marks of their profession, and abstaining from the common interests and activities of society.

Two other causes of the development of monasticism need but to be mentioned. One was the persecutions that drove many Christians to the wilds of the deserts and the mountains; and the other was the belief almost universal in the early Church that the second advent of Christ was at hand, and that consequently no interest in the affairs of everyday life were to be considered in comparison with the spiritual preparation for the new life near at hand.

Out of these ideas and practices of the religious sects of the East and the philosophical schools of the Greeks, Christian monasticism developed naturally upon the soil where at this time both religions and philosophies found their most ardent devotees, that is, in Egypt. However early this movement may have begun, its coming into prominence was first due to Anthony, who in 305 fled to the desert, and there near the shores of the Red Sea subjected himself to a series of physical penances - tortures one might almost say that were the first of a long line of exacting, ingeniously devised, and heroically endured practices for the mortification of the flesh. His example begot many imitations, and soon one of his followers, Pachomius, had collected fourteen hundred followers who desired to imitate this life of effacement for the sake of spiritual benefit. The ideal in the East ever continued to be that of isolated life as a hermit or anchorite. Monasticism was transferred to Greece by Basil and to Rome by Athanasius (341) and Jerome. But throughout the West neither nature nor the human mind was favorable to this life of isolation and quiesence, so life in communities - the cenobitic life was preferred to that of the anchorite. Such communities during the fourth and the fifth centuries became very numerous. Each was controlled in its independent existence by its own rules. Some of them, it is true, adopted the rules of St. Basil, the only ones ever introduced at all

generally in the East; but in 529 Benedict, a Roman patrician, who had fled from the scandals and corruption at Rome to find in the solitary life relief from such wickedness and such temptation, and who had drawn around him many attracted by his own life of spiritual devotion, organized a community under a set of rules. While these were designed only for his own group, they soon became of universal influence throughout the West.

Asceti

IDEALS OF MONASTIC LIFE AND EDUCATION. cism an Ideal of Discipline. The rules of monastic life might present the greatest variation; its ideals were everywhere the same. In all places and in all ages its dominant ideal was that of asceticism. The virtue of the monk was often measured by his ingenuity in devising new and fantastic methods of mortifying the flesh through fasting, through eating insufficient and inappropriate foods, through taking insufficient sleep, through wearing insufficient clothing, through assuming unnatural postures of extreme discomfort and maintaining them sometimes for months, through uncleanliness of body, through binding the limbs with ligatures, through loading the body with chains and weights, through every means which would reduce or even destroy the natural wants or would produce suffering from insufficient care for them. That at the same time this régime might also destroy or weaken the mind, and in any case make it subject to abnormal visions, which but increased through the terror of such temptations, the irrational régime that produced them seems seldom to have been noticed. All these forms of discipline were for the sake of the spiritual growth, the moral betterment of the penitent: all these, as the very significance of the word "asceticism" indicates, reveal the dominant conception of education which prevailed throughout this long period, — the idea of discipline of the physical nature for the sake of growth in moral and spiritual power. The ideals of monasticism were usually summed up in the three

ídeas of chastity, poverty, and obedience, or more technically, conversion, stability, and obedience.

Chastity. The idea of celibacy went far beyond the rigid restrictions of the early Church; far beyond the provision of celibacy for the clergy. The ideal was the condemnation of the family and of all human relationship and affection. These were now to be completely effaced and their places taken by religious relationship, established through the monastic rule and life, and by spiritual interests, realized through a life of silent isolation and of continuous devotion and worship. It was because the ties of relationship — the love of father, or mother, or child, or sister-represented the most powerful and least readily severed influence of "the world " that monasticism exerted its greatest strength to destroy them. Not only the lives of the saints, but also the writings of such a great and noble churchman as Jerome, are filled with incidents or counsels that appear to us now almost inhuman, holding, as they did, that" in this matter cruelty is only piety."

Poverty meant the rejection of all the material interests of the world; for after Christianity became the state religion, the ordinary Christian could continue to be a merchant, a civil or military officer, or have part in any vocation devoted to the pursuits of earthly interests. Upon entering the monastic life one must give up all his property and all claims upon the rights of inheritance. Except on consent of his superior he could never receive anything as his own-not even a letter. Within the monastery all things were held in common, and this life was held to be the nearest approach possible to the commands of the Savior and to the life of the early Christian Church. It was through the influence of this monastic ideal of poverty that during so many medieval centuries the virtue of charity, or rather of mere giving, was exalted to the position of the highest Christian virtue, one that would cover the absence of almost all others.

The Ideal of Obedience was the distinctive characteristic of the cenobitic life as opposed to the hermit life. In the West, with few exceptions, the community monastic life prevailed. In entering this community one gave up all right of personal choice, of disposal of his own time, of determination of his own interests. His will was completely subjected to the will of his superior, and in this last surrender and effacement was found the perfection of moral and spiritual growth. The entire routine of life and of its activities and interests was determined by minute precepts formulated in the rule of the house. Since one gave up all allegiance to other institutions, such an ideal was the surrender of the last evidence of personality and the negation of all political organization of society. This self-effacement was to be complete, and in the rules most generally adopted, minute regulations pursued him in his most secret moment. "Submission had to be prompt, perfect, and absolute. The monk must obey always, without reserve, and without murmur, even in those things which seemed impossible and above his strength, trusting in the succor of God, if a humble and seasonable remonstrance, the only thing permitted to him, was not accepted by his superiors; must obey not only his superiors, but also the wishes and requests of his brethren." 1

Social Significance of these Ideals. — Thus, in a manner, the monastic ideal had its negative as well as its positive significance. In its three great ideals it negated the three great aspects of social life, the family, industrial society, and the state; among the anchorites and in many cases in the western monasteries which rejected the oversight of the bishop, it tended to negate even the Church. Certainly it represented a type of disciplinary education which left out of account these three great classes of needs of society and emphasized and developed those moral virtues that, in a restricted sense, find expression largely through the Church and religion.

1 Montalembert, Monks of the West, Vol. II, p. 423.

On the other hand, monasticism became in the larger sense an educational force of very great importance to society as a whole. Each one of these monastic ideals introduced new factors into social development. For example, the habit of obedience, with its accompanying virtue of humility, presented as great a contrast as can be imagined to the strong individualism of the barbarian and the arrogance of the Roman. The ideals and habits of the monks entered into the reorganization of society in the institution of feudalism, revealed themselves in the crusade movement, and probably did more than any other single factor in the subjection of the rude Teuton to the restrictions of civilization and culture.

THE MONASTIC RULES. The details of these three great ideals are expressed in a code of rules, in the earlier days formulated and adopted by each individual monastery, but after the sixth century almost universally patterned in the West after the rules of St. Benedict (p. 248).

It is proper to speak of the spread of these rules as being by adoption, for there was no general organization of monasteries under Benedict's rules, but each remained independent as before. Nor were these rules exclusive: they were to be supplemental to rules already adopted, and individual monasteries might add to them, as they did very generally after the eleventh century. These rules were seventy-three in number: nine relating to the general duties of abbots and monks; thirteen to worship; twenty-nine to discipline, errors, penalties; ten to the administration of the monastery, and twelve to various topics, such as reception of guests, conduct of monks while traveling, etc. The distinctive feature of the Benedictine Rule was the insistence upon manual labor of some kind added to the implicit obedience which the monk must render the abbot in the performance of this work. In very great divergence from the ideas and habits of the monk