Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/201

▼n] THE MONASTIC CHARACTER 183 excluded ; and it might be set and rigid and uncrea- tive in its obedience. But in its spiritual wealth and power lay compensation for its misprisal of the life that circles unto God through loves which are partly of this earth. Only by suppression and exclusion of what seemed opposing and in reality was too difficult to fulfil, could men of the transition and mediaeval centuries formulate and carry out an ideal of the per- fect Christian life. It was not for them, as it is not for other ages, to fulfil all of Christ. Evidently the contrast between the monk and the antique pagan man is well-nigh absolute. If we should take the foregoing outline of the monastic character sentence by sentence, and prefix a negative to each, we should find that the antique man was thereby not untruly, if but partially, described.^ The monastic character manifested different phases in monks and nuns of diverse temperaments living under various conditions. A consummate expression of it, toward the end of the Middle Ages, is the De Imitatione Christi of Thomas k Kempis. But we may rather turn to certain great men of the transition centuries. Their characters and the range of their faculties will indicate the scope of manhood and hu- man quality existing among Latin Christians, and will also illustrate monastic prototypes. Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Benedict, and Gregory the Great 1 This 18 trae, althoagh the monastic ideal had something In common, not only with certain problematic Jewish modes of life {ante, p. 141), but also with Neo-platonism, which was mainly Greek. Yet any elements which Neo-platonism may be deemed to have in common with monasticism will be found to be those characteristics which indicate departure from the antique.