Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/727

MONACHISM 699 were urged on to still greater severity of life when the rapid progress of Christianity brought large numbers of merely nominal converts in, whose practice fell too conspicuously below their profession. The desire of protest against such a state of things led to the gradual separation of the devotees into a kind of order within the main body, and to their actual withdrawal from habitual intercourse with their less strict fellows, which led in turn to their departure from the towns into more secluded places, even before any formal conception of the monastic life had shaped itself in their minds. But the first glimpse obtainable of the " common life," and that only an indistinct one, is in the New Testament, and applies to women alone. There is mention in the pastoral epistles (1 Tim. v. 9-12) of a class of widows, apparently not as mere recipients of relief, but as constituting an ecclesiastical grade ; while in Acts ix. 39 it appears as if a number of women belonging to this order were united in some kind of community under the headship of Dorcas, for the narrative rather implies that they were her assistants in making clothing for the poor than themselves the objects of her bounty. This conjecture receives some confirmation from the mention of " the virgins who are called widows " (ras TrapOevovs ras Aeyo/xevas X r lP as ) in the shorter recension of the Ignatian Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, and from the statement of Athanasius, that Anthony, when himself about to begin the solitary life which he is regarded as having instituted, first placed his sister in a convent of virgins (jrapOfviava), facts which prove the organization of women at an earlier date in com munity life than of men, and lend some probability to the notion that it may have begun very soon indeed, especially when the prominence given to the virgins as a separate and seemingly long-established order in the church by such early writers as Tertullian and Cyprian is borne in mind. Two other causes must be taken into account as tend ing to stimulate monachism when once it began. First is the theological opinion, early formulated, and never since Avithout many advocates, that two distinct standards of life and holiness are set forth in the gospel : that of pre cept, and that of "counsels of perfection," the former binding all Christians without exception, the latter being voluntary, and merely offered for acceptance to such as aim at especial sanctity. The second, and even more powerful, agent was Gnosticism, not only in its earlier forms and in the kindred spirit of Montanism, but still more in its Manichsean development, when its dualism led to exaggeration of the antagonism between flesh and spirit, and the human body was regarded no longer as a servant to be trained, but as an enemy to be crushed and beaten down with unrelenting hostility. But in every age of monachism, from the earliest to the latest, social disorders and insecurity have proved the chief feeders of the cloister, never widely popular in times of healthy and orderly national life, but eagerly resorted to as a place of shelter from social turbulence. There are five main classes of monastic institutions, each of which approximately marks a new departure in the history of Western monachism (for the East has never had more than the first), as they succeed one another in chrono logical order, without in any instance involving the aban donment of the previous foundations. They are (1) Monks ; (2) Canons Regular ; (3) Military Orders ; (4) Friars ; (5) Clerks Regular. All of these have communities of women, either actually affiliated to them, or formed on similar lines. Early There is no doubt as to the time and the person, when, Ascetics, and by whom, the first decisive step was taken which left a marked interval for all time between those ascetics who continued to live in family life, if not really part of it, or who at least dwelt close to some ordinary church, to which they resorted habitually, and the seekers after some more retired and separate mode of life, whether singly or in communities. During the stress of the Decian persecution (249-250 A.D.) Paul, a native of the Lower Thebaid, born of wealthy parents about 228, was denounced by his brother-in-law to the authorities as a Christian, and fled for safety in to the desert, where he established himself in a cavern, shaded by a palm-tree, and with a spring of water close by. There he remained till extreme old age, dying, if we may accept Jerome s chronology, in his hundred and thirteenth year, about 342. Although he did not collect any band of disciples around him, nor even, so far as is re corded, attract any casual visitors, except his more famous successor, Anthony, who is alleged, in a narrative con taining many legendary details, to have had an interview with him when himself a very old man, the day before Paul s death ; yet there seems reason to believe that the fame of his example spread sufficiently to induce imitation of it, and that anchoretic cells began to be set up sparsely in the deserts even before Anthony adopted that mode of life. Anthony s career differed in various respects from that of his precursor. In the first place, it was voluntary choice, not fear of persecution, which sent him into solitude. He was born about 250 at Coma in Upper Egypt, of wealthy Christian parents, and was left at eighteen years of age in possession of a large fortune and of the guardian ship of a younger sister. He had received what was prob ably a fair vernacular education, but distaste for study, or perhaps more probably that difficulty which contempla tive intellects experience in the acquisition of languages, left him unacquainted with Greek or Latin ; yet the intimate knowledge of Scripture which he afterwards displayed cannot be satisfactorily accounted for in any other way than as the result of attentive perusal, since no mere listening to the lections in church would suffice to con vey it ; and we must therefore take Athanasius s statement of his ignorance of letters to denote the absence of culture, not as implying actual illiteracy. One day, hearing the gospel read, " Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor . . . and come, and follow Me," he took it as a direct address to himself, and at once returned home, distributed his pro perty amongst his neighbours, reserving only a small sum for the support of his sister whom he placed in charge of some Christian virgins, and then betook himself to a solitary life, first visiting the most eminent ascetics and anchorets he could find, in order that he might learn the peculiar merit of each, and imitate it. He fixed his dwell ing first in a tomb, then in a ruined fort near the Nile, where he remained for twenty years, leaving it but once, in 311, to encourage the Christians of Alexandria during the persecution of Maximin ; and lastly in a small grove of date-palms, a few miles west of the western coast of the Red Sea, near the base of Mount Kolzim, where he made an enclosure and planted it as a garden. He quitted this retirement but once in his remaining life, when he again visited Alexandria in 335, at the request of Athan asius, to preach against the Arians. Yet his fame drew not only frequent visitors to his cell, but numerous disciples and imitators around him, attracted not alone by his pious austerities, but by his cheerful and courteous manners and shrewd practical judgment. He made the solitary life honourable and popular, fully justifying Jerome s phrase in comparing him with Paul, " Hujus vita; auctor Paulus, illustrator etiam Antonius." When Anthony died in 365, aged one hundred and five, the desert was already studded with hermitages in every direction, and the second great step in the development of monachism had been long taken by Pachomius, who stands out in history at once as the founder of the coenobitic life amongst Christians and as the

author of the first formal monastic rule. Born about 292,