A Short History of Monks and Monasteries written by Alfred Wesley Wishart

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In the West, two conditions, one political and social, the other
religious, set in motion all these spiritual desires and ascetic beliefs
tending toward monasticism. One was the corrupted state, of Roman
society and the approaching overthrow of the Roman Empire. The other was
the secularization of the church.

Men naturally cling to society as long as there exists any well-founded
hope for its regeneration, but when every expectation for the survival
of righteousness yields to a conviction that doom is inevitable, then
the flight from the world begins. This was precisely the situation in
the declining days of Rome and Alexandria, when Christian monasticism
came into being. The monks believed that the end of the world was nigh,
that all things temporal and earthly were doomed, and that God's hand
was against the empire. "That they were correct in their judgment of the
world about them," says Kingsley, "contemporary history proves
abundantly. That they were correct, likewise, in believing that some
fearful judgment was about to fall on man, is proved by the fact that it
did fall."

So they fled to escape being caught in the ruins of society's tottering
structure,--fled to make friends with the angels and with God. If one
cannot live purely in the midst of corruption, by all means let him live
purely away from corruption, but let him never forget that his piety is
of a lower order than that which abides uncorrupted in the midst of
degenerate society. There is much truth in the observation of Charles
Reade in "The Cloister and the Hearth": "So long as Satan walks the
whole earth, tempting men, and so long as the sons of Belial do never
lock themselves in caves but run like ants, to and fro corrupting
others, the good man that sulks apart, plays the Devil's game, or at
least gives him the odds."

But the early Christian monks believed that their safety was only in
flight. It was not altogether an unworthy motive; at least it is easy to
sympathize with these men struggling against odds, of the magnitude of
which the modern Christian has only the faintest conception.

The conviction that the only true and certain way to secure salvation
is by flight from the world, continued to prevail during the succeeding
centuries of monastic history, and it can hardly be said to have
entirely disappeared even at the present time. Anselm of Canterbury, in
the twelfth century, wrote to a young friend reminding him that the
glory of this world was perishing. True, not monks only are saved,
"but," says he, "who attains to salvation in the most certain, who in
the most noble way, the man who seeks to love God alone, or he who seeks
to unite the love of God with the love of the world?... Is it rational
when danger is on every side, to remain where it is the greatest?"

The Christian church set up an ideal of life which it was impossible to
realize within her borders, and one which differed in many respects from
the teachings of Jesus. Her demands involved a renunciation of the
world, a superiority to all the enticements of bodily appetites, a lofty
scorn of secular bonds and social concerns. A vigorous religious faith
had conquered a mighty empire, but corruption attended its victory. The
standard of Christian morals was lowered, or had at least degenerated
into a cold, formal ideal that no one was expected to realize; hence
none strove to attain it but the monks. When Roman society with its
selfishness, lust and worldliness, swept in through the open doors of
the church and took possession of the sanctuary, those who had cherished
the ascetic ideal gave up the fight against the world, and the flight
from the world-church began. They could not tolerate this union of the
church with a pagan state and an effete civilization. In some respects,
as a few writers maintain, many of these hermits were like the old
Jewish prophets, fighting single-handed against corruption in church and
state, refusing to yield themselves as slaves to the authority of
institutions that had forsaken the ideals of the past.

Thus the conviction that the end of human society was nigh, and that the
church could no longer serve as an asylum for the lovers of
righteousness, with certain philosophical ideas respecting the body, the
world and God, united to produce the assumption that salvation was more
readily attainable in the deserts; and Christian monasticism, in its
hermit form, began its long and eventful history.

_Causes of Variations in Monasticism_

Prominent among the causes producing variations in the monastic type was
the influence of climatic conditions and race characteristics.

The monasticism as well as the religion of the East has always differed
from the monasticism and the religion of the West. The Eastern mind is
mystical, dreamy, contemplative; the Western mind loves activity, is
intensely practical. Representatives of the Eastern faiths in the recent
Parliament of Religions accused the West of materialism, of loving the
body more than the soul. They affected to despise all material
prosperity, and gloried in their assumed superiority, on account of
their love for religious contemplation. This radical difference between
the races of the East and West is clearly seen in the monastic
institution. Benedict embodied in his rules the spirit and active life
of the West, and hence, the monastic system, then in danger of dying, or
stagnating, revived and spread all over Europe. Again, the hermit life
was ill-adapted to the West. Men could not live out of doors in Europe
and subsist on small quantities of food as in Egypt. The rigors of the
climate in Europe demanded an adaptation to new conditions.

But aside from the differences between Eastern and Western monasticism,
the Christian institution passed through a variety of changes. The
growth of monasticism from the hermit stage to the cloistral life has
already been described. To what shall the development of the community
system be attributed? No religious institution can remain stationary,
unaffected by the changing conditions of the society in which it exists.
The progress of the intellect, and the development of social, political
and industrial conditions, effect great transformations in religious
organizations.

The monastic institution grew up amid the radical changes of European
society. In its early days it witnessed the invasion of the barbarians,
which swept away old political divisions and destroyed many of the
heritages of an ancient civilization. Then the process of reconstruction
slowly began. New states were forming; nations were crystallizing. The
barbarian was to lay the foundations of great cities and organize
powerful commonwealths out of wild but victorious tribes. The monk
could not remain in hiding. He was brother to the roving warrior. The
blood in his veins was too active to permit him to stand still amid the
mighty whirl of events. Without entirely abandoning his cloistral life,
he became a zealous missionary of the church among the barbarians, a
patron of letters and of agriculture, in short a stirring participant in
the work of civilization.

Next came the crusades. Jerusalem was to be captured for Christ and the
church. The monk then appeared as a crusade-preacher, a warrior on the
battle-field, or a nurse in the military hospital.

The rise of feudalism likewise wrought a change in the spirit and
position of the monks. The feudal lord was master of his vassals. "The
genius of feudalism," says Allen, "was a spirit of uncontrolled
independence." So the abbot became a feudal lord with immense
possessions and powers. He was no longer the obscure, spiritual father
of a little family of monks, but a temporal lord also, an aristocrat,
ruling wide territories, and dwelling in a monastery little different
from the castle of the knight and often exceeding it in splendor. With
wealth came ease, and hard upon the heels of ease came laziness,
arrogance, corruption.

Then followed the marvelous intellectual awakening, the moral revival,
the discoveries and inventions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The human mind at last had aroused itself from a long repose, or turned
from a profitless activity into broad and fruitful fields. The
corruption of the monasteries meant the laxity of vows, the cessation of
ministration to the poor and the sick. Then arose the tender and loving
Francis, with his call to poverty and to service. The independent
exercise of the intellect gave birth to heresies, but the Dominicans
appeared to preach them down.

The growth of the secular spirit and the progress of the new learning
were too much for the old monasticism. The monk had to adapt himself to
a new age, an age that is impatient of mere contemplation, that spurns
the rags of the begging friar and rebels against the fierce intolerance
of the Dominican preaching. So, lastly, came the suave, determined,
practical, cultured Jesuit, ready to comply, at least outwardly, with
all the requirements of modern times. Does the new age reject monastic
seclusion? Very well, the Jesuit throws off his monastic garb and
forsakes his cloister, to take his place among men. Are the ignorance
and the filth of the begging friars offensive? The Jesuit is cultured,
affable and spotlessly clean. Does the new age demand liberty?
"Liberty," cries the Jesuit, "is the divine prerogative, colossal in
proportion, springing straight from the broad basin of the
soul's essence!"

Such in its merest outlines is the story of the development of the
monastic type and its causes.

_The Fundamental Monastic Vows_

The ultimate monastic ideal was the purification of the soul, but when
translated into definite, concrete terms, the immediate aim of the monk
was to live a life of poverty, celibacy and obedience. Riches, marriage
and self-will were regarded as forms of sinful gratification, which
every holy man should abandon. The true Christian, according to
monasticism, is poor, celibate and obedient. The three fundamental
monastic vows should therefore receive special consideration.

1. The Vow of Poverty. The monks of all countries held the possession of
riches to be a barrier to high spiritual attainments. In view of the
fact that an inordinate love of wealth has proved disastrous to many
nations, and that it is extremely difficult for a rich man to escape the
hardening, enervating and corrupting influences of affluence, the
position of the monks on this question is easily understood. The
Christian monks based their vow of poverty upon the Bible, and
especially upon the teachings of Christ, who, though he was rich, yet
for our sakes became poor. He said to the rich young man, "Sell all that
thou hast and give to the poor." In commissioning the disciples to
preach the gospel He said: "Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass
in your purses; nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, nor
shoes." In the discourse on counting the cost of discipleship, He said:
"So therefore, whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he
hath, he cannot be my disciple." He promised rewards to "every one that
left houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children,
or lands for my name's sake." "It is easier," He once said, "for a
camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of heaven." He portrayed the pauper Lazarus as participating in
the joys of heaven, while the rich Dives endured the torments of the
lost. As reported in Luke, He said, "Blessed are ye poor." He Himself
was without a place to lay His head, a houseless wanderer upon
the earth.

The apostle James cries to the men of wealth: "Go to now, ye rich men,
weep and howl, for your miseries that shall come upon you." John said:
"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any
man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him."

Whatever these passages, and many others of like import, may signify, it
is not at all strange that Christians, living in times when wealth was
abused, and when critical Biblical scholarship was unknown, should have
understood Christ to command a life of poverty as an indispensable
condition of true holiness.

There are three ways of interpreting Christ's doctrine of wealth. First,
it may be held that Jesus intended His teachings to be literally obeyed,
not only by His first disciples but by all His followers in subsequent
years, and that such literal obedience is practicable, reasonable and
conducive to the highest well-being of society. Secondly, it has been
said that Jesus was a gentle and honest visionary, who erroneously
believed that the possession of riches rendered religious progress
impossible, but that strict compliance with His commands would be
destructive of civilization. Laveleye declares that "if Christianity
were taught and understood conformably to the spirit of its Founder, the
existing social organism could not last a day." Thirdly, neither of
these views seems to do justice to the spirit of Christ, for they fail
to give proper recognition to many other injunctions of the Master and
to many significant incidents in his public ministry. Exhaustive
treatment of this subject is, of course, impossible here. Briefly it may
be remarked, that Jesus looked upon wealth as tending oftentimes to
foster an unsocial spirit. Rich men are liable to become enemies of the
brotherhood Jesus sought to establish, by reason of their covetousness
and contracted sympathies. The rich man is in danger of erecting false
standards of manhood, of ignoring the highest interests of the soul by
an undue emphasis on the material. Wealth, in itself, is not an evil,
but it is only a good when it is used to advance the real welfare of
humanity. Jesus was not intent upon teaching economics. His purpose was
to develop the man. It was the moral value and spiritual influence of
material things that concerned him. Professor Shailer Mathews admirably
states the true attitude of Jesus towards rich men: "Jesus was a friend
neither of the working man nor the rich man as such. He calls the poor
man to sacrifice as well as the rich man. He was the Son of Man, not the
son of a class of men. But His denunciation is unsparing of those men
who make wealth at the expense of souls; who find in capital no
incentive to further fraternity; who endeavor so to use wealth as to
make themselves independent of social obligations, and to grow fat with
that which should be shared with society;--for those men who are gaining
the world but are letting their neighbors fall among thieves and Lazarus
rot among their dogs."

Jesus was therefore not a foe to rich men as such, but to that
antisocial, abnormal regard for wealth and its procurements, which leads
to the creation of class distinctions and impedes the full and free
development of our common humanity along the lines of brotherly love and
cooeperation. A Christian may consistently be a rich man, provided he
uses his wealth in furthering the true interests of society, and
realizes, as respects his own person, that "a man's life consisteth not
in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." The error of
monasticism consists in making poverty a virtue and an essential
condition of the highest holiness. It is true that some callings
preclude the prospect of fortune. The average clergyman cannot hope to
amass wealth. The resident of a social settlement may possess capacities
that would win success in business, but he must forego financial
prospects if he expects to live and labor among the poor. In so far as
the monks deliberately turned their backs on the material rewards of
human endeavors that they might be free to devote themselves to the
service of humanity, their vow of poverty was creditable and reasonable.
But they erred when they exalted poverty as of itself commending them in
a peculiar degree to the mercy of God.

2. The Vow of Celibacy. "The moral merit of celibacy," says Allen, "was
harder to make out of the Scripture, doubtless, since family life is
both at the foundation of civil society and the source of all the common
virtues." The monks held that Christ and Paul both taught and practiced
celibacy. In the early and middle ages celibacy was looked upon by all
churchmen as in itself a virtue. The prevailing modern idea is that
marriage is a holy institution, in no sense inferior in sacredness to
any ecclesiastical order of life. He who antagonizes it plays into the
hands of the foes to social purity and individual virtue.

The ideas of Jerome, Ambrose, and all the early Fathers, respecting
marriage, are still held by many ecclesiastics. One of them, in
defending the celibacy of existing religious orders, says: "Celibacy is
enjoined on these religious orders as a means to greater sanctification,
greater usefulness, greater absorption in things spiritual, and to
facilitate readier withdrawal from things earthly." He gives two reasons
for the celibacy of the priesthood, which are all the more interesting
because they substantially represent the opinions held by the Christian
monks in all ages: First, "That the service of the priest to God may be
undivided and unrestrained." In support of this, he quotes I. Cor., 7:
32, 33, which reads: "But I would have you free from cares. He that is
unmarried is careful for the things of the Lord, how he may please the
Lord: but he that is married is careful for the things of the world, how
he may please his wife." And secondly, "Celibacy," according to Trent,
"is more blessed than marriage." He also quotes the words of Christ that
there are "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake." He then adds: "It
is desirable that those called to the ministry of the altar espouse a
life of continence because holier and more angelic."

It is generally admitted that the vow of celibacy was not demanded of
the clergy in primitive Christian times. It was only after many years of
bitter debate and in response to the growing influence of the monastic
ideal, that celibacy finally came to be looked upon as the highest form
of Christian virtue, and was enforced upon the clergy. As in the case of
the vow of poverty, there certainly can be no reasonable objection to
the individual adoption of celibacy, if one is either disinclined to
marriage or feels that he can do better work unmarried. But neither
Scripture nor reason justifies the imposition of celibacy upon any man,
nor the view that a life of continence is holier than marriage. It may
be reverently said that God would be making an unreasonable demand upon
mankind, if the holiness He requires conflicted with the proper
satisfaction of those impulses He himself has deeply implanted in
human nature.

3. The Vow of Obedience. The monks were required to render absolute
obedience to the will of their superiors, as the representatives of God.
Dom Guigo, in his rules for the Carthusian Order, declares: "Moreover,
if the Prior commands one of his religious to take more food, or to
sleep for a longer time, in fact, whatever command may be given us by
our Superior, we are not allowed to disobey, lest we should disobey God
also, who commands us by the mouth of our Superior. All our practices of
mortification and devotion would be fruitless and of no value, without
this one virtue of obedience, which alone can make them acceptable
to God."

Thus a strict and uncomplaining obedience, not to the laws of God as
interpreted by the individual conscience, but to the judgment and will
of a brother man, was demanded of the monks.

"Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs but to do and die."

They were often severely beaten or imprisoned and sometimes mutilated
for acts of disobedience. While the monks, especially the Friars and
Jesuits, carried this principle of obedience to great extremes, yet in
the barbarous ages its enforcement was sadly needed. Law and order were
words which the untamed Goth could not comprehend. He had to be taught
habits of obedience, a respect for the rights of others, and a proper
appreciation of his duty to society for the common good. But while, at
the beginning, the monastic vow of obedience helped to inculcate these
desirable lessons, and vastly modified the ferocity of unchecked
individualism, it tended, in the course of time, to generate a servile
humility fatal to the largest and freest personal development. In the
interests of passive obedience, it suppressed freedom of thought and
action. Obedience became mechanical and unreasoning. The consequence was
that the passion for individual liberty was unduly restrained, and the
extravagant claims of political and ecclesiastical tyrants were greatly
strengthened.

Such was the monastic ideal and such were some of the means employed to
realize it. The ascetic spirit manifests itself in a great variety of
ways, but all these visible and changing externals have one common
source. "To cherish the religious principle," says William E. Channing,"
some have warred against their social affections, and have led solitary
lives; some against their senses, and have abjured all pleasure in
asceticism; some against reason, and have superstitiously feared to
think; some against imagination, and have foolishly dreaded to read
poetry or books of fiction; some against the political and patriotic
principles, and have shrunk from public affairs,--all apprehending that
if they were to give free range to their natural emotions their
religious life would be chilled or extinguished."

IX

_THE EFFECTS OF MONASTICISM_

"We read history," said Wendell Phillips, "not through our eyes but
through our prejudices." Yet if it were possible entirely to lay aside
one's prepossessions respecting monastic history, it would still be no
easy task to estimate the influences of the monks upon human life.

In every field of thought and activity monasticism wrought good and
evil. Education, industry, government and religion have been both
furthered and hindered by the monks. What Francis Parkman said of the
Roman Catholic Church is true of the monastic institution: "Clearly she
is of earth, not of heaven; and her transcendently dramatic life is a
type of the good and ill, the baseness and nobleness, the foulness and
purity, the love and hate, the pride, passion, truth, falsehood,
fierceness, and tenderness, that battle in the restless heart of man."

A careful and sympathetic survey of monastic history compels the
conclusion that monasticism, while not uniformly a blessing to the
world, was not an unmitigated evil. The system presents one long series
of perplexities and contradictions. One historian shuts his eyes to its
pernicious effects, or at least pardons its transgressions, on the
ground that perfection in man or in institutions is unattainable.
Another condemns the whole system, believing that the sum of its evils
far outweighs whatever benefits it may have conferred upon mankind.
Schaff cuts the Gordian knot, maintaining that the contradiction is
easily solved on the theory that it was not monasticism, as such, which
has proved a blessing to the Church and the world. "It was Christianity
in monasticism," he says, "which has done all the good, and used this
abnormal mode of life as a means of carrying forward its mission of love
and peace."

To illustrate the diversities of opinion on this subject, and
incidentally to show how difficult it is to present a well-balanced,
symmetrically fair and just estimate of the monastic institution as a
whole, contrast the opinions of four celebrated men. Pius IX. refers to
the, monks as "those chosen phalanxes of the army of Christ which have
always been the bulwark and ornament of the Christian republic as well
as of civil society." But then he was the Pope of Rome, the Arch-prelate
of the Church. "Monk," fiercely demands Voltaire, "Monk, what is that
profession of thine? It is that of having none, of engaging one's self
by an inviolable oath to be a fool and a slave, and to live at the
expense of others." But he was the philosophical skeptic of Paris.
"Where is the town," cries Montalembert, "which has not been founded or
enriched or protected by some religious community? Where is the church
which owes not to them a patron, a relic, a pious and popular tradition?
Wherever there is a luxuriant forest, a pure stream, a majestic hill, we
may be sure that religion has left there her stamp by the hand of the
monk." But this was Montalembert, the Roman Catholic historian, and the
avowed champion of the monks. "A cruel, unfeeling temper," writes
Gibbon, "has distinguished the monks of every age and country; their
stern indifference, which is seldom mollified by personal friendship,
is inflamed by religious hatred; and their merciless zeal has
strenuously administered the holy office of the Inquisition." But this
was Gibbon, the hater of everything monastic. Between these extreme
views lies a wide field upon which many a deathless duel has been fought
by the writers of monastic history.

The variety of judgments respecting the nature and effects of
monasticism is partly due to the diversity in the facts of its history.
Monasticism was the friend and the foe of true religion. It was the
inspiration of virtue and the encouragement of vice. It was the patron
of industry and the promoter of idleness. It was a pioneer in education
and the teacher of superstition. It was the disburser of alms and a
many-handed robber. It was the friend of human liberty and the abettor
of tyranny. It was the champion of the common people and the defender of
class privileges. It was, in short, everything that man was and is, so
varied were its operations, so complex was its influence, so
comprehensive was its life.

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