We are now to follow the fortunes
of the monastic system from its introduction in Rome
to the time of Benedict of Nursia, the founder of
the first great monastic order.
Constantine the Great, the first Christian
emperor, who made Christianity the predominant religion
in the Roman Empire, died in 337 A.D. Three years
later Rome heard, probably for the first time, an
authentic account of the Egyptian hermits. The
story was carried to the Eternal City by Athanasius,
Bishop of Alexandria, one of the most remarkable characters
in the early church, a man of surpassing courage and
perseverance, an intrepid foe of heresy, “heroic
and invincible,” as Milton styled him.
Twenty of the forty-six years of his official life
were spent in banishment.
Athanasius was an intimate friend
of the hermit Anthony and a persistent advocate of
the ascetic ideal. When he fled to Rome, in 340,
to escape the persecutions of the Arians, he
took with him two specimens of monastic virtue Ammonius
and Isidore. These hermits, so filthy and savage
in appearance, albeit, as I trust, clean in heart,
excited general disgust, and their story of the tortures
and holiness of their Egyptian brethren was received
with derision. But men who had faced and conquered
the terrors of the desert were not to be so easily
repulsed. Aided by other ascetic travelers from
the East they persisted in their propaganda until
contempt yielded to admiration. The enthusiasm
of the uncouth hermits became contagious. The
Christians in Rome now welcomed the story of the recluses
as a Divine call to abandon a dissolute society for
the peace and joy of a desert life.
But before this transformation of
public opinion can be appreciated, it is needful to
know something of the social and religious condition
of Rome in the days when Athanasius and his hermits
walked her streets.
After suffering frightful persecutions
for three centuries, the Church had at last nominally
conquered the Roman Empire; nominally, because although
Christianity was to live, the Empire had to die.
“No medicine could have prevented the diseased
old body from dying. The time had come.
When the wretched inebriate embraces a spiritual religion
with one foot in the grave, with a constitution completely
undermined, and the seeds of death planted, then no
repentance or lofty aspiration can prevent physical
death. It was so in Rome.” The death-throes
were long and lingering, as befits the end of a mighty
giant, but death was certain. There are many
facts which explain the inability of a conquering
faith to save a tottering empire, but it is impracticable
for us to enter upon that wide field. Some help
may be gained from that which follows.
Of morals, Rome was destitute.
She possessed the material remains and superficial
acquirements of a proud civilization, such as great
public highways, marble palaces, public baths, temples
and libraries. Elegance of manners and acquisitions
of wealth indicate specious outward refinement.
But these things are not sufficient to guarantee the
permanence of institutions or the moral welfare of
a nation. In the souls of men there was a fatal
degeneracy. There was outward prosperity but
inward corruption.
Professor Samuel Dill, in his highly
instructive work on “Roman Society in the Last
Century of the Western Empire,” points out the
fact that Rome’s fall was due to economic and
political causes as well as to the deterioration of
her morals. A close study of these causes, however,
will reveal the presence of moral influences.
Professor Dill says: “The general tendency
of modern inquiry has to discover in the fall of that
august and magnificent organization, not a cataclysm,
precipitated by the impact of barbarous forces, but
a process slowly prepared and evolved by internal
and economic causes.” Two of these causes
were the dying out of municipal liberty and self-government,
and the separation of the upper class from the masses
by sharp distributions of wealth and privilege.
It is indeed true that these causes contributed to
Rome’s ruin; that the central government was
weak; that the civil service was oppressive and corrupt;
that the aristocratic class was selfish; and that
the small landed proprietors were steadily growing
poorer and fewer, while, on the contrary, the upper
or senatorial class was increasing in wealth and power.
But after due emphasis has been accorded to these
destructive factors, it yet remains true that the want
of public spirit and the prevailing cultivated selfishness
may be traced to a decline of faith in those religious
ideals that serve to stimulate the moral life and
thus preserve the national integrity.
Society was divided into three classes.
It is computed that one-half the population were slaves.
A large majority of the remainder were paupers, living
on public charity, and constituting a festering sore
that threatened the life of the social organism.
The rich, who were relatively few, squandered princely
incomes in a single night, and exhausted their imaginations
devising new and expensive forms of sensuous pleasure.
The profligacy of the nobles almost surpasses credibility,
so that trustworthy descriptions read like works of
fiction. Farrar says: “A whole population
might be trembling lest they should be starved by
the delay of an Alexandrian corn ship, while the upper
classes were squandering a fortune at a single banquet,
drinking out of myrrhine and jeweled vases worth hundreds
of pounds, and feasting on the brains of peacocks
and the tongues of nightingales.” The frivolity
of the social and political leaders of Rome, the insane
thirst for lust and luxury, the absence of seriousness
in the face of frightful, impending ruin, almost justify
the epigram of Silvianus, “Rome was laughing
when she died.”
“On that hard
pagan world disgust
And secret loathing
fell;
Deep weariness and sated
lust
Made human life a hell.
In his cool hall, with
haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;
He drove abroad in furious
guise
Along the Appian Way;
He made a feast, drank
fierce and fast,
And crowned his hair
with flowers
No easier nor no guicker
past
The impracticable hours.”
Pagan mythology and Pagan philosophy
were powerless to resist this downward tendency.
Although Christianity had become the state religion,
it was itself in great danger of yielding to the decay
that prevailed. The Empire was, in fact, but
nominally Christian. Thousands of ecclesiastical
adherents were half pagan in their spirit and practice.
Harnack declares, “They were too deeply affected
by Christianity to abandon it, but too little to be
Christians. Pure religious enthusiasm waned,
ideals received a new form, and the dependence and
responsibility of individuals became weaker.”
Even ordinary courage had everywhere declined and
the pleasures of the senses controlled the heart of
Christian society.
Many of the men who should have resisted
this gross secularization of the church, who ought
to have set their faces against the departure from
apostolic ideals by exalting the standards of the earlier
Christianity; these men, the clergy of the Christian
church, had deserted their post of duty and surrendered
to the prevailing worldliness.
Jerome describes, with justifiable
sarcasm, these moral weaklings, charged with the solemn
responsibility of preaching a pure gospel to a dying
empire. “Such men think of nothing but their
dress; they use perfumes freely, and see that there
are no creases in their leather shoes. Their
curling hair shows traces of the tongs; their fingers
glisten with rings; they walk on tiptoe across a damp
road, not to splash their feet. When you see
men acting that way, think of them rather as bridegrooms
than as clergymen. If he sees a pillow that takes
his fancy, or an elegant table-cover, or, indeed, any
article of furniture, he praises it, looks admiringly
at it, takes it into his hand, and, complaining that
he has nothing of the kind, begs or rather extorts
it from its owner.” Such trifling folly
was fatal. The times demanded men of vigorous
spirit, who dared to face the general decline, and
cry out in strong tones against it. The age needed
moral warriors, with the old Roman courage and love
of sacrifice; martyrs willing to rot in prison or
shed their blood in the street, not effeminate men,
toying with fancy table-covers and tiptoeing across
a sprinkled road. “And as a background,”
says Kingsley, “to all this seething heap of
corruption, misrule and misery, hung the black cloud
of the barbarians, the Teutonic tribes from whom we
derive our best blood, ever coming nearer and nearer,
waxing stronger and stronger, to be soon the conquerors
of the Caesars and the masters of the world.”
But there were many pure and sincere
Christians a saving remnant. The joyous
alacrity with which men and women responded to the
monastic call, and entered upon careers of self-torture
for the sake of deliverance from moral corruption,
shows that the spirit of true faith was not extinct.
These seekers after righteousness may be described
as “a dismal and fanatical set of men, overlooking
the practical aims of life,” but it is a fair
question to ask, “if they had not abandoned the
world to its fate would they not have shared that
fate?” “The glory of that age,”
says Professor Dill, “is the number of those
who were capable of such self-surrender; and an age
should be judged by its ideals, not by the mediocrity
of conventional religion masking worldly self-indulgence.
This we have always with us; the other we have not
always.”
Yet the sad fact remains that the
transforming power of Christianity was practically
helpless before the surging floods of vice and superstition.
The noble struggles of a few saints were as straws
in a hurricane. The church had all she could
do to save herself.
“When Christianity itself was
in such need of reform,” says Lord, “when
Christians could scarcely be distinguished from pagans
in love of display, and in egotistical ends, how could
it reform the world? When it was a pageant, a
ritualism, an arm of the state, a vain philosophy,
a superstition, a formula, how could it save, if ever
so dominant? The corruptions of the church
in the fourth century are as well authenticated as
the purity and moral elevation of Christians in the
second century.” Even in the early days
of Christianity the ruin of Rome was impending, but,
at that time, the adherents of the Christian religion
were few and poor. They did not possess enough
power and influence to save the state. When monasticism
came to Rome, the lords of the church were getting
ready to sit upon the thrones of princes, but the
dazzling victory of the church was not a spiritual
conquest of sin, so the last ray of hope for the Empire
was extinguished. Her fall was inevitable.
With this outlined picture in mind,
fancy Athanasius and his monks at Rome. These
men despise luxury and contemn riches. They have
come to make Rome ring with the old war cries, although
they wrestled not against flesh and blood, but against
spiritual wickedness in high places. Terror and
despair are on every side, but they are not afraid.
They know what it means to face the demons of the desert,
to lie down at night with wild beasts for companions.
They have not yielded to the depravity of the human
heart and the temptations of a licentious age.
They have conquered sinful appetites by self-abnegation
and fasting. They come to a distracted society
with a message of peace a peace won by
courageous self-sacrifice. They call men to save
their perishing souls by surrendering their wills
to God and enlisting in a campaign against the powers
of darkness. They appeal to the ancient spirit
of courage and love of hardship. They arouse
the dormant moral energies of the profligate nobles,
proud of the past and sick of the present. The
story of Anthony admonished Rome that a life of sensuous
gratification was inglorious, unworthy of the true
Roman, and that the flesh could be mastered by heroic
endeavor.
Women, who spent their hours in frivolous
amusements, welcomed with gratitude the discovery
that they could be happy without degradation, and
joyfully responded to the call of righteousness.
“Despising themselves,” says Kingsley,
“despising their husbands to whom they had been
wedded in loveless wedlock, they too fled from a world
which had sated and sickened them.”
Woman’s natural craving for
lofty friendships and pure aspirations found satisfaction
in the monastic ideal. She fled from the incessant
broils of a corrupt court, from the courtesans that
usurped the place of the wife, from the insolence
and selfishness of men who scorned even the appearance
of virtue and did not hesitate to degrade even their
wives and sisters. She would disprove the biting
sarcasm of Juvenal,
“Women, in judgment
weak, in feeling strong,
By every gust of passion
borne along.
A woman stops at nothing,
when she wears
Rich emeralds round
her neck, and in her ears
Pearls of enormous size;
these justify
Her faults, and make
all lawful in her eye.”
Therefore did the women hear with
tremulous eagerness the story of the saintly inhabitants
of the desert, and flinging away their trinkets, they
hastened to the solitude of the cell, there to mourn
their folly and seek pardon and peace at the feet
of the Most High.
Likewise, the men, born to nobler
tasks than fawning upon princes and squandering life
and fortune in gluttony and debauchery, blushed for
shame, and abandoned forever the company of sensualists
and parasites. Potitianus, a young officer of
rank, read the life of Anthony, and cried to his fellow-soldier:
“Tell me, I pray thee, whither all our labors
tend? What do we seek? For whom do we carry
arms? What can be our greatest hope in the palace
but to be friend to the Emperor? And how frail
is that fortune! What perils! When shall
this be?” Inspired by the monastic story he
exchanged the friendship of the Emperor for the friendship
of God, and the military life lost all its attractiveness.
A philosopher and teacher hears the
same narrative, and his countenance becomes grave;
he seizes the arm of Alypius, his friend, and earnestly
asks: “What, then, are we doing? How
is this? What hast thou been hearing? These
ignorant men rise; they take Heaven by force, and we,
with our heartless sciences, behold us wallowing in
the flesh and in our blood! Is it shameful to
follow them, and are we not rather disgraced by not
following them?” So, disgusted with his self-seeking
career, his round of empty pleasures, he, too, is moved
by this higher call to abandon his wickedness and
devote his genius to the cause of righteousness.
Ambrose, Paulinus, Chrysostom, Basil,
Gregory, and many others, holding important official
posts or candidates for the highest honors, abandoned
all their chances of political preferment in order
to preach the gospel of ascetic Christianity.
Yes, for good or evil, Rome is profoundly
stirred. The pale monk, in all his filth and
poverty, is the master of the best hearts in the capital.
Every one in whom aspiration is still alive, who longs
for some new light, and all who vaguely grope after
a higher life, hear his voice and become pliant to
his will.
“Great historic movements,”
says Grimke, “are born not in whirlwinds, in
earthquakes, and pomps of human splendor and power,
but in the agonies and enthusiasms of grand, heroic
spirits.” Monastic history, like secular,
centers in the biographies of such great men as Anthony,
Basil, Jerome, Benedict, Francis, Dominic and Loyola.
To understand the character of the powerful forces
set in motion by the coming of the monks to Rome,
it is necessary to know the leading spirits whose
preeminent abilities and lofty personalities made Western
monasticism what it was.
The time is about 418 A.D.; the place,
a monastery in Bethlehem, near the cave of the Nativity.
In a lonely cell, within these monastic walls, we
shall find the man we seek. He is so old and feeble
that he has to be raised in his bed by means of a
cord affixed to the ceiling. He spends his time
chiefly in reciting prayers. His voice, once clear
and resonant, sinks now to a whisper. His failing
vision no longer follows the classic pages of Virgil
or dwells fondly on the Hebrew of the Old Testament.
This is Saint Jerome, the champion of asceticism, the
biographer of hermits, the lion of Christian polemics,
the translator of the Bible, and the worthy, brilliant,
determined foe of a dissolute society and a worldly
church. Although he spent thirty-four years of
his life in Palestine, I shall consider Jerome in
connection with the monasticism of the West, for it
was in Rome that he exercised his greatest influence.
His translation of the Scriptures is the Vulgate of
the Roman church, and his name is enrolled in the calendar
of her saints. “He is,” observes
Schaff “the connecting link between the Eastern
and Western learning and religion.”
By charming speech and eloquent tongue
Jerome won over the men, but principally the women,
of Rome to the monastic life. So powerful was
his message when addressed to the feminine heart,
that mothers are said to have locked their daughters
in their rooms lest they should fall under the influence
of his magnetic voice. It was largely owing to
his own labors that he could write in after years:
“Formerly, according to the testimony of the
apostles, there were few rich, few noble, few powerful
among the Christians. Now, it is no longer so.
Not only among the Christians, but among the monks
are to be found a multitude of the wise, the noble
and the rich.”
Near to the very year that Athanasius
came to Rome, or about 340 A.D., Jerome was born at
Stridon, in Dalmatia, in what is now called the Austro-Hungarian
monarchy. His parents were modestly wealthy and
were slaveholders. His student days were spent
in Rome, where he divided his time between the study
of books and the revels of the streets. One day
some young Christians induced him to visit the catacombs
with them. Here, before the graves of Christian
martyrs, a quiet and holy influence stole into his
heart, that finally led to his conversion and baptism.
Embracing the monastic ideal, he gathered around him
a few congenial friends, who joined him in a covenant
of rigid abstinence and ascetic discipline. Then
followed a year of travel with these companions, through
Asia Minor, ending disastrously at Antioch. One
of his friends returned home, two of them died, and
he himself became so sick with fever that his life
was despaired of. Undismayed by these evils, brought
on by excessive austerities, he determined to retire
to a life of solitude.
About fifty miles southeast from Antioch
was a barren waste of nature but a paradise for monks the
Desert of Chalcis. On its western border were
several monasteries. All about for miles, the
dreary solitudes were peopled with shaggy hermits.
They saw visions and dreamed dreams in caves infested
by serpents and wild beasts. They lay upon the
sands, scorched in summer by the blazing sun, and
chilled in winter by the winds that blew from snowcapped
mountains. For five years, Jerome dwelt among
these demon-fighting recluses. Clad in sackcloth
stained by penitential tears, he toiled for his daily
bread, and struggled against visions of Roman dancing
girls. He was a most industrious reader of books
and a great lover of debate. Monks from far and
near visited him, and together they discussed questions
of theology and philosophy.
But we may not follow this varied
and eventful life in all its details. After a
year or two spent at Constantinople, and three years
at Rome, he returned to the East, visiting the hermits
of Egypt on his way, and finally settled at Bethlehem.
His fame soon drew around him a great company of monks.
These he organized into monasteries. He built
a hospital, and established an inn for travelers.
Lacking the necessary funds to carry out his projects,
he dispatched his brother to the West with instructions
to sell what was left of his property, and the proceeds
of this sale he devoted to the cause. While in
Bethlehem he wrote defences of orthodoxy, eulogies
of the dead, lives of saints and commentaries on the
Bible. He also completed his translation of the
Scriptures, and wrote numerous letters to persons dwelling
in various parts of the empire.
Jerome rendered great service to monasticism
by his literary labors. He invested the dullest
of lives with a halo of glory; under the magic touch
of his rhetoric the wilderness became a gladsome place
and the desert blossomed as the rose. His glowing
language transfigured the pale face and sunken eyes
of the starved hermit into features positively beautiful,
while the rags that hung loosely upon his emaciated
frame became garments of lustrous white. “Oh,
that I could behold the desert,” he cries, “lovelier
than any city! Oh, that I could see those lonely
spots made into a paradise by the saints that throng
them!” Without detracting from the bitterness
of the prospect, he glorifies the courage that can
face the horrors of the desert, and the heart that
can rejoice midst the solitude of the seas. Hear
him describe the home of Bonosus, a hermit on an isle
in the Adriatic:
“Bonosus, your friend, is now
climbing the ladder foreshown in Jacob’s dream.
He is bearing his cross, neither taking thought for
the morrow, nor looking back at what he has left.
Here you have a youth, educated with us in the refining
accomplishments of the world, with abundance of wealth
and in rank inferior to none of his associates; yet
he forsakes his mother, his sister, and his dearly
loved brother, and settles like a new tiller of Eden
on a dangerous island, with the sea roaring round its
reefs, while its rough crags, bare rocks and desolate
aspect make it more terrible still.... He sees
the glory of God which even the apostles saw not,
save in the desert. He beholds, it is true, no
embattled towns, but he has enrolled his name in the
new city. Garments of sackcloth disfigure his
limbs, yet so he will the sooner be caught up to meet
Christ in the clouds. Round the entire island
roars the frenzied sea, while the beetling crags along
its winding shores resound as the billows beat against
them. Precipitous cliffs surround his dreadful
abode as if it were a prison. He is careless,
fearless, armed from head to foot in the apostles’
armor.”
Listen to these trumpet tones as Jerome
calls to a companion of his youth in Rome: “O
desert, enamelled with the flowers of Christ!
O retreat, which rejoicest in the friendship of God!
What dost thou in the world, my brother, with thy
soul greater than the world? How long wilt thou
remain in the shadow of roofs, and in the smoky dungeons
of cities? Believe me, I see here more light.”
To pass hastily over such appeals,
coming from distant lands across the sea to stir the
minds of the thoughtful in Rome, is to ignore one of
the causes which produced the great exodus that followed.
He made men see that they were living in a moral Sodom,
and that if they would save their souls they must
escape to the desert. The power of personal influence,
of inspiring private letters, can hardly be overemphasized
in studying the remarkable progress of asceticism.
Great awakenings in the moral, as in the political
or the social world, may be traced to the profound
influence of individuals, whose prophetic insight and
moral enthusiasm unfold the germ of the larger movements.
There may be widespread unrest, the ground may be
prepared for the seed, but the immediate cause of
universal uprisings is the clarion call of genius.
Thus Luther’s was the voice that cried in the
wilderness, inciting a vast host for whom centuries
had been preparing.
But Jerome’s fame as a man of
learning, possessing a critical taste and a classic
style of rare beauty and simplicity, must not blind
us to the crowning glory of his brilliant career.
He was above all a spiritual force. His chief
appeal was to the conscience. He warmed the most
torpid hearts by the fervor of his love, and encouraged
the most hopeless by his fiery zeal and heroic faith.
As a promoter of monasticism, he clashed with the
interests of an enfeebled clergy and a corrupt laity.
Nothing could swerve him from his course. False
monks might draw terrible rebukes from him, but the
conviction that the soul could be delivered from captivity
to the body only by mortification remained unshaken.
He induced men to break the fetters of society that
they might, under the more favorable circumstances
of solitude, wage war against their unruly passions.
When parents objected to his monastic
views, Jerome quoted the saying of Jesus respecting
the renunciation of father and mother, and then said:
“Though thy mother with flowing hair and rent
garments, should show thee the breasts which have
nourished thee; though thy father should lie upon
the threshold; yet depart thou, treading over thy father,
and fly with dry eyes to the standard of the cross.
The love of God and the fear of hell easily rend the
bonds of the household asunder. The Holy Scripture
indeed enjoins obedience, but he who loves them more
than Christ loses his soul.”
Jerome vividly portrays his own spiritual
conflicts. The deserts were crowded with saintly
soldiers battling against similar temptations, the
nature of which is suggested by the following excerpt
from Jerome’s writings: “How often,”
he says, “when I was living in the desert, in
the vast solitude which gives to hermits a savage
dwelling-place, parched by a burning sun, how often
did I fancy myself among the pleasures of Rome!
I used to sit alone because I was filled with bitterness.
Sack-cloth disfigured my unshapely limbs and my skin
from long neglect had become black as an Ethiopian’s.
Tears and groans were every day my portion; and if
drowsiness chanced to overcome my struggles against
it, my bare bones, which hardly held together, clashed
against the ground. Now although in my fear of
hell I had consigned myself to this prison where I
had no companions but scorpions and wild beasts, I
often found myself amid bevies of girls. Helpless,
I cast myself at the feet of Jesus, I watered them
with my tears, and I subdued my rebellious body with
weeks of abstinence. I remember how I often cried
aloud all night till the break of day. I used
to dread my cell as if it knew my thoughts, and stern
and angry with myself, I used to make my way alone
into the desert. Wherever I saw hollow valleys,
craggy mountains, steep cliffs, there I made my oratory;
there the house of correction for my unhappy flesh.
There, also, when I had shed copious tears and had
strained my eyes to heaven, I sometimes felt myself
among angelic hosts and sang for joy and gladness.”
No doubt these men were warring against
nature. Their yielding to the temptation to obtain
spiritual dominance by self-flagellation and fasting
may be criticized in the light of modern Christianity.
“Fanaticism defies nature,” says F.W.
Robertson, “Christianity refines it and respects
it. Christianity does not denaturalize, but only
sanctifies and refines according to the laws of nature.
Christianity does not destroy our natural instincts,
but gives them a higher and nobler direction.”
To all this I must assent, but, at the same time, I
cannot but reverence that pure passion for holiness
which led men, despairing of acquiring virtue in a
degenerate age, to flee from the world and undergo
such torments to attain their soul’s ideal.
The form, the method of their conflict was transient,
the spirit and purpose eternal. All honor to
them for their magnificent and terrible struggle,
which has forever exalted the spiritual ideal, and
commanded men everywhere to seek first “the
Kingdom of God and its righteousness.”
Jerome was always fond of the classics,
although pagan writers were not in favor with the
early Christians. One night he dreamed he was
called to the skies where he was soundly flogged for
reading certain pagan authors. This vision interrupted
his classical studies for a time. In later years
he resumed his beloved Virgil; and he vigorously defended
himself against those who charged him with being a
Pagan and an apostate on account of his love for Greek
and Roman literature. If his admiration for Virgil
was the Devil’s work, I but give the Devil his
due when I declare that much of the charm of Jerome’s
literary productions is owing to the inspiration of
classic models.
Our attention must now be transferred
from Jerome to the high-born Roman matrons, who laid
off their silks that they might clothe themselves in
the humble garb of the nun. As the narrative proceeds
I shall let Jerome speak as often as possible, that
the reader may become acquainted with the style of
those biographies and eulogies which were the talk
of Rome, and which have been admired so highly by
succeeding generations.
Those who embraced monasticism in
Rome did so in one of two ways. Some sold their
possessions, adopted coarse garments, and subsisted
on the plainest food, but they did not leave the city
and were still to be seen upon the streets. Jerome
writes to Pammachius: “Who would have believed
that a last descendant of the consuls, an ornament
of the race of Camillus, could make up his mind to
traverse the city in the black robe of a monk, and
should not blush to appear thus clad in the midst of
senators.” Some of those who remained at
Rome established a sort of retreat for their ascetic
friends.
But another class left Rome altogether.
Some took up their abode on the rugged isles of the
Adriatic or the Mediterranean. Large numbers of
them went to the East, principally to Palestine.
Jerome was practically the abbot of a Roman colony
of monks and nuns. Two motives, beside the general
ruling desire to achieve holiness, produced this exodus
to the Holy Land, which culminated centuries later
in the crusades. One was a desire to see the
deserts and caves, the abode of hermits famous for
piety and miracles. Jerome, as I have shown, invested
these lonely retreats and strange characters with
a sort of holy romance, and hence, faith, mingled
with curiosity, led men to the East. Another motive
was the desire to visit the land of the Saviour, to
tread the soil consecrated by his labors of love,
to live a life of poverty in the land where He had
no home He could call his own.
St. Paula was one of the women who
left Rome and went to Palestine. The story of
her life is told in a letter designed to comfort her
daughter Eustochium at the time of Paula’s death.
The epistle begins: “If all the members
of my body were to be converted into tongues, and if
each of my limbs were to be gifted with a human voice,
I could still do no justice to the virtues of the
holy and venerable Paula. Of the stock of the
Gracchi, descended from the Scipios, she yet preferred
Bethlehem to Rome, and left her palace glittering
with gold to dwell in a mud cabin.” Her
husband was of royal blood and had died leaving her
five children. At his death, she gave herself
to works of charity. The poor and sick she wrapped
in her own blankets. She began to tire of the
receptions and other social duties which her position
entailed upon her. While in this frame of mind,
two Eastern bishops were entertained at her home during
a gathering of ecclesiastics. They seem to have
imparted the monastic impulse, perhaps by the rehearsal
of monastic tales, for we are informed that at this
time she determined to leave servants, property and
children, in order to embrace the monastic life.
Let us stand with her children and
kinsfolk on the shore of the sea as they take their
final farewell of Paula. “The sails were
set and the strokes of the rowers carried the vessel
into the deep. On the shore little Toxotius stretched
forth his hands in entreaty, while Rufina, now grown
up, with silent sobs besought her mother to wait until
she should be married. But still Paula’s
eyes were dry as she turned them heavenwards, and
she overcame her love for her children by her love
for God. She knew herself no more as a mother
that she might approve herself a handmaid of Christ.
Yet her heart was rent within her, and she wrestled
with her grief as though she were being forcibly separated
from parts of herself. The greatness of the affection
she had to overcome made all admire her victory the
more. Though it is against the laws of nature,
she endured this trial with unabated faith.”
So the vessel ploughed onward, carrying
the mother who thought she was honoring God and attaining
the true end of being through ruthless strangling
of maternal love. She visited Syria and Egypt
and the islands of Ponta and Cyprus. At the feet
of the hermit fathers she begged their blessing and
tried to emulate the virtues she believed they possessed.
At Jerusalem she fell upon her face and kissed the
stone before the sepulcher. “What tears,
she shed, what groans she uttered, what grief she
poured out all Jerusalem knows!”
She established two monasteries at
Bethlehem, one of which was for women. Here,
with her daughter, she lived a life of rigid abstinence.
Her nuns had nothing they could call their own.
If they paid too much attention to dress Paula said,
“A clean body and a clean dress mean an unclean
soul.” To her credit, she was more lenient
with others than with herself. Jerome admits
she went to excess, and prudently observes: “Difficult
as it is to avoid extremes, the philosophers are quite
right in their opinion that virtue is a mean and vice
an excess, or, as we may express it in one short sentence,
in nothing too much.” Paula swept floors
and toiled in the kitchen. She slept on the ground,
covered by a mat of goat’s hair. Her weeping
was incessant. As she meditated over the Scriptures,
her tears fell so profusely that her sight was endangered.
Jerome warned her to spare her eyes, but she said:
“I must disfigure that face which, contrary
to God’s commandment, I have painted with rouge,
white lead and antimony.” If this be a sin
against the Almighty, bear witness, O ye daughters
of Eve! Her love for the poor continued to be
the motive of her great liberality. In fact, her
giving knew no bounds. Fuller wisely remarks
that “liberality must have banks as well as
a stream;” but Paula said: “My prayer
is that I may die a beggar, leaving not a penny to
my daughter and indebted to strangers for my winding
sheet.” Her petition was literally granted,
for she died leaving her daughter not only without
a penny but overwhelmed in a mass of debts.
As Jerome approaches the description
of Paula’s death, he says: “Hitherto
the wind has all been in my favor and my keel has smoothly
ploughed through the heaving sea. But now my bark
is running upon the rocks, the billows are mountain
high, and imminent shipwreck awaits me.”
Yet Paula, like David, must go the way of all the earth.
Surrounded by her followers chanting psalms, she breathed
her last. An immense concourse of people attended
her funeral. Not a single monk lingered in his
cell. Thus, the twenty hard years of self-torture
for this Roman lady of culture ended in the rest of
the grave.
Upon her tombstone was placed this
significant inscription:
“Within this tomb
a child of Scipio lies,
A daughter of the far-famed
Pauline house,
A scion of the Gracchi,
of the stock
Of Agamemnon’s
self, illustrious:
Here rests the lady
Paula, well beloved
Of both her parents,
with Eustochium
For daughter; she the
first of Roman dames
Who hardship chose and
Bethlehem for Christ.”
Another interesting character of that
period was Marcella, a beautiful woman of illustrious
lineage, a descendant of consuls and prefects.
After a married life of seven years her husband died.
She determined not to embark on the matrimonial seas
a second time, but to devote herself to works of charity.
Cerealis, an old man, but of consular rank, offered
her his fortune that he might consider her less his
wife than his daughter. “Had I a wish to
marry,” was her noble reply, “I should
look for a husband and not for an inheritance.”
Disdaining all enticements to remain in society, she
began her monastic career with joy and turned her
home into a retreat for women who, like herself, wished
to retire from the world. It is not known just
what rules governed their relations, but they employed
the time in moderate fasting, prayers and alms-giving.
Marcella lavished her wealth upon
the poor. Jerome praises her philanthropic labors
thus: “Our widow’s clothing was meant
to keep out the cold and not to show her figure.
She stored her money in the stomachs of the poor rather
than to keep it at her own disposal.” Seldom
seen upon the streets, she remained at home, surrounded
by virgins and widows, obedient and loving to her
mother. Among the high-born women it was regarded
as degrading to assume the costume of the nun, but
she bore the scorn of her social equals with humility
and grace.
This quiet and useful life was rudely
and abruptly ended by a dreadful catastrophe.
Alaric the Goth had seized and sacked Rome. The
world stood aghast. The sad news reached Jerome
in his cell at Bethlehem, who expressed his sorrow
in forceful language: “My voice sticks in
my throat; and as I dictate, sobs choke my utterance.
The city which has taken the whole world is itself
taken.” Rude barbarians invaded the sanctity
of Marcella’s retreat. They demanded her
gold, but she pointed to the coarse dress she wore
to show them she had no buried treasures. They
did not believe her, and cruelly beat her with cudgels.
A few days after the saintly heroine of righteousness
went to her long home to enjoy richly-merited rest
and peace.
“Who can describe
the carnage of that night?
What tears are equal
to its agony?
Of ancient date a sovran
city falls;
And lifeless in its
streets and houses lie
Unnumbered bodies of
its citizens.
In many a ghastly shape
doth death appear.”
Marcella and her monastic home fell
in the general ruin, but in the words of Horace, she
left “a monument more enduring than brass.”
Her noble life, so full of kind words and loving deeds,
still stirs the hearts of her sisters who, while they
may reject her ascetic ideal, will, nevertheless,
try to emulate her noble spirit. As Jerome said
of Paula: “By shunning glory she earned
glory; for glory follows virtue as its shadow; and
deserting those who seek it, it seeks those who despise
it.”
Still another woman claims our attention, Fabiola,
the founder of the first hospital. Lecky declares
that “the first public hospital and the charity
planted by that woman’s hand overspread the world,
and will alleviate to the end of time the darkest
anguish of humanity.” She, too, was a widow
who refused to marry again, but broke up her home,
sold her possessions, and with the proceeds founded
a hospital into which were gathered the sick from
the streets. She nursed the sufferers and washed
their ulcers and wounds. No task was beneath her,
no sacrifice of personal comfort too great for her
love. Many helped her with their gold, but she
gave herself. She also aided in establishing a
home for strangers at Portus, which became one
of the most famous inns of the time. Travelers
from all parts of the world found a welcome and a
shelter on landing at this port. When she died
the roofs of Rome were crowded with those who watched
the funeral procession. Psalms were chanted,
and the gilded ceilings of the churches resounded to
the music in commendation of her loving life and labors.
These and other characters of like
zeal and fortitude exemplify the spirit of the men
and women who interested the West in monasticism.
Much as their errors and extravagances may be
deplored, there is no question that some of them were
types of the loftiest Christian virtues, inspired
by the most laudable motives.
Noble and true are Kingsley’s
words: “We may blame those ladies, if we
will, for neglecting their duties. We may sneer,
if we will, at their weaknesses, the aristocratic
pride, the spiritual vanity, we fancy we discover.
We must confess that in these women the spirit of the
old Roman matrons, which seemed to have been dead
so long, flashed up for one splendid moment ere it
sank into the darkness of the middle ages.”
Monasticism and Women
The origin of nunneries was coeval
with that of monasteries, and the history of female
recluses runs parallel to that of the men. Almost
every male order had its counterpart in some sort of
a sisterhood. The general moral character of
these female associations was higher than that of
the male organizations. I have confined my treatment
in this work to the monks, but a few words may be
said at this point concerning female ascetics.
Hermit life was unsuited to women,
but we know that at a very early date many of them
retired to the seclusion of convent life. It will
be recalled that in the biography of St. Anthony,
before going into the desert he placed his sister
in the care of some virgins who were living a life
of abstinence, apart from society. It is very
doubtful if any uniform rule governed these first
religious houses, or if definitely organized societies
appear much before the time of Benedict. The
variations in the monastic order among the men were
accompanied by similar changes in the associations
of women.
The history of these sisterhoods discloses
three interesting and noteworthy facts that merit
brief mention:
First, the effect of a corrupt society
upon women. As in the case of men, women were
moved to forsake their social duties because they were
weary of the sensual and aimless life of Rome.
Those were the days of elaborate toilettes, painted
faces and blackened eyelids, of intrigues and foolish
babbling. Venial faults it may be thought innocent
displays of tender frailty; but woman’s nature
demands loftier employments. A great soul craves
occupations and recognizes obligations more in harmony
with the true nobility of human nature. Rome had
no monitor of the higher life until the monks came
with their stories of heroic self-abnegation and unselfish
toil. The women felt the force and truth of Jerome’s
criticism of their trifling follies when he said:
“Do not seek to appear over-eloquent, nor trifle
with verse, nor make yourself gay with lyric songs.
And do not, out of affectation, follow the sickly
taste of married ladies, who now pressing their teeth
together, now keeping their lips wide apart, speak
with a lisp, and purposely clip their words, because
they fancy that to pronounce them naturally is a mark
of country breeding.”
Professor Dill is inclined to discount
the testimony of Jerome respecting the morals of Roman
society. He thinks Jerome exaggerated the perils
surrounding women. He says: “The truth
is Jerome is not only a monk but an artist in words;
and his horror of evil, his vivid imagination, and
his passion for literary effect, occasionally carry
him beyond the region of sober fact. There was
much to amend in the morals of the Roman world.
But we must not take the leader of a great moral reformation
as a cool and dispassionate observer.” But
this observation amounts to nothing more than a cautionary
word against mistaking evils common to all times for
special symptoms of excessive immorality. Professor
Dill practically concedes the truthfulness of contemporary
witnesses, including Jerome, when he says: “Yet,
after all allowances, the picture is not a pleasant
one. We feel that we are far away from the simple,
unworldly devotion of the freedmen and obscure toilers
whose existence was hardly known to the great world
before the age of the Antonines, and who lived in
the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and in constant
expectation of the coming of their Lord. The triumphant
Church, which has brought Paganism to its knees, is
very different from the Church of the catacombs and
the persecutions.” The picture which
Jerome draws of the Roman women is indeed repulsive,
and Professor Dill would gladly believe it to be exaggerated,
but, nevertheless, he thinks that “if the priesthood,
with its enormous influence, was so corrupt, it is
only probable that it debased the sex which is always
most under clerical influence.”
But far graver charges cling to the
memories of the Roman women. Crime darkened every
household. The Roman lady was cruel and impure.
She delighted in the blood of gladiators and in illicit
love. Roman law at this time permitted women
to hold and to control large estates, and it became
a fad for these patrician ladies to marry poor men,
so that they might have their husbands within their
power. All sorts of alliances could then be formed,
and if their husbands remonstrated, they, holding
the purse strings, were able to say: “If
you don’t like it you can leave.”
A profligate himself, the husband usually kept his
counsel, and as a reward, dwelt in a palace.
“When the Roman matrons became the equal and
voluntary companions of their lords,” says Gibbon,
“a new jurisprudence was introduced, that marriage,
like other partnerships, might be dissolved by the
abdication of one of the associates.” I
have but touched the fringe of a veil I will not lift;
but it is easy to understand why those women who cherished
noble sentiments welcomed the monastic life as a pathway
of escape from scenes and customs from which their
better natures recoiled in horror.
Secondly, the fine quality of mercy
that distinguishes woman’s character deserves
recognition. Even though she retired to a convent,
she could not become so forgetful of her fellow creatures
as her male companions. From the very beginning
we observe that she was more unselfish in her asceticism
than they. It is true the monk forsook all, and
to that extent was self-sacrificing, but in his desire
for his own salvation, he was prone to neglect every
one else. The monk’s ministrations were
too often confined to those who came to him, but the
nun went forth to heal the diseased and to bind up
the broken-hearted. As soon as she embraced the
monastic life we read of hospitals. The desire
for salvation drove man into the desert; a Christ-like
mercy and divine sympathy kept his sister by the couch
of pain.
Lastly, a word remains to be said
touching the question of marriage. At first,
the nun sometimes entered the marriage state, and,
of course, left the convent; but, beginning with Basil,
this practice was condemned, and irrevocable vows
were exacted. In 407, Innocent I. closed even
the door of penitence and forgiveness to those who
broke their vows and married.
Widows and virgins alike assumed the
veil. Marriage itself was not despised, because
the monastic life was only for those who sought a
higher type of piety than, it was supposed, could be
attained amid the ordinary conditions of life.
But marriage, as well as other so-called secular relations,
was eschewed by those who wished to make their salvation
sure. Jerome says: “I praise wedlock,
I praise marriage, but it is because they give me
virgins; I gather the rose from the thorns, the gold
from the earth, the pearl from the shell.”
He therefore tolerated marriage among people contented
with ordinary religious attainments, but he thought
it incompatible with true holiness. Augustine
admitted that the mother and her daughter may be both
in heaven, but one a bright and the other a dim star.
Some writers, as Helvidius, opposed this view and
maintained that there was no special virtue in an
unmarried life; that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was
also the mother of other children, and as such was
an example of Christian virtue. Jerome brought
out his guns and poured hot shot into the enemies’
camp. In the course of his answer, which contained
many intolerant and acrimonious statements, he drew
a comparison between the married and the unmarried
state. It is interesting because it reflects
the opinions of those who disparaged marriage, and
reveals the character of the principles which the
early Fathers advocated. It is very evident from
this letter against Helvidius that Jerome regarded
all secular duties as interfering with the pursuit
of the highest virtue.
“Do you think,” he says,
“there is no difference between one who spends
her time in prayer and fasting, and one who must, at
her husband’s approach, make up her countenance,
walk with a mincing gait, and feign a show of endearment?
The virgin aims to appear less comely; she will wrong
herself so as to hide her natural attractions.
The married woman has the paint laid on before her
mirror, and, to the insult of her Maker, strives to
acquire something more than her natural beauty.
Then come the prattling of infants, the noisy household,
children watching for her word and waiting for her
kiss, the reckoning up of expenses, the preparation
to meet the outlay. On one side you will see a
company of cooks, girded for the onslaught and attacking
the meat; there you may hear the hum of a multitude
of weavers. Meanwhile a message is delivered
that her husband and his friends have arrived.
The wife, like a swallow, flies all over the house.
She has to see to everything. Is the sofa smooth?
Is the pavement swept? Are the flowers in the
cup? Is dinner ready? Tell me, pray, amid
all this, is there room for the thought of God?”
Such was Roman married life as it
appeared to Jerome. The very duties and blessings
that we consider the glory of the family he despised.
I will return to his views later, but it is interesting
to note the absence at this period, of the modern
and true idea that God may be served in the performance
of household and other secular duties. Women
fled from such occupations in those days that they
might be religious. The disagreeable fact of
Peter’s marriage was overcome by the assertion
that he must have washed away the stain of his married
life by the blood of his martyrdom. Such extreme
views arose partly as a reaction from and a protest
against the dominant corruption, a state of affairs
in which happy and holy marriages were rare.
The Spread of Monasticism in Europe
Much more might be said of monastic
life in Rome, were it not now necessary to treat of
the spread of monasticism in Europe. There are
many noble characters whom we ought to know, such as
Ambrose, one of Christendom’s greatest bishops,
who led a life of poverty and strict abstinence, like
his sister Marcella, whom we have met. He it was,
of whom the Emperor Theodosius said: “I
have met a man who has told me the truth.”
Well might he so declare, for Ambrose refused him admission
to the church at Milan, because his hands were red
with the blood of the murdered, and succeeded in persuading
him to submit to discipline. To Ambrose may be
applied the words which Gibbon wrote of Gregory Nazianzen:
“The title of Saint has been added to his name,
but the tenderness of his heart and the elegance of
his genius reflect a more pleasing luster on his memory.”
The story of John, surnamed Chrysostom,
who was born at Antioch, in 347, is exceedingly interesting.
He was a young lawyer, who entered the priesthood
after his baptism. He at once set his heart on
the monastic life, but his mother took him to her
chamber, and, by the bed where she had given him birth,
besought him in fear, not to forsake her. “My
son,” she said in substance, “my only
comfort in the midst of the miseries of this earthly
life is to see thee constantly, and to behold in thy
traits the faithful image of my beloved husband, who
is no more. When you have buried me and joined
my ashes with those of your father, nothing will then
prevent you from retiring into the monastic life.
But so long as I breathe, support me by your presence,
and do not draw down upon you the wrath of God by
bringing such evils upon me who have given you no
offence.” This singularly tender petition
was granted, but Chrysostom turned his home into a
monastery, slept on the bare floor, ate little and
seldom, and prayed much by day and by night.
After his mother’s death Chrysostom
enjoyed the seclusion of a monastic solitude for six
years, but impairing his health by excessive self-mortification
he returned to Antioch in 380. He rapidly rose
to a position of commanding influence in the church.
His peerless oratorical and literary gifts were employed
in elevating the ascetic ideal and in unsparing denunciations
of the worldly religion of the imperial court.
He incurred the furious hatred of the young and beautiful
Empress Eudoxia, who united her influence with that
of the ambitious Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria,
and Chrysostom was banished from Constantinople, but
died on his way to the remote desert of Pityus.
His powerful sermons and valuable writings contributed
in no small degree to the spread of monasticism among
the Christians of his time.
Then there was Augustine, the greatest
thinker since Plato. “We shall meet him,”
says Schaff, “alike on the broad highways and
the narrow foot-paths, on the giddy Alpine heights
and in the awful depths of speculation, wherever philosophical
thinkers before him or after him have trod.”
He, too, like all the other leaders of thought in his
time, was ascetic in his habits. Although he
lived and labored for thirty-eight years at Hippo,
a Numidian city about two hundred miles west of Carthage,
in Africa, Augustine was regarded as the intellectual
head not only of North Africa but of Western Christianity.
He gathered his clergy into a college of priests,
with a community of goods, thus approaching as closely
to the regular monastic life as was possible to secular
clergymen. He established religious houses and
wrote a set of rules, consisting of twenty-four articles,
for the government of monasteries. These rules
were superseded by those of Benedict, but they were
resuscitated under Charlemagne and reappeared in the
famous Austin Canons of the eleventh century.
Little did Augustine think that a thousand years later
an Augustinian monk Luther would
abandon his order to become the founder of modern
Protestantism.
Augustine published a celebrated essay, “On
the Labor of Monks,” in which he
pointed out the dangers of monachism, condemned its
abuses, and ended by sighing for the quiet life of
the monk who divided his day between labor, reading
and prayer, whilst he himself spent his years amid
the noisy throng and the perplexities of his episcopate.
These men, and many others, did much
to further monasticism. But we must now leave
sunny Africa and journey northward through Gaul into
the land of the hardy Britons and Scots.
Athanasius, the same weary exile whom
we have encountered in Egypt and in Rome, had been
banished by Constantine to Treves, in 336. In
346 and 349 he again visited Gaul. He told the
same story of Anthony and the Egyptian hermits with
similar results.
The most renowned ecclesiastic of
the Gallican church, whose name is most intimately
associated with the spread of monasticism in Western
Europe, before the days of Benedict, was Saint Martin
of Tours. He lived about the years 316-396 A.D.
The chronicle of his life is by no means trustworthy,
but that is essential neither to popularity nor saintship.
Only let a Severus describe his life and miracles in
glowing rhetoric and fantastic legend and the people
will believe it, pronouncing him greatest among the
great, the mightiest miracle-worker of that miracle-working
age.
Martin was a soldier three years,
against his will, under Constantine. One bleak
winter day he cut his white military coat in two with
his sword and clothed a beggar with half of it.
That night he heard Jesus address the angels:
“Martin, as yet only a catechumen has clothed
me with his garment.” After leaving the
army he became a hermit, and, subsequently, bishop
of Tours. He lived for years just outside of Tours
in a cell made of interlaced branches. His monks
dwelt around him in caves cut out of scarped rocks,
overlooking a beautiful stream. They were clad
in camel’s hair and lived on a diet of brown
bread, sleeping on a straw couch.
But Martin’s monks did not take
altogether kindly to their mode of life. Severus
records an amusing story of their rebellion against
the meager allowance of food. The Egyptian could
exist on a few figs a day. But these rude Gauls,
just emerging out of barbarism, were accustomed
to devour great slices of roasted meat and to drink
deep draughts of beer. Such sturdy children of
the northern forests naturally disdained dainty morsels
of barley bread and small potations of wine. True,
Athanasius had said, “Fasting is the food of
angels,” but these ascetic novices, in their
perplexity, could only say: “We are accused
of gluttony; but we are Gauls; it is ridiculous
and cruel to make us live like angels; we are not
angels; once more, we are only Gauls.”
Their complaint comes down to us as a pathetic but
humorous protest of common sense against ascetic fanaticism;
or, regarded in another light, it may be considered
as additional evidence of the depravity of the natural
man.
In spite of all complaints, however,
Martin did not abate the severity of his discipline.
As a bishop he pushed his monastic system into all
the surrounding country. His zeal knew no bounds,
and his strength seemed inexhaustible. “No
one ever saw him either gloomy or merry,” remarks
his biographer. Amid many embarrassments and difficulties
he was ever the same, with a countenance full of heavenly
serenity. He was a great miracle-worker that
is, if everything recorded of him is true. He
cast out demons, and healed the sick; he had strange
visions of angels and demons, and, wonderful to relate,
thrice he raised bodies from the dead.
But all conquerors are at last vanquished
by the angel of death, and Martin passed into the
company of the heavenly host and the category of saints.
Two thousand monks attended his funeral. His fame
spread all over Europe. Tradition tells us he
was the uncle of Saint Patrick of Ireland. Churches
were dedicated to him in France, Germany, Scotland
and England. The festival of his birth is celebrated
on the eleventh of November. In Scotland this
day still marks the winter term, which is called Martinmas.
Saint Martin’s shrine was one of the most famous
of the middle ages, and was noted for its wonderful
cures. No saint is held, even now, in higher
veneration by the French Catholic.
It is not known when the institution
was planted in Spain, but in 380 the council of Saragossa
forbade priests to assume monkish habits. Germany
received the institution some time in the fifth century.
The introduction of Christianity as well as of monasticism
into the British Isles is shrouded in darkness.
A few jewels of fact may be gathered from the legendary
rubbish. It is probable that before the days of
Benedict, Saint Patrick, independently of Rome, established
monasteries in Ireland and preached the gospel there;
and, without doubt, before the birth of Benedict of
Nursia, there were monks and monasteries in Great Britain.
The monastery of Bangor is said to have been founded
about 450 A.D.
It is probable that Christianity was
introduced into Britain before the close of the second
century, and that monasticism arose some time in the
fifth century. Tertullian, about the beginning
of the third century, boasts that Christianity had
conquered places in Britain where the Roman arms could
not penetrate. Origen claimed that the power of
the Savior was manifest in Britain as well as in Muritania.
The earliest notice we have of a British church occurs
in the writings of the Venerable Bede (673-735 A.D.),
a monk whose numerous and valuable works on English
history entitle him to the praise of being “the
greatest literary benefactor this or any other nation
has produced.” He informs us that a British
king Lucius embraced Christianity
during the reign of the Emperor Aurelius, and that
missionaries were sent from Rome to Britain about
that time. Lingard says the story is suspicious,
since “we know not from what source Bede, at
the distance of five centuries, derived his information.”
It seems quite likely that there must have been some
Christians among the Roman soldiers or civil officials
who lived in Britain during the Roman occupation of
the country. The whole problem has been the theme
of so much controversy, however, that a fuller discussion
is reserved for the next chapter.
Disorders and Oppositions
But was there no protest against the
progress of these ascetic teachings? Did the
monastic institution command the unanimous approval
of the church from the outset? There were many
and strong outcries against the monks, but they were
quickly silenced by the counter-shouts of praise.
Even when rebellion against the system seemed formidable,
it was popular nevertheless. The lifted hand
was quickly struck down, and voices of opposition
suddenly hushed. Like a mighty flood the movement
swept on, kings, when so inclined, being
powerless to stop it. As Paula was carried fainting
from the funeral procession of Blaesilla, her daughter,
whispers such as these were audible in the crowd:
“Is not this what we have often said? She
weeps for her daughter, killed with fasting.
How long must we refrain from driving these detestable
monks out of Rome? Why do we not stone them or
hurl them into the Tiber? They have misled this
unhappy mother; that she is not a nun from choice is
clear. No heathen mother ever wept for her children
as she does for Blaesilla.” And this is
Paula, who, choked with grief, refused to weep when
she sailed from her children for the far East!
Unhappily, history is often too dignified
to retail the conversations of the dinner-table and
the gossip of private life. But this narrative
indicates that in many a Roman family the monk was
feared, despised and hated. Sometimes everyday
murmurs found their way into literature and so passed
to posterity. Rutilius, the Pagan poet, as
he sails before a hermit isle in the Mediterranean,
exclaims: “Behold, Capraria rises
before us; that isle is full of wretches, enemies of
light. I detest these rocks scene of a recent
shipwreck.” He then goes on to declare
that a young and rich friend, impelled by the furies,
had fled from men and gods to a living tomb, and was
now decaying in that foul retreat. This was no
uncommon opinion. But contrast it with what Ambrose
said of those same isles: “It is there
in these isles, thrown down by God like a collar of
pearls upon the sea, that those who would escape from
the charms of dissipation find refuge. Nothing
here disturbs their peace, all access is closed to
the wild passions of the world. The mysterious
sound of waves mingles with the chant of hymns; and,
while the waters break upon the shores of these happy
isles with a gentle murmur, the peaceful accents of
the choir of the elect ascend toward Heaven from their
bosom.” No wonder the Milanese ladies guarded
their daughters against this theological poet.
Even among the Christians there were
hostile as well as friendly critics of monasticism;
Jovinian, whom Neander compares to Luther, is a type
of the former. Although a monk himself, he disputed
the thesis that any merit lay in celibacy, fasting
or poverty. He opposed the worship of saints
and relics, and believed that one might retain possession
of his property and make good use of it. He assailed
the dissolute monks and claimed that many of Rome’s
noblest young men and women were withdrawn from a
life of usefulness into the desert. He held that
there was really but one class of Christians, namely,
those who had faith in Christ, and that a monk could
be no more. But Jovinian was far in advance of
his age, and it was many years before the truth of
his view gained any considerable recognition.
He was severely attacked by Jerome, who called him
a Christian Epicurean, and was condemned as a heretic
by a synod at Milan, in 390. Thus the reformers
were crushed for centuries. The Pagan Emperor,
Julian, and the Christian, Valens, alike tried in vain
to resist the emigration into the desert. Thousands
fled, in times of peril to the state, from their civil
and military duties, but the emperors were powerless
to prevent the exodus.
That there were grounds for complaint
against the monks we may know from the charges made
even by those who favored the system. Jerome Ambrose,
Augustine, and in fact almost every one of the Fathers
tried to correct the growing disorders. We learn
from them that many fled from society, not to become
holy, but to escape slavery and famine; and that many
were lazy and immoral. Their “shaven heads
lied to God.” Avarice, ambition, or cowardice
ruled hearts that should have been actuated by a love
of poverty, self-sacrifice or courage. “Quite
recently,” says Jerome, “we have seen
to our sorrow a fortune worthy of Croesus brought to
light by a monk’s death, and a city’s
alms collected for the poor, left by will to his sons
and successors.”
Many monks traveled from place to
place selling sham relics. Augustine wrote against
“those hypocrites who, in the dress of monks,
wander about the provinces carrying pretended relics,
amulets, preservatives, and expecting alms to feed
their lucrative poverty and recompense their pretended
virtue.” It is to the credit of the Fathers
of the church that they boldly and earnestly rebuked
the vices of the monks and tried to purge the monastic
system of its impurities.
But the church sanctioned the monastic
movement. She could not have done anything else.
“It is one of the most striking occurrences in
history,” says Harnack, “that the church,
exactly at the time when she was developing more and
more into a legal institution and a sacramental establishment,
outlined a Christian life-ideal which was incapable
of realization within her bounds, but only alongside
of her. The more she affiliated herself with
the world, the higher and more superhuman did she
make her ideal.”
It is also noteworthy that this “life-ideal”
seems to have led, inevitably, to fanaticism and other
excesses, so that even at this early date there was
much occasion for alarm. Gross immorality was
disclosed as well as luminous purity; indolence and
laziness as well as the love of sacrifice and toil.
So we shall find it down through the centuries.
“The East had few great men,” says Milman,
“many madmen; the West, madmen enough, but still
very many, many great men.” We have met
some madmen and some great men. We shall meet
more of each type.
After 450 A.D., monasticism suffered
an eclipse for over half a century. It seemed
as if the Western institution was destined to end in
that imbecility and failure which overtook the Eastern
system. But there came a man who infused new
life into the monastic body. He systematized its
scattered principles and concentrated the energies
of the wandering and unorganized monks.
Our next visit will be to the mountain
home of this renowned character, fifty miles to the
west of Rome. “A single monk,” says
Montalembert, “is about to form there a center
of spiritual virtue, and to light it up with a splendor
destined to shine over regenerated Europe for ten
centuries to come.”