Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/164

 146 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. virgins and celibates constituted recognized classes within the community. Certain precepts apply to them, and certain modes of life are recognized as fit- ting, especially for the men belonging to the ascetic class of wandering preachers ; let these avoid women, and not lodge in the same houses with them.^ The functions of these preachers were gradually to be assumed by the clergy. But the celibacy which they represented could not continue among an undis- ciplined body of men living within the communities. Those who would keep their virgin state needed bar- riers between their temptations and their principles. It were best to withdraw from society ; ascetics must become anchorites, "they who have withdrawn."^ Here was clear reason why asceticism should betake itself to the desert. But the solitary life is difficult, and beyond the strength of ordinary men.^ Solitaries would be forced to associate together for mutual aid, and then would need regulations under which to live. So anchorites tend to become coenobites ; monasticism begins. Withdrawal from society and association in order to render existence tolerable were cognate phases of a general movement, the beginnings of which naturally are obscure. At the close of the third century an 1 See *' Two Letters on Virginity," Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VIII, p. 51, etc. ; also A. Harnack, " Die Pseudo-Clementinischen Briefe de Virginitate und die Entstehung des Mcinchthums," Sitzen- berichte der Berlin Akademie, 1891, I, 3G1-385. These preachers apparently were the successors to the prophets and teachers referred to in Didach4, XI, etc. 8 See, e.g., Gassian, Conl, XIX, 3^.
 * '' From avaxwpeiv.