There can be no question as to the sincerity of these cloistered monks, misguided as they were. Chrysostom dwelt in a cavern for two years, without lying down. His penance was so severe, that he was thrown into a fit of sickness, which compelled his return to Antioch. After a life of tireless activity, many persecutions, and efficient devotion to the interests of the Church, he died, as we have mentioned, in exile, in the sixty-third year of his age.
“The name of Chrysostom, ‘Golden-mouthed,’ was assigned to him after his death to express the eloquence which he possessed in so much greater a degree than the other fathers of the Church. He never repeats himself, and is always original. The vivacity and power of his imagination, the force of his logic, his power of arousing the passions, the beauty and accuracy of his comparisons, the neatness and purity of his style, his clearness and sublimity, place him on a level with the most celebrated Greek authors.The Greek Church has not a more accomplished orator.”[196]
The inclination for monastic seclusion very rapidly increased. Some sought the silence of the desert because they felt unable to resist the temptations of busy life; some, to escape from persecution; some, as a refuge from remorse; some, from the conviction that sin might be atoned for by self-inflicted suffering; some, from disgust at life, or a natural fondness for solitudeand contemplation. In the middle of the fourth century, there was a colony of these anchorets upon the Island of Tabenna, in the Nile, numbering fifty thousand persons. They lived in the extreme of abstinence, occupying cheerless cells in very humble huts.
Men only at first entered upon this hermit life. About the middle of the fourth century, female monasteries, or convents of nuns, were instituted.
This retirement from the world to the cloister in those troublous times proved by no means an unmixed evil. Gradually very solemn monastic vows and extremely rigid rules of discipline were introduced.
“These houses now became the dwellings of piety, industry, and temperance, and the refuge of learning driven to them for shelter from the troubles of the times. Missionaries were sent out from them: deserts and solitudes were made habitable by industrious monks. And in promoting the progress of agriculture, and civilizing the German and Sclavonian nations, they certainly rendered great services to the world from the sixth century to the ninth. But it must be admitted that these institutions, so useful in the dark ages of barbarism, changed their character to a great degree as their wealth and influence increased. Idleness and luxury crept within their walls, together with all the vices of the world;and their decay became inevitable.”[197]
In the early part of this century Augustine died, a man whose renown has been fresh in the Church for fourteen hundred years. He was born in Tagasta, a small city in Africa, on the 13th of November, 354. His father was a pagan, though he became a disciple of Jesus just before his death. His mother was an earnest Christian, by whose pious teachings Augustine in his early childhood was deeply impressed. While a mere boy, upon a sudden attack of dangerous sickness, he entreated that he might be baptized, and received into the fold of Christ. The sudden disappearance of alarming symptoms led his mother to hesitate, fearing that hemight again fall into sin, and that then his baptism would only add to his condemnation. Augustine afterwards expressed the opinion that this was a great mistake. He thought, that, had he then made a profession of his faith in Christ, it would have operated as an incentive to a holy life, and would have saved him from much subsequent sin and suffering.
With returning health, temptation came, and the boy of ardent passions was swept away by the flood. “My weak age,” he writes, “was hurried along through the whirlpool of flagitiousness. The displeasure of God was all the time imbittering my soul. Where was I, in that sixteenth year of my age, when the madness of lust seized me altogether? My God, thou spakest to me by my mother, and through her warned me strongly against the ways of vice. But my mother’s voice I despised, and thought it to be only the voice of a woman. So blinded was I, that I was ashamed to be thought less guilty than my companions. I even invented false stories of my sinful exploits, that I might win their commendation.
“I committed theft from the wantonness of iniquity: it was not the effect of the theft, but the sin itself, which I wished to enjoy. There was a pear-tree in the neighborhood loaded with fruit. At dead of night, in company with some profligate youths, I plundered the tree. The spoil was thrown away; for I had abundance of better fruit at home. What did I mean that I should be gratuitously wicked?”
The father of Augustine, though not wealthy, had sufficient means and the disposition to afford his son all existing facilities for the acquisition of a thorough education. The young man devoted himself sedulously to the cultivation of eloquence. In the pursuit of his studies, he repaired to Carthage, then the abode of intellect, wealth, and splendor. Here he plunged quite recklessly into fashionable dissipation. When seventeen years of age, his father died; but his fond mother maintained him at Carthage. It is manifest that he was still the subject of deep religious impressions. Upon reading the “Hortensius” of Cicero, he was charmed with its philosophy; but he writes,—