CHAPTER XVI

THE LIFE OF FAITH

The theological controversies concerning the two natures of Christ served to emphasise the view expressed in many early writings that man has both a higher and a lower nature -the life of the spirit and the life of the flesh. Religion was constantly explained as an effort to overcome the lower man in order that the higher man might be absolutely free from all degrading control. These views were basic to monasticism, which its advocates ever regarded as the true life of faith.

The literature of the monastic life is one of the wealthiest sections of Christian literature. It offers to the student of psychology records of first-rate importance; it enables the student of religion to penetrate into some of the most outof-the-way regions of his subject.

Paul of Thebes is called "the founder of the monastic life," by JEROME, He had many imitators as a solitary hermit, until PACHOMIUS, 285-346, instituted a form of community life; thus creating the first religious Order for which he prepared the first monastic Rule.

This Rule of Pachomius was commonly believed to have been divinely inspired, and to have been written by an angel on a brass tablet. By its provisions three monks shared one cell, all the company took their meals in common, all wore their white goat-skins day and night, and prayer was enjoined twelve times in the day, twelve times in the evening. and twelve times at night.

With the growth of the movement other Rules were soon

prepared. The Rule of St. Anthony relinquished the purely solitary life; the Rule of Shenoudi added the vow of obedience to the discipline of PACHOMIUS; the heretical EUSTATHIUS of Sebaste, 300-377, in his Constitution of Ascetics strengthened the demand for obedience in connection with that "self-righteous and heretical form of asceticism," of which he was the founder in Armenia.

These Rules are known indefinitely and at second hand; we reach the first extant authentic Rule with BASIL of Caesarea, "the first regulator-general of monasticism," who modified the extreme asceticism of PACHOMIUS, abolished the anchorite form of monasticism, brought the monks nearer to the cities, and made manual labour an integral part of the day's duty. The famous Rule of St. Basil, consists of two parts: the Greater Monastic Rule, a series of fifty-five regulations; and the Lesser Monastic Rule, which comprises three hundred and thirteen ordinances in the form of question and answer. His theory of the life of faith appears in the question:

God has made us, like the members of our body, to need one another's help. For what discipline of humility, of pity, or of patience can there be if there be no one to whom these duties are to be practised? Whose feet wilt thou wash-whom wilt thou serve-how canst thou be last of all-if thou art alone?

This more generous idea of community life was still further broadened by TYRANNIUS RUFINUS, 342-410, at first the friend but ultimately the enemy of JEROME. His free Latin translation of the Rule of Basil condensed the material without bringing order into its confusion; but it added the provision for "double" houses, i.e., the association of nunneries with monasteries.

The first organiser of the ascetics of Nitria was Ammon, d. 345. He was followed by Macarius Junior, or the Alex

andrine, d. 395, who instituted the first community in that part of the Nile valley which bears his name. Another Macarius, the Great, or the Egyptian, 300-390; and Paphnutius, an outstanding figure at Nicaea, accepted the freer coenobitic ideal. So also did SERAPION of Thumis, f1. 350, surnamed Scholasticus, who wrote "an admirable book" Against the Manichaeans, a work on The Titles of the Psalms, and some Letters. One of his Letters addressed to the hermits of the desert extols, in most extravagant terms, the life which they had chosen to lead.

ARSENIUS, 354-449, left the court of Theodosius the Great, where he had been tutor to Arcadius and Honorius, the Emperor's sons, and fled to Egypt in 394, in order “to cleanse his soul." His fame rests upon his self-sacrificing life rather than upon his book The Exhortation to Monks, in which the results of his deep religious experience are given. It bids the mo.iks "keep guard all round”:

Seek God and He will appear to you: hold Him fast, and He will abide with you.

Whenever a man has fallen into sin, if he will but say heartily, 'Lord God, I have sinned, forgive me!' the soul-wasting power of melancholy will cease.

A fresh development began when BENEDICT of Nursia, 480-543, the founder of the famous monastery at Monte Cassino in 529, issued the one literary work of his life, the Monastic Rule. This was a complete code of monastic duty in seventy-three chapters; it organised the earlier disciplines, and furnished a standard to the whole Church of the West. "It breathes a spirit of mildness and consideration, while by the sanction for the first time given to study, it opened the way for those literary pursuits which afterwards developed themselves so largely within convent walls."

CHRODEGANG of Metz, 705-706, adapted BENEDICT'S Rule to suit communities of secular clergy, living the canon

ical life. This Rule for Canonicals exists in two forms: the original form in thirty-four chapters, intended for the clergy under the jurisdiction of its editor; and a longer form of eighty-six chapters, for the use of canonical clergy in general. Under the provisions of this Rule the cathedral clergy were to live under a common roof, occupy a common dormitory, and submit to the authority of a special officer.

CHRODEGANG was skilled in Latin, "which was fast becoming the language of educated men in all parts of Europe," as well as in his own tongue. He "exercised an influence almost unique at that time both in church and state"; his promotion of the literary interests of the northern monasteries is a lasting honour to his name.

Apart from the main stream of monasticism, which, in the West, followed the course marked out by BENEDICT, there were smaller separate movements. The monastic discipline of Ireland, left permanent impressions upon the mind of COLUMBAN, 543-615, who journeyed to France, with twelve companions in 585, and in due course established his celebrated monastery at Luxeuil and soon afterwards a second establishment at Fontaines. His Rule, somewhat lacking in definite directions for the details of daily living, was regarded as being needlessly strict in its demand for absolute obedience, for constant hard work, and for daily self-denial.

Another similar representative of the religious life was ABRAHAM of Cascar, often called the Great, f1, 502, who from his cave near Nisbis, spread monastic discipline among the Nestorians. He wrote Letters, Expositions of Scripture, a Commentary on the Logic of Aristotle, and he drew up a Rule for the government of the monks.

It was inevitable that Monasticism should reap a rich harvest of Biography from the romantic lives and miraculous pieties of its representatives. The fertile seed from this

harvest grew into those Legends of the Saints which some centuries later gave Europe its popular literature.

Of such biographies the Life of St. Anthony by ATHANASIUS is the classical type. Its eulogy of the supernatural experiences and unworldly virtues of its hero made him the ideal monk for centuries. It gives a vivid and valuable reflection of the psychology of the primitive religious solitaries.

Once someone knocked at the door of my cell, and going forth I saw one who seemed of great size and tall. Then when I enquired 'Who art thou?' he said, 'I am Satan.' Then when I said 'Why art thou here?' he answered, 'Why do the monks and all other Christians blame me undeservedly? Why do they curse me hourly?' Then I answered, 'Wherefore dost thou trouble them?' He said, 'I am not he who troubles them, but they trouble themselves, for I am become weak. I have no longer a place, a weapon, a city. The Christians are spread everywhere, and even the desert is filled with monks.' . . . . Then I marvelled at the grace of the Lord, and said to him: . 'the coming of Christ hath made thee weak, and He hath cast thee down and stripped thee.' But he having heard the Saviour's name, and not being able to bear the burning from it, vanished.

ISIDORE of Pelusium, fl. 395, deeply affected by the exile of ATHANASIUS among the "holy solitaries," became a coenobite at Tabenna. His Letters contain much of the material of monastic history and biography. He castigates the inhospitality, the gluttony, the pugnacity, and the idleness of the monks, whose "disorderliness" led them to the cities and to the public shows, "as if all that the angelic life required were a cloak, a staff, and a beard.”

In JEROME, 346-420, whose full name is EUSEBIUS