Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/729

Rh MONACHISM 701 AVhile the system won the admiration of all the most emi nent Christian teachers of the age which saw its birth and early growth, and while we are met by a still more remark able fact that from the time when monachism was fairly established till we enter on the Middle Ages there are but two or three names of distinction amongst the clergy, whether as writers or administrators, to be found outside the ranks of monachism, amongst whom the most famous are Ambrose and Leo the Great, nevertheless, there is a heavy account on the other side. Not only did the institute speedily find itself caricatured by the Messalians, Euchites, Gyrovagi, Sarabaites or Remoboth, Circumcel- liones, and other companies of professed ascetics, wild in doctrine, vagrant in habits, and turbulent in conduct, but the more genuine societies had scarcely fewer faults in too many cases. Lay in their origin, and for the greater part of their earlier history having but rarely ecclesiastics amongst them (a single priest ordained for each monastery to minister to its inmates being the utmost allowed for a considerable time), they were not subject to the same strict inspection and discipline as the clergy, in case a whole community chose to disregard its rule ; though of course it was easy to deal with an offender who had the tone of his monastery against him. The clergy were subject to the direct control of the bishops, and many disciplinary canons of councils laid down rules for their conduct ; but this was not the case with the monks for a considerable time nor indeed ever effectively in the East- and their lay character gave them practical independence of any authority external to their abbot. And, despite the stringency of the mon astic rule itself, which, even before actual vows began to be introduced (probably on the recommendation of Basil), always involved during compliance with it the three engagements to the observance of poverty, chastity, and obedience, which make up the staple of the monastic principle, and though pains were taken to exclude unfit applicants (such as criminals, slaves who had fled for rea sons other than ill-treatment, or persons who had kindred dependent on them), while a long probation was exacted from all who were accepted, yet it was impossible that more than a small proportion of the many thousands who flocked in during the first enthusiasm for the new move ment should have had any real sympathy with the re straints and aspirations of such a mode of life. Severe asceticism operates differently on different natures, and while there are some whom it does but discipline and refine there are more whom it tends to coarsen and to brutalize, even apart from the many whom it is apt to affect with morbidness, if not actual insanity. And it is unquestionable that vast numbers of those who entered on the monastic life came from the poorer classes, in search of some less toilsome mode of existence than they had previously led, preferring the contemplative societies, wherein almost no labour, certainly none of a severe and trying cast, was practised, to those where agriculture and other active employments, requiring more energy than mat and basket weaving, were enjoined. Such men, unedu cated and undisciplined, were liable to be thrown entirely out of gear by the complete revolution in their mode of life, especially when the community they joined was not only contemplative, but situated in some place where the ungrateful soil made tillage nearly impracticable, and the vast numbers crowded together were far too numerous for any tasks which could be assigned them. From the bosom of such societies came not only single examples of exagger ated spiritual pride, bitter fanaticism, avaricious greed of the scanty articles whose usufruct was permitted, fierce sensuality, and wild religious delusions, but they gave birth to companies like the POCTKOI, or &quot; grazing monks,&quot; of Mesopotamia and Palestine, who roved about, shelter less and nearly naked, as Sozomen and Evagrius tell us, in the mountains and deserts, grovelling on the earth, and browsing like cattle on the herbs they casually found ; and to those fierce bands of Nitrian and Syrian ascetics who, reared in the narrowest of schools, treated any divergence from their own standard of opinion as a crime which they were entitled to punish in their own riotous fashion, two instances of which have left an indelible brand on their history the murder of Hypatia in Alexandria, and that of the patriarch Flavian at the Robber Synod of Ephesus. An equally singular, but more sporadic and temporary, form of asceticism was that of the Stylites or Pillar-hermits (oruAtTcu, /aoviTcu), who followed a fashion first set by Simeon, a Syrian monk who spent almost half of the 5th century on the summit of a column 60 feet in height. This unwonted kind of austerity at first gave rise to strong objections, even from hermits themselves, and a messenger was sent to Simeon, bidding him in the name of a synod of bishops to descend from his pillar, but with instruc tions to permit him to remain if he showed himself ready to comply. Such proved to be the case ; and, having thus assured themselves that he was not influenced by spiritual pride, they left him to follow his own devices. And we have the direct personal testimony of the wise and tem perate Theodoret that he exercised a strong and salutary influence over the nomadic Saracen tribes, converting many hundreds and even thousands to Christianity, besides being the shrewd and trusted adviser, not only of the peasants who flocked to him for counsel, but of Arab princes, Per sian kings, and even Roman emperors. He cannot be judged, therefore, by ordinary standards, and it is more than likely that a less extraordinary mode of life would have given him less power for good ; but he is the only eminent figure in the class to which he belongs, and the fashion he set may be said to have died out with his name sake, the younger Simeon, a century later. Even when the healthier side of monachism as it appeared in Egypt and Syria is dwelt upon, and the fullest weight is allowed to the contemporary pictures drawn by great Christian writers of the monasteries as schools of a philosophy truer and purer than that of the Porch or the Academy, as places where the equality and brotherhood, merely dreamed of as unrealizable fancies in the outer world, could be seen in living action where children, deserted by their parents or otherwise orphaned, were carefully reared where the sick were lovingly tended where calmness, piety, and self-for- getfulness were the rule of all, it must be confessed that the complaint of the Government, embodied in the hostile legislation of the emperor Valens in 373, subjecting monks to the conscription (which drew forth an indignant protest from Chrysostom), that monachism was injurious to society and to the healthy condition of civil life by draining off so large a fraction of the population into the backwater of the cloister, was perfectly well founded. And no small part of the overthrow of Christianity in Egypt and Syria by Islam is due to the practical with drawal of all the devout from family and public life, leaving no spiritual energy to cope with the Koran in the towns and villages whither the conquering Arabs came to settle and proselytize. The history of monachism in the West is far more varied, Propaga- chequered, and interesting than in the East. It takes its beginning from the visit of Athanasius to Rome in 340, during his second term of exile, when he brought with him his Life of St Anthony, and pressed his example on the Roman Christians who mourned as patriots, not less than as devotees, over the lax and enervated habits of society. The popular imagination was caught at once, and not only was the basis of monachism successfully laid in Rome itself, but Eusebius of Vercelli introduced it