Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/840

 RELIGIOUS

752

RELIGIOUS

the place of the monastery. Other important points may be noticed: the mendicant orders are founded

only by favour of an express approbation of the sover- eign pontiff, who approves their rules or constitutions. They adopt the form of vows which relates expUcitly to poverty, chastity, and obedience, which was oc- casioned by the famous dispute in the Franciscan Order. The Franciscans were founded by St. Francis in 1209; they are now divided into three orders recognized as really belonging to the common stock: (1) the Friars Minor, formerly called Ob- servantines, and more recently Franciscans of the Leonine Union, who may (when there is no possibiUty of mistake) be called simply Friars Minor; (2) the Friars Minor Conventuals; and (3) the Friars Minor Capuchins. The Dominicans, or Friars Preachers, go back to 1215. Since 1245, the Carmelites, trans- planted from Asia into Europe, have formed a third mendicant order. Alexander IV added a fourth by his Constitution "Licet" (2 May, 1256) which united under the name of St. Augustine several congregations of hermits: these are the Hermits of St. Augustine. The Servites were added in 1256 as a fifth mendicant order; and there are others. (See Friah.)

(d) Before we pass to a later period, it is necessary to mention certain institutes of a quite special char- acter. The military orders date from the twelfth cen- tury, and while observing all the essential obligations of religious life, they had for their object the defence of the cause of Christ by force of arms; among these were the Knights of Malta, formerly called the Eques- trian Order of St. John of Jerusalem (lllS), the Order of Teutonic Knights (1190), the Order of Knights Templars (1118), suppressed by Clement V at the Council of Vienne (1312), at the urgent request of the King of France, Philippe-le-Bel.

(e) The misfortunes of Christendom were the cause of the foundation of orders vowed to the most excellent works of mercy, namel}', the Redemption of Captives; the Trinitarians (Order of the Most Holy Trinity), and Mercedarians (Order of Our Lady of the Redemption of Captives). Both these date from the thirteenth century, the first being founded by St. John of Malta and St. Felix of Valois, the second by St. Peter Nolasco and St. Raymond of Pennafort. They follow the Rule of St. Augustine and are mendi- cant orders.

(f) The hospitaller orders are specially devoted to the relief of bodily infirmities; most of them are of comparatively recent origin. The most celebrated of all, the Order of Brothers of St. John of God, dates from 1572; the Cellite Brothers were approved by Pius II in 1459; the Brothers Hospitallers of St. Anthony were approved by Honorius III in 1218.

(g) The Clerks Regular. — The mendicant orders were one of the glories of the later Middle Ages. Fresh needs led in the sixteenth century to a new form of religious hfe, that of the clerks regular. These are priests first of all, even in respect of their mode of life, and their dress: they have no peculiarity of costume; they undertake all duties suitable to priests, and at- tend to all the spiritual necessities of their neighbour, especially the education of the young, which the men- dicant orders had never attempted. Being cle. ' s and not canons, they escaped at the same time t'le inconvenience of ha\-ing a title of honour and of bein boimtl to any particular church; many of them taki a vow not only not to seek for ecclesiastical dignities, but even not to accept them. The first were the Theatines, founded in 1524 by St. Cajetan and Car- dinal Peter Caraffa, later Paul IV; then came the Barnabites, or Regular Clerics of St. Paul, founded in 1533 by St. Anton Maria Zaccaria; the Clerks Reg- ular of Somascha, founded by St. Jerome Emiliani, and approved in 1540, the same year which saw the beginning of the Society of Jesus. We may mention also the Clerks Regular Ministering to the Sick,

called Camilians after their founder, St. Camillus de Lellis (1591). Several institutions of clerks regular, notably the Society of Jesus, make profession also of poverty in common and are thus at the same time clerks regular and mendicant orders.

(h) The Institutes with Simple \'ows. — Till the sixteenth century, the orders of the West were dis- tinguished by their object, their hierarchical organiza- tion, their patrimonial system, and the number of their vows; but the nature of the vows remained the same. The vows, at least the essential vows of reU- gion, were perpetual, and made solemn by profession. Even when the tertiaries of St. Dominic and of St. Francis began to form communities, they distin- guished themselves from the first and second orders by the rule they adopted but not by the nature of their vows, which remained solemn. The tertiary nun communities of St. Dominic received (1281-91) a rule from the Dominican general, Munio of Zamora; and communities, both of men and of women, were founded in the thirteenth centurj- with the tertiarj' Rule of St. Francis. In this waj', many works of charity were prevented. But in the sixteenth century Leo X by his Constitution "Inter cetera", 20 Jan., 1521, appointed a rule for communities of tertiaries with simple vows, according to which those only who promised clausura were obliged to observe it. St. Pius V rejected this class of congregation by his two Constitutions, "Circa pastoralis" (29 May, 1566), and "Lubricum vitse genus" (17 November, 1568). They continued, however, to exist, and even increased in number, first tolerated, and afterwards approved by the bishops; and subsequently recognized by the Holy See, which, in view of the difficulties of the cir- cumstances, has for more than a hundred years ceased to permit solemn vows in new congregations. These are the religious congregations of men and women to whom Leo XIII gave their canonical charter by his Constitution "Condita> a Christo" (8 December, 1900). We may mention here an innovation intro- duced by St. Ignatius, who in the Society of Jesus imposed simple vows for a period preceding the solemn vows, and associated with the fathers professed by solemn vows, priests and lay brothers bound by simple vows only.

(i) The Eastern Orders. — The Eastern Church, even that part of it which has remained in communion with Rome, has never known the life and many-sided vitaUty of the orders of the West: we find in it Monks of St. Anthony, and others of St. Pachomius; almost all the monasteries are Basilian. As the priests of the Greek Rite are not compelled to leave the wives whom they have legally married, and as celibacy is never- theless obligatory for the bishops, the latter are regularly chosen from among the monks. From an- other point of view, the unchanging East shows us in the monks of the present day, the institutions of the first ages of cenobitic life.

III. Exposition of the Religious Life. (1) Classical Description of Religious Life; Essential and Non-essenticil Points. — In our rapid survey of the different religious orders, we have seen some- thing of the evolution of the religious life. The Gpspel clearly shows us virginity and continence as means, and charity as the end; persecutions necessi- tated retirement "and a first form of life entirely 'irected towards personal sanctification; community hfe produced obedience; the inconveniences caused by frequent change of residence suggested the vow of stability; the excessive multiplication and diversity of religious institutes called for the intervention of the sovereign pontiff and his express approbation of rules; the needs of soul and body grafted the practice of corporal and spiritual works of mercy upon per- sonal sanctification, and joined the reception of Holy orders to religious profession; while the exigencies and difficulties of modern times caused the making of