The religious Orders were the fundamental principle of the growth of
the Papal monarchy. These orders assumed certain vows, the nature and
tendency of which we will proceed to investigate in the spirit of candid
inquiry. The first vow to which we will invite attention, is the vow of
perpetual solitude and seclusion. Although at the first introduction
of these monastic orders into the church, this vow, and those which
we shall hereafter examine, were not formally assumed, yet they were
invariably observed; and in the year 529, under the auspices of St.
Benedict, the express assumption of them became an indispensable
condition of membership. Until the tenth century, the hermits and the
Benedictine monks and nuns were the only Catholic Orders that existed;
the former generally, and the latter entirely, lived in solitary
seclusion.
The devout misanthropy of the hermits induced them to select for their
habitations the most gloomy, cheerless, and inhospitable regions
they could hunt up. Piously scorning the salubrious and magnificent
localities, so prodigally furnished by nature, they constructed their
huts at the bottom of dismal pits, among the cliffs of rugged rocks, in
barren deserts, and in solitary wildernesses. Some lived under trees,
others under shelving rocks, some on the top of poles, and others in the
deserted caverns of wild beasts. Some buried themselves in the gloomy
depth of trackless forests, isolated from human contiguity, and
assimilated in aspect and habits to the brute creation. Their bodies
divested of decent apparel, and covered with a profusion of hair, and
their aspect horrid and revolting beyond description, the hermits sought
to acquire the reputation of saints by attaining the nearest possible
approximation to wild beasts. Another class of these eccentric devotees
constructed a number of contiguous dungeons, and formed themselves into
a sort of monastic community. In these vaults they imprisoned themselves
for life, the door being locked, and sometimes walled up, a small
window only was allowed, through which to receive aliment and give
pious advice. In these dungeons they manacled their limbs with ponderous
chains, encircled their necks with massive collars, and clothed their
legs with heavy greaves. In the depth of winter they would immerse
themselves in icy water, and sing psalms. To make themselves revolting;
to imitate the habits of wild animals, until they became more horrible,
because more unnatural; to subject themselves to voluntary torture,
severe and bloody flagellations, were deemed the highest acts of piety.
Whatever conspired to comfort they considered profane; whatever was
pleasurable they avoided as sinful; and whatever was absurd, filthy, and
disgusting, they imagined allied them to gods and angels. St. Anthony,
who was so holy that he never washed himself, nor wore any apparel
except a shirt, was canonized by the Catholic Church for his
extraordinary attainment in sanctification. The approbation which the
church so readily conferred on oddity and singularity might at the
first appear surprising, but when we recollect the immense pecuniary and
political advantage she derived from them, we will no longer doubt her
motive, nor avaricious sagacity. A singular custom suggested by this
ludicrous institution may be worthy of a passing notice. The abbots of
the monasteries, in order to dispose of a brother abbot, whose celebrity
surpassed their own, or whose circumventive genius they feared, or
who had excited their suspicion, jealousy or revenge, would congregate
together, and declare that the fated brother had arrived at a degree of
sanctification that better qualified him for the hermit's cell than
for an abbotship of a monastery, and that to protect him from the
contamination of the world, and to enable him to perfect his holiness,
it was necessary to wall him up in eternal seclusion. In accordance with
this pious regard for their brother's sanctity, they adepted summary
measures for its forcible execution.
Silence, gloom and solitude, according most congenially with the designs
of the monastic institutions, they were generally located in sterile
wastes, dense and trackless forests, and other localities adapted to
excite the sensation of loneliness, dreariness and desolation; but when
secular considerations suggested they occupied picturesque and luxuriant
localities, commanding the sublimest prospects of Nature. These
edifices, which often rivalled gorgeous palaces, were nothing but
religious penitentiaries, in which the inmates endured all the
privations, and were shackled with all the irons with which criminals
are punished in ordinary penal institutions; and though they were
ostensibly constructed for religious purposes, they were really designed
for the infliction of punishment, in accordance with the ecclesiastical
code. With regard to this code Guizot says: "The Catholic Church did not
draw up a code like ours, which took account only of those crimes that
are at the same time offensive to morals and dangerous to Society,
and punishing them only because they bore this two-fold character; but
prepared a catalogue of all those actions, criminal more particularly
in a moral point of view, and punished all under the name of sins."
(Gen. Hist. Civil., Lee. x., p. 118). In what light these religious
penitentiaries have been regarded by their inmates their eternal
seclusion has prevented them from publicly divulging, but the few who
have broken their enthralment, and the "heretics" who have been confined
in them, have described them as the most intolerable of dungeons. In
fact the modern penitentiary system has originated from them. Guizot
thinks this is one of the great blessings which Catholicism has bestowed
on society--(see Gen. Hist. Civil., Lect. vi., p. 135).
The vow of perpetual seclusion comprises a renunciation of the pleasures
and business of life, an abnegation of the claims of consanguinity,
friendship and society; and an abjuration of all filial, parental and
natural affection. This vow is in contravention of the obligations
imposed on man by Nature, to improve society by contributing to the
advancement of its financial, social, political and scientific welfare.
It precludes the exercise, and consequent development, of the varied
powers of the human organism. It surrenders the personal refinement and
moral strength which may be acquired by social intercourse, and conflict
with opposing habits and principles. It ignores the imperative duty of
understanding and judiciously relieving human want and misery, and
of aiding the execution of efficient schemes of public utility and
philanthropy. It is not only in violation of the obligations of
humanity, and the noblest principles of human enjoyment, but it debars
the recluse from correcting any error into which he may have been
betrayed by false representations, or an overheated fancy; or, of
modifying his condition according to the change which experience and
reflection may have effected in his opinion and feelings. Yet, although
such are the absurd nature and injurious consequences of the vow of
perpetual seclusion, it is proposed by the church of Rome, as the surest
means of obtaining the sanctification of the soul and the crown of
eternal happiness. If to bury our talents, to wall ourselves up in a
dungeon; to sit for years upon a pole; to scorn the society of human
beings; to reject the comforts of civilized life; to retrograde into
barbarism; to assume the habits, and acquire the aspect of wild animals;
to imprison ourselves where we can never respond to the demands of
consanguinity, society, friendship and patriotism: where we can never
contribute to the knowledge, wealth or prosperity of the country of
our nativity--if this is religion, then Catholicism has the honor of
confirming the most revolting condensation of these monstrosities that
has ever disgusted the spirit of civilization. But if religion really
consists in fair dealing, in noble deeds, in moral integrity amid moral
turpitude, in individual purity amid general corruption, in unwavering
virtue among the strongest incentives to guilt, then the organization
that sanctions vows subversive of these attainments cannot be admitted,
consistently with the most indulgent liberality, to be of a religious
character.
Thus far in our judgment, we have presumed that the novices, in assuming
their vow, were actuated by the laudable desire of obtaining the highest
degree of moral purity. This worthy ambition was doubtless the governing
motive of a proportion of them. Either from the instigations of moral
insanity, or from the vagaries of a distempered fancy, or from
the misrepresentation of artful and designing priests, or from the
despondency which misfortune is apt to engender in weak, or too
sensitive minds, or from a misconception of the natural tendency of
solitude, men and women have at times been led to assume the vows, and
submit to the penance prescribed by the religious orders. But there were
other motives equally, and perhaps more generally, active. Ludicrous
as were their holy isolation and penance, still the sanctity which the
monks imitated, and the tortures which they self-imposed, were rewarded
by a credulous and superstitious world with profound homage and
admiration. By undergoing sufferings which appeared intolerable to human
fortitude, they acquired the reputation of being sustained by divine
agency; and, as their popularity increased in proportion to their
wretchedness, they labored to extend their fame by adding to their
misery. Their sufferings and fortitude alike incomprehensible to human
reason, an awe-struck fancy betrayed the public into the delusion that
what it beheld was the results of superhuman sanctity; of a sublime
elevation above ordinary humanity; and of the interposition of divine
power. These misconceptions, artfully cultivated by the priesthood,
extended the fame of the self-tormentors beyond the celebrity of heroes,
poets and philosophers. Kings and queens visited them with superstitious
reverence; statesmen consulted them on abstruse questions of
governmental policy; peace and war were made at their mandates; and
pilgrims from remote regions bowed at their feet and begged their
blessing. Thus favored by the profound homage of all classes of
Christendom, they were enabled with more facility than any other
profession to become opulent bishops, royal cardinals, or monarchical
popes. Such being their eligibility to the honors and emoluments of the
spiritual dignities of the church, vanity was quick to perceive that
the anchorite's hut and the monk's cloister were the surest paths to
universal adulation; religion, that they were the most respectable
methods of becoming honored in life, and worshipped after death;
avarice, that they were the most available means of obtaining lucrative
positions; and ambition, that thay were the shortest roads to dignity
and power. With these attractive facts glaring on the eye of sacred
aspirants, it requires but little knowledge of human nature to conceive
with what avidity the ambitious would crowd into the most repulsive
cloisters; with what eagerness they would adopt the revolting habits and
ludicrous privations of the recluse; and with what ingenuity they would
indurate and torture the body, in order to win the applause of the
world, and the privilege of selecting its most advantageous positions.
Accordingly, monastery after monastery arose with sudden and astonishing
rapidity, and their cells became supplied--not with aspirants after
holiness and heaven--but with aspirants after secular and ecclesiastical
dignities, and the indolence, luxury, and licentiousness which they
afforded.
The pious flattery that was lavished on voluntary suffering, and the
distinguished rewards which recompensed it, strongly tempted the feeble
conscience of monks and hermits, to task their ingenuity in inventing
contrivances for magnifying the apparent and diminishing the real
sufferings of their self-imposed torture. By the aid of an improved
invention an artful hypocrite could procure a greater reputation for
sanctity than a contrite penitent, and become more eligible to the
worldly honors and emoluments of the church. St. Simeon Stylltes,
who sat upon a pole for thirty years, convinced Christendom, by his
wonderful absurdity, that he was miraculously supported; while living
he enjoyed its profoundest respect, and when dead was canonized by
the Catholic Church. But an observer by describing the numerous
gesticulations of this sainted mountebank, disclosed the secret of his
artifice. By means of a system of gymnastics, he kept up a vigorous
circulation of blood through his frame, and thus acquired a health and
longevity which would have been incompatible with a state of inactivity.
But it appears that he was tormented with an ulcer on the thigh,
inflicted by the devil, who had tempted him to imitate Elijah in flying
to heaven, but who maliciously smote him upon his raising his foot
to make the ascension. His mystical gesticulations not healing, but
probably inflaming the wound, may have shortened the natural term of
his miserable existence. As he had gradually arisen from a pole of seven
feet high to one of fifty feet high, if had not been for his vanity
and his evil company he might have gained a still higher position;
but whether by this means he would ever have reached heaven may be
questioned by astronomy and heresy: but there is no doubt he acquired by
his folly and artifice the beatification of the Catholic Church.
The apathy with which the self-tormenters endured their excruciating
penance and the severe rigors of the seasons, was chiefly the effect of
artificial callousness, induced by an ingenious discipline, calculated
to destroy the susceptibility of the nervous system to the influence of
external agents. A similar course of training has always been practiced
by the religious orders of the Hindoos and the Mohametans, who, like
those of the Catholic Church, endure self-imposed torture which seems
to surpass human fortitude, and acquire by this species of ambition
unbounded popularity. Even the uncleanness of the holy brotherhood was
an artifice. It formed a protecting incrustation on the surface of the
skin, which, by covering the the papillae, the sentient, organs, or
destroying their capacity for sensation, enable the hermits to
endure without apparent emotion the cold winters and bleak winds of
inhospitable forests. This secret is known and practised by some African
tribes, upon whom washing is consequently inflicted as a penalty
for crimes. To the eye of superstition, clouded with ignorance, and
fascinated by the _ignes fatui_ of sacred fiction, the calmness of the
monks and hermits under torments and exposures which seemed insufferable
to humanity, appeared a palpable demonstration of miraculous
interposition, and consecrated them in its estimation. Their acts,
however, were as much tricks as are the mysterious capers of a conjurer.
As the more artful and callous could endure the severity of penitential
acts with greater indifference than the candid and sensitive they
acquired a higher reputation for holiness, advanced to the enjoyment of
more distinguished honors, and finally became canonized as paragons of
virtue and objects of adoration.
Such are the nature and consequences of the vow of perpetual seclusion.
Such is a portion of the "doctrinal definition already made by the
general councils and former pontiffs," which, according to Bishop
Kendrick, "are landmarks which no man can remove." (Primacy, p. 356).
Such are some of the Catholic dogmas, which, "in regard to every subject
whatever," according to Brownson "have been always the same from the
beginning, remain always unchangeably the same, and will always continue
in every part of the world immutable." (Review, January, 1850). Such
is in part "what the church has done, what she has tacitly or expressly
approved in the past," and according to the same authority "is exactly
what she will tacitly or expressly approve in the future, if the same
circumstances occur." (Review, January, 1854). "The same circumstances"
is the universal church, which Jesuit Hecker, in his recent speech
in Chicago, thinks the United States needs, and which the people
(Catholics) will at no distant day proclaim.