158 TUIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
nobites no little jealousy reigued ; tlic fonucr cLari^iiig llie lat ter with ease and conformity to the world ; tlie latter accusing the former of seliishness and misanthropy. The most eminent church teachers generally prefer the cloister life. But the hermits, though their numbers diminished, never became extinct. Many a monk was a hermit first, and then a coenobite ; and many a coenobite turned to a hermit.
The same social impulse, finally, which produced monastic congregations, led afterward to monastic orders, unions of a number of cloisters under one rule and a common government. In this fourth and last stage monasticism has done most for the diffusion of Christianity and the advancement of learning,' has fulfilled its practical mission in the Koman Catholic church, and still wields a mighty influence there. At the same time it became in some sense the cradle of the German reformation. Luther belonged to the order of St. Augustine, and the monastic discipline of Erfurt was to him a preparation for evangelical freedom, as the Mosaic law was to Paul a schoolmaster to lead to Christ. And for this very reason Protestantism is the end of the monastic life.
§ 30. Natuy^e and Aim of Monasticism.
Monasticism was from the first distinguished as the contemplative life from the practical." It passed with, the ancient church for the time, the divine, or Christian pliilosophy,* an unworldly, purely apostolic, angelic life.^ It rests upon an
' Hence Middlcton says, not without reason : " By all whicli I have ever read of the old, and have seen of the modern monks, I take the prcferonoe to be clearly due to the last, as having a more regular discipline, more good learning, and less super- Btition among them than the first."
' Bios ^ewpTjTiK-o's, and )3iys irpaK-ri/cds, according to Gregory Nazianzcn and others. Throughout the middle age the distinction between the vita contemplaiiva fcnd the vita activa was illustrated by the two sisters of Lazarus, Luke x. 88^2.
* 'H Karh. ^thv or Xptarov <pt\o<70(pia, i} v\\/T)\ri <pi\oa:, i. e. in the sense of the ahcients, not so much a speculative system, as a mode of life under a particular rule. So in the Pythagoreans, Stoics, Cynics, and Neo-Platonists. Ascetic and philosopher are the same.
* 'AiruTToKiKhi ;3io7, & rcif a.yyf\u>v 0io^, vita angelica; after an unwarranted application of Christ's word respecting the sexless life of the angels, Matt. xxii. f »>,
§ 30. NATURE AND AIM OF MONABTICI8M. 159
barnest view of life ; upon the instinctive struggle after perfect dominion of the spirit over the flesh, reason over sense, the •supernatural over the natural, after the higliost grade of holiness and an undisturbed communion of the soul with God ; but also upon a morbid depreciation of the body, the family, the state, and the divinely established social order of the world. It recognizes the world, indeed, as a creature of God, and the family and property as divine institutions, in opposition to the Gnostic Manichsean asceticism, which ascribes matter as such to an evil principle. But it makes a distinction between two grades of morality : a common and lower grade, democratic, so to speak, which moves in the natural ordinances of God ; and a higher, extraordinary, aristocratic grade, which lies beyond them and is attended with special merit. It places the great problem of Christianity not in the transformation, but in the abandonment, of the world. It is an extreme unwurldliness, over against the worldliness of the mass of the visible church •in union with the state. It demands entire renunciation, not only of sin, but also of property and of marriage, which are lawful in themselves, ordained by God himself, and indispensable to the continuance and welfare of the human race. The poverty of the individual, however, does not exclude the possession of common property ; and it is well known, that some monastic orders, especially the Benedictines, have in course of time grown very rich. The coenobite institution requires also absolute obedience to the will of the superior, as the visible representative of Christ. As obedience to orders and sacrifice of self is the first duty of the soldier, and the condition of military success and renown, so also in this sijiritual army in its war against the flesh, the world, and the devil, monks are not allowed to have a will of their own. To them may be applied the lines of Tennyson : '
"Theirs not to reason why, Theirs not to make reply, Theirs but to do and die." which is not presented here as a model for imitation, but only mentioned as an argijment against the Sadducees.
' In his famous battle p-^em : "The Charge ^f the Light Brigade at Baloclava, first ed. 1854.
V