St Mary’s Hermitage The Hermits of Saint Bruno !

Christian Monasticism
Chapter IV. — Expansion of Monasticism

In the fourth century the growing reverence for celibacy aided monasticism to make its

way into almost every province of the Roman Empire, the civilised world of that day.1 The

elder Macarius in the Scetic or Sciatic desert, the elder Ammon on the Nitrian Mount,

higher up the Nile Pachomius in the Thebaid, treading in the footsteps of Anthony,

founded enormous communities of monks, with some sort of rude organisation. The

number of monks in Egypt thus herding together, and withdrawn from ordinary duties of

a social and political life, was reckoned at this time by thousands.2 In Syria, Hilarion and

his friend Hesychas, with Epiphanius, afterwards bishop of Salamis in Cyprus,in Armenia

Eustathius, bishop of Sebaste, the first, according to some writers, to prescribe a monastic

dress, and in Asia Minor Basil, the first to impose the vow, led the way.3 In Africa the rage

for the Monastic life, according to Augustine, was chiefly among the poor.4

The severe enactments of the persecuting Emperor Flavius Julius Valens Augustus (328 – 9

August 378) were powerless to check the rush of popular feeling in this direction.5 Jerome

speaks of the multitudes of monks in India, Persia, Ethiopia.6

From Syria and Egypt the passion for monasticism spread rapidly westwards. Severinus

of Noricum (c. 410 – 8 January 482) “the Apostle of Noricum,” was a monk like most of the

1 Aug. De Mor. Ecc. I. xxxi. Theodore. Hist. Rel. xxx.

2 Soz. H. E. IV. xiv. VI. xxxi. Cass. Inst. IV. i.

3 Soz. H. E. VI. xxxii. Kieron. Vit. Hilary. Cf. Helyot Hist. des Ordr. Mon. Bulteau Hist. des Moines d’Orient.

4 De Op. Mon. xxii.

5 Soc. H. E. IV. xxiv.

6 Epp. cvii. (Ad Læt.). Helyot, Historie des Ordres Monastiques, I. xi., speaks of all the monasteries in Ethiopia as
professing to obey the so-called “Rule of Anthony”, but with different observances. An attempt at reformation, such as
invariably occurs in the life of a monastic order, was made in the seventh century: Jeela-Haimanot, according to Helyot,
being the second founder or the Benedict of Ethiopian monasticism. He endeavoured to consolidate the system under a
Superior General, second in ecclesiastical rank only to the Patriarch of Ethiopia, who was to visit and inspect the
monasteries personally or by proxy. Several of them, however, preferred to retain their independence, like
congregationalists. Monks swarmed in Ethiopia, according to Helyot, long after the first fervour of asceticism; and the
constitution of the Ethiopian church was monastic. Cf. Robertson, Church Hist. i. 300.
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great missionaries of this period, and propagated monasticism side by side with

Christianity. The islands of the Adriatic sea soon swarmed with monks, nor were the isles

in the Tuscan sea slow to follow their example.7 About the middle of the fourth century,

Athanasius in his exile from Alexandria, sought shelter at Rome, and there, in the

Metropolis of the world,8 the growing passion for monasticism enjoyed to the full all the

advantages which his reputation for orthodoxy and sanctity could lend it, or which it

could derive half a century later from Jerome’s fervent and uncompromising advocacy.

There was much in the monastic life thoroughly in keeping with what remained among

Romans of their pristine sternness, and it was a congenial reaction from the luxury and

effeminacy of the day. Eusebius, contemporary with Athanasius, fostered it at Vercellæ in

Northern Italy, where, as bishop, he resided under the same roof with some of his clergy,

all living together by rule: and somewhat later the illustrious Ambrose promoted its

development in and about Milan, then, as now, one of the chief cities in that part of the

peninsula.9 Cassian, early in the fifth century, carried his experiences of eremitic and

cœnobitic life in Egypt and the Thebaid to Marseilles, already an important trading place,

there establishing two monasteries, afterwards of great celebrity. He found similar

institutions flourishing in the islands10 then called Stœchades, and now familiar to invalids

off the southern coast of France, at Toulouse, and in the adjacent district, under the

direction of Honoratus, Jovinianus, Leontius and Theodorus. Martin, Bishop of Tours,11

turned his episcopal palace into a monastery, and at his death was followed to the grave

by 200 monks.12 In the earlier part of his life he had founded a monastery13 near Poitiers.14

7 Hieron. Ep.. de Mort. Fabio. Ep. ad Heliod.

8 Aug. De. Mor. Etc. xxxiii.

9 Ibid.

10 “Insulani” was a designation of monks in Southern France in the fifth century, on account of the great reputation of the
monasteries and monastic schools on the islands near the coast, especially on the island Lerina. (Bingh. Orig. Etc. VII. ii.
§ 14.)

11 Cæsarodunum.

12 Sulp. Sev. Vit. S. Mart.

13 Locogiagense, Ligugé.

14 Pictavium.
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One of his disciples, Maximus, founded a monastery on L’isle Barbe15 near Lyons, and

another at Trier or Treves.16 Romans, a pupil of Benedict of Montecassino, with his brother

Lupicinus, faithful to their master's teaching, planted monasteries on the Jura Mountains

early in the sixth century.17 In Spain, probably from its proximity to Africa and easy

communication with that country, then the representative of Western and Latin

Christianity, monasticism flourished at an earlier date even than in Southern Gaul, under

the auspices apparently, in the first instance, of an African named Donatus.18 So early as in

380 A.D. a decree of a council at Saragossa forbidding priests to affect the dress of monks,

shows that monasticism had even then made considerable progress in Spain.19 In the

British Isles, monasticism flourished extensively long before the mission of Augustine to

England, but the Roman missionaries on their arrival received anything but a cordial

welcome from their British brethren, a feeling of mutual distrust and hostility arising from

the differences which existed in ritual and costume.

But rapid as was the growth of monasticism, it had many and great difficulties to contend

with. The very enthusiasm in its favour, which the ardour of men like Jerome kindled

among devout persons, only intensified in other quarters the bitterness and rancour of

antagonism. The tumultuous uproar of the Roman crowd at Blaesilla’s (died 384) funeral20

was a popular protest against the grim austerities which were supposed to have been the

cause of her death.21 Salvian in the fifth century speaks of the unpopularity of the monks

in Africa, and of the jibes and jeers which their pale faces and sombre dress excited in the

15 Insula Barbara.

16 Augusta Trevirorum.

17 Mab. Ann. O. S. B.

18 Ildefons. De Vir. Illust.

19 Conc. Cæsaraug. vi. Cf. Mab. Ann. O. S. B. III. xxxviii. xxxix.

20 Hieron. Epp. cxxvii. (Ad Princip.) xxxix. (Ad Paul.).

21In 384, Blaesilla suffered a near-fatal illness, but gradually recovered. Upon recovery she adopted Jerome's asceticism,
but her weakened body collapsed under the stress, and four months later she was dead. Much of the Roman populace
blamed Jerome for her death. Her mother, Paula, was devastated, but Jerome complained that Paula's grief was
excessive, and he insisted that Blaesilla should not be mourned. Jerome's actions were widely seen as heartless,
polarising Roman opinion against him, and he was soon expelled from Rome on the official charge of having had
"improper relations" with Paula. Joyce Salisbury, Encyclopaedia of women in the ancient world, Blaesilla.
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streets.22 Claudius Rutilius Namatianus calls them “shunners of light,”23 as if they were

bats or owls, and though the imperial government on rare occasions, probably under some

exceptional influence, shielded the monasteries, as when Justinian allowed minors and

slaves to embrace the monastic life without the permission of their superiors,24 yet, as a

rule, the civil power regarded with a not unreasonable jealousy the absorption of so many

of its citizens into a current which withdrew them not for a time only, but for life,(for the

obligation soon came to be considered a life-long one,25 ) from all participation in

responsibilities of a social and political nature. Theodosius ordered all those who evaded

their civil duties on the plea of asceticism to be deprived of their civil rights, unless they

returned to claim them. By the law of the Eastern Church a bishop who became a hermit

was “ipso facto” deprived of his office.

From the first there were marked contrasts, which has been well expressed by the terms

“endogenous” and ”exogenous,” between Eastern and Western monarchism. The dreamy

quietism of the East preferred silent contemplation of the unseen world to labour and toil:

its self-mortification was passive rather than active. So far as it prescribed work to all, the

work was rather as a safeguard for the soul against the snares which Satan spreads for the

unoccupied, than with a view to benefiting others. Weaving mats and baskets, or rushes,

or osiers, was all that was required, as a harmless way of passing the time, or for busying

the fingers, while the thoughts were fixed on vacancy. The soft and genial climate, too,

spared the Asiatic or the African the trouble of providing for his own daily wants, and

those of his brethren, with the sweat wrung from his brow. The same habit of indolent

abstraction held him back from those literary pursuits which were in many an instance the

redeeming characteristic of the great monasteries of the West, while it gave the rein to an

abstruse and bewildering disputativeness, ever evolving out of itself fresh materials for

disputing. In Europe it was quite otherwise. There, even within the walls of the

22 De Gubern. VIII. iv.

23 Lucifugi. De Reditu.

24 Cod. I. iii. 53, 55. Nov. V. ii.

25 Aug. Serm. I. Ad Frat.

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monastery, was the ever-present sense of the necessity and the blessedness of exertion.

There, the monk was not merely a worker among other workers, but by his vocation led

the way in enterprises of danger and difficulty. Whatever time remained over and above

the stated hours of prayer and study, was for manual labours of a useful kind, for farming,

gardening, building, out of doors, and, within the house, for calligraphy, painting, etc. The

monks in Europe were the pioneers of culture and civilisation as well as of religion: they

were the advanced guard of the armies of art, science and literature. From this radical

divergence of thought and feeling two main consequences followed naturally. A less

sparing, a more generous diet was a necessity for those who were bearing the fatigues of

the day in a way of which their Eastern brethren could form no idea. A more exact, a more

minute arrangement of the hours of the day, was a necessity for those who, instead of

wanting to kill time, had to economise it to the best of their ability. The closer and more

systematic organisation which, from the date at least of Benedict of Montecassino, marked

the monasteries of the West, and the more liberal dietary which he deliberately sanctioned,

were admirably adapted for the Roman and the Barbarian alike, in the Europe of his day.

To the one, with his innate and traditionary defence of the law, the orderly routine of the

cloister was congenial, and even the sturdy independence of the Teuton bowed willingly

beneath a yoke which it had chosen for itself without restraint.

“In truth the prison unto which we doom

ourselves no prison is”

In the East the monasteries, as a rule, were larger, but administered less firmly. There the

laxer system of the “Laura” prevailed more widely and lasted till a later period than in

Europe.26 In the East and Westalike the control exercised by the bishop of the diocese over

the monasteries in his jurisdiction was from the first to last scarcely more than titular. But

in Latin Christendom the centralising authority of the Pope supplied the want of episcopal

control, not, however, without the evils which are inherent in an excessive centralisation.

26 Mab. Profit. V. vi.