154 THIRD PEKIOD. A.D, S'il-590.
the living God iu Clirist. And the eifects of the two ars equally diilerent. Though it is also unquestional)]e, that, iiotvvithstanding this difference of principle, and despite the con^ demnation of Gnosticism and Manichoeism, the hoatlien dualism exerted a powerful influence on the Catholic asceticism and its view of the world, particularly upon anchoretisra and monasticism in the East, and has been fully overcome only in evangelical Protestantism, The precise degree of this influence, and the exact proportion of Christian and heathen ingredients in the early monachism of the church, were an interesting subject of special investigation.
The germs of the Christian monasticism may be traced aa far back as the middle of the second century, and in fact faintly even in the anxious ascetic practices of some of the Jewish Christians in the apostolic age. This asceticism, particularly fasting and celibacy, was commended more or less distinctly by the most eminent ante-Nicene fathers, and was practised, at least partially, by a particular class of Christians (by Origen even to the unnatural extreme of self-emasculation).' So early as the Decian persecution, about the year 250, we meet also the first instances of the flight of ascetics or Cliristian philosophers into the -wilderness ; though rather in exceptional cases, and by way of escape from personal danger. So long as the church herself was a child of the desert, and stood in abrupt opposition to the persecuting world, the ascetics of both sexes usually lived near the congregations or in the midst of them, often even in the families, seeking there to realize the ideal of Christian perfection. But when, under Constantine, the masa of the population of the empire became nominally Christian, they felt, that in this world-church, especially in such cities as Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople, they were not at home, and voluntarily retired into waste and desolate places and mountain clefts, there to work out tlie salvation of their souls undisturbed.
Thus far monachism is a reaction against the secularizing etate-churcli system and the decay of discipline, and an earacst, well-meant, though mistaken eftbrt to save the virginal purity
' CDiiip. vol. ii. §§ 104-108 (p. 387 sqq.).
§ 28. OKiGm OF chkistiajst monasticism. 155
of the Christian church by trans})lanting it in tho Avihlerness. The moral corruption of tlie Roman empire, which had the appearance of Christianity, Lnt was essentially heathen in the whole framework of society, the oppressiveness of taxes,' thft extremes of despotism and slavery, of extravagant luxury and hopeless poverty, the repletion of all classes, the decay of all productive energy in science and art, and the threatening incursions of barbarians on the frontiers — all favored the inclination toward solitude in just the most earnest minds.
At the same time, however, monasticism afforded also a compensation for martyrdom, which ceased with the Christianization of the state, and thus gave place to a voluntary martyrdom, a gradual self-destruction, a sort of religious suicide. In the burning deserts and awful caverns of Egypt and Syria, amidst the pains of self-torture, the mortification of natural desires, and i-elentless battles with hellish monsters, the ascetics now sought to win the crown of heavenly glory, which their predecessors in the times of persecution had more quickly and easily gained by a bloody death.
The native land of the monastic life was Egypt, the land where Oriental and Grecian literature, philosophy, and religion, Christian orthodoxy and Gnostic heresy, met both in friendship and in hostility. Monasticism was favored and promoted here by climate and geographic features, by the oasis-like seclusion of the country, by the bold contrast of barren deserts with the fertile valley of the ISTile, by the superstition, the contemplative turn, and the passive endurance of the national character, by the example of the Therapeutas, and by the moi-al principles of the Alexandrian fathers ; especially by Origen's theory of a liigher and lower morality and of the merit of voluntary poverty and celibacy, ^lian says of the Egy|;)tians, that they bear the most exquisite torture without a murmur, and would rather be tormented to death than compromise truth. Such natures, once seized with religious enthusiasm, were eminently qualified for saints of the desert.
' Lactantius says it was necessary to buy even the liberty of breathing, and ao coriing to Zosimus (Hist. ii. 38) the fathers prostituted their daughters to have means to pay their tax.