Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/160

 142 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. circles, and may have furnished suggestion to Christian monks. But nothing more. Monasticism arose from within Christianity, not from without. The circumstances of the early Christian communi- ties were such as to develop a sense of opposition between Christianity and the pagan world. The life of the Church was many-sided conflict : to advance in spite of imperial persecution and the pagan people's hate, and to preserve the Christian faith as delivered to the saints, and keep the lives of Christians pure from corruption. Christianity was militant from the beginning. The Lord had said, " My Kingdom is not of this world. '^ The conflict between Christ and the World was a matter of universal life ; and its setting forth in the gospel of John might be misunderstood. How was the Church to realize that all positive ele- ments of life were on the side of Christ ? In the first epistle of John, the opposition between Christ and the World is absolute. Likewise in the Apocalypse all is conflict. To the seer's eye is disclosed the final storm, and then the peace of victory — a new heaven and a new earth, tears wiped away, no more death, no more mourning, no more pain, but the water of the tree of life given freely to him that is athirst ; he that over- cometh shall inherit, and shall be a son of God. It is all a vision of the verity of Christian warfare, shortened in the coming of eternal peace : ^' 1 come quickly ! " " Yea, come. Lord Jesus," cries the heart of the seer. For such a mighty conflict with the world it behooved a Christian to be an athlete with his loins girded. There was no time for other matters while the conflict raged, which was so soon to be crowned with victory