168 THIED PERIOD, A.D. 311-590.
8nipltiiis Severus saw an anclioret in the Thebaic!, who diiil^ shared his evening meal with a female wolf; and upon hei discontinuing her visits for some days by way of penance for a theft she had committed, he besought her to come again, and comforted her with a double portion of bread.' The san:id writer tells of a hermit who lived iifty years secluded from all human society, in the clefts of Mount Sinai, entirely destitute of clothing, and all overgrown with tliick hair, avoiding every visitor, because, as he said, intercourse with men interrupted the visits of the angels ; whence arose the report that he held intercourse with angels."
It is no i-ecommendation to these ascetic eccentricities that while they are without Scripture authority, they are fully equalled and even surpassed by the strange modes of selftorture practised by ancient and modern Hindoo devotees, for the supposed benefit of their souls and the gratification of their vanity in the jiresence of admiring spectators. Some bury themselves — we are told by ancient and modern travellers — in pits with only small breathing holes at the top, while others, disdaining to touch the vile earth, live in iron cages suspended from trees. Some wear heavy iron collars or fetters, or drag a heavy chain fastened by one end round their privy parts, to give ostentatious proof of their chastity. Others keep their lists hard shut, until their finger nails grow throngh the palms of their hands. Some stand perpetually on one leg; others keep their faces turned over one shoulder, until they cannot curn them back again. Some lie on wooden beds, bristling all over with iron spikes ; others are fastened for life to tlie trunk of a tree by a chain. Some suspend themselves for half an hour at a time, feet uj^permost, or with a hook thrust through their naked back, over a hot fire. Alexander von Humboldt, at Astracan, where some Hindoos had settled, found a Yogi in the vestibule of the temple naked, shrivelled u]), and overgrown with hair like a wild beast, who in this position had M'ithstood for twenty yeai's the severe winters of that climate. A Jesnij
' Dial. i. c. 8. Severus sees in this a wouderful example of the power of Chrint »vcr wild beast-. '*■ L. c. i. c. II.
§ 32. LIGUT8 AND SHAPES OF MONASTIC LIFE. 169
missionarj describes one of the class called Tapasonias, that lie had his body enclosed in an iron cage, with his head and feet outside, so that he could walk, but neither sit nor lie down ; at night his pious attendants attached a hundred lighted lamps to the outside of the cage, so that their master could exhibit himself walking as the mock light of the world.'
In general, the hermit life confounds the fleeing from the outward world wdth the mortification of the inward world of the corrupt heart. It mistakes the duty of love ; not rarely, under its mask of humility and the utmost self-denial, cherishes spiritual pride and jealousy ; and exposes itself to all the dangers of solitude, even to savage barbarism, beastly grossness, or despair and suicide. Anthony, the father of anchorets, well understood this, and warned his followers against overvaluing solitude, reminding them of the proverb of the Preacher, iv. 10 : " Woe to him that is alone when he falleth ; for he hath not another to help him up."
The cloister life was less exposed to these eiTors. It approached the life of society and civilization. Yet, on the other hand, it produced no such heroic phenomena, and had dangers peculiar to itself. Chrysostom gives us the bright side of it from his own experience. " Before the rising of the sun," says he of the monks of Antioch, " they rise, hale and sober, sing as -^ith one mouth hymns to the praise of God, then bow the knee in prayer, under the direction of the abbot, read the holy Scriptures, and go to their labors ; pray again at nine, twelve, and three o'clock ; after a good day's work, enjoy a simple meal of bread and salt, perhaps with oil, and sometimes with pulse ; sing a thanksgiving hymn, and lay themselves on tlieir pallets of straw without care, grief, or murmur. "When one dies, they say : ' He is perfected ; ' and all pray God for a like end, that they also may come to the eternal sabbath-rest and to the vision of Christ." Men like Chrysostom, Basil, Gregory, Jerome, Nilus, and Isidore, united theological studies with the ascetic exercises of solitude, and thus gained a cc pious knowledge of Scripture and a large spiritual experience.
' See Ruffuer, 1 c. i. 49 sqq., and Wuttke, 1. c. p. 369 sqq.