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MOSTACHISM 729 scripts, agricultural and mechanical occupa- tions, and the various offices of charity. These monasteries were great industrial schools, and those of the Thebaid served as hostelries for travellers over the desert; for each had its xenodochium in which gratuitous hospitality was exercised. Pachomius had made the study of the Bible a special duty ; all his monks were obliged to know how to read and write ; and in each monastery of Tabenna there was one family exclusively composed of learned men, skilled in Greek literature. These institutions were replenished constantly with the disciples of the Alexandrian schools, and reacted occa- sionally upon the intellectual life of the latter. The monastic institutions of Egypt were imitated in Syria, Asia Minor, and the south- ern shores of the Black sea, eremitical life being in the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries every- where superseded by the cenobitical. St. Hi- larion became in 328 the father of monastic life in Palestine ; Eustathinrs, bishop of Sebaste, propagated it about the same epoch in Ar- menia; St. Basil about 360 spread it in the province of Pontus ; and St. John Chrysostom, who found it flourishing around Antioch, ex- tended its influence by word and example. The practices of eremitical life were never re- garded with much favor either by the great church fathers or by the councils. They rather aimed at forming, by the temporary exercise of the ascetic virtues, apostolic men fitted to spread the reign of gospel truth among the city populations. With still less favor did they regard the extraordinary performances of the Sarabaitse, Stylites, Accemeta?, Agonistas, and the like. From the desert, monastic in- stitutions were transplanted to the towns, and ecclesiastical writers soon complained that many fled to the convent only for the pur- pose of finding there a life of ease ; that the mask of piety served frequently for conceal- ing laziness and wickedness; that excessive asceticism led many to licentiousness, insanity, despair, and suicide ; that ignorance and fanat- icism made the monks dangerous tools in the hands of ambitious men, and that their zeal could be turned to acts of violence against Chrysostom as well as to the destruction of pagan temples or the suppression of Arianism. The emperor Valens and several of his succes- sors vainly sought to arrest the too rapid in- crease of monachism. The contemplative life led many into gross anthropomorphism, which caused their exclusion from the church. But though many censured the abuses of mona- chism, few were found, like Jovinian, to assail the principle. Under the growing influence of the Byzantine emperors, the eastern church, and with it eastern monachism, lost all vitality. No attempts were made to create new organiza- tions. Traditionally all the eastern monks have followed up to the present day the so-called rule of St. Basil, and have called themselves after either St. Basil or St. Anthony. They are still numerous in all the eastern churches, and some of their establishments, as the con- vents of Mount Athos, are still celebrated for their literary treasures or political influence ; but they have ceased altogether to be power- ful agencies of religious influence. Monachism was destined to achieve its greatest successes in the West, About 340 Athanasius during his second exile went to Rome with some Egyptian monks. Later he met St. Martin of Tours, still a soldier, in the imperial city of Treves, and confirmed the latter in his resolution of embracing a monastic life. Martin founded, it is said, the first monasteries established west of the Alps, and may thus be called the father of monachism in Gaul. Cassian, his contempo- rary, planted another monastic colony at* Mar- seilles, and wrote there his book " On Monas- tic Institutions." The disciples of St. Jerome were obliged to follow him to Bethlehem. Ambrose founded a monastic establishment at Milan, and there he converted Augustine, who in his turn became in north Africa the origi- nator of a form of monastic life that was to live afterward in thousands of European institu- tions. Augustine before he became a priest lived near Carthage a semi-eremitical life with a few friends ; and the rule which they then followed served as the basis of the rule adopted long afterward by the Augustinian order, or hermits of St. Augustine. After his ordina- tion, and especially during his episcopal life, he lived in community with his brother priests ; and their mode of life, together with the mo- nastic regulations scattered through his wri- tings served as an examplar for the countless houses of canons regular throughout Chris- tendom, for the orders of Font6vrault and Premontre, for the Gilbertine canons regular in England, the order of friars preachers, and innumerable orders of women. The Augus- tinian manner of living was brought over to England by Pelagius, and to Ireland by St. Patrick. Monastic establishments and schools in the time of St. Patrick sprang up around the great churches as well as institutions favor- able to seclusion and study. St. Columba sent monastic colonies into Scotland, the Hebrides, and the Orkneys. The first Northmen who col- onized Iceland found Irish monks there before them. St. Columbanus passed over into Gaul with 12 companions, who founded numerous similar institutions in that country, Switzer- land, Germany, and northern Italy. England had flourishing cenobitic establishments in the same centuries. But in the monasteries found- ed in continental Europe by these Irish monks, the rule of St. Benedict of Nursia soon super- seded that of Columbanus. Benedict in 529 built at Monte Casino two oratories in honor of St. John the Baptist and St. Martin of Tours, and his rule spread rapidly over all western Europe, uniting independent establish- ments in one great monastic hierarchy. The good effected by the monasteries of both sexes, not only in the work of conversion and edu- cation, but even in promoting agriculture and