Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/839

 RELIGIOUS

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RELIGIOUS

suchungen", 1907). The oldest decretal we possess, that of St. Siricius to the Bishop Himerius (385), brands with infamy the carnal intercourse of monks and virgins, but the question of a regular marriage is not considered (C. XXVII, q. 1, c. 11, or P. L., XIII, 137). Schenute, it is true, introduced a form of vow, or rather of oath, of which the Coptic text has been discovered; but the verj' reflections which he made before introducing it appear to show that it had no other effect than to secure the execution even in secret of the obligations already contracted by en- trance into the monasterj': these vows therefore may be compared to the vows made at baptism. No term is specified for their duration, but Leclercq (in Cabrol, "Diet, d'arch. chret.", s. v. Cenobiti.sme) presumes that the obligation continued during the term of residence in the monastery. The text is as follows, taken from the German translation of Leipolt: — "Covenant. I promise (or I swear) before God in His holy temple, in which the word that I hav'e spoken is my witness, that I will not defile my body in any way, I will not steal, I will not bear false witness, I will not he, I will not do wrong in secret. If I break my oath, I am willing not to enter into the kingdom of heaven, although I were in sight of it. [On this passage, cfr. Peeters, in "Analecta BoUandiana", 1905, 146.] God, before whom I have made this covenant, will then destroy my body and soul in hell, for I should have broken the oath of allegiance that I have taken." And later on occurs this passage: "As for contradiction, disobedience, murmuring, conten- tion, obstinacy, or any such things, these faults are quite manifest to the whole community" (Leipolt, "Schenuti von Atripe" in "Te.xte und Untersuch- ungen", 1903, p. 109).

(v) Canon Law. — The canons of the Council of Gangra (330) first introduced the law relating to regulars by the recommendations which they address to virgins, continent persons, and those who retire from worldly affairs, to practise more faithfully the general duties of piety towards parents, children, husband or wife, and to avoid vanity or pride. Other particular councils, that of Alexandria (362), of Sara- gossa (3.S0), the Fifth Synod of Africa (401), and a council held under St. Patrick in Ireland (about 480), decided other matters connected with the religious life. The General Council of Chalcedon (451) makes the erection of monasteries dependent on the consent of the bishop. The Councils of Aries (about 452) and Angers (455) sanction the obligation of persever- ance. The same Council of .Aries and the Synods of Carthage held in 525 and 534 forbade any inter- ference with the abbot in the exercise of his authority over his monks, reserving to bishops the ordination of clerics in the monastery, and the consecration of the oratorj'.

(2) Regular Organization of Religious Life. — (a) Monks and Monasteries. — We have now arrived at the sixth centurj'. It will be necessary to go back a little in order to notice the immense influence of St. Basil (331-79) over the religious Ufe of the East and the West. The principles which he lays down and justi- fies in his answers to the doubts of the religious of Asia Minor, that is in what are called the shorter and longer rules, inform and guide the religious of the present day. St. Benedict was inspired by these as well as by the writings of St. Augustine and Cassian in writing his rule, which from the eighth to the twelfth century regulated, it may be said, the whole religious life of the West. In order to put an end to the capricious changes from one house to another, the patriarch of Western monks introduced the vow of stabiUty, which bound the monk to remain in the hou.se in which he made his profession. The reforms of the monasteries in the tenth and eleventh centuries gave rise to aggregations of monasteries, which pre- pared the way for the religious orders of the thirteenth

century. We may mention the Congregation of Cluny founde'd by St. Odo (abbot from 927 to 942) which, in the twelfth centurj' grouped more than 200 monas- teries under the authority of the abbot of the principal monasterj', and of the Congregation of Citeaux, of the eleventh centurj', to which the Trappists belong, and of which St. Bernard was the principal hght. Less for the sake of reform than of perfection, and of adapting to a special end the combination of the cenobitic and eremitic life, St. Romuald (d. 1027) founded the Cam- aldolese Order, and St. John Gualbert (d. 1073) the Congregation of Vallombrosa. From the eleventh centurj- also (1084) date the Carthusians, who have needed no reform to maintain them in their pristine fervour. St. Basil and St. Benedict were ex-pressly concerned onlj- with personal perfection, to which their disciples were to be led bj' leaving the world and renouncing all earthlj- wealth and natural affections. Their life was a Hfe of obedience and prayer, inter- rupted onty bj' work. Their prayer principally con- sisted in singing the Divine Office. But when it was necessary, the monks did not refuse to undertake the cure of souls; and their monasteries have given to the Church popes, bishops, and missionary priests. We need onlj- recall the expedition organized bj' St. Greg- ory the Great for the conversion of England. Study was neither ordered not forbidden : St. Benedict, when he accepted in his monasteries children offered by their parents, undertook the task of education, which naturallj' led to the foundation of schools and studies. Cassiodorus (477-570) emploj-ed his monks in the arts and sciences and in the transcription of manu- scripts.

(b) The Canons Regular. — Manj' bishops endeav- oured to imitate St. Augustine and St. Eusebius, and to Uve a common life with the clergj' of their Church. Rules taken from the sacred canons were even drawn up for their use, of which the most celebrated is that of St. Chrodegang. Bishop of Metz (766). In the tenth centurj', this institution declined; the canons, as the clergj' attached to a church and living a common life were called, began to live separatelj'; some of them, howe\-er, resisted this relaxation of discipUne, and even added povertj' to their common Ufe. This is the origin of the canons regular. Benedict XII by his Constitution ".\d decorem" (15 Maj', 1339) pre- scribed a general reform of the canons regular. Among the canons regular of the present day, we may men- tion the Canons Regular of the Lateran or St. Saviour, who seem to date back to .\lexander II (1063), the Premonstratensian Canons founded by St. Norbert (1120), and the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross founded at Clair-lieu, near Huy, in Belgium, in 1211. The canons regular ex professo united Holy orders with religious life, and being attached to a church, devoted themselves to promoting the dignity of Divine worship. With monks, Holj' orders are acci- dental and secondarj', and are superadded to the reli- gious life; with canons as with the clerks regular. Holy orders are the principal thing, and the religious life is superadded to the Holj' orders.

(c) The Mendicant "Orders. — The heretics of the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centurj' reproached churchmen with their love of riches, and the laxity of their lives; St. Dominic and St. Francis offered on the contrarj' the edifying spec- tacle of fervent religious, who forbade their followers the possession of wealth or revenues, even in common. The mendicant orders are marked by two character- istics: povertj', practised in common; and the mixed life, that is the union of contemplation with the work of the sacred ministrj'. Moreover, the mendicant orders present the appearance of a religious armj-, the soldiers of which are moved about by their superiors, without being attached to any particular convent, and recognize a hierarchy of local, provincial, and general superiors. The order, or at least the province, takes