A Short History of Monks and Monasteries Part 17

In the eleventh century, a monk named Thieffroy wrote the following: "It matters little that our churches rise to heaven, that the capitals of their pillars are sculptured and gilded, that our parchment is tinted purple, that gold is melted to form the letters of our ma.n.u.scripts, and that their bindings are set with precious stones, if we have little or no care for the members of Christ, and if Christ himself lies naked and dying before our doors." This spirit, so charmingly expressed, was never quite absent from the monkish orders. The monasteries were asylums for the hungry during famines, and the sick during plagues. They served as hotels where the traveler found a cordial welcome, comfortable shelter and plain food. If he needed medical aid, his wants were supplied.

During the black plague, while many monks fled with the mult.i.tude, others stayed at their posts and were to be found daily in the homes of the stricken, ministering to their bodily and spiritual needs. Many of them perished in their heroic and self-sacrificing labors.

Alms-giving was universally enjoined as a sure pa.s.sport to heaven. The most glittering rewards were held out to those who enriched the monks with legacies to be used in relief of the poor. It was, no doubt, the unselfish activities of the monks that caused them to be held in such high esteem; the result was their coffers were filled with more gold than they could easily give away. Thus abuses grew up. Bernard said: "Piety gave birth to wealth, and the daughter devoured the mother."

Jacob of Vitry complained that money, "by various and deceptive tricks,"

was exacted from the people by the monks, most of which adhered "to their unfaithful fingers." While Lecky eloquently praises the monks for their beautiful deeds of charity, "following all the windings of the poor man's grief," still he condones in the strongest terms the action of Henry VIII. in transferring the monastic funds to his own treasury: "No misapplication of this property by private persons could produce as much evil as an unrestrained monasticism."

It would be unjust, however, to censure the monks for not recognizing the evil social effects of indiscriminate alms-giving. While their system was imperfect, it was the only one possible in an age when the social sciences were unknown. It is difficult, even to-day, to restrain that good-natured, but baneful, benevolence which takes no account of circ.u.mstances and consequences, and often fosters the growth of pauperism. The monks kept alive that sweet spirit of philanthropy which is so essential to all the higher forms of civilization. It is easier to discover the proper methods for the exercise of generous sentiments, than to create those feelings or to arouse them when dormant.

_Monasticism and Religion_

No doctrine in theology, or practice of religion, has been free from monastic influences. An adequate treatment of this theme would require volumes instead of paragraphs. A few points, however, may be touched upon by way of suggestion to those who may wish to pursue the subject further.

The effect of the monastic ideal was to emphasize the sinfulness of man and his need of redemption. To get rid of sin--that is the problem of humanity. A quaint formula of monastic confession reads: "I confess all the sins of my body, of my flesh, of my bones and sinews, of my veins and cartilages, of my tongue and lips, of my ears, teeth and hair, of my marrow and any other part whatsoever, whether it be soft or hard, wet or dry." This emphasis on man's sinfulness and the need of redemption was sadly needed in Rome and all down the ages. "It was a protest," says Clarke, "against pleasure as the end of life ... It proved the reality of the religious sentiment to a skeptical age.... If this long period of self-torture has left us no other gain, let us value it as a proof that in man religious aspiration is innate, unconquerable, and able to triumph over all that the world hopes and over all that it fears."

Thus the monks helped to keep alive the enthusiasm of religion. There was a fervor, a devotion, a spirit of sacrifice, in the system, which acted as a corrective to the selfish materialism of the early and middle ages. Christian history furnishes many sad spectacles of brutality and licentiousness, of insolent pride and uncontrolled greed, masked in the garb of religion. Monasticism, by its constant insistence upon poverty and obedience, fostered a spirit of loyalty to Christ and the cross, which served as a protest, not only against the general laxity of morals, but also against the faithlessness of corrupt monks. Harnack says: "It was always monasticism that rescued the church when sinking, freed her when secularized, defended her when attacked. It warmed hearts that were growing cold, restrained unruly spirits, won back the people when alienated from the church." It may have been in harmony with divine plans, that religion was to have been kept alive and vigorous by excessive austerities, even as in later days it needed the stern and unyielding Puritan spirit, now regarded as too grim and severe, to cope successfully with the forces of tyranny and sin.

If it be true, as some are inclined to believe, that this age is losing a definite consciousness of sin, that in the reaction from the asceticism of the monks and the gloom of the Puritans we are in danger of minimizing the doctrine of personal accountability to G.o.d, then we cannot afford to ignore the underlying ideal of monasticism. In so far as monasticism contributed to a normal consciousness of human freedom and personal guilt, and maintained a grip upon the conscience of the sinner, it has rendered the cause of true religion a genuine and permanent service.

But the mistake of the monks was twofold. They exaggerated sin, and they employed unhealthy methods to get rid of it. Excessive introspection, instead of exercising a purifying influence, tends to distort one's religious conceptions, and creates an unwholesome type of piety. Man is a sinner, but he also has potential and actual goodness. The monks failed to define sin in accordance with facts. Many innocent pleasures and legitimate satisfactions were erroneously thought to be sinful.

Honorable and useful aspirations that, under wise control, minister to man's highest development were selected for eradication. "Every instinct of human nature," says W.E. Channing, "has its destined purpose in life, and the perfect man is to be found in the proportionate cultivation of each element of his character, not in the exaggerated development of those faculties which are deemed primarily good, nor in the repression of those which are evil only when their prominence destroys the balance of the whole."

But the methods employed by the monks to get rid of sin afford another ill.u.s.tration of the fact that n.o.ble sentiments and holy aspirations need to be wisely directed. It is not enough for a mother to love her child; she must know how to give that love proper expression. In her attempt to guide and train her loved one she may fatally mislead him. The modern emphasis upon method deserves wider recognition than it has received.

The applause of the church that sounded so sweet in the ears of the monk, as he laid the stripes upon his body, proclaims the high esteem in which penance was held. But the monk cruelly deceived himself. His self-inflicted tortures developed within his soul an unnatural piety, "a piety," says White, "that became visionary and introspective, a theology of black clouds and lightning and thunder, a superst.i.tious religion based on dreams and saint's bones." True penitence consists in high and holy purposes, in pure and unselfish living, and not in disfigurements and in misery. Dreariness and fear are not the proper manifestations of that perfect love which casteth out fear.

The influence of monasticism upon the doctrine of atonement for sin was, in many respects, prejudicial to the best interests of religion.

The monks are largely responsible for the theory that sin can be atoned for by pecuniary gifts. It may be said that they did not ignore true feelings of repentance, of which the gold was merely a tangible expression, but the notion widely prevailed that the prayers of the monks, purchased by temporal gifts, secured the forgiveness of the transgressor. The wors.h.i.+p of saints, pilgrimages to shrines, and reverence for bones and other relics, were a.s.siduously encouraged.

Thus the monkish conception of salvation and of the means by which it is to be obtained were at variance with any reasonable interpretation of the Scriptures and the dictates of human reason. "It measured virtue,"

says Schaff, "by the quant.i.ty of outward exercises, instead of the quality of the inward disposition, and disseminated self-righteousness and an anxious, legal, and mechanical religion[K]."

[Footnote K: Appendix, Note K.]

The doctrine of future punishment reached its most repulsive and abnormal developments in the hands of the monks. A vast literature was produced by them, portraying, with vivid minuteness, the pangs of h.e.l.l.

Volcanoes were said to be the portals of the lower world, that heaved and sighed as human souls were plunged into the awful depths. G.o.d was held up as a fearful judge, and the saving mercy of Christ himself paled before the rescuing power of his mother. These fearful caricatures of G.o.d, these detailed, revolting descriptions of pain and anguish, could not but have a hardening effect upon the minds of men. "To those," says Lecky, "who do not regard these teachings as true, it must appear without exception, the most odious in the religious history of the world, subversive of the very foundations of Christianity."

Finally, the greatest error of monastic teaching was in its false and baneful distinction between the secular and the religious.

Unquestionably the Christian ideal is founded on some form of world-renunciation. The teachings and example of Jesus, the lives of the Apostles, and the characters of the early Christians, exhibit in varying phases the ideal of self-crucifixion. The doctrine of the cross, with all that it signifies, is the most powerful force in the spread of Christianity. The spiritual nature of man needs to be trained and disciplined. But does this truth lead the Christian to the monastic method? Was the self-renunciation of Jesus like that of the ascetics, with their ecstasies and self-punishments? Is G.o.d more pleased with the recluse who turns from a needy world to shut himself up to prayer and meditation, than He is with him who cultivates holy emotions and heavenly aspirations, while pursuing some honorable and useful calling?

The answer to these questions discloses the chief fallacy in the monastic ideal, the effect of which was the creation of an artificial piety. There is no special virtue in silence, celibacy, and abstinence from the enjoyment of G.o.d's gifts to mankind.

The crying need of Christianity to-day is a willingness on the part of Christ's followers to live for others instead of self. Men and women are needed who, like many of the monks and nuns, will identify themselves with the toiling mult.i.tudes, and who will forego the pleasures of the world and the prospects of material gain or social preferment, for the sake of ministering to a needy humanity. The essence of Christianity is a love to G.o.d and man that expresses itself in terms of social service and self-sacrifice. Monasticism helped to preserve that n.o.ble essence of all true religion. But a revival of the apostolic spirit in these times would not mean a triumph for monasticism. Stripped of its rigid vows of celibacy, poverty and obedience, monasticism is dead.

The spirit of social service, the insistence upon soul-purity, and the craving for partic.i.p.ation in the divine nature, are the fruits of Christianity, not of monasticism, which merely sought to carry out the Christian ideal. But it is not necessary, in order to realize this ideal, to wage war on human nature. True Christianity is perfectly compatible with wealth, health and social joys. The realms of industry, politics and home-life are a part of G.o.d's world. A religious ideal based on a distorted view of social life, that involves a renunciation of human joy and the extinction of natural desires, and that prohibits the free exercise of beneficent faculties, as conditions of its realization, can never establish its right to permanent and universal dominion. The faithful discharge of unromantic, secular duties, the keeping of one's heart pure in the midst of temptation, and the unheralded altruism of private life, must ever be as welcome in the sight of G.o.d as the prayers of the recluse, who scorns the world of secular affairs.

True religion, the highest religion, is possible beyond the walls of churches and convents. The so-called secular employments of business and politics, of home and school, may be conducted in a spirit of lofty consecration to the Eternal, and so carried on, may, in their way, minister to the highest welfare of humanity. The old distinction, therefore, between the secular and the sacred is pernicious and false.

There are some other sacred things besides monasteries and prayers.

Human life itself is holy; so are the commonplace duties of the unt.i.tled household and factory saints.

"G.o.d is in all that liberates and lifts, In all that humbles, sweetens, and consoles."

Modern monasticism has forsaken the column of St. Simeon Stylites and the rags of St. Francis. It has given up the ancient and fantastic feats of asceticism, and the spiritual extravagances of the early monks. The old monasticism never could have arisen under a religious system controlled by natural and healthful spiritual ideas. It has no attractions for minds unclouded by superst.i.tion. It has lost its hold upon the modern man because the ancient ideas of G.o.d and his world, upon which it thrived, have pa.s.sed away.

Such are some of the effects of the monastic inst.i.tution. Its history is at once a warning and an inspiration. Its dreamy asceticism, its gloomy cells, are gone. Its unworldly motives, its stern allegiance to duty, its protest against self-indulgence, its courage and sincerity, will ever const.i.tute the potent energy of true religion. Its ministrations to the broken-hearted, and its loving care of the poor, must ever remain as a s.h.i.+ning example of practical Christianity. In the simplicity of the monk's life, in the idea of "brotherhood," in the common life for common ends, a Christian democracy will always find food for reflection. As the social experiments of modern times reveal the hidden laws of social and religious progress, it will be found that in spite of its glaring deficiencies, monasticism was a magnificent attempt to realize the ideal of Christ in individual and social life. As such it merits neither ridicule nor obloquy. It was a heroic struggle with inveterate ignorance and sin, the history of which flashes many a welcome light upon the problems of modern democracy and religion.

Monastic forms and vows may pa.s.s away with other systems that will have their day, but its fervor of faith, and its warfare against human pa.s.sion and human greed, its child-like love of the heavenly kingdom will never die. The revolt against its superst.i.tions and excesses is justifiable only in a society that seeks to actualize its underlying religious ideal of personal purity and social service.

APPENDIX

NOTE A

The derivation and meaning of a few monastic terms may be of interest to the reader.

Abbot, from [Greek: abba], literally, father. A t.i.tle originally given to any monk, but afterwards restricted to the head or superior of a monastery.

Anch.o.r.et, anchorite, from the Greek, [Greek: anach.o.r.etes], a recluse, literally, one retired. In the cla.s.sification of religious ascetics, the anch.o.r.ets were those who were most excessive in their austerities, not only choosing solitude but subjecting themselves to the greatest privations.

Ascetic, [Greek: asketes], one who exercises, an athlete. The term was first applied to those practicing self-denial for athletic purposes. In its ecclesiastical sense, it denotes those who seek holiness through self-mortification.

Canon Regular. About A.D. 755, Chrodegangus, Bishop of Metz, gave a cloister-life law to his clergy, who came to be called canons, from [Greek: kanon], rule. The canons were originally priests living in a community like monks, and acting as a.s.sistants to the bishops. They gradually formed separate and independent bodies. Benedict XII. (1399) tried to secure a general adoption of the rule of Augustine for these canons, which gave rise to the distinction between canons regular (i.e., those who follow that rule), and canons secular (those who do not).

Cen.o.bite, from the Greek, [Greek: koinos], common, and [Greek: bios], life; applied to those living in monasteries.

Clerks Regular. This is a t.i.tle given to certain religious orders founded in the sixteenth century. The princ.i.p.al societies are: the Theatines, founded by Cajetan of Thiene, subsequently Pope Paul IV.; and Priests of the Oratory, inst.i.tuted by Philip Neri, of Florence.

These two orders have been held in high repute, numbering among their members many men of rank and intellect.

Cloister, from the Latin, _Claustra_, that which closes or shuts, an inclosure; hence, a place of religious retirement, a monastery.

Hermit, or eremite, from the Greek, [Greek: heremos], desolate, solitary. One who dwells alone apart from society, or with but few companions. Not used of those who dwell in cloisters.

Monastery, comes from the same source as monk. Commonly applied to a house used exclusively by monks. The term, however, strictly includes the abbey, the priory, the nunnery, the friary, and in this broad sense is synonymous with convent, which is from the Latin, _convenire_, to meet together.

Monk, from the Greek, [Greek: mhonos], alone, single. Originally, a man who retired from the world for religious meditation. In later use, a member of a community. It is used indiscriminately to denote all persons in monastic orders, in or out of the monasteries.

Nun, from _nouna_, i.e., chaste, holy. "The word is probably of Coptic origin, and occurs as early as in Jerome." (Schaff).

Regulars. Until the tenth century it was not customary to regard the monks as a part of the clerical order. Before that time they were known as _religiosi_ or _regulares_. Afterwards a distinction was made between parish priests, or secular clergy, and the monks, or regular clergy.

For more detailed information on these and other monastic words, see The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, and McClintock and Strong's Encyclopedia.

NOTE B

The Pythagoreans are likened to the Jesuits probably on account of their submission to Pythagoras as Master, their love of learning and their austerities. Like the Jesuits, the Pythagorean league entangled itself with politics and became the object of hatred and violence. Its meeting-houses were everywhere sacked and burned. As a philosophical school Pythagoreanism became extinct about the middle of the fourth century.

NOTE C