170 THIKD PEKIOD. 4..D, 311-590.
But most of the monks cither could not ercn read, or h:id too little ijitcllcctual culture to devote themselves with advantage to contemplation and study, and only hrooded ovei gloomy feelings, or sank, in spite of the unscnsual tendency ol the ascetic principle, into the coarsest authropomoi-phism and image worship. When the religious enthusiasm faltered or ceased, the cloister life, like the hermit life, became the most spiritless and tedious routine, or hypocritically practised secret vices. For the monks carried with them into their solitude their most dangerous enemy in their hearts, and there often endured much fiercer conflicts with flesh and blood, than amidst the society of men.
The temptations of sensuality, pride, and ambition externalized and personified themselves to the anchorets and monks in hellish shapes, which appeared in visions and creams, now in pleasing and seductive, now in threatening and terrible forms and colors, according to the state of mind at the time. The monastic imagination peopled the deserts and solitudes M'ith the very worst society, with swarms of winged demons and all kinds of hellish monsters.' It substituted thus a new kind of polytheism for the heathen gods, which were generally supposed to be evil spirits. The monastic demonology and demonomachy is a strange mixture of gross superstitions and deep spiritual experiences. It forms the romantic shady side of the otherwise so tedious monotony of the secluded life, and contains much material for the history of ethics, josychology, and pathology.
Especially besetting were the temptations of sensuality, and
' According to a sensuous and local conception of Eph. vi, 12 : Ta irj/ty^aTi/ca Tjjs irovripias eV to?? inovpaviois ; " die boscu Gcisler unter dom Ilimrael " (evil spirits under heaven), as Luther translates; while the Vulgate gives it literally, but somewhat obscurely : " Spiritualia nequiti;c in coclestibus ; " and the English Bible quite too freely : " Spiritual wickedness in high places." In any case -KUivnaTiKo. is to be taken in a much wider sense than Trvevfxara or Sai^oVio ; and firuvpafia, also, is not fully identical with the cloud heaven or the atmosphere, and besides admits a different construction, so that many put a comma after Trof-nplas. The monastic satanology and demonology, we may remark, was universally received in the ancient church and throughout the middle age. And it is well known that Luther retained from his monastic life a sensuous, materialistic idea of the devil and of his influc-»;e on men.
§ 32. LIGHTS AND SUADES OF MONASTIC LIFE. 171
irresistible without the utmost exertion and constant watclifuh ness. The same saints, who could not conceive of true chastitv without celibacy, were disturbed, according to their own confession, by unchaste dreams, which at least defiled the imagination.' Excessive asceticism sometimes turned into unnatural vice ; sometimes ended in madness, despair, and suicide. Pachomius tells us, so early as his day, that many monks cast themseh'es down precipices, others ripped themselves up, and others put themselves to death in other ways."*
A characteristic trait of monasticism in all its forms is a morbid aversion to female society and a rude contempt of married life. No wonder, then, that in Egypt and the whole East, the land of monasticism, women and domestic life never attained their proper dignity, and to this day remain at a very low stage of culture. Among the rules of Basil is a prohibition of speaking with a woman, touching one, or even looking on one, except in unavoidable cases, Monasticism not seldom sundered the sacred bond between husband and wife, commonly with mutual consent, as in the cases of Ammon and Nilus, but often even without it. Indeed, a law of Justinian seems to give either party an unconditional right of desertion, while yet the word of God declares the marriage bond indissoluble. The Council of Gangra found it necessary to oppose the notion that marriage is inconsistent with salvation, and to exhort wives to
' Athanasius says of St. Anthony, that the devil sometimes appeared to him in the form of a woman ; Jerome relates of St. Hilarion, that in bed his imagination was often beset with visions of naked women. Jerome himself acknowledges, in a letter to a virgin (!), Epist. xxii. (ed. Vallars. t. i. p. 91, 92), de Custodia Virginitalis, ad Eustochium : " 0 quoties ego ipse in eremo constitutus et in ilia vasta Bolitudine, quae exusta solis ardoribus horridum monachis pryebebat habitaciilum, putavi me Romanis interesse deliciis. . . . Ille igitur ego, qui ob gehenntc metum tali me carcere ipse damnaveram, scorpionum tantum socius et ferarum, sajpe choria intercram puellarum. Pallebant ora jejuniis, et mens desideriis aestuabat in frigido corpore, et ante homiuem suum jam in carne praemortuum, sola libidinum incendia bulliebant. Itaque omni auxilio destitutus, ad Jesu jacebam pedes, rigabam lacrymis, crlne tergebam et repugnantem carnem hebdomadarum inedia subjugabam." St. Ephraim warns against listening to the enemy, who whispers to the monk : Ov Swarhp wuvaaff^ai anu aov, dai /jlt] iT\i)po(popy]ari^ 4irt^v,u(ai> aov.
' Vita Pach. § 61. Comp. Nilus, Epist 1. ii. ep. 140: Tivh . . . kavrovi trnpa^ar naxa'ipa, etc. Even among the fanatical C.rcumcelliones, Donatist medicant monka in Africa, suicide was not uncooinon.