Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/379

CHAP. XV warfare could be fully known only to the monk. "Tentatio," says Caesar of Heisterbach, "est militia," i.e. warfare; it is possible only for those who live humanly and rationally, after the spirit, which is to say, as monks; "the seculars (i.e. the clergy who were not monks) and the carnal (i.e. the laity) who walk according to the flesh, are improperly said to be tempted; for as soon as they feel the temptation they consent, or resist lukewarmly, like the horse and the mule who have no understanding."

We have spoken of the inception of monasticism, and of its early motives, which included the fear of hell, the love of Christ, and the conviction of the antagonism between pleasure and that service which opens heaven's gates. Such sentiments were likely to develop and expand. The fear of hell might be inflamed and made visible by the same imagination that festered over the carnality of pleasure; the heart could impassion and extend the love of Christ through humanity's full capacity for loving what was holiest and most lovable; and the mind could attain to an over-mastering conviction of the incompatibility of pleasure with absolute devotion. Through the Middle Ages these motives developed and grew together, until they made a mode of life, and fashioned human characters into accord with it. Century after century the lives of thousands fulfilled the monastic spirit, and often so perfectly as to belie humanity's repute for frailty. Their virtues shunned encomium. Record was made of those whose mind and energy organized and wrought, or whose piety and love of God burned so hotly that others were enkindled. But legion upon legion of tacit lives are registered only in the Book with seven seals.

Monastic abuses have usually spoken more loudly than monastic regularity. In Christian monasticism there is an energy of renovation which constantly cries against corruption. Its invective reaches us from all the mediaeval centuries; while monastic regularity has more commonly been unreported. It is well to bear this in mind when