Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/196

 178 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. possibilities for monastic action upon the world than Basil's laxer rules. Impelled by exigencies which were opportunities, the genius of the West was to enter into Benedict's monastic rule, and find it to be a goodly mode of life, in which he who would could serve God mightily in missionary labors among bar- barians, as well as in prayer and contemplation, or by copying manuscripts in the cloister. III. The Monastic Character Monasticism and dogma, these are two great legacies bequeathed by the transition centuries to the Middle Ages : dogma the interpretation of Christianity in doc- trinal formulation, monasticism the interpretation of Christianity in a way of life, the chief practical mode of Christianity set by the transition centuries and accepted by the Middle Ages as the perfect Christian life. Dogma was expressed in terms of Greek philoso- phy ; but pagan elements have been eliminated from monasticism. It is the contrast of contrasts with all that is antique. Although not a complete interpreta- tion of Christianity, still it is Christian. And one rea- son why the man of the Middle Ages in his religious thought and feeling is less pagan than the Grseco- Eoman Christians of the third, fourth, or fifth centu- ries lies in the fact that the Middle Ages received Christianity through monasticism and looked to that as the ideal Christian life. The monastic life, as it assumed definite form under the regula of Benedict, might hold divergent motives.