The first and most noted of these solitaries were Paul and Anthony, two famous Egyptians, whom therefore St. Jerome calls the fathers of the Christian hermits. Some indeed carry up the original of the monastic life as high as John Baptist and Elias. But learned men generally reckon Paul the Thebæan, and Anthony, as the first promoters of this way of living among the Christians.
As yet there were no bodies or communities of men embracing this life, nor any monasteries built, but only a few single persons scattered here and there in the deserts of Egypt, till Pachomius, in the peaceable reign of Constantine, procured some monasteries to be built in Thebais in Egypt, from whence the custom of living in societies was followed by degrees in other parts of the world, and in succeeding ages.
Macarius peopled the Egyptian desert of Scetis with monks. Hilarion, a disciple of Anthony’s, was the first monk in Palestine or Syria. Not long after, Eustathius, bishop of Sebaste, brought monachism into Armenia, Paphlagonia, and Pontus. But St. Basil is generally considered as the great father and patriarch of the Eastern monks. It was he who reduced the monastic life to a fixed state of uniformity, who united the Anchorets and Cœnobites, and obliged them to engage themselves by solemn vows. It was St. Basil who prescribed rules for the government and direction of the monasteries, to which rules most of the disciples of Anthony, Pachomius, and Macarius, and the other ancient fathers of the deserts, submitted. And to this day, all the Greeks, Nestorians, Melchites, Georgians, Mingrelians, and Armenians, follow the rule of St. Basil.
The monastic profession made no less progress in the West. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, retiring to Rome, about the year 339, with several priests, and two Egyptian monks, made known to several pious persons the life of Anthony, who then lived in the desert of Thebais; upon which many were desirous to embrace so holy a profession. To this effect several monasteries were built at Rome, and this example was soon followed all over Italy. Benedict of Nursia appeared in that country in the early part of the sixth century, and published his rule, which was universally received throughout the West; for which reason that saint was styled the patriarch of the Western monks, as St. Basil was of the Eastern.
France owes the institution of the monastic life to St. Martin, bishop of Tours, in the fourth century; who built the monasteries of Lugugé and Marmontier. The Council of Saragossa, in Spain, anno 380, which condemns the practice of clergymen, who affected to wear the monastical habits, is a proof that there were monks in that kingdom in the fourth century, before St. Donatus went thither out of Africa, with seventy disciples, and founded the monastery of Sirbita.
Augustine, being sent into England by Gregory the Great, in the year 596, to preach the faith, at the same time introduced the monastic state into this kingdom. It made so great a progress here, that, within the space of 200 years, there were thirty kings and queens who preferred the religious habit to their crowns, and founded stately monasteries, where they ended their days in retirement and solitude.
The monastic profession was also carried into Ireland by St. Patrick, who is looked upon as the apostle of that kingdom, and multiplied there in so prodigious a manner, that it was called the Island of Saints.—Broughton.
The monastic life soon made a very great progress all over the Christian world. Rufinus, who travelled through the East in 373, assures us there were almost as many monks in the deserts, as inhabitants in the cities. From the wilderness (contrary to its original institution) it made its way into the towns and cities, where it multiplied greatly: for the same author informs us, that, in the single city of Oxirinca, there were more monasteries than private houses, and above 30,000 monks.
The ancient monks were not, like the modern, distinguished into orders, and denominated from the founders of them; but they had their names from the places where they inhabited, as the monks of Scetis, Tabennesus, Nitria, Canopus in Egypt, &c. or else were distinguished by their different ways of living. Of these the most remarkable were,
1. The anchorets, so called from their retiring from society, and living in private cells in the wilderness. (See Anchorets.)