§ 44.1. The Biography of St. Anthony.—According to the Vita s. Antonii ascribed to Athanasius, Anthony was sprung from a wealthy Coptic family of the country town of Coma in Upper Egypt, and was born in A.D. 251. At the age of eighteen he lost his parents, and, being powerfully affected by hearing the story of the rich young ruler in the gospel read in church, he gave away all his goods to the poor and withdrew into the desert (A.D. 285). Amid terrible inward struggles, which took the form of daily conflicts with demons, who sprang upon him from the sides of his cave in the shape of all sort of beasts and strange creatures, he spent a long time in a horrible tomb, then twenty years in the crumbling ruins of a castle, and finally he chose as his constant abode a barren mountain, afterwards called Anthony’s Mount, where a well and some date palms afforded him the absolutely indispensable support. His clothing, a sheep’s skin and a hairy cloak, was on his body day and night, nor did he ever wash himself. The fame of his holiness attracted a multitude of like-minded ascetics who settled in his neighbourhood and put themselves under his spiritual direction. But also men of the world of all ranks made pilgrimages to him, seeking and finding comfort. Even Constantine and his sons testified in correspondence with him their veneration, and he answered “like a Christian Diogenes to the Christian Alexander.” Pointing to Christ as the only miracle worker, he healed by his prayers bodily maladies and by his conversations afflictions of the soul. Amid the distress of the persecution of Maximian in A.D. 311 he went to Alexandria, but found not the martyrdom which he courted. Again, in A.D. 351, during the bitter Arian controversy (§ [50]), he appeared suddenly in the great capital, this time gazed at by Christians and pagans as a divine wonder, and converting crowds of the heathen. In his last days he resigned the further direction of the society of hermits gathered about him to his disciple Pachomius, himself withdrawing along with two companions into an unknown solitude, where he, bequeathing to the author his sheepskin, died in A.D. 356, in his 105th year, after exacting a promise that no one should know the place of his burial.—Until the appearance of this book, which was very soon translated into Latin by a certain Evagrius, no single writer, neither Lactantius, nor Eusebius, nor even Athanasius in any of his other undoubtedly genuine writings, mentions the name of this patriarchal monk afterwards so highly esteemed, and all later writers draw only from this one source. Weingarten has now not only proved that this Vita s. Ant. is not a biography in the proper sense, but a romance with a purpose which was intended “to represent the ideal of a monkish life dovetailed into the ecclesiastical system and raised notwithstanding all popular and vital elements into a spiritual atmosphere,” but has also disproved the Athanasian authorship of the book, without, however, seeking to deny the historical existence of St. Anthony and his importance in the establishment of monasticism, as this is already vouched for by the fact that even in the 4th century in the days of Rufinus pilgrimages were made to Mons Antonii.—The most important witness for the Athanasian authorship is Gregory Nazianzen, who begins his panegyric on Athanasius delivered in Constantinople only a few years after that father’s death, which occurred in A.D. 373, with the wish that he could describe brilliantly the life of the highly revered man, as he himself had portrayed the ideal of monasticism in the person of St. Anthony. But, on the other hand, Jerome in his Vita Pauli and Rufinus in his Hist. eremit. seem not yet to have known the author of the book, and the former, first in his De scriptoribus ecclst., written twenty years later, knows that Athanasius was the author. Internal reasons, too, seem with no small weight to tell against the authenticity of the book, the biographical contents of which are largely intermixed with fabulous and legendary elements.
§ 44.2. The Origin of Christian Monasticism.—From the fact that not only Lactantius, but also Eusebius, whose history reaches down to A.D. 324, have nothing to say of a monasticism already developed or then first in process of development, it may perhaps be concluded that although in a general way such an institution was already in existence, it had not yet become known beyond the bounds of the Thebaid where it originated. But from the fact that Eusebius, who died in A.D. 340, in his Vita Constantini reaching down to A.D. 337, never makes any mention of monasticism, we cannot with like probability infer a continuance of such ignorance down to the above-mentioned year, but must attribute it to the limited range of the book in question. In his commentary on Ps. lxviii. 7 and lxxxiv. 4 he distinctly speaks of a Christian monasticism. The fugitive Athanasius, too, so early as A.D. 356 betakes himself to the monks of the Thebaid, and stays for a year with them (§ [50, 2], [4]), which presupposes a certain measure of organization and celebrity on the part of the community of that region. In his Hist. Arianorum ad monachos, written about A.D. 360, he declares that already monasticism had spread through all the τόποι or districts of Egypt. Of a monasticism outside of Egypt, however, even this writing still knows nothing. We shall not, therefore, greatly err if we assume that the latter years of Constantine’s reign are to be taken as the period of the essential origin of Egyptian monasticism; though from this it is not to be concluded that the first isolated beginnings of it, which had not yet won any special recognition, are not to be assigned to a very much earlier period. Even the Old and New Testaments, in the persons of Elijah, John the Baptist, and our Lord Himself, tell of temporary withdrawals, from religious and ascetical motives, into the wilderness. But even the life-long professional anchoretism and cœnobitism had their precursors in the Indian gymnosophists, in the East-Asiatic Buddhism and the Egyptian Serapis worship, and to a certain extent also in the Essenism of Palestine (§ [8, 4]). From the place of its origin and the character of its development, however, Christian monasticism can have been influenced only by the Egyptian Serapis worship, and that in a very general sort of way. That this actually was the case, Weingarten especially has sought to prove from various analogies based upon the learned researches of French Academicians.
§ 44.3. Oriental Monasticism.—For centuries Egypt continued the central seat and training school of Christian monasticism both for the East and for the West. The most celebrated of all the Egyptian hermit colonies was that founded by Pachomius, formerly perhaps a monk of Serapis, († 348), at Tabennæ, an island of the Nile. To the mother monastery were soon attached numerous daughter monasteries. Each of these institutions was under the direction of a president called the abbot, Abbas, i.e. “father,” or Archimandrite; while all of them together were under the superior of the parent monastery. Similar unions were established by Ammonius among the Nitrian mountains, and by Macarius the Elder (§ [47, 7]) in the Scetic desert. Hilarion, a disciple of St. Anthony († 371), is celebrated by Jerome as the founder of Palestinian monasticism. The Vita Hilarionis of the latter, richly adorned with records of adventurous travels and wonderful events, most extravagant wonders and demoniacal apparitions, like the life of Paul of Thebes (§ [39, 4]), has been recently shown to be a romance built upon certain genuine reminiscences. Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen with youthful enthusiasm sought to introduce monasticism into their native Asia Minor, while Eustathius, Bishop of Sebaste († 380), carried it still further east. But though among the Syrian discourses of Aphraates (§ [47, 13]) there is found one on monasticism, which thus would seem to have been introduced into Mesopotamia by A.D. 340, this is in contradiction to all other witnesses and awakens a suspicion of the ungenuineness of the discourse, which is further confirmed by its being wanting in the Armenian translation, as well as in the enumeration of Gennadius.—The zeal especially of Basil was successful in ennobling monasticism and making it fruitful. The monastic rules drawn up by him superseded all others in the East, and are to this day alone recognised in the orthodox Greek Church. According to these every monastery had one or more clerics for conducting worship and administering the sacrament. Basil also advanced the development and influence of monasticism by setting down the monasteries in the neighbourhood of the cities. In the 5th century two of the noblest, most sensible and talented representatives of ancient monasticism did much for its elevation and ennobling; namely, Isidore, who died about A.D. 450, abbot and priest of a cloister at Pelusium in Egypt, and his contemporary Nilus, who lived among the monks of Sinai.The not inconsiderable remnants of their numerous letters still extant testify to their far-reaching influence, as well as to the noble and liberal spirit which they manifested (§ [47, 6], [10]).[122] A peculiar kind of cœnobite life is found amongst the Acoimetæ, for whom the Roman Studius founded about A.D. 46O the afterwards very celebrated monastery Studion at Constantinople, in which as many as a thousand monks are said to have lived together at one time. They took their name from the divine service uninterruptedly continued in their cloister night and day. From the 5th century the legislative Synods undertook the care of the monasteries. The Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451 put them under the jurisdiction of the bishop. Returning to the world was at first freely permitted, but was always regarded as discreditable and demanding submission to penance. From the 6th century, however, monastic vows were regarded as of life-long obligation, and therefore a regular canonical age was fixed and a long novitiate prescribed as a time of testing and consideration. About this time, too, besides the propria professio, the paterna devotio was also regarded as binding in accordance with the example of 1 Sam. i. 11.
§ 44.4. Western Monasticism.—The West did not at first take kindly to the monastic idea, and only the combined exhortations of the most respected bishops and teachers of the Church, with Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine at their head, secured for it acceptance there. The idea that already the universally revered Athanasius who from A.D. 341 resided a long time in Rome (§ [50, 2]), had brought hither the knowledge of Egyptian monasticism and first awakened on behalf of it the sympathies of the Westerns, is devoid of any sure foundation. Owing, however, to the free intercourse which even on the side of the Church existed between East and West, it is on the other hand scarcely conceivable that the first knowledge of Eastern monasticism should have reached Italy through Jerome on his return in A.D. 373 from his Eastern travels. But it is certain that Jerome from that time most zealously endeavoured to obtain recruits for it in the West, applying himself specially to conspicuous pious ladies of Rome and earning for this scant thanks from their families. The people’s aversion, too, against monasticism was so great that even in A.D. 384, when a young female ascetic called Blasilla, the daughter of St. Paula, died in Rome as some supposed from excessive fasting, an uproar was raised in which the indignant populace, as Jerome himself relates, cried out, Quousque genus detestabile monachorum non urbe pellitur? Non lapidibus obruitur? non præcipitatur in fluctus?But twenty years later Jerome could say with exultation, Crebra virginum monasteria, monachorum, innumerabilis multitudo, ut ... quod prius ignominiæ fuerat, esset postea gloriæ. Popular opposition to the monks was longest and most virulently shown in North Africa. Even so late as about A.D. 450, Salvianus reports the expressions of such hate: Ridebant, ... maledicebant ... insectabantur ... detestabantur ... omnia in monacho pœne fecerunt quæ in Salvatorem nostrum Judæorum impietas, etc. Nevertheless monasticism continued to spread and therewith also the institution grew in popular esteem in the West.Martin of Tours (§ [47, 14]) established it in Northern Gaul in A.D. 370; and in Southern Gaul, Honoratus [Honorius] about A.D. 400 founded the celebrated monastery of Serinum, on the uninhabited island of Lerina, and John Cassianus (§ [47, 21]), the still more celebrated one at Massilia, now Marseilles. The inroads of the invaders well nigh extinguished Western monachism. It was Benedict of Nursia who first, in A.D. 529, gave to it unity, order, and a settled constitution, and made it for many centuries the pioneer of agricultural improvement and literary culture throughout the Western empire that had been hurled into confusion by the wars of the barbarians (§ [85]).
§ 44.5. Institution of Nunneries.—Virgins devoted to God, who repudiated marriage, are spoken of as early as the 2nd century. The limitations of their sex forbade them entering on the life of anchorets, but all the more heartily did they adopt the idea of the cloister life. St. Anthony himself is said to have laid its first foundations when he was hastening away into solitude, by establishing at Coma for the sake of his sister whom he was leaving behind, an association of virgins consecrated unto God. Pachomius founded the first female cloister with definite rules, the superior of which was his own sister. From that time there sprang up a host of women’s cœnobite unions. The lady superior was called Ammas, “mother;” the members, μοναχαί, sanctimoniales, nonnæ, which was a Coptic word meaning chaste. The patroness of female monachism in the West was St. Paula of Rome, who was the scholar and friend of Jerome. Accompanied by her daughter Eustochium, she followed him to Palestine, and founded three nunneries at Bethlehem.
§ 44.6. Monastic Asceticism.—Although the founders of the Eastern monastic rules subjected themselves to the strictest asceticism and performed them to a remarkable extent, especially in fasting and enduring privations, yet the degree of asceticism which they enjoined upon their monks in fasting, watching, prayer and labour, was in general moderate and sensible. Valorous acts of self mortification, so very congenial to the oriental spirit, are thus met with in the proper monastic life seldomer than among ascetics living after their own fancy in deserts and solitudes. This accounts for the rare appearance of the Stylites or pillar saints, by whom expression was given in an outward way to the idea of elevation above the earthly and of struggle toward heaven. The most celebrated of these was Simeon Stylites, who lived in the neighbourhood of Antioch for thirty years on a pillar seventy feet high, and preached repentance to the people who flocked to him from every side. Thousands of Saracens who roamed through those regions sought baptism, overcome, according to the legend, by the power of his discourse. He died A.D. 459. After him the most celebrated pillar saints were one Daniel who died at Constantinople in A.D. 489, and a younger Simeon who died at Antioch in A.D. 596.
§ 44.7. Anti-Ecclesiastical and Heretical Monasticism.—Even after the regulating of monachism by Pachomius and Basil, there were still isolated hermit societies which would be bound by no rules. Such were the Sarabaites in Egypt and the Remoboth in Syria. Crowds of monks, too, under no rule swarmed about, called Βοσκοί, Pabulatores or Grazers, because they supported themselves only on herbs and roots. In Italy and Africa from the 5th century we hear of so-called Gyrovagi, who under the pretence of monachism led a useless vagabond life. Monasticism assumed a decidedly heretical and schismatical character among the Euchites and Eustathianists in the second half of the 4th century. The Euchites, called also from their mystic dances Messalians or Chorentes, not to be confounded with the pagan Euchites (§ [42, 6]), thought that they had reached the ideal of perfection, and were therefore raised above observance of the law. Under pretext of engaging in constant prayer and being favoured with divine visions, they went about begging, because work was not seemly for perfect saints. Every man they taught, by reason of his descent from Adam, brings with him into the world an evil demon who can be overcome only by prayer, and thus evil can be torn out by the roots. Then man is in need neither of the law, nor of holy scripture, nor of the sacraments, and may be unconditionally left to himself, and may even do that which to a legal man would be sinful. The mystic union of God and man they represented by lascivious acts of sensual love. They understood the gospel history only as an allegory and considered fire the creative light of the universe. By craft and espionage Bishop Flavian of Antioch, in A.D. 381, came to know their secret principles and proceedings. But notwithstanding the persecution now directed against them, they continued in existence till the 6th century. The Eustathianists took their name from Eustathius, Bishop of Sebaste, the founder of monasticism in the eastern provinces of the empire. Their fanatical contempt of marriage went so far that they regarded fellowship with the married impure and held divine service by themselves alone. They repudiated the Church fasts and instead ordained fasts on Sundays and festival days, and wholly abstained from eating flesh. The women dressed in men’s clothes. From the rich they demanded the surrender of all their goods. Servants forsook their masters, wives their husbands, in order to attach themselves to the associations of these saints. But the resolute interference of the Synod of Gangra in Paphlagonia, between A.D. 360 and A.D. 370, checked their further spread.—More closely related to the old ascetic order than to the newly organized monasticism was a sect which, according to Augustine, had gained special acceptance among the country people round about Hippo. In accordance with the example of Abel, who in the Old Testament history is without children, its members, the so-called Abelites, indeed married, but restrained themselves from marital intercourse, in order that they might not by begetting children contribute to the spread of original sin, and maintained their existence by the adoption of strange children, one boy and one girl being received into each family.
§ 45. The Clergy.
The distinction between clergy and laity was ever becoming more and more clearly marked and in the higher church offices there grew up a spiritual aristocracy alongside of the secular aristocracy. The priesthood arrogated a position high above the laity just as the soul is higher than the body. There was consequently such a thronging into the clerical ranks that a restriction had to be put upon it by the civil laws. The choice of the clergy was made by the bishops with the formal consent of the members of the church. In the East the election of bishops lay ordinarily with the episcopal board of the province concerned though under the presidency of the metropolitan, whose duty it was to ordain the individual so elected. The episcopal chair of the imperial capital, however, was generally under the patronage of the court. In the West on the other hand the old practice was continued, according to which bishops, clergy and members of the church together made the election. At Rome, however, the emperor maintained the right of confirming the appointment of the new bishop. The exchange of one bishopric for another was forbidden by the Nicene Council as spiritual adultery (Eph. v. 33 ff.), but was nevertheless frequently practised. The monarchical rank of the bishop among the clergy was undisputed. The Chorepiscopi (§ [34, 3]) had their episcopal privileges and authority always more and more restricted, were made subordinate to the city bishops, and finally, about A.D. 360, were quite set aside. To the Presbyters, on the other hand, in consequence of the success of the anti-episcopal reaction, especially among the daughter and country churches, complete independence was granted in regard to the ministry of the word and dispensation of sacraments, with the exception of the ordination of the clergy, and in the West also the confirmation of the baptism, which the bishop alone was allowed to perform.
§ 45.1. Training of the Clergy.—The few theological seminaries of Alexandria, Cæsarea, Antioch, Edessa and Nisibis could not satisfy the need of clerical training, and even these for the most part disappeared amid the political and ecclesiastical upheavals of the 5th and 6th centuries. The West was entirely without such institutions. So long as pagan schools of learning flourished at Athens, Alexandria, Nicomedia, etc., many Christian youths sought their scientific preparation for the service of the church in them, and added to this on the Christian side by asceticism and theological study among the anchorets or monks. Others despised classical culture and were satisfied with what the monasteries could give. Others again began their clerical career even in boyhood as readers or episcopal secretaries, and grew up under the oversight and direction of the bishop or experienced clergymen. Augustine organized his clergy into a monastic association, Monasterium Clericorum, and gave it the character of a clerical seminary. This useful institution found much favour and was introduced into Sicily and Sardinia by the bishops driven out by the Vandals.The Regula Augustini, so often referred to the Latin Middle Ages, is of later and uncertain origin, but is based upon two discourses of Augustine, “De Moribus Clericorum” and an Epistle to the Nuns at Hippo.—The age of thirty was fixed upon as the canonical age for entering the order of presbyter or priest; twenty-five for that of deacon. Neophytes, those who had been baptized on a sickbed (Clinici), penitents and energoumeni, Bigenie, the mutilated, eunuchs, slaves, actors, comedians, dancers, soldiers, etc., were excluded from the clerical office. The African church even in the 4th century prescribed a strict examination of candidates as to their attainments and orthodoxy.Justinian at least insisted upon a guarantee of orthodoxy by means of episcopal examination.—Ordination[123] made its appearance as an appendage to the baptismal anointing as a sacramental ordinance. The one was consecration to the priesthood in the special sense: the other in the general sense; both bore a character indelibilis. Their efficacy was generally regarded as of a magical kind. The imparting of ordination was exclusively an episcopal privilege; but presbyters could assist at the consecration of those of their own order. The proposition: Ne quis vage ordinatur, was of universal application; the missionary office was the only exception. The anniversaries of episcopal ordinations, Natales episcoporum, were frequently observed as festivals. Legally no one could be ordained to a higher ecclesiastical office, who had not passed through all the lower offices from that of subdeacon. In earlier times ordination consisted only in imposition of hands; but subsequently, after the pattern of baptism there was added an anointing with Chrism, i.e. oil with balsam. The Lord’s Supper was partaken of before ordination, the candidate having previously observed afast.—From the 5th century it was made imperative that the party ordained should adopt the Tonsure.[124] It had been introduced first in connection with the penitents, then as a symbol of humility it found favour among the monks, and from these it passed over to the clergy. Originally the whole head was shaved bare. At a later period the Greek tonsure, Tonsura Pauli, which merely shaved the forehead, was distinguished from the Romish, Tonsura Petri, which left a circle of hair round about the crown of the head, as a memorial of Christ’s crown of thorns or as the symbol of the royal priesthood, Corona sacerdotalis. The shaving of the beard, as an effeminate foppish custom, seemed to the ancient church to detract from the sternness and dignity of the clerical rank. In all Eastern churches the full beard was retained, and the wearing of it by-and-by made obligatory, as it is to this day. In the West, however, perhaps to mark a contrast to the bearded clergy of the Arian Germans, shaving became general among the Catholic clergy, and by papal and synodal ordinances became almost universally prevalent. The adoption of the custom was also perhaps furthered by a desire to give symbolic expression by the removal of the beard to the renunciation of the claims of the male sex on the part of a celibate clergy.—A solemn Investiture with the insignia of office (§ [59, 7]) was gradually introduced, and was that which marked distinctions between the consecrations to the various ranks of clerical offices.