Monasticism or monachism, literally the act of "dwelling alone" (Greek
monos, monazein, monachos), has come to denote the
mode of life pertaining to persons living in seclusion from the world,
under religious vows and subject to a fixed rule, as monks, friars,
nuns, or in general as religious. The basic idea of monasticism in all
its varieties is seclusion or withdrawal from the world or society. The
object of this is to achieve a life whose ideal is different from and
largely at variance with that pursued by the majority of mankind; and
the method adopted, no matter what its precise details may be, is always
self-abnegation or organized asceticism. Taken in this broad sense
monachism may be found in every religious system which has attained to a
high degree of ethical development, such as Brahmin, Buddhist, Jewish,
Christian, and Moslem religions, and even in the system of those modern
communistic societies, often anti-theological in theory, which are a
special feature of recent social development especially in America.
Hence it is claimed that a form of life which flourishes in environments
so diverse must be the expression of a principle inherent in human
nature and rooted therein no less deeply than the principle of
domesticity, though obviously limited to a far smaller portion of
mankind.
ITS GROWTH AND METHOD
(1) Origin
Any discussion of pre-Christian asceticism is outside the scope of
this article. So too, any question of Jewish asceticism as exemplified
in the Essenes or Therapeutae of Philo's "De Vita Contemplativa" is
excluded.
It has already been pointed out that the monastic ideal is an ascetic
one, but it would be wrong to say that the earliest Christian asceticism
was monastic. Any such thing was rendered impossible by the
circumstances in which the early Christians were placed, for in the
first century or so of the Church's existence the idea of living apart
from the congregation of the faithful, or of forming within it
associations to practise special renunciations in common was out of the
question. While admitting this, however, it is equally certain that
monasticism, when it came, was little more than a precipitation of ideas
previously in solution among Christians. For asceticism is the struggle
against worldly principles, even with such as are merely worldly without
being sinful. The world desires and honours wealth, so the ascetic loves
and honours poverty. If he must have something in the nature of property
then he and his fellows shall hold it in common, just because the world
respects and safeguards private ownership. In like manner he practises
fasting and virginity that thereby he may repudiate the licence of the
world.
Hereafter the various items of this renunciation will be dealt with
in detail, they are mentioned at this time merely to show how the
monastic ideal was foreshadowed in the asceticism of the Gospel and its
first followers. Such passages as I John, ii, 15-17: "Love not the
world, nor the things that are in the world. If any man love the world,
the charity of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world is
the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and
the pride of life, which is not of the father but is of the world. And
the world passeth away and the concupiscence thereof. But he that doeth
the will of God abideth forever" - passages which might be multiplied,
and can bear but one meaning if taken literally. And this is precisely
what the early ascetics did. We read of some who, driven by the spirit
of God, dedicated their energies to the spread of the Gospel and, giving
up all their possessions passed from city to city in voluntary poverty
as apostles and evangelists. Of others we hear that they renounced
property and marriage so as to devote their lives to the poor and needy
of their particular church. If these were not strictly speaking monks
and nuns, at least the monks and nuns were such as these; and, when the
monastic life took definite shape in the fourth century, these
forerunners were naturally looked up to as the first exponents of
monachism. For the truth is that the Christian ideal is frankly an
ascetic one and monachism is simply the endeavour to effect a material
realization of that ideal, or organization in accordance with it, when
taken literally as regards its "Counsels" as well as its "Precepts".
Besides a desire of observing the evangelical counsels, and a horror
of the vice and disorder that prevailed in a pagan age, two contributory
causes in particular are often indicated as leading to a renunciation of
the world among the early Christians. The first of these was the
expectation of an immediate Second Advent of Christ (cf. I Cor., vii,
29-31; I Pet., IV,7,etc.) That this belief was widespread is admitted on
all hands, and obviously it would afford a strong motive for
renunciation since a man who expects this present order of things to end
at any moment, will lose keen interest in many matters commonly held to
be important. This belief however had ceased to be of any great
influence by the fourth century, so that it cannot be regarded as a
determining factor in the origin of monasticism which then took visible
shape. A second cause more operative in leading men to renounce the
world was the vividness of their belief in evil spirits. The first
Christians saw the kingdom of Satan actually realized in the political
and social life of heathendom around them. In their eyes the gods whose
temples shone in every city were simply devils, and to participate in
their rites was to join in devil worship. When Christianity first came
in touch with the Gentiles the Council of Jerusalem by its decree about
meat offered to idols (Acts, xv,20) made clear the line to be followed.
Consequently certain professions were practically closed to believers
since a soldier, schoolmaster, or state official of any kind might be
called upon at a moment's notice to participate in some act of state
religion. But the difficulty existed for private individuals also. There
were gods who presided over every moment of a man's life, gods of house
and garden, of food and drink, of health and sickness. To honour these
was idolatry, to ignore them would attract inquiry, and possibly
persecution. And so when, to men placed in this dilemma, St. John wrote,
"Keep yourselves from idols" (I John,v,21) he said in effect "Keep
yourselves from public life, from society, from politics, from
intercourse of any kind with the heathen", in short, "renounce the
world".
By certain writers the communitarian element seen in the Church of
Jerusalem during the years of its existence (Acts, iv, 32) has sometimes
been pointed to as indicating a monastic element in its constitution,
but no such conclusion is justified. Probably the community of goods was
simply a natural continuation of the practice, begun by Jesus and the
Apostles, where one of the band kept the common purse and acted as
steward. There is no indication that such a custom was ever instituted
elsewhere and even at Jerusalem it seems to have collapsed at an early
period. It must be recognized also that influences such as the above
were merely contributory and of comparatively small importance. The main
cause which begot monachism was simply the desire to fulfill Christ's
law literally, to imitate Him in all simplicity, following in His
footsteps whose "kingdom is not of this world". So we find monachism at
first instinctive, informal, unorganized, sporadic; the expression of
the same force working differently in different places, persons, and
circumstances; developing with the natural growth of a plant according
to the environment in which it finds itself and the character of the
individual listener who heard in his soul the call of "Follow Me".
(2) Means to the End
It must be clearly understood that, in the case of the monk,
asceticism is not an end in itself. For him, as for all men, the end of
life is to love God. Monastic asceticism then means the removal of
obstacles to loving God, and what these obstacles are is clear from the
nature of love itself. Love is the union of wills. If the creature is to
love God, he can do it in one way only; by sinking his own will in
God's, by doing the will of God in all things: "if ye love Me keep my
commandments". No one understands better than the monk those words of
the beloved disciple, "Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay
down his life", for in his case life has come to mean renunciation.
Broadly speaking this renunciation has three great branches
corresponding to the three evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity,
and obedience.
(a) Poverty
There are few subjects, if any, upon which more sayings of Jesus have
been preserved than upon the superiority of poverty over wealth in His
kingdom (cf. Matt. v, 3; xiii, 22; xix, 21 sq.; Mark x, 23 sq.; Luke vi,
20; xviii, 24 sq., etc.), and the fact of their preservation would
indicate that such words were frequently quoted and presumably
frequently acted upon. The argument based on such passages as Matt. xix,
21 sq., may be put briefly thus. If a man wish to attain eternal life it
is better for him to renounce his possessions than to retain them. Jesus
said, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of
God", the reason being no doubt that it is difficult to prevent the
affections from becoming attached to riches, and that such attachment
makes admission into Christ's kingdom impossible. As St. Augustine
points out, the disciples evidently understood Jesus to include all who
covet riches in the number of "the rich", otherwise, considering the
small number of the wealthy compared with the vast multitude of the
poor, they would not have asked, "Who then shall be saved"? "You cannot
serve God and Mammon" is an obvious truth to a man who knows by
experience the difficulty of a whole-hearted service of God; for the
spiritual and material good are in immediate antithesis , and where one
is the other cannot be. Man cannot sate his nature with the temporal and
yet retain an appetite for the eternal; and so, if he would live the
life of the spirit, he must flee the lust of the earth and keep his
heart detached from what is of its very nature unspiritual. The extent
to which this spiritual poverty is practised has varied greatly in the
monachism of different ages and lands. In Egypt the first teachers of
monks taught that the renunciation should be made as absolute as
possible. Abbot Agathon used to say, "Own nothing which it would grieve
you to give to another". St. Macarius once, on returning to his cell,
found a robber carrying off his scanty furniture. He thereupon pretended
to be a stranger, harnessed the robber's horse for him and helped him to
get his spoil away. Another monk had so stripped himself of all things
that he possessed nothing save a copy of the Gospels. After a while he
sold this also and gave the price away saying, "I have sold the very
book that bade me sell all I had".
As the monastic institute became more organized legislation appeared
in the various codes to regulate this point among others. That the
principle remained the same however is clear from the strong way in
which St. Benedict speaks of the matter while making special allowance
for the needs of the infirm, etc. (Reg. Ben., xxxiii). "Above everything
the vice of private ownership is to be cut off by the roots from the
monastery. Let no one presume either to give or to receive anything
without leave of the abbot, nor to keep anything as his own, neither
book, nor writing tablets, nor pen, nor anything whatsoever, since it is
unlawful for them to have their bodies or wills in their own power". The
principle here laid down, viz., that the monk's renunciation of private
property is absolute, remains as much in force today as in the dawn of
monasticism. No matter to what extent any individual monk may be allowed
the use of clothing, books, or even money, the ultimate proprietorship
in such things can never be permitted to him.
(b) Chastity
If the things to be given up be tested by the criterion of
difficulty, the renunciation of material possessions is clearly the
first and easiest step for man to take, as these things are external to
his nature. Next in difficulty will come the things that are united to
man's nature by a kind of necessary affinity. Hence in the ascending
order chastity is the second of the evangelical counsels, and as such it
is based upon the words of Jesus, "If any man come to me and hate not
his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters yea
and his own soul also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke, xiv, 26). It is
obvious that of all the ties that bind the human heart to this world the
possession of wife and children is the strongest. Moreover the
renunciation of the monk includes not only these but in accordance with
the strictest teaching of Jesus all sexual relations or emotion arising
therefrom. The monastic idea of chastity is a life like that of the
angels. Hence the phrases, "angelicus ordo", "angelica conversatio",
which have been adopted from Origen to describe the life of the monk, no
doubt in reference to Mark, xii, 25. It is primarily as a means to this
end that fasting takes so important a place in the monastic life. Among
the early Egyptian and Syrian monks in particular fasting was carried to
such lengths that some modern writers have been led to regard it almost
as an end in itself, instead of being merely a means and a subordinate
one at that. This error of course is confined to writers about
monasticism, it has never been countenanced by any monastic teacher.
(c) Obedience
"The first step in humility is obedience without delay. This benefits
those who count nothing dearer to them than Christ on account of the
holy service which they have undertaken...without doubt such as these
follow that thought of the Lord when He said, I came not to do my own
will but the will of Him that sent me" (Reg. Ben., v). Of all the steps
in the process of renunciation, the denial of a man's own will is
clearly the most difficult. At the same time it is the most essential of
all as Jesus said (Matt. xvi, 24), "If any man will come after me, let
him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me". The most
difficult because self-interest, self-protection, self-regard of all
kinds are absolutely a part of man's nature, so that to master such
instincts requires a supernatural strength. The most essential also
because by this means the monk achieves that perfect liberty which is
only to be found where is the Spirit of the Lord. It was Seneca who
wrote, "parere deo libertas est", and the pagan philosopher's dictum is
confirmed and testified on every page of the Gospel. In Egypt at the
dawn of monasticism the custom was for a young monk to put himself under
the guidance of a senior whom he obeyed in all things. Although the bond
between them was wholly voluntary the system seems to have worked
perfectly and the commands of the senior were obeyed without hesitation.
"Obedience is the mother of all virtues": "obedience is that which
openeth heaven and raiseth man from the earth": "obedience is the food
of all the saints, by her they are nourished, through her they come to
perfection": such sayings illustrate sufficiently the view held on this
point by the fathers of the desert. As the monastic life came to be
organized by rule, the insistence on obedience remained the same, but
its practice was legislated for. Thus St. Benedict at the very outset,
in the Prologue to his Rule, reminds the monk of the prime purpose of
his life, viz., "that thou mayest return by the labour of obedience to
Him from whom thou hast departed by the sloth of disobedience". Later he
devotes the whole of his fifth chapter to this subject and again, in
detailing the vows his monks must take, while poverty and chastity are
presumed as implicitly included, obedience is one of the three things
explicitly promised.
Indeed the saint even legislates for the circumstance of a monk being
ordered to do something impossible. "Let him seasonably and with
patience lay before his superior the reasons of his incapacity to obey,
without showing pride, resistance or contradiction. If, however, after
this the superior still persist in his command, let the younger know
that it is expedient for him, and let him obey the law of God trusting
in His assistance" (Reg. Ben. lxviii). Moreover "what is commanded is to
be done not fearfully, tardily, nor coldly, nor with murmuring, nor with
an answer showing unwillingness, for the obedience which is given to
superiors is given to God, since He Himself hath said, He that heareth
you heareth Me" (Reg. Ben. v). It is not hard to see why so much
emphasis is laid on this point. The object of monasticism is to love God
in the highest degree possible in this life. In true obedience the will
of the servant is one with that of his master and the union of wills is
love. Wherefore, that the obedience of the monk's will to that of God
may be as simple and direct as possible, St. Benedict writes (ch. ii)
"the abbot is considered to hold in the monastery the place of Christ
Himself, since he is called by His name". St. Thomas, in chapter xi of
his Opusculum "On the Perfection of the Spiritual Life", points out that
the three means of perfection, poverty, chastity, and obedience, belong
peculiarly to the religious state. For religion means the worship of God
alone, which consists in offering sacrifice, and of sacrifices the
holocaust is the most perfect. Consequently when a man dedicates to God
all that he has, all that he takes pleasure in, and all that he is, he
offers a holocaust; and this he does pre-eminently by the three
religious vows.
(3) The Different Kinds of Monks
It must be clearly understood that the monastic order properly
so-called differs from the friars, clerks regular, and other later
developments of the religious life in one fundamental point. The latter
have essentially some special work or aim, such as preaching, teaching,
liberating captives, etc., which occupies a large place in their
activities and to which many of the observances of the monastic life
have to give way. This is not so in the case of the monk. He lives a
special kind of life for the sake of the life and its consequences to
himself. In a later section we shall see that monks have actually
undertaken external labours of the most varied character, but in every
case this work is extrinsic to the essence of the monastic state.
Christian monasticism has varied greatly in its external forms, but,
broadly speaking, it has two main species (a) the eremitical or
solitary, (b) the cenobitical or family types. St. Anthony (q.v.) may be
called the founder of the first and St. Pachomius (q.v.) of the second.
(a) The Eremitical Type of Monasticism
This way of life took its rise among the monks who settled around St.
Anthony's mountain at Pispir and whom he organized and guided. In
consequence it prevailed chiefly in northern Egypt from Lycopolis (Asyut)
to the Mediterranean, but most of our information about it deals with
Nitria and Scete. Cassian (q.v.) and Palladius (q.v.) give us full
details of its working and from them we learn that the strictest hermits
lived out of earshot of each other and only met together for Divine
worship on Saturdays and Sundays, while others would meet daily and
recite their psalms and hymns together in little companies of three or
four. There was no Rule of Life among them but, as Palladius says, "they
have different practices, each as he is able and as he wishes". The
elders exercised an authority, but chiefly of a personal kind, their
position and influence being in proportion to their reputation for
greater wisdom. The monks would visit each other often and discourse,
several together, on Holy Scripture and on the spiritual life. General
conferences in which a large number took part were not uncommon.
Gradually the purely eremitical life tended to die out (Cassian,
"Conf.", xix) but a semi-eremitical form continued to be common for a
long period, and has never ceased entirely either in East or West where
the Carthusians and Camaldolese still practise it. It is needless here
to trace its developments in detail as all its varieties are dealt with
in special articles.
(b) The Cenobitical Type of Monasticism
This type began in Egypt at a somewhat later date than the eremitical
form. It was about the year 318 that St. Pachomius, still a young man,
founded his first monastery at Tabennisi near Denderah. The institute
spread with surprising rapidity, and by the date of St. Pachomius' death
(c. 345) it counted eight monasteries and several hundred monks. Most
remarkable of all is the fact that it immediately took shape as a fully
organized congregation or order, with a superior general, a system of
visitations and general chapters, and all the machinery of a centralized
government such as does not again appear in the monastic world until the
rise of the Cistercians and Mendicant Orders some eight or nine
centuries later. As regards internal organization the Pachomian
monasteries had nothing of the family ideal. The numbers were too great
for this and everything was done on a military or barrack system. In
each monastery there were numerous separate houses, each with its own
praepositus, cellarer, and other officials, the monks being grouped in
these according to the particular trade they followed. Thus the fullers
were gathered in one house, the carpenters in another, and so on; an
arrangement the more desirable because in the Pachomian monasteries
regular organized work was an integral part of the system, a feature in
which it differed from the Antonian way of life. In point of austerity
however the Antonian monks far surpassed the Pachomian, and so we find
Bgoul and Schenute endeavouring in their great monastery at Athribis, to
combine the cenobitical life of Tabennisi with the austerities of Nitria.
In the Pachomian monasteries it was left very much to the individual
taste of each monk to fix the order of life for himself. Thus the hours
for meals and the extent of his fasting were settled by him alone, he
might eat with the others in common or have bread and salt provided in
his own cell every day or every second day. The conception of the
cenobitical life was modified considerably by St. Basil. In his
monasteries a true community life was followed. It was no longer
possible for each one to choose his own dinner hour. On the contrary,
meals were in common, work was in common, prayer was in common seven
times a day. In the matter of asceticism too all the monks were under
the control of the superior whose sanction was required for all the
austerities they might undertake. It was from these sources that western
monachism took its rise.
(4) Monastic Occupations It has already been pointed out that the
monk can adopt any kind of work so long as it is compatible with a life
of prayer and renunciation. In the way of occupations therefore prayer
must always take the first place.
(a) Monastic Prayer
From the very outset it has been regarded as the monk's first duty to
keep up the official prayer of the Church. To what extent the Divine
office was stereotyped in St. Anthony's day need not be discussed here,
but Palladius and Cassian both make it clear that the monks were in no
way behind the rest of the world as regards their liturgical customs.
The practice of celebrating the office apart, or in twos and threes, has
been referred to above as common in the Antonian system, while the
Pachomian monks performed many of the services in their separate houses,
the whole community only assembled in the church for the more solemn
offices, while the Antonian monks only met together on Saturdays and
Sundays. Among the monks of Syria the night office was much longer than
in Egypt (Cassian, "Instit.", II,ii; III,i,iv,viii) and new offices at
different hours of the day were instituted. In prayer as in other
matters St. Basil's legislation became the norm among Eastern monks,
while in the West no changes of importance have taken place since St.
Benedict's rule gradually eliminated all local customs. For the
development of the Divine office into its present form; and also the
various "hours". In the east this solemn liturgical prayer remains today
almost the sole active work of the monks, and, though in the west many
other forms of activity have flourished, the Opus Dei or Divine Office
has always been and still is regarded as the preeminent duty and
occupation of the monk to which all other works, no matter how excellent
in themselves, must give way, according to St. Benedict's principle (Reg.Ben.,
xliii) "Nihil operi Dei praeponatur" (Let nothing take precedence of the
work of God). Alongside the official liturgy, private prayer, especially
mental prayer, has always held an important place.
(b) Monastic labour
The first monks did comparatively little in the way of external
labour. We hear of them weaving mats, making baskets and doing other
work of a simple character which, while serving for their support, would
not distract them from the continual contemplation of God. Under St.
Pachomius manual labour was organized as an essential part of the
monastic life; and since it is a principle of the monks as distinguished
from the mendicants, that the body shall be self-supporting, external
work of one sort or another has been an inevitable part of the life ever
since.
Agriculture, of course, naturally ranked first among the various
forms of external labour. The sites chosen by the monks for their
retreat were usually in wild and inaccessible places, which were left to
them precisely because they were uncultivated, and no one else cared to
undertake the task of clearing them. The rugged valley of Subiaco, or
the fens and marshes of Glastonbury may be cited as examples, but nearly
all the most ancient monasteries are to be found in places considerable
uninhabitable by all except the monks. Gradually forests were cleared
and marshes drained, rivers were bridged and roads made; until, almost
imperceptibly, the desert place became a farm or a garden. In the later
Middle Ages, when the black monks were giving less time to agriculture,
the Cistercians reestablished the old order of things; and even today
such monasteries as La Trappe de Staoueli in northern Africa, or New
Nursia in western Australia do identically the same work as was done by
the monks a thousand years ago. "We owe the agricultural restoration of
a great part of Europe to the monks" (Hallam, "Middle Ages", III,436);
"The Benedictine monks were the agriculturists of Europe" (Guizot,
"Histoire de la Civilisation", II,75); such testimony, which could be
multiplied from writers of every creed, is enough for the purpose here
(see Cistercians).
Copying of Manuscripts
Even more important than their services to agriculture has been the
work of the monastic orders in the preservation of ancient literature.
In this respect too the results achieved went far beyond what was
actually aimed at. The monks copied the Scriptures for their own use in
the Church services and, when their cloisters developed into schools, as
the march of events made it inevitable they should, they copied such
monuments of classical literature as were preserved. At first no doubt
such work was solely utilitarian, even in St. Benedict's rule the
instructions as to reading and study make it clear that these filled a
very subordinate place in the disposition of the monastic life.
Cassiodorus was the first to make the transcription of MSS. and the
multiplication of books an organized and important branch of monastic
labour, but his insistence in this direction influenced western
monachism enormously and is in fact his chief claim to recognition as a
legislator for monks. It is not too much to say that we today are
indebted to the labours of the monastic copyists for the preservation,
not only of the Sacred Writings, but of practically all that survives to
us of the secular literature of antiquity.
Education
At first no one became a monk before he was an adult, but very soon
the custom began of receiving the young. Even infants in arms were
dedicated to the monastic state by their parents (see Reg. Ben., lix)
and in providing for the education of these child- monks the cloister
inevitably developed into a schoolroom (see Oblati). Nor was it long
before the schools thus established began to include children not
intended for the monastic state. Some writers have maintained that this
step was not taken until the time of Charlemagne, but there is
sufficient indication that such pupils existed at an earlier date,
though the proportion of external scholars certainly increased largely
at this time. The system of education followed was that known as the "Trivium"
and "Quadrivium", which was merely a development of that used during
classical times. The greater number of the larger monasteries in western
Europe had a claustral school and not a few, of which St. Gall in
Switzerland may be cited as an example, acquired a reputation which it
is no exaggeration to call European. With the rise of the universities
and the spread of the mendicant orders the monastic control of education
came to an end, but the schools attached to the monasteries continued,
and still continue today, to do no insignificant amount of educational
work.
Architecture, painting, sculpture and metal work
Of the first hermits many lived in caves, tombs, and deserted ruins,
but from the outset the monk has been forced to be a builder. We have
seen that the Pachomian system required buildings of elaborate plan and
large accommodation, and the organized development of monastic life did
not tend to simplify the buildings which enshrined it. Consequently
skill in architecture was called for and so monastic architects were
produced to meet the need in the same almost unconscious manner as were
the monastic schoolmasters. During the medieval period the arts of
painting, illuminating, sculpture, and goldsmiths' work were practised
in the monasteries all over Europe and the output, must have been simply
enormous. We have in the museums, churches, and elsewhere such countless
examples of monastic skills in these arts that it is really difficult to
realize that all this wealth of bountiful things forms only a small
fraction of the total of artistic creation turned out century after
century by these skillful and untiring craftsmen. Yet it is certainly
true that what has perished by destruction, loss and decay would
outweigh many times the entire mass of medieval art work now in
existence, and of this the larger portion was produced in the workshop
of the cloister.
Historical and patristic work
As years passed by the great monastic corporations accumulated
archives of the highest value for the history of the countries wherein
they were situated. It was the custom too in many of the lager abbeys
for an official chronicler to record the events of contemporary history.
In more recent times the seed thus planted bore fruit in the many great
works of erudition which have won for the monks such high praise from
scholars of all classes. The Maurist Congregation of Benedictines (q.v.)
which flourished in France during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries was the supreme example of this type of monastic industry, but
similar works on a less extensive scale have been undertaken in every
country of western Europe by monks of all orders and congregations, and
at the present time (1910) this output of solid scholarly work shows no
signs whatever of diminution either in quality or quantity.
Missionary work
Perhaps the mission field would seem a sphere little suited for
monastic energies, but no idea could be more false. Mankind is
proverbially imitative and so, to establish a Christianity where
paganism once ruled, it is necessary to present not simply a code of
morals, not the mere laws and regulations, nor even the theology of the
Church, but an actual pattern of Christian society. Such a "working
model" is found preeminently in the monastery; and so it is the monastic
order which has proved itself the apostle of the nations in western
Europe.
To mention a few instances of this - Saints Columba in Scotland,
Augustine in England, Boniface in Germany, Ansgar in Scandinavia,
Swithbert and Willibrord in the Netherlands, Rupert and Emmeran in what
is now Austria, Adalbert in Bohemia, Gall and Columban in Switzerland,
were monks who, by the example of a Christian society, which they and
their companions displayed, led the nations among whom they lived from
paganism to Christianity and civilization. Nor did the monastic apostles
stop at this point but, by remaining as a community and training their
converts in the arts of peace, they established a society based on
Gospel principles and firm with the stability of the Christian faith, in
a way that no individual missionary, even the most devoted and saintly,
has ever succeeded in doing.
It must be clearly understood however, that monasticism has never
become stereotyped in practice, and that it would be quite false to hold
up any single example as a supreme and perfect model. Monasticism is a
living thing and consequently it must be informed with a principle of
self-motion and adaptability to its environment. Only one thing must
always remain the same and that is the motive power which brought it
into existence and has maintained it throughout the centuries, viz., the
love of God and the desire to serve Him as perfectly as this life
permits, leaving all things to follow after Christ.
G. ROGER HUDDLESTON
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