Religious Fanaticism
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who had been much given to trances in which she claimed to escape to the other world and receive divine revelations.
She had died before the emigration to America, and had been succeeded by Bimeler, a man of greater organizing ability, but less prophetic attainments.
On their first arrival-they were a celibate community, but in 1836 they modified their views, and allowed, but did not encourage, a restricted kind of marriage for the sole purpose of recruiting their numbers with children.
And in spite of this they still preserved a community life as far as they could, and discouraged the establishment of separate households.
'They held that second marriages, even after the death of one party, were absolutely forbidden ; and in this they were of course reopening one of the oldest controversies of the Christian era, and following the rule laid down by Tertullian the Montanist in a.p. 205.
As time went on they found that their restricted form of marriage was difficult in practice, and they gradually reverted to 'familism', though still keeping their belief about re-marriage.
As the young people born of these first marriages grew up, however, it became impossible to prevent them from coming into contact with, and being contaminated by, the world.
Bimeler himself died in 1853, at which time the Community numbered five hundred; but it steadily decreased.
Bicycles completed the emancipation of the younger members, and they rode away, leaving only the old people to carry on the old faith, and in 1898 the Community was, by agreement, brought to an end.
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The Amana Society, or the Colony of True Inspiration, was the next to come, in 1842; and by 1846 eight hundred people were established at a village which they called Epenerzer, near Buffalo.
This group, like the Separatists at Zoar, had had a considerable history before their arrival in America, having taken their rise from the teachings of Eberhard Gruber and Johann Rock in 1714, who in their turn had been influenced by Spener and the ' Inspirationists' of the last years of the seventeenth century.
The sect had congregated at Hesse, where there was more toleration than elsewhere, and in course of time the leadership passed into the hands of Barbara Heinemann, a young woman whom they believed to be the vehicle of presentday inspiration.
Barbara, however, fell into disgrace for having 'too friendly an eye to the young men', and when she actually married in 1823 the 'gift' was thought to have entirely deserted her.
Christian Metz became the leader, and it was to him that the revelation concerning emigration was vouchsafed.
Under his rule the settlers prospered, and in 1849, when Barbara's husband died, the gift of prophecy was restored to her and she and Metz ruled together.
The chief peculiarities of this group, over and above those common to all the German sects, were a shaking when under inspiration, and a public spiritual examination and confession in which all took part.
Although a woman was one of their leaders, and unmarried women and widows over thirty were allowed a voice in the temporal affairs of the Community, they still preserved the theory of the
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early Fathers that there was something peculiarly sinful in the female sex.
'Fly from the society of womenkind as much as possible', one of their precepts ran, 'as a very dangerous magnet and magical fire', a saying almost word for word the same as one of the maxims which Manu laid down for the Hindu world in the year 1000 B.c.
Metz died in 1867, and Barbara in 1883, but the Community continued, and in 1908 it still numbered over 1200.
These main groups of foreign religious immigrants were succeeded in the middle years of the nineteenth century by three more.
The Bethel and Aurora Communities, which began in 1844 and 1855 respectively were founded by a Doctor Kiel, who claimed to be the First Witness mentioned in the Book of Revelation, and who was joined by small groups of poor and very dirty believers.
These communities came to an end in 1880 and 1881.
The Bishop Hill Commune, also a very poor group, began in Sweden in 1830 under Eric
Janson, and settled in America in 1846.
These people believed Janson to be a reincarnation of Christ, and confidently expected that, through him, God was about to build the New Jerusalem, over which he and his heirs were to reign forever.
When he was murdered in 1850 in a quarrel which arose between a husband who wished to leave the community and a wife who wished to remain, the whole basis of the belief was shaken, and though they lingered on for another twelve years their unity was completely destroyed.
In 1862 another group of colonists arrived, this time
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from Southern Russia, though they were in reality Germans, an offshoot of the Mennonites, who had fled into Russia to escape persecution, only to find it awaiting them there.
These people founded three small colonies, called Bruderhof Communities, whose doctrines and discipline were very simple and primitive, and who attached the utmost importance to the details of Church organization.
But with their arrival the influx of foreign sects came to an end.
'Toleration was extending in Germany, and, except for the Dukhobors, who went from Russia to Canada at a much later date, no similar migration seems to have taken place.
All these sects and communities, as we have seen, were simple and primitive.
They were not themselves led into fanatical excesses of conduct, and seldom gave rise to them indirectly.
'Their importance to this history is, however, great.
For by their very quietness, and the success which attended their ways of living in the early years, they made the practising of strange beliefs seem possible and safe.
'Their neighbours grew used to the fact that people could receive special inspiration from On High and yet could remain honest and successful farmers ; and thus the way was smoothed for the more extraordinary and fantastic manifestations which were to spring up.
All these sects were, and continued to be, foreign.
They were German speaking from start to finish, and consequently they gained few adherents from among their English-speaking neighbours; and when, in
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time, their children and grandchildren began to have dealings with the outside world, the result was not the conversion of the countryside, but the decay of the old foreign faith.
Very different, however, was the influence of the last of these foreign experiments which we must chronicle, namely, the Shakers.
These people came originally from England, and were therefore more immediately accessible to their neighbours ; and the effect which they produced upon American religious eccentricities was far-reaching.
| Ann Lee, the founder of the Millennial Church, or the United Society of Believers, commonly known as Shakers, was born in Manchester in 1736.
She was the daughter of a blacksmith, and as a child was employed in a cotton mill, and was not taught to read or write.
In her girlhood she came under the influence of a sort of Quaker revival, and with others of the sect she was thrown into prison in 1770 on account of the violent manifestations of her religious fervour.
While in prison a new and special revelation came to her, which made clear all the mysteries of the universe, and in particular showed her that God had a dual nature, being both male and female, and that the original sin by which mankind lost the Garden of Eden was the sin of sexual intercourse.
On her release from prison Ann Lee began to preach this new doctrine, and as a preparation she separated from her husband, Abraham Stanley, who however still continued to follow her about and became one of her disciples.
Very few others accepted her
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teaching, but in 1771, acting on another special revelation, she set off with eight companions, six men and two women, to found the 'Second Christian Church' in America.
Abraham Stanley was one of this small company, but on the way over he seems to have lost his faith, and made love to one of the other passengers on the ship ; and on arrival in America he disappeared from among the group.
The others found no immediate way of setting up their new Church, and Mother Ann was content to wait in patience, earning her living as a washerwoman, until the ways of the Lord should be manifest.
Four years passed in this way, and then there came a revival among the members of the Baptist church at New Lebanon, a village close to the small settlement over which she presided.
'These Baptists, being already worked up to a state of religious excitement by their revival, eagerly welcomed the further light and the new doctrine which Mother Ann offered, and thus a beginning was made.
'Two years passed in missionary effort, during which time Mother Ann went about the surrounding villages preaching, and a wonderful legend grew up.
Miracles were constant, and before long it was widely believed that she herself was the second incarnation of Christ.
As was natural, such extravagant talk horrified many of the farmers, and they were still more outraged by her insistence upon celibacy.
The notion of its holiness, when once it took root in a family, led to constant difficulties and distresses, and persecutions from the unconverted fell upon Mother Ann and her followers.
As so often
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happens, persecution led to more enthusiasm and an increase of membership, and the strength of the Shakers grew.
No definite community life was attempted for many years, and it was not until after the death of the foundress, in 1784, that any of the settlements were built.
Under the joint leadership of Joseph Meacham and Lucy Wright, both of whom were of American birth, the building of the dwellings and meeting houses began and by 1800 several settlements were in existence.
The Shaker Communities, of which there came to be 27, with a membership of over 5000, were really small villages, made up of dwelling houses for the sisters and for the brothers, meeting houses and barns and sheds for the necessary work of the community.
Everything about them was always scrupulously neat and kept in perfect repair, and by their careful husbandry and diligence the Shakers became prosperous and rich.
They devoted themselves mainly to growing and preserving fruit, medicinal herbs and garden seeds, and the excellence of their produce was known from one end of the country to the other.
The communities were strictly celibate in accordance with the belief about original sin, but they adopted children in large numbers, and educated and trained them in the Shaker faith, hoping to continue their existence.
No pressure was put upon these children to remain in the fold if they did not feel a vocation, and, in fact, most of them subsequently left, and went out into the world, and the 'families' were recruited by adult converts year after year.
In 1908 there were still fifteen of these
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settlements in existence, though within a few years most of them came to an end, and only a very few aged members remained.
The manner of life of these Shaker communities was at all times highly esteemed.
'They were honest and peaceful, kindly, quiet and gentle, and entirely free from scandal of any kind.
'They were, indeed, settlements of men and women who lived a common life, and worked and prayed together while preaching and practising celibacy ; but all witnesses testify to their entire sincerity and simplicity, and to their transparent honesty.
A sweet and gentle spirit seemed to prevail over all the villages, such as is to be found now and then in the convents and religious houses of other creeds ; but the Shaker settlements had a peculiar and unique basis in that their members were bound by no vows, and were free, both legally and actually, to depart at any time.
The good repute of the Shakers, and their worldly success, combined to give some standing to their strange doctrines ; and although most people did not accept their faith, it is evident that it modified and influenced a good many of the surrounding creeds.
The articles of the Shaker doctrine, when looked at apart from the pleasant Shaker atmosphere, were startling enough.
'They not only believed that God was male and female, but that the second incarnation of Christ had been female, in the person of Mother Ann Lee.
The Millennium, they thought, had begun in 1774, and the end of the world was to be brought about by the
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adoption on all sides of the celibacy they practised themselves.
The five most important aspects of the true Church, as they saw it, were, community of goods, celibacy of life, separation from the world, non-resistance, and control over physical disease.
'They themselves attained the first four of these, and they confidently expected to attain the fifth ; and to these five cardinal points they added, in time, a sixth, namely, the power to hold intercourse with spirits.
This development, which did not arise among them till fifty years after their founder's death, preceded by a few years, as we shall see, the popular outburst of spiritualism in the world outside ; but whether it was the cause of this phenomenon, or merely a part of it, it is hard to be sure.
The form of worship which the Shakers practised, and which gave them their popular name, was extremely curious.
It consisted in a holy marching and dancing, accompanied sometimes by the singing of Shaker hymns, and sometimes by outbursts of gibberish, believed to be inspired utterances.
The brothers and sisters danced in separate groups, moving more or less rhythmically in rows, with their elbows at their sides and their hands held before them ; but when there were seasons of revival, or outbursts of spiritualistic fever, they rolled violently upon the ground, and shook and quivered with the inrush of the spirit. A little preaching, and an occasional confession of sinfulness varied the proceedings, but they had no set or regular prayers, believing that God does not need spoken words, and that their whole lives should be prayer.
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The articles of the Shaker faith, though they had a quaintly original form, were of course exceedingly ancient.
Long before the Christian era there were settlements of celibate men and women who led communistic lives and adopted children to succeed them.
The Shakers, indeed, had much in common with the Essenes of the time of Christ, and still more with the Abstinentes or Spiritales of Spain in the fourth century.
Their form of worship by dancing, too, was not original to themselves, and though to the outward view they did nothing at all resembling the practices of the Dancing
Dervishes, or the Bacchanalian orgies, the impulse which moved them was doubtless much the same.
But neither they, nor any who saw them, gave a thought to such things.
The oddity of their religious exercises, and the report of their queer beliefs attracted innumerable visitors to their doors, and idle sightseers and earnest enquirers alike left Mount Lebanon, or Watervliet, or Pleasant
Hill impressed with the saintly happiness and the restful atmosphere of the ' United Society of Believers.'
CH AP sIgbaRealsy MU BR ee LN Nebel atlas
TRANSCENDENTALISYS
HE first impulse towards abnormal religious movements of native American origin came, as we have seen from the preaching of Jonathan Edwards, and the school of doctrine which arose after his death. .
The influence of this movement led straight to Revivalism ; and the dangerous and hysterical outbreaks into which Revivalism degenerated in the early years of the century gave rise to nearly all the subsequent religious delusions.
Before we consider Revivals, however, we must notice one small and isolated sect which arose in 1786, and which is interesting from several points of view.
In the first place it was led by a woman, a peculiarity which has arisen from time to time all through the Christian era, but which took a firmer hold, and put forth more astonishing fruits in nineteenth-century America than in any other time or place.
The woman in question was Jemima Wilkinson, a Quaker girl of twenty years old, who died, and was mourned, and prepared for burial.
Just as the funeral was about to leave the house, however, Jemima came to life ; and the miracle naturally led her to believe herself specially chosen of God.
She thought that while she had been absent from the body she had been given a special
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commission to raise up an elect Church which should share with her the joys of the first Resurrection, which event was to arrive before her second death.
This doctrine Jemima preached, and many people believed her ; and presently she led a band of followers five hundred miles westward into the wilderness to a place called Crooked Lake, where they established a celibate communistic settlement to await the coming of the Lord.
Jemima was a tall and active woman, so sure of her divine mission that she felt free to dispense with the ordinary conventions of her sex.
She wore kilts and a broad-brimmed Quaker hat, such as men wore, and she was absolute ruler over her people.
She was a wise and intelligent ruler, and first made friends with the Indian tribes about her, and then so ordered her temporal affairs that the community grew rich.
They called her "The Universal Friend', and when she wanted anything, and said that 'The Lord hath need of it', they gave it to her freely.
This settlement prospered from its foundation in 1786 until Jemima's death in 1820; but when that unexpected event took place it came to an end.
Jemima herself, when she saw death really approaching, had tried to provide against its disruptive effect.
She had warned her followers that it might appear as if she were dead, but assured them that 'though she should sleep she would revive again', and had forbidden them to mourn for her, or to give her any ceremonial funeral.
'They obeyed her as well as they could, and hid her body in a secret place in the ground ; aa
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but they could not wait long for her second revival, and dispersed, sorrowful and disillusioned.
While this community was still in being, the Revival movement broke out in full force, and in 1801 an excellent example of it was seen in the state of Kentucky.
Camp meetings were held in the woods, to which people flocked by hundreds, and even thousands, and men, women and small children fell down in convulsions, foaming at the mouth and uttering strange cries under the influence of their excitement.
' They lie as though they were dead for some time without pulse or breath. ...' wrote an eye-witness.
'To prevent their being trodden underfoot by the multitude they are collected together and laid out in order in two squares of the meeting house, where, like so many dead corpses, they cover a considerable part of the floor.
. No sex or colour, class or description were exempt from the pervading influence of the Spirit ; even from the age of eight months to sixty years...
Groanings, shoutings and speaking with tongues were constant occurrences, and the preachers would at times creep along the ground, crying out that they were 'the old serpent who had tempted Eve', and exhorting their hearers to 'agonise' and be saved.
Amid all this turmoil the people of the lonely country places found some of the emotional outlet, and even some of the intellectual interest which they lacked in the ordinary course of their lives, and they ' agonised' and 'repented' with a will.
The Kentucky Revival has been remembered because the Shakers took advantage of it to recruit new members
MILDER
SIN NE YY! TRANSCENDENTALIS'TS
for themselves, and left a record of the occurrence ; but the practice was not confined to the South, nor to the year 1801.
At any time, and in any place, a similar outburst was liable to occur, and being by its very nature highly contagious, it often spread far from its original starting-point.
Spasmodic Revivals went on all through the next thirty years, of which the most famous was Nettleton's Revival of 1817 ; but nothing of unusual interest seems to have resulted from them until the time of Miller and Finney, about the year
1831.
William Miller, the founder of a sect which had an immense popularity between 1831 and 1845, was one of those prophets who base their doctrine upon interpretations of the Book of Revelation.
There are many strange texts in this book, which, if taken literally, and interpreted with sufficient care, can be made to prove that the end of the world is due to arrive at any date which may be desired.
Miller selected the date 1843 ; but his calculations have been challenged by innumerable other computations.
In the earliest days of Christianity the Second Coming of the Lord was expected before the death of the Apostles, and for several centuries it was almost hourly looked for.
St. Augustine killed this belief, but his words, if taken literally, implied that the true date was the year 1000, and about that time the idea revived again, and formed one of the impulses which animated the Crusades.
In 1200 the Second Coming was again expected, and in the period just preceding the Reformation the Papacy was widely
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believed to represent the power of Anti-Christ, which must arise before the Judgment Day.
In England alone these predictions were numerous.
In 1593 John Napier declared that the end of the world would come before 1688 and when that failed he selected 1700 ; in 1627 Joseph Mede set it for 1660 ;. Isaac Newton thought it was imminent in 1733, and in 1734 William
Whiston announced it for 1866.
Edward Irving thought the true date was 1864, and many others have made equally incorrect estimates.
Pastor T. C. Russell, indeed,-seemed at one moment to be on the right track.
He announced that the Millennium had begun invisibly in 1874, and that the end of the world would follow in 1914; but although his adherents were much encouraged by the events of that year, they have since been disappointed.
Outside England the prophets have been equally numerous, and equally mistaken.
1535, the year when John of Leyden occupied Munster as the New Jerusalem and led the inhabitants into the wild orgies and excesses of the Anabaptist outbreak, was perhaps the most famous of these final years, but 1689, 1730 and 1836 were also chosen dates, and each one of these years has been established conclusively by a reference to Holy Writ.
It is a curious fact, in connection with many of these prophecies, that even when the appointed year has passed by, and the end of the world has not come, the believers still hold to their beliefs.
A hundred ingenious devices are at once suggested for amending the calcula-
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tions, and putting the great event off to a slightly later date.
Sometimes the calculations themselves still hold good, but the Lord is supposed to be granting a short special dispensation so that the 144,000 who are to be
Sealed may be gathered together.
One way or another the faithful insist on cheating themselves with the hope that what they have believed for years may still be true, even in the face of the flat contradiction of nature ; and thus no sudden or dramatic end comes to these sects, but Second Adventism lives and survives each one of its disappointments.
The followers of ' Father' William Miller were no exception to this rule.
When the fateful year 1843 passed by, and even the next year followed in safety, they did indeed begin to disagree among themselves, and by 1845 they had split into seven sections, dividing on minor points, such as the correct day for the Sabbath, the necessity for following the Jewish customs in regard to food, and so on.
But the power of their main belief did not waver, and to this day adherents of the seven sects earnestly and sincerely expect the sudden and triumphant ending of this world, and the literal coming of all the marvels of the seven angels, the book sealed with the seven seals, the seven last plagues, the beast with the seven heads, and the New Jerusalem with its walls of precious stones, which will descend out of Heaven and stand on the banks of the river of the water of Life.
While the Millerites were dreaming of these things, and growing from month to month in strength and number, Charles Finney's Revival was sweeping through
RELIGIOUS:
FANATICIswm Massachusetts and Western New York and all the surrounding districts.
This Revival was somewhat different from the usual species, in that it left behind it consequences which lasted for a considerable time.
It is particularly important in connection with the story of American sects, because it gave the first impetus to the career of John Humphrey Noyes, who, as we shall see later, founded and maintained one of the most extraordinary of the curious religious systems we are examining.
Finney's Revival swept over state after state, sowing strange seeds; and it lasted for nearly four years.
The districts which were affected came to be known as 'the burnt districts,' and the people who lived in them passed their days in a state of constant emotional excitement.
In 1834, when this Revival was in full swing, it attacked a young woman named Lucinia Umphreville, who lived in the village of Manlius, and she felt called upon to begin to preach.
Her chief concern was the subject of sex, and she believed that everything connected with it was unrelievedly wicked.
Under her leadership the young ladies of the neighbourhood began to reject all thoughts of marriage, and instituted in its stead a system which they called 'spiritual marriage'.
This state was reached when men and women who were spiritual affinities came in contact with each other, and one of the main signs by which it could be recognised was that holy kisses might be exchanged between them without danger of arousing passionate feelings.
This was, indeed, the test of spiritual union, and the young ladies were said to experioar
MI PUD steuNN EY oT RANSCENDENTALISTS ment widely before finding their true mates.
They maintained, moreover, that people married in the ordinary way were performing a higher duty if they separated and united with their spiritual partners ; and many such separations took place.
The spiritual husbands and wives, it was said, carried their tests far beyond the limits of spiritual kissing ; and, so long as they were able to persuade themselves that they did not feel the ordinary human passions, their conduct appeared to themselves highly commendable.
At Brimfield, Massachusetts, the same doctrine arose, and a group of its adherents, led by Mary Lincoln,
Flavilla Howard and Maria Brown attempted to increase their spiritual virtue by killing the sense of shame which had been put as a curse upon Adam.
To this end they introduced the practice of 'bundling', which consisted in entering the bedroom of a young preacher in the middle of the night, and putting themselves into thoroughly compromising situations.
So long as they felt that they were acting solely from the love of God they believed that they were sanctified in these performances and the greater the scandal and opprobrium the better they were satisfied that they were making an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord.
On one occasion these young women also ran naked through the countryside ; but the commotion caused by this exploit proved too much even for the Revival atmosphere, and their activities were brought to an end.
W. Hepworth Dixon, in his book, 'Spiritual Wives',
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gives a detailed account of these occurrences, which were described to him by eye-witnesses.
He gives also an interesting letter he received about them from John Humphrey Noyes, the head of the Oneida Community, whose own brand of peculiarity we shall consider in a later chapter.
Noyes was a student of religious aberration, as well as a practitioner, and his book, * The History of American Socialisms' is a most interesting production.
His views on the developments of Finney's Revival are quaint and amusing.
"One dominant peculiarity of the Shakers,' he writes, 'as also of the Bundling Perfectionists, which determined their style of Socialism, was, in my opinion, the LeapersHip OF Women.
Man of himself would never have invented Shakerism, and it would have been very difficult to have made him a medium of inspiration for the development of such a system.
It is not in his line.
But it is exactly adapted to the proclivities of women in a state of independence or ascendancy over man.
Love between the sexes has two stages, the courting stage and the wedded stage.
Women are fond of the first stage.
Men are fond of the second.
Women like to talk about love ; but men want love itself.
Among the Perfectionists the women led the way in the bundling with purposes as chaste as those of the Shakers.
For a time they had their way ; but in time the men had their way.
* The course of things may be restated thus : Revivals lead to religious love ; religious love excites passions ; the converts, finding themselves in theocratic liberty, begin to look about for their mates and their paradise.
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Here begins divergence.
If women have the lead, the feminine idea that ordinary wedded love is carnal and unholy rises and becomes a ruling principle.
Mating on the spiritual plan, with all the heights and depths of sentimental love, becomes the order of the day.
Then, if a prudent Mother Ann is at the head of affairs, the sexes are fenced off from each other, and carry on their
Platonic intercourse through the grating.
But, if a wild Mary Lincoln or Lucinia Umphreville is in the ascendant, the presumptuous experiment of bundling is tried ; and the end is ruin.
On the other hand, if the leaders are men, the theocratic impulse takes the opposite direction, and polygamy in some form is the result.
Thus Mormonism is the masculine form of the more morbid products of Revivals.'
This view, ingenious as it is, is historically false.
The practices and self-justifications of the Bundlers were an exact reproduction of those of the ' Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit,' who flourished in Germany in the middle of the thirteenth century, and owed none of their inspiration to women.
Almaric, their founder, taught that the sins of the flesh were not sins, if done through the love of God, and other sects at other times have had the same idea.
The ' Muckers' of Konigsberg (1823-1836), and the followers of Henry Prince at his Agapemone in Somerset in 1849 had very similar ideas; but in none of these sects was the leadership in the hands of women.
It is interesting to notice, however, that there have been some women teachers who have put forward this idea, my
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the most prominent of whom was Marguerite de Hainault, who was put to death by the Inquisition in 1310 for maintaining in theory and practice that the soul absorbed in Divine Love could yield without sin or remorse to the desires and impulses of the body.
The whole history of religious mania, in fact, shows clearly that sex is one of the commonest and most powerful of the influences leading to aberration in the religious world, just as it seems also to be the centre of madness and distortion in ordinary mundane affairs.
It is important to remember that there have always been two diametrically opposéd ways in which this influence can be made manifest, denial and excess ; and the one is almost as likely to lead to trouble as the other.
Of course it would be absurd to maintain that all celibate religious houses are centres of mania, or that there have not been, and are not still, men and women of well-balanced and holy lives who have voluntarily put aside the ordinary sex life of mankind, and have vowed to devote themselves to God.
While this is so, however, it would be almost equally absurd to ignore the fact that the glorification of celibacy, which was rife in the early centuries of Christianity, led to many flagrant abuses, and that religious aberrations as well as open scandals, sprang from this cause.
The visions and trances and dreams of the saints were matched by visions and trances and dreams of a grosser quality ; and when these were mistaken for Divine guidings, and were followed and imitated on any considerable scale, fanatical outbursts were the inevitable result.
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Nearly always the starting-point for the perversion of religious impulses lies in a mystical approach to the Deity.
Nothing is so difficult to understand, or at any rate to put into words, as the mystical outlook ; and though much has been written by those who have themselves enjoyed mystical experiences, very little of what they say is really intelligible to those who have not had sensations of their own of the same nature.
Some things about it are, however, fairly clear, and the aspect of mysticism which seems to have had the most direct influence upon the uprising of fanatical sects has been the tendency to regard the existing world of nature as irrelevant, if not actually antagonistic to God.
This theory is very ancient, and had probably given rise to strange and terrible practices long before the Christian era ; but in the early centuries after Christ it came to be associated with the Dualistic theory of the universe which entered into so many of the early heresies.
The theory that there is active opposition between God and the world leads inevitably to the notion that the human soul and the human body are also enemies ; and asceticism is the inevitable result.
No doubt there are other additional reasons for the prevalence of asceticism in the early Christian Church.
It may have been partly a result of Buddhist influences, and partly a survival from savage times.
Among the primitive peoples it may have originated as a sort of training for the hardships of life, or as a way of actually mitigating them ; or it may have had some symbolical meaning.
We cannot be certain how it originated in