Chapter 1
THE TEXT OF THE RULE
It is called a Rule, because it regulates the pursuit of the virtue of obedience CONSTITUTION OF THE CLOISTER (Chaps, i to iii)
FIRST CHAPTER
The Kinds of Monks1 It is generally known that there are four kinds of monks.2
The first kind of monks is that of the cenobites,3 that is, the monastic variety, who engaged in a militant service (spiritual, of course) under a rule and an abbot.
1 The word, "monk," of Greek origin (monachos), literally means an individual who lives by himself, and according to all outward appearances for himself only.
As a Christian term, it was first used by the Jewish convert, Symmachus, about the year 180 in his treatise on psalm Ixvii, to mean "living singly and celibate."
From the end of the third century on, the Christian ascetics who had separated themselves topically from the world continued to be so called. A monk in the true sense of the word, in the persistent conception of the East, was actually only the hermit (anchorite or eremite), while the cenobite was but a neophyte or begin ner. Yet, as a matter of fact, the name soon came to be used indiscriminately for both eremite and cenobite. According to Abbot Cassian, the name "monk" applied to the solitary life which those led who had renounced marriage, parents, and the world (Institutes xviii, 5). In the mind of Pseudo-Dionysius, monks were those "who led a common and uniform life, which, in a kind of holy alliance of separate individuals, gave them a character of 'oneness,' so that they developed into a sort of divine monad (unit)" (Kirchl. Hier. VI, iii).
2 St. Jerome (Letter xxii, 34) and St. John Cassian (Institutes xvii, 4-8) enumer ate three kinds of monks, the cenobites, the hermits and the Sarabaites, to which Cassian added yet a fourth, who seemed to be a kind of lax eremites, but were hardly to be likened to the gyrovagues of the Holy Rule.
3 The word "cenobite" also came from the Greek and was used to denote anyone who led a common religious life. Coenobium (Greek - Koino-bion) meant a monas tery in which the common religious life was conducted as contrasted with life in a hermitage. The word monasterium, from which we get our word monastery (Ger man — Munster; English — Minster), is used mostly in the same sense as the Latin coenobium, although, according to Abbot Cassian (Conference viii, 9-10), it was primarily used to designate the place or site where the monks lived. The term "cloister" (German - Kloster), like the word monastery, is of Latin origin
(clausura), and signified their seclusion or their enclosure within walls. It was, and is, their private monastic domain.
The second kind of monks is that of the anchorites, that is, the hermits, who, no longer in the first fervor of their monas tic life, but after a rather lengthy period of probation in the clois ter, have learned to do battle against the devil with the help and encouragement of many confreres. Now, well trained, they pro pose to leave the ranks of their brethren in order to go into the solitude, there to fight alone hand and arm, but also with the help of God, against the vicious urges of their own carnal bodies and imaginations.1
The third and utterly detestable kind of monks is that of the Sarabaites,2 who, without any experience to teach them, have been tested by no rule as gold is tried by fire, but, soft as lead, still give allegiance to the world through their conduct and quite openly lie to God through their tonsure. (Living together) in twos and threes, or even singly, they are without a shepherd, outside the Lord's flocks but enclosed in their own; their own desires and pleasures are their law, since what they themselves wish and deem right they consider holy, and whatever they do not desire they regard as unlawful.
The fourth kind of monks is that of the so-called gyro1 Cyril of Scythopolis (f c. 558), biographer of the more prominent of the Desert
Fathers, in his "life of Sabas" (chap, lxiv), testifies to the consciously lofty opinion the hermits had of their state and vocation, in the following anecdote: Abbot
Hegumen, the guide of a settlement (laura) of hermits, said one day, probably in jest, to the abbot of a monastery: "Thou art the provost of children (i.e., beginners), while I am the provost of provosts (i.e.. perfect ones); for everyone that has placed himself under my direction is the independent provost of his own cell." And in the life of "John Hesychiastes" 'chap. vi),it is said: "As the blossom time precedes the harvest, so the common religious life is antecedent to the life of the hermit;" in other words, the cloister is but a "school for beginners" in monasticism. The word "eremite", that is, living in the desert (eremia — desert), wilderness or soli tude, like the word "anchorite (ana-choret), that is, living apart or withdrawn, is of Greek origin.
2 The word "Sarabaite" (St. Jerome speaks of the Remoboth or Remnuoth, that is the resident of a cell, or a man living alone) is a Coptic word, and means "scat tered or living in cells." Perhaps it refers to the city monks,who settled down near the basilicas and did not break off their associations in and with the world.
- - These monks shaved the hair of their heads, which was regarded at the time as an ornament and the sign of a free man, so that they might appear in the sight of men as servants of Christ. But they wore beards, in order not to appear effem inate, mostly however, so as to make themselves look like "philosophers." Cf. under Origen. page 12.
vagues.1 These are they, who, all their lives long, ever restless and never stationary, stay only for two or three days in various settlements of monks, are slaves of their own moods and love of luxury, and are in all things still worse than the sarabaites. In deed, it is better to be silent than to speak of the utterly pitiful
(monastic) life all these men attempt to lead.
Let us, then, leave them and with God's help proceed to establish an orderly way of life for the bravest class of monks
(namely), the cenobites.
Excursus I Antony, Fighter of Demons.-The. glorious model of the Christian soldier, bat tler and contender with Satan and his cohorts, was the renowned anchorite, St.
Antony. St. Athanasius devoted an extensive section of his Vita Antonii to the patriarch as a fighter against these unseen foes. "Satan," wrote the dis tinguished archbishop of Alexandria, "filled with hatred and envy for every thing good, could not bear to observe so steadfast a resolution in a man so young. At first he set out to alienate him from his asceticism by awakening in him the memory of his former possessions, by solicitude for his sister, by a desire to return to the consoling company of his relatives, by a lust for the wealth and emoluments of the world, by thoughts of the pleasures of good eating and the other joys of life, contrasting all these things with the thought of how harsh was the life of virtue and what a severe strain it put upon his endurance. He pointed out to him the frailty of his body and the tedious length of his days. In a word, he aroused in his heart a violent storm of reflections, all calculated to wean him away from his good resolutions . . .
1 The word, "gyrovague," is a composite of two words, the Greek word, gyros (a circle or ambit), and the Latin vagus (a wanderer or vagabond). These gyrovagues brought the ancient and venerable ideal of monastic life, with its ascetic homelessness and penitential nomadism, into lamentable disrepute and so helped little by little to bring about the fixed and stable state of cenobitism. St. Augus tine painted a most distressing picture of the vagabond monks: "The devil," he said, "sends many hypocrites clothed in the monk's garb into all the world, and these without proper mandate and without a fixed abode or base of operations roam about the land. Some offer relics of the martyrs for sale—would that these objects had really been taken from the martyrs—others wear large tassels on their garments and broad prayer stoles (cf. Matt, xxiii, 5). Others, again, say that they had heard from their relatives living in the neighborhood and that they were on their way to visit them. But they all claim and demand payment for their venal poverty or ask for a loan on their deceptive sanctity. And since they are at times and everywhere caught at their bad tricks or convicted of their wickedness in other ways, people get into the habit of associating the general title of "monk," now often an accursed by-word, with your idyllic and holy way of life" (Manual
Labor of Monks xxxvi). In Africa these undisciplined religious, who were the terror of all good souls and gave the whole state of monachism a bad name, were called Circumcelliones, because they were found constantly loafing about the cells or residences of the hermits (St. Augustine on Psalm cxxxii).
He harassed him by night and tormented him by day to such a degree that those who saw him surmised the struggle that was going on between him and Satan. That wily foe suggested to him a host of smutty thoughts. Antony repelled them by prayer. He goaded him still further in this way, but the hermit, even while he blushed, shielded his body by faith, prayer, and fasts, dwelling all the while on the nobility of soul which the Lord only could bestow
. . .In holy anger and pain, he pondered in his heart the menace of hell-fire and the gnawing worm of remorse, and this acted as a deterrent and helped him to emerge victor over all these temptations . . . For the Lord, who took on human flesh for us, thus endowing our bodies with potential victory over the devil, helped this man, so that everyone who truly resists can say: 'Not I, but God's grace in me' " (L Cor. xv, 10; Vita Antonii, chap. v).
Yet Satan would not desist and let Antony in peace. The "foul dragon" appeared to him next in the shape of a black kobold (chap. vi). But Antony again came forth victorious. "This was the first triumphant battle of the saint against the devil; rather, it was the Savior's doing in Antony." Satan, however, soon came back devising other schemes for his ruin. But Antony only subjected himself to more austere mortifications (chap. viii). When he withdrew into a burial cave, the imps tortured him most horribly. Yet Antony would not admit defeat. "Here I am, he said, I, Antony, am not afraid of your blows. Should you mistreat me still more cruelly, nothing shall separate me from the love of Christ" (cf. Rom. viii, 35). Then he intoned the 26th psalm: "If armies in camp stand against me, my heart shall not fear" (Ps. xxvi, 3). The demons then appeared to him in the guise of lions, leopards, bears, wild oxen, wolves, and serpents (chaps, viii & ix). But the Lord stood by the side of his brave warrior. Soon after that Antony (Athanasius thought he was the first to do so) withdrew into the desert, into the very own realm of the demons. "Get out of our kingdom," they cried, "what business have you to transact in the desert?" But Antony only quoted from the psalmist: "Let
God arise, and let his enemies be scattered; and let them that hate him flee before his face. As smoke vanisheth, so let them vanish away" (Ps. lxvii,
2-3). Once more Antony emerged the victor.
In the great sermon which Athanasius represents the hermit deliver ing to his disciples, the patriarch spoke in detail of his struggles with the demons (chaps, xxi to xliii). The imps of Satan, seemingly, were given the special task of harassing the monks. Precious to them, therefore, was the gift of "discerning spirits," which the Holy Ghost granted to every honorably battling monk. The sign of the cross and the Name of Jesus were strong weapons, but the best means of overcoming them, by all odds, was a perfect adherence to all the practices of monastic asceticism. When it takes the devil seriously, the Holy Rule rests solidly upon the foundations of old-monastic traditions.
Excursus II.
Wrong Theories on the Origin of Monasticism.—For some decades past, to say
absolutely nothing of the so-called "enlightened" nineteenth century, nonCatholic scholars have been trying to trace monasticism back to other nonChristian phenomena, or at least to explain it on some such basis. The ascettics, who emulated the highly cultured Jew, Philo of Alexandria, or the con temporary pagan philosophers, were frequently adduced in corroboration.
Today, however, no serious researcher any longer attempts to associate Chris tian monasticism with these sources, much less with the ascetic ideas connect ed with the religious cults of certain pagan deities, as, for example, with that of the Egyptian gods, Isis, Osiris, and Serapis, with the religious system of the Persian, Mani (f c. 275), or with the Buddist monachism of India.
Nor can the Monasticism of the Church be explained as a possible aftermath of the great Christian persecutions under the Roman emperors,
Decius (f 251), Valerian (+ 260), and Diocletian (f 305). Many Christians, it was said, who had fled into the mountains and solitudes before the fury of the persecutors, later, when peace returned to the Church, remained there as monks and ascetics. It is quite possible that individual ascetics here and there stayed in the wilderness. However, when the persecutions ceased, the great majority of lay Christians (Weltchristen) were hardly disposed to take upon themselves the much harder life of the monks. One may rather say that the early Christian enthusiasm and zeal to suffer torture or death for the sake of Christ lost its main incentive after the persecutions ceased and found a sub stitute in the unbloody martyrdom of the monastic life. So the cessation of the pagan persecution of Christians must be regarded as a stimulus to the growth of monasticism rather than as a source of it. Neither can the tem poral and social exigencies of the third century, the general decline of the Roman empire, nor the visibly threatening secularization of the Church ex plain the rise of monasticism. In the final analysis, monachism must be in terpreted and explained only from the counsels and example of the Savior.
Excursus III.
Juridical Status of the Old Monasticism In Relation to the State.—The monks, who in overwhelming majorities were mainly laymen, were subject to the Roman laws no less than were the other citizens of the empire. They remained, in so far as they had not expressly renounced them, which was usually the case, in full possession of their patri monies and family prerogatives. Thus, for example, when the testament of a deceased relative granting him a legacy was brought to the Desert Father Arsenius, he rejected it rather sharply. Furthermore, the attempt to evade one's responsibilities as a citizen or as a slave by entering a monastery was, to put it mildly, illegal. The Emperor Valentine (f 455) expressly forbade slaves and peasant bondsmen (coloni) to be received into a monastery without proper authorization. The fourth canon of the Council of Chalcedon (451) also decreed that slaves could not become monks without the permission of their masters. And St. Basil (f 379) clearly recognized the right of the emperor to assess taxes upon a monk who had not completely alienated his patrimony or
income (Shorter Rules). Likewise, according to the third canon of Chalcedon, monks were bound to function as guardians of minors, widows, and orphans when the law called upon them for that duty. About the year 390 the Emperor Theodosius the Great (f 395) placed an unusual restriction upon them, forbidding them to enter the cities. He thought thereby to prevent any usurpation on their part of the rights of the citizenry. After two years, how ever, this unwarranted lack of respect for the honor due them was realized and the restriction was repealed.
By Roman law monasteries were recognized as corporations. There accrued to them thereby the right and the competence to acquire and hold property as well as income of any kind.. On account of their strictly religious character, moreover, they were not required to have any official permits. As this privilege had previously applied to pagan confraternities, colleges, and brotherhoods, it was later granted as a matter of course to the Christian assoc iations (v. g., monasteries and others), after the demise of organized pagan ism. After the year 434 the monasteries also enjoyed the privilege of claim ing for themselves the property of deceased monks who had no relatives or who had died intestate.
In Relation to the Church.—Just as the laity and the secular clergy, the monks were subject to the jurisdiction of the incumbent bishop of the diocese in which they lived. The biographers of both Antony and Pachomius laid stress upon the humbly deferential attitude of these model monks towards the bish ops and clergy (Vita Antonii, chap. Ixvii and "Second Life of Pachomius," chaps, xxiii & xxvi). There was hardly a monk who tried to shake off that fundamental subordination to his bishop, even though in an individual case or two one or the other monk might have set himself up against it. If a monk was spoken of as a "Monk of the Church," it was understood to mean that he was orthodox in his beliefs and amenable to the orders of his bishop. The priest-monks in particular and in a special way were subordinate to the in cumbent diocesan Ordinary.
It was inevitable, in view of the ever increasing number and influence of the monasteries, that jurisdictional disputes should in the course of time arise between them and their bishops. The Council of Chalcedon was the first to lay down the basic juridical principles of that relationship and to regulate the status of the monks and their monasteries. The fourth canon of the council decreed as follows: "Those who are leading a strict and genuine monastic life are entitled to all due respect. Since, however, there are some who, using their religious state as a subterfuge, wander about in the cities and disturb the peace, both civil and ecclesiastical, and at the same time scheme to start their own monasteries," it was enacted "that no one may build or found a monastery or house of prayer anywhere without the approbation of the bishop of the city; furthermore, that the monks of every locality or city are subject to the jurisdiction of their proper ordinaries, that they love peace, and that they devote themselves to prayer and fasting, persevering in the places where
they live or whither they have been sent; that they should not take on or take part in civil or church affairs there; that they do not leave their enclosures except when the bishop of the city, in case of need, calls upon them to do so; and that no slaves be received into their communities for the purpose of becoming monks without the permission of their masters. Anyone who trans gresses these ordinances shall be excommunicated, that the Name of God may not be dishonored. But the bishop of the city must exercise the most solici tous supervision over his monasteries." Through this canon monasticism was duly incorporated into the organism of the Church. Monastic duties were thereby made ecclesiastical obligations, and transgressions of them became li able to ecclesiastical penalties. From this canon, also, one can surmise that serious nuisances must have been rampant. The monks were thereby bound strictly to stability and personal accountability. Final exit from the cloister and with it release from one's vows was no longer left to the discretion or ca price of the individual. In this way the Church with a firm hand allocated the numberless vagabond monks to their propter monasteries, probably to the places of their profession, and to the jurisdiction of their own bishops.
St. Gregory was completely silent concerning these juridical standards, to which, of course, St. Benedict was also in duty bound. The dispute be tween the island cloister of Lerins and the incumbent bishop of Frejus was adjudicated at the synod of Arles in 455 on the basis of the foregoing canon.
In other canons the monks were forbidden to enter military service and accept municipal or state offices; the subordination of the priest-monks in particular to their bishops was stressed; they were forbidden to marry without, however, having their unions declared invalid ipso facto as is the church law of today; and finally, they were debarred from joining secret societies of any sort. In the 23rd canon the monks were forbidden to take up residence in the city of Constantinople without the special appointment or mandate of the bishop.
Obviously, there had been monks in the city who were disturbers of the peace.
These were to be "driven out and sent home forcibly" if necessary. Properly erected monasteries were no longer to be suppressed, nor were monastic build ings any longer to be set aside for profane uses (canon 24).
The further working out of the ideas discussed at the Council of Chalcedon gradually led in the course of the centuries to the present-day relation ship between the bishops and the monasteries, after the ordinaries have given the requisite permission for their erection. But the properly erected cloister or abbey is today fully exempt from the jurisdiction of the bishop. However, he still has the sole right to ordain their candidates for the priesthood. Like wise, he cannot interfere in the internal administration of the house. The abbeys are at the present time all independent institutions answerable direct ly to the Holy See, which generally exercises its full authority over them through the Congregation for the Affairs of Religious.
Excursus IV Cultural Attitude of the Old Monachism.~The monasticism of the early
Church—and this was true also during the time of St. Benedict-recruited its members in by far the greatest numbers from the lower strata of society: slaves, freedmen, tillers of the soil, and craftsmen. The Egyptian monks were mostly fellahs, a not very well endowed class of the peasant population. How ever, it was not very long before the earliest monks found among their members individuals of superior rank, indeed, also from the very topmost of the nobility. About the year 400—both before and after— we read of monks and nuns who had once belonged to the Roman aristocracy. There was
Arsenius (c. 410), who had been a very high-ranking government official, versed in all the known phases of Greek and Roman philosophy. Yet the vast majority of monks were devoid of all higher learning. In fact, a large part of them was ignorant of even the elements of reading and writing. A small number of the priest-monks, of course, were an exception. St. Athana sius pictures his ideal monk, Antony, as an unlettered Copt, whose substitute for books was a phenomenal memory (chap. iii). This was a talent which we may suppose to have been rather common among the monks of old; what they once heard during public reading, instructions, conversations, or divine ser vices, they never forgot—it became their lasting possession. It was related with wonder of many a hermit that he knew the whole of Scripture, or a large section of it, by heart.
Nevertheless, despite his obvious lack of schooling, Antony ranked not a whit behind the literati of his time in the knowledge that mattered. He con tended in superior controversy and a show of lofty wisdom as well against the Arian heretics (chaps, lxvii to lxx) as against the pagan philosophers (chaps, lxxii to lxxx). It was reported of other monks besides Antony that in place of the normal education and culture they lacked, they had been endowed by the Lord, either permanently or temporarily, with a marvelous degree of wis dom. St. Pachomius on occasion spoke and understood both Latin and Greek
(Second Life lxxxv). As a matter of principle, he tolerated no illiterates in his cloisters. Whether they wished to or not, they had to learn to read and to write. It was remarked of many a monk that he was an able calligrapher.
If here and there in the following chapters and commentary we point in part to certain groups of distinguished and highly cultured monks, it must not be overlooked that they were really but a small segment of an overwhelm ing army of unlettered individuals. On the other hand, these few prove that monachism was not long in overcoming the initial opposition to culture which it manifested at times, and by no means isolated itself from true learning, but freely opened the doors to it. The fourth and fifth centuries, which have been known as the blossom time of early ecclesiastical literature, have also been called the golden age of the Church Fathers. These latter were all either monks themselves or the friends and promoters of the monastic ideal. Fore most among those that should be mentioned were many monks of the Egyp tian wastes, who fostered the lofty spirituality of Origen (f 254) and set them selves in opposition to the primitive and often crass fancies of unlettered
eremites. Outstanding was Evagrius of Pontus (f 399), who was strongly under the influence of Abbot Cassian. Real spiritual aristocrats were the monks who belonged to the narrow circle of friends associated with Sts.
Basil (f379), his brother, Gregory of Nyssa (f394), and their common friend, Gregory Nazianzen (f 390). Shining ornaments of the old monachism were also the spiritually and normally prominent monks who labored in and around the City of Antioch. To this group belonged the Church Fathers of Antioch, the most outstanding light of which was St. John Chrysostom (f 407).
Looking farther to the East, nursing centers of secular and particu larly of ecclesiastical learning were the monasteries of Bethlehem, where Rufinus of Aquileia (f 410) and Jerome resided for a considerable time. St. Je rome is the prototype of the monk versed in all the humanities. St. Isidor of Pelusium (f 435) and Nilus of Ancyra (f c. 430) were not inferior to the monks just mentioned. If the monks of the East have in general manifested a higher degree of culture than those of the Latin West, the latter may derive consolation from the thought that the Occident produced St. Augustine (f
430), the inimitable and unsurpassed Doctor of the Church. The monasteries of Abbot Cassian at Marseilles and the island cloister of Lerins were also cen ters of theological and monastic learning. The nuns of St. Caesarius of Arles
"were all required to master the arts of reading and writing." There was even mention of a nun-librarian (Rule for Nuns, chaps, xvii & xxxii).
If the Rule of St. Benedict does not concern itself with any specific theological training—not to say anything of secular culture—nevertheless, it does all the more have at heart real monastic learning, which it wishes to see fostered by means of frequent spiritual reading, both public and private, and thorough instructions on the part of the abbot. In this way the cloisters of St. Benedict in the years that followed were readied and somewhat prepared to adopt the earnest suggestions of Cassiodorus (f c. 583), namely, that the monks take up and foster studies in both secular and ecclesiastical knowledge.
They thereby became saviors of many of the ancient treasures of culture.
Excursus V.
Antagonists of the Old Monasticism.— That the still surviving paganism, in particular its cultured protagonists, the "philosophers," were inimically dis posed towards monasticism is a matter of small wonder. Libanius, a famous teacher of oratory (f 393), represented the monks as the embodiment of every species of wickedness. According to him, they were the enemies of all cul ture, experienced only in the art (sic) of destroying pagan temples. The his torian Eunapius (f 415) judged them still more unfavorably. As the distin guished Gaul, Rutilius Namatianus, was returning in the year 416 from a visit to his idolized pagan City of Rome and was passing the rock-ribbed island of Capraria (near Elba), then the site of a monastery, he broke out into impreca tions and curses: "You see before you Capraria," he said, "crammed full of miserable wretches, all enemies of the light. They get their name "monk" from the Greek, because they want to live alone and without witnesses. They
flee from the gifts of Fortune, because they are afraid of her flickleness. They make themselves miserable out of fear of one day becoming miserable. Did one ever encounter such detestable folly? ... I see Gorgona (another monastic island) rising there out of the waves over against Pisa: those rocks, the scene of a recent shipwreck, are a cause of intense hatred to me. For there one of my own countrymen went to his destruction; still alive, he stepped into his grave. Not long ago he was one of us .. . and now he wastes away, a gullible outcast, but one of a sordid rabble. The pitiable man! He thinks in his filth that he will one day enjoy the blessings of heaven, and he is more cruel towards himself than the gods whom he offends. Is not this sect more poisonous than the venom of Circe (a notorious siren of classical mythology), who bewitched only the bodies of her victims but not their souls" (Of the Re turn i, 139ff)? On the other hand, these islands of the Italian coast peopled by monks, from which the pagan Gaul Rutilius turned away in disgust, were showered with fulsome praise by Ambrose (f397), Bishop of Milan: "There the murmur of the waves that lap gently against their shores vies with the songs of the psalmist. Then the islands chime in with the peaceful dance of the tides and echo back again with the praises of the saints" (Work of the Sixth Day III, v, 23).
But the pagan hostility against monasticism could not imperil its ideals of monastic life. The same may be said of the hostile attitude of some Chris tians. Men such as Basil the Great, Jerome, John Chrysostom, Martin, and Augustine—to mention only a few of the more vibrant personalities—who were themselves monks and had entered the lists in defense of the monastic idea, simply could not allow any fundamental or extensive opposition to develop inside Christendom. When loud voices were raised in protest, it was in almost every instance a case of religious indifference or laxity, which saw itself reproached by that monastic pattern of conduct. Shortly after the year 386, the opposition to the monks as a class broke out into scandalous excesses in Antioch, a city notorious for its sensual luxury as far back as in pagan times.
Individual monks were in truth physically maltreated. Laughing and gloating over the mischief they had perpetrated, the idle miscreants boasted on the streets and in the market place of what they had done to them. And the occa sion for what had happened amounted merely to this. It seems that the monks living in the neighborhood of the city had been in the practice of taking in children from Antioch for instruction and training. Some of these youngsters had remained with the monks and had not come back. Great resentment had arisen on account of this. Chrysostom wrote three books "Against the Enemies of the Monks," in which he lavished praise upon them as educators.
The East, as we have said, had early and quickly opened its mind and its heart to the monastic idea. The wish to devote himself to a life of contem plation fitted in with the essential genius and temperament of the oriental.
Though we do now and then read of noisy voices raised in opposition to it, even if not so numerous as in the East, the West did not by any means close
its mind to monasticism. The Roman aristocracy was incensed at St. Jerome, because he had inspired and won over a number of the noble women of Rome to the religious life. However, when in the year 384 Blesilla, daughter of the noble Paula, died at the age of 20 years, in the very bloom of her young wom anhood, and the almost uncontrollable grief of her mother was observed at the obsequies, the ill will of the populace broke out into the open. "Have we not said it often enough," they cried, "that it would so happen? Blesilla was the victim of her fasts . . . When will they drive this detestable brood of monks out of the city? Why do they not stone them? Why do not cast them into the sea? They have perverted that poor woman (Paula), for it is now become a apparent that she did not want to be a 'monkess'* (see note, foot of next page).
Did ever a pagan mother so bemoan her children" (St. Jerome, Letter xlix, 6)?
Similarly as in Rome so in Africa, especially in the city of Carthage, there raged great animosity against the monks. "Just as there, the infidel and unhappy populace could hardly refrain from insults and curses when it saw a monk walking along in his habit, pale of countenance and with locks shorn close to his scalp. Did a servant of God from the cloisters of Egypt, from the holy city of Jerusalem, or from the venerable places in the desert, occasionally or only once arrive in the city to attend divine services, he had also to suffer abuse, listen to blasphemies, and endure curses as soon as the mob caught sight of him. Not only that: amidst the immoderate laughter of vicious men and the contemptuous whistling of the scoffers, they were bela bored with thongs of oxhide. Truly, at first sight, to one not familiar with the circumstances, it would have appeared as if not a human being was being mocked, but as if some new kind and altogether unusual type of monster had been hunted down and driven out of the city." Salvian (+ after 480), a monk at Lerins about the year 425 and later a priest at Marseilles, besides the above quotation, offers also a basis for this condition or conduct: "These Africans hated the good monks, because they recognized that everything associated with the monastic life was a strong reproach to them for their evil lives. They lived constantly in the friendship of the devil, while the others lived ever in the company of Christ" (Von der Weltregierung Gottes VIII, iv). As has been said, all these voices so inimical or unfavorably disposed towards monasticism could not essentially minimize the esteem it held or obstruct its spread in the world. If at times critical observations were directed at the tales of wonders related by St. Jerome, these were not valid arguments against monachism as such, but were rather an understandable protest against the occasionally im moderate quest for the miraculous.
Excursus VI.
Shadows over the Old Monasticism.—There is no idea and no establishment that cannot be corrupted or destroyed, knowingly or unknowingly, by the im perfections or foibles of men. It need not, then, be a matter of surprise that * (The word "monkess" (German — Monchin) appearing here is rare, but was probably used to accentuate the contempt of the speakers. -The translator)
the splendid idea and establishment of monasticism should have been pervert ed by one or the other group of its adherents. And there were in truth dark shadows cast at times over that early monasticism, shadows that one cannot overlook. Still, however dark the shades that erring monks may have drawn over their way of life, the bright rays of splendor that streamed forth from monasticism as a whole cannot be veiled or screened from sight. Many a sharp and carping word levelled against it had its cause or occasion in these shadowy aspects. St. Benedict himself, when in the first chapter of his Rule he speaks of the sarabaites and the gyrovagues, renders merciless judgement in the matter. In the fourth chapter also, he gives us clearly to understand that there are no sins or vices from which the monk might be immune. In the course of the same Rule, he returns again and again to certain manifestations of monastic unrestraint, so that we might therefrom make up our own cata logue of cloister vices.
Just as in the High Middle Ages, the mendicant orders were born of the crying needs and birth throes of the times, so it becomes more and more evident that this was the case also with the old monasticism, with the various early monastic rules, as well as with the Rule of St. Benedict. It was quite a difficult problem to direct onto the right track the numberless and greatly undisciplined monk hordes of the time. Likewise, it was no easy task to sub due, restrain, master, and keep within strong banks the overwhelming torrent of religious vigor and enthusiasm of so many largely unlettered individuals who had taken to a monk's or a hermit's life. As we have stated, the first step was made by St. Pachomius with the founding of the cloister. The patri archs of Alexandria also proved themselves masters in the art of directing the powerful spiritual energies of the monks and turning them to use in further ance of their own religious programs. The spiritual enthusiasm of this vast monastic army served and supported not only St. Athanasius in his fight against Arianism, but also St. Cyril in his defense of Our Lady's most honor able title of Theotokos (Mother of God). On the other side of the picture, more than once, throngs of monks gathering together in the cities, managed to make themselves heard, perhaps forcibly at times, so that both state and Church authorities had to step in to avert the panic that might have resulted from a badly led army of religious enthusiasts. Above all other agencies, it was the Council of Chalcedon (451) that first warned and then compelled them to adopt a policy of discipline, peace, and stability. In general it may be said that the old monasticism proved itself to be a bulwark of orthodoxy in the Church. On the other hand, three of the early Christian heresies got their names from the monks who started them, namely, Nestorianism, Eutychianism, and Pelagianism.
Nestorius (f c. 451), coming from the same illustrious circle of monks as St. John Chrysostom, was first a priest at Antioch and later, like Chrysos tom, bishop of Constantinople. It was his unyielding and narrow-minded fanaticism, which had closed his mind to every contrary argument, that en-
couraged and fostered the heretical doctrine of two independent persons in Christ, namely, the human and the divine. It was condemned at Ephesus in 431.
In contrast to the teaching of Nestorius, the heresy that mixed and com bined the two natures in Christ into one, took its name from the uncultured monk and abbot, Eutyches (the happy one)—Pope Leo thought he should have been named Atyches (the unhappy one). This heresy was condemned in the Council of Chalcedon in 451. It was against the crags of these two heresies that the unity of the once flourishing Church of the East was shattered and her people later sacrificed to the onrushing hordes of the Crescent.
Pelagianism, despite its admission of man's extreme weakness, was the heresy that postulated that same man's ability to attain salvation through his own natural powers, without the help of God's grace. It took its name, of course, from Pelagius, a highly cultured lay-monk, who had come from Ire land. He therewith denied the existence or efficacy of divine grace and Re demption, the fact of original sin, and the consequent corruption of human nature. The monks of southern Gaul took up the gauge of battle against him, but more vehemently than they St. Augustine entered the lists, and in the prolonged conflict won for himself the honored title, "Teacher on Grace."
Among the Egyptians, too, there were many uncultured individuals who interpreted God and all divine things from a purely human point of view.
Different from these, but still heretical in their views, were some of the fol lowers of Origen. These manifested a tendency to sidetrack the letter of the Scriptures, whereas the others took them all too literally. Finally, there was one heresy, wholly of monastic origin, namely, the so-called Messalianism.
The name, coming probably from the Syrian, does not quite give the essential nature of the heresy, whose advocates were said by the desert fathers to have been called the "prayers." Its basic viewpoint consisted in this that it equated divine grace and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, above all, every super natural reality with one's own subjective emotional experience.
In the Messalians one met with a fanatical pseudo-mystical sect, which first manifested its presence in Mesopotamia and Syria, soon penetrated into Asia Minor, and then into Egypt. It postulated the indwelling of the evil spirits in the soul—a perversion of the doctrine of original sin—likewise, the inefficacy of Baptism and the other Sacraments to drive them out, condemned manual labor and earthly possessions outright, and demanded of its adherents a life of mendicancy and unceasing occupation at prayer. They called them selves the Pneumatikoi, that is, the spirit-filled, and the Asketes, that is, the ascetics. The Pneumatikos secs God and is sinless. The Council of Ephesus condemned them, but their influence was by no means negligible. Even
Abbot Cassian, who interested himself in everybody and everything during his travels, seems to have been affected by them. The original literature of the heresy has completely disappeared. However, still preserved at one time were extensive writings, containing traces of Messalian thought, but which have
since been amended in line with the Church's teaching. Among the latter are to be reckoned the numerous "spiritual talks," which have come down to us, erroneously so, under the name of the Egyptian monk, Macarius (f c. 390).
We discover in them some deeply thoughtful expositions concerning the means that lead the soul to Christ through the Holy Spirit.
St. Augustine, who in his cloisters experienced many a bitter disap pointment, wrote to the clergy and laity of Hippo in connection with a serious scandal that had taken place there: "In what else and for what other purpose do the enemies of the Church get together when a bishop or a cleric, a monk or a nun falls grievously, except that they may gloat, voice their suspicions, and assure their listeners: That is the way they all are, even if you cannot prove it of them all.' . . May the discipline in my house be ever so flourishing,
I am still a human being, and live among human beings. Let me not attempt to claim that my house is better than the circle of the Lord's Apostles, which included the faithless and thieving Judas, along with the eleven good ones; or, finally, better than heaven itself, wherein fell the angels. Openly do I con fess it to your love and before the Lord our God, who is the witness of my soul: as I, since I have begun to serve God, have found hardly anywhere any men better than those who have perfected themselves in the cloister, so also f have learned to know no worse individuals than those who fell from grace in those same institutions. If we are thus saddened by reason of the occasion al cast-aways, let us console ourselves on account of the numerous pearls.
Do not reject the olive mash from which the storehouses of the Lord are filled with products of the purest oil, merely on account of the muddy dregs that also come therefrom" (Letter lxxviii, 6, 8, & 9). Sin can insinuate itself even into the cloister.
"Of course, it is a good and praiseworthy thought to sojourn in the midst of men who have chosen for themselves a life of silence. Far from the noises of the crowd, from the restlessness of the human masses, and from the roaring surf of the world, they live as it were in a haven of peace. But merely on that account does the great bliss already reign there? Is the promised song of jubilee now pealing forth there? Hardly! Not yet. Also in that port of comparative peace there is sadness; there the tempests of temptation still plague men. For this haven from the storms has an entrance from another side. Did it have no entrance at all, how could ships find a way in? One side or the other must remain open. Through one of those entrances the tempests will at times break in; and although there are no rocks there, the vessels toss and crash against one another. Where, then, is there safety if not even in port? —That so long as they are in the harbor, they are safer than on the high seas is true and readily admitted. But they must love themselves—and all the ships in port—and treat one another with benevolence, not contending
(crashing against) with one another (in hate). One may, however, there safe guard his meekness and constant charity equally well. And should a gale blow in, there will always be a careful pilot at the helm.