appeared to us just and reasonable, and we hereby declare that, if the church of the city wherein the bishop resides is so well provided, that, by the grace of Christ, it wants for nothing, all that remains to the parishes should be distributed among the clerks who officiate in them, or employed in repairing their churches. But if the bishop is involved in much expense, without sufficient revenue to meet it, there shall be given to the richer parishes that which is fitting and reasonable, whether for priests, or for the support of the buildings, and let the bishop appropriate the surplus to his own use, in order that he may provide for his expenses."1 "If offerings have been made to the basilicas established in cities, of lands, goods, or any other things whatsoever, let them be at the disposition of the bishop, and let them be free to employ what is suitable, whether in the repair of the basi lica, or in the support of priests who officiate in it. With regard to parochial property or basilicas established in boroughs, dependent upon cities, let the custom of each place be ob served." "2 "It has been decided that no bishop, in the visitation of his diocese, shall receive from any church anything beyond what is due to him, as a mark of honor to his see; he shall not take the third of all the offerings of the people in the parish churches, but this third shall remain for the lighting and repairs of the churches; and each year the bishop shall have an account of it. For if the bishop take this third, he robs the church of its light and the support of its roof."3 "Avarice is the root of all evil, and this guilty thirst seizes even the hearts of the bishops. Many of the faithful, from love for Christ and the martyrs, raise basílicas in the parishes of the bishops, and deposit offerings therein; but the bishops seize upon them and turn them to their own use. Thence it follows that priests are wanting to perform Divine service, because they do not receive their fees. Dilapidated cathedrals are not repaired because sacerdotal avarice has carried off all the funds. The present orders, therefore, that bishops govern their churches without receiving more than is due to them according to the ancient decrees, that is to say, the third of the offerings and of the parochial revenues; if they take * Council of Carpentras, in 527. 3 Council of Braga, in 572, c. 2. Council of Orleans, in 538, c. 5. more than this, the council will cause it to be returned on the demand of either the founders of the church themselves if they be living, or of their descendants. Nevertheless, the founders of churches are not to suppose that they retain any power whatever over the property with which they have endowed the said churches, seeing that according to the canons, not only the church itself, but the property with which it is endowed, is under the jurisdiction, duly administered, of the bishop."í 66 Among the things which it behoves us to regulate by common consent, it is more especially necessary to meet discreetly, the complaints of the parochial priests of the province of Galacia, touching the rapacity of their bishops, which has grown to such a height as to compel the priests to demand public inquiry into them; such inquiry having been made, it has clearly resulted that these bishops overwhelm their parochial churches with their exactions; and that while they themselves wallow in luxury, they have brought many of the churches to the verge of ruin; in order to put a stop to such abuses we order that, according to the regulations of the synod of Braga, each of the bishops of the said province shall receive annually from each of the churches in his diocese the sum of two solidi,2 and no more. And when the bishop visits his diocese, let him be burdensome to no one from the multitude of his attendants, let him have no more than five carriages with him, and let him stay no longer than one day at each church." The extracts here given are amply sufficient to prove the oppression and the resistance, the evil and the attempt to remedy it; the resistance was abortive, the remedy ineffectual: episcopal despotism continued to take deeper and wider root. Thus, at the commencement of the eighth century, the church had fallen into a state of disorder almost equal to that prevalent in civil society. Without superiors, without inferiors at all to be dreaded-relieved from the superintendence of the metropolitans and of the councils, rejecting the influence of the priests—a crowd of bishops were seen yielding themselves up to the most scandalous excesses. Masters of the ever increasing wealth of the church, ranking amongst the great 1 Council of Toledo, in 638, c. 33. ? About 13s. landed proprietors, they adopted their interests and their manners; they relinquished their ecclesiastical character and led a wholly secular life; they kept hounds and falcons, they went from place to place surrounded by an armed retinue, they took part in the national warfare; nay more, they undertook, from time to time, expeditions of violence and rapine against their neighbors on their own account. A crisis was inevitable: everything prepared the necessity for reformation, every. thing proclaimed it, and you will see that in point of fact, shortly after the accession of the Carlovingians, an attempt at reformation was made by the civil power, but the church herself contained the germ of a remedy: side by side with the secular clergy, there had been rising up another order, influenced by other principles, animated with another spirit, and which seemed destined to prevent that dissolution with which the church was menaced; I speak of the monks. Their history from the sixth to the eighth century will be the object of our next lecture. FOURTEENTH LECTURE. History of the regular clergy, or the monks, from the sixth to the eighth century-That the monks were at first laymen-Importance of this fact-Origin and progressive development of the monastic life in the east-First rules-Importation of the monks into the west -They are ill received there-Their first progress-Difference between eastern and western monasteries-Opinion of Saint Jerome, as to the errors of the monastic life-General causes of its extension -State of the monks in the west in the fifth century-Their power and their want of coherence-Saint Benedict--His life--He founds the monastery of Monte Cassino-Analysis and estimate of his rule --It diffuses itself throughout the west, and becomes predominant in almost all the monasteries there. SINCE we resumed the history of religious society in Frankish Gaul, we have considered: 1, the general dominant fact which characterized the church from the sixth to the eighth century that is to say, its unity; 2, its relations with the state; 3, its internal organization, the mutual position of the governors and the governed, the constitution of the government--that is to say, of the clergy. We have seen that, towards the middle of the eighth century, the government of the church, the clergy, had fallen into a state of great disorder and decay. We have recog nized a crisis, the necessity for reformation; I mentioned to you that a principle of reform already existed in the bosom of the clergy itself; I named the regular clergy, the monks; it is with their history of the same period that we are now about to occupy ourselves. The term, regular clergy, is calculated to produce an illusory effect; it gives one the idea that the monks have always been ecclesiastics, have always essentially formed a part of the clergy, and this is, in point of fact, the general notion which has been applied to them indiscriminately, without regard to time, or place, or to the successive modifications of the institution. And not only are monks regarded as ecclesiastics, but they are by many people considered as, so to speak, the most ecclesiastical of all ecclesiastics, as the most completely of all clerical bodies separated from civil society, as the most estranged from its interests and from its manners. This, if I mistake not, is the impression which the mere mention of their name at present, and for a long time past, naturally arouses in the mind; it is an impression full of error; at their origin, and for at least two centuries afterwards, the monks were not ecclesiastics at all; they were mere laymen, united together indeed by a common religious creed, in a common religious sentiment, and with a common religious object, but altogether apart from the ecclesiastical society, from the clergy, especially so called. And not only was such the nature of the institution at its origin, but this primitive character, which is so generally unheeded, has prominently influenced its whole history, and alone enables us to comprehend its vicissitudes. I have already made some remarks upon the establishment of monasteries in the west, more especially in the south of Gaul. I will now, in renewing the subject, trace back the facts to their remotest sources, and follow them more closely in their development. You are all aware it was in the east that the monks took their rise. The form in which they first appeared, was very different from that which they afterwards assumed, and in which the mind is accustomed to view them. In the earlier years of Christianity, a few men of more excitable imaginations than their fellows, imposed upon themselves all sorts of sacrifices and of extraordinary personal austerities; this, however, was no Christian innovation, for we find it, not only in a general tendency of human nature, but in the religious manners of the entire east, and in several Jewish traditions. The ascetes (this was the name first given to these pious enthusiasts; anois, exercises, ascetic life) were the first form of monks. They did not segregate, in the first instance, from civil society; they did not retire into the deserts; they only condemned themselves to fasting, silence, to all sorts of austerities, more especially to celibacy. Soon afterwards they retired from the world; they went to live far from mankind, absolutely alone, amidst woods and deserts, in the depths of the Thebaïd. The ascetes became hermits, anchorites; this was the second form of the monastic life. After some time, from causes which have left no traces behind them-yielding, perhaps, to the powerful attraction of some more peculiarly celebrated hermit, of Saint Anthony, for instance, or perhaps simply tired of complete isolation, |