Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/161

 vn] ORIGINS OP MONASTICISM 143 at the coming of the Lord. Should Christians hamper themselves with ephemeral domestic ties ? The con- flict was not merely with political cruelty and popular rage ; it was a warfare to the death, — to the death of the soul or to the death of sin, whereof fleshly lusts are so great and foul a part. These thoughts came to communities touched by conceptions of the e^dl nature of matter and the cravings of the flesh. Hence, be- sides considerations of the incompatibility of marriage with absolute devotion to the Christian warfare, there soon came the thought that, although lawful, it was not as holy as the virgin or celibate state. This is an ascetic thought; while the remaining reasons mili- tating against marriage spring from the desire to devote one's life entirely to other purposes. There was no disparagement of marriage in the mind of Christ, no misprisal of the life of those whom God had joined together. But everything, as call might come, must be sacrificed for the Kingdom of Heaven, — and there are some who are eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake ; blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Such teachings received special inter- pretation, perhaps before the apostolic age was past. Here the mind of Paul is not the mind of Christ. The apostle sees how marriage may conflict with the demands of the Christian life ; and his way of stating this — the unmarried man mindeth the things of the Lord, the married man mindeth the things of his wife — is indicative of a certain disparagement of marriage itself, a disparagement which appears in other of his utterances.* > See 1 Cor. vU. Bat of. Zockler, Aikew, etc., pp. 140-140.