'At the most degraded period of the literature of our centuryunder the First Empire-it is delightful to find these words in a letter of the honest and courageous Ducis-" My dear friend, I am reading the Lives of the Fathers of the Desert."—i. 57. The same book which served under the First Napoleon to console Ducis, by carrying his thoughts to a world different from that of his own time, has since served the same purpose for M. de Montalembert. But to resume our analysis. The evils of Roman society, says our author, were too strong for all the brilliant genius and all the indefatigable labours of the great men who adorned the Church in the centuries which followed the conversion of Constantine: had it been otherwise, they could only have succeeded in turning it into a sort of Christian China (i. 28). Without pretending to understand this, we should think that, as the great men in question rose above the Chinese influences (whatever these may have been) of the ages in which they lived, they would, if they had succeeded in influencing their contemporaries, have raised them, too, above the danger of becoming Christian Chinamen. But, continues M. de Montalembert, Providence made choice of another way. The hopelessly corrupt Roman society was overwhelmed by the barbarians, who brought with them an energy such as had long died out among the Romans, and along with it new ideas of liberty and of honour. But unhappily the barbarians themselves became tainted by the corruption of Roman life; and, in order to the restoration of the world, another new influence was needed-the influence of the monks (i. 35). 6 M. de Montalembert does not consider the idea of religious seclusion as peculiar to Christianity; he sees it in the Buddhist system, where he supposes it to have existed long before the Christian era; he sees it in Pythagoras and in Plato, in the Old Testament prophets from Samuel downwards, and especially in Elijah and St. John the Baptist; and, as to Christian times, he tells us that the highest authorities agree in acknowledging that it was born with the Church, and has never ceased to coexist with it' (i. 41-6). If we ask who these highest authorities are, we are answered by quotations from St. Chrysostom,* St. Jerome, and St. Bernard, from Cassian's Collations, and from a council held at Thionville in 844, which declares that the· sacred order of monks was inspired by God, and was founded *We are not sure that (as M. de Montalembert assumes) St. Chrysostom, in contrasting the practical effects of the philosophy, which was introduced among mankind by Christ,' with those of the heathen philosophy (ad Pop. Antioch., xvii., t. ii., p. 173 E., ed. Montf.), means to speak of the Christian philosophy (i. e. monachism) as having existed from the very beginning of the Gospel. by by the Apostles themselves' (i. 46-7). We must say, however, that it would have been more satisfactory to us if authorities of a more critical and more impartial character had been cited; and we certainly think that M. de Montalembert would have shown a wise discretion by avoiding any attempt at Scriptural proof of his opinion, if he had nothing more cogent of this kind to produce than the only two texts which he has quoted-our Lord's speech to the rich young man (Luke xviii. 22), and His assurance that all who shall renounce worldly blessings for His sake shall in this world receive an hundred fold, with persecutions' (Murk x. 29, 30). But, leaving these things to count for what they are worth, let us go on to the sketches of 'The Monastic Precursors of the East.' Here we find the well-known stories of Antony and other Egyptian recluses agreeably told, and extracts of considerable length from the Lives of Fathers,' published by Rosweyd. On this work (which, as we have seen, was read by Ducis as a relief from the troubles of the First Napoleon's reign) M. de Montalembert pronounces an enthusiastic eulogium : 'What man could be ignorant enough and unhappy enough not to have devoured these tales of the heroic age of monachism? Who is there that has not breathed with love the perfume of these flowers of solitude? Who has not contemplated, if not with the eyes of faith, at least with the admiration which an incontestable greatness of soul. inspires, the struggles of these athletes of penitence? . . . . It is impossible to tear ourselves from these narratives. Everything is to be found in them-variety, pathos, the sublimity and the epic simplicity of a race of men artless as children and strong as giants.'-i. 57. For ourselves, we must avow that, as we read the book with different prepossessions from M. de Montalembert, so the impression which it made on us was different from that which is thus eloquently expressed. As to the question, in how far the stories which it contains are true, M. de Montalembert does not speak, and very possibly he may doubt or disbelieve much of what is more extraordinary in them. For our present purpose, however, the most important question is not that of their truth, but the value of the ideal which is embodied in them. And on this point M. de Montalembert must be prepared to find in his Protestant readers an irreconcileable difference from his opinion. When, for example, he tells us with admiration that St. Macarius of Alexandria, having received a bunch of grapes, and feeling a strong desire to eat them, handed it to one of his brethren; that this brother, with a like control over a like appetite for the tempting fruit, passed it on to another; and that thus it made the round of the whole whole monastic party, until it returned to Macarius himself, who thereupon threw it away (i. 66),-he must allow us to think that such heroism as this is a triumph of fantastical affectation over that truer piety which sees God's goodness in His earthly gifts to man. Nor must he expect us to admire the same Macarius, because, in order to subdue the rebellion of his flesh,' he exposed his naked body for six months in a morass, where the gnats were as large as wasps, and could sting through the hide of a wild boar (i. 66). Perhaps, indeed, M. de Montalembert, in choosing between the version of this story which we have quoted from him, and another in which the motive of the penance is said to have been remorse for having killed a gnat,* may have been influenced by a wish to avoid reminding his readers of a later and better-known professor of extraordinary sanctity, who penitently accused himself, 'D'avoir pris une puce en faisant sa prière, M. de Montalembert expresses great admiration on account of the number of the Egyptian monks. 'Nothing, in the marvellous history of these solitaries, is more incredible than their number. But the most imposing authorities agree in affirming it. It was a sort of emigration from cities to the desert, from civilisation to simplicity, from noise to silence, from corruption to innocence. When once the current was established, swarms of men, of women, of children, throw themselves headlong into it, and flow along during a century with irresistible force. Let us quote some figures. Pachomius, who died at fifty-six, reckons 3000 monks under his rule; his monasteries of Tabenna soon contained 7000; and St. Jerome affirms that at the annual meeting of the congregation of monasteries which followed his rule, as many as 50,000 monks were to be seen. It is even asserted that in Egypt the number of monks in the desert was equal to that of inhabitants in the towns. Nay, the towns themselves were, as it were, inundated with them, since in 356 a traveller found in the town of Oxyrynchus alone 10,000 monks and 20,000 consecrated virgins.'-i. 68-9. There are, as we shall again have occasion to observe, questions of political economy as to the expediency of allowing such enormous numbers of men and women to withdraw themselves * See Migne's 'Patrologia,' lxxiii. 1113; lxxiv. 270-1. In common with M. de Montalembert (Introd. cclxxix.) we are glad to express our gratitude to the Abbé Migne for having in this series made the Christian writers of the first twelve centuries accessible at a wonderfully cheap rate; but we must express the regret, which every one acquainted with the work must feel, on account of its frequent inaccuracy in printing. We have lately been informed that M. Migne, having already carried his Latin series as far as Innocent III., and his Greek series as far as Photius, intends to continue the Greek Patrologia' to the Council of Florence, and the Latin to the Council of Trent. from from the duties of active life and society. But, without now entering into these questions, we may remark that the statements which we have quoted suggest the inquiry whether such multitudes can really have been what the monastic profession supposed them to be? whether they did not, for the most part, follow the fashion of their times, rather than any prompting of their own spiritual desires? whether it is to be believed that so many myriads could have quitted the pleasures of the most corrupt society to follow in sincerity a life of rigid mortification and devotion? And on the other side there is plentiful evidence that the great mass of monks were not the saintly innocents that we are required to suppose. They appear ready for all manner of violence; their conduct in times of controversial excitement (even where they were on the orthodox side) is that of a fanatical and ruffianly mob; they disgust the heathen, not (as M. de Montalembert represents) by their piety, but (as is clear from wellknown passages of Eunapius, Libanius, and Zosimus) † by their grossness and brutality, their greed, their assumption, their turbulence. The conduct of the Asiatic monks towards the great and good Chrysostom, whom they endeavoured to waylay as he was proceeding to the place of his exile, may be mentioned as one specimen of the monastic unruliness. In short, whatever of mischief might be expected from the mistaken principle of their foundation, the expectation is amply borne out by the actual records of monastic life. Over some of the more extravagant developments of the monkish spirit—such as the life of the solitaries who spent their days on the top of lofty pillars, or that of the 'grazers' who went on all fours and browsed on the grass of the field-M. de Montalembert passes with as few words as possible (i. 97); for it is pretty clear that his own judgment of them differs from that of the writers who admiringly recorded their fanaticism. Indeed, Eastern monkery very soon loses its attraction for him, and he tells us that after an age of incomparable virtue and fecundity, after having presented to the religious life of all ages not only immortal models, but also a sort of ideal which is almost unattainable, the monastic order allowed itself to be mastered, throughout the Byzantine Empire, by the enfeeblement and the barrenness of which Eastern Christianity has been the victim' (i. 132). Under the influence of the imperial power (that bane of all goodness!), the Eastern monks are described as having sunk into stagnation, which for fifteen centuries has become * See t. i. pp. 112-3. These are collected by Gieseler, I. ii. 28, 232. only only more and more complete and hopeless. We cannot say that this view of the matter altogether agrees with our own recollections of history: for example, throughout the controversy as to images, which lasted to the middle of the ninth century, the monks of Constantinople were furious opponents of the iconoclastic emperors, and many of them endured tortures, banishment, and death on behalf of the cause which M. de Montalembert would approve. And if, as our author holds, imperialism was the ruin of Eastern monkery, surely there must be a deplorable want of vigour in a system of religion which, while it professed a peculiar superiority to earthly things, could be ruined by such altogether earthly means. But from the decay of Eastern monachism we now come to the proper subject of the book-the Monks of the West. M. de Montalembert strongly holds the doctrine that— "Westward the course of empire takes its way.' 'It has been with religion as with the glory of arms, and with the splendour of literature. According to a mysterious but indisputable law, it is always from east to west that progress, light, and power have proceeded. Like the light of day, they are born in the east, but it is to arise and to shine more and more in proportion as they advance towards the west.'-i. 134. And perhaps (although we are not explicitly told so) he may expect that the great future which he believes to be in store for monkery is to be realised beyond the Atlantic. The introduction of monachism at Rome is due to St. Athanasius, who, in one of his many exiles from his see, arrived there with a train of Egyptian monks. The appearance and manners of his companions excited a great sensation, and within a few years monachism became fashionable in the capital of the world. Many men of high birth and great wealth, without secluding themselves in cloisters, adopted the monastic severity of life (i. 146), while among the patrician ladies it found many enthusiastic votaries and countless admirers.* Among the promoters of monachism at Rome, the most * M. de Montalembert appears to antedate the use of the term religio as exclusively applied to monachism, by referring it to the middle of the fourth century (i. 142). This seems, indeed, to be its sense in the words which he quotes from Eucherius: Unus in religionis, alius in sacerdotii nomen ascendit' (ad Valerian. ap. Migne, 1. 719). But Eucherius was of later date, as he died in 450; and in Salvian, who survived him, the name of religiosi includes not only monks, but clergy and all others who professed an especial strictness of life. (See Baluze's notes on Salvian, ib. liii., 31, 86, 209.) The Council of Epaone, in 517, uses religio as equivalent to professio continentiae, requiring it as a condition of ordination (Hefele, Conciliengeschichte,' ii. 666) and the Second Council of Lyons, in 566 (Can. 2), includes the clergy as well as the monks among 'religiosi.' eminent |