MONASTICISM
(1) Origin
The first home of Christian monasticism
is the Egyptian desert. Hither during persecution men fled the world
and the danger of apostasy, to serve God in solitude. St. Anthony
(270-356) is counted the father of all monks. His fame attracted many
others, so that under Diocletian and Constantine there were large
colonies of monks in Egypt, the first laurai. St. Athanasius' (d. 373)
friendly relations to the Egyptian monks and the refuge he found among
them during his seond (356-362) and third (362-363) exiles are well
known incidents in his life. The monks lived each in his own hut,
providing for their simple needs with their own hands, united by a bond
of willing submission to the direction of some older and more
experienced hermit, coming together on Saturday and Sunday for common
prayer, otherwise spending their time in private contemplation and works
of penance. Celibacy was from the beginning an essential note of
monasticism. A wife and family were part of the "world" they had left.
Poverty
and obedience were to some extent relative, though the ideal of both
was developing. The monk of the desert was not necessarily a priest; he
formed a different class from the clergy who stayed in the world and
assisted the bishops. For a long time this difference between monks and
clergy remained; the monk fled all intercourse with other people to save
his soul away from temptation. Later some monks were ordained priests
in order to administer sacraments to their brethren. But even now in the
East the priest-monk (leromonachos) is a special person distinct from
the usual monk (monachos), who is a layman.
Egypt was the
Motherland of Christian monasticism. It sprang into existence there at
the beginning of the fourth century and in a very few years spread over
the whole Christian world. The rapidity of the movement was only equaled
by the durability of its results. Within the lifetime of St. Anthony
the religious state had become what it has been ever since, one of the
characteristics of the Catholic Church, with its ideals, and what may be
termed the groundwork of its organization, determined. But this was not
all. The simple teaching of the first Egyptian monks and hermits fixed
once and forever the broad outlines of the science of the spiritual
life, or, in other words, of ascetic theology. The study, therefore, of
early monasticism possess a great deal more than a merely antiquarian
interest. It is concerned with a movement the force of which is in no
way spent and which has had a very large share in creating the
conditions which obtain at the present day.
The first chapter in
the history of monasticism is the life of St. Anthony which has already
been described (see ANTHONY, SAINT). The inauguration of the monastic
movement may be dated either about 285, when St. Anthony, no longer
content with the life of the ordinary ascetic, went into the wilderness,
or about 305, when he organized a kind of monastic life for his
disciples. Ascetic is the term usually employed by writers on
monasticism for those who in pre-monastic days forsook the world so far
as they were able. Of the three Evangelical counsels, chastity alone can
be practised independently of external circumstances. Naturally,
therefore (beginning with the sub-Apostolic age), we hear first of men
and women leading the virgin life (cf. I Clem., xxxviii; Ignat., "ad
Polucarp.", c.v.; Hermas, "Sim.", IX,30).
The Apologists pointed
triumphantly to such (Justin, "Apol.", I,xv; Athenagoras, "Legat.",
xxxiii; Minucius Felix, "Octav.", xxxi). Voluntary poverty, in the
complete renunciation of all worldly possessions, would be difficult
till there were monasteries, for persons with welth to renounce would
not, generally speaking, have been brought up so as to be capable of
earning their own livelihood. Still we have the examples of Origen, St.
Cyprian, and Pamphilus to show that the thing was done. A full practice
of the last Evangelical counsel (obedience) could only be realized after
the monastic ideal had taken root and passed beyond the purely
eremitical stage. The ante-Nicene ascetic would be a man who led a
single life, practiced long and frequent fasts, abstained from flesh and
wine, and supported himself, if he were able, by some small handicraft,
keeping of what he earned only so much as was absolutely necessary for
his own sustenance, and giving the rest to the poor. If he were an
educated man, he might be employed by the Church in some such capacity
as that of catechist. Very often he would don the kind of dress which
marked the wearer off as a philosopher of an austere school.
In
Egypt, at the time when St. Anthony first embraced the ascetic life,
there were numbers of ascetics living in huts in the neighborhood of the
towns and villages. When St. Anthony died (356 or 357), two types of
monasticism flourished in Egypt. There were villages or colonies of
hermits - the eremitical type; and monasteries in which a community life
was led - the cenobitic type. A brief survey of the opening chapters of
Palladius' "Lausiac History" will serve as a description of the former
type.
Palladius was a monk from Palestine who, in 388, went to
Egypt to drink in the spirit of monasticism at the fountainhead. On
landing at Alexandria he put himself in the hands of a priest named
Isidore, who in early life had been a hermit at Nitria and now
apparently presided over a hospice at Alexandria without in any way
abating the austerity of his life. By the advice of Isidore, Palladius
placed himself under the direction of a hermit named Dorotheus who lived
six miles outside Alexandria, with whom he was to pass three years
learning to subdue his passions and then to return to Isidore to receive
higher spiritual knowledge. This Dorotheus spent the whole day
collecting stones to build cells for other hermits, and the whole night
weaving ropes out of palm leaves. He never lay down to sleep, though
slumber sometimes overtook him while working or eating. Palladius who
seems to have lived in his cell, ascertained from other solitaries that
this had been his custom from his youth upwards. Palladius' health broke
down before he completed his time with Dorotheus, but he spent three
years in Alexandria and its neighbourhood visiting the hermitages and
becoming acquainted with about 2000 monks. From Alexandria he went to
Nitria, where there was a monastic village containing about 5000
solitaries. There was no kind of monastic rule. Some of the solitaries
lived alone, sometimes two or more lived together. They assembled at the
chrch on Saturdays and Sundays. The church was served by eight priests
of whom the oldest always celebrated, preached, and judged, the others
only assisting. All worked at weaving flax. There were bakeries where
bread was made, not only for the village itself, but for the solitaries
who lived in the desert beyond. There were doctors. Wine also was sold.
Strangers
were entertained in a guest-house. If able to read, they were lent a
book. They ight stay as long as they liked, but after a week they were
set to some kind of work. If at the ninth hour a man stood and listened
to the sound of psalmody issuing from the different cells, he would
imagine, says Palladius, that he was caught up into paradise. But,
though there was no monastic rule at Nitria, there was municipal law,
the outward symbol of which was three whips suspended from three palm
trees, one for monks who might be guilty of some fault, one for thieves
who might be caught prowling about, and the third for strangers who
misbehaved. Further into the desert was a place called Cells, or Cellia,
whither the more perfect withdrew. This is described by the author of
the "Historia monachorum in Aegypto". Here the solitaries lived in cells
so far apart that that they were out of sight and out of hearing from
one another. Like those of Nitria, they met only on Saturdays and
Sundays at church,whither some of them had to travel a distance of three
or four miles. Often their death was only discovered by their absence
from church.
In strong contrast with the individualism of the
eremitical life was the rigid discipline which prevailed in the
cenobitical monasteries founded by St. Pachomius. When, in 313,
Constantine was at war with Maxentius, Pachomius, still a heathen, was
forcibly enlisted together with a number of other young men, and placed
on board a ship to be carried down the Nile to Alexandria. At some town
at which the ship touched, the recruits were overwhelmed with the
kindness of the Christians. Pachomius at once resolved to be a Christian
and carried out his resolution as soon as he was dismissed from
military service. He began as an ascetic in a small village, taking up
his abode in a deserted temple of Serapis and cultivating a garden on
the produce of which he lived and gave alms. The fact that Pachomius
made an old temple of Serapis his abode was enough for an ingenious
theory that he was originally a pagan monk. This view is now quite
exploded.
Pachomius next embraced the eremitical life and
prevailed upon an old hermit named Palemon to take him as his disciple
and share his cell with him. It may be noted that this kind of
discipleship, which, as we have already seen, was attempted by
Palladius, was a recognized thing among the Egyptian hermits. Afterwards
he left Palemon and founded his first monastery at Tabennisi near
Denderah. Before he died, in 346, he had under him eight or nine large
monasteries of men, and two of women. From a secular point of view, a
Pachomian monastery was an industrial community in which almost every
kind of trade was practiced. This, of course, involved much buying and
selling, so the monks had ships of their own on the Nile, which conveyed
their agricultural produce and manufactured goods to the market and
brought back what the monasteries required. From the spiritual point of
view, the Pachomian monk was a religious living under a rule more
severe, even when allowance has been made for differences of climate and
race, than that of the Trappists.
A Pachomian monastery was a
collection of buildings surrounded by a wall. The monks were distributed
in houses, each house containing about forty monks. Three or four
houses constituted a tribe. There would be thirty to forty houses in a
monastery. There was an abbot over each monastery, and provosts with
subordinate officials over each house. The monks were divided into
houses according to the work they were employed in: thus there would be a
house for carpenters, a house for agriculturists, and so forth. But
other principles of division seem to have been employed, e.g., we hear
of a house for the Greeks. On Saturdays and Sundays all the monks
assembled in the church for Mass; on other days the Office and other
spiritual exercises were celebrated in the houses.
"The
fundamental idea of St. Pachomius' rule", writes Abbot Butler, "was to
establish a moderate level of observance (moderate in comparison with
the life led by the hermits) which might be obligatory on all; and then
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" ("Lausiac History", I,p. 236). This is strikingly
illustrated in the rules concerning food. According to St. Jerome, in
the preface to his translation of the "Rule of Pachomius", the tables
were laid twice a day except on Wednesdays and Fridays, which, outside
the seasons of Easter and Pentecost were fast days. Some only took very
little at the second meal; some at one or other of the meals confined
themselves to a single food; others took just a morsel of bread. Some
abstained altogether from the community meal; for these bread, water,
and salt were placed in their cell.
Pachomius appointed his
successor a monk named Petronius, who died within a few months, having
likewise named his successor, Horsiesi. In Horsiesi's time the order was
threatened with a schism. The abbot of one of the houses, instead of
forwarding the produce of the work of his monks to the head house of the
order, where it would be sold and the price distributed to the
different houses according to their need, wished to have the disposal of
it for the sole benefit of his own monastery. Horsiesi, finding himself
unable to cope with the situation, appointed Theodore, a favorite
disciple of Pachomius, his coadjutor.
When Theodore died, in the
year 368, Horsiesi was able to resume the government of the order. This
threatened schism brings prominently before us a feature connected with
Pachomius' foundation which is never again met with in the East, and in
the West only many centuries later. "Like Citeaux in a later age",
writes Abbot Butler, "it almost at once assumed the shape of a fully
organized congregation or order, with a superior general and a system of
visitation and general chapters - in short, all the machinery of a
centralized government, such as does not appear again in the monastic
world until the Cistercian and the Mendicant Orders arose in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries" (op. cit., I,235).
A word must be said
about Schenoudi, or Schnoudi, or Senuti. Shortly after the middle of
the fourth century, two monks, Pgol and Pschais, changed their
eremitical monasteries into cenobitical ones. Of the latter we know
scarcely anything. Schenoudi, when a boy of about nine years old, came
under the care of his uncle Pgol. Both Pgol and Schenoudi were reformers
- the Pachomian Rule was not strict enough for them.
Schenoudi
succeeded his uncle Pgol as head of the White Monastery of Athribis,
and, till his death (about 453), was not only the greatest monastic
leader, but one of the most important men, in Egypt. He waged war
against heretics; he took a prominent part in the rooting out of
paganism; he championed the cause of the poor against the rich. He once
went in person to Constantinople to complain of the tyranny of
government officials. On one occasion 20,000 men, women, and children
took refuge in the White Monastery during an invasion of the savage
Blemmyes of Ethiopia, and Schenoudi maintained all the fugitives for
three months, providing them with food and medical aid. On another
occasion he ransomed a hundred captives and sent them home with food,
clothing, and money for their journey. Schenoudi's importance for the
history of monasticism is small, for his influence, great as it was in
his own country, did not make itself felt elsewhere. There were two
barriers: Upper Egypt was a difficult and dangerous country for
travellers, and such as did penetrate there would not be likely to visit
a monastery where hardly anything but Coptic was spoken. According to
Abbot Butler, "Schenoudi is never named by any Greek or Latin writer"
(op. cit., II,204). He has been rediscovered in our own time in Coptic
manuscripts.
In part II of Butler's "Lausiac History" is a map of
Monastic Egypt. A glance at this map and the notes accompanying it
brings forcibly before the mind an important fact in monastic history.
With the exception of a single Pachomian monastery at Canopus, near
Alexandria, the cenobitic monasteries are in the South, and confined to a
relatively small area. The eremitical monasteries, on the contrary, are
everywhere, and especially in the North. These latter were thus far
more accessible to pilgrims visiting Egypt and so became the patterns or
models for the rest of the Christian world. It was the eremitical, not
the cenobitical, type of monasticism which went forth from Egypt.
Monasticism
at a very early date spread along the route of the Exodus and the
desert of the Forty Years' Wandering. The solitaries had a special
predilection for Scriptural sites. At every place hallowed by tradition,
which Syria visited (A.D.385), she found monks. The attraction of Mt.
Sinai for the solitaries was irresistible, in spite of the danger of
captivity or death at the hands of the Saracens. In 373 a number of
solitaries inhabited this mountain, living on dates and other fruit,
such bread as they had being reserved for the Sacred Mysteries. All the
week they lived apart in their cells; they gathered together in the
church on Saturday evening and, after spending the night in prayer,
received communion on Sunday morning. Forty of them were massacred in
373, and on the same day another group of solitaries at Raithe (supposed
to be Elim) were killed by a second band of barbarians. These events
were described by eye-witnesses (Tillemont, "H.E.", VII, 573-80). The
same kind of life was being led at Mt. Sinai, and a similar experience
was undergone some twenty years later when St. Nilus was there.
St.
Hilarion, who for a time had been a disciple of St. Anthony, propagated
monasticism of the eremitical type first in the neighbourhood of his
native city Gaza and then in Cyprus. His friend, St. Epiphanius, after
practising the monastic life in Egypt, founded a monastery near
Eleutheropolis in Palestine somewhere about 330 or perhaps a little
later.
In Jerusalem and its neighborhood there were numerous
monasteries at a very early date. To name only a few, there was the
monastery on the Mount of Olives, from which Palladius went forth on his
tour of the Egyptian monasteries; there were two monasteries for women
in Jerusalem, built by the older and younger Melania respectively. At
Bethlehem St. Paula founded three monasteries for women and one for men
about A.D.387. There was, besides, in Bethlehem the monastery where
Cassian some years before began his religious life. The Lauras, which
were very numerous, formed a conspicuous feature in Palestinian
monasticism. The first seems to have been founded before 334 by St.
Chariton at Pharan, a few miles from Jerusalem; later on two more were
founded by the same saint at Jericho and at Suca.
St. Euthymius
(473) founded another celebrated one in the valley of Cedron. Near
Jericho was the laura ruled over by St. Gerasimus (475). Some details
concerning the rules of this laura have fortunately been preserved in a
very ancient Life of St. Euthymius. It ocnsisted of a cenobium where the
cenobitic life was practised by novices and others less proficient.
There were also seventy cells for solitaries. Five days in the week
these latter lived and worked alone in their cells. On Saturday they
brought their work to the cenobium, where, after receiving Holy
Communion on Sundays, they partook of some cooked food and a little
wine. The rest of the week their fare was bread, dates and water. When
some of them asked to be allowed to heat some water, that they might
cook some food and to have a lamp to read by, they were told that if
they wished to live thus they had better take up their abode in the
cenobium (Acta SS., March 1, 386,87).
Antioch, when St. John
Chrysostom was a young man, was full of ascetics and the neighbouring
mountains were peopled with hermits. So great was the impulse driving
men to the solitary life that at one time there was an outcry, amounting
almost to a persecution, among Christians as well as pagans against
those who embraced it. This was the occasion of St. Chrysostom's
treatise against the opponents of monasticism: in the first book he
dwelt upon the guilt incurred by them; the second and third were
addressed respectively to a pagan and a Christian father who were
opposing the wish of their sons to embrace the monastic state. The
pathetic scene between the saint and his mother, which he describes in
the beginning of the "De Sacertio", must be typical of what took place
in many Christian homes. He himself so far yielded to his mother's
entreaties that he contented himself with the ascetic life at home till
her death. Palestine and Antioch must suffice as examples of the rapid
spread of monasticism outside of Egypt. There is abundant evidence of
the phenomenon in all the countries between the Mediterranean and
Mesopotamia; and Mesopotamia, according to St Jerome, whose testimony is
amply borne out by other writers, rivalled Egypt itself in the number
and holiness of its monks (Comm. in Isaiam, V,xix).
We now come
to a name second only in importance to St. Anthony's for the history of
eastern monasticism. St. Basil the Great before embracing the monastic
state made a careful study of monasticism in Egypt, Palestine,
Coelesyria, and Mesopotamia. The result was a decided preference for the
cenobitic life. He founded several monasteries in Pontus, over one of
which he himself for a time presided, and very soon monasteries,
modelled after his, spread over the East. His monks assembled together
for "psalmody" and "genuflexions" seven times a day, in accordance with
the Psalmist's "Septies in die laudem dixi tibi" (Ps. cxviii,164): at
midnight ("Media nocte surgebam" - Ibid.,62), at evening, morning and
midday (Ps. lv,18), at the third hour, the hour of Pentecost, and at the
ninth, the sacred hour of the Passion. To complete the tale of seven,
the midday prayer was divided into two parts separated by the community
meal (Sermo "Asceticus", Benedictine edition, II,321). St. Basil's
monastic ideal is set forth in a collection of his writings known as the
"Asceticon", or "Ascetica", the most important of which are the
"Regulae fusius tractatae", a series of answers to questions, fifty-five
in number, and the "Regulae brevius tractatae", in which three hundred
and thirteen questions are briefly replied to. It must not be supposed
that the "Regulae" form a rule, though it would be possible to go a good
way towards constituting one out of them. They are answers to questions
which would naturally arise among persons already in possession of a
framework of customs or traditions. Sometimes they treat of practical
questions, but as often as not they deal with matters concerning the
spiritual life.
It would not be easy to exaggerate St. Basil's
influence upon early monasticism: he furnished the type which ultimately
prevailed. But two points of the utmost importance, as marking the
difference between Eastern and Western monasteries, must be kept in
mind. (1) He did not draw up a rule, but gave, what is far more an
elastic thing, a model or pattern. (2) He was not the founder of a
religious order. No Eastern, except St. Pachomius, ever was. An order,
as we understand the term, is a purely Western product. "It is not
enough", says a writer who certainly does not underrate St. Basil's
influence, "to affirm that the Basilian Order is a myth. One must go
farther and give up calling the Byzantine monks Basilians. Those most
concerned have never taken this title, and no Eastern writer that I know
of has ever bestowed it upon them" (Pargoire in "Dict. d'Archeologie
chretienne", s.v. "Basile"). In a word, every monastery is an order of
its own. With St. Basil Eastern monasticism reached its final stage -
communities of monks leading the contemplative life and devoting
themselves wholly to prayer and work. The cenobitical life steadily
became the normal form of the religious calling, and the eremitical one
the exceptional form, requiring a long previous training.
We must
now speak of the grounds upon which St. Basil based his decision - a
decision so momentous for the future history of monasticism - in favour
of the cenobitical life. Life with others is more expedient because, in
the firt place, even for the supply of their bodily needs, men depend
upon one another. Further, there is the law of charity. The solitary has
only himself to regard; yet, "charity seeks not itself".
Again,
the solitary will not equally discover his faults, there being no one to
correct him with meekness and mercy. There are precepts of charity
which can only be fulfilled in the cenobitical life. The gifts of the
Holy Spirit are not all given to all men, but one is given to one man
and another to another. We cannot be partakers in the gifts not bestowed
on ourselves if we live by ourselves. The great danger to the solitary
is self-complacency; he is not put to the test, so that he is unable to
learn his faults or his progress. How can he learn humility when there
is no one to prefer before himself? Or patience when there is no one to
yield to? Whose feet shall he wash? To whom shall he be as a servant?
(Reg. fus. tract., Q.vii.) This condemnation of the eremitical life is
interesting because of what might almost be called its tameness. One
would expect at least a lurid picture of the dangers which the solitary
ran, delusions, melancholy culminating in despair, terrible moral and
spiritual falls, the abandonment of the religious calling for the life
of vice, and so forth. But instead of such things we have little more
than what amounts to disadvantages and the risk of somewhat flat and
commonplace kinds of failure, against which the common life afforded the
best protection. Clearly St. Basil found little that was tragic during
the two years he was investigating monasticism in Egypt, Mesopotamia,
and elsewhere.
It might be supposed that so uncompromising a
verdict against the eremitical life would stir up a fierce conflict. As a
matter of fact, it did nothing of the kind. Palestine, at the end of
the fourth century, began to supersede Egypt as the centre of
monasticism, and in Palestine the laura and the cenobium were in perfect
harmony. That of St. Gerasimus, with its cenobium already referred to,
may be taken as a typical example. St. Basil's authority was equal to
St. Anthony's among the leaders of Palestinian monasticism; yet they
took it as a matter of course that life in the laura was the most
perfect, though under ordinary circumstances it should not be entered
upon before an apprenticeship had been served in a cenobium. The paradox
is not so great as it may at first sight appear. The dweller in the
laura was under an archimandrite or abbot and so was not exposed to the
dangers of the purely eremitical state.
At the Council of
Chalcedon, monasticism had so become part of the life of the Church that
it was specially legislated for. Monasteries were not to be erected
without the leave of the bishop; monks were to receive due honour, but
were not to mix themselves up with the affairs of Church or State. The
were to be subject to the bishop, etc. (can.iv). Clerics and monks were
not to serve in war or embrace a secular life (can.vii). Monasteries
were not to be secularized (can.xxiv).
Solitary spots, according
to St. Basil, should be chosen as sites for monasteries. Nevertheless,
they soon found their way into cities. According to one scholar, at
least fifteen monasteries were founded at Constantinople in the time of
Constantine the Great; but others affirm that the three most ancient
ones only dated back to the time of Theodosius (375-95). In 518 there
were at least fifty-four monasteries in Constantinople. Their names and
those of their rulers are given in a petition addressed by the monks of
Constantinople to Pope Hormisdas in 518.
St. Anthony's scarcely
less famous disciple Pachomius (d.345) is believed to have begun the
organization of the hermits in groups, "folds" (manorai) with stricter
subjection to a leader (archimandrites); but the organization was vague.
Monasticism was still a manner of life rather than affiliation to an
organized body; anyone who left wife and family and the "world" to seek
peace away from men was a monk. Two codified "Rules" are attributed to
Pachomius; of these the longer is translated into Latin by St. Jerome, a
second and shorter one is in Palladius, "Hist. Lausiaca" XXXVIII.
Sozomenos gives a compendium of the "Rule of Pachomius" (H.E., III,xiv).
Neither of these rules is authentic, but they may well contain maxims
and principles that go back to his time, mixed with later ones. They are
already considerably advanced towards a regulated monastic life. They
order uniformity in dress, obedience to a superior, prayers and meals at
fixed times in common; they regulate both ascetic practices and
handwork.
About the same time as St. Anthony in Egypt, Hilarion
flourished at Gaza in Palestine (see St. Jerome, "Life of St. Hilarion"
in P.L., XXXIII, 29-54). He stands at the head of West Syrian
monasticism. In the middle of the fourth century, Aphraates speaks of
monks in East Syria. At the same time we hear of them in Armenia,
Pontus, and Cappadocia. Epiphanius, for instance, who in 367 became
Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, had been for thirty years a monk in
Palestine. At the time of St. Basil (330-379), therefore, there were
already monks all over the East. As soon as he was baptized (357) he
determined to be a monk himself; he spent two years travelling "to
Alexandria, through Egypt, in Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia"
(Ep.223), studying the life of the monks. Then in 358 he formed the
community at Annesos in Pontus that was to be in some sort a new point
of departure for Eastern monasticism. He describes the life at Anesos in
a letter to St. Gregory Nazianzen (Ep. 2). Its principles are codified
in various ascetic works by him, of which the chief are the two "Rules,
the longer (Horoi kata platos, P.G., XXXI,905-1052) and the shorter
(Horoi kat epitomen, ib., 1051-1306). (See BASIL, RULE OF SAINT.)
(2)
To the Great Schism
Gradually nearly all the Eastern monasteries
accepted the Rules of St. Basil. Their inner organization evolved a
hierarchy of officials among whom the various offices were distributed;
the prayers, meals, work, punishments were portioned out according to
the ascetic works of St. Basil, and so the whole monastery arrived at a
working order.
That order obtains still. In its inner life
Eastern monasticism has been extraordinarily stationary. There is
practically no development to describe. Its history from the fourth
century down to our own time is only a chronicle of the founding and
endowment of new monasteries, of the part taken by monks in the great
religious controversies and in one or two controversies of their own, of
the emperors, empresses, patriarchs, and other great persons who,
freely or under compulsion, ended their career in the world by retiring
to a monastery. Two ideas that constantly recur in Eastern theology are
that the monastic state is that of Christian perfection and also a state
of penance, Eusebius (d.c. 340) in his "Demonstratio evangelica"
distinguishes the two kinds of life as a Christian, the less perfect
life in the world and the perfect life of monks.
The idea recurs
continually. Monks lead the "angelic life", their dress is the "angelic
habit"; like the angels they neither marry nor give in marriage, and
like them the chief object of their existence is to sing the praises of
God (in the Divine Office). Not incompatible with this is the other
idea, found in St. Basil and many others, that their state is one of
penance (metanoia). Symeon of Thessalonica (d. 1429) counts the monks
simply as "penitents" (metanoountes). The most perfect life on earth,
namely, is that of a man who obeys the command to "do penance, for the
Kingdom of Heaven is nigh".
The organizaton and life of a
Byzantine monastery before the schism is known to us by the decrees
affecting it made by various councils, laws in the "Corpus iuris" (in
the "Codex" and the "Novellae"), the lives of eminent monks, of which
the "Synaxarion" has preserved not a few, and especially by the ascetic
writings of monks, letters, sermons, and so on, in which they give
advice to their colleagues. Of such monastic writers St. John Damascene
(d. 754), George Hamartolos (ninth century), and especially St. Theodore
of Studion (d. 826) are perhaps the most valuable for this purpose. At
the head of each independent monastery (laura is the common name in
Greek) was the superior. At first (e.g., by Justinian: "Nov.", V, vii;
CXXIII, v and xxxiv) he is called indifferently abbas, archimandrites,
hegoumenos. Later the common name is hegoumenos only. The archimandrite
has become a person of superior rank and takes precedence of a
hegumenos. Some think that archimandrite meant the superior of a
patriarchal monastery, that is, one immediately subject to the patriarch
and independent of the jurisdiction of the ordinary. The title then
would correspond to that of the Western "Abbas nullius".
There
was an intermediate period (from about the sixth to the ninth centuries)
during which the title archimandrite was given as a purely personal
honour to certain hegumenoi without involving any exemption from the
monastery. A further precedence belonged to a "great archimandrite". The
election and rights of the hegumenos are described by St. Basil in his
two Rules, by Justinian (Novel.,CXXIII, xxxiv), and Theodore of Studion
(Testamentum, in P.G., XCIX, 1817-1818). He was elected by the monks by
majority of votes; in cases of dispute the patriarch or ordinary
decided; sometimes lots were cast. He was to be chosen for his merit,
not according to the time he had already spent in the monastery, and
should be sufficiently learned to know the canons. The patriarch or
bishop must confirm the election and institute the hegumenos. But the
emperor received him in audience and gave him a pastoral staff (the
hrabdos). The ceremony of induction is given in the "Euchologion". He
then remained abbot for life, except in the event of his being deposed,
after trial, for some canonical offence. The hegumenos had absolute
authority over all his monks, could receive novices and inflict
punishments; but he was bound always by the rule of St. Basil and the
canons, and he had to consult a committee of the more experienced monks
in all cases of difficulty. This committee was the synaxis that in many
ways limited the autocracy of the superior (St. Basil's Rule, P.G.,
XXXI, 1037). The hegumenos in the Byzantine time, after Justinian, was
generally, but not quite always, a priest. He received the confessions
of his monks [there are instances of those who were not priests usurping
this office (Marin, op. cit., 96)] and could ordain them to minor
Orders, including the subdiaconate. Under the abbot there was a
hierarchy of other officials, more or less numerous according to the
size of the laura. The deutereuontook his place in case of his absence
or sickness, the oikonomos had charge of all the property, the kellarios
looked after the food, the hepistemonarchos saw to the regular
performance of services in the church, the kanonarches guided the
singers during the Divine office. These officials, who usually formed
the synaxis, acted as a restraint on the authority of the hegumenos.
Numerous lesser offices, as those of infirmarian, guest-master, porter,
cook, and so on, were divided among the community. The monks were
divided into three orders, novices, those who bear the lesser habit and
those who have the great habit. Children (the Council of Trullo of 692
admits profession as valid after the age of ten years), married men (if
their wives are willing), even slaves who are badly treated by their
masters or are in danger of losing their faith, could be receive as
novices. Justinian ordered novices to wear lay clothes (Novel., V,ii),
but soon the custom was introduced that after a probation of about six
months (while they were postulants) they should have their hair cut
(tonsure) and receive a tunic (chiton) and the tall cap called
kalimauchion. The service for this first clothing is in the
"Euchologion".
After three years' noviceship the monk received
the lesser habit or mandyas (to mikron schema, mandyas). He is again
tonsured in the form of a cross, receives a new tunic, belt, cap,
sandals, and the monastic cloak (mandyas). The mandyas is the "angelic
habit" that makes him a true monk; it is at this service that he makes
his vows. An older form of the "sacrament of monastic perfection"
(mystegion monachikes teleioseos), that is, of the profession and
reception of a monk, is given by Dionysius Areopagita (c. 500), "de
Eccles. Hierarch.", VI, ii (P.G., III,533). The monk is "ordained" by a
priest (lereous; he always calls bishops lerarchai), presumably the
abbot. Standing he recites the "monastic invocation" (ten monastiken
epiklesin), evidently a prayer for the grace he needs. The priest then
asks him if he renounces everything, explains to him the duties of his
state, signs him with the cross, tonsures him and clothes him in the
habit, finally celebrates the holy Liturgy, and gives him Communion.
From the time of his profession the monk remains inseparately attached
to the monastery. Besides the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience
he makes a vow of perseverance in the religious exercises of the
particular laura he has chosen. Normally he can no more change to
another than go back to the world. He should moreover never go out at
all. In theory all monks are "emclosed" (St. Basil, P.G., XXXI,635-636);
but this rule has never been taken very literally. Monks travelled
about, with the consent of their superiors and with the excuse that they
were engaged in business of the laura or of the Church in general.
But
there still remained a further step. After having proved their
perseverance for some years monks were accustomed to ask, as a reward
for their advancement in the ascetic life, for the "great habit" (to
mega kai allelikon schema). This was simply a larger and more dignified
cloak, suitable for the veterans of the monastery. Gradually its
reception became a regular ceremony and the wearers of the great habit
began to form a superior class, the aristocracy of the laura. St.
Theodore of Studion objected strongly to this distinction: "As there is
only one baptism", he says, "so there is only one habit" (P.G., XCIX,
1819). It is true that there is no real place for such a higher rank in
the monastic system. At the reception of the first habit the monk makes
his solemn vows for life and becomes a full monk in every sense.
However, in spite of the opposition, the custom grew. The imposition of
the great habit repeats very much the ceremony of the lesser one and
forms a kind of renewal of vows; it is from the older monks who have
gone through this rite and are honorably distinguished by their long
cloaks that the dignitaries of the laura are chosen.
Another gradual
development was the formation of a class of priest-monks. At first no
monks received any ordination; then one or two were made priests to
administer sacraments to the others, then later it became common to
ordain a monk priest. But it has never become the rule that all
choir-monks should be ordained, as it became in the West. On entering
monasteries people changed their name. The monk was to abstain from
flesh-meat always; his food was fruit and vegetables and on feast-days
fish, eggs, milk, and cheese. Wine was allowed. The chief meal, the only
full meal in the day, was served at the sixth hour (midday); on the
frequent fast-days, including every Wednesday and Friday and the four
fasting times, it was put off till the ninth hour. Later in the evening,
after the apodeipnon (compline), the remains of the meal were again
spread in the refectory and any who wished, chiefly the younger members,
might partake of a light supper.
The monk's main occupation was
the daily chanting of the long Byzantine office in church. This took up a
great part of the day and the night. There were moreover the
holonyktika offices, which on the eves of great feasts lasted all night.
The rest of the time was spent in manual work, digging, carpentry,
weaving, and so on, portioned out to each by the abbot, of which the
profit belonged to the monastery (St. Basil, P.G.,
XXXI,1016,1017,1132,etc.). Men who already know an innocent and
profitable craft may continue to exercise it as monks. Some practised
medicine for the good of the community. Nor were the study of theology
and the arts of calligraphy and painting neglected. Monasteries had
libraries, and monks wrote theological works and hymns. In St.
Theodore's time the Studion monastery was famous for its library and the
beautiful handwriting of its monks (Theodore, "Orat.", XI,16; in P.G.,
XCIX). There was a scale of punishments ranging from special fasts and
prayers or the apeulogia -- that is, privation of the abbot's blessing
-- to the aphoriosmos or solitary confinement and excommunication from
all common prayers and the sacraments. The punishment for fornication
was excommunication for fifteen years (cf. the "Epitimia" ascribed to
St. Basil in M.P., XXXI, 1305-1314). A monk who had proved his constancy
for many years in the community could receive permission from the
hegumenos to practise the severer life of a hermit. He then went to
occupy a solitary cell near the laura (St. Basil's Rule, P.G.,
XXXI,1133). But he was still counted a member of the monastery and could
return to it if he found solitude too hard. At the court of the
Patriarch of Constantinople was an official, the Exarch of the monks,
whose duty it was to supervise the monasteries. Most other bishops had a
similar assistant among their clergy.
Celibacy became an ideal
for the clergy in the East gradually, as it did in the West. In the
fourth century we still find St. Gregory Nazianzen's father, who was
Bishop of Nanzianzos, living with his wife, without scandal. But very
soon after that the present Eastern rule obtained. It is less strict
than in the West. No one can marry after he has been ordained priest
(Paphnutius at the first Council of Nicaea maintains this; the first
Canon of the Synod of Neocaesarea in 314 or 325, and Can. Apost., xxvi.
The Synod of Elvira about 300 had decreed absolute celibacy for all
clerks in the West, Can. xxxiii, ib., pp. 238-239); priests already
married may keep their wives (the same law applied to deacons and
subdeacons: Can. vi of the Synod in Trullo, 692), but bishops must be
celibate. As nearly all secular priests were married this meant that, as
a general rule, bishops were chosen from the monasteries, and so these
became, as they still are, the road through advancement may be attained.
Besides the communities in monasteries there were many extraordinary
developments of monasticism. There were always hermits who practised
various extreme forms of asceticism, such as binding tight ropes round
their bodies, very severe fasting, and so on. A singular form of
asceticism was that of the Stylites (stylitai), who lived on columns.
St. Symeon Stylites (q.v.) began this practice in 420.
From the
time of Constantine the building and endowment of monasteries became a
form of good work adopted by very many rich people. Constatine and Helen
set the example and almost every emperor afterwards (except Julian)
followed it. So monasteries grew up all over the empire. Constantinople
especially was covered with them. One of the chief of these was Studion
(Stoudion) in the south-western angle of the city, founded by a Roman,
Studius, in 462 or 463. It was occupied by so-called "sleepless"
(akoimetoi) monks who, divided into companies, kept an unceasing round
of prayer and psalm-singing day and night in their church. But they were
not a separate order; there was no distinction between various
religious orders. St. Theodore, the great defender of images in the
second Iconoclast persecution, became Hergumenos of Studion in 799 (till
his death in 826). His letters, sermons and constitutions for the
Studite monks gave renewed ideals and influenced all Byzantine
monasticism. During this period a great number of decrees of Synods,
ordinances of patriarchs, emperors and abbots, further defined and
expanded the rule of St. Basil. Many Eastern synods draw up among their
canons laws for monks, often merely enforcing the old rule (e.g. the
Synod of Gangres in the middle of the fourth century, Can., xix, etc.).
St. John Chrysostom, the Patriarch John the Faster (d. 595), the
Patriarch Nicephoros (d. 829), and so on, down to Photius, added to
these rules, which, collected and commented in the various constitutions
and typika of the monasteries, remain the guide of a Byzantine monk.
Most of all, St. Theodore's "Constitutions of Studion" (P.G., XCIX,
1703-1720) and his list of punishment for monks (ib., 1734-1758)
represent a classical and much copied example of such a collection of
rules and principles from approved sources. St. Basil's mother and
sister had formed a community of women at Annesos near the settlement of
the men. From that time convents of nuns spread throughout the
Byzantine Church, organized according to the same rule and following the
same life as that of the monks with whatever modifications were
necessary for their sex. The convents were subject to the jurisdiction
of the bishop or patriarch. Their spiritual needs were provided for by a
priest, generally a priest-monk, who was their "ghostly father"
(pheumatikos pater). The abbess was called hegoumenissa.
Lastly,
during this period the monks play a very important part in theological
controversies. The Patriarch of Alexandria, for instance, in his
disputes with Constantinople and Antioch could always count on the
fanatical loyalty of the great crowd of monks who swarmed up from the
desert in his defence. Often we hear of monks fighting, leading tumults,
boldly attacking the soldiers. In all the Monophysite troubles the
monks of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and the capital were able to throw the
great weight of their united influence on the one side or the other.
During the Acacian schism (482-519), while the whole Byzantine Church
broke communion with Rome, only the "sleepless" monks of Studion
remained Catholic. On the whole, the monks were on the Catholic side.
During the Iconoclast persecution they were so determined against the
overthrow of the holy pictures that the Iconoclast emperors made the
abolition of monasticism part of their programme and persecuted people
for being monks just as much as for worshipping images (see ICONOCLASM).
Especially the great Studion monastery at Constantinople had a
tradition of unswerving orthodoxy and loyalty to Rome. They alone kept
communion with the Holy See in the Acacian schism, they were the leaders
of the Image-worshippers in Iconoclast times, and their great abbot St.
Theodore (d. 826) was one of the last defenders of union and the pope's
rights before the great schism.
(3) From the Schism to Modern Times
The
schism made little difference to the inner life of the Byzantine
monasteries. Like the lower clergy and the people they quietly followed
their bishops, who followed the patriarchs, who followed the Oecumenical
patriarch into schism. After that their life went on as before, except
that, having lost the advantage of intercourse with the West, they
gradually drifted into the same stagnation as the rest of the Orthodox
Church. They lost their tradition of scholarship, they had never done
any work in parishes, and so they gradually arrived at the ideal that
the "angelic life" meant besides their immensely long prayers,
contemplation and fasting, doing nothing at all. In the eighteenth
century, when an attempt was made to found monastic schools, they
fiercely resented such a desecration of their ideal. During the early
Middle Ages the Orthodox remained immeasurably behind the Catholic
monks, who were converting western Europe and making their monasteries
the homes of scholarship. The chief event of this period is the
foundation of the Athos monasteries, destined to become the centre of
Orthodox monasticism. When St. Athanasius of Athos founded the great
Laura there, there were already cells of hermits on the holy mountain.
Nevertheless he is rightly looked upon as the founder of the communities
that made Athos so great a centre of Orthodoxy.
In the tenth and
eleventh centuries the famous monasteries called the Meteora in
Thessaly were built on their inaccessible peaks to escape the ravages of
the Slavs. The Turkish conquests made little difference to the monks.
Moslems respect religious. Their prophet had spoken well of monks
(Koran, Sura V, 85) and had given a charter of protection to the monks
of Sinai; but they shared fully the degradation of the Orthodox Church
under Moslem rule. The Turkish conquest sealed their isolation from the
rest of Christendom; the monasteries became the refuge of peasants too
lazy to work, and the monk earned the scorn with which he is regarded by
educated people in the East. Eugenios Bulgaris (d.1800), one of the
chief restorers of classical scholarship among the Greeks, made a futile
attempt to found a school at Athos. The monks drove him out with
contumely as an atheist and a blasphemer, and pulled his school down.
Its ruins still stand as a warning that study forms no part of the
"angelic life".
(4) Monasticism in the present Eastern Christian Church
The
sixteen independent Churches that make up the Orthodox communion are
full of monasteries. There are fewer convents. One great monastery, that
of Mount Sinai, follows what prefesses to be the old rule of St.
Anthony. All the others have St. Basil's rule with the additions,
expansions, and modifications made by later emperors, patriarchs, and
synods. There is no distinction of religious orders as in the West,
though mant lauras have customs of their own. All monks are "Basilians"
if one must give them a special name. A monk is monachos, a priest-monk
leromonachos. A monastery is or mone or laura. The novice (archarios)
wears a tunic calledhrasos with a belt and the kalimauchion of all the
clergy, he is often called hrasophoros. After two years (the period is
sometimes shortened) he makes his (solemn) vows and receives the small
habit (mandyas). Technically he is now a mikroschemos, though the word
is not often used. After an undefined time of perseverance he receives
the great habit (koukoulion) and becomes megaloschemos. The popular
Greek name for monk is "good old man" (kalogeros). The election, the
rights and duties of the hegumenos and other dignitaries remain as they
were before the schism. The title "archimandrite" appears to be given
now to abbots of the more important monasteries and also sometimes as a
personal title of distinction to others. It involves only precedence of
rank.
Most monasteries depend on the local metropolitan. In the
Orthodox states (Russia, Greece, etc.) the Holy Synod has a good deal to
say in their management, confirms the election of the abbot, controls,
and not unfrequently confiscates their property. But certain great
monasteries are exempt from local jurisdiction and immediately subject
to the patriarch or Holy Synod. These are called stauropegia. One
Orthodox monastery (Mount Sinai) of which the abbot is also "Archbishop
of Sinai", is an autocephalous Church, obeying only Christ and the Seven
Councils. The Genikoi kanonismoi of the Ecumenical patriarchate contain
a chapter about monasteries (pp. 67 sq.). They are divided into three
classes, those with more than twenty, more than ten or more than five
monks. Only those of the first class (more than twenty monks) are bound
to sing all the Divine office and celebrate the holy Liturgy every day.
Monasteries with less than five monks are to be suppressed or
incorporated in larger ones. Monastic property accumulated in the East
as in the West. Many quarrels between the Church and State have arisen
from usurped control or even wholesale confiscation of this property by
the various Orthodox governments. The first Greek Parliament in 1833 (at
Nauplion) suppressed all monasteries in the new kingdom that had less
than six monks. In 1864 Cusa confiscated all monastic property in
Rumania, of which much belonged to the monasteries of Mount Sinai,
Jerusalem, and Athos. In 1875 Russia confiscated three-fifths of the
property in Bessarabia belonging to the monastery of the Holy Sepulchre.
Of the rest it paid itself one-fifth for its trouble and applied
two-fifths to what is described euphemistically as pious purposes in
Russia. Many monasteries have farms called meochia in distant lands.
Generally a few monks are sent to administer the metochion of which all
the revenue belongs to the mother-house. The most famous monasteries in
the southern part of the Orthodox Church are Mount Sinai, the Holy
Sepulchre at Jerusalem, the Meteora in Thessaly, Sveti Naum on the Lake
of Ochrida and most of all, Athos. The national quarrels in the Orthodox
Church have full development at Athos. Till lately the Greeks succeeded
in crushing all foreign elements. They drove the Georgians from Iviron,
the Bulgars from Philotheos, Xenophon, and St. Paul's. Now they are
rapidly losing ground and influence; the Slavs are building large
Sketai, and Russia here as everywhere is the great danger to the Greek
element. The Russians have only one Laura (Panteleimon or Russiko) but
with its huge Sketai it contains more monks than all the Greek lauras
together. All the Athos monasteries are stauropegia; only the Patriarch
of Constantinople has any jurisdiction. For ordinations the Hegumenoi
invite the neighbouring Metropolitan of Heraclea. The monasteries have
also the dignity of "Imperial" lauras, as having been under the
protection of former emperors.
(5) Monasticism in Russia
There
have been monks in Russia since Christianity was first preached there
in the tenth century. Their great period was the fourteenth century;
their decline began in the sixteenth. Peter the Great (1661-1725) at one
time meant to suppress the monasteries altogether. In 1723 he forbade
new novices to be received. Under Catherine II (1761-1796) a more
prosperous era began; since Alexander (1801-1825) monasteries flourish
again all over the empire. The latest census (1896) counts 495
monasteries and 249 convents of nuns. These are divided into 4 lauras
(in Russia the name means a certain precedence and special privileges); 7
stauropegia (subject directly to the Holy Synod and exempt from the
ordinary's jurisdiction), 64 monasteries attached to bishops' palaces.
The rest are divided into three classes. There are 73 of the first class
(which have at least 33 monks or, if convents, 52 nuns), 100 of the
second (17 monks or nuns) and 191 of the third (12 monks or 17 nuns).
There are further 350 monasteries not classified. Catherine II
introduced the practice of drawing up official lists of the monasteries.
She found 1072 monasteries in her empire of which she abolished 496 and
classified the rest. In Russia, as at Athos, monasteries are either
coenobic (obshejitel'nyie) or idiorhythmic (neobshejitel'nyie); but
these latter are not n favour with the Holy Synod which restores the
coenobic rule wherever possible. Some monasteries are supported by
government (shtatnyie), others have to support themselves. The three
classes mentioned above concern the amounts received by the supported
monasteries. The stauropegia are: Solovetsky, at Archangel, Simonoff,
Donskoyi, Novospassky at Moscow, Voskresensky or New Jerusalem,
Spaso-Yakovlesky. The census of 1896 counts 40,940 monks and 7464 nuns
in the empire. The most famous Russian monasteries are Kieff (Kievsky
Laura) founded in 1062 by a St. Anthony, the largest of all; the
Troitzsky Laura near Moscow, founded by St. Sergius in 1335 and now the
home of the first "Ecclesiastical Academy" (Seminary) in the empire; the
Metropolitan of Moscow is its hegumenos. The Pochaievsky Laura, founded
in the thirteenth century and famous for its miraculous eikon of the
Blessed Virgin; Solovetsky, founded in 1429; Surieff (in the government
of Novgorod) founded in 1030; Tikhvinsy (in Novgorod); Volokolamsky (in
the Moscow government) founded by St. Joseph of Volokolamsk in 1479,
which has an important library and has often been used as a state
prison, and Kyrilla-Bilesersky (in Novgorod) founded by St. Cyril in
1397.
(6) Monasticism in the lesser Eastern Churches
Little
may be said of these Churches. All had fully developed monasticism
according to St. Basil's idea before they went into schism, and all have
monks and nuns under much the same conditions as the Orthodox, though,
naturally, in each case there has been some special development of their
own. The Nestorians once had many monasteries. One eighteenth-century
scholar counted 31. Since the fourteenth century the discipline has
become so relaxed that monks can easily get dispensed from their vows
and marry. They now have neither monasteries nor convents; but there are
monks and nuns who live in their own houses or wander about. The Copts
have many monasteries arranged almost exactly like those of the
Orthodox. The Abyssinian monasteries are very flourishing (ib. 299-302).
There are in Abyssinia also people called debterats, regular canons who
say the office in common and obey a superior called nebrait, but may
marry. The Nebrait of Aksum is one of the most powerful members of the
Abyssinian Church and the leader of the national party against the
foreign (Coptic) metropolitan. The Syrian Jacobites once had a great
number of monasteries. Down to the sixth century there were still
Stylites among them. They now have only nine monasteries in the present
reduced state of their Church, most of them also residences of bishops.
The Jacobite monk fasts very strictly. To eat meat is a crime punished
as equal to adultery. The Armenian Church, as being considerably the
largest and most flourishing of there lesser Eastern Churches, has the
largest number of monks and the most flourishing state. Armenian monks
follow St. Basil's rule, but are much stricter in the matter of fasting.
The novitiate lasts eight years. It is a curious contrast to this
strictness that the abbot is often not a monk at all, but a married
secular priest who hands on his office to his son by hereditary right.
Most Armenian bishops live in monasteries. Etchmiadzin, the residence of
the Katholikos, is theoretically the centre of the Armenian Church. The
Armenians have the huge monastery of St. James, the centre of their
quarter of Jerusalem, where their Patriarch of Jerusalem lives, and the
convent of Deir asseituni on Mount Sion with a hundred nuns. Armenian
monks do not as a rule become bishops; the bishops are taken from the
unmarried Vartabeds, that is, the higher class of secular priests
(doctors). In all the other Eastern Churches bishops are monks. All use
their monasteries as places of punishment for refractory clergy.