§ 40. MONASTICISM IN THE WEST. ATHANASTUS. 201
eal instead, and an important instrumen. or the cultivation of the soil and the diffusion of Cin-istianitj and civilization among the barbarians.' Exclusive contemplation was exchanged for alternate contemplation and labor. " A working monk," saya Cassian, "is plagued by one devil, an inactive monk by a host." Yet it must not be forgotten that the most eminent representatives of the Eastern monasticism recommended manual labor and studies ; and that the Eastern monks took a very lively often rude and stormy part in theological controversies. And on the other hand, there were Western monks who, like Martin of Tours, regarded labor as disturbing contemplation.
Athanasius, the guest, tlie disciple, and subsequently the biographer and eulogist of St. Anthony, brought the first intellio-ence of monasticism to the West, and astounded the civilized and efleminate Romans with two live representatives of the semi-barbarous desert-sanctity of Egypt, who accompanied him in his exile in 340. The one, Ammonius, was so abstracted from the world that he disdained to visit any of the wonders of the great city, except the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul ; while the other, Isidore, attracted attention by his amiable simplicity. The phenomenon excited at first disgust and contempt, but soon admiration and imitation, especially among women, and among the decimated ranks of the ancient Pomai/ nobility. The impression of the first visit was afterward strengthened by two other visits of Athanasius to Eome, and especially by his biography of Anthony, which immediately acquired the popularity and authority of a monastic gospel. Many went to Egypt and Palestine, to devote themselves there to the new mode of life ; and for the sake of such, Jerome afterward translated the rule of Pachomius into Latin. Others founded cloisters in the neighborhood of Rome, or on the ruins of the ancient temples and the forum, and the frugal number
' "The monastic stream," says Montalembert, 1. c, "which had been born in tht deserts of Egypt, divided itself into two great arms. The one spread in the East, at first inundated everything, then concentrated and lost itself there. The jther escaped into the West, and spread itself by a thousand channels over an entire t^ orld, which had to be covered and fertilized."
202 THmD PERIOD. A.D. 311-o90.
of the heathen vestals was soon cast into the shade by whole hosts of Christian vii'gins. From Rome, mouasticism gradu ally spread over all Italy and the isles of the Mediterranean, even to the rugged rocks of the Gorgon and the Capraja, where the hermits, in voluntary exile from the world, took the place of the criminals and political victims whom the justice or tyranny and jealousy of the emperors had been accustomed to banish thither.
Ambkose, whose sister, Marcellina, was among the first Koman nuns, established a monastery in Milan,' one of the first in Italy, and with the warmest zeal encouraged celibacy even against the will of parents ; insomuch that the mothers of Milan kept their daughters out of the way of his preaching ; whilst from other quarters, even from Mauritania, virgins flocked to him to be consecrated to the solitary life." The coasts and small islands of Italy were gradually studded with cloisters.'
Augustine, whose evangelical principles of the free grace of -God as the only ground of salvation and peace were essen tially inconsistent with the more Pelagian theory of the monastic life, nevertheless went with the then reigning spirit of the church in this respect, and led, with his clergy, a monk-liko life in voluntary poverty and celibacy,* after the pattern, as l;e thought, of the primitive church of Jerusalem ; but with all his zealous commendation he could obtain favor for monasticism in North Africa only among the liberated slaves and the
' Au^stine, Conf . vii. 6 : " Erat monasterium Mediolani plenum bonia fratribas extra urbis mcEnia, sub Ambrosio nutritore."
^ Ambr. : De vir^nibus, lib. iii., addressed to hLs sister Marcellina, about 377. Comp. Tillem. x. 102-105, and Schrockh, viii. 355 sqq.
* Ambr. : Hexaemeron, 1. iii. c. 5. Ilieion. : Ep. ad Oceanum de morte Fabiolae, Ep. 77 ed. Vail. (84 cd. Ben., al. 30).
* He himself speaks of a monasterium clericorum in his episcopal residence, and iis biographer, Possidius, says of him. Vita, c. 5 : " Factus ergo presbyter monasterium inter ecclesiam mox instituit, et cum Dei servis vivere coepit secundum modum et regulara sub Sanctis apostolis constitutam, maxime ut nemo quidcjuam propriuir baberet, scd eis essent omnia commuuia."