THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
of Diocletian is lauded by Eusebius (De martyribus Palastince, x., xi.).
The first witness for a public vow of virginity for
women is Tertullian (De virgine velanda, xiv.).
This vow, however, had no legal force; a marriage
contracted by one who had made it
2. Official was valid (Cyprian, Epist., Ixii.). But
Status. penalties were early decreed for a breach of such a vow; thus the Spanish Council of Elvira (306) imposed lifelong excommunication, while that of Ancyra (314) only required the same penance as for bigamy, or excommunication for a year. About the middle of the fourth century the custom seems to have been introduced of the priest before whom the vow was pronounced giving the virgin a veil and a special robe (Ambrose, De virginibus, I., xi.). Men, on the other hand, as late as the time of Basil made no public vow and were distinguished by no special costume. In spite of the high regard felt for the ascetics, the church of the first centuries was forced by its opposition to Gnostics, Encratites, and Montanists into a certain reserve on the subject. While some of these sects required from their adherents complete abstinence from meat and wine, and even from marriage, in the Church only tentative efforts were made to enforce the ascetic ideal on all its members in regard to food (see Fasting, II.). Origen, indeed, exhorted Christian priests to perpetual continence, and the Council of Elvira threatened with deposition bishops, priests, and deacons who did not abstain from intercourse with their wives; but the first Council of Nicaea (325) declared against the enforcement of clerical celibacy (see Celibacy). At the end of the third century for the first time is mentioned the foundation of an association of ascetics (Epiphanius, Hcer., lxvii.). It originated with Heraclas, a disciple of Origen, who came from Leontopolis in Egypt. It embraced both men and women, who lived in perpetual abstinence from marriage, from meat, and from wine (see Heraclas).
It was in this second half of the third century that monasticism properly so called originated and the ideal of an entire separation from the world was realized. The cause of the new movement, which made large numbers desert the world in order to live an ascetic and contem-
3. The plative life in the desert, has been
Motive, sought, on Jerome's authority (Vita Pauli, i.), in the Decian persecution; but historical proof is lacking (for origins see below, § 4). The same lack of evidence weakens the theory of imitation of non-Christian practise, as of Buddhism (Hilgenfeld) or the Egyptian cult of Serapis (Weingarten). Keim's theory of the influence of Neo-Platonism is equally untenable; though this system undoubtedly affected the Church, it can not possibly have been a determining factor in the growth of monasticism, and it could not have had a specially strong influence upon the rural population of the Thebaid. The real source of the monastic movement is to be sought in the development of the Christian ideal. In the picture which Clement of Alexandria draws of " the true Gnostic," and still more clearly in
Origen, may be traced the conception of the perfect Christian as one who lives remote from the world and its passions. It is true, of course, that the distressing social and political circumstances of Egypt later in the third century contributed to the increase of Christian heroism and of the tendency to fly from the world, just as similar conditions farther west called forth the movement of the Circumcelliones (q.v.) in connection with the Donatist controversy (seeDoNATisM). But the principal motive of Christian monasticism was the desire to attain everlasting happiness and moral perfection by escape from the world.*
Some individual instances of this flight may have existed as early as the beginning of the third century. In connection with Jerome's Vita Pauli (ut sup.) it was formerly the custom to 4. Egyptian find the origin of Christian monas- Origins; ticism in Paul of Thebes as a result of Anthony the Decian persecution. This was and thought to be substantiated by the Ammonius. account in Eusebius (Hist, eccl., VI., xlii.) of " flight into deserts and mountain regions " at this time. But the historicity of the Vita Pauli is now not recognized. As a consequence, if satisfactory historical evidence alone be considered, the title of the first hermit must be assigned to Anthony, whose life was written, from knowledge based on close personal relationship, by Athanasius (soon after Anthony's death, or between 356 and 362; Eng. transl. in NPNF, 2 ser., iv. 188- 221). St. Anthony was born of wealthy Christian parents at Coma, on the borders of Upper Egypt, c. 250, lost his parents when he was in his eighteenth year, six months later gave all his goods to the poor, leaving his sister to the care of a pious woman, and retired first to a tomb and then to a ruined castle near the Nile, where he lived alone for twenty years. He issued from his retirement at times to instruct the multitudes who came to hear him, and sometimes visited the Christians of Alexandria to comfort them in times of stress. Eventually he retired still farther into the solitude near the Red Sea, where he died at the age of 105, attended only by the two disciples Amathas and Macarius (q.v.). He seems to have created no regular organization; the colonies of hermits which were known as monasteria were united only by ties of free fellowship under his spiritual direction. The " Rule " ascribed to him is not his, though it is of Egyptian origin and very old. Tracing the further develop-
* While in the text the proximate cause of monasticism is probably correctly given, and " imitation " of non-Christian practise is rightly rejected, the more fundamental cause is passed over. This is the belief, common to most advanced and to some primitive religions, that " the world " or " the flesh " is an evil, and that consequently perfection in the religious life is soonest and best attained by retirement from the world and mortification of the flesh. This was the motive in the asceticism of Brahmanism and Buddhism (qq.v.), of Greece, and of the Hanifs of Arabia (see Mohammed, Mohammedanism, IV., 1). It is one of the curious facts of history and of logic that the subduing of the flesh was attempted in either of two forms — total abstention from indulgence in sensual pleasures and denial of the demands of appetite or extreme indulgence. In the Christian sphere this latter appeared in certain of the Gnostic outgrowths, and a sporadic case was the Christian-Philadelphia Society (see Buttlab, Eva von). G. W. G.