MONASTICISM
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MONASTICISM
gradually most of them also became disorderly and worldly ; and a leading feature in the corrui)tion of the Church was perceived to be in those very orders found- ed to promote apostolic simplicity in tlie Christian Church. Tlie best and most influential men in the Church cordially joined in the demand for a thorough reformation ; they willingly and frankly admitted that the crisis had been in ])art occasioned by the corrup- tion of the clergy, secular as well as monastic, and they urged, in particular, the imperious necessity of a reformation of the religious orders (comp. Gieseler, Eccles. Hist, iv, 131-15G). The protest of the Reform- ers met with a cordial response in the breasts of mul- titudes whose attachment to the Church of Home was warm and almost inextinguishable. In Italy attempts were made to renovate their youth; but on the Conti- nent, espocially in Germany and the Netherlands, the people would be satisfied with notiiing short of the dis- solution of monicery (Kanke, Papacy, i, 129, 3S4): they were determined that no monasteries or convents should longer subsist. This opposition had been engendered partly by a gradual alienation of all monastics from the people, but even more by the attacks that had been made upon it by many of the leading Reformers, who sought reformation within tiie Church. Foremost among them was that declared foe of all superstition, the inmiortal Erasmus (q. v.). In his early days he had tasted, bj' constraint, sometliing of monkish life, and his natural abhorrence of it was made more in- tense by his bitter recollection, and by the trouble it cost him, after he had become famous, to release him- self from the thraldom to which his former associates were inclined to call him back. He was very com- petent, therefore, to bear testimony for or against the monkish life, and wiien he became its opponent his opinions commanded the attention of all the thought- ful. And not only became he now an opponent, but a lifelong warfarer against the monks and their ideas and practices. His tongue and his pen also were used freely. His Praise of Follij, and, in particular, the Colloquies, in which the idleness, illiteracj', self-indul- gence, and artificial and useless austerities of " the re- ligious" were handled in the most diverting style, were read with infinite amusement by all who sympathized with the new studies, and by tliousands who did not calculate the effect of this telling satire in abating popular reverence even for the Church establishment as a whole. It is not to be wondered, then, that popes, bishops, and councils urged upon the reformers within the religious orders to speed the day of transformation. Indeed, the internal history of nearly ever^' order re- cords, at this point of time, strong resolutions in favor of an enforcement of the rigorous primitive rules. "As early as 1520," sa3'S Ranko, "and since, in proportion to the advances made by Protestantism in Germany, there arose in countries which had not yet been readied by it, a feeling of the necessity of a new amelioration of the hierarchical order. This feeling made its wa}- even rn the religious orders themselves; sometimes in one, sometimes in anotlier of them." Even the Order | of the Camaldoli, secluded as they were, owned them- selves implicated in the general corruption, and insti- j tuted reforms, l>y founding in 1522 a new congrega- tion, tliat of Monte Corona (comp. Helyot, Jliat. des ordres monastiques, v, 271), Its leader, Paul Giustini- ani, held, in order to tlie attainment of Christian per- fection, three things to lie essential, viz. solitude, vows, iind the separation of the monks into separate cells. Those small colls and oratories, such as are j-et to be found here and there, on the highest liills, in charming wilds, such as seem to comluct the soul at once to sub- lime flights and to more profound tranquillity, are spoken of by him in some of his letters with special satisfaction. The reforms of the hermits of Jlonte Corona extended to all parts of the world. Hut not only in the smaller orders did this spirit of reform bear fruit. In the most numerous and powerful order, that
of the Franciscans, who had perhaps become the most profoundly corrupt of any, yet another new effort at reformation was attempted, in addition to the many tliat had been made before. The more rigorous party achieved a complete success over those inclined to- wards laxity, and several new reformed congregations branched off from them, among wliich the Capuchins were the most prominent. These friars contemplated the restoration of the regulations of their original founder — divine service at midnight, prayers at ap- pointed hours, discipline, and silence ; in short, the whole severe rule of life laid down in the original in- stitution. One cannot but smile at the importance which they attaclicd to things of no consequence ; but, setting that aside, it must be acknowledged that they again behaved with great courage, as, for example, during the pestilence of 1528.
Besides the reformation of the old orders, the Church showed itself most prolific in producing new ones, and the character of the times is clearly apparent in manj- of these new organizations. The monastic in- stitutions of former daj's had been, as religious com- munities, essentially contemplative ; the new ones were predominantly operative, the mendicant orders form- ing, so to speak, a connecting link between the two. Preaching, teaching, visiting the sick and poor, and similar objects, formed the chief occupations of the new orders, to which the greatest energy was directed. Thus arose the Thtalines (q. v.) in 1524, started by Ca- jetan of Thiene ; "a man," says Ranke, " of a peace- ful, quiet, and soft temper, of few words, and prone to indulge in the ecstasies of a spiritual enthusiasm ; of whom it was said that he wanted to reform the world, but without its being known tliat he was in the world" {Papacy, ii, 131). The Theatines did not call them- selves monks, but regular clergy ; they were priests bound by monkish vows, but expressl}' declared that neither in life nor worship should any mere custom oblige the conscience. Their desire, no doubt, was to prevent the spread of reformatory opinions leading to alienation from the Church of Rome ; and, themsidves Italians, they sought, in the resumption of clerical du- ties under the monastic vow, to raise up a new supply for the priesthood free from the objections of the times. They became pretty numerous, not only in Italy, but also in Spain, South Germany, and in France. An- other of these orders was that of the Barnahites (q. v.), also founded in Italy in 1532, suggested at Milan b}^ the ravages of war and the consequent sufferings of the people, which the order was intended to mitigate by active beneficence, as well as to remove the disor- derly habits which it had brought in its train, bj' in- struction, preacliing, and good example. Somewhat later, St. Philip Neri, an active and remarkable devo- tee of the papacy at Florence, founded the order Fa- thers of the Oratory, wliich was confirmed by pope Gregory XIII in 1577, and spread not only in Italy, but to this daj' continues to flourish, especially in France.