Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/167

 vn] ORIGINS OF MONASTICISM 149 monks must likewise labor, and may labor to better advantage by a division of tasks. Both recluse and monk must labor also for the wherewithal to exercise charity and hospitality, virtues which the monks of the East did not lack. No less important was labor as a discipline. This was recognized in the regula of Pachomius. The recluse, too, found labor a necessity, if he would retain sanity of mind and body. Only it was characteristic of the lack of practical purpose in the beginning of the movement, that hermits often set themselves absurd tasks, as they practised pre- posterous austerities. A man like Pachomius, finding himself at the head of a community of monks, would direct their disciplinary and other labors to usefulness, and their ascetic practices to the reasonable exercise and betterment of the soul. The hermit must labor, though he had no one to obey. But from the first establishment of a monastic community, obedience was a necessary principle of its existence. There must be rules, and obedience to them. Christianity emanated from the example and the words of Christ. It was conformity to the one and obedience to the other, in humility of soul as a little child. The authority of the Lord was personal, and given to Him from above, not depending on human election. From above — from Christ — came the au- thority of the apostles, and so on downward in widen- ing circles, ever from above. It fell in with general Christian principles that monks should obey an abbot. This also fell in with the habits of the £a8t, where authority emanates always from a man. Obedience also sprang from the manner of monastic origins,