Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/728

700 MONACHISM and converted to Christianity in early manhood while serving in the army, he was baptized on obtaining his dis charge, and at once adopted the ascetic life under the direction of the hermit Palaemon, with whom he retired to Tabennse, an island in the Nile, between Farshoot and Dendarah. Here he began his new institute, whose dis tinguishing features were as follows. The monks were distributed into cells, each of which contained three inmates, known in this relation as syncelli (the usual number in other Egyptian foundations was two in each cell, while in Syria the tenant had no partner). A large number of such cells clustered near each other formed a laura, and each such laiira had but one common place for meals and other assemblies. Work and food were apportioned to each inmate according to his physical strength, and such as were permitted exceptional strictness in fasting were not to undertake the heavier tasks of bodily labour. Their dress was to be a close linen tunic, with a white goatskin by way of upper garment, which they Avere not to lay aside at meals or in bed, but only when they assembled for the eucharist, when they wore their hoods only in addition to the tunic. They were divided into twenty-four groups or classes numbered according to the letters of the Greek alphabet, into which they were distributed according to their intellectual and spiritual proficiency, the least intelli gent being placed in class t, the letter of simplest form, and the ablest in class , the most complicated. Each group was subdivided into bands of ten and a hundred under decurions and centurions, and all subject to the Abbot, who was himself in turn, when the institution spread and ramified, subject to the Superior (or Archi mandrite) of the mother-house ; while the finance of each house was managed by a steward (OIKOVO/^OS), who was simi larly accountable to the treasurer or steward at Tabennse. Their usual food was bread and water ; their luxuries, oil, salt, and a few occasional fruits or vegetables, chiefly pulse ; frugal meals which they ate in strict silence sometimes broken by the voice of a reader, appointed to recite lections from the Bible each man so wearing his hood or cowl as to hide his face from his companions. They assembled twice daily for common prayer, and met further for communion on Saturdays and Sundays. A strict probation of three years was imposed on postulants for admission, during which they were confined to simple tasks of labour, and were not permitted to enter upon actual study till they had satisfactorily passed through this term. Their work was tillage for their own immediate wants, and weaving mats or baskets for sale, to procure such necessaries as their direct labour was insufficient to provide; and, as time went on, other handicrafts were practised in the cloisters, such as those of smiths, tailors, boat-builders, tanners, and so forth. Pachomius induced his sister to found a convent of nuns governed by very similar rules, and subject to the authority of a visitor appointed by himself, as superior of the whole institute. Such was the success of the Pachomian rule that before the founder died (between 348 and 360) he had no fewer than fourteen hundred monks in his own ccenobium, and seven thousand altogether under his authority. Nor was its influence confined to Tabennse and its dependencies. Ammon carried the rule into the Nitrian desert, where five thousand monks were soon collected ; Hilarion bore it into Syria and Palestine, Eustathius of Sebaste into Armenia, Ephraem Syrus into Mesopotamia, Basil the Great into Cappadocia and Pontus (though a rule of his own framing supplanted it later) ; and, above all, it was brought by Athanasius himself into Italy, whence it spread over the West till modified in various ways by subsequent legis lation, and finally displaced by the Benedictine institute. And such Avas its popularity, meeting as it did a need of the time, that its votaries in Egypt alone amounted by the 5th century to more than a hundred thousand, of whom three-fourths Avere men. This rule has come doAvn to us in two very different forms : an earlier and probably ori ginal one, preserved for us in the Historia Lausiaca of Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis (367-430) a great store house of details on Egyptian monachism, Avhich is very brief, and has been summarized above and a much longer recension, extending to 194 heads or chapters, pre served in a translation by Jerome, in Avhose time the monks governed by it had increased to fifty thousand. It had not, however, a complete monopoly, for there Avere also similar rules in local use, going by the names of famous ascetics such as Paphnutius, Macarius, and Serapion ; nor Avas it uncommon to find communities Avherein tAvo or three different rules Avere followed simultaneously by the various inmates. The rule of Basil, hoAvever, proved to the East what that of Benedict did to the West, in that it practically absorbed or supplanted all its predecessors, Avhile, unlike the great Western reform, it has had no sub sequent competitors, and remains to this day the single monastic code of the Oriental Church. This rule is embodied in the Ascetic Sermons of Basil, and also in tAvo recensions, a longer and a shorter one, of the actual provisions of his code, Avhich are marked AA r ith not a little of the shreAvd practical sense, as Avell as lofty piety, which characterized the founder, being especially noticeable for their discouragement of the solitary mode of life, and for their recommendation of labour. The development of Orien tal monachism thus ceases with the Basilian rule, and there are only tA r o seeming exceptions to this fact : the institu tion of the Acoemeti (a/<oi/>ir;Tot), or "sleepless" monks in the 5th century, for the purpose of keeping up unbroken prayer day and night a system copied much later in the West by the communities founded for " perpetual adora tion ; " and the erection, for these very monks, of the great monastery of the Studium at Constantinople (named from Studius, its founder), A-hich Avas the Cluny of its time and country, as a centre of the more intellectual monastic life, and as the model of stateliness in ecclesiastical ceremonial. 1 Greek monachism, as an institute, has no history later than the 5th century. The monks indeed constantly appear as factors in the controversies of the centuries AA hich folloAved, at once the polemical and the political disputes shoAving them equally fierce and eager partisans (notably in the Iconoclastic controversy, which found them the most ardent champions of images) ; but they cannot be said to have exerted much influence upon society till a A ery late period of their history, when they Avere instrumental in keeping the national spirit and the national religion alive in Prussia when suffering under the Tatar yoke, and they performed a like service for Greece during the centuries of Turkish oppression. It may further be added that, hoAvever IOAV the intellectual life of Eastern monasteries may appear when judged by a Western standard, the clergy AA ho are trained in them, technically knoAvn as the "Black clergy," stand much higher in character, acquirements, and general influence than the secular or "White clergy" of the parishes, AA hether in Greece or in Russia. It has been already mentioned that the bad side of Irregular monachism appears almost as early as its good side. sects of __^ ^_ _ the East. 1 This great abbey, at the height of its prosperity, contained more than a thousand monks, and the following list of its staff of office bearers, due to Theodore the Studite, may be usefully compared with the Western monastic hierarchy: Hyov/j.(i>os (abbot), vworaKTiKfa (prior), ouo(w6/xoj (treasurer), ^triaTTj/ji.oi dpX ri^ (ceremoniarius), twiTy- pr)Ti?is (inspector), KavovapxTis (precentor), Taid/>x*?s (seneschal), KS- XapiTTjs (cellarer), dptcmjropios (refectioner), fiecrTidpios (sacrist), dipiiTTvicrrris (evigilator), vocroK&fj.os (infirmarer). One or two of the offices do not quite correspond in East arid West, but the general

resemblance is close.