(4) that all sins are equal; (5) that all rewards and punishments will be equal. Jerome answered him and Pope Siricius excommunicated him and his followers as heretics (390).[220:1] Helvidius of Rome denounced the reverence for celibacy and declared that the marriage state was as holy as that of virginity. Again Jerome wielded his intellectual cudgel.[220:2] Bonasus, Bishop of Sardica, was excommunicated for holding the same view (389). Vigilantius, an educated Gallic slave, a disciple of Jovinian, attacked the necessity of celibacy, denied the efficacy of virginity, opposed fasting and torture, ridiculed relics, objected to candles, incense, and prayers for the dead, and doubted miracles. He was a Protestant living in the fifth century.[220:3] He too was assailed by Jerome and put under the papal ban.[220:4] Ærius of Sebasta, a presbyter, called into question the need or value of fasts, prayers for the dead, the inequality of rank among the clergy, and the celebration of Easter and of course was outlawed by the Church.[220:5] Lactantius declared that the hermit life was that of a beast rather than a man and treasonable to society. But all these loud outcries against the monks were branded as heresy and drowned in counter-shouts of praise.
When the results and influences of monasticism are carefully weighed, it is seen that the good and evil "are blended together almost inextricably." These diametrically opposite effects are perplexing and
astonishing. Conspicuous among the positive results are the following:
1. Religious. The effort to save pure Christianity from the secularised state-Church by carrying it to the desert or shutting it up in a monastery, produced the first great reform movement within the Christian Church. "It was always the monks who saved the Church when sinking, emancipated her when becoming enslaved to the world, defended her when assailed."[221:1] Monasticism was, therefore, a realisation of the ideal in Christianity. In no small sense it likewise paved the way for the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The monastic conquest of Christianity left in its train higher ideals of a holy Christian life and a keener religious enthusiasm, and emphasised the necessity of humility and purity. Likewise monasticism, through its aggressive missionary efforts, completed the overthrow of heathenism in the Empire and in its stead planted the true faith over western Europe. The monks were the fiercest champions of orthodoxy, and the intellectual giants of that age, like Jerome and St. Augustine, were in their ranks. The monk rather than the priest was the apostle of the Middle Ages who taught men and nations the simple Christian life of the Gospel. In monasticism were developed the germs of many humanitarian institutions through which Christianity expressed itself in a most practical manner. The monastery offered a home to the poor and unfortunate, and gave hope and refuge to both the religious invalid, who was sick of the world, and to the religious fanatic. The Papacy, too, was supported and strengthened in a thousand different ways by monasticism,
and the whole religious history of the Middle Ages was coloured by it.
2. Social. Monasticism tended to purify and regenerate society with lofty ideas. It became an unexcelled machine for the administration of charity. It fed the hungry, cared for the sick and dying, entertained the traveller, and was an asylum for all the unfortunates. It helped to mitigate the terrors of slavery. It inculcated ideas of obedience and usefulness. It advocated and practised equality and communism, and it tutored the half-civilised nations of western Europe in the arts of peace.
3. Political. In its organisation and practical life it kept alive ideas of democracy. From the ranks of the monks came many of the best statesmen in the various European governments. Monastic zeal had much to do in saving the Roman Empire from utter destruction at the hands of the barbarians and in helping to preserve imperial ideas until the rough Teutons were Latinised in their legal and political institutions. In addition the monks helped to form the various law codes of the German tribes, put them into written form, and took an active part in many forms of local government. In many an instance they saved the unprotected vassal from the tyrannical noble.
4. Educational. In the monasteries the torches of civilisation and learning were kept burning during the so-called Dark Ages. The first musicians, painters, sculptors, architects, and educators of Christian Europe were monks. They not only established the schools, and were the schoolmasters in them, but also laid the foundations for the universities. They were the thinkers and philosophers of the day and shaped the political and religious thought. To them, both
collectively and individually, was due the continuity of thought and civilisation of the ancient world with the later Middle Ages and with the modern period.
5. Industrial. Not only did the monks develop the various arts such as copying and illuminating books, building religious edifices, painting, and carving, but they also became the model farmers and horticulturists of Europe. Every Benedictine monastery was an agricultural college for the whole region in which it was located. By making manual labour an essential part of monastic life, labour was greatly ennobled above the disreputable position it held among the Romans.