Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/154

 CHAPTER VII ABANDONMENT OF PAGAN PRINCIPLES IN A CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF LIFE I. Origins of Monasticism From the thoughts of Augustine and Lactantius regarding love and the emotions akin or contrary to it, we may turn to the practical decision upon these matters given by the lives of Christians. Was there some mode of life definitely determined on, and so strongly and widely followed as to represent Chris- tian sentiment ? The problem was, What human feel- ings, what loves and interests of this world, shall the Christian recognize as according with his faith, and as offering no opposition to the love of God and the attainment of eternal life? It was solved by the growth of an indeterminate asceticism within the Christian communities, which in the fourth century went forth with power, and peopled the desert with anchorites and monks.^ Monasticism was asceticism; it had also motives which were not ascetic. The original meaning of a(TKr]<nsy from the verb ao-Kciv, is exercise for the im- 1 In the following pages the term " anchorite," or " hermit," is used to mean a solitary ascetic; the term "monk" to mean a coenobite, or member of an ascetic or monastic community. 136