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

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Some writers maintain that they were also worshipers of the sun, and
hence that their origin is to be traced to Persian sources. Even if so,
they seemed to have escaped that confused and mystical philosophy which
has robbed Oriental thought of much power in the realm of practical
life. Philo says, "Of philosophy, the dialectical department, as being
in no wise necessary for the acquisition of virtue, they abandon to the
word-catchers; and the part which treats of the nature of things, as
being beyond human nature, they leave to speculative air-gazers, with
the exception of that part of it which deals with the subsistance of God
and the genesis of all things; but the ethical they right well
work out."

Pliny the elder, who lived A.D. 23-79, made the following reference to
the Essenes, which is especially interesting because of the tone of
sadness and weariness with the world suggested in its praise of this
Jewish sect. "On the western shore (of the Dead Sea) but distant from
the sea far enough to escape from its noxious breezes, dwelt the
Essenes. They are an eremite clan, one marvelous beyond all others in
the whole world; without any women, with sexual intercourse entirely
given up, without money, and the associates of palm trees. Daily is the
throng of those that crowd about them renewed, men resorting to them in
numbers, driven through weariness of existence, and the surges of
ill-fortune, to their manner of life. Thus it is that through thousands
of ages--incredible to relate!--their society, in which no one is born,
lives on perennial. So fruitful to them is the irksomeness of life
experienced by other men."

Admission to the order was granted only to adults, yet children were
sometimes adopted for training in the principles of the sect. Some
believed in marriage as a means of perpetuating the order.

Since it would not throw light on our present inquiry, the mooted
question as to the connection of Essenism and the teachings of Jesus may
be passed by. The differences are as great as the resemblances and the
weight of opinion is against any vital relation.

The character of this sect conclusively shows that some of the elements
of Christian monasticism existed in the time of Jesus, not only in
Palestine but in other countries. In an account of the Therapeutae, or
true devotees, an ascetic body similar to the Essenes, Philo says,
"There are many parts of the world in which this class may be found....
They are, however, in greatest abundance in Egypt."

During Apostolic times various teachings and practices were current that
may be characterized as ascetic. The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the
Colossians, doubtless had in mind a sect or school which despised the
body and abstained from meats and wine. A false asceticism, gathering
inspiration from pagan philosophy, was rapidly spreading among
Christians even at that early day. The teachings of the Gnostics, a
speculative sect of many schools, became prominent in the closing days
of the Apostolic age or very soon thereafter. Many of these schools
claimed a place in the church, and professed a higher life and knowledge
than ordinary Christians possessed. The Gnostics believed in the
complete subjugation of the body by austere treatment.

The Montanists, so called after Montanus, their famous leader, arose in
Asia Minor during the second century, when Marcus Aurelius was emperor.
Schaff describes the movement as "a morbid exaggeration of Christian
ideas and demands." It was a powerful and frantic protest against the
growing laxity of the church. It despised ornamental dress and
prescribed numerous fasts and severities.

These facts and many others that might be mentioned throw light on our
inquiry in several ways. They show that asceticism was in the air. The
literature, philosophy and religion of the day drifted toward an ascetic
scheme of life and stimulated the tendency to acquire holiness, even at
the cost of innocent joys and natural gratifications. They show that
worldliness was advancing in the church, which called for rebuke and a
return to Apostolic Christianity; that the church was failing to satisfy
the highest cravings of the soul. True, it was well-nigh impossible for
the church, in the midst of such a powerful and corrupt heathen
environment, to keep itself up to its standards.

It is a common tradition that in the first three centuries the practices
and spirit of the church were comparatively pure and elevated. Harnack
says, "This tradition is false. The church was already secularized to a
great extent in the middle of the third century." She was "no longer in
a position to give peace to all sorts and conditions of men." It was
then that the great exodus of Christians from the villages and cities to
mountains and deserts began. Although from the time of Christ on there
were always some who understood Christianity to demand complete
separation from all earthly pleasures, yet it was three hundred years
and more before large numbers began to adopt a hermit's life as the only
method of attaining salvation. "They fled not only from the world, but
from the world within the church. Nevertheless, they did not flee out of
the church."

We can now see why no definite cause for the monastic institution can be
given and no date assigned for its origin. It did not commence at any
fixed time and definite place. Various philosophies and religious
customs traveled for centuries from country to country, resulting in
singular resemblances and differences between different ascetic or
monastic sects. Christian monasticism was slowly evolved, and gradually
assumed definite organization as a product of a curious medley of
Heathen-Jewish-Christian influences.

A few words should be said here concerning the influence of the Bible
upon monasticism. Naturally the Christian hermits and early fathers
appealed to the Bible in support of their teachings and practices. It is
not necessary, at this point, to discuss the correctness of their
interpretations. The simple fact is that many passages of scripture were
considered as commands to attain perfection by extraordinary sacrifices,
and certain Biblical characters were reverenced as shining monastic
models. In the light of the difficulties of Biblical criticism it is
easy to forgive them if they were mistaken, a question to be discussed
farther on. They read of those Jewish prophets described in Hebrews:
"They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins; ... wandering in deserts
and mountains and caves, and the holes of the earth." They pointed to
Elijah and his school of prophets; to John the Baptist, with his raiment
of camel's hair and a leathern girdle about his loins, whose meat was
locusts and wild honey. They recalled the commandment of Jesus to the
rich young man to sell all his possessions and give to the poor. They
quoted the words, "Take no thought for the morrow what ye shall eat and
what ye shall drink or wherewithal ye shall be clothed." They construed
following Christ to mean in His own words, "forsaking father, mother,
brethren, wife, children, houses and lands." They pointed triumphantly
to the Master himself, unmarried and poor, who had not "where to lay his
head." They appealed to Paul's doctrine of marriage. They remembered
that the Church at Jerusalem was composed of those who sold their
possessions and had all things in common. Whatever these and numerous
other passages may truly mean, they interpreted them in favor of a
monastic mode of life; they understood them to teach isolation,
fastings, severities, and other forms of rigorous self-denial. Accepting
Scripture in this sense, they trampled upon human affection and gave
away their property, that they might please God and save their souls.

Between the time of Christ and Paul of Thebes, who died in the first
half of the fourth century, and who is usually recognized as the founder
of monasticism, many Christian disciples voluntarily abandoned their
wealth, renounced marriage and adopted an ascetic mode of life, while
still living in or near the villages or cities. As the corruption of
society and the despair of men became more widespread, these anxious
Christians wandered farther and farther away from fixed habitations
until, in an excess of spiritual fervor, they found themselves in the
caves of the mountains, desolate and dreary, where no sound of human
voice broke in upon the silence. The companions of wild beasts, they
lived in rapt contemplation on the eternal mysteries of this most
strange world.

My task now is to describe some of those recluses who still live in the
biographies of the saints and the traditions of the church. Ducis, while
reading of these hermits, wrote to a friend as follows: "I am now
reading the lives of the Fathers of the Desert. I am dwelling with St.
Pachomius, the founder of the monastery at Tabenna. Truly there is a
charm in transporting one's self to that land of the angels--one could
not wish ever to come out of it." Whether the reader will call these
strange characters angels, and will wish he could have shared their beds
of stone and midnight vigils, I will not venture to say, but at all
events his visit will be made as pleasant as possible.

In writing the life of Mahomet, Carlyle said, "As there is no danger of
our becoming, any of us, Mahometans, I mean to say all the good of
Mahomet I justly can." So, without distorting the picture that has come
down to us, I mean to say all the good of these Egyptian hermits that
the facts will justify.

_The Hermits of Egypt_

Egypt was the mother of Christian monasticism, as she has been of many
other wonders.

Vast solitudes; lonely mountains, honey-combed with dens and caves; arid
valleys and barren hills; dreary deserts that glistened under the
blinding glare of the sun that poured its heat upon them steadily all
the year; strange, grotesque rocks and peaks that assumed all sorts of
fantastic shapes to the overwrought fancy; in many places no water, no
verdure, and scarcely a thing in motion; the crocodile and the bird
lazily seeking their necessary food and stirring only as compelled;
unbounded expanse in the wide star-lit heavens; unbroken quiet on the
lonely mountains--a fit home for the hermit, a paradise to the lover of
solitude and peace.

Of life under such conditions Kingsley has said: "They enjoyed nature,
not so much for her beauty as for her perfect peace. Day by day the
rocks remained the same. Silently out of the Eastern desert, day by day,
the rising sun threw aloft those arrows of light which the old Greeks
had named 'the rosy fingers of the dawn.' Silently he passed in full
blaze above their heads throughout the day, and silently he dipped
behind the Western desert in a glory of crimson and orange, green and
purple.... Day after day, night after night, that gorgeous pageant
passed over the poor hermit's head without a sound, and though sun, moon
and planet might change their places as the years rolled round, the
earth beneath his feet seemed not to change." As for the companionless
men, who gazed for years upon this glorious scene, they too were of
unusual character, Waddington finely says: "The serious enthusiasm of
the natives of Egypt and Asia, that combination of indolence and energy,
of the calmest languor with the fiercest passions, ... disposed them to
embrace with eagerness the tranquil but exciting duties of religious
seclusion." Yes, here are the angels of Ducis in real flesh and blood.
They revel in the wildest eccentricities with none to molest or make
afraid, always excepting the black demons from the spiritual world. One
dwells in a cave in the bowels of the earth; one lies on the sand
beneath a blazing sun; one has shut himself forever from the sight of
man in a miserable hut among the bleak rocks of yonder projecting peak;
one rests with joy in the marshes, breathing with gratitude the
pestilential vapors.

Some of these saints became famous for piety and miraculous power.
Athanasius, fleeing from persecution, visited them, and Jerome sought
them out to learn from their own lips the stories of their lives. To
these men and to others we are indebted for much of our knowledge
concerning this chapter of man's history. Less than fifty years after
Paul of Thebes died, or about 375 A.D., Jerome wrote the story of his
life, which Schaff justly characterizes as "a pious romance." From
Jerome we gather the following account: Paul was the real founder of the
hermit life, although not the first to bear the name. During the Decian
persecution, when churches were laid waste and Christians were slain
with barbarous cruelty, Paul and his sister were bereaved of both their
parents. He was then a lad of sixteen, an inheritor of wealth and
skilled for one of his years in Greek and Egyptian learning. He was of a
gentle and loving disposition. On account of his riches he was denounced
as a Christian by an envious brother-in-law and compelled to flee to the
mountains in order to save his life. He took up his abode in a cave
shaded by a palm that afforded him food and clothing. "And that no one
may deem this impossible," affirms Jerome, "I call to witness Jesus and
his holy angels that I have seen and still see in that part of the
desert which lies between Syria and the Saracens' country, monks of whom
one was shut up for thirty years and lived on barley bread and muddy
water, while another in an old cistern kept himself alive on five dried
figs a day."

It is impossible to determine how much of the story which follows is
historically true. Undoubtedly, it contains little worthy of belief, but
it gives us some faint idea of how these hermits lived. Its chief value
consists in the fact that it preserves a fragment of the monastic
literature of the times--a story which was once accepted as a credible
narrative. Imagine the influence of such a tale, when believed to be
true, upon a mind inclined to embrace the doctrines of asceticism. Its
power at that time is not to be measured by its reliability now. Jerome
himself declares in the prologue that many incredible things were
related of Paul which he will not repeat. After reading the following
story, the reader may well inquire what more fanciful tale could be
produced even by a writer of fiction.

The blessed Paul was now one hundred and thirteen years old, and
Anthony, who dwelt in another place of solitude, was at the age of
ninety. In the stillness of the night it was revealed to Anthony that
deeper in the desert there was a better man than he, and that he ought
to see him. So, at the break of day, the venerable old man, supporting
and guiding his weak limbs with a staff, started out, whither he knew
not. At scorching noontide he beholds a fellow-creature, half man, half
horse, called by the poets Hippo-centaur. After gnashing outlandish
utterances, this monster, in words broken, rather than spoken, through
his bristling lips, points out the way with his right hand and swiftly
vanishes from the hermit's sight. Anthony, amazed, proceeds thoughtfully
on his way when a mannikin, with hooked snout, horned forehead and
goat's feet, stands before him and offers him food. Anthony asks who he
is. The beast thus replies: "I am a mortal being, and one of those
inhabitants of the desert, whom the Gentiles deluded by various forms of
error worship, under the name of Fauns and Satyrs." As he utters these
and other words, tears stream down the aged traveler's face! He rejoices
over the glory of God and the destruction of Satan. Striking the ground
with his staff, he exclaims, "Woe to thee, Alexandria, who, instead of
God, worshipest monsters! Woe to thee, harlot city, into which have
flowed together the demons of the world! What will you say now? Beasts
speak of Christ, and you, instead of God, worship monsters." "Let none
scruple to believe this incident," says the chronicler, "for a man of
this kind was brought alive to Alexandria and the people saw him; when
he died his body was preserved in salt and brought to Antioch that the
Emperor might view him."

Anthony continues to traverse the wild region into which he had entered.
There is no trace of human beings. The darkness of the second night
wears away in prayer. At day-break he beholds far away a she-wolf
gasping with parched thirst and creeping into a cave. He draws near and
peers within. All is dark, but perfect love casteth out fear. With
halting step and bated breath, he enters. After a while a light gleams
in the distant midnight darkness. With eagerness he presses forward, but
his foot strikes against a stone and arouses the echoes; whereupon the
blessed Paul closes the door and makes it fast. For hours Anthony lay at
the door craving admission. "I know I am not worthy," he humbly cries,
"yet unless I see you I will not turn away. You welcome beasts, why not
a man? If I fail, I will die here on your threshold."

"Such was his constant cry; unmoved he stood,
To whom the hero thus brief answer made."

"Prayers like these do not mean threats, there is no trickery in tears."
So, with smiles, Paul gives him entrance and the two aged hermits fall
into each other's embrace. Together they converse of things human and
divine, Paul, close to the dust of the grave, asks, Are new houses
springing up in ancient cities? What government directs the world?
Little did this recluse know of his fellow-beings and how fared it with
the children of men who dwelt in those great cities around the blue
Mediterranean. He was dead to the world and knew it no more.

A raven brought the aged brothers bread to eat and the hours glided
swiftly away. Anthony returned to get a cloak which Athanasius had given
him in which to wrap the body of Paul. So eager was he to behold again
his newly-found friend that he set out without even a morsel of bread,
thirsting to see him. But when yet three days' journey from the cave he
saw Paul on high among the angels. Weeping, he trudged on his way. On
entering the cave he saw the lifeless body kneeling, with head erect and
hands uplifted. He tenderly wrapped the body in the cloak and began to
lament that he had no implements to dig a grave. But Providence sent two
lions from the recesses of the mountain that came rushing with flying
manes. Roaring, as if they too mourned, they pawed the earth and thus
the grave was dug. Anthony, bending his aged shoulders beneath the
burden of the saint's body, laid it lovingly in the grave and departed.

Jerome closes this account by challenging those who do not know the
extent of their possessions,--who adorn their homes with marble and who
string house to house,--to say what this old man in his nakedness ever
lacked. "Your drinking vessels are of precious stones; he satisfied his
thirst with the hollow of his hand. Your tunics are wrought of gold; he
had not the raiment of your meanest slave. But on the other hand, poor
as he was, Paradise is open to him; you, with all your gold, will be
received into Gehenna. He, though naked, yet kept the robe of Christ;
you, clad in your silks, have lost the vesture of Christ. Paul lies
covered with worthless dust, but will rise again to glory; over you are
raised costly tombs, but both you and your wealth are doomed to burning.
I beseech you, reader, whoever you may be, to remember Jerome the
sinner. He, if God would give him his choice, would sooner take Paul's
tunics with his merits, than the purple of kings with their punishment."

Such was the story circulated among rich and poor, appealing with
wondrous force to the hearts of men in those wretched years.

What was the effect upon the mind of the thoughtful? If he believed such
teaching, weary of the wickedness of the age, and moved by his noblest
sentiments, he sold his tunics wrought of gold and fled from his palaces
of marble to the desert solitudes.

But the monastic story that most strongly impressed the age now under
consideration, was the biography of Anthony, "the patriarch of monks"
and virtual founder of Christian monasticism. It was said to have been
written by Athanasius, the famous defender of orthodoxy and Archbishop
of Alexandria; yet some authorities reject his authorship. It exerted a
power over the minds of men beyond all human estimate. It scattered the
seeds of asceticism wherever it was read. Traces of its influence are
found all over the Roman empire, in Egypt, Asia Minor, Palestine, Italy
and Gaul. Knowing the character of Athanasius, we may rest assured that
he sincerely believed all he really recorded (it is much interpolated)
of the strange life of Anthony, and, true or false, thousands of others
believed in him and in his story. Augustine, the great theologian of
immortal fame, acknowledged that this book was one of the influences
that led to his conversion, and Jerome, whose life I will review later,
was mightily swayed by it.

Anthony was born about 251 A.D., in Upper Egypt, of wealthy and noble
parentage. He was a pious child, an obedient son, and a lover of
solitude and books. His parents died when he was about twenty years old,
leaving to his care their home and his little sister. One day, as he
entered the church, meditating on the poverty of Christ, a theme much
reflected upon in those days, he heard these words read from the pulpit,
"If thou wouldst be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast, and give to
the poor, and come, follow me." As if the call came straight from heaven
to his own soul, he left the church at once and made over his farm to
the people of the village. He sold his personal possessions for a large
sum, and distributed the proceeds among the poor, reserving a little for
his sister. Still he was unsatisfied. Entering the church on another
occasion, he heard our Lord saying in the gospel, "Take no thought for
the morrow." The clouds cleared away. His anxious search for truth and
duty was at an end. He went out and gave away the remnant of his
belongings. Placing his sister in a convent, the existence of which is
to be noted, he fled to the desert. Then follows a striking statement,
"For monasteries were not common in Egypt, nor had any monk at all known
the great desert; but every one who wished to devote himself to his own
spiritual welfare performed his exercise alone, not far from
the village."

Laboring with his hands, recalling texts of Scripture, praying whole
sleepless nights, fasting for several days at a time, visiting his
fellow saints, fighting demons, so passed the long years away. He slept
on a small rush mat, more often on the bare ground. Forgetting past
austerities, he was ever on the search for some new torture and pressing
forward to new and strange experiences. He changed his habitation from
time to time. Now he lived in a tomb, in company with the silent dead;
then for twenty years in a deserted castle, full of reptiles, never
going out and rarely seeing any one. From each saint he learned some
fresh mode of spiritual training, observing his practice for future
imitation and studying the charms of his Christian character that he
might reproduce them in his own life; thus he would return richly laden
to his cell.

But in all these struggles Anthony had one foe--the arch-enemy of all
good. He suggests impure thoughts, but the saint repels them by prayer;
he incites to passion, but the hero resists the fiend with fastings and
faith. Once the dragon, foiled in his attempt to overcome Anthony,
gnashed his teeth, and coming out of his body, lay at his feet in the
shape of a little black boy. But the hermit was not beguiled into
carelessness by this victory. He resolved to chastise himself more
severely. So he retired to the tombs of the dead. One dark night a crowd
of demons flogged the saint until he fell to the ground speechless with
torture. Some friends found him the next day, and thinking that he was
dead, carried him to the village, where his kinsfolk gathered to mourn
over his remains. But at midnight he came to himself, and, seeing but
one acquaintance awake, he begged that he would carry him back to the
tombs, which was done. Unable to move, he prayed prostrate and sang, "If
an host be laid against me, yet shall not my heart be afraid." The
enraged devils made at him again. There was a terrible crash; through
the walls the fiends came in shapes like beasts and reptiles. In a
moment the place was filled with lions roaring at him, bulls thrusting
at him with their horns, creeping serpents unable to reach him, wolves
held back in the act of springing. There, too, were bears and asps and
scorpions. Mid the frightful clamor of roars, growls and hisses, rose
the clear voice of the saint, as he triumphantly mocked the demons in
their rage. Suddenly the awful tumult ceased; the wretched beings became
invisible and a ray of light pierced the roof to cheer the prostrate
hero. His pains ceased. A voice came to him saying, "Thou hast withstood
and not yielded. I will always be thy helper, and will make thy name
famous everywhere." Hearing this he rose up and prayed, and was stronger
in body than ever before.

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