Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/168

 160 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. when aximiring hermits grouped themselves around one whom they looked upon as their superior in wisdom and sanctity. The principle of obedience is assumed by the rule of Pachomius, and becomes explicit with Basil, the first regulator-general of monasticism. This mighty episcopal saint lays stress upon it. Let caution be used in permitting men to enter upon monastic life and take its vows; after that, a monk who refuses obedience commits deadly sin. A monk shall not follow his own will, but what is set by others.^ In the West, more masterfully, monastic life was to be re- nunciation of the individual selfish will, and the doing of the commands of God, given through those who for the monk were God's representatives. If the Christian churches had been kept continually in the purifying fires of persecution, ascetic devotion might have continued to find within them scope for its energy and safeguards for its life. The persecuted and the martyred did not need to crucify the flesh in the desert. Whenever persecution ceased, laxity of manners and morals invaded Christian communi- ties. From the time of Constantine, it became con- venient for the world, evil and good, to cloak itself with Christianity. The tremendous increase of mo- nasticism, and of the celibate life even outside of monasteries, was the answering protest of the fervent Christian life. The anchorite and the monk do not represent a flight from persecution, from hard- ship, or from danger, but a flight from luxury and sin. Not in times of persecution, but after the ^Reg./usius (A),XLL