Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/783

* MONASTICISM. 705 MONASTICISM. cloistered societies, and not to the mendicant Orders, such as the Dominicans and Franciscans, whose menihers are termed friars. The word monk is, however, sometimes loosely applied to any who sacrifice worldly advantuj^cs and rela- tionships to give themselves wholly to the ser- vice of God and their neif;hljor under the vows of poverty, chastity, and ohedience. Forms of nionasticism existeil among the so- called pagan nations long before Clirist. Buddha fciund the institution a practically essential fea- ture of Brahmanism when he l)egan his work about the sixth centuiy before Christ. Among the Brahmans, all of the members of the three highest castes were supposed to pass through a stage of life as anchorites, apart from all family relations, or were to be mendicants absorbed entirely in religious contemplation. Not all of the high-caste Brahmans followed this religious prescription. Out of these anclioritcs and mendi- cants Buddha created a monastic Order, for whom he drew up a set of rules that contain many analogies with the rules of Christian reli- gious Orders. Confucius also taught at least the principles of monasticism, and there seem to have been some followers of his advice in this matter among his disciples at all times. Among the Greeks the members of the Orphic brother- hood and the followers of Pythagoras showed marked tendencies to monasticism. In Egj-pt the worship of Serapis was associated with the foundation of monasteries. The largest institu- tion of the kind was that at Memphis, which flourished just after the Alexandrian period. German antiquaries have pointed out many similarities between the old Egyptian monasti- cism and the later Christian monastic founda- tions in the same country. Among the .Jews, the Xazirites (q.v. ) of the Olil Testament may be regarded as a sort of monastic Order, to which, it is supposed, Samuel, Samson, John the Baptist, and .James the Just belonged. The prophet Elijah is known as a hermit and an encourager of this life. There is a very old tradition that he was the original founder of the Carmelites (q.v.) ; and when Saint .Jerome founded his Order of monks at Bethlehem he said, "We have our example in Elijah, the prince of monks; our chief is Elisha; our leaders the jjrophets who dwelt in fields and solitudes and built their tents along the streams of the Jordan." The Essenes (q.v.) seem to have had some of the characteristics of a reli- gious Order ; in fact, it has been thought that their mode of life was the same in many par- ticulars as that prescribed centuries later by the rule of Saint Benedict. The first reference to the mona.stic life in Christian writers is considered by some to be a letter of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the Apostle John, who writes a.d. 107 to a convent of virgins. The Council of Chalcedon (154) formulated rules for those who assumed the monastic life, and especially for the regula- tion of their relations to bishops. The first Christian hermits seem to have established them- selves on the shores of the Red Sea. where in ante-Christian times the Therapetitae, an Order of pagan hermits, had been established. Not long afterwards the desert regions nf upper Eirypt became a favorite retreat for those who fled from the persecutions of the Chri-stians so frequent during the third century, or who found the vices of the decadent Uuniau Empire intolerable. •Vmong the earliest of these fathers of the desert was Paul of Thebes (q.v.). who lived for over one hundred years (228-340?) on the fruit of the date tree and water, clothing himself in palm leaves. After Paul came Antony (q.v.), who was the first to gather together the scat- tered' hermits in lauras. These first cienobites had their collections of cells in the deserts of the Thehaid. The life of Saint Antony was written by Athanasius, at whose request he abandoned his solitude for a time during the troubles caused by the Arians. While the heresy was rampant. Antony established him- self at Alexandria, and the fame of his sanctity, as well as his gentleness and learning, drew manv disciples to him. Not a few of these new followers accompanied Antony when he agaia retired to the desert. His greatest disciple was ilacarius of Alexandria, who died in .394, and whose reputation for wisdom and saintli- ness attracted many monks to the variovis her- mitages over which he ruled. Apparently about the beginning of the fourth century monks began to live together under a common roof, and build- ings began to be erected as monasteries instead of the separate cells in which the hermits had lived. Pachomius (q.v.) founded an immense monasterv about 340, on the island of Tabenn;e, in the Nile. He drew up for his subjects a mona.stic rule, the first definite set of regula- tions of the kind on record. Man.v thousands of disciples flocked to him, and he founded several other monasteries for men, and one for women under the direction of his sister. All of these institutions recognized the authority of a single superior — an abbot or archimandrite. They con- stitute the original type of the religious Order. Saint Basil the Great (q.v.) made a visit to the Egyptian monasteries shortly after his student days at Athens, about the time that Pachomius was beginning his work. Basil, on his return to Asia, founded monasteries in Pontus and Cappadocia, thus acquiring the name of Father of Monasticism in the East. The Greek Father drew up a set of rules, still e.xtant, which has influenced subsequent founders of religious Orders more than any other. Saint .Jerome translated the rule of Pachomius into Latin for the use of his own monks at Bethlehem and of certain of the Latins in Italy. Dom Gasquet says that in the time of Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine the monastic life was well recognized as an integral part of the Church's system. There was no established code of rules, however, to which all the monks w'ere bound to conform themselves; an individual might pass from this or that house to any other in which the monastic life was led. Monasteries continued to spring up in many parts of the West during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries. One of the most famous of these was situated on the islands of Li^rins in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of France, near the present town of Cannes. Another was that founded by Saint Martin of Tours at Poitiers, under the direction of Saint Hilary. Bishop of that city. Many monasteries flourished in Ireland during these centuries and furnished missionary monks who spread not only Christianity, but also civilization and an awakening love for literature and the arts, among the barbarians who had over- run the Continent of Europe. Columbanus, an