The spirit and origin of Christian monasticism

Front matter

a.

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Bee Sees

Chapter I Introductory—protestantism And The Ascetic Spirit

Divergence between Catholics and Protestants in their conception of the Christian life—The Catholic ideal—the ascetic life—The Protestant ideal—the life of good citizenship — Protestant opposition to the Catholic ideal—The ascetic ideal unrepresented in English literature—objections to the ascetic ideal easily understood in the case of philosophic historians—men of science—liberal thinkers of the nineteenth century—Harder to understand in the case of Protestantism, a ~e/4gzon—Probable reasons — degeneracy of monks at the time of the Reformation—Luther’s assertion of ‘‘ justification by faith alone”—the humanist spirit which found for itself a home in Protestantism—Protestantism has never succeeded in expelling the ascetic ideal—Ascetic spirit of—the German and Dutch Anabaptists—the Quakers—John Wesley and the Methodists—the Shakers—the Plymouth Brethren—Tolstoi and his followers—Study of the ascetic spirit in Christianity to be approached from the historic standpoint . ‘ page 3

Chapter II Asceticism In The Apostolic Age

The Christian life in the apostolic age was highly ascetic— Asceticism the refusal to compromise with the world—Two beliefs which made for asceticism in this age—Expectation of an immediate second advent—Belief in the reality and power of demons—Demons regarded as ruling the world and the Roman Empire—as existing in the forms of pagan idols— Ascetic communism in the Church of Jerusalem—Early Christian views of wealth and poverty—Fasting—virginity— Philo’s De Vité Contemplivé quoted by Eusebius as a description of Christian life shows that Eusebius must have regarded the early Christians as ascetic—Early Christian asceticism instinctive, unreasoned, unorganised—flowed from love of a desire to imitate Christ—Soon the growth of the Church forced on her the question, ‘‘ Must the Christian life be ascetic?” — Difficulties of magistrates — soldiers — artists — children of Christian parents—Importance of this question . 31

Vil viii CONTENTS

Chapter III Christian Asceticism In The Second And Third Centuries

The Church’s struggle with Gnosticism—Gnostic dualism resulted in a kind of asceticism which was condemned by the Church —Struggle with Montanism—A struggle about morality, not doctrine—Montanist prophecy—The Church begins to compromise with the world—The Montanist protest—Their position with regard to second marriage—They declare all Christian life must be ascetic—They are condemned by the Church— Another protest in Rome—Hippolytus protests against Callixtus, Bishop of Rome, and forms an ascetic schism—The Novatian protest—The Church becomes a training school for righteousness—Narcissus of Jerusalem the first hermit—The ascetics of the pseudo-Clementine epistles—Ascetics mentioned by Eusebius — Methodius’ Banguet of the Ten Virgins — Origen’s ascetic teaching—poverty—virginity—deeds of mercy —contemplation—He is far in advance of his contemporaries —His influence more felt in after generations—Importance of the study of asceticism in the second and third centuries for a right understanding of later monasticism A - page 57

Chapter IV St. Antony And Early Egyptian Monasticism

Sketch of the life and character of St. Antony—Secrets of his greatness—Other Egyptian hermits—Reasons for their adopting the hermit life—Their attitude towards the Church—Their aim a return to apostolic Christianity—Their retirement from the world meant also a retirement from the Church—Their lives lived at first literally alone with God—Gradual formation of lauras and rules in Lower Egypt—Development of common worship—Churches and priests in the desert—Upper ‘Egypt produced in the Pachomian monasteries far more \perfect organisation—St. Pachomius’ rule—Two stories illustrating the feeling of the monks for the clergy—Final close union of the monks with the Church in Egypt—Causes— Influence of St. Antony—St. Athanasius—Ascetics’ insistence on the virtue of obedience—Circumstances of the Egyptian Church . ; ; : : é OS

CONTENTS ix

Chapter V The Life And Ideal Of The Egyptian Monks

List of eight principal faults—Gluttony“of two kinds—The remedy is fasting—Estimate of the spiritual value of fasting —Fornicatiom‘ Angelica ordo”—Evil thoughts—How conquered—The demon of impurity—This sin not overemphasised by the monks—Avarice*-Its opposite, poverty—True poverty —Complete renunciation—Poverty and virginity necessary for monastic life—Angetno such thing as righteous anger— Hermit life no safeguard against anger—The demon of anger —Patience the opposite of anger—Dejection*-Two kinds of dejection—Depression—Despair—Terrible consequences of despair—Accidie“ Meaning of the word—Description of a monk suffering from accidie—The remedy for accidie— Useless remedies — Vainglory Distinction between vainglory and pride—It is an insidious fault—‘‘ Ama nesciri”—Pridé“The demon of pride—Its opposite is humility—High estimate of this virtue—The highest expression of humility is discretion— Meaning of discretion—More than sanctified common sense —The discernment of spirits—Description of discretion by St. Antony—by St. Marcarius . : ‘ «| Page 135

Chapter VI St. Basil And Eastern Monasticism

Contrast between Egyptian and Eastern monasticism—Prejudice in the East against the monks—Ascetic eccentricities—Schismatic tendencies—The Boskoi—The Remoboth—The Audiani —The Euchites—Eustathius of Sebaste—His dogmatic position —His monasticism—The Council of Gangra—The Covstztutiones Asceticae—Eustathius the friend of St. Basil—St. Basil’s sympathy with the monks—His quarrel with Eustathius—St. Basil’s work for monasticism—St. Basil not the author of a monastic rule—Tone of his ascetic writings—Contrasted with St. Benedict—St. Basil on (1) Silence, (2) Temperance, (3) Work—Aim of his ascetic teaching—Connects asceticism with the great truths of the creed—His preference for the ccenobitic life—His insistence on labour for monks—He moderates fasting —Gradual acceptance of the Basilian ideal in the East— Legislation, (1) ecclesiastical, (2) civil—The rule of Theodore the Studite—Its influence—Contrast between Eastern and Western monasticism—Western monks the true heirs of St. Basil’s spirit ; : ‘ ’ : i ANZ

I) CONTENTS

Chapter VII

THE DEVELOPMENT OF WESTERN MONASTICISM UP TO THE TIME OF ST. BENEDICT

Great importance of the history of Western monasticism— Influence of St. Athanasius in the West—Monastic foundations in (1) Rome, (2) Northern Italy, (3) Southern Italy, (4) Gaul, (5) the islands—Clerical patronage of Western monasticism—Hold of the movement upon the upper classes— Intercourse between Eastern and Western monks—Milder discipline in the West—Tendency towards organisation— Early Western rules—St. Augustine’s rule for nuns—The influence of Egypt through Cassian and of the East through St. Basil—The rule of St. Benedict—Compared with the writings of St. Basil and the /mstztutes of Cassian—Six points of advance—Their influence upon Western monasticism /age 203

Chapter VIII

THE BENEDICTINE RULE—ITS SPREAD AND ITS IDEAL he Benedictine rule fixed the development of Western monasticism—It became universal in the West—Monte Casino founded —The spread of the rule—The influence of Gregory the Great —The destruction of Monte Casino—The mission to England —Gregory’s life of St. Benedict—The Benedictine rule supersedes others— Receives practical modification—The influence of St. Boniface—He is a missionary and a reformer—The restoration of Monte Casino—The Benedictine Order a vast brotherhood—Is it a true development of Egyptian monasticism ?— The spirit of the rule—“ Dominicé schola servitz¢”’—The power and duty of the abbot—His care for erring souls—The obedience of the monks—Their labour—Their scholarship—Their: charity and hospitality—Their virtues— The reception of new members—Their renunciation of property—Their separation from the world—Comparison of the Benedictine Order and the Jesuit Society—Superiority of the Benedictines—Causes of their superiority—Condition of their time—Spirit of their rule —Modern Anglican monasticism : } . heey

CONTENTS xi APPENDIX I.—Pre-Christian Asceticism and its connection with the Christian Monastic Life : : . page 255

APPENDIX II.—On the Value of the Sources of early sahil Monastic History made use of in Chapters IV. and As 274

AppENDIx III.—The History and Meaning of the Patristic Distinction between Counsels and Precepts . : +) $287 i ! j An bf Wy | 4: Fi ah wi) ye aie NAG ie Pe ’ a we a eed Ve SH ah Pune seqngtih ibtabiniehd: vit

A lid Le iN Bris | i ery hi A aks tat Ty ae es

Preface

HE work which is here offered to the public is

based upon the Donnellan lectures delivered before the University of Dublin in the chapel of Trinity College in 1901-1902. The first four chapters correspond to the first four lectures. The fifth chapter is entirely new. Chapters vi. vii. and viii. correspond to the fifth and sixth lectures. The appendices are new.

The spirit and origin of monasticism is a subject which has received very little attention from English writers. It is, of course, treated in standard Church histories, but not satisfactorily. It has been made the subject of some chapters in a book recently published under the title of Culture and Restraint. This book might have been of some value if the author had read the literature of early monasticism before writing about it. Another English book, Zhe Rise of Christian Monasticism, suffers from an opposite fault. The author has read the literature, but has somehow failed to grasp the spirit which animated it. I only know one other recent English book devoted xiii

Xiv PREFACE to the subject—Dom Cuthbert Butler’s Prolegomena to the Laustac History. The author refuses to discuss the monastic ideal, and confines himself to the consideration of facts and the criticism of literature. This work is, in my opinion, the ablest recent contribution to the study of Egyptian monasticism made either in England or elsewhere. I am deeply indebted to this book.

If, however, my subject has received but little attention in this country, it has during recent years drawn from German and French scholars a whole series of valuable works. I shall mention only the names of the following, to whom I feel especially indebted — Zockler, Harnack, Grutzmacher, Ph. Meyer, Spreitzenhofer, and Amélineau. I have referred in my notes to particular works of these authors.

These two facts—that my subject has occupied English scholars very little and Continental scholars a great deal—form my justification for publishing this book. |

I am conscious that I have little other justification. I have worked under a double disadvantage. In the first place, I live far from any centre of intellectual life. The Rev. J. A. Bain helped me in selecting and reading German authors. The Rev. W. M. Foley read over a rough draft of the original lectures and made some valuable suggestions. The Rev. C. S. Collins materially helped me in the work of verifying

PREFACE XV references, Otherwise I have worked almost alone. In the second place, I have only occasionally had access to any great public library. One very fine private library—that of the Marquis of Sligo—lI have had at my disposal, for which I am sincerely srateful. I have also had the benefit, in buying, of Mr. W. E. Kelly’s experience and knowledge of books. Even with these helps I have frequently felt the want of books which I could only now and then consult.

I wish, finally, to express my gratitude to the Dean of St. Patrick’s, for the interest he has taken in my work and his unvarying kindness and sympathy in all that concerned it.

Je Ou:

WESTPORT, 1903

A pre hai aa tn Gh oe D | mist OF VAULTHORIVIES AND AULHORS CITED

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HiST OF TAU PHORITIES CITED. vxxi

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xxil LIST OF AUTHORITIES CITED

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i a

INTRODUCTORY—PROTESTANTISM AND DHE VASCETICy SPik is

His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him! Lo! Lieth flat and loveth Setebos !

Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip, Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month One little mess of whelks, so he may ’scape ! Caliban upon Setebos.

But, Socrates, what is this pursuit of yours? Whence come these calumnies against you? You must have been engaged in some pursuit out of the common. All these stories and reports of you would never have gone about if you had not been in some way different from other men. So tell us what your pursuits are, that we may not give our verdict in the dark.

I think that that is a fair question, and I will try to explain to you what has raised these calumnies against me and given me this name. Listen, then. I assure you that I will tell you the whole truth. I have gained this name, Athenians, simply by reason of a certain wisdom. But by what kind of wisdom? It is by just that wisdom

which I believe is possible to men. In that it may be I am really wise. Do not interrupt me, Athenians, even if you think that I am speaking arrogantly; I will tell you who said it, and he is worthy of your credit. I will bring the God of Delphi to be the witness of the fact of my wisdom and of its nature. You remember Chaerephon. Once he went to Delphi and ventured to put this question to the oracle —lI intreat you again, my friends, not to cry out—he asked if there was any man wiser than I, and the priestess answered that there was no man, The Apology of Socrates.

THE SPIRIT AND ORIGIN OF CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM

Chapter I Introductory—protestantism And Che Asce Tic Spirit

T is not so much doctrinal differences or political exigencies which split Christendom into the opposing camps of Protestants and Catholics, as a divergence amounting to a contradiction between two conceptions of the Christian life.1 Dogmas from time to time alter their meaning, or lose almost all vital meaning. It has been so with many of the doctrines which it once was the very life of Protestantism to maintain. Anyone who has watched the gradual change which has come over the theology of English Nonconformists and the alteration at least in the emphasis of Anglican doctrinal statements will readily understand that dogmatic positions, however apparently irreconcilable, have no permanent power

} Harnack, Afonchtum: seine Ideale und seine Geschichte, p. 1.

to keep Christians apart from each other. In the same way political situations which once seemed to deepen beyond hope the cleavage line of Christendom have shifted with the rapidity and variety of the views in a kaleidoscope, so that now nowhere, except perhaps in Ireland, can politics or patriotism have much effect in separating or uniting bodies of Christians. And yet, in spite of the loss of interest in the old controversies and the removal of political barriers, Catholicism and Protestantism are as far apart as ever. Protestants may become Catholics, Protestant bodies even may become Catholic in faith and sympathy, but Protestantism and Catholicism cannot coalesce. They have different ideals, different conceptions of what the Christian life is or may be at its best. Men with different goals in view cannot journey far together along a road. No doctrinal compromise, were such a thing possible, could ever unite into one company Christians who look to their religion to produce different results. The Catholic ideal is the ascetic life. The true monk is the perfect Christian. “This,” says St. Thomas a Kempis, “is the highest wisdom, by contempt of the world to make for the regions of heaven.” ‘Possession of property, marriage, fatherhood blind a man’s eyes to life’s greatest possibility, the beatific vision of the King in His beauty. The monk’s complete renunciation of all which the world holds to be good is at once the proof of his devotion and the means whereby he is able to arrive most swiftly! and certainly at close personal communion with God. He has taught himself not to pursue satisfaction for the desires of the flesh or the desires of the eyes, nor to strive for the attainment of private ambition or the fulfilment of his own will. He acts upon a conviction that “all which is in the world is not of the Father.’* This life of absolute renunciation is, according to the Catholic Church, whether Eastern or Western, whether ancient, medizval, or modern, the highest and completest expression of the spirit of Christianity. It is not a life possible for all. Most men must marry, must labour for wealth, must enter for the world’s prizes; and their lives, if they are faithful and honest and pure, will lead also in the end to God. But the heroes of religion, those whom the Church reckons the greatest, are they to whom God has granted the vocation to follow the counsels of evangelic perfection.

, Utterly remote from this is the Protestant ideal. Luther’s reformation, however justly it may claim in other respects to be a return to what was primitive, effected an absolute revolution with respect to the ideal of the Christian life. In the Protestant view a good citizen is the best Christian. It is in the faithful performance of life’s common duties that ‘a man most perfectly fulfils the will of God. In

1 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologia, I1., i. 108. 2 1 John ii, 16.

the lawful fulfilment of his body’s functions he comes nearest to achieving the purpose of God who made the body what it is. In making the most that he can, honestly, out of life’s opportunities for gain and joy, he best shows his thankfulness to the God who placed him in the world. In the Protestant conception of life there is no higher and lower. All Christian life is on one plane so far'as it is genuine. Circumstances may indeed demand of one man that he shall give up the possibility of gain, if the gaining involve a sin, or may pour untold wealth into another’s lap; but each is bound in reality by the same divine law, and each, in so far as he fulfils it, is equally the servant of God, equally a hero among the soldiers of Christ. The ideal Christian of Protestantism is brave and strong. He is one who fears God and no one except God. He says his prayers reverently, heeds the divine word carefully. He makes or administers laws with equity. He possesses wealth or gains wealth, and realises that a portion of all is God’s, to be given in charity. He is a father of sons whom he trains to be honest and pure.

Such is the ideal of Protestantism. No one can deny that it is a lofty one or that it has borne good fruit. “Protestant and industrial civilization,” says Lecky,! “has tended to elevate the virtues of good humour, frankness, active courage, sanguine energy,

1 History of European Morals, vol. ii. p. 132, buoyancy of temper,” and to “depreciate the ideal type of Catholicism,” which is “ feeble and effeminate.” This is certainly far apart from that other ideal, There the strong humanness which seems so good is counted a thing to be conquered. The flesh is to be subdued by fasting. Personality is to be extinguished in unquestioning obedience. The great impulse of sexual love, the impulse which fills the spring with song and the summer with the scent of flowers, which casts the romantic glow men never weary of across the commonplace of human life, is to be annihilated in virginity.

Protestants have not merely rejected the ascetic : ideal of life. They have failed to understand it. They have very often hated it, and almost always dreaded it. - An interesting witness to the Protestant failure to appreciate even the artistic possibilities of the ascetic ideal is to be found in the fact that until the latter half of the nineteenth century there was no great presentation of it in English imaginative literature.

Shakespeare drew no ascetic. Walter Scott, though he was steeped in the spirit of medizval chivalry, failed to catch the dominating note of medieval religion, failed to enter into the spirit of monasticism.}

1 Edward Glendinning, in 7he Monastery, is a great Churchman, a great ecclesiastical statesman, and not a great monk. It is not the ascetic ideal which dominates his life, but devotion to his Church. The Hermit of Engaddi, in The Talisman, is conceived as half madman and half saint, but it is the madness rather than the sanctity which Scott has chosen to emphasise.

Even Browning saw in it only the degradation of a “Spanish cloister,’ or the futile attempt to bind the strong humanity of Fra Lippo Lippi. George Eliot came near understanding it when she described Romola’s interview with her dying brother, but it was not until the publication of John Inglesant, in 1880, that English literature was enriched with a literary expression of the ascetic ideal.

We cannot help asking the reason of this failure to understand and the impulse to hate.

We do not wonder that a philosophic historian hates or despises asceticism. He is enamoured of the story of man’s great material progress and advance towards civilisation. In his view asceticism has been a clog upon the wheels of humanity’s advance. The deserts of Egypt! and the cloisters of Gaul swallowed up the very men who had in them the making of a new Thermopylae against the Goths. Even where a half-grudged tribute of admiration is paid to the farms or the schools of the monasteries, it is always with an implication that what the monks did might, and probably would, have been better done without them.

It is natural that the man of science? should express his contempt for an ideal of life which involves celibacy. He sees almost infinite possibilities of improvement for the race in the trans-

1 Lecky, Hestory of Huropean Morals, vol. ii. p. 152. 2 See, for instance, Galton, Hereditary Gentus, p. 343.

mission of virtuous tendencies and _ intellectual capacity to a numerous offspring. Fierceness and barbarism would have given way sooner to peace and law if Odo of Clugny had married as well as Alberic of Rome, and if gentle nuns had not left the work of bearing children to Waldrada and Marozia. The very vocation of the monk and nun was the proof that it was of them that humanity demanded descendants.