164 THIRD PERIOD A.D. 311-590.
motives. Moral earnestness and religions enthusiasm wcr« accompanied here, as formerly in martyrdom, tliougli even in larger measure tlian there, with all kinds of sinister motives ; indolence, discontent, weariness of life, misanthropy, ambition for spiritual distinction, and every sort of misfortune or acci« dental circumstance. Palladins, to mention but one illustrious example, tells of Paul the Simple,' tliat, from indignation against his wife, whom he detected in an act of infidelity, he hastened, with the current oath of that day, "in the name of Jesus," ^ into the wilderness ; and immediately, thougli now sixty years old, under the dii'ection of Anthony, he became a very model monk, and attained an astonishing degree of humility, simplicity, and perfect submission of will. "
In view of these different motives we need not be surprised that the moral character of the monks varied greatly, and presents opposite extremes. Augustine says he found among the monks and nuns the best and the worst of mankind.
Looking more closely, in the first place, at auchoretism, we meet in its history unquestionably many a heroic character, who attained an incredible mastery over his sensual nature, and, like the Old Testament prophets and John the Baptist, by tlieir mere appearance and their occasional preaching, made an overwhelming impression on his contemporaries, even among the heathen. St. Anthony's visit to Alexandria was to the eazins: multitude like the visit of a messenger from the other world, and resulted in many conversions. His emaciated face, the glare of his eye, his spectral yet venerable forai, his con tempt of the world, and liis few aphoristic sentences told more powerfully on that age and people than a most elaborate sermon. St. Symeon, standing on a column from year to year, fasting, praying, and exhorting the visitors to repentance, was to his generation a standing miracle and a sign that pointed them to heaven. Sometimes, in seasons of public calamity, such hermits saved whole cities and provinces from the imperial wrath, by their effectual intercessions. When Theodosius
' 'ATrAaTTOT, lit. vot moulded ; hciic: natural, sincere.
' Ma tJii 'lr\iTovv {per Ckristnm, in ?alvian), which now took tlie place of th( pagan oath : no. rhv Ala, hi; Jupiter.
§ 32. LIGHTS AIS^D SHADES OF MONASTIC LIFE. 1G5
in 387, was about to destroy Antiocli for a sedition, the bermit Macedonins met the two imperial commissaries, who reverently dismounted and kissed his liands and feet ; he reminded them and the emperor of their own weakness, set before them the vakie of men as immortal images of God, in comparison with the perishable statues of the emperor, and thus saved the city from demolition.* The heroism of the anchoretic life, in the voluntary renunciation of lawful pleasures and the patient endurance of self-inflicted pains, is worthy of admiration in ita way, and not rarely almost incredible.
But this moral heroism — and these are the weak points of it — oversteps not only the present standard of Cln-istianity, but all sound measure ; it has no support either in the theory or the practice of Christ and the apostolic church ; and it haa far more resemblance to heathen than to biblical precedents. Many of the most eminent saints of the desert differ only in their Christian confession, and in some Bible phrases learnt by rote, from Buddhist fakirs and Mohammedan dervises. Their highest virtuousness consisted in bodily exercises of their own devising, whicli, without love, at best profit nothing at all, very often only gratify spiritual vanity, and entirely obscure the gospel way of salvation.
To illustrate this by a few examples, we may choose any of tlie most celebrated eastern anchorets of the fourth and fifth centuries, as reported by the most credible contemporaries.
The holy Scriptures instruct us to pray and to labor ; and to pray not only mechanically with the lips, as the heathen do, but with all the heart. But Paul the Simple said daily three hundred prayers, counting them with pebbles, which he carried in his bosom (a sort of rosary) ; when he heard of a virgin who prayed seven hundred times a day, he was troubled, and told his distress to Macarius, who well answered him: "Either thou pray est not with thy heart, if thy conscience reproves thee, or thou couldst pray oftener. I have for six years prayed only a hundred times a day, without being obliged to condemn myself for neglect." Christ ate and drank like other men, ex*
' Id Theodoret : Hist, relig. c. (vita) 18.