A Short History of Monks and Monasteries written by Alfred Wesley Wishart
A >>
Alfred Wesley Wishart >> A Short History of Monks and Monasteries
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21
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.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21