2. Development of Monachism. — In what has pre- ceded it is clearly foreshadowed that the historical de- velopment of the monastic institution was neither sud- den nor rapid, but that it passed through several stages before it finally took the shape under which it is now known to us. Dr. Schaff distinguishes four stages — the first three complete in the 4th century; the re- maining one reaches maturity in the Latin Church of the Middle Ages. («) The first stage covers the ascetic life, neither organized nor separated from the Church. It comes down from the ante-Nicene age, and is noticed in the article Asceticism (q. v.). In the 4th century it took the form, for the most part, of either hermit or coenobite life, and continued in the Church itself, espe- cially among the clergy, who might be called half- monks. (6) The second stage, which is hermit-life or anchoretism [see Anachokets], arose in the beginning of the 4th centur)'', gave asceticism a fixed and i)erma- nent shape, and pushed it even to external separation from the world. It took the prophets Elijah and John the Baptist for its models, and went beyond them (comp. Lond. Qu. Rev. April, 1855, p. 164). kot content with partial and temporan,' retirement from oonmion life, which may be united with social intercourse and useful labors, the consistent anchoret secluded himself from all society, even from kindred ascetics, and came only ex- ceptionally into contact with human affairs, either to receive the visits of admirers of every class, especially of the sick and the needy (^vhich were very frequent in the case of the more celebrated monks), or to appear in the cities on some extraordinary occasion, as a spirit from
MOXASTICIS:\I
MONASTICISM
another world. His clothing was a hair shirt and a wild-beast's skin ; his food bread and salt ; his dwelling a cave; his employment prayer, affliction of the body, and conflict with satanic powers and wild images of fancy. They were, as Montalcmbert says, " naifs com- me des enfauts, et forts comme des geants;" though Villemain, forming a more unimpassioned estimate of monasticism and its results, says, " De cette rude ecole du desert il sortait des grands hommes et des fous;" heroes and madmen (Meluiif/es Elo<j. C'kret. p. 356). The anchorets maintained from choice, after the cessation of the persecutions, the seclusion to which they had orig- inally resorted as an expedient of security ; and a later development of the same principle is found in the still more remarkable psychological phenomenon of the cel- ebrated Pillar Saints (q. v.).
The founder of the anclioretic mode of life is sup- posed to have been one certain Paul of Thebes, but St. Anthony is generally looked ujwn as "the father of mo- nasticism" (Neander, ii, 229) ; and though this is per- haps going a little too far, he must certainly be regarded as the principal influence in tlie anchoretic movement. Says Neander {Ch. IJist. ii, 228, 229), '• In the 4th cen- tury' men were not agreed on the question as to who was to be considered the founder of monasticism, whether Paul or Anthony. If by this was to be understood the individual from whom tlie spread of this mode of life proceeded, the name was unquestionably due to the lat- ter: for if Paul was tlie first Christian hermit, yet he must have remained unknown to the rest of the Chris- tian world, and without the influence of Anthony would have found no followers. (IJefore Anthony, there may have been many who, by inclination or by peculiar out- ward circumstances, were led to adopt this mode of life; but they remained, at least, unknown.) The first whom tradition — which in this case, it must be confessed, is entitled to little confidence, and much distorted by fa- ble— cites by name is the above-mentioned Paul. He is said to have been moved by the Decian persecution, which no doubt raged with peculiar violence in his native land, the Thebaid, in Ujjper Egypt, to withdraw himself, when a j'oung man, to a grotto in a remote mountain. Uy degrees he became attached to the mode of life he had adopted at first out of necessity. Nour- ishment and clothing were supj)licd him by a palm-tree that had sprung up near the grotto. Whether every- thing in this legend, or, if not everything, what part of it, is historically true, it is impossible to determine. According to the tradition, Anthony (q. v.) . . . having heard of Paul, visited him, and made him known to others. But as Athanasius, in his life of Anthony, is wholly silent as to this matter, which he certainly would have deemed an important circumstance — though he states that Anthony visited all ascetics who were expe- rienced in tlie spiritual life — the story must be dismissed as unworthy of credit."
It was really Anthony who gave to his age a pattern, which was seized with love and enthusiasm by many hearts that longed after Christian perfection, and wliicli excited many to emulate it. Like Paul, Anthony was a native of Kgypt, and being himself of a noble family, his influence was considerable, and he persuaded many members of the old Egyptian families to join him, and spread his ascetic views and practices throughout all Kgypt; even the deserts of this country, to the borders of Lybia, were sprinkled witli numerous anachoretic so- cieties. Hence the institution spread to Palestine and Syria, and Anthony, indeed, was visited not only by Egyptian ascetics, but also by those coming from Jeru- salem (sec Palladii Lavsiuai, c. 20, Biblwtli.patnnn I'n- rkieiisix, t. xiii, fol. 939). Thus it was that Anthony, "without (inn conscious desiipi of his own" (Neander), became the founder of this new mode of Christian liv- ing; for it in truth happened of its own accord, with- out any special efforts of his, that persons of similar dis- position attached themselves to him, and, building their cells around his, made him their spiritual guide and