Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/211

 vii] THE MONASTIC CHARACTER 193 But how could Augustine have high thoughts of love and marriage ? Could he lift himself out of his time, and forestall the development of future ages? He would have been obliged to create such conceptions. Christ recognized the holiness of marriage, yet hardly in fifteen centuries did marriage reach its full sancti- fication in the spirit of His teachings. The causes which brought about monasticism prevented the recog- nition of the absolute holiness of marriage within the Christian communities. Life in those communities was environed by jjagan conceptions of love and mar- riage, in which there was little to present an ideal according with Christianity's continual exaction of the best. So marriage fell below the demands of Christian idealism ; it was not raised to their level, but was definitely numbered with those things which might be tolerated but could not be admired. Absolute holiness lay only in virginity. This was the monastic outcome. And strange were to be the far effects. For, in the course of centuries, love's inspiration was to assert its own nobility, but not always within the bonds of matrimony. Through the Middle Ages the thought of love as inspiration grew indeed, but whether there was marriage or adultery between the lovers was not the first consideration.* Benedict of Nursia was holy from his youth ; from his childhood carrying an old man's heart, ab ipso sitae pueritiae tempore cor gereiis senile,* a phrase revealing monastic ideals of holiness. The character of Bene- 1 The Arthurian cycle of poetry and the Roman de la Rote bear witness to this. o
 * Gregorins Bfagnos, Dialogic II, prologue.