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

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This is but one of numerous stories chronicling Anthony's struggles with
the devil. Like conflicts were going on at that hour in many another
cave in those great and silent mountains.

There are also wondrous tales of his miraculous power. He often
predicted the coming of sufferers and healed them when they came. His
fame for curing diseases and casting out devils became so extensive that
Egypt marveled at his gifts, and saints came even from Rome to see his
face and to hear his words. His freedom from pride and arrogance was as
marked as his fame was great. He yielded joyful obedience to presbyters
and bishops. His countenance was so full of divine grace and heavenly
beauty as to render him easily distinguishable in a crowd of monks.
Letters poured in upon him from every part of the empire. Kings wrote
for his advice, but it neither amazed him nor filled his heart with
pride. "Wonder not," said he, "if a king writes to us, for he is but a
man, but wonder rather that God has written His law to man and spoken to
us by His Son." At his command princes laid aside their crowns, judges
their magisterial robes, while criminals forsook their lives of crime
and embraced with joy the life of the desert.

Once, at the earnest entreaty of some magistrates, he came down from the
mountain that they might see him. Urged to prolong his stay he refused,
saying, "Fishes, if they lie long on the dry land, die; so monks who
stay with you lose their strength. As the fishes, then, hasten to the
sea, so must we to the mountains."

At last the shadows lengthened and waning strength proclaimed that his
departure was nigh. Bidding farewell to his monks, he retired to an
inner mountain and laid himself down to die. His countenance brightened
as if he saw his friends coming to see him, and thus his soul was
gathered to his fathers. He is said to have been mourned by fifteen
thousand disciples.

This is the story which moved a dying empire. "Anthony," says
Athanasius, "became known not by worldly wisdom, nor by any art, but
solely by piety, and that this was the gift of God who can deny?" The
purpose of such a life was, so his biographer thought, to light up the
moral path for men, that they might imbibe a zeal for virtue.

The "Life of St. Anthony" is even more remarkable for its omissions than
for its incredible tales. While I reserve a more detailed criticism of
its Christian ideals until a subsequent chapter, it may be well to quote
here a few words from Isaac Taylor. After pointing out some of its
defects he continues: there is "not a word of justification by faith;
not a word of the gracious influence of the Spirit in renewing and
cleansing the heart; not a word responding to any of those signal
passages of Scripture which make the Gospel 'Glad Tidings' to guilty
men." This I must confess to be true, even though I may and do heartily
esteem the saint's enthusiasm for righteousness.

So far I have described chiefly the spiritual experiences of these men,
but the details of their physical life are hardly less interesting.
There was a holy rivalry among them to excel in self-torture. Their
imaginations were constantly employed in devising unique tests of
holiness and courage. They lived in holes in the ground or in dried up
wells; they slept in thorn bushes or passed days and weeks without
sleep; they courted the company of the wildest beasts and exposed their
naked bodies to the broiling sun. Macarius became angry because an
insect bit him and in penitence flung himself into a marsh where he
lived for weeks. He was so badly stung by gnats and flies that his
friends hardly knew him. Hilarion, at twenty years of age, was more like
a spectre than a living man. His cell was only five feet high, a little
lower than his stature. Some carried weights equal to eighty or one
hundred and fifty pounds suspended from their bodies. Others slept
standing against the rocks. For three years, as it is recorded, one of
them never reclined. In their zeal to obey the Scriptures, they
overlooked the fact that cleanliness is akin to godliness. It was their
boast that they never washed. One saint would not even use water to
drink, but quenched his thirst with the dew that fell on the grass. St.
Abraham never washed his face for fifty years. His biographer, not in
the least disturbed by the disagreeable suggestions of this
circumstance, proudly says, "His face reflected the purity of his soul."
If so, one is moved to think that the inward light must indeed have been
powerfully piercing, if it could brighten a countenance unwashed for
half a century. There is a story about Abbot Theodosius who prayed for
water that his monks might drink. In response to his petition a stream
burst from the rocks, but the foolish monks, overcome by a pitiful
weakness for cleanliness, persuaded the abbot to erect a bath, when lo,
the stream dried. Supplications and repentance availed nothing. After a
year had passed, the monks, promising never again to insult Heaven by
wishing for a bath, were granted a second Mosaic miracle.

Thus, unwashed, clothed in rags, their hair uncut, their faces unshaven,
they lived for years. No wonder that to their disordered fancy the
desert was filled with devils, the animals spake and Heaven sent angels
to minister unto them.

_The Pillar Saint_

But the strangest of all strange narratives yet remains. We turn from
Egypt to Asia Minor to make the acquaintance of that saint whom Tennyson
has immortalized,--the idol of monarchs and the pride of the
East,--Saint Simeon Stylites. Stories grow rank around him like the
luxuriant products of a tropical soil. How shall I briefly tell of this
man, whom Theodoret, in his zeal, declares all who obey the Roman rule
know--the man who may be compared with Moses the Legislator, David the
King and Micah the Prophet? He lived between the years 390 and 459 A.D.
He was a shepherd's son, but at an early age entered a monastery. Here
he soon distinguished himself by his excessive austerities. One day he
went to the well, removed the rope from the bucket and bound it tightly
around his body underneath his clothes. A few weeks later, the abbot,
being angry with him because of his extreme self-torture, bade his
companions strip him. What was his astonishment to find the rope from
the well sunk deeply into his flesh. "Whence," he cried, "has this man
come to us, wanting to destroy the rule of this monastery? I pray thee
depart hence."

With great trouble they unwound the rope and the flesh with it, and
taking care of him until he was well, they sent him forth to commence a
life of austerities that was to render him famous. He adopted various
styles of existence, but his miracles and piety attracted such crowds
that he determined to invent a mode of life which would deliver him from
the pressing multitudes. It is curious that he did not hide himself
altogether if he really wished to escape notoriety; but, no, he would
still be within the gaze of admiring throngs. His holy and fanciful
genius hit upon a scheme that gave him his peculiar name. He took up his
abode on the top of a column which was at first about twelve feet high,
but was gradually elevated until it measured sixty-four feet. Hence, he
is called Simeon Stylites, or Simeon the Pillar Saint.

On this lofty column, betwixt earth and heaven, the hermit braved the
heat and cold of thirty years. At its base, from morning to night,
prayed the admiring worshipers. Kings kneeled in crowds of peasants to
do him homage and ask his blessing. Theodoret says, "The Ishmaelites,
coming by tribes of two hundred and three hundred at a time, and
sometimes even a thousand, deny, with shouts, the error of their
fathers, and breaking in pieces before that great illuminator, the
images which they had worshiped, and renouncing the orgies of Venus,
they received the Divine sacrament." Rude barbarians confessed their
sins in tears. Persians, Greeks, Romans and Saracens, forgetting their
mutual hatred, united in praise and prayer at the feet of this strange
character.

Once a week the hero partook of food. Many times a day he bowed his head
to his feet; one man counted twelve hundred and forty-four times and
then stopped in sheer weariness from gazing at the miracle of endurance
aloft. Again, from the setting of the sun to its appearance in the East,
he would stand unsoothed by sleep with his arms outstretched like
a cross.

If genius can understand such a life as that and fancy the thoughts of
such a soul, Tennyson seems not only to have comprehended the
consciousness of the Pillar Saint, but also to have succeeded in giving
expression to his insight. He has laid bare the soul of Simeon in its
commingling of spiritual pride with affected humility, and of a
consciousness of meritorious sacrifice with a sense of sin. The Saint
spurns notoriety and the homage of men, yet exults in his control over
the multitudes.

The poet thus imagines Simeon to speak as the Saint is praying God to
take away his sin:

"But yet
Bethink thee, Lord, while thou and all the saints
Enjoy themselves in heaven, and men on earth
House in the shade of comfortable roofs,
Sit with their wives by fires, eat wholesome food,
And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls,
I, 'tween the spring and downfall of the light,
Bow down one thousand and two hundred times,
To Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the Saints;
Or in the night, after a little sleep,
I wake: the chill stars sparkle; I am wet
With drenching dews, or stiff with crackling frost.
I wear an undress'd goatskin on my back;
A grazing iron collar grinds my neck;
And in my weak, lean arms I lift the cross,
And strive and wrestle with thee till I die:
O mercy, mercy! wash away my sin.

O Lord, thou knowest what a man I am;
A sinful man, conceived and born in sin:
'Tis their own doing; this is none of mine;
Lay it not to me. Am I to blame for this,
That here come those that worship me? Ha! ha!
They think that I am somewhat. What am I?
The silly people take me for a saint,
And bring me offerings of fruit and flowers:
And I, in truth (thou wilt bear witness here)
Have all in all endured as much, and more
Than many just and holy men, whose names
Are register'd and calendared for saints.

Good people, you do ill to kneel to me.
What is it I can have done to merit this?

* * * * *

Yet do not rise; for you may look on me,
And in your looking you may kneel to God.
Speak! is there any of you halt or maim'd?
I think you know I have some power with Heaven
From my long penance: let him speak his wish.

Yes, I can heal him. Power goes forth from me.
They say that they are heal'd. Ah, hark! they shout
'St. Simeon Stylites.' Why, if so,
God reaps a harvest in me. O my soul,
God reaps a harvest in thee. If this be,
Can I work miracles and not be saved?"

Once, the devil, in shape like an angel, riding in a chariot of fire,
came to carry Simeon to the skies. He whispered to the weary Saint,
"Simeon, hear my words, which the Lord hath commanded thee. He has sent
me, his angel, that I may carry thee away as I carried Elijah." Simeon
was deceived, and lifted his foot to step out into the chariot, when the
angel vanished, and in punishment for his presumption an ulcer appeared
upon his thigh.

But time plays havoc with saints as well as sinners, and death slays the
strongest. Bowed in prayer, his weary heart ceased to beat and the eyes
that gazed aloft were closed forever. Anthony, his beloved disciple,
ascending the column, found that his master was no more. Yet, it seemed
as if Simeon was loath to leave the spot, for his spirit appeared to his
weeping follower and said, "I will not leave this column, and this
blessed mountain. For I have gone to rest, as the Lord willed, but do
thou not cease to minister in this place and the Lord will repay thee
in heaven."

His body was carried down the mountain to Antioch. Heading the solemn
procession were the patriarch, six bishops, twenty-one counts and six
thousand soldiers, "and Antioch," says Gibbon, "revered his bones as
her glorious ornament and impregnable defence."

_The Cenobites of the East_

We cannot linger with these hermits. I pass now to the cenobitic[C]
life. We go back in years and return to Egypt. Man is a social animal,
and the social instinct is so strong that even hermits are swayed by its
power and get tired of living apart from one another. When Anthony died
the deserts were studded with hermitages, and those of exceptional fame
were surrounded by little clusters of huts and dens. Into these cells
crowded the hermits who wished to be near their master.

[Footnote C: Appendix, Note C.]

Thus, step by step, organized or cenobitic monasticism easily and
naturally came into existence. The anchorites crawled from their dens
every day to hear the words of their chief saint,--a practice giving
rise to stated meetings, with rules for worship. Regulations as to
meals, occupations, dress, penances, and prayers naturally follow.

The author of the first monastic rules is said to have been Pachomius,
who was born in Egypt about the year 292 A.D. He was brought up in
paganism but was converted in early life while in the army. On his
discharge he retired with a hermit to Tabenna, an island in the Nile. It
is said he never ate a full meal after his conversion, and for fifteen
years slept sitting on a stone. Natural gifts fitted him to become a
leader, and it was not long before he was surrounded by a congregation
of monks for whom he made his rules.

The monks of Pachomius were divided into bands of tens and hundreds,
each tenth man being an under officer in turn subject to the hundredth,
and all subject to the superior or abbot of the mother house. They lived
three in a cell, and a congregation of cells constituted a laura or
monastery. There was a common room for meals and worship. Each monk wore
a close fitting tunic and a white goatskin upper garment which was never
laid aside at meals or in bed, but only at the Eucharist. Their food
usually consisted of bread and water, but occasionally they enjoyed such
luxuries as oil, salt, fruits and vegetables. They ate in silence, which
was sometimes broken by the solemn voice of a reader.

"No man," says Jerome, "dares look at his neighbor or clear his throat.
Silent tears roll down their cheeks, but not a sob escapes their lips."
Their labors consisted of some light handiwork or tilling the fields.
They grafted trees, made beehives, twisted fish-lines, wove baskets and
copied manuscripts. It was early apparent that as man could not live
alone so he could not live without labor. We shall see this principle
emphasized more clearly by Benedict, but it is well to notice that at
this remote day provision was made for secular employments. Jerome
enjoins Rusticus, a young monk, always to have some work on hand that
the devil may find him busy. "Hoe your ground," says he, "set out
cabbages; convey water to them in conduits, that you may see with your
own eyes the lovely vision of the poet,--

"Art draws fresh water from the hilltop near,
Till the stream, flashing down among the rocks,
Cools the parched meadows and allays their thirst."

There were individual cases of excessive self-torture even among these
congregations of monks but we may say that ordinarily, organized
monasticism was altogether less severe upon the individual than
anchoretic life. The fact that the monk was seeking human fellowship is
evidence that he was becoming more humane, and this softening of his
spirit betrayed itself in his treatment of himself. The aspect of life
became a little brighter and happier.

Four objects were comprehended in these monastic roles,--solitude,
manual labor, fasting and prayer. We need not pity these dwellers far
from walled cities and the marts of trade. Indeed, they claim no
sympathy. Religious ideals can make strange transformations in man's
disposition and tastes. They loved their hard lives.

The hermit Abraham said to John Cassian, "We know that in these, our
regions, there are some secret and pleasant places, where fruits are
abundant and the beauty and fertility of the gardens would supply our
necessities with the slightest toil. We prefer the wilderness of this
desolation before all that is fair and attractive, admitting no
comparison between the luxuriance of the most exuberant soil and the
bitterness of these sands." Jerome himself exclaimed, "Others may think
what they like and follow each his own bent. But to me a town is a
prison and solitude paradise."

The three vows of chastity, poverty and obedience were adopted and
became the foundation stones of the monastic institution, to be found in
every monastic order. There is a typical illustration in Kingsley's
Hypatia of what they meant by obedience. Philammon, a young monk, was
consigned to the care of Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria, and a
factious, cruel man, with an imperious will. The bishop received and
read his letter of introduction and thus addressed its bearer,
"Philammon, a Greek. You are said to have learned to obey. If so, you
have also learned to rule. Your father-abbot has transferred you to my
tutelage. You are now to obey me." "And I will," was the quick response.
"Well said. Go to that window and leap forth into the court." Philammon
walked to it and opened it. The pavement was fully twenty feet below,
but his business was to obey and not to take measurements. There was a
flower in a vase upon the sill. He quietly removed it, and in an instant
would have leaped for life or death, when Cyril's voice
thundered, "Stop!"

The Pachomian monks despised possessions of every kind. The following
pathetic incident shows the frightful extent to which they carried this
principle, and also illustrates the character of that submission to
which the novitiate voluntarily assented: Cassian described how Mutius
sold his possessions and with his little child of eight asked admission
to a monastery. The monks received but disciplined him. "He had already
forgotten that he was rich, he must forget that he was a father." His
child was taken, clothed in rags, beaten and spurned. Obedience
compelled the father to look upon his child wasting with pain and grief,
but such was his love for Christ, says the narrator, that his heart was
rigid and immovable. He was then told to throw the boy into the river,
but was stopped in the act of obeying.

Yet men, women, and even children, coveted this life of unnatural
deprivations. "Posterity," says Gibbon, "might repeat the saying which
had formerly been applied to the sacred animals of the same country,
that in Egypt it was less difficult to find a god than a man." Though
the hermit did not claim to be a god, yet there were more monks in many
monasteries than inhabitants in the neighboring villages. Pachomius had
fourteen hundred monks in his own monastery and seven thousand under his
rule. Jerome says fifty thousand monks were sometimes assembled at
Easter in the deserts of Nitria. It was not uncommon for an abbot to
command five thousand monks. St. Serapion boasted of ten thousand.
Altogether, so we are told, there were in the fifth century more than
one hundred thousand persons in the monasteries, three-fourths of
whom were men.

The rule of Pachomius spread over Egypt into Syria and Palestine. It was
carried by Athanasius into Italy and Gaul. It existed in various
modified forms until it was supplanted by the Benedictine rule.

Leaving Egypt, again we cross the Mediterranean into Asia Minor. Near
the Black Sea, in a wild forest abounding in savage rocks and gloomy
ravines, there dwelt a young man of twenty-six. He had traveled in
Egypt, Syria and Palestine. He had visited the hermits of the desert and
studied philosophy and eloquence in cultured Athens. In virtue eminent,
in learning profound, this poetic soul sought to realize its ideal in a
lonely and cherished retreat--in a solitude of Pontus.

The young monk is the illustrious saint and genius,--Basil the
Great,--the Bishop of Caesarea, and the virtual founder of the monastic
institution in the Greek church. The forest and glens around his hut
belonged to him, and on the other bank of the river Iris his mother and
sister were leading similar lives, having abandoned earthly honors in
pursuit of heaven. Hard crusts of bread appeased his hunger. No fires,
except those which burned within his soul, protected him from the wintry
blast. His years were few but well spent. After a while his powerful
intellect asserted itself and he was led into a clearer view of the true
spiritual life. His practical mind revolted against the gross ignorance
and meaningless asceticism of Egypt. He determined to form an order that
would conform to the inner meaning of the Bible and to a more sensible
conception of the religious life. For his time he was a wise legislator,
a cunning workman and a daring thinker. The modification of his ascetic
ideal was attended by painful struggles. Many an hour he spent with his
bosom friend, Gregory of Nazianza, discussing the subject. The middle
course which they finally adopted is thus neatly described by Gregory:

"Long was the inward strife, till ended thus:
I saw, when men lived in the fretful world,
They vantaged other men, but missed the while
The calmness, and the pureness of their hearts.
They who retired held an uprighter post,
And raised their eyes with quiet strength toward heaven;
Yet served self only, unfraternally.
And so, 'twixt these and those, I struck my path,
To meditate with the free solitary,
Yet to live secular, and serve mankind."

Monks in large numbers flocked to this mountain retreat of Basil's.
These he banded together in an organization, the remains of which still
live in the Greek church. So great is the influence of his life and
teachings, "that it is common though erroneous to call all Oriental
monks Basilians." His rules are drawn up in the form of answers to two
hundred and three questions. He added to the three monastic vows a
fourth, which many authorities claim now appeared for the first
time,--namely, that of irrevocable vows--once a monk, always a monk.

Basil did not condemn marriage, but he believed that it was incompatible
with the highest spiritual attainments. For the Kingdom of God's sake it
was necessary to forsake all. "Love not the world, neither the things of
the world," embraced to his mind the married state. By avoiding the
cares of marriage a man was sure to escape, so he thought, the gross
sensuality of the age. He struck at the dangers which attend the
possession of riches, by enforcing poverty. An abbot was appointed over
his cloisters to whom absolute obedience was demanded. Everywhere men
needed this lesson of obedience. The discipline of the armies was
relaxed. The authority of religion was set at naught; laxity and
disorder prevailed even among the monks. They went roaming over the
country controlled only by their whims. Insubordination had to be
checked or the monastic institution was doomed. Hence, Basil was
particular to enforce a respect for law and order.

Altogether this was an honest and serious attempt to introduce fresh
power into a corrupt age and to faithfully observe the Biblical commands
as Basil understood them. The floods of iniquity were engulfing even the
church. A new standard had to be raised and an inner circle of pious and
zealous believers gathered from the multitude of half-pagan Christians,
or all was lost.

The subsequent history of Greek monachism has little interest. In
Russia, at a late date, the Greek monks served some purpose in keeping
alive the national spirit under the Tartar yoke, but the practical
benefits to the East were few, in comparison with the vigorous life of
the Western monasticism.

Montalembert, the brilliant champion of Christian monasticism, becomes
an adverse critic of the system in the East, although it is noteworthy
he now speaks of monasticism as it appears in the Greek church, which he
holds to be heretical; yet his indictment is quite true: "They yielded
to all the deleterious impulses of that declining society. They have
saved nothing, regenerated nothing, elevated nothing."

We have visited the hermit in the desert and in the monastery governed
by its abbot and its rules. We must view the monk in one other aspect,
that of theological champion. Here the hermit and the monk of the
monastery meet on common ground. They were fighters, not debaters;
fighters, not disciplined soldiers; fighters, not persuading Christians.
They swarmed down from the mountains like hungry wolves. They fought
heretics, they fought bishops, they fought Roman authorities, they
fought soldiers, and fought one another. Ignorant, fanatical and cruel,
they incited riots, disturbed the public peace and shed the blood
of foes.

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