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028 - 27 Monasticism · Short History of the Christian Church

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  Speaker 1: Part one, chapter twenty seven of Short History of the
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  Speaker 1: Christian Church by John Fletcher Hurst. The s LibriVox recording
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  Speaker 1: is in the public domain, Chapter twenty seven Monasticism. Traces
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  Speaker 1: of monasticism can be found in all the great Oriental lands.
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  Speaker 1: Long before Christianity, and even before the conquests of Alexander
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  Speaker 1: in India, the monastic idea had gained great strength. Buddhism
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  Speaker 1: and Brahminism made large use of it for extending their
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  Speaker 1: doctrines and holding their adherents. The idea of the inherent
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  Speaker 1: evil of matter lay at the basis of the monastic principle.
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  Speaker 1: It was supposed that contact with society diverted the mind
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  Speaker 1: from religious contemplation and made it less worthy to be
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  Speaker 1: the abode of the worshipful spirit. Hence, the only safety
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  Speaker 1: was to get far from men and their deeds. Nature
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  Speaker 1: must be found in her simplicity, the rude elements must
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  Speaker 1: be made familiar. Besides this, there must be scope for
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  Speaker 1: the exercise of self denial and for the growth of
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  Speaker 1: Christian perfection, which it was thought could not be found
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  Speaker 1: in society. These were the thoughts which lay at the
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  Speaker 1: bottom of that Christian monasticism which played an important part
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  Speaker 1: in the Early Church and extended down to the Reformation,
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  Speaker 1: and still holds undisputed sway in the Roman Catholic Church.
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  Speaker 1: Christianity found monasticism already prevalent in the Nazarites of Palestine
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  Speaker 1: and the Therapeute of Egypt. And it is not strange that,
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  Speaker 1: in an age of great societal corruption, which overspread all
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  Speaker 1: pagan territory, many Christians should see in the separate life
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  Speaker 1: a relief from danger. Persecution favored the tendency towards monasticism.
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  Speaker 1: Exile was only another name for a secluded life. Many
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  Speaker 1: Christians went voluntarily into remote regions, dwelt in caves or groves,
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  Speaker 1: spent the day in works of charity and much of
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  Speaker 1: the night in vigils, and courted nature in her wildest moods.
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  Speaker 1: The first monastic stage was voluntary solitude, without any movement
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  Speaker 1: towards a separate order. It was the individual mind looking
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  Speaker 1: for spiritual relief, but with no purpose to introduce a
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  Speaker 1: new departure in ecclesiastical practice. The next stage was a
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  Speaker 1: habit of removal to certain regions where the monks lived
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  Speaker 1: within reach of each other. The third stage was the
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  Speaker 1: sanction and regular organization of orders, which took full shape
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  Speaker 1: in the Benedictines and other fraternities. The monks took three
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  Speaker 1: vows upon themselves perpetual fidelity to the life and order,
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  Speaker 1: obedience to the abbot or head of the monastery, and
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  Speaker 1: chastity and poverty. A number of the fathers and writers
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  Speaker 1: led a monastic life, but without advocacy of a separate order.
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  Speaker 1: The tendency grew with the times. The Old Testament was
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  Speaker 1: searched for support. Elijah and Kindred spirits in Jewish history,
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  Speaker 1: and John the Baptist were brought in to support the
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  Speaker 1: monastic tendency. Egypt became a favorite place for the monks.
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  Speaker 1: Rufinus declared that there were nearly as many monks in
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  Speaker 1: the deserts as people in the cities. Montalambert says it
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  Speaker 1: was a kind of emigration of towns to the desert,
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  Speaker 1: of civilization, to simplicity of noise, to silence of corruption,
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  Speaker 1: to innocence. The current once begun, floods of men, women
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  Speaker 1: and children threw themselves into it and flowed thither during
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  Speaker 1: a century with irresistible force. Paul of Thebes in Upper Egypt,
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  Speaker 1: was the first Christian hermit. He lived during the persecution
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  Speaker 1: under Decius, said to have withdrawn to a distant Egyptian
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  Speaker 1: cave when twenty two years of age, and to have
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  Speaker 1: lived there until a d. Three forty. Anthony, who followed
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  Speaker 1: in Paul's footsteps, lived for a long time in extreme
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  Speaker 1: poverty in the Egyptian desert. The fame of the life
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  Speaker 1: of these two men went into distant lands, and their
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  Speaker 1: self denial was imitated by many people in the countries
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  Speaker 1: lying around the eastern end of the Mediterranean. The Pillar
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  Speaker 1: Saints constituted a separate class. Saint Simeon was the founder
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  Speaker 1: of the group. After spending ten years in a monastery
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  Speaker 1: and a short time in a hut as an anchoret,
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  Speaker 1: he mounted a pillar seventy two feet high and four
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  Speaker 1: feet in diameter, where he is reported to have spent
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  Speaker 1: thirty years. He died at Tellamessa near Antioch a d.
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  Speaker 1: Four fifty nine, and was buried with all possible ecclesiastical
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  Speaker 1: and military palm. Tennyson puts in his mouth the following confession,
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  Speaker 1: after he had spent many years in this life of torture, O, Lord, Lord,
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  Speaker 1: thou knowest I bore this better at the first, for
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  Speaker 1: I was strong and hail of body. Then, and though
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  Speaker 1: my teeth, which now are dropped away, would chatter with
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  Speaker 1: the cold, and all my beard was tagged with icy fringes.
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  Speaker 1: In the moon, I drowned the whoopings of the owl
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  Speaker 1: with sound of pious hymns and psalms, and sometimes saw
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  Speaker 1: an angel stand and watch me as I sang. Now,
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  Speaker 1: I am feeble grown, My end draws nigh. I hope
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  Speaker 1: my end draws nigh. Half deaf, I am so that
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  Speaker 1: I scarce can hear the people hum about the column's base.
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  Speaker 1: And I am almost blind, and scarce can recognize the
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  Speaker 1: fields I know, And both my thighs are rotted with
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  Speaker 1: the dew. Yet cease I not to clamor and to cry,
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  Speaker 1: while my stiff spine can hold my weary head, till
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  Speaker 1: all my limbs drop piecemeal from the stone. Have mercy, mercy,
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  Speaker 1: take away my sin end quote end of chapter twenty seven.