As it has often been asserted, and indeed extensively believed, that tlie world owes something to monasticism in consideration of certain missionary labors conducted by members of monastic orders, it seems proper to set fortli the true bearing of that subject, from which it will appear that monasticism was, in fact, one of the earliest antl greatest hindrances to the missionary development of the Church, and that whatever good was subsequently done by missionaries who were monks was done by force of Christian impulse or character, in direct contraven- tion of the sjnrit and intent of monasticism. It is un- necessary to dwell upon the historic fact that monasti- cism existed in the far East as a heathen practice ante- rior to the Christian xra. The first strictly ascetic sect in tlie Church was that of the Montanists, which arose in I'lirygia al)out A.D. 150, from Montanus, who had been \)r(vlously a priest of the heathen deity Cybelc. During the "Jd and 3d centuries a growing disposition manifested itself in the Church to exaggerate the virtue of fasting, and to attach special merit to celibacy, spe- cially among the clergy. Vows of celibacy began to be taken by persons of both sexes, in the idea that such a life was more holy than that of wedlock. About the year A.D. 2oO the Decian persecution raged with ex- treme severity in Upper Egypt, causing many to flee for their lives to deserts and secluded places. Already the minds of many Christians in Egypt had been pre- disposed to asceticism by the writings of Clement, Ori- gen, and Dionysius of Alexandria. Under a combina- tion of these and similar influences, many persons who ought to have been contending earnestly for " the faitli once delivered to the saints" withdrew themselves from society, and wasted their lives in idleness, and in useless struggles with the phantoms of their own excited imag- inations. The true spirit of Christianity would have given them courage to face danger, and doubtless have enabled them in many cases to win even their persecu- tors to the faith. liut the impulse of cowardice, whether moral or ]ihysieal, is contagious; hence midtitudes of well-meaning but weak persons abandoned scenes of Christian conflict, and betook themselves to desert soli- tudes and caves of the mountains. At first they lived as hermits, and sought by means of labor to provide for themselves, and to devote a surplus of their earnings to charitable objects. By degrees the austerities of some won for them notoriety, and caused them to become ob- jects of charity, and even of superstitious reverence.
among the ignorant. Thus such men as Anthony of Egypt, Paul of Thebes, Hilariou of Palestine, and oth- ers, became severally the centres of great communities of men, who might at their homes or in mission fields have been very useful, but who now wasted their lives in idleness and self-mortifications, to the disgrace of the Christianity which they professed. Pacliomius, origi- nally a soldier, but afterwards an anchoret, developed a certain organizing power by gathering his imitators out of their individual huts into a canohium, or community residence, thus founding the first Christian monastery. It was at Tabenna, an island of the Nile. Pacliomius also founded cloisters for nuns; and the members of his community, during his lifetime, reached the large num- ber of 3000. By the middle of the 5th century this order of monks alone, and there were various others, had attained the great number of 50,000. From this brief statement as an index let the mind of the reader survey the vast expansion of the monastic idea and of monastic ambition as orders of monks became multiplied and powerful, S[)reading themselves throughout Europe and the East during the long period of fifteen centuries. See Bexedictines; Cau.melites; Cautiiisiaxs; Do- minicans; Jesuits; Monasticism; Monks; etc. Con- sidering the hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of persons whose lives were by this unscriptural and unnatural system withdrawn from spheres of Christian usefulness in society and in mission fields to profitless and often degrading austerities, to say nothing of worse excesses that sometimes ibllowed in its train, it is easy to perceive that monasticism acted as a gigantic and wide-spread antagonism to the evangelization i:)f the world. It may be assumed that the persons embraced within its influence meant well, and as a rule lived up to the theories of which they were the victims. But how different might have been the position and influ- ence of the Christian Church had the lives and sacri- fices of all those jiersons been applied in accordance with the .Saviour's precept, " (Jo teach all nations."
While, therefore, monasticism was decimating the Church by the profitless seclusion of thousands of its best members, worldly conformity, on the other hand, came into the Church like a flood, with the elevation of many of the clergy to imperial favor. Thus the ancient Church, instead of remaining a unit in its zeal and ef- forts for the conversion of the world, became embar- rassed by two opposite and equally injurious systems of error and practice, both alike fatal to its missionary faith- fulness and progress. To this day the (ireek Church re- mains under the incubus of the monastic system fastened upon it at that early period, while the Latin Church soon after became so closely identified with secular power that, although it resumed propagandism, it prac- ticed it with motives and measures often highly excep- tionable, and thus contaminated and enfeebled the Christianity it disseminated. "In regard to missions, the inaction of the Eastern churches is well known. As a general rule, they have remained content with tlie maintenance of their own customs." '• The ]ireacliing of Ulphilas to the (loths, of the Xestorian missions in Asia, of Iiussia in Siberia and the Aleutian Islands, are I but striking exceptions. The conversiim of the Itussian I nation w.-is effected, not by the preaching of the Byzan- tine clergy, but by the marriage of a Byzantine ]>rin- j cess. In the midst of the IMohammedan East the (ireek I popidations remain like islands in the barren sea. and the Bedouin tribes have wandered for twelve centuries round the (ireek convent of Blount Sinai, probably with- out one instance of conversion to the creed of men whom they yet acknowledge with almost religious veneration as lieiugs from a higher world" (Stanlej', Kttst<n) C/i.).