The spirit and origin of Christian monasticism
Cassian l notes about vainglory that it is a more
insidious fault than any of those of which he treated
previously. Other faults weaken after defeat. Each
fresh assault they make is feebler than the last.
Vainglory grows stronger and stronger the oftener
it is resisted, since every fresh victory over it gives
fresh occasion for receiving the praise of men. Vain
glory finds a vantage ground for attack even in a
monk s virtues. His fasts, his prayers, his patience,
even his humility may be the cause of vainglory to
him. ” Our elders admirably describe the nature of
this malady as like that of an onion, and of those
bulbs which when stripped of one covering you find
to be sheathed in another, and as often as you strip
them you find them still protected.” 2
To men who were struggling against the insidious
attacks of this sin, anything like boasting seemed
particularly odious. Once 3 in one of their settle
ments the monks were holding a festival, and were
eating together in the church. One of them refused
to eat with the others, saying to the minister, ” I
have never eaten anything cooked.” Theodore arose
and said to him, ” It were better for you to-day to be
eating flesh in your cell, than that such a speech as
yours should be heard among the brethren.”
1 In st. t xi. 2. 2 Ibid., 5. 3 Ruf., iii. 54.
LIFE OF THE EGYPTIAN MONKS 159
Very like the ” ama nesciri ” of the Imitation of
Christ is this word of the Abbot Mathoen, 1 which he
spoke to one of his disciples. ” If you dwell long in
any place, do not desire to make a name for yourself
by being singular in any practice. Do not say, I will
not go to the assembly of the brethren or I will not
eat this or that, for by such things as these you make
for yourself a name.” Sometimes the methods which
the monks adopted for avoiding the temptation of
vainglory seem to us forced and perhaps affected.
A story is told of a certain Sisois 2 that he was
warned to expect a visit from a judge who happened
to be in the neighbourhood of his cell. The monk
clad himself in a linen garment, and taking some
bread and cheese, sat eating it at the door of his cell.
The judge, who no doubt expected to see an emaci
ated recluse rapt in spiritual contemplation, was
full of contempt for him. ” Is this,” he said, ” the
anchorite of whom we hear so much ? ” So despising
him, he departed, and Sisois was saved from the
temptation of vainglory. The Abbot Nestorus 3 was
one day walking in the desert and met a serpent.
He fled from it. One of his disciples was surprised
at his flight, and asked him, ” Do you fear it, my
father ? ” To whom the old man said, ” I fear it not,
my son, yet if I had not fled from the serpent, I
should not have avoided vainglory.”
1 Vit. Pair., v. 8, II.
2 Verb. Sen., vii. II, 8. 3 Ibid., 3.
160 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
Closely connected with the dread of ostentation
was the shrinking which the monks felt from ordina
tion. ” A monk ought by all means to fly from
bishops and women ” was a proverb l current in the
desert of Egypt. We read of a certain monk who
so far yielded to the desire of praise that he used to
play in his cell at being a priest and celebrating the
Eucharist. 2 He was playfully rebuked by one of the
brethren who once overheard the performance. He
stood at the door of the cell until it was finished and
then knocked. The monk came out to him and
asked nervously how long he had been there. ” I
only arrived,” replied the listener, “while you were
giving the blessing to the catechumens.”
Pride is the last and deadliest of all the catalogue
of sins. Each other sin has its own special demon.
The demon of pride is Satan himself. God Himself
is the enemy of pride. It is never said that God
resisteth the gluttonous or the covetous, but only that
God resisteth the proud.
The opposite of pride is humility, and this virtue
the fathers are never weary of praising and admiring.
Arsenius, who in the world had been a courtier, was
especially noted for his humility. Once, 3 – while he
was seated in conversation with an unlearned peasant
monk, a friend asked him, ” Father, how is it that
1 Cassian calls it ” the old maxim of the fathers that is still current “
in his Inst.) xi. 18.
2 Cass., Inst., x. 16. 3 Vit. Patr., v. 15, 7.
LIFE OF THE EGYPTIAN MONKS 161
you, who know Greek and Latin, are asking this
rustic to explain his thoughts to you ? ” Arsenius
replied, “I am indeed learned in Latin and Greek
as the world counts learning, but this peasant s
alphabet I have not yet been able to learn.” This
is one of several similar stories told of Arsenius.
Once the devil appeared to a certain brother in
the form of an angel of light. 1 ” I am the archangel
Gabriel,” he said, “and I am sent unto thee.” But
the monk answered him, ” Surely you were sent to
someone else, for I am altogether unworthy of such
a visitation.” Then immediately the devil departed
from him. So this monk was saved by his humility.
A certain brother 2 who dwelt in the wilderness
believed that he was perfect in virtue. He prayed
to God to show him what perfection he lacked. God,
willing to humble him, bid him go to a certain leader
of monks and do whatever he bid him. This abbot,
being warned beforehand by God, bid him take a
stick and herd some swine. Some men, who had
known him before, saw him feeding the swine, and
said, ” Behold, this famous solitary has gone mad.
Some devil possesses him. He is herding swine.”
But God, seeing his humility and how patiently he
bore the insults of these men, permitted him to
return to his own place.
St. Antony 3 spoke this word about humility : ” I
beheld all the snares which the devil had spread
1 Vit. Pair., Ixviii. – Ibid., lii. 3 Ibid., iii.
M
162 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
across the world, and I said with a groan, Who is
able to pass safely through them all ? Then I
heard a voice which said, The humble man. “
Another of the fathers said : l “All labour without
humility is vain. Humility is the forerunner of love.
As John was the forerunner of Jesus, drawing all
to Him, so humility draws all to love, that is, to
God, for God is love.” Again, ” Humility neither
itself grows angry, nor suffers others to grow angry.”
The highest expression of humility is found by
the monks in the virtue of discretion. This is the
most valuable of all virtues. It is, indeed, a kind
of groundwork on which all other virtues are built
up. The words in which our collect 2 describes
charity would have been applied by the Egyptian
monks to discretion. It is the bond of all virtues,
without which whosoever liveth is counted dead
before God. It may be described from the one
side as sanctified common sense, and from the other
side as spiritual discernment. It is related of the
Abbot John the Short 3 that in his youth he came
to a certain brother and said to him, ” I wish to
be free from care as the angels are, to do no work,
but to serve God without ceasing.” So saying, he
stripped himself of his clothing and departed into
the wilderness. After a week he returned to the
brother s cell and knocked at the door. The brother,
1 Verb. Sen., vii., 13, 7.
a Coll. for Quinquag. 3 Ruf., 56.
LIFE OF THE EGYPTIAN MONKS 163
before opening it, asked, ” Who are you ? ” and he
replied, ” I am John.” Then said the brother, ” Not
so ; John is an angel, and no longer dwells among
men.” But he continued knocking, and repeated,
” I am he.” For a long time the door remained
closed. At length the brother opened it and said,
“If you are a man, you must work. If you are an
angel, why do you come to my cell ? ” But John
repented, and said, ” Pardon me, my father, I have
sinned.” The following story, which has the same
motif t comes from Palestine. A brother 1 coming
to a monastic settlement saw the monks labouring.
“Why,” said he, “do you labour for the meat that
perisheth?” Then the abbot said, ” Put this stranger
into an empty cell.” When the ninth hour came
the stranger came to the door of the cell to see if
anyone was coming to call him to dinner. When
no one came, he said to the abbot, ” Do not your
monks eat to-day ? ” The abbot replied, ” Truly
we have eaten.” ” Why then,” said the stranger,
” did you not call me ? ” The abbot replied, ” You
are a spiritual man. Surely you have no need of
food. We are only carnal. We labour, and therefore
must eat. You, like Mary, have chosen the good
part. You read all day, and do not need material
food.”
These two stories explain part of what the monks
meant by discretion. It was that kind of common
1 Vit. Patr., v. 10, 59.
1 64 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
sense which was capable of appreciating the humor
ous side of affectation and exaggeration. It was
the virtue which saved the man who possessed it
from making a fool of himself over his religion. I
have already pointed out that St. Antony admired
and practised discretion. The greatest of the fathers
understood and valued it. It is closely connected
with humility, for it is only a man with over
weening pride who can unconsciously do things
that are exceedingly ridiculous.
Discretion, however, had a higher function than
this. It was more than common sense. It was
the faculty which the apostle describes 1 as ” the
discernment of spirits.” By it the monks were
saved from attempting austerities which would have
ended in the destruction of all true spirituality.
They were able to realise that Satan came to them
sometimes in the form of an angel of light. There
is a story of St. Martin of Tours 2 for which paral
lels can easily be found among the experiences of
the Egyptian fathers. One day Satan came to him
as he was seated in his cell. The fiend was sur
rounded with a purple light, clothed in a royal
robe, with a crown of gold and gems encircling his
head, his shoes also being inlaid with gold. He
presented a quiet countenance and a joyful aspect,
so that no such thought as that he was the fiend
1 I St. John iv. i.
2 Sulp. Sev., Vit. St. Mart., 24.
LIFE OF THE EGYPTIAN MONKS 165
might be entertained. The saint, dazzled by his
appearance, at first kept silence. This was broken
by the devil, who said, ” Acknowledge, oh Martin,
who it is that you behold. I am Christ. Being
just about to descend upon the earth, I wished
first to manifest myself to you.” As St. Martin
still kept silence, the devil repeated his audacious
declaration. ” Why do you hesitate to believe, when
you see? I am Christ.” Then Martin replied as
follows : ” I will not believe that Christ has come
unless He appears with that appearance and form
in which He suffered, openly displaying the marks
of His wounds upon the cross.” On hearing these
words the devil vanished.
Here it is the virtue of discretion which saved
St. Martin. So also, the Abbot John of Lycopolis 1
once, when utterly exhausted with a prolonged fast,
“discreetly” recognised, before it was too late, that
it was the devil and not God who was leading him
to destroy his bodily health. On the other hand,
Heron, 2 through lack of discretion, was ultimately
overcome by the devil, in spite of his many fasts, and
induced to fling himself down a deep well. Two
brethren, 3 who had no discretion, nearly starved
to death by undertaking a journey without pro
viding themselves with food for the way. They
expected that the Lord would provide for them.
Even when He did so in a very wonderful manner
1 Cass., Coll., i. 21. 2 Ibid., ii. 5. 3 Ibid., ii. 6.
166 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
only one of the two had sufficient sense to save his
life.
The Abbot Moses 1 reports the following speech
of St. Antony, which will show finally the estimation
in which the monks held this particular virtue. A
sort of congress of leading monks met once on St.
Antony s mountain to discuss perfection. Each gave
his opinion. Some made it to consist in zeal for
fastings and vigils. Others thought withdrawal from
the world was the essential thing, i.e. solitude and
the secrecy of the hermit s life. Others laid down
the duties of charity. When in this fashion they had
declared that by means of different virtues a more
certain approach to God might be made, and a great
deal of time had been spent in discussion, at length
St. Antony spoke. ” All these things are needful
and helpful to those who are thirsting for God and
desirous to approach Him. But countless accidents
and the experience of many people will not allow us
to make the most important gifts consist in them. For
often when men are most strict in fasting or in vigils,
and nobly withdraw into solitude and aim at depriving
themselves of their goods so completely that they do
not suffer even a day s allowance of food or a single
penny to remain to them, and when they fulfil all the
duties of kindness with the utmost devotion, yet still
we see them suddenly deceived, so that they do not
bring the work they had entered on to a suitable
1 Cass., Coll.) ii. 2, Gibson s translation.
LIFE OF THE EGYPTIAN MONKS 167
close, but brought their exalted fervour and praise
worthy life to a terrible end. Nor can any other
reason for their falling-off be discovered, except that
as they were not sufficiently instructed by their elders,
they could not obtain judgment and discretion, which,
passing by excess on either side, teaches a monk
always to walk along the royal road, and does not
suffer him to be puffed up, on the right hand, by
virtue, i.e. from excess of zeal to transgress the
bounds of moderation in foolish presumption, nor
allows him to be enamoured of slackness on the
other hand. For this is discretion, which in the
gospel is termed the eye and the light of the
bodyl because it discerns all the thoughts and actions
of men, and sees and overlooks all things which
should be done. For no one can doubt that when
the judgment of our heart goes wrong, and is over
whelmed by the night of ignorance, our thoughts
and deeds must be involved in the darkness of still
greater sins.”
To this speech of St. Antony s it may perhaps be
helpful to add the description of the virtue given by
his disciple St. Macarius the Great in a homily on
Patience and Discretion, 1 where he says that it is
the faculty whereby virtue (good) is distinguished
from evil and the various wiles of the devil, and
specious imaginations are understood in their own
nature.
1 c. 13.
168 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
With these quotations on the last and greatest
of the monastic virtues, the coping-stone of their
ideal temple of righteousness, I close this attempt
to describe their lives and aspirations. The whole
spiritual region in which they lived and moved is
strange to us. Some of their enemies we have
ceased to strive against, or recognise as sins at all.
Dejection we attribute to a disordered stomach,
accidie to natural temperament. Pride we very
often regard as a virtue. Very few have advanced
far enough in spiritual thought to require discretion.
Nevertheless, a study of how these men thought and
felt and struggled in their hunger after God and
goodness cannot altogether fail of interest for us,
and of such profit, at least, as may come from the
feeling that they, with all their strange ways and
thoughts, were earnest followers of the same Lord we
are seeking to serve.
ST. BASIL AND EASTERN MONASTICISM
But now their naked bodies scorn the cold,
And from their eyes joy looks, and laughs at pain :
The infant wonders how he came so old,
The old man how he came so young again :
Where all are rich, and yet no gold they owe ;
And all are kings, and yet no subjects know,
All full, and yet no time on food do they bestow.
GILES FLETCHER.
A spotless child sleeps on the flowering moss
Tis well for him ; but when a sinful man,
Envying such slumber, may desire to put
His guilt away, shall he return at once
To rest by lying there ? Our sires knew well
(Spite of the grave discoveries of their sons)
The fitting course for such ; dark cells, dim lamps,
A stone floor one may writhe on like a worm :
No mossy pillow blue with violets. BROWNING, Paracelsus.
Son of sorrow, doom d by fate
To a lot most desolate,
To joyless youth and childless age,
Last of thy father s lineage,
Blighted being ! whence hast thou
That lofty mien and cloudless brow ?
Ask st thou whence that cloudless brow ?
Bitter is the cup I trow ;
A cup of weary, well-spent years,
A cup of sorrows, fasts, and tears,
That cup whose virtue can impart
Such calmness to the troubled heart.
Last of his father s lineage, he
Many a night on bended knee,
In hunger many a livelong day,
Hath striven to cast his slough away :
Yea, and that long prayer is granted ;
Yea, his soul is disenchanted.
Thou by the hand of the Most High
Art sealed for immortality.
L esprit de la priere et de la solitude
Qui plane sur les monts, les torrents et les bois,
Dans ce qu aux yeux mortels la terre a de plus rude
Appela de tout temps des ames de son choix.
“Venez, enfants du ciel, orphelins de la terre !
II est encore pour vous un asile ici-bas.
Mes tresors sont caches, ma joie est un mystere ;
Le vulgaire 1 admire et ne le comprend pas.”
LAMARTINE.
CHAPTER VI
ST. BASIL AND EASTERN MONASTICISM
WHEN we understand that the ruling motive
of early monasticism was a desire to escape
the pollution of the worldly life which was becoming
the normal life of Christians, we realise that the
centre of interest in monastic history lies in the
development of its attitude towards the Church. In
Egypt there were present in the early monasteries
and lauras all the elements which would naturally
result in a schism or a series of schisms. Actual
strife, however, between the ascetics and the clergy
was averted, and owing chiefly to the peculiar
history of the Egyptian Church, the monks became
the most devoted and enthusiastic supporters of the
Alexandrian patriarch. In the East the relations
between the monks and the clergy followed what
we must conceive to have been the more natural
line of development. There are not wanting signs
that the ascetics were distrusted, and, indeed, cor
dially detested by the ordinary members of the
Church. We must not be deceived by the fact that
great Church teachers like St. Basil, Theodoret, and
171
i;2 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
Epiphanius were sincere admirers of the monastic
spirit. The rank and file of the Church thought
differently. We get glimpses of the ordinary lay
contempt for the monks here and there among the
biographies in Theodoret s Historia Religiosa, and in
several of the epistles of St. Basil. Even a judicial
assembly of bishops like that at Gangra cannot alto
gether disguise its prejudice against the monkish
life. No doubt these feelings were, to a large degree,
justified. The spirit of competition 1 in austerities
which prevailed amongst the monks, and led to the
most grotesque excesses, must always have seemed
to sensible men, what it seems to most men to-day,
ridiculous and contemptible. It was the spirit of
the Egyptian ascetics and underlay the whole system
of the Pachomian monasteries, but in Egypt it
never produced the results that it did in Syria and
Mesopotamia. We have stories 2 of forms of self-
torture, which are both disgusting and degrading.
They culminate in the extraordinary tales we read
of the great Stylite, St. Simeon. 3 The monkish
historians pit their heroes against each other. What
Moschus 4 tells us of the austerities of orthodox
monks is balanced by the tales of John of Ephesus
1 See Dom Cuthbert Butler s short but able study of Syrian monas-
ticism in his Prolegomena to the Laus. Hist.
2 Hist. Relig. t 10, 15, 23, 28 ; Hist. Laus., 108.
3 Vita in Rosweyd, pp. 171 and ff.
4 See Zockler s interesting description of this competition in Askese
u. Monchtum, pp. 275 and ff.
EASTERN MONASTICISM 173
about the Monophosytes ; and Thomas of Marga is
not outdone by either when he recounts the per
formances of his Nestorians. The monks competed
against each other individually, and their achieve
ments were boasted of by the adherents of the
various parties into which the later Christological
controversies rent the Church.
Very commonly, as we gather from St. Jerome s
account of Eastern monasticism, this prejudice 1
against the monks found expression in an accusa
tion of schismatic tendencies. St. Jerome himself
was accused of schism. He earnestly and success
fully rebuts the charge, and declares his loyalty to
orthodox bishops. 2 In his case the accusation was
entirely unfounded, but it certainly could be made
with considerable justice against many other leaders
of the ascetics. The solitary life of the hermit tends
to develop eccentricities of conduct and a disregard
of custom and law. In Egypt the hermit life
gradually gave way to the organisation of monas
teries and lauras. In the East it continued to be
regarded as the highest and most complete form of
monasticism. Community life was frequently re
garded merely as a period of preparation, through
which the novice passed before he ventured to be
come a hermit. The recognised leader of a band of
1 Ep. Ixxxii.
2 Against John of Jerm., pp. 42 and ff. (transl. in library of Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers), and Ep. Ixxxii.
174 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
monks who lived in community was often a hermit,
who lived a considerable distance away from his
disciples. They regarded his mode of life as higher
than theirs, and only refrained from entering upon
it because they doubted their own powers of endur
ance. It is only natural, therefore, that in the East
eccentricity should be common among the monks.
But eccentricity in religion is very nearly related to
both heresy and schism. We read, for instance, of
a certain old solitary named Abraham, 1 a man of
many virtues, and with all an old man s wisdom,
who was only with great difficulty persuaded by
another hermit to conform to the rules of the
Church. Sometimes whole bodies of monks became
so eccentric in their conduct that we can very easily
understand their being regarded as in reality schis
matics. For instance, the Boskoi, 2 or shepherds, a
Mesopotamian group of nine monks, refused to eat
cooked or even cultivated food, lived without cells
or shelter of any kind, wandered about the country
singing psalms and praying. They carried sickles
with which to cut the grass which formed their only
food. Another instance of a monasticism which
verged upon schism is afforded by the Remoboth,
whom Jerome describes. 3 These are the same as
Cassian s Sarabaitae ; but whereas they were com
paratively rare in Egypt, in Syria and the East
generally they were very common ” almost the only
1 Hist. Relig., iii., sub fin. 3 Soz., H.E. y vi. 33. 8 Ep. xxii. 35.
EASTERN MONASTICISM 175
kind of monks,” St. Jerome says. These Remoboth
submitted to no authority of any kind, either eccle
siastical or monastic. They had no fixed dwelling-
places, or settled rules of fasting, or other discipline.
They wandered in small groups about the country,
and made a living by the sale of their work. It is
very easy to realise that such a mode of life exposed
them to frequent temptations. Some of them, for
instance, traded upon their reputation for sanctity,
and sold their, goods for such prices as enabled them
to become rich. Others, after long periods of severe
repression, broke out into almost unbridled sensual
indulgence. They studied effect in their dress and
demeanour, and earned a cheap reputation for
sanctity by sneering at the lives of the clergy.
Probably actually schismatic, or at all events very
nearly so, were the Valesians who dwelt on the east
side of the Jordan, and were especially violent and
bitter in their sexual asceticism.
The Audiani 1 are distinctly a sect separated from
and in opposition to the Church. Their founder,
Audius, was a man renowned throughout Mesopo
tamia for the blamelessness of his life, the sincerity
of his faith, and his zeal for righteousness. Although
only a layman, he rebuked the clergy and even the
bishops for their worldliness, luxury, and love of
money. His attitude gradually became quite in
tolerable, and he was excommunicated. The strict
1 Epiph. , Contra Haer. , 70.
1 76 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
integrity of his life and his asceticism had won him
many friends, both among the laity and the clergy.
He found himself the leader of a considerable sect,
and was recognised as their bishop. His sect after
wards lapsed into heresy, but Audius himself found
a fitting close to a life of strenuous effort after
righteousness in martyrdom while engaged in mis
sionary work among the Goths. The Aerians were
a somewhat similar sect, who were connected with
the followers of Eustathius in Armenia ; but prob
ably dogmatic differences had as much to do with
their separation from the Church as asceticism.
Southern Asia Minor 1 gave birth to the sect of the
Euchites, or Prayers called also in Aramaic the
Messalians. They were strictly ascetic in their lives,
but pushed their view of life to the extreme of
regarding matter and God s creation as inherently
and necessarily evil. Theodoret accuses them of
having learnt their doctrines from the Manichaeans.
The history of these sects is obscure and of very
little importance, except in so far as it shows the
general tendency of those who accepted the ascetic
ideal of life to split off from the Church, and the
readiness of the Church to get rid of such reformers
of morals. I think that Asia Minor and Syria afford
truer types than Egypt of the normal development
of the relationship between the early monks and the
Church.
1 Epiph., as above, Ixxx. ; Theodoret, H.E.. iv. II.
EASTERN MONASTICISM 177
The further history of the relations of the monks
to the Church in the East may best be traced in the
northern part of Asia Minor, where the influence of
St. Basil the Great was most powerful.
Monasticism was introduced into the regions of
Armenia and Cappadocia by Eustathius of Sebaste. 1
This remarkable and interesting man was the son of
a Bishop Eulalius. 2 He was educated in Egypt, and
was a pupil of the great heresiarch Arius. 3 It is
difficult to understand his career and his form of
faith. Amid the war of creeds of various shades,
which marks the second part of the struggle against
Arianism, Eustathius appears to have played a very
unworthy part. He signed the creeds of all parties
with an apparent indifference to their contents. 4 If
he was no pillar of orthodoxy, he was certainly an
unsatisfactory ally from the point of view of a
sincere Arian. It seems probable that he had no
very great interest in the finer shades of dogmatic
questions. His Egyptian education had not filled
him with an uncompromising enthusiasm for any
special form of belief. What he did learn in Egypt
1 The article on Eustathius of Sebaste, in the third edition of the
P. R. . t by Loofs, is worthy of careful study.
2 Socr., H.E., ii. 43, i.
3 St. Basil, Ep. 263.
4 St. Basil (Ep. 224-9) relates that he signed the creeds put forth at
Ancyra (358 A.D.), in which the bfj.oioTjyt.ov was accepted ; at Seleucia
(359 A.D.), which supported the creed of Antioch (341) ; at Constanti
nople (360), which was Acacian ; at Lampsacus (364), which was Semi-
arian ; at Nike, in Thrace, which was the creed of Ariminum.
i8o CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
erroneous practices we do not know. To a large
extent they were probably unauthorised exaggera
tions of his teaching made by a fanatical section of
his disciples. It is noticeable that Eustathius him
self was not anathematised by the Council. Fifteen
or sixteen years afterwards we find him Bishop of
Sebaste, so we may conclude either that he had
never himself approved of the extravagances of his
disciples, or that he had submitted to the decrees of
the Council. On the general question of the ascetic
life the bishops l speak with no very clear or definite
voice. They hesitate between recognising asceticism
as a higher form of Christian life and regarding it as
an amiable eccentricity, permissible, but requiring
careful watching and regulation.
If the Constitution s Asceticae, usually bound up
with the writings of St. Basil, are, as has been sur
mised, the work of Eustathius of Sebaste, 2 we are in
a position to form a fair estimate of what his ascetic
teaching was. He was wanting in sympathy, narrow
in his conception of the Christian life, uncharitable
and bitter in his estimate of ways which diverged
from his own. In a word, his spirit was Puritan rather
than Catholic. At the same time, he was sincere, un
selfish, and zealous for righteousness.
It was no doubt because of his sincerity and self-
denial that he became the friend of St. Basil the
1 Gangra, Can. xxi.
J Gamier in Pref. to Bened, edition ; so also Zockler.
EASTERN MONASTICISM 181
Great We know that after leaving the University
of Athens, St. Basil travelled in Syria and Egypt, 1
and became acquainted with the manner of life of
the monks. He learnt to regard the fascination of
expiring Paganism, which captivated the soul of
Julian, as a “syren voice,” 2 and to regard the
” crucifixions ” of the monks as a diviner way than
that of Hermes and Aphrodite. It is impossible to
describe the condition of St. Basil s mind at this
period better than in his own words: 3 “I admired the
continence of the monks in living and their en
durance in toil. I was amazed at their persistency
in prayer, and at their triumphing over sleep ; sub
dued by no natural necessity, ever keeping their
soul s purpose high and free, in hunger, in thirst, in
cold, in nakedness, they never yielded to the body ;
they were never willing to waste attention on it ;
always, as though living in a flesh that was not
theirs, they showed in very deed what it is to sojourn
for a while in this life and what to have one s
citizenship and home in heaven. All this moved
my admiration. I called these men s lives blessed,
in that they did indeed show that they bear about
in their body the dying of Jesus. And I prayed
that I, too, so far as in me lay, might imitate them.”
With such an ideal before him, St. Basil returned
1 Epp. i and 223. 2 Ep. i.
3 Read the whole of Ep. 223, in order to appreciate St. Basil s
feelings.
1 82 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
to Cappadocia. He found that Eustathius and his
disciples were already living the wonderful life which
he had learnt to admire. He sought the friendship
of Eustathius. Many of his friends tried to draw
him away from so dangerous a teacher. No doubt
it seemed a pity that so brilliant a young man as St.
Basil should have his life spoiled by the fanatical
ways of the monks. But St. Basil remained firm.
He became an eager supporter of the Eustathian
ascetics, ” because of the extraordinary excellence of
their lives.” 1 His friendship with Eustathius himself
was very close. They spent days and nights together
conversing on spiritual things in St. Basil s retreat at
Pontus. 2 Eustathius was introduced into St. Basil s
family circle. 3 They took journeys together to visit
famous bishops. 4 The friendship lasted for twenty-
five years, during which St. Basil professed himself
satisfied with his friend s orthodoxy and steadily
defended him against attacks. Then there came a
sudden breach. Into the cause and the rights of the
quarrel it is not necessary to enter. We have no
opportunity of seeing the matter from the standpoint
of Eustathius, and it is impossible to form a fair
judgment. The effect of it was to turn all St. Basil s
affection into bitterness. He is no longer able to see
any good at all in Eustathius. What seemed to be
religion he now recognises to be only hypocrisy. 5
1 Ep. 223. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid,
5 St. Basil, Epp. 144 and 163.
EASTERN MONASTICISM 183
Modern historians have universally accepted St.
Basil s final estimate of the character of Eustathius
as the just one. Yet I think we may well pause
before doing so. Is it not quite in accordance with
the character of St. Basil to conclude that because his
friend deceived him once, or seemed to deceive him,
that therefore his friend s whole life must have been
a lie? Is it likely that St. Basil could have been
deceived for twenty-five years about the character of
a man with whom he was very intimate ? “I am
convinced from the whole character of Eustathius that
he cannot be lightly turning from one direction to
another ; that a man shunning a lie even in any little
matter as an awful sin is not likely to run counter to
the truth.” 1 This is St. Basil s earlier judgment,
based upon his personal knowledge of his friend s
character. Is it not on the whole likely to be nearer
the truth than the later one expressed in the heated
invective of theological strife ?
It is with a dishonoured name that Eustathius
passes down the pages of history. His work is for
gotten. His writings are lost or given to St. Basil.
It is not he but St. Basil who is recognised as the
great patriarch of Greek monasticism. Yet there is
no doubt that Eustathius exercised a great influence
over St. Basil. A number of ascetic writings have
been attributed to St. Basil, some of which are
1 Ep. 99, written in the year 372.
1 84 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
certainly not his and others perhaps not entirely his.
If Eustathius, as seems likely, was the author of
some of these works, then his teaching must have
very early been confused with that of St. Basil. The
famous hospitium at Caesarea, where monks ministered
to the wants of the indigent and sick, was an imita
tion of an earlier institution founded by Eustathius
at Sebaste.
St. Basil was, however, a far greater man than
Eustathius. He grasped the problem 1 with which
the early enthusiasm of the monks confronted the
Church, and accomplished the task of finding a
place for monasticism within the circle of the
Church s organisation. The Church in Asia Minor
in St. Basil s time was in danger of losing all
purely spiritual enthusiasm, and of becoming a
mere political organisation, or at best a home for
sober and settled morality and piety. St. Basil
saved her from fencing off for herself a paddock
of religion inspired by nothing more lofty than
common sense. He taught her that Christianity,
V if it is to be true to the ideas of the apostolic
Church, must be a religion of enthusiasm and of
far-reaching self-denial. The monks, on the other
hand, were in danger of rushing into unbridled
extravagances. He saved them from becoming a
1 Dr. A. Kranisch has made a very able study of St. Basil s ascetic
teaching in his Die Ascetik in ihrer dogmatischen Grundlage bei
Basilius dem Grossen,
EASTERN MONASTICISM 185
conglomerate of sects, at war with each other, and
unanimously contemptuous of the Church.
It seems that St. Basil s work ought to have a
very real interest for us. The problem of our
English Christianity has been for three centuries
very nearly the same as that of the Cappadocian
Church in the fourth century. Our Church, too,
has been confronted with unregulated enthusiasms
which could not and would not be satisfied with the
common expression of a nation s Christianity. The
English Church has been signally successful in
fostering the quiet piety of home and family, in
blending what is sweet and beautiful in common
life with peaceful reverence for Christ. As a
national Church she has failed to produce great
warrior saints. She has shrunk back timidly from
enthusiastic men who threatened to break away
from the bounds of sobriety, and has stood fas
tidiously aloof from the eccentricities which are
almost inevitably associated with religious genius.
Thus time after time she has suffered earnest men
to spend their energies outside her communion.
She lost the Quakers in the seventeenth century,
the Methodists in the eighteenth, the Plymouth
Brethren and Salvation Army in the nineteenth
century. These should all have been, not sects
outside, but orders within the Church. The fault
has been ours and theirs. Ours because we dis
trusted enthusiasm and dreaded new ways. Theirs
1 86 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
because they suffered themselves to become con
temptuous and bitter. It is the misfortune of the
whole nation that we have never had a Basil.
It is, therefore, with something more than merely
academic interest that we approach the subject of
St. Basil s work for monasticism, and how he per
formed it.
In the first place, it is misleading to speak of St.
Basil as the author of a monastic rule. St. Basil
did not compose a rule in the sense in which St.
Benedict did. His ascetic writings are treatises, ser
mons, catechisms, but not rules. The Regula Fusius
Tractatae and the Regula Brevius Tractatae, which,
of all his writings, bear the closest resemblance to
rules, are really devotional catechisms. They are
applicable chiefly to those who have embraced the
monastic life, but are also useful in part to those
who, under any circumstances, are trying to be
followers of Christ. The form in which these two
works are cast itself forbids their being considered
as, strictly speaking, rules. They are catechisms,
series of questions and answers, and not definite
laws. There is a spirit running through them diffi
cult to express, but easily felt by a sympathetic
reader, which differentiates them from a regular
rule like the Benedictine. If no monastery any
longer existed, it would be possible, with the rule
of St. Benedict as a guide, to reconstruct a society
like that of Monte Cassino. It would be. impos-*
EASTERN MONASTICISM 187
sible from the writings of St. Basil to create a
working organisation where none existed. On the
other hand, granted a Christian society of any kind,
a sincere effort to appreciate the meaning of St.
Basil s ascetic teaching would result certainly in a
greatly deepened spirituality, and a sympathy with
the ascetic ideal in whatever form it might express
./ itself. St. Benedict is a legislator. St. Basil a
spiritual director. St. Benedict aims at the crea
tion of a home, a perfectly suitable environment,
for the Christian life. St. Basil strives rather to
awaken desire for the evangelic perfection, and to
point out the dangers which await the traveller
along the narrow way.
There is, therefore, what at first sight strikes us
as a certain vagueness and indefiniteness about even
St. Basil s Regula Fusius and Regula Brevius Trac-
tatae. For instance, the thirteenth question of the
Reg. Fus. Tract, deals with the discipline of silence.
Here is a practice suitable, indeed possible, only for
those who live monastic lives. Shortly 1 afterwards,
in the same treatise, we have a question and answer
dealing with the virtue of temperance. 2 St. Basil
explains temperance to consist not merely of fasting,
watching, and chastity. It includes labour, a limita
tion of the freedom of the tongue, setting bounds to
the ranging of the eyes, and controlling the hearing
of the ears. This complete self-conquest is certainly
1 Jnterrog. xvi. 2 rb
i88 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
more easily practised, is more possible, for the monk,
but it is not the less an ideal to be striven for by
Christians in the world. Again, another question 1
and answer treat of the spirit which ought to animate
work. Here his teaching is as completely applicable
to the Christian merchant in a great city as to the
monk who ploughs a lonely field. Thus all through
these two catechisms we have sometimes advice
which is applicable only to a monk in his cloister,
sometimes a discussion of a virtue attainable best
in a monastery, but to be aimed at by all, and some
times the setting forth of a necessary fundamental
principle of all Christian life. And this, which is
true even of these two works, which resemble most
nearly a regular monastic rule, is much more obvious
in St. Basil s other ascetic writings. He refuses to
draw a hard-and-fast line between monks and other
Christians. He teaches that all Christian life must
be ascetic. There is a question of the degree of its
asceticism between the life of a monk and that of
a married man. There is no question that both lives
are lived on the same principle. “God,” he says, 2
” has permitted men to live in one of two ways, either
as married or as monks. But it must not be sup
posed that those who are married are therefore free
to embrace the world. The evangelic renunciation
is their ideal, too, for the Lord s words were spoken
1 Interrog. xlii.
2 De renun, Saecl. , i. and ii.
EASTERN MONASTICISM 189
to those who were in the world as well as to the
apostles. What I say unto you I say unto all. “
It seems, then, that one great aim of St. Basil s
ascetic teaching was to connect the monastic life
with that of ordinary Christians, and to place both
alike beside the great standard of the evangelic
teaching. He spoke to those members of the
Church who viewed monasticism and its enthusiasm
with dislike and distrust. He showed them that in
the deadening of all enthusiasm, in the easy accept
ance of the world s standard of life, there lurks a
danger as real as the danger of monkish fanaticism.
He spoke to the monks, showing them that their
way was no new kind of Christian life, no special
and exclusive expression of the gospel spirit, but
only a faithful following out of common principles.
“This,” he says, “is the goal of Christianity, the
imitation of Christ in the measure of His humanity
as far as the vocation of each man permits.” 1
Another great note of St. Basil s ascetic writings
is the connection which he establishes between the
asceticism, culminating in monasticism, of the Chris
tian life and the great truths of the Christian creed.
Monks, up to the time of St. Basil, had lived in
stinctively great lives, and had held unquestioningly
the fundamental doctrines of the, creed. St. Basil
reasons out a connection between the two. Starting
from the belief in God as man s creator, 2 he shows
1 Reg. Fus. Tract., xliii. – Hexaem., i. 2.
190 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
that the renunciation of the monk is really an act
of self-dedication to Him to whom already man
belongs. ” I do nothing,” he says, 1 ” when I give
myself to Thee. I give Thee only what is thine.”
Starting from the belief in the ultimate judgment 2
of the world, he writes, 3 ” Discipline all the lusts of
the flesh, and keep the thought of God ever built
up in your soul, as in a very holy temple. In every
deed and word hold before your eyes the judgment
of Christ, so that every individual action may bring
you glory in that day of retribution.” He speaks
of the Christian life as an ascetic warfare, a continual
military service against the world and the flesh. 4
It is laid upon humanity as a direct consequence
of the fall. Thus asceticism is brought into intimate
connection with the doctrines of redemption and
of grace.
This, it seems to me, is the most important work
which St. Basil accomplished for monasticism. He
wrought its ideal into the fabric of the Church s
dogmatic thought. He showed it to be the ideal
life of a religion which taught as Christianity teaches
about God and judgment, grace and fall, sin and
redemption. From his time until the Protestant
Reformation monasticism occupied the position in
which St. Basil placed it. His work never needed
1 In Psalm cxv. 5″.
2 Procemium and De Judicio. ;J Ep. 146.
4 E.g. in De renun. Saecl.^ iL
EASTERN MONASTICISM 191
to be done again. Other minds occupied themselves
with the best means of leading the ascetic life, with
the limits and possibilities of renunciation. Rules
were composed, reformed, improved ; but, until the
sixteenth century, men on every side were agreed
that monasticism was an integral part of the Church s
life, the highest expression of the Christian spirit.
Unless a man denied the doctrine of the fall, and
the double need for God s grace and human co
operation in elevating man from his state of sin,
it did not seem possible to conceive of the monastic
life as a mighty error, or even a dangerous eccen
tricity.
Thus St. Basil met the problem which faced the
Cappadocian Church in his day. He taught the
monks to venerate the Church as the guardian of
those truths which gave its meaning and purpose
to their life. He taught the Church to honour the
monks as men who followed to its practical issues
the teaching of the creed.
Of less importance, and yet not altogether to be
neglected, are the suggestions which St. Basil makes
for the guidance of those who have embraced the
monastic life. Their general tendency is in the
direction of subordinating the individual to the
community. For instance, he decidedly prefers
the ccenobitic to the hermit life. The fact of this
preference is itself sufficiently remarkable in the
East, although in this St. Basil breaks no new
192 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
ground, but follows the example of St. Pachomius.
Very much more remarkable are the grounds on
which he bases his preference. ” In the solitary
life,” he says, 1 “the gifts we have from God are
useless, and the gifts we lack cannot be supplied.
There are duties which cannot be performed by the
solitary hermit; for example, the visitation of the
sick, and generally all the works of charity. How
can we be all members of one body, as we are called,
unless we are united and joined to one another?
How, if we are all separated one from another, can
we render due obedience to Him who is the head of
the body, even Christ? How can we rejoice with
him who rejoices, and weep with him who is in
trouble, when no man knows the condition of his
neighbour ? The Lord Himself, out of the greatness
of His benignity, did not rest content with the words
of precepts, but expressly gave us an example of
humility, for He girded Himself and washed His
disciples feet. Whose feet will you wash? To
whom will you be a servant ? Compared with whom
will you be last of all if you remain a solitary ? “
These arguments are exceedingly important, not only
as establishing the superiority of the ccenobitic life
over the solitary, but as a reassertion, in the face of
the individualistic tendency of early monasticism,
of the great principle of the community of Chris
tians with each other. In other words, they assert
1 Reg, Fus. Tract.) vii. Cf. Reg. Brev. Tract., 74.
EASTERN MONASTICISM 193
the necessity for a Church. Necessarily in due time
the principle which St. Basil here enunciates was
pushed to its conclusion, and the monks came to
think of themselves as having not only a duty of
mutual help, but a communion also with the great
Church outside the monastery ; a duty to perform to
her, gifts and graces to receive from her. This idea
was present to St. Basil s own mind when he wrote,
“Those to whom there has been much entrusted
ought to move those who are weaker to the imita
tion of their lives, as the apostle, the blessed Paul,
says, Be ye imitators of me as I am also of Christ. “
In connection with his preference for the ccenobitic
life must be placed St. Basil s insistence on a life of
labour for the monks. 1 From the days of St. Antony
the monks had been taught to work, but they worked
mainly as a remedy against accidie and sloth.
St. Basil taught that labour should be in itself
useful, and directed to some practical purpose.
His monks are to be useful citizens, playing their
part in the economy of the State.
The spirit 2 in which he treats fasting is similar.
Great fasts are not to be undertaken in a spirit of
bravado. The practice is to be kept within such
limits as will not injure the bodily health or spiritual
activity.
Of the relation of monks to bishops and the
1 Ep. ii. ; Reg. Fus. Tract., 37.
2 Reg. Fus. Tract., 18-20 ; Reg. Brev. Tract. , 128-33.
O
194 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
Church clergy in general, St. Basil says nothing
directly. He wished, however, to have monasteries
placed near cities, partly, no doubt, that the monks
might find greater opportunities of influence, but
chiefly in order that they might come well within the
sphere of episcopal influence.
St. Basil s teaching and ideals affected Eastern
monasticism only very gradually. At first the
Basilian conception of the life was confined to
Cappadocia and the neighbouring regions. Sozo-
men 1 notes that the Cappadocian monks differed
from those of Palestine and Syria in their prefer
ence for monasteries in the neighbourhood of
cities. He explains that this was owing to the
severity of their climate. In reality it was the result
of St. Basil s teaching, which had not as yet pene
trated beyond the district of his diocese.
The general acceptance of his ideal of monasticism
throughout the Greek Church was partly the result
of a recognition of its superiority, which led monks
to adopt it voluntarily. Partly it was the conse
quence of direct ecclesiastical and civil legislation.
In the sixth century we read 2 of three men,
Euthymius, Sabbas, and Theodosius, who may be
1 H.E., vi. 34.
2 Some of what remains of this chapter is based on the opening
sections of Ph. Meyer s Geschichte der Athoskloster. I have not had
opportunity of studying all the authorities he quotes, but I am the more
content to follow him, as I observe that his work has been used in the
same way by so painstaking and careful a writer as Zockler (Askese u.
Monchtum, pp. 292 and ff.).
EASTERN MONASTICISM 195
regarded as missionaries of Basilian monasticism
among the anchorites of Palestine and Syria.
Hitherto, outside of Cappadocia, the hermit life
had continued to be not only the highest, but almost
the only type of monastic life. Theodosius aimed
at the formation of regular monasteries, Euthymius
and his disciple Sabbas at gathering the hermits into
some kind of lauras. Sabbas, indeed, conceived of
communities for those who were well advanced in the
ascetic life, but he still retained the idea that the
highest and most perfect life was that of the anchorite
or Kelliote. Thus he is represented by his biographer
as saying to Theodosius, ” You, father, are a leader
of boys, but I am a leader of leaders, for each of
those with me, being independent, is master of his
own cell.”
The Basilian ideal of monasticism became really
influential throughout the East after a process of
legislation. Four canons of the Council of Chalcedon
are directed against irregular and independent forms
of monasticism. It is ordered (Canon 4) that no
monastery should be anywhere built or founded
without the consent of the bishop of the city ; that
the monks in each monastery should be subject to
the bishop ; that they embrace a life of tranquillity,
neither troubling nor meddling with ecclesiastical or
secular affairs. In Canon 8 the tradition of the
holy fathers, by whom I understand St. Basil
especially to be meant, is referred to in support of
196 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
the direction that the clergy of almshouses and
monasteries are to be subject to the power of the
bishops. These clergy were evidently ordained
monks. Canon 23 is directed against monks, either
lay or clerical, who set at naught the authority of
their bishops, and “excite commotions,” especially
in Constantinople. Canon 24 aims at preserving
for their original religious purposes the buildings of
monastic communities.
Other councils, such, for instance, as Agde and the
Trullian Council, legislated in the same spirit, com
pleting a series of enactments which tended to limit
the freedom of the monks and place them more and
more in a position of dependence on the bishops.
The same thing was undertaken by the civil power
in the Justinian Code. It may even be said that
Justinian shared with St. Basil the honour of having
given shape to Greek monasticism. St. Basil con
ceived the idea of a community life in close con
nection with, and subordination to, the Church.
Justinian s legislation realised the idea and led to its
being generally practised in the Church. The legis
lation of the Justinian Code follows closely the
canons of Chalcedon in subordinating the monks to
the bishops. No monastery is to be founded unless
the bishop of the diocese in which it is to be built
has given his consent and formally taken it under his
protection by the ceremony of Stauropegia. 1 The
1 Nov., v. 3.
EASTERN MONASTICISM 197
community life is established as the only recognised
form of monasticism. Each monastery is to consist
of a sufficient number of buildings to accommodate
all the monks. They are to sleep and eat within the
walls of the monastery. Only the aged and the
sick are to be allowed to dwell apart from the com
munity. Where there are monks who have a voca
tion for the solitary life (Hesychastae) they are to
have their own cells within the monastery, and live
in solitude in the midst of their brethren. 1 The
number of such solitaries is to be strictly limited. 2
Abbots and priors are to be elected either by the
whole body of the monks or by some of the
worthiest. 3 The bishops are to have a voice in such
elections. The services of the Church are to be
performed by some of the older monks who have
been ordained. 4 On entering a monastery a monk
resigns to the community all his property except in
cases where wife or children are left behind in the
world. They have a claim upon a share of the re-
nunciant s property. 5 Once a monk is received into
a monastery, he is forbidden to return to secular
life. 6
The enactments of the Justinian Code form a
legislative expression of the Basilian idea of monasti
cism. The monks were given a recognised position
within or rather beside the Church. It was not
1 Nov., cxxiii. 36. 2 Ibid., cxxxiii. 3 Ibid., cxxiii. 34.
4 Ibid., cxxxiii. 2. 5 Ibid., v. 5. 6 Ibid., cxxiii. 32.
198 CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM
practically different from the position of the Western
monks. It was, however, forced upon the monks
from outside by the power of Church and State
working together. Thus while Greek monasticism
was made to conform to the model suggested by the
teaching of St. Basil, it was deprived of the oppor
tunity for free and spontaneous development.
At the end of the eighth century, for the first
time, Greek monasticism produced for itself a rule
which resembles the Western rules, and which had
a history comparable to that of the rule of St.
Benedict. The Studite monastery in Constantinople
occupied during the eighth century a leading posi
tion in the East. The Empress Irene appointed
Theodore to be its abbot. He set himself to realise,
down to the minutest details, the conception of a
community life. The organisation which he imposed
upon his monks was more complete and detailed
even than the Benedictine. In his ” Testament ” he
left a monastic rule which was copied and reproduced
everywhere in the Greek Church. It forms the basis
of the rule which Athanasius wrote for the monks
of Athos. It was introduced by various Eastern
bishops into their dioceses. It became the normal
rule of Russian monasticism after its introduction by
Theodosius into the monastery of Kiew.
fynm 