was perhaps more often concerned to protect them than to impinge upon their freedom.129
§ 5. Monasticism130
The same period, in which the Christian religion gradually won the upper hand in the Empire, witnessed a movement which was at first independent of the Church but was destined soon to become an important part of the ecclesiastical system. The germs of asceticism had been implanted in the Christianity from the very beginning, and the tendencies to a rigorous life of self-abnegation may have been stimulated by the example of the austerities of the Essenes, the Therapeutae, the monks of Serapis, and later by the influence of the semi-Christian Zoroastrian religion of the Manichees. Ascetic practices seem to have been a strong temptation to all men of an ardently religious temperament in these ages, whatever doctrines they might hold concerning the universe; Julian the Apostate is an eminent example. For the Christian Church and State the consequences were far-reaching and could not have been anticipated. In the course of the fourth and fifth centuries a large and ever-growing number of men and women withdrew themselves from society, severed themselves from family ties, and embraced, whether in cells in the desert or in recluse communities in town or country, a life of celibacy, prayer, and fasting. Gradually regularised and organised by disciplines of varying degrees of rigour, monasticism established itself firmly as one of the most influential institutions of the Christian world, thoroughly consonant with the spirit of the time and richly endowed by the liberality of the pious.
We have not to follow the history of its growth, but the reader may be reminded that Christian monasticism originated circa A.D. 300 under the auspices of St. Anthony in Lower Egypt. At first it took the form of a solitary life in the desert, where ascetics lived independently of one another in neighbouring cells and devoted themselves to an otherwise idle existence of religious contemplation.131 Another variety of monasticism was soon afterwards founded in Upper Egypt by Pachomius. In his monasteries near Tentyra (Denderah) and Panopolis (Akhmim) the brethren lived in common and performed all kinds of work. The Antonian ideal was approved by Athanasius, and his influence went far to spread it in the West. It was introduced into Palestine by Hilarion, and into Syria, where the rigours of the hermit assumed their most extreme and repulsive shape. There was originated the grotesque idea of living for years on the top of a high pillar. Simeon, the first of these pillar-saints (stylitae),132 had many followers, and such was the temper of the times that these abnormal self-tormentors, who could not have been more healthy in mind than in body, were universally revered and consulted as oracles.
The monastic movement engaged the attention of St. Basil, and awoke his enthusiasm. He came to the conclusion that monastic institutions, framed on right lines, would be useful to the Church, and he established a coenobitic community at Neocaesarea (about A.D. 360), and drew up minute regulations. The brethren were not required to take vows; the asceticism of their life was not immoderate; and they were expected to perform work in the fields. St. Basil’s idea had an immediate success and he became the founder of Greek monasticism. Cloisters adopting his Rule133 sprang up throughout Asia Minor, and in the following century in Palestine. But here there flourished also the lauras, or enclosures in which the monks lived an almost eremitical life in separate cells, and these institutions were numerous in the plain of the Jordan.134 The most famous of the ascetics of Palestine were Euthymius, Sabas, and Theodosius.135 Euthymius founded the laura of Sahel, to the east of Jerusalem, in A.D. 428;136 Sabas founded in A.D. 483 the Great Laura on the Cedron, with a grotto which nature had moulded into the form of a church, and many others; and Theodosius his coenobitic monastery at the grotto of the Magi near Bethlehem in A.D. 476. Sabas was appointed archimandrite of all the lauras, and Theodosius of all the coenobia, in the diocese of Jerusalem by the Patriarch Sallust (A.D. 494). It would seem that the monks of the lauras were considered to have attained to a higher grade of spiritual life than those who lived in convents, which were regarded as a preparation in ascetic discipline.137 As Sabas and one of his disciples walked one day from Jericho to the Jordan, they met a young and comely girl. “Did you remark that girl?” said the saint, “she is one-eyed.” “No, Father,” said the disciple, “she had both her eyes.” “How do you know?” “I looked at her intently.” “What about the commandment, ‘Fix not your eyes on her, neither let her take thee with her eyelids’?”138 And the saint sent the youth to a convent till he had learned better to control his eyes and his thoughts.
The history of monasticism at Constantinople begins with the abbot139 Isaac, a Syrian, who in the reign of Theodosius I founded a convent in the quarter of Psamathia outside the Constantinian Wall. He was a typical fanatical ascetic and was buried with great pomp when he died.140 He was succeeded by Dalmatius, an active organiser, who founded new houses under his own authority. The community of the Akoimetoi or Sleepless was established at Gomon, near the northern entrance to the Bosphorus, by one Alexander in the reign of Theodosius II, but his successor John transported the monks to a new cloister at Chibukli, on the Asiatic side of the straits opposite to Sosthenion,141 where it became famous under the next abbot Marcellus, who presided for about forty years. Two other foundations deserve notice. The monastery of Drys, a suburb of Chalcedon, was established by Hypatius, who enforced a very strict discipline, about A.D. 400. Hypatius enjoyed considerable influence. Theodosius II used to visit him, and he was constantly consulted by the nobles and ladies of the capital.142 The most famous of the monastic communities of Constantinople was founded by Studius, an ex-consul who had come from Rome,143 in the reign of Leo I. He dedicated a small basilica to St. John the Baptist, which is still preserved as a mosque,144 not far from the Golden Gate, and subsequently attached to it a monastery, in which he established some of the Sleepless brethren, who had belonged to the convent of Marcellus.145 The Studite community was to become the largest and most influential in Constantinople.
Of the countries of western Europe, early monasticism spread most widely in Gaul. Martin of Tours was the pioneer; he founded a monastery at Poictiers about A.D. 362. Some forty years later Cassian inaugurated monastic life at Marseilles, and Honoratus in the islands of Lérins off the coast of Provence. Both Cassian and Honoratus were under the direct influence of the theories of ascetic life which were practised by the Antonian monks of northern Egypt.146 In the same period, monasteries both for men and for women — women already took their full share in the ascetic movement — were established at Rome and in Italian towns, and Augustine introduced monastic life in Africa. Spain, so far as our evidence goes, seems to have been little affected by the fashion before the sixth century.
We have no information that would enable us to conjecture the total number of the voluntary exiles from social life, who in the fifth century, whether in communities or lonely cells, mortified their bodies and their natural affections in order to assure themselves of eternal happiness. Ascetic enthusiasm was infectious, and the leading authorities of the church, such as Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysostom, all held up the monastic life as the highest spiritual ideal, and outdid each other in their praises of celibacy and virginity. But the Church and the State soon found it necessary, in the interests of public order, to exercise control over the ascetics, who in the early period of the movement were each his own master and acknowledged no superior. The towns were often troubled by the invasion of vagrant monks, genuine or spurious, who formed a highly undesirable addition to the idle and mendicant portion of the populace.147 We have seen again and again the turbulence of the monks, who, in their religious zeal, were ready to commit any excess of violence and transgression of decency. Their fanaticism was responsible for the useless destruction of pagan temples. They played a leading part in the disturbances at Alexandria which ended in the murder of Hypatia. They were the chief offenders in the scandalous disorders which disgraced the Council of Ephesus. During the first half of the fifth century, the bishops seem to have been gradually acquiring some control over the cloisters, but the prevailing anarchy was definitely ended by the Council of Chalcedon.148 This assembly deplored the turbulence of the monks, and forbade them to abandon their holy life. It ordained that no one could found a monastery
