Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/166

 148 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. His regula was the first formulated code of monastic life. It directed that each monk should eat accord- ing to his needs, and labor according to his food and strength. It also prescribed common meals, to be taken in silence, and the manner in which monks should sleep, three in a cell; also their dress, their fastings, their prayers, their treatment of strangers, and other matters. The regula did not demand ex- traordinary austerities, nor impose burdens beyond human strength. In the generation after Pachomius' death, when the monks of Egypt, of Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor numbered many thousands, the great St. Basil of Cappadocia wrote regulae (opot) in the form of questions and answers. Their extraordinary disorder and confusion made them difficult to follow as a rule of monastic life. Yet they were generally accepted in the East, and strongly influenced Western monasticism. Thus in the East, beginning in Egypt, Christian asceticism leaves society, flees to the desert, secludes itself in hermit cells, and organizes itself in monastic life. At first it is extreme, doing acts of austerity which could but craze or brutalize ; then in communi- ties it regulates itself, restrains its insanities, betakes itself to labor, and in Christian humility bows its neck to obey. It is regulated by the Church through Basil. The fundamental principles of labor and obedience arose from the nature and necessities of monasticism and from the spirit of Christianity. The solitary recluse must labor to supply his wants j associated