Lastly, a word remains to be said touching the question of marriage. At first, the nun sometimes entered the marriage state, and, of course, left the convent; but, beginning with Basil, this practice was condemned, and irrevocable vows were exacted. In 407, Innocent I. closed even the door of penitence and forgiveness to those who broke their vows and married.
Widows and virgins alike assumed the veil. Marriage itself was not despised, because the monastic life was only for those who sought a higher type of piety than, it was supposed, could be attained amid the ordinary conditions of life. But marriage, as well as other so-called secular relations, was eschewed by those who wished to make their salvation sure. Jerome says: "I praise wedlock, I praise marriage, but it is because they give me virgins; I gather the rose from the thorns, the gold from the earth, the pearl from the shell." He therefore tolerated marriage among people contented with ordinary religious attainments, but he thought it incompatible with true holiness. Augustine admitted that the mother and her daughter may be both in heaven, but one a bright and the other a dim star. Some writers, as Helvidius, opposed this view and maintained that there was no special virtue in an unmarried life; that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was also the mother of other children, and as such was an example of Christian virtue. Jerome brought out his guns and poured hot shot into the enemies' camp. In the course of his answer, which contained many intolerant and acrimonious statements, he drew a comparison between the married and the unmarried state. It is interesting because it reflects the opinions of those who disparaged marriage, and reveals the character of the principles which the early Fathers advocated. It is very evident from this letter against Helvidius that Jerome regarded all secular duties as interfering with the pursuit of the highest virtue.
"Do you think," he says, "there is no difference between one who spends her time in prayer and fasting, and one who must, at her husband's approach, make up her countenance, walk with a mincing gait, and feign a show of endearment? The virgin aims to appear less comely; she will wrong herself so as to hide her natural attractions. The married woman has the paint laid on before her mirror, and, to the insult of her Maker, strives to acquire something more than her natural beauty. Then come the prattling of infants, the noisy household, children watching for her word and waiting for her kiss, the reckoning up of expenses, the preparation to meet the outlay. On one side you will see a company of cooks, girded for the onslaught and attacking the meat; there you may hear the hum of a multitude of weavers. Meanwhile a message is delivered that her husband and his friends have arrived. The wife, like a swallow, flies all over the house. She has to see to everything. Is the sofa smooth? Is the pavement swept? Are the flowers in the cup? Is dinner ready? Tell me, pray, amid all this, is there room for the thought of God?"
Such was Roman married life as it appeared to Jerome. The very duties and blessings that we consider the glory of the family he despised. I will return to his views later, but it is interesting to note the absence at this period, of the modern and true idea that God may be served in the performance of household and other secular duties. Women fled from such occupations in those days that they might be religious. The disagreeable fact of Peter's marriage was overcome by the assertion that he must have washed away the stain of his married life by the blood of his martyrdom. Such extreme views arose partly as a reaction from and a protest against the dominant corruption, a state of affairs in which happy and holy marriages were rare.
Much more might be said of monastic life in Rome, were it not now necessary to treat of the spread of monasticism in Europe. There are many noble characters whom we ought to know, such as Ambrose, one of Christendom's greatest bishops, who led a life of poverty and strict abstinence, like his sister Marcella, whom we have met. He it was, of whom the Emperor Theodosius said: "I have met a man who has told me the truth." Well might he so declare, for Ambrose refused him admission to the church at Milan, because his hands were red with the blood of the murdered, and succeeded in persuading him to submit to discipline. To Ambrose may be applied the words which Gibbon wrote of Gregory Nazianzen: "The title of Saint has been added to his name, but the tenderness of his heart and the elegance of his genius reflect a more pleasing luster on his memory."
The story of John, surnamed Chrysostom, who was born at Antioch, in 347, is exceedingly interesting. He was a young lawyer, who entered the priesthood after his baptism. He at once set his heart on the monastic life, but his mother took him to her chamber, and, by the bed where she had given him birth, besought him in fear, not to forsake her. "My son," she said in substance, "my only comfort in the midst of the miseries of this earthly life is to see thee constantly, and to behold in thy traits the faithful image of my beloved husband, who is no more. When you have buried me and joined my ashes with those of your father, nothing will then prevent you from retiring into the monastic life. But so long as I breathe, support me by your presence, and do not draw down upon you the wrath of God by bringing such evils upon me who have given you no offence." This singularly tender petition was granted, but Chrysostom turned his home into a monastery, slept on the bare floor, ate little and seldom, and prayed much by day and by night.
After his mother's death Chrysostom enjoyed the seclusion of a monastic solitude for six years, but impairing his health by excessive self-mortification he returned to Antioch in 380. He rapidly rose to a position of commanding influence in the church. His peerless oratorical and literary gifts were employed in elevating the ascetic ideal and in unsparing denunciations of the worldly religion of the imperial court. He incurred the furious hatred of the young and beautiful Empress Eudoxia, who united her influence with that of the ambitious Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, and Chrysostom was banished from Constantinople, but died on his way to the remote desert of Pityus. His powerful sermons and valuable writings contributed in no small degree to the spread of monasticism among the Christians of his time.
Then there was Augustine, the greatest thinker since Plato. "We shall meet him," says Schaff, "alike on the broad highways and the narrow foot-paths, on the giddy Alpine heights and in the awful depths of speculation, wherever philosophical thinkers before him or after him have trod." He, too, like all the other leaders of thought in his time, was ascetic in his habits. Although he lived and labored for thirty-eight years at Hippo, a Numidian city about two hundred miles west of Carthage, in Africa, Augustine was regarded as the intellectual head not only of North Africa but of Western Christianity. He gathered his clergy into a college of priests, with a community of goods, thus approaching as closely to the regular monastic life as was possible to secular clergymen. He established religious houses and wrote a set of rules, consisting of twenty-four articles, for the government of monasteries. These rules were superseded by those of Benedict, but they were resuscitated under Charlemagne and reappeared in the famous Austin Canons of the eleventh century. Little did Augustine think that a thousand years later an Augustinian monk--Luther--would abandon his order to become the founder of modern Protestantism.
Augustine published a celebrated essay,--"On the Labor of Monks,"--in which he pointed out the dangers of monachism, condemned its abuses, and ended by sighing for the quiet life of the monk who divided his day between labor, reading and prayer, whilst he himself spent his years amid the noisy throng and the perplexities of his episcopate.
These men, and many others, did much to further monasticism. But we must now leave sunny Africa and journey northward through Gaul into the land of the hardy Britons and Scots.
Athanasius, the same weary exile whom we have encountered in Egypt and in Rome, had been banished by Constantine to Treves, in 336. In 346 and 349 he again visited Gaul. He told the same story of Anthony and the Egyptian hermits with similar results.
The most renowned ecclesiastic of the Gallican church, whose name is most intimately associated with the spread of monasticism in Western Europe, before the days of Benedict, was Saint Martin of Tours. He lived about the years 316-396 A.D. The chronicle of his life is by no means trustworthy, but that is essential neither to popularity nor saintship. Only let a Severus describe his life and miracles in glowing rhetoric and fantastic legend and the people will believe it, pronouncing him greatest among the great, the mightiest miracle-worker of that miracle-working age.
Martin was a soldier three years, against his will, under Constantine. One bleak winter day he cut his white military coat in two with his sword and clothed a beggar with half of it. That night he heard Jesus address the angels: "Martin, as yet only a catechumen has clothed me with his garment." After leaving the army he became a hermit, and, subsequently, bishop of Tours. He lived for years just outside of Tours in a cell made of interlaced branches. His monks dwelt around him in caves cut out of scarped rocks, overlooking a beautiful stream. They were clad in camel's hair and lived on a diet of brown bread, sleeping on a straw couch.
But Martin's monks did not take altogether kindly to their mode of life. Severus records an amusing story of their rebellion against the meager allowance of food. The Egyptian could exist on a few figs a day. But these rude Gauls, just emerging out of barbarism, were accustomed to devour great slices of roasted meat and to drink deep draughts of beer. Such sturdy children of the northern forests naturally disdained dainty morsels of barley bread and small potations of wine. True, Athanasius had said, "Fasting is the food of angels," but these ascetic novices, in their perplexity, could only say: "We are accused of gluttony; but we are Gauls; it is ridiculous and cruel to make us live like angels; we are not angels; once more, we are only Gauls." Their complaint comes down to us as a pathetic but humorous protest of common sense against ascetic fanaticism; or, regarded in another light, it may be considered as additional evidence of the depravity of the natural man.
In spite of all complaints, however, Martin did not abate the severity of his discipline. As a bishop he pushed his monastic system into all the surrounding country. His zeal knew no bounds, and his strength seemed inexhaustible. "No one ever saw him either gloomy or merry," remarks his biographer. Amid many embarrassments and difficulties he was ever the same, with a countenance full of heavenly serenity. He was a great miracle-worker--that is, if everything recorded of him is true. He cast out demons, and healed the sick; he had strange visions of angels and demons, and, wonderful to relate, thrice he raised bodies from the dead.
But all conquerors are at last vanquished by the angel of death, and Martin passed into the company of the heavenly host and the category of saints. Two thousand monks attended his funeral. His fame spread all over Europe. Tradition tells us he was the uncle of Saint Patrick of Ireland. Churches were dedicated to him in France, Germany, Scotland and England. The festival of his birth is celebrated on the eleventh of November. In Scotland this day still marks the winter term, which is called Martinmas. Saint Martin's shrine was one of the most famous of the middle ages, and was noted for its wonderful cures. No saint is held, even now, in higher veneration by the French Catholic.
It is not known when the institution was planted in Spain, but in 380 the council of Saragossa forbade priests to assume monkish habits. Germany received the institution some time in the fifth century. The introduction of Christianity as well as of monasticism into the British Isles is shrouded in darkness. A few jewels of fact may be gathered from the legendary rubbish. It is probable that before the days of Benedict, Saint Patrick, independently of Rome, established monasteries in Ireland and preached the gospel there; and, without doubt, before the birth of Benedict of Nursia, there were monks and monasteries in Great Britain. The monastery of Bangor is said to have been founded about 450 A.D.
It is probable that Christianity was introduced into Britain before the close of the second century, and that monasticism arose some time in the fifth century. Tertullian, about the beginning of the third century, boasts that Christianity had conquered places in Britain where the Roman arms could not penetrate. Origen claimed that the power of the Savior was manifest in Britain as well as in Muritania. The earliest notice we have of a British church occurs in the writings of the Venerable Bede (673-735 A.D.), a monk whose numerous and valuable works on English history entitle him to the praise of being "the greatest literary benefactor this or any other nation has produced." He informs us that a British king--Lucius--embraced Christianity during the reign of the Emperor Aurelius, and that missionaries were sent from Rome to Britain about that time. Lingard says the story is suspicious, since "we know not from what source Bede, at the distance of five centuries, derived his information." It seems quite likely that there must have been some Christians among the Roman soldiers or civil officials who lived in Britain during the Roman occupation of the country. The whole problem has been the theme of so much controversy, however, that a fuller discussion is reserved for the next chapter.
But was there no protest against the progress of these ascetic teachings? Did the monastic institution command the unanimous approval of the church from the outset? There were many and strong outcries against the monks, but they were quickly silenced by the counter-shouts of praise. Even when rebellion against the system seemed formidable, it was popular nevertheless. The lifted hand was quickly struck down, and voices of opposition suddenly hushed. Like a mighty flood the movement swept on,--kings, when so inclined, being powerless to stop it. As Paula was carried fainting from the funeral procession of Blæsilla, her daughter, whispers such as these were audible in the crowd: "Is not this what we have often said? She weeps for her daughter, killed with fasting. How long must we refrain from driving these detestable monks out of Rome? Why do we not stone them or hurl them into the Tiber? They have misled this unhappy mother; that she is not a nun from choice is clear. No heathen mother ever wept for her children as she does for Blæsilla." And this is Paula, who, choked with grief, refused to weep when she sailed from her children for the far East!
Unhappily, history is often too dignified to retail the conversations of the dinner-table and the gossip of private life. But this narrative indicates that in many a Roman family the monk was feared, despised and hated. Sometimes everyday murmurs found their way into literature and so passed to posterity. Rutilius, the Pagan poet, as he sails before a hermit isle in the Mediterranean, exclaims: "Behold, Capraria rises before us; that isle is full of wretches, enemies of light. I detest these rocks scene of a recent shipwreck." He then goes on to declare that a young and rich friend, impelled by the furies, had fled from men and gods to a living tomb, and was now decaying in that foul retreat. This was no uncommon opinion. But contrast it with what Ambrose said of those same isles: "It is there in these isles, thrown down by God like a collar of pearls upon the sea, that those who would escape from the charms of dissipation find refuge. Nothing here disturbs their peace, all access is closed to the wild passions of the world. The mysterious sound of waves mingles with the chant of hymns; and, while the waters break upon the shores of these happy isles with a gentle murmur, the peaceful accents of the choir of the elect ascend toward Heaven from their bosom." No wonder the Milanese ladies guarded their daughters against this theological poet.
Even among the Christians there were hostile as well as friendly critics of monasticism; Jovinian, whom Neander compares to Luther, is a type of the former. Although a monk himself, he disputed the thesis that any merit lay in celibacy, fasting or poverty. He opposed the worship of saints and relics, and believed that one might retain possession of his property and make good use of it. He assailed the dissolute monks and claimed that many of Rome's noblest young men and women were withdrawn from a life of usefulness into the desert. He held that there was really but one class of Christians, namely, those who had faith in Christ, and that a monk could be no more. But Jovinian was far in advance of his age, and it was many years before the truth of his view gained any considerable recognition. He was severely attacked by Jerome, who called him a Christian Epicurean, and was condemned as a heretic by a synod at Milan, in 390. Thus the reformers were crushed for centuries. The Pagan Emperor, Julian, and the Christian, Valens, alike tried in vain to resist the emigration into the desert. Thousands fled, in times of peril to the state, from their civil and military duties, but the emperors were powerless to prevent the exodus.
That there were grounds for complaint against the monks we may know from the charges made even by those who favored the system. Jerome Ambrose, Augustine, and in fact almost every one of the Fathers tried to correct the growing disorders. We learn from them that many fled from society, not to become holy, but to escape slavery and famine; and that many were lazy and immoral. Their "shaven heads lied to God." Avarice, ambition, or cowardice ruled hearts that should have been actuated by a love of poverty, self-sacrifice or courage. "Quite recently," says Jerome, "we have seen to our sorrow a fortune worthy of Croesus brought to light by a monk's death, and a city's alms collected for the poor, left by will to his sons and successors."
Many monks traveled from place to place selling sham relics. Augustine wrote against "those hypocrites who, in the dress of monks, wander about the provinces carrying pretended relics, amulets, preservatives, and expecting alms to feed their lucrative poverty and recompense their pretended virtue." It is to the credit of the Fathers of the church that they boldly and earnestly rebuked the vices of the monks and tried to purge the monastic system of its impurities.
But the church sanctioned the monastic movement. She could not have done anything else. "It is one of the most striking occurrences in history," says Harnack, "that the church, exactly at the time when she was developing more and more into a legal institution and a sacramental establishment, outlined a Christian life-ideal which was incapable of realization within her bounds, but only alongside of her. The more she affiliated herself with the world, the higher and more superhuman did she make her ideal."
It is also noteworthy that this "life-ideal" seems to have led, inevitably, to fanaticism and other excesses, so that even at this early date there was much occasion for alarm. Gross immorality was disclosed as well as luminous purity; indolence and laziness as well as the love of sacrifice and toil. So we shall find it down through the centuries. "The East had few great men," says Milman, "many madmen; the West, madmen enough, but still very many, many great men." We have met some madmen and some great men. We shall meet more of each type.
After 450 A.D., monasticism suffered an eclipse for over half a century. It seemed as if the Western institution was destined to end in that imbecility and failure which overtook the Eastern system. But there came a man who infused new life into the monastic body. He systematized its scattered principles and concentrated the energies of the wandering and unorganized monks.
Our next visit will be to the mountain home of this renowned character, fifty miles to the west of Rome. "A single monk," says Montalembert, "is about to form there a center of spiritual virtue, and to light it up with a splendor destined to shine over regenerated Europe for ten centuries to come."
Saint Benedict, the founder of the famous monastic order that bears his name, was born at Nursia, about 480 A.D. His parents, who were wealthy, intended to give him a liberal education; but their plans were defeated, for at fifteen years of age Benedict renounced his family and fortune, and fled from his school life in Rome. The vice of the city shocked and disgusted him. He would rather be ignorant and holy, than educated and wicked. On his way into the mountains, he met a monk named Romanus,--the spot is marked by the chapel of Santa Crocella,--who gave him a haircloth shirt and a monastic dress of skins. Continuing his journey with Romanus, the youthful ascetic discovered a sunless cave in the desert of Subiaco, about forty miles from Rome. Into this cell he climbed, and in it he lived three years. It was so inaccessible that Romanus had to lower his food to him by a rope, to which was attached a bell to call him from his devotions. Once the Devil threw a stone at the rope and broke it.
But Benedict's bodily escape from the wickedness of Rome did not secure his spiritual freedom. "There was a certain lady of thin, airy shape, who was very active in this solemnity; her name was Fancy." Time and again, he revisited his old haunts, borne on the wings of his imagination. The face of a beautiful young girl of previous acquaintance constantly appeared before him. He was about to yield to the temptation and to return, when, summoning all his strength, he made one mighty effort to dispel the illusion forever. Divesting himself of his clothes, he rolled his naked body among the thorn-bushes near his cave. It was drastic treatment, but it seems to have rid his mind effectually of disturbing fancies. This singular self-punishment was used by Godric, the Welsh saint, in the twelfth century. "Failing to subdue his rebellious flesh by this method, he buried a cask in the earthen floor of his cell, filled it with water and fitted it with a cover, and in this receptacle he shut himself up whenever he felt the titillations of desire. In this manner, varied by occasionally passing the night up to his chin in a river, of which he had broken the ice, he finally succeeded in mastering his fiery nature."
One day some peasants discovered Benedict at the entrance of his cave. Deceived by his savage appearance, they mistook him for a wild beast, but the supposed wolf proving to be a saint, they fell down and reverenced him.
The fame of the young ascetic attracted throngs of hermits, who took up their abodes near his cell. After a time monasteries were established, and Benedict was persuaded to become an abbot in one of them. His strictness provoked much opposition among the monks, resulting in carefully-laid plots to compass the moral ruin of their spiritual guide. An attempt to poison him was defeated by a miraculous interposition, and Benedict escaped to a solitary retreat.
Again the moral hero became an abbot, and again the severity of his discipline was resented. This time a wicked and jealous priest sought to entrap the saint by turning into a garden in which he was accustomed to walk seven young girls of exquisite physical charms. When Benedict encountered this temptation, he fled from the scene and retired to a picturesque mountain--the renowned Monte Cassino. Let Montalembert describe this celebrated spot among the western Apennines: "At the foot of this rock Benedict found an amphitheatre of the time of the Cæsars, amidst the ruins of the town of Casinum, which the most learned and pious of Romans, Varro, that pagan Benedictine, whose memory and knowledge the sons of Benedict took pleasure in honoring, had rendered illustrious. From the summit the prospect extended on one side towards Arpinum, where the prince of Roman orators was born, and on the other towards Aquinum, already celebrated as the birthplace of Juvenal.... It was amidst those noble recollections, this solemn nature, and upon that predestinated height, that the patriarch of the monks of the West founded the capital of the monastic order."
In the year 529 a great stronghold of Paganism in these wild regions gave way to Benedict's faith. Upon the ruins of a temple to Apollo, and in a grove sacred to Venus, arose the model of Western monasticism,--the cloister of Monte Cassino, which was to shine resplendent for a thousand years. The limitations of my purpose will prevent me from following in detail the fortunes of this renowned retreat, but it may not be out of place to glance at its subsequent history.
Monte Cassino is located three and a half miles to the northeast of the town of Cassino, midway between Rome and Naples. About 589 A.D. the Lombards destroyed the buildings, but the monks escaped to Rome, in fulfilment, so it is claimed, of a prophecy uttered by Benedict. It lay in ruins until restored by Gregory II. in 719, only to be burned in 884 by the Saracens; seventy years later it was again rebuilt. It afterwards passed through a variety of calamities, and was consecrated, for the third time, by Benedict XII., in 1729. Longfellow quotes a writer for the London Daily News as saying: "There is scarcely a pope or emperor of importance who has not been personally connected with its history. From its mountain crag it has seen Goths, Lombards, Saracens, Normans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Germans, scour and devastate the land which, through all modern history, has attracted every invader."
It was enriched by popes, emperors and princes. In its palmy days the abbot was the first baron in the realm, and commanded over four hundred towns and villages. In 1866, it shared the fate of all the monasteries of Italy. It still stands upon the summit of the mountain, and can be seen by the traveler from the railway in the valley. At present it serves as a Catholic seminary with about two hundred students. It contains a spacious church, richly ornamented with marble, mosaics and paintings. It has also a famous library which, in spite of bad usage, is still immensely valuable. Boccaccio made a visit to the place, and when he saw the precious books so vilely mutilated, he departed in tears, exclaiming: "Now, therefore, O scholar, rack thy brains in the making of books!" The library contains about twenty thousand volumes, and about thirty-five thousand popes' bulls, diplomas and charters. There are also about a thousand manuscripts, some of which are of priceless value, as they date from the sixth century downward, and consist of ancient Bibles and important medieval literature.
Benedict survived the founding of this monastery fourteen years. His time was occupied in establishing other cloisters, perfecting his rule, and preaching. Many stories are related of his power over the hearts of the untamed barbarians. Galea the Goth, out on a marauding expedition, demanded a peasant to give him his treasures. The peasant, thinking to escape, said he had committed them to the keeping of Benedict. Galea immediately ordered him to be bound on a horse and conducted to the saint. Benedict was seated at the gateway reading when Galea and his prisoner arrived. Looking up from his book he fastened his eyes upon the poor peasant, who was immediately loosed from his bonds. The astonished Galea, awed by this miracle, fell at the feet of the abbot, and, instead of demanding gold, supplicated his blessing. Once a boy was drowning, and, at the command of Benedict, St. Maur, a wealthy young Roman, who had turned monk, walked safely out upon the water and rescued the lad. Gregory also tells us many stories of miraculous healing, and of one resurrection from the dead.
Benedict's last days were linked with a touching incident. His sister, Scholastica, presided over a convent near his own. They met once a year. On his last visit to her, Scholastica begged him to remain and "speak of the joys of Heaven till the morning." But Benedict would not listen; he must return. His sister then buried her face in her hands weeping and praying. Suddenly the sky was overcast with clouds, and a terrific storm burst upon the mountains, which prevented her brother's return. Three days later Benedict saw the soul of his sister entering heaven. On March 21, 543, a short time after his sister's death, two monks beheld a shining pathway of stars over which the soul of Benedict passed from Monte Cassino to heaven. Such, in brief, is the story preserved for us in his biography by the celebrated patron of monasticism, Pope Gregory I.
The rules, regulae, of St. Benedict, are worthy of special consideration, since they constitute the real foundation of his success and of his fame. His order was by far the most important monastic brotherhood until the thirteenth century. Nearly all the other orders which sprang up during this interval were based upon Benedictine rules, and were really attempts to reform the monastic system on the basis of Benedict's original practice. Other monks lived austere lives and worked miracles, and some of them formulated rules, but it is to Benedict and his rules that we must look for the code of Western monachism. "By a strange parallelism," says Putnam, "almost in the very year in which the great Emperor Justinian was codifying the results of seven centuries of Roman secular legislation for the benefit of the judges and the statesmen of the new Europe, Benedict, on his lonely mountain-top, was composing his code for the regulation of the daily life of the great civilizers of Europe for seven centuries to come."
The rules consist of a preface and seventy-three chapters. The prologue defines the classes of monks, and explains the aim of the "school of divine servitude," as Benedict described his monastery. The following is a partial list of the subjects considered: The character of an abbot, silence, maxims for good works, humility, directions as to divine service, rules for dormitories, penalties, duties of various monastic officers, poverty, care of the sick daily rations of food and drink, hours for meals, fasting, entertainment of guests, and dress. They close with the statement that the Benedictine rule is not offered as an ideal of perfection, or even as equal to the teaching of Cassian or Basil, but for mere beginners in the spiritual life, who may thence proceed further.
The Benedictine novitiate extended over one year, but was subsequently increased to three. At the close of this period the novice was given the opportunity to go back into the world. If he still persisted in his choice, he swore before the bones of the saints to remain forever cut off from the rest of his fellow beings. If a monk left the monastery, or was expelled, he could return twice, but if, after the third admission, he severed his connection, the door was shut forever.
The monk passed his time in manual labor, copying manuscripts, reading, fasting and prayer. He was forbidden to receive letters, tokens or gifts, even from his nearest-relatives, without permission from the abbot. His daily food allowance was usually a pound of bread, a pint of wine, cider or ale, and sometimes fish, eggs, fruit or cheese. He was dressed in a black cowl. His clothing was to be suitable to the climate and to consist of two sets. He was also furnished with a straw mattress, blanket, quilt, pillow, knife, pen, needle, handkerchief and tablets. He was, in all things, to submit patiently to his superior, to keep silence, and to serve his turn in the kitchen. In the older days the monks changed their clothes on the occasion of a bath, which used to be taken four times a year. Later, bathing was allowed only twice a year, and the monks changed their clothes when they wished.
Various punishments were employed to correct faults. Sometimes the offender was whipped on the bare shoulders with a thick rod; others had to lie prostrate in the doorway of the church at each hour, so that the monks passed over his body on entering or going out.
The monks formerly rose at two o'clock, and spent the day in various occupations until eight at night, when they retired. The following rules once governed St. Gregory's Monastery in England: "3:45 A.M. Rise. 4 A.M. Matins and lauds, recited; half-hour mental prayer; prime sung; prime B.V.M. recited. 6:30 A.M. Private study; masses; breakfast for those who had permission. 8 A.M. Lectures and disputations. 10 A.M. Little hours B.V.M., recited; tierce, mass, sext, sung. 11:30 A.M. Dinner. 12 noon. None sung; vespers and compline B.V.M., recited. 12:30 P.M. Siesta, 1 P.M. Hebrew or Greek lecture. 2 P.M. Vespers sung. 2:30 P.M. Lectures and disputations. 4 P.M. Private study. 6 P.M. Supper. 6:30 P.M. Recreation. 7:30 P.M. Public spiritual reading; compline sung; matins and lauds B.V.M., recited; half-hour mental prayer. 8:45 P.M. Retire[D]."
Such a routine suggests a dreary life, but that would depend upon the monk's temperament. Regularity of employment kept him healthy, and if he did not take his sins too much to heart, he was free from gloom. Hill very justly observes: "Whenever men obey that injunction of labor, no matter what their station, there is in the act the element of happiness, and whoever avoids that injunction, there is always the shadow of the unfulfilled curse darkening their path." Thus, their ideal was "to subdue one's self and then to devote one's self," which De Tocqueville pronounces "the secret of strength." How well they succeeded in realizing their ideal by the methods employed we shall see later.
The term "order," as applied to the Benedictines, is used in a different sense from that which it has when used of later monastic bodies. Each Benedictine house was practically independent of every other, while the houses of the Dominicans, Franciscans or Jesuits were bound together under one head. The family idea was peculiar to the Benedictines. The abbot was the father, and the monastery was the home where the Benedictine was content to dwell all his life. In the later monastic societies the monks were constantly traveling from place to place. Taunton says: "As God made society to rest on the basis of the family, so St. Benedict saw that the spiritual family is the surest basis for the sanctification of the souls of his monks. The monastery therefore is to him what the 'home' is to lay-folk.... From this family idea comes another result: the very fact that St. Benedict did not found an Order but only gave a Rule, cuts away all possibility of that narrowing esprit de corps which comes so easily to a widespread and highly-organized body."
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, however, it became necessary for the general good of each family to secure some kind of union. The Chapter then came into existence, which was a representative body, composed of the heads of the different houses and ordinary monks regularly appointed as delegates. To the Chapter were committed various matters of jurisdiction, and also the power of sending visitors to the different abbeys in the pope's name.
Each society was ruled by an abbot, who governed in Christ's stead. Sometimes the members of the monastery were consulted, the older ones ordinarily, the whole congregation; in important matters. But implicit obedience to the abbot, as the representative of God, was demanded by the vows.
The abbot was to be elected by the monks. At various periods popes and princes usurped this power, but the monks always claimed the right as an original privilege. Carlyle quotes Jocelin on Abbot Samson, who says that the monks of St. Edmundsbury were compelled to submit their choice to Henry II., who, looking at the committee of monks somewhat sternly, said: "You present to me Samson; I do not know him; had it been your prior, whom I do know, I should have accepted him; however, I will now do as you wish. But have a care of yourselves. By the true eyes of God, if you manage badly, I will be upon you."
In Walter Scott's novel, "The Abbot," there is an interesting contrast drawn between the ceremonies attending an abbot's installation, when the monasteries were in their glory, and the pitiable scenes in the days of their decline, when Mary Stuart was a prisoner in Lochleven. In the monastery of Kennaquhair, which had been despoiled by the fury of the times, a few monks were left to mourn the mutilated statues and weep over the fragments of richly-carved Gothic pillars. Having secretly elected an abbot, they assembled in fear and trembling to invest him with the honors of his office. "In former times," says Scott, "this was one of the most splendid of the many pageants which the hierarchy of Rome had devised to attract the veneration of the faithful. When the folding doors on such solemn occasions were thrown open, and the new abbot appeared on the threshold in full-blown dignity, with ring and mitre and dalmatique and crosier, his hoary standard-bearers and juvenile dispensers of incense preceding him, and the venerable train of monks behind him, his appearance was the signal for the magnificent jubilate to rise from the organ and the music-loft and to be joined by the corresponding bursts of 'Alleluiah' from the whole assembled congregation.
"Now all was changed. Father Ambrose stood on the broken steps of the high altar, barefooted, as was the rule, and holding in his hand his pastoral staff, for the gemmed ring and jewelled mitre had become secular spoils. No obedient vassals came, man after man, to make their homage and to offer the tribute which should provide their spiritual superior with palfrey and trappings. No bishop assisted at the solemnity to receive into the higher ranks of the church nobility a dignitary whose voice in the legislature was as potent as his own."
We are enabled by this partially-quoted description to imagine the importance attached to the election of an abbot. He became, in feudal times, a lord of the land, the richest man in the community, and a tremendous power in political councils and parliaments. A Benedictine abbot once confessed: "My vow of poverty has given me a hundred thousand crowns a year; my vow of obedience has raised me to the rank of a sovereign prince."
No new principle seems to be disclosed by the Benedictine rules. The command to labor had been emphasized even in the monasteries of Egypt. The Basilian code contained a provision enforcing manual labor, but the work was light and insufficient to keep the mind from brooding. The monastery that was to succeed in the West must provide for men who not only could toil hard, but who must do so if they were to be kept pure and true; it must welcome men accustomed to the dangerous adventures of pioneer life in the vast forests of the North. The Benedictine system met these conditions by a unique combination and application of well-known monastic principles; by a judicious subordination of minor matters to essential discipline; by bringing into greater prominence the doctrine of labor; by tempering the austerities of the cell to meet the necessities of a severe climate; and lastly, by devising a scheme of life equally adaptable to the monk of sunny Italy and the rude Goth of the northern forests.
It was the splendid fruition of many years of experiment amid varying results. "It shows," says Schaff, "a true knowledge of human nature, the practical wisdom of Rome and adaptation to Western customs; it combines simplicity with completeness, strictness with gentleness, humility with courage and gives the whole cloister life a fixed unity and compact organization, which, like the episcopate, possessed an unlimited versatility and power of expansion."
No institution has contributed as much to the amelioration of human misery or struggled as patiently and persistently to influence society for good as the Christian church. In spite of all that may be said against the followers of the Cross, it still remains true, that they have ever been foremost in the establishment of peace and justice among men.
The problem that confronted the church when Benedict began his labors, was no less than that of reducing a demoralized and brutal society to law and order. Chaos reigned, selfishness and lust ruled the hearts of Rome's conquerors. The West was desolated by barbarians; the East dismembered and worn out by theological controversy. War had ruined the commerce of the cities and laid waste the rural districts. Vast swamps and tracts of brush covered fields once beautiful with the products of agricultural labor. The minds of men were distracted by apprehensions of some frightful, impending calamity. The cultured Roman, the untutored Goth and the corrupted Christian were locked in the deadly embrace of despair. "Constantly did society attempt to form itself," says Guizot, "constantly was it destroyed by the act of man, by the absence of the moral conditions under which alone it can exist."
But notwithstanding failures and discouragements, the work of reconstructing society moved painfully on, and among the brave master builders was Benedict of Nursia. "He found the world, physical and social, in ruins," says Cardinal Newman, "and his mission was to restore it in the way,--not of science, but of nature; not as if setting about to do it; not professing to do it by any set time, or by any series of strokes; but so quietly, patiently, gradually, that often till the work was done, it was not known to be doing. It was a restoration rather than a visitation, correction or conversion. The new world he helped to create was a growth rather than a structure."
But the chaos created by the irruption of the barbarous nations at this period seriously affected the moral character and influence of the clergy and the monks. The church seemed unequal to the stupendous undertaking of converting the barbarians. The monks, as a class, were lawless and vicious. Benedict himself testifies against them, and declares that they were "always wandering and never stable; that they obey their own appetites, whereunto they are enslaved." Unable to control their own desires by any law whatsoever, they were unfitted to the task before them. It was imperative, then, that unity and order should be introduced among the monasteries; that some sort of a uniform rule, adapted to the existing conditions, should be adopted, not only for the preservation of the monastic institution, but for the preparation of the monks for their work. Therefore, although the Christianity of that time was far from ideal, it was, nevertheless, a religion within the grasp of the reckless barbarians; and subsequent events prove that it possessed a moral power capable of humanizing manners, elevating the intellect, and checking the violent temper of the age.
Excepting always the religious services of the Benedictine monks, their greatest contribution to civilization was literary and educational[E]. The rules of Benedict provided for two hours a day of reading, and it was doubtless this wise regulation that stimulated literary tastes, and resulted in the collecting of books and the reproduction of manuscripts. "Wherever a Benedictine house arose, or a monastery of any one of the Orders, which were but offshoots from the Benedictine tree, books were multiplied and a library came into existence, small indeed at first, but increasing year by year, till the wealthier houses had gathered together collections of books that would do credit to a modern university." There was great danger that the remains of classic literature might be destroyed in the general devastation of Italy. The monasteries rescued the literary fragments that escaped, and preserved them. "For a period of more than six centuries the safety of the literary heritage of Europe,--one may say of the world,--depended upon the scribes of a few dozen scattered monasteries."
The literary services of the earlier monks did not consist in original production, but in the reproduction and preservation of the classics. This work was first begun as a part of the prescribed routine of European monastic life in the monastery at Vivaria, or Viviers, France, which was founded by Cassiodorus about 539. The rules of this cloister were based on those of Cassian, who died in the early part of the fifth century. Benedict, at Monte Cassino, followed the example of Cassiodorus, and the Benedictine Order carried the work on for the seven succeeding centuries.
Cassiodorus was a statesman of no mean ability, and for over forty years was active in the political circles of his time, holding high official positions under five different Roman rulers. He was also an exceptional scholar, devoting much of his energy to the preservation of classic literature. His magnificent collection of manuscripts, rescued from the ruins of Italian libraries, "supplied material for the pens of thousands of monastic scribes." If we leave out Jerome, it is to Cassiodorus that the honor is due for joining learning and monasticism.
"Thus," remarks Schaff, "that very mode of life, which, in its founder, Anthony, despised all learning, became in the course of its development an asylum of culture in the rough and stormy times of the migration and the crusades, and a conservator of the literary treasures of antiquity for the use of modern times."
Cassiodorus, with a noble enthusiasm, inspired his monks to their task. He even provided lamps of ingenious construction, that seem to have been self-trimming, to aid them in their work. He himself set an example of literary diligence, astonishing in one of his age.
Putnam is justified in his praises of this remarkable character when he declares: "It is not too much to say that the continuity of thought and civilization of the ancient world with that of the middle ages was due, more than to any other one man, to the life and labors of Cassiodorus."
But the monk was more than a scribe and a collector of books, he became the chronicler and the school-teacher. "The records that have come down to us of several centuries of medieval European history are due almost exclusively to the labors of the monastic chroniclers." A vast fund of information, the value of which is impaired, it is true, by much useless stuff, concerning medieval customs, laws and events, was collected by these unscientific historians and is now accessible to the student.
At the end of the ninth century nearly all the monasteries of Europe conducted schools open to the children of the neighborhood. The character of the educational training of the times is not to be judged by modern standards. A beginning had to be made, and that too at a time "when neither local nor national governments had assumed any responsibilities in connection with elementary education, and when the municipalities were too ignorant, and in many cases too poor, to make provision for the education of the children." It is therefore to the lasting credit of Benedict, inspired no doubt by the example of Cassiodorus, that he commanded his monks to read, encouraged literary work, and made provision for the education of the young.
The Benedictines rendered a great social service in reclaiming deserted regions and in clearing forests. "The monasteries," says Maitland, "were, in those days of misrule and turbulence, beyond all price, not only as places where (it may be imperfectly, but better than elsewhere) God was worshipped,... but as central points whence agriculture was to spread over bleak hills and barren downs and marshy plains, and deal its bread to millions perishing with hunger and its pestilential train." Roman taxation and barbarian invasions had ruined the farmers, who left their lands and fled to swell the numbers of the homeless. The monk repeopled these abandoned but once fertile fields, and carried civilization still deeper into the forests. Many a monastery with its surrounding buildings became the nucleus of a modern city. The more awful the darkness of the forest solitudes, the more the monks loved it. They cut down trees in the heart of the wilderness, and transformed a soil bristling with woods and thickets into rich pastures and ploughed fields. They stimulated the peasantry to labor, and taught them many useful lessons in agriculture. Thus, they became an industrial, as well as a spiritual, agency for good.
The habits of the monks brought them into close contact with nature. Even the animals became their friends. Numerous stories have been related of their wonderful power over wild beasts and their conversations with the birds. "It is wonderful," says Bede, "that he who faithfully and loyally obeys the Creator of the universe, should, in his turn, see all the creatures obedient to his orders and his wishes." They lived, so we are told, in the most intimate relations with the animal creation. Squirrels leaped to their hands or hid in the folds of their cowls. Stags came out of the forests in Ireland and offered themselves to some monks who were ploughing, to replace the oxen carried off by the hunters. Wild animals stopped in their pursuit of game at the command of St. Laumer. Birds ceased singing at the request of some monks until they had chanted their evening prayer, and at their word the feathered songsters resumed their music. A swan was the daily companion of St. Hugh of Lincoln, and manifested its miraculous knowledge of his approaching death by the most profound melancholy. While all the details of such stories are not to be accepted as literally true, no doubt some of this poetry of monastic history rests upon interesting and charming facts.
A fuller discussion of the permanent contributions which the monk made to civilization is reserved for the last chapter. I have somewhat anticipated a closer scrutiny of his achievements in order to present a clearer view of his life and labors. His religious duties were, perhaps, wearisome enough. We might tire of his monotonous chanting and incessant vigils, but it is gratifying to know that he also engaged in practical and useful employments. The convent became the house of industry as well as the temple of prayer. The forest glades echoed to the stroke of the axe as well as to hymns of praise. Yes, as Carlyle writes of the twelfth century, "these years were no chimerical vacuity and dreamland peopled with mere vaporous phantasms, but a green solid place, that grew corn and several other things. The sun shone on it, the vicissitudes of seasons and human fortunes. Cloth was woven and worn; ditches were dug, furrowed fields ploughed and houses built."