II

_MONASTICISM IN THE WEST: ANTE-BENEDICTINE MONKS 340-480 A.D._

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

Cæsars 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 Blæsilla, 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

Blæsilla." 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."