, bishop of ) established the in the translation and interpretation of the cloister of St. Honoratus on the island of Bible, and earnest zeal for ascetic piety, he Lerina. united so great vanity and ambition, such irritability and bitterness of temper, such 3.41. St. Jerome as a Monk. vehemence of uncontrolled passion, such an S. EUS. HIERONYMI: Opera omnia, ed. Erasmus intolerant and persecuting spirit, and such (assisted by Oecolampadius), Bas. 1516–’20, 9 inconstancy of conduct, that we find vols. fol.; ed. (Bened.) Martianay, Par. 1693– ourselves alternately attracted and repelled 1706, 5 vols. fol. (incomplete); ed. Vallarsi and Maffei, Veron. 1734–’42, 11 vols. fol., also Venet. by his character, and now filled with 1766 (best edition). Comp. especially the 150 admiration for his greatness, now with Epistles, often separately edited (the contempt or pity for his weakness. chronological order of which Vallarsi, in tom. i. Sophronius Hieronymus was born of his edition, has finally established). at Stridon, on the borders of Dalmatia, not far For extended works on the life of Jerome see DU from Aquileia, between the years 331 and PIN (Nouvelle Biblioth. des auteurs Eccles. tom. 342. iii. p. 100–140); TILLEMONT (tom. xii. 1–356); He was the son of wealthy Christian parents, MARTIANAY (La vie de St. Jerôme, Par. 1706); JOH. STILTING (in the Acta Sanctorum, Sept. tom. viii. and was educated in Rome under the p. 418–688, Antw. 1762); BUTLER (sub Sept. 30); direction of the celebrated heathen VALLARSI (in Op. Hieron., tom. xi. p. 1–240); grammarian Donatus, and the rhetorician SCHROECKH (viii. 359 sqq., and especially xi. 3– Victorinus. 254); ENGELSTOFT (Hieron. Stridonensis, He read with great diligence and profit the interpres, criticus, exegeta, apologeta, classic poets, orators, and philosophers, and historicus, doctor, monachus, Havn. 1798); D. V. collected a considerable library. COELLN (in Ersch and Gruber’s Encycl. sect. ii. vol. 8); COLLOMBET (Histoire de S. Jérôme, , On Sundays he visited, with Bonosus and 1844); and O. ZOECKLER (Hieronymus, sein other young friends, the subterranean graves Leben und Wirken. Gotha, 1865). of the martyrs, which made an indelible The most zealous promoter of the monastic impression upon him. life among the church fathers was Jerome, the Yet he was not exempt from the temptations connecting link between Eastern and Western of a great and corrupt city, and he lost his learning and religion. chastity, as he himself afterward repeatedly His life belongs almost with equal right to the acknowledged with pain. history of and the history of About the year 370, whether before or after monasticism. his literary tour to Treves and Aquileia is Hence the church art generally represents uncertain, but at all events in his later youth, him as a penitent in a reading or writing he received baptism at Rome and resolved posture, with a lion and a skull, to denote the thenceforth to devote himself wholly, in rigid union of the literary and anchoretic modes of abstinence, to the service of the Lord. life. In the first zeal of his conversion he He was the first learned divine who not only renounced his love for the classics, and recommended but actually embraced the applied himself to the study of the hitherto monastic mode of life, and his example distasteful Bible. exerted a great influence in making In a morbid ascetic frame, he had, a few years monasticism available for the promotion of later, that celebrated dream, in which he was learning. summoned before the judgment seat of

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Christ, and as a heathen Ciceronian, so use of, as Erasmus laments, to cover monastic severely reprimanded and scourged, that obscurantism. even the angels interceded for him from After his baptism, Jerome divided his life sympathy with his youth, and he himself between the East and the West, between solemnly vowed never again to take worldly ascetic discipline and literary labor. books into his hands. He removed from Rome to Antioch with a few When he woke, he still felt the stripes, which, friends and his library, visited the most as he thought, not his heated fancy, but the celebrated anchorites, attended the exegetical Lord himself had inflicted upon him. lectures of the younger Apollinaris in Antioch, Hence he warns his female friend and then (374) spent some time as an ascetic Eustochium, to whom several years afterward in the dreary Syrian desert of . (A.D. Here, like so many other hermits, he 384) he recounted this experience, to avoid underwent a grievous struggle with all profane reading: “What have light and sensuality, which he described ten years after darkness, Christ and Belial (2 Cor. with indelicate minuteness in a long letter to 6:14), the Psalms and Horace, the Gospels and his virgin friend Eustochium. , the Apostles and , to do with one In spite of his starved and emaciated body, another?… We cannot drink the cup of the his fancy tormented him with wild images of Lord and the cup of the demons at the same Roman banquets and dances of women; time.” But proper as this warning may be showing that the monastic seclusion from the against overrating classical scholarship, world was by no means proof against the Jerome himself, in his version of the Bible and temptations of the flesh and the devil. his commentaries, affords the best evidence Helpless he cast himself at the feet of Jesus, of the inestimable value of linguistic and wet them with tears of repentance, and antiquarian knowledge, when devoted to the subdued the resisting flesh by a week of service of religion. fasting and by the dry study of Hebrew That oath, also, at least in later life, he did not grammar (which, according to a letter to strictly keep. Rusticus, he was at that time learning from a On the contrary, he made the monks copy the converted Jew), until he found peace, and dialogues of Cicero, and explained Virgil at thought himself transported to the of Bethlehem, and his writings abound in the angels in heaven. recollections and quotations of the classic In this period probably falls the dream authors. mentioned above, and the composition of When Rufinus of Aquileia, at first his warm several ascetic writings, full of heated eulogy friend, but afterward a bitter enemy, cast up of the monastic life. to him this inconsistency and breach of a His biographies of distinguished anchorites, , he resorted to the evasion that however, are very pleasantly and temperately he could not obliterate from his memory what written. he had formerly read; as if it were not so He commends monastic seclusion even sinful to cite a heathen author as to read him. against the will of parents; interpreting the With more reason he asserted, that all was a word of the Lord about forsaking father and mere dream, and a dream vow was not mother, as if monasticism and Christianity binding. were the same. He referred him to the prophets, “who teach “Though thy mother”—he writes, in 373, to that dreams are vain, and not worthy of faith.” his friend Heliodorus, who had left him in the Yet was this dream afterward made frequent midst of his journey to the Syrian desert—

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“with flowing hair and rent garments, should him into new exegetical labors, particularly show thee the breasts which have nourished the revision of the Latin version of the Bible, thee; though thy father should lie upon the which he completed at a later day in the East. threshold; yet depart thou, treading over thy At the same time he labored in Rome with the father, and fly with dry eyes to the standard greatest zeal, by mouth and pen, in the cause of the cross. of monasticism, which had hitherto gained This is the only religion of its kind, in this very little foothold there, and met with matter to be cruel.… The love of God and the violent opposition even among the clergy. fear of hell easily, rend the bonds of the He had his eye mainly upon the most wealthy household asunder. and honorable classes of the decayed Roman The holy Scripture indeed enjoins obedience society, and tried to induce the descendants to parents; but he who loves them more than of the Scipios, the Gracchi, the Marcelli, the Christ, loses his soul.… O desert, where the Camilli, the Anicii to turn their sumptuous flowers of Christ are blooming!. villas into monastic retreats, and to lead a life O solitude, where the stones for the new of self-sacrifice and charity. Jerusalem are prepared! O retreat, which He met with great success. rejoices in the friendship of God! What doest “The old patrician races, which founded thou in the world, my brother, with thy soul Rome, which had governed her during all her greater than the world? How long wilt thou period of splendor and liberty, and which remain in the shadow of roofs, and in the overcame and conquered the world, had smoky dungeon of cities? Believe me, I see expiated for four centuries, under the here more of the light.” The eloquent appeal, atrocious yoke of the Caesars, all that was however, failed of the desired effect; most hard and selfish in the glory of their Heliodorus entered the teaching order and fathers. became a bishop. Cruelly humiliated, disgraced, and decimated The active and restless spirit of Jerome soon during that long servitude, by the masters brought him again upon the public stage, and whom degenerate Rome had given herself, involved him in all the doctrinal and they found at last in Christian life, such as was ecclesiastical controversies of those practised by the monks, the dignity of controversial times. sacrifice and the emancipation of the soul. He received the of presbyter from These sons of the old Romans threw the bishop Paulinus in Antioch, without themselves into it with the magnanimous fire taking charge of a congregation. and persevering energy which had gained for He preferred the itinerant life of a monk and a their ancestors the empire of the world. student to a fixed office, and about 380 ‘Formerly,’ says St. Jerome, ‘according to the journeyed to Constantinople, where he heard testimony of the apostles, there were few the anti-Arian sermons of the celebrated rich, few noble, few powerful among the Gregory Nazianzen, and translated the Christians. Chronicle of Eusebius and the of Now it is no longer so. Origen on and . Not only among the Christians, but among the In 382, on account of the Meletian , he monks are to be found a multitude of the returned to Rome with Paulinus and wise, the noble, and the rich.’ … The monastic Epiphanius. institution offered them a field of battle Here he came into close connection with the where the struggles and victories of their bishop, Damasus, as his theological adviser ancestors could be renewed and surpassed and ecclesiastical secretary, and was led by

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 36 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course for a loftier cause, and over enemies more His intimacy with these distinguished women, redoubtable. whom he admired more, perhaps, than they The great men whose memory hovered still admired him, together with his unsparing over degenerate Rome had contended only attacks upon the immoralities of the Roman with men, and subjugated only their bodies; clergy and of the higher classes, drew upon their descendants undertook to strive with him much unjust and groundless devils, and to conquer souls.… God called calumny, which he met rather with indignant them to be the ancestors of a new people, scorn and satire than with quiet dignity and gave them a new empire to found, and Christian meekness. permitted them to bury and transfigure the After the death of his patron Damasus, A.D. glory of their forefathers in the bosom of the 384, he left Rome, and in August, 385, with spiritual regeneration of the world.” his brother Paulinian, a few monks, Paula, Most of these distinguished patrician and her daughter Eustochium, made a converts of Jerome were women—such pilgrimage “from Babylon to Jerusalem, that widows as Marcella, Albinia, Furia, Salvina, not Nebuchadnezzar, but Jesus, should reign Fabiola, Melania, and the most illustrious of over him.” With religious devotion and all, Paula, and her family; or virgins, as inquiring mind he wandered through the holy Eustochium, Apella, Marcellina, Asella, places of Palestine, spent some time in Felicitas, and Demetrias. Alexandria, where he heard the lectures of He gathered them as a select circle around the celebrated Didymus; visited the cells of him; he expounded to them the Holy the Nitrian mountain; and finally, with his Scriptures, in which some of these Roman two female friends, in 386, settled in the ladies were very well read; he answered their birthplace of the Redeemer, to lament there, questions of conscience; he incited them to as he says, the sins of his youth, and to secure celibate life, lavish beneficence, and himself against others. enthusiastic asceticism; and flattered their In Bethlehem he presided over a monastery spiritual vanity by extravagant praises. till his death, built a hospital for all strangers He was the oracle, biographer, admirer, and except heretics, prosecuted his literary eulogist of these holy women, who studies without cessation, wrote several constituted the spiritual nobility of Catholic commentaries, and finished his improved Rome. Latin version of the Bible—the noblest monument of his life—but entangled himself Even the senator Pammachius, son in-law to in violent literary controversies, not only with Paula and heir to her fortune, gave his goods opponents of the church orthodoxy like to the poor, exchanged the purple for the Helvidius (against whom he had appeared cowl, exposed himself to the mockery of his before, in 384), Jovinian, Vigilantius, and colleagues, and became, in the flattering Pelagius, but also with his long-tried friend language of Jerome, the general in chief of Rufinus, and even with Augustine. Roman monks, the first of monks in the first of cities. Palladius says, his jealousy could tolerate no saint beside himself, and drove many pious Jerome considered second marriage monks away from Bethlehem. incompatible with genuine holiness; even depreciated first marriage, except so far as it He complained of the crowds of monks whom was a nursery of brides of Christ; warned his fame attracted to Bethlehem. Eustochium against all intercourse with The remains of the Roman nobility, too, married women; and hesitated not to call the ruined by the sack of Rome, fled to him for mother of a bride of Christ, like Paula, a food and shelter. “mother-in-law of God.”

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At the last his repose was disturbed by anything worthy of the holy and venerable incursions of the barbarian Huns and the Paula.” heretical Pelagians. She was born in 347, of the renowned stock of He died in 419 or 420, of fever, at a great age. the Scipios and Gracchi and Paulus Aemilius, His remains were afterward brought to the and was already a widow of six and thirty Roman of Maria Maggiore, but were years, and the mother of five children, when, exhibited also and superstitiously venerated under the influence of Jerome, she renounced in several copies in Florence, Prague, Clugny, all the wealth and honors of the world, and Paris, and the Escurial. betook herself to the most rigorous ascetic life. The Roman church has long since assigned him one of the first places among her Rumor circulated suspicion, which her standard teachers and canonical saints. spiritual guide, however, in a letter to Asella, answered with indignant rhetoric: “Was Yet even some impartial Catholic historians there, then, no other matron in Rome, who venture to admit and disapprove his glaring could have conquered my heart, but that one, inconsistencies and violent passions. who was always mourning and fasting, who The Protestant love of truth inclines to the abounded in dirt, who had become almost judgment, that Jerome was indeed an blind with weeping, who spent whole nights accomplished and most serviceable scholar in prayer, whose song was the Psalms, whose and a zealous enthusiast for all which his age conversation was the gospel, whose joy was counted holy, but lacking in calm self-control abstemiousness, whose life was fasting? and proper depth of mind and character, and Could no other have pleased me, but that one, that he reflected, with the virtues, the failings whom I have never seen eat? Nay, verily, after also of his age and of the monastic system. I had begun to revere her as her chastity It must be said to his credit, however, that deserved, should all virtues have at once with all his enthusiastic zeal and admiration forsaken me?” He afterward boasts of her, for monasticism, he saw with a keen eye and that she knew the Scriptures almost entirely exposed with unsparing hand the false monks by memory; she even learned Hebrew, that and nuns, and painted in lively colors the she might sing the with him in the dangers of melancholy, hypochondria, the original; and continually addressed exegetical hypocrisy and spiritual pride, to which the questions to him, which he himself could institution was exposed. answer only in part. 3.42. St. Paula. Repressing the sacred feelings of a mother, she left her daughter Ruffina and her little son HIERONYMUS: Epitaphium Paulae matris, ad Eustochium virginem, Ep. cviii. (ed. Vallarsi, Toxotius, in spite of their prayers and tears, in Opera, tom. i. p. 684 sqq.; ed. Bened. Ep. lxxxvi). the city, of Rome, met Jerome in Antioch, and Also the ACTA SANCTORUM, and BUTLER’S Lives of made a pilgrimage to Palestine and Egypt. Saints, sub Jan. 26. With glowing devotion, she knelt before the Of Jerome’s many female disciples, the most rediscovered cross, as if the Lord were still distinguished is St. Paula, the model of a hanging upon it; she kissed the stone of the Roman Catholic . which the angel rolled away; With his accustomed extravagance, he opens licked with thirsty tongue the pretended his eulogy after her death, in 404, with these tomb of Jesus, and shed tears of joy as she words: “If all the members of my body were entered the stable and beheld the manger of turned into tongues, and all my joints were to Bethlehem. utter human voices, I should be unable to say In Egypt she penetrated into the desert of Nitria, prostrated herself at the feet of the

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 38 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course hermits, and then returned to the MONTALEMBERT: The Monks of the West, vol. ii. and settled permanently in the birthplace of book iv. the Saviour. Benedict of Nursia, the founder of the She founded there a monastery for Jerome, celebrated order which bears his name, gave whom she supported, and three nunneries, in to the Western monasticism a fixed and which she spent twenty years as , until permanent form, and thus carried it far above 404. the Eastern with its imperfect attempts at She denied herself flesh and wine, performed, organization, and made it exceedingly with her daughter Eustochium, the meanest profitable to the practical, and, incidentally, services, and even in sickness slept on the also to the literary interests of the Catholic bare ground in a hair shirt, or spent the whole Church. night in prayer. He holds, therefore, the dignity of patriarch of “I must,” said she, “disfigure my face, which I the Western monks. have often, against the command of God, He has furnished a remarkable instance of the adorned with paint; torment the body, which incalculable influence which a simple but has participated in many idolatries; and atone judicious moral rule of life may exercise on for long laughing by constant weeping.” Her many centuries. liberality knew no bounds. Benedict was born of the illustrious house of She wished to die in beggary, and to be buried Anicius, at Nursia (now Norcia) in Umbria, in a shroud which did not belong to her. about the year 480, at the time when the She left to her daughter (she died in 419) a political and social state of Europe was multitude of debts, which she had contracted distracted and dismembered, and literature, at a high rate of interest for benevolent morals, and religion seemed to be doomed to purposes. irremediable ruin. Her obsequies, which lasted a week, were He studied in Rome, but so early as his attended by the bishops of Jerusalem and fifteenth year he fled from the corrupt society other cities of Palestine, besides clergy, of his fellow students, and spent three years monks, nuns, and laymen innumerable. in seclusion in a dark, narrow, and inaccessible grotto at Subiaco. Jerome apostrophizes her: “Farewell, Paula, and help with prayer the old age of thy A neighboring monk, Romanus, furnished him adorer!” from time to time his scanty food, letting it down by a cord, with a little bell, the sound of 3.43. Benedict of Nursia. which announced to him the loaf of bread. GREGORIUS M.: Dialogorum, l. iv. (composed He there passed through the usual anchoretic about 594; lib. ii. contains the biography of St. battles with demons, and by prayer and Benedict according to the communications of ascetic exercises attained a rare power over four abbots and disciples of the saint, nature. Constantine, Honoratus, Valentinian, and Simplicius, but full of surprising miracles). At one time, Gregory tells us, the MABILLON and other writers of the Benedictine allurements of voluptuousness so strongly congregation of St. Maurus: Acta Sanctorum tempted his imagination that he was on the ordinis S. Benedicti in saeculorum classes point of leaving his retreat in pursuit of a distributa, fol. Par. 1668–1701, 9 vols. (to the beautiful woman of previous acquaintance; year 1100), and Annales ordinis S. Bened. Par. but summoning up his , he took off his 1703–’39, 6 vols. fol. (to 1157). Dom (Domnus) of skins and rolled himself naked on JOS. DE MÈGE: Vie de St. Benoit, Par. 1690. The thorns and briers, near his cave, until the ACTA SANCTORUM, and BUTLER, sub Mart. 21.

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 39 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course impure fire of sensual passion was forever a great battle with the Graeco-Roman army extinguished. under Narses. Seven centuries later, St. Benedict died, after partaking of the holy planted on that spiritual battle field two rose communion, praying, in standing posture, at trees, which grew and survived the the foot of the , on the 21st of March, Benedictine thorns and briers. 543, and was buried by the side of his sister, He gradually became known, and was at first Scholastica, who had established, a nunnery taken for a wild beast by the surrounding near Monte Cassino and died a few weeks shepherds, but afterward reverenced as a before him. saint. They met only once a year, on the side of the After this period of hermit life he began his mountain, for prayer and pious conversation. labors in behalf of the monastery proper. On the day of his departure, two monks saw In that mountainous region he established in in a vision a shining pathway of stars leading succession twelve cloisters, each with twelve from Monte Cassino to heaven, and heard a monks and a superior, himself holding the voice, that by this road Benedict, the well oversight of all. beloved of God, had ascended to heaven. The persecution of an unworthy priest caused His credulous biographer, , in him, however, to leave Subiaco and retire to a the second book of his Dialogues, ascribes to wild but picturesque mountain district in the him miraculous and healings, and Neapolitan province, upon the boundaries of even a raising of the dead. Samnium and Campania. With reference to his want of secular culture There he destroyed the remnants of idolatry, and his spiritual knowledge, he calls him a converted many of the pagan inhabitants to learned ignorant and an unlettered sage. Christianity by his preaching and miracles, At all events he possessed the genius of a and in the year 529, under many difficulties, lawgiver, and holds the first place among the founded upon the ruins of a temple of Apollo founders of monastic orders, though his the renowned cloister of Monte Cassino, the person and life are much less interesting than alma mater and capital of his order. those of a , a Francis of Here he labored fourteen years, till his death. Assisi, and an . Although never ordained to the priesthood, 3.44. The Rule of St. Benedict his life there was rather that of a missionary The REGULA BENEDICTI has been frequently and apostle than of a solitary. edited and annotated, best by HOLSTENIUS: Codex He cultivated the soil, fed the poor, healed the reg. Monast. tom. i. p. 111–135; by Dom sick, preached to the neighboring population, MARTÉNE: Commentarius in regulam S. Benedicti directed the young monks, who in increasing literalis, moralis, historicus, Par. 1690, in 4to.; numbers flocked to him, and organized the by Dom CALMET, Par. 1734, 2 vols.; and by Dom CHARLES BRANDES (Benedictine of Einsiedeln), in monastic life upon a fixed method or rule, 3 vols., Einsiedeln and , 1857. GIESELER which he himself conscientiously observed. gives the most important articles in his Ch. H. His power over the hearts, and the veneration Bd. i. AbtheiI. 2, 3.119. Comp. also in which he was held, is illustrated by the visit Montalembert, l.c. ii. 39 sqq. of Totila, in 542, the barbarian king, the victor The rule of St. Benedict, on which his fame of the Romans and master of Italy, who threw rests, forms an epoch in the history of himself on his face before the saint, accepted monasticism. his reproof and exhortations, asked his In a short time it superseded all blessing, and left a better man, but fell after contemporary and older rules of the kind, and ten years’ reign, as Benedict had predicted, in

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 40 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course became the immortal code of the most let us run and strive so as to reap an eternal illustrious branch of the monastic army, and reward. the basis of the whole Roman Catholic cloister “We must then form a school of divine servitude, life. in which, we trust, nothing too heavy or It consists of a or prologue, and a rigorous will be established. series of moral, social, liturgical, and penal “But if, in conformity with right and justice, we ordinances, in seventy-three chapters. should exercise a little severity for the amendment of vices or the preservation of It shows a true knowledge of human nature, charity, beware of fleeing under the impulse of the practical wisdom of Rome, and adaptation terror from the way of salvation, which cannot to Western customs; it combines simplicity but have a hard beginning. with completeness, strictness with “When a man has walked for some time in gentleness, humility with courage, and gives obedience and faith, his heart will expand, and the whole cloister life a fixed unity and he will run with the unspeakable sweetness of compact organization, which, like the love in the way of God’s commandments. episcopate, possessed an unlimited versatility “May he grant that, never straying from the and power of expansion. instruction of the Master, and persevering in his It made every cloister an ecclesiola in doctrine in the monastery until death, we may share by patience in the sufferings of Christ, and ecclesia, reflecting the relation of the bishop be worthy to share together his kingdom.” to his charge, the monarchical principle of authority on the democratic basis of the The leading provisions of this rule are as equality of the brethren, though claiming a follows: higher degree of perfection than could be At the head of each society stands an abbot, realized in the great secular church. who is elected by the monks, and, with their For the rude and undisciplined world of the consent, appoints a provost (praepositus), middle age, the Benedictine rule furnished a and, when the number of the brethren wholesome course of training and a constant requires, deans over the several divisions stimulus to the obedience, self-control, order, (decaniae), as assistants. and industry which were indispensable to the He governs, in Christ’s stead, by authority and regeneration and healthy growth of social life. example, and is to his cloister, what the The spirit of the rule may be judged from the bishop is to his diocese. following sentences of the prologus, which In the more weighty matters he takes the contains pious exhortations: congregation of the brethren into “Having thus,” he says, “my brethren, asked of consultation; in ordinary affairs only the the Lord who shall dwell in his tabernacle, we older members. have heard the precepts prescribed to such a The formal entrance into the cloister must be one. preceded by a probation of of one “If we fulfill these conditions, we shall be heirs year (subsequently it was made three years), of the kingdom of heaven. that no one might prematurely or rashly take “Let us then prepare our hearts and bodies to the solemn step. fight under a holy obedience to these precepts; If the novice repented his resolution, he could and if it is not always possible for nature to leave the cloister without hindrance; if he obey, let us ask the Lord that he would deign to give us the succor of his grace. adhered to it, he was, at the close of his probation, subjected to an examination in “Would we avoid the pains of hell and attain presence of the abbot and the monks, and eternal life, while there is still time, while we are still in this mortal body, and while the light then, appealing to the saints, whose relics of this life is bestowed upon us for that purpose, were in the cloister, he laid upon the altar of

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 41 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course the chapel the irrevocable vow, written or at On the two weekly fast days, and from the least subscribed by his own hand, and middle of September to Easter, one meal was therewith cut off from himself forever all to suffice for the day. return to the world. Each monk is allowed daily a pound of bread From this important arrangement the cloister and pulse, and, according to the Italian received its stability and the whole monastic custom, half a flagon (hemina) of wine; institution derived additional earnestness, though he is advised to abstain from the wine, solidity, and permanence. if he can do so without injury to his health. The vow was threefold, comprising stabilitas, Flesh is permitted only to the weak and sick, perpetual adherence to the monastic order; who were to be treated with special care. conversio morum, especially voluntary During the meal some edifying piece was poverty and chastity, which were always read, and silence enjoined. regarded as the very essence of monastic The individual monk knows no personal piety under all its forms; and obedientia property, not even his simple dress as such; coram Deo et sanctis ejus, absolute obedience and the fruits of his labor go into the common to the abbot, as the representative of God and treasury. Christ. This obedience is the cardinal virtue of a monk. He should avoid all contact with the world, as dangerous to the soul, and therefore every The life of the cloister consisted of a judicious cloister should be so arranged, as to be able alternation of spiritual and bodily exercises. to carry on even the arts and trades necessary This is the great excellence of the rule of for supplying its wants. Benedict, who proceeded here upon the true Hospitality and other works of love are principle, that idleness is the mortal enemy of especially commended. the soul and the workshop of the devil. The penalties for transgression of the rule Seven hours were to be devoted to prayer, are, first, private admonition, then exclusion singing of psalms, and meditation; from two from the fellowship of prayer, next exclusion to three hours, especially on Sunday, to from fraternal intercourse, and finally religious reading; and from six to seven hours expulsion from the cloister, after which, to manual labor in doors or in the field, or, however, restoration is possible, even to the instead of this, to the training of children, third time. who were committed to the cloister by their parents (oblati). 3.45. The Benedictines. Cassiodorus. Here was a starting point for the afterward Benedict had no presentiment of the vast celebrated cloister schools, and for that historical importance, which this rule, attention to literary pursuits, which, though originally designed simply for the cloister of entirely foreign to the uneducated Benedict Monte Cassino, was destined to attain. and his immediate successors, afterward He probably never aspired beyond the became one of the chief ornaments of his regeneration and salvation of his own soul order, and in many cloisters took the place of and that of his brother monks, and all the talk manual labor. of later Catholic historians about his far- In other respects the mode of life was to be reaching plans of a political and social simple, without extreme rigor, and confined regeneration of Europe, and the preservation to strictly necessary things. and promotion of literature and art, find no Clothing consisted of a tunic with a black cowl support whatever in his life or in his rule. (whence the name: Black ); the material But he humbly planted a seed, which to be determined by the climate and season. Providence blessed a hundredfold.

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By his rule he became, without his own will or prefaces, biographies, antiquarian knowledge, the founder of an order, which, dissertations, and indexes, can never think of until in the thirteenth century the Dominicans the order of the Benedictines without sincere and pressed it partially into the regard and gratitude. background, spread with great rapidity over The patronage of learning, however, as we the whole of Europe, maintained a clear have already said, was not within the design supremacy, formed the model for all other of the founder or his rule. monastic orders, and gave to the Catholic The joining of this to the cloister life is duel if church an imposing array of missionaries, we leave out of view the learned monk authors, artists, bishops, , Jerome, to CASSIODORUS, who in 538 retired cardinals, and popes, as Gregory the Great from the honors and cares of high civil office, and Gregory VII. in the Gothic monarchy of Italy, to a In less than a century after the death of monastery founded by himself at Vivarium Benedict, the conquests of the barbarians in (Viviers), in Calabria in Lower Italy. Italy, Gaul, Spain were reconquered for Here he spent nearly thirty years as monk civilization, and the vast territories of Great and abbot, collected a large library, Britain, Germany, and Scandinavia encouraged the monks to copy and to study incorporated into Christendom, or opened to the Holy Scriptures, the works of the church missionary labor; and in this progress of fathers, and even the ancient classics, and history the monastic institution, regulated wrote for them several literary and and organized by Benedict’s rule, bears an theological text-books, especially his treatise honorable share. De institutione divinarum literarum, a kind of Benedict himself established a second cloister elementary encyclopaedia, which was the in the vicinity of Terracina, and two of his code of monastic education for many favorite disciples, Placidus and St. Maurus, generations. introduced the “holy rule,” the one into Sicily, Vivarium at one time almost rivalled Monte the other into France. Cassino, and Cassiodorus won the honorary Pope Gregory the Great, himself at one time a title of the restorer of knowledge in the sixth Benedictine monk, enhanced its prestige, and century. converted the Anglo-Saxons to the Roman The Benedictines, already accustomed to Christian faith, by Benedictine monks. regular work, soon followed this example. Gradually the rule found so general Thus that very mode of life, which in its acceptance both in old and in new founder, Anthony, despised all learning, institutions, that in the time of it became in the course of its development an became a question, whether there were any asylum of culture in the rough and stormy monks at all, who were not Benedictines. times of the migration and the , and a The order, it is true, has degenerated from conservator of the literary treasures of time to time, through the increase of its antiquity for the use of modern times. wealth and the decay of its discipline, but its fostering care of religion, of humane studies, 3.46. Opposition to Monasticism. Jovinian. and of the general civilization of Europe, from I. CHRYSOSTOMUS: Πρὸς τοὺς πολεμοῦντας τοῖς the tilling of the soil to the noblest learning, ἐπὶ τὸ μονάζειν ἐνάγουσιν (a vindication of has given it an honorable place in history and monasticism against its opponents, in three won immortal praise. books). HIERONYMUS: Ep. 61, ad Vigilantium (ed. Vallars. tom. i. p. 345 sqq.); Ep. 109, ad Riparium He who is familiar with the imposing and (i. 719 sqq.); Adv. Helvidium (A.D. 383); Adv. venerable tomes of the Benedictine editions Jovinianum (A.D. 392); Adv. Vigilantium (A.D. of the Fathers, their thoroughly learned

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406). All these three tracts are in Opera Hieron. comprehensive form, when monasticism had tom. ii. p. 206–402. AUGUSTINUS: De haeres. cap. fulfilled its mission for the world. 82 (on Jovinian), and c. 84 (on Helvidius and the To this class of opponents belong Helvidius, Helvidians). EPIPHANIUS: Haeres. 75 (on Aerius). Jovinian, Vigilantius, and Aerius. II. CHR. W. F. WALCH: Ketzerhistorie (1766), part iii. p. 585 (on Helvidius and the The first three are known to us through the Antidikomarianites); p. 635 sqq. (on Jovinian); passionate replies of Jerome, the last through and p. 673 sqq. (on Vigilantius). VOGEL: De the Panarion of Epiphanius. Vigilantio haeretico orthodoxo, Goett. 1756. G. They figure in Catholic church history among B. LINDNER: De Joviniano et Vigilantio purioris the heretics, while they have received from doctrinae antesignanis, Lips. 1839. W. S. GILLY: many Protestant historians a place among the Vigilantius and his Times, Lond. 1844. Comp. “witnesses of the truth” and the forerunners also NEANDER: Der heil. Joh. Chrysostomus, 3d ed. 1848, vol. i. p. 53 sqq.; and Kirchengesch, iii. of the Reformation. p. 508 sqq. (Torrey’s translation, ii. p. 265 sqq.). We begin with JOVINIAN, the most important BAUR: Die christliche Kirche von 4–6ten Jahrh. among them, who is sometimes compared, for 1859, p. 311 sqq. instance, even by Neander, to Luther, Although monasticism was a mighty because, like Luther, he was carried by his movement of the age, engaging either the own experience into reaction against the cooperation or the admiration of the whole ascetic tendency and the doctrines connected church, yet it was not exempt from with it. opposition. He wrote in Rome, before the year 390 a And opposition sprang from very different work, now lost, attacking monasticism in its quarters: now from zealous defenders of ethical principles. heathenism, like Julian and Libanius, who He was at that time himself a monk, and hated and bitterly reviled the monks for their probably remained so in a free way until his fanatical opposition to temples and idol- death. worship; now from Christian statesmen and At all events he never married, and according emperors, like Valens, who were enlisted to Augustine’s account, he abstained “for the against it by its withdrawing so much force present distress,” and from aversion to the from the civil and military service of the state, encumbrances of the married state. and, in the time of peril from the barbarians, encouraging idleness and passive Jerome pressed him with the alternative of contemplation instead of active, heroic virtue; marrying and proving the equality of celibacy now from friends of worldly , who with married life, or giving up his opposition found themselves unpleasantly disturbed and to his own condition. rebuked by the religious earnestness and zeal Jerome gives a very unfavorable picture of his of the ascetic life; lastly, however, also from a character, evidently colored by vehement liberal, almost protestant, conception of bitterness. Christian morality, which set itself at the He calls Jovinian a servant of corruption, a same time against the worship of Mary and barbarous writer, a Christian Epicurean, who, the saints, and other abuses. after having once lived in strict asceticism, This last form of opposition, however, existed now preferred earth to heaven, vice to virtue, mostly in isolated cases, was rather negative his belly to Christ, and always strode along as than positive in its character, lacked the spirit an elegantly dressed bridegroom. of wisdom and moderation, and hence almost Augustine is much more lenient, only entirely disappeared in the fifth century, only reproaching Jovinian with having misled to be revived long after, in more mature and many Roman nuns into marriage by holding

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 44 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course before them the examples of pious women in himself exhorted to marriage, required the the Bible. bishop or the to be the husband of one Jovinian was probably provoked to question wife, and advised young widows to marry and and oppose monasticism, as Gieseler bear children. supposes, by Jerome’s extravagant praising of He declared the prohibition of marriage and it, and by the feeling against it, which the of divinely provided food a Manichean error. death of Blesilla (384) in Rome confirmed. To answer these arguments, Jerome indulges And he at first found extensive sympathy. in utterly unwarranted inferences, and But he was excommunicated and banished speaks of marriage in a tone of contempt, with his adherents at a council about the year which gave offence even to his friends. 390, by Siricius, bishop of Rome, who was Augustine was moved by it to present the zealously opposed to the marriage of priests. advantages of the married life in a special He then betook himself to Milan, where the work, De bono conjugali, though without two monks Sarmatio and Barbatian held forth yielding the ascetic estimate of celibacy. views like his own; but he was treated there Jovinian’s second point has an apparent after the same fashion by the bishop, affinity with the Augustinian and Calvinistic Ambrose, who held a council against him. doctrine of the perseverantia sanctorum. From this time he and his party disappear It is not referred by him, however, to the from history, and before the year 406 he died eternal and unchangeable counsel of God, but in exile. simply based on 1 John 3:9, and 5:18, and is According to Jerome, Jovinian held these four connected with his abstract conception of the points (1) Virgins, widows, and married opposite moral states. persons, who have once been baptized into He limits the impossibility of relapse to the Christ, have equal merit, other things in their truly regenerate, who “plena fide in conduct being equal. baptismate renati sunt,” and makes a (2) Those, who are once with full faith born distinction between the mere baptism of again by baptism, cannot be overcome water and the baptism of the Spirit, which (subverti) by the devil. involves also a distinction between the actual and the ideal church. (3) There is no difference between abstaining from food and enjoying it with thanksgiving. His third point is aimed against the ascetic exaltation of fasting, with reference to Rom. (4) All, who keep the baptismal covenant, will 14:20, and 1 Tim. 4:3. receive an equal reward in heaven. God, he holds, has created all animals for the He insisted chiefly on the first point; so that service of man; Christ attended the marriage Jerome devotes the whole first book of his feast at Cana as a guest, sat at table with refutation to this point, while he disposes of Zaccheus, with publicans and sinners, and all the other heads in the second. was called by the Pharisees a glutton and a In favor of the moral equality of married and wine-bibber; and the apostle says: To the single life, he appealed to Gen. pure all things are pure, and nothing to be 2:24, where God himself institutes marriage refused, if it be received with thanksgiving. before the fall; to Matt. He went still further, however, and, with the 19:5, where Christ sanctions it; to the Stoics, denied all gradations of moral merit patriarchs before and after the flood; to and demerit, consequently also all gradations Moses and the prophets, Zacharias and of reward and punishment. Elizabeth, and the apostles, particularly Peter, He overlooked the process of development in who lived in wedlock; also to Paul, who both good and evil.

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 45 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course

He went back of all outward relations to the Augustine speaks of Helvidians, who are inner mind, and lost all subordinate probably identical with the differences of degree in the great contrast Antidicomarianites of Epiphanius. between true Christians and men of the Jerome calls Helvidius, indeed, a rough and world, between regenerate and unregenerate; uneducated man, but proves by quotations of whereas, the friends of monasticism taught a his arguments, that he had at least some higher and lower morality, and distinguished knowledge of the Scriptures, and a certain the ascetics, as a special class, from the mass ingenuity. of ordinary Christians. He appealed in the first place to Matt. 1:18, As Christ, says he, dwells in believers, without 24, 25, as implying that knew his wife difference of degree, so also believers are in not before, but after, the birth of the Lord; Christ without difference of degree or stages then to the designation of Jesus as the “first of development. born” son of Mary, in Matt. 1:25, and Luke There are only two classes of men, righteous 2:7; then to the many passages, which speak and wicked, sheep and goats, five wise virgins of the brothers and sisters of Jesus; and and five foolish, good trees with good fruit finally to the authority of and and bad trees with bad fruit. Victorinus. He appealed also to the parable of the Jerome replies, that the “till” by no means laborers in the vineyard, who all received always fixes a point after which any action equal wages. must begin or cease; that, according to Ex. Jerome answered him with such things as the 34:19, 20; Num. 18:15 sqq., the “first born” parable of the sower and the different kinds does not necessarily imply the birth of other of ground, the parable of the different children afterward, but denotes every one, numbers of talents with corresponding who first opens the womb; that the “brothers” rewards, the many mansions in the Father’s of Jesus may have been either sons of Joseph house (by which Jovinian singularly by a former marriage, or, according to the understood the different churches on earth), wide Hebrew use of the term, cousins; and the comparison of the resurrection bodies that the authorities cited were more than with the stars, which differ in glory, and the balanced by the testimony of Ignatius, passage: “He which soweth sparingly, shall (?), and Irenæus. reap also sparingly; and he which soweth “Had Helvidius read these,” says he, “he bountifully, shall reap also bountifully.” would doubtless have produced something 3.47. Helvidius, Vigilantius, and Aerius. more skilful.” See especially the tracts of Jerome quoted in This whole question, it is well known, is still a the preceding section. problem in exegesis. HELVIDIUS, whether a layman or a priest at The perpetua virginitas of Mary has less Rome it is uncertain, a pupil, according to the support from Scripture than the opposite statement of Gennadius, of the Arian bishop theory. Auxentius of Milan, wrote a work, before the But it is so essential to the whole ascetic year 383, in refutation of the perpetual system, that it became from this time an virginity of the mother of the Lord—a leading article of the Catholic faith, and the denial of it point with the current glorification of was anathematized as blasphemous heresy. celibacy. A considerable number of Protestant divines, He considered the married state equal in however, agree on this point with the Catholic honor and glory to that of virginity. doctrine, and think it incompatible with the Of his fortunes we know nothing. dignity of Mary, that, after the birth of the Son

History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 46 CH304: Volume 3, Chapter 4 a Grace Notes course of God and Saviour of the world, she should He considered it superstition and idolatry. have borne ordinary children of men. He called the Christians, who worshipped the VIGILANTIUS, originally from Gaul, a presbyter “wretched bones” of dead men, ash-gatherers of Barcelona in Spain, a man of pious but and idolaters. vehement zeal, and of literary talent, wrote in He expressed himself skeptically respecting the beginning of the fifth century against the the miracles of the martyrs, contested the ascetic spirit of the age and the superstition practice of invoking them and of intercession connected with it. for the dead, as useless, and declared himself Jerome’s reply, dictated hastily in a single against the Vigils, or public worship in the night at Bethlehem in the year 406, contains night, as tending to disorder and more of personal abuse and low witticism, licentiousness. than of solid argument. This last point Jerome admits as a fact, but “There have been,” he says, “monsters on not as an argument, because the abuse should earth, centaurs, syrens, leviathans, not abolish the right use. behemoths.… Gaul alone has bred no The presbyter AERIUS of Sebaste, about 360, monsters, but has ever abounded in brave belongs also among the partial opponents of and noble men,—when, of a sudden, there has monasticism. arisen one Vigilantius, who should rather be For, though himself an ascetic, he contended called Dormitantius, contending in an impure against the fast laws and the injunction of spirit against the Spirit of Christ, and fasts at certain times, considering them an forbidding to honor the graves of the martyrs; encroachment upon Christian freedom. he rejects the Vigils—only at Easter should we sing hallelujah; he declares Epiphanius also ascribes to him three other abstemiousness to be heresy, and chastity a heretical views: denial of the superiority of nursery of licentiousness (pudicitiam, libidinis bishops to presbyters, opposition to the usual seminarium).… This innkeeper of Calagurris Easter festival, and opposition to prayers for mingles water with the wine, and would, the dead. according to ancient art, combine his poison He was hotly persecuted by the hierarchy, with the genuine faith. and was obliged to live, with his adherents, in He opposes virginity, hates chastity, cries open fields and in caves. against the fastings of the saints, and would only amidst jovial feastings amuse himself with the Psalms of . It is terrible to bear, that even bishops are companions of his wantonness, if those deserve this name, who ordain only married persons , and trust not the chastity of the single.” Vigilantius thinks it better for a man to use his money wisely, and apply it gradually to benevolent objects at home, than to lavish it all at once upon the poor or give it to the monks of Jerusalem. He went further, however, than his two predecessors, and bent his main efforts against the worship of saints and relics, which was then gaining ascendency and was fostered by monasticism.