For a right understanding of monastic history and monastic practices in the West generally, and even in England, it is necessary to have some idea at least of the main features of Eastern monachism. It has been pointed out by Dom Butler, in his masterly introduction to the Lausiac History of Palladius,[1] that monachism developed along two lines in Egypt. The first was the system initiated and directed by St. Anthony, when about the year A.D. 305, after living a life of seclusion for some twenty years, he undertook the direction and organisation of the multitude of monks which the reputation of his sanctity had drawn to his neighbourhood. The second was due to St. Pachomius, who, just about the same time, at the beginning of the fourth century, whilst yet quite a young man, founded his first monastery at Tabennisi in the far south of Egypt.
The first system came to prevail over a great portion of the country by the end of the first century after its foundation by St. Anthony. The monks were mostly hermits in the strict sense of the word. They lived apart and “out of earshot of one another,”[2] coming together at certain times for divine worship. In other districts the religious lived together in threes or fours, who, on all days but the Saturdays and Sundays when all assembled in the great church, were used to sing their songs and hymns together in their common cells. Of this system Palladius, who is the first authority on the matter, says: “They have different practices, each as he is able and as he wishes.” Dom Butler thus describes it:—
“There was no rule of life. The Elders exercised an authority, but it was mainly personal.... The society appears to have been a sort of spiritual democracy, ruled by the personal influence of the leading ascetics, but there was no efficient hold upon individuals to keep them from falling into extravagances.... A young man would put himself under the guidance of a senior and obey him in all things; but the bonds between them were wholly voluntary. The purely eremitical life tended to die out, but what took its place continued to be semi-eremitical.”[3]
The second system introduced at the beginning of the fourth century may be described as the cenobitical or conventual type of monachism. Pachomius’ monks lived together under a complete system of organisation, not, indeed, as a family under a father, but rather as an army under a discipline of a military character. This form of the monastic life spread with great rapidity, and by the time of its founder’s death (c. 345) it counted eight monasteries and several hundred monks.
“The most remarkable feature about it,” says Dom Butler, “is that (like Citeaux in a later age) it almost at once assumed the shape of a fully organised congregation or order, with a superior general and a system of visitation and general chapters—in short, all the machinery of centralised government, such as does not appear again in the monastic world until the Cistercians and the Mendicant Orders arose in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.”[4]
The various monasteries under the Rule of St. Pachomius existed as separate houses, each with a head or præpositus and other officials of its own, and organised apparently on the basis of the trades followed by the inmates. The numbers in each house naturally varied; between thirty and forty on an average living together. At the more solemn services all the members of the various houses came together to the common church; but the lesser offices were celebrated by the houses individually. Under this rule, regular organised work was provided for the monk not merely as a discipline and penitential exercise, as was the case under the Antonian system, but as a part of the life itself. The common ideal of asceticism aimed at was not too high.
“The fundamental idea of St. Pachomius’ Rule was,” says Dom Butler, “to establish a moderate level of observance which might be obligatory upon all; and to leave it open to each—and to, indeed, encourage each—to go beyond the fixed minimum, according as he was prompted by his strength, his courage, and his zeal.”[5]
Hence we find the Pachomian monks eating or fasting as they wished. The tables were laid at midday, and dinner was provided every hour till evening; they ate when they liked, or fasted if they felt called on so to do. Some took a meal only in the evening, others every second or even only every fifth day. The Rule allowed them their full freedom; and any idea of what is now understood by “Common Life”—the living together and doing all things together according to rule—was a feature entirely absent from Egyptian monachism.
One other feature must also be noticed, which would seem to be the direct outcome of the liberty allowed in much of the life, and in particular in the matter of austerities, to the individual monk under the systems both of St. Anthony and St. Pachomius. It is a spirit of strongly marked individualism. Each worked for his personal advance in virtue; each strove to do his utmost in all kinds of ascetical exercises and austerities—in prolonging his fasts, his prayers, his silence. The favourite name used to describe any of the prominent monks was “great athlete.” They loved “to make a record” in austerities, and to contend with one another in mortifications; and they would freely boast of their spiritual achievements. This being so, penances and austerities tended to multiply and increase in severity, and this freedom of the individual in regard to his asceticism accounts for the very severe and often incongruous mortifications undertaken by the monks of Egypt.
Monachism was introduced into Western Europe from Egypt by way of Rome. The first monks who settled in the Eternal City were known as “Egyptians,” and the Latin translation of the Vita Antonii (c. 380) became “the recognised embodiment of the monastic ideal.” It preserved its primitive character in the matter of austerities during the fourth century, and St. Augustine declares that he knew of religious bodies of both sexes, which exercised themselves “in incredible fastings,” passing not merely one day without food or drink, which was “a common practice,” but often going “for three days or more without anything.”