(G.) Mohammedan Monar/nsm. — " The two most suc- cessful religious impostures," says Cunningham, " which the world has yet seen are Buddhism and Mohamme- danism. Each creed owed its origin to the enthusiasm of a single individual, and each was rapidly pr(i|>agated by numbers of zealous followers. But here the parallel ends; for the Koran of Mohammed was addressed wholly to tlie 'passions' of mankind, by the ])romised gratification of human desires both in this world and in the next; while the Dharma of .Siikya ^Iinn was ad- dressed wholly to the 'intellect,' and sought to wean
mankind from the pleasures and vanities of this life by pointing to the transitoriness of all human enjoyment. . . . The former propagated his religion by the merci- less edge of the sword; the latter by the persuasive voice of the missionary. The sanguinarv- career of the Islamite was lighted by the lurid flames of burning cit- ies; the peaceful progress of the Buddhist was illumi- nated by the cheerful faces of the sick in monastic hos- l)itals [ for the cripjjlcd, the deformed, the destitute], and by the happy smiles of travellers reposing in Dhar-
' masalas by the road-side. The one was the personifi- cation of bodily activity and material enjoyment; the other was the genius of corporeal abstinence and intel- lectual contemplation" {HhiUa Topes, p. 53, 54). These words of Cunningham may apply to the early history of the two religions, but they are hardly in place in their history of more modern times. It is true, indeed, that Mohammedanism was the religion of the sword, but, its concpiests over, it has studied the religions of the world, and to-day Islam emlxjdies much from every creed in the universe. Its founder had been especial- ly careful to rigidly exclude monasticism, and himself declared "«o monachum in Islam," yet to-day the dervishes of the East are to be met almost wherever Islam has its adherents. See Dervishes. Celibacy is not likely to get a great hold in IMohammedan na- tions, but ascetic practices, hermitage, and mendicancy prevail to a large extent among them. Mr. Kuffner, in his Fathers of the Desert (N. Y. 1850, 2 vols., a work
, popular in form, and full of valuable and curious infor- mation), has furnished an extended description of Mo- hammedan monasticism, and goes so far as to assert that the Christians derived it largely from them, who, in turn, borrowed from the Buddhists (see vol. i.ch.ii-ix); but such a view can hardly be reconciled with the great place of the phenomenon in history, and would, more- over, stamp as heretics many of the Christian fathers who were among the greatest and best representatives both East and West. (See below.) The probability is that monachism, so far as it exists in tlie ^Mohammedan world, was introduced either direct from the heathen world around it, or came from the Christians of the Post- Nicene age, especially the churches of Africa, and Egypt in particular.
II. Christian Monachism. — 1. Origin of Monasticism in the Church. — The advocates of Christian monasti- cism claim for it an evangelical origin. They think they find at once its justification and primitive form in the Gospel exhortation to voluntary- poverty (the instance in which Christ charged the rich young man to sell all he had, that, as a follower of his, he should receive a hun- dred-fold more, "with persccution,"^Iatt.xix,21). "But this monastic interpretation of primitive Christianity," as Dr. Schaff has well said, " mistakes a few incidental points of outward resemblance for essential identity, measures the spirit of Christianity by some isolated pas- sages, instead of explaining the latter from th« former, and is upon the whole a miserable emaciation and cari- cature. The (iospel makes upon all men virtually the same moral demand, and knows no di>tinclion of a re- ligion for the masses and another for the few." Jlona- chism, in this light, is at variance with the |nire spirit of Christianity, inasmuch as it impels men. instead of remaining as a salt to the corrupt world in which tlicy live, outwardly to withdraw from it. and to i)ury the tal- ent which otherwise they might use for the benefit of the many. "Jesus, tlie model for all believers, was neither a ccrnobite nor an anchoret, nor an ascetic of any kind, but the perfect pattern man for universal imitation. There is not a trace of monkish austerity and ascetic rigor in his life or precepts, but in all his acts and words a won- derful harmony of freedom and purity, of the most com- lirehensive charity and spotless holiness. He retired to the moimtains and into solitude, but only temporarily, and for the purpose of renewing his strength for active work. Amid the society of his disciples, of both sexes, with kindred and friends, in Cana and Ikthany, at the
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table of publicans and sinners, and in intercourse with all classes of the people, he kept liimself unspotted from the world, and transfigured the world into the kingdom of God. His poverty and celibacy have nothing to do with asceticism, but represent, the one the condescen- sion of his redeeming love, the other his ideal unique- ness and his absolutely peculiar relation to the whole Church, which alone is tit or worthy to be his bride. . . . The life of the apostles and primitive Christians in gen- eral was anything but a hermit life ; else had not the Gospel spread so quickly to all the cities of the Roman world. Peter was married, and travelled with his wife as a missionary. Paul assumes one marriage of the clergy as a rule, and notwithstanding his personal and relatiVe preference for celibacy in the then oppressed condition of the Church, he is the most zealous advo- cate of evangelical freedom, in opposition to all legal bondage and anxious asceticism."