Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/726

698 MONACHISM nnHE word Monachism, or Monasticism, primarily mean- I ing the act of " dwelling alone " (/u-ova^os, />vaeiv, /^ovos), has come, by an easy and natural transition, to denote the corporate life of religious communities living a life of poverty, celibacy, and obedience, under a fixed rule of discipline. The root-idea of monachism, in all its varieties of age, creed, and country, is the same namely, retirement from society in search of some ideal of life which society cannot supply, but which is thought attainable by abnegation of self and withdrawal from the world. This definition applies to all the forms of monachism which have left their mark on history, whether amongst Brahmans, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Moslems, or the communistic societies of the present day, even when theoretically anti-theological. This broad general conception of monachism is differ enced in the following ways : It may take the form of absolute separation, so far as practicable, from all human intercourse, so as to give the whole life to solitary con templation the anchoretic type ; or, contrariwise, it may seek fellowship with kindred spirits in a new association for the same common end the coenobitic type ; it may abandon society as incurably corrupt, as a City of De struction out of which the fugitive must flee absolutely the Oriental view, for the most part ; or it may consider itself as having a mission to influence and regenerate society which has been, on the whole, and with minor exceptions, the Western theory of the monastic life. The question has been warmly debated whether mona chism be an evil or a good, whether a natural, perhaps a necessary, part of Christianity (as being, indeed, the strict logical issue of the triple vow of baptism, literally construed), or a foreign element introduced into it with unfortunate results, and rather an excrescence on its system than an orderly and healthy development. Unlike many other institutions which have needed the lapse of centuries and the gradual approach of decay and degeneracy to show their weak places, monachism in its Christian form displays some of its most unlovely features while yet almost in its cradle, whereas not a few of its best achieve ments belong to a late period in its history ; and it has throughout displayed a singular elasticity and power of taking a fresh departure, after seeming to have exhausted its energies. Its champions and its opponents have thus always had ample materials for their briefs, and there is little probability of the controversy ever coming to an end. But the most philosophical mode of viewing its relation to Christianity is to recognize that monachism has made a part of every creed which has attained a certain stage of ethical and theosophical development ; that there is a class of minds for which it has always had a powerful attrac tion, and which can otherwise find no satisfaction ; and consequently that Christianity, if it is to make good its claim to be a universal religion, must provide expression for a principle which is as deeply seated in human nature as domesticity itself, albeit limited to a much smaller sec tion of mankind. Originat- Three main factors combined to produce the phenomenon of monachism in early Christianity, each of them set in motion by the general dissolution of morals in the pagan society of the time, of which we get a sufficient glimpse from the Christian standpoint in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and from the pagan standpoint in the sixth Satire of Juvenal. These three factors were (1) the Oriental tendency towards retirement, contemplation, and asceticism, influencing the infant Christian church through the agency of those Jewish ascetics, the Essenes and Therapeuta3, who had begun long before the gospel times both the solitary and the common life in Palestine and Egypt, and who probably contributed many converts to Christianity, and became practically merged therein, as they disappear from history in the first century of the Christian era ; (2) the Hellenic teaching of the Alexandrine Neo-Platonists on the purification of the intellect by absten tion from physical indulgence ; and (3), perhaps a more powerful influence than either, that old Roman spirit of austerity and discipline which, while looking back regret fully to the memories of the simpler habits of republican times, could find nothing amidst the social luxury and administrative weakness of the decaying empire which pre sented its ideal, save the monastic system with its rigid proscription of luxury, and even of comfort, in every form. The first-named of these three factors was, however, neces sarily the earliest to operate. The Scriptures attest clearly the existence of a body of ascetics in the persons of the ISTazarites, leading always for a certain period, and sometimes for life, a stricter existence than the ordinary Jew ; Elijah and John the Baptist furnished examples of the solitary hermit type ; the Schools of the Prophets at least seem to have been celibate and ccenobitic communities, living by a fixed ascetic rule ; and it is familiar to all that such was the actual discipline of the Essenes (see ESSENES). The sect of the Therapeutse, known to us only from the book De Vita Contemplativa (ascribed to Philo), and described as chiefly, though not exclusively, established in Egypt, bore much resemblance to the Essenes, differing from them for the most part by greater austerity in the matter of food, and by their preference for the solitary life over the common fellowship of the Essenes ; for their custom was that each member confined himself to his lonely dwelling (called by the afterwards famous name of povavr-i ipiov) throughout the week, while all assembled on the Sabbath for joint worship, and for instruction from the senior of the society. So closely does this polity resemble that of several of the earliest Christian societies of the kind that Eusebius de votes a chapter of his Ecclesiastical History (ii. 17) to as serting their identity, holding that Philo could have been speaking of none save Christian ascetics, a view in which he is followed by Sozomen and Cassian in ancient times, as also by many moderns. This view has been rendered much more probable by recent inquirers, who seem to have made out that the De Vit. Cont. is spurious, and was written about 300 A.D. ; x for there is a general agreement amongst the fathers that the monastic life did not begin till nearly two hundred years after Philo lived ; and Ter- tullian (160-240 A.D.) declares explicitly that Christians in his time did not withdraw from society, " We are not Indian Brahmans or Gymnosophists, dwellers in woods, and exiles from life ; ... we sojourn with you in the world " (Apol., xlii.). Yet there is no reason to doubt that the leaven of Essenism was at work in the church from the earliest time, and helped to form the temper which issued in monachism. Still, the process was slow and gradual, passing through very much the same stages as can be traced by careful inquiry in the case of the Essenes. That is to say, the new converts to Christianity, being for the most part dwellers in cities, were in necessary and daily contact with the heathen society around, whose relaxation was such as to induce an even greater recoil from habits of self-indulgence than the stricter morality of their new creed enjoined, so that a body known by the name of "Ascetics" sprang up very soon within the church, and

1 See especially Lucius, Die Therapeuten, 1879.