No doctrine in theology, or practice of religion, has been free from
monastic influences. An adequate treatment of this theme would require
volumes instead of paragraphs. A few points, however, may be touched
upon by way of suggestion to those who may wish to pursue the subject
further.
The effect of the monastic ideal was to emphasize the sinfulness of
man and his need of redemption. To get rid of sin—that is the problem
of humanity. A quaint formula of monastic confession reads: “I confess
all the sins of my body, of my flesh, of my bones and sinews, of my
veins and cartilages, of my tongue and lips, of my ears, teeth and
hair, of my marrow and any other part whatsoever, whether it be soft or
hard, wet or dry.” This emphasis on man's sinfulness and the need of
redemption was sadly needed in Rome and all down the ages. “It was a
protest,” says Clarke, “against pleasure as the end of life ... It
proved the reality of the religious sentiment to a skeptical age.... If
this long period of self-torture has left us no other gain, let us
value it as a proof that in man religious aspiration is innate,
unconquerable, and able to triumph over all that the world hopes and
over all that it fears.”
Thus the monks helped to keep alive the enthusiasm of religion.
There was a fervor, a devotion, a spirit of sacrifice, in the system,
which acted as a corrective to the selfish materialism of the early and
middle ages. Christian history furnishes many sad spectacles of
brutality and licentiousness, of insolent pride and uncontrolled greed,
masked in the garb of religion. Monasticism, by its constant insistence
upon poverty and obedience, fostered a spirit of loyalty to Christ and
the cross, which served as a protest, not only against the general
laxity of morals, but also against the faithlessness of corrupt monks.
Harnack says: “It was always monasticism that rescued the church when
sinking, freed her when secularized, defended her when attacked. It
warmed hearts that were growing cold, restrained unruly spirits, won
back the people when alienated from the church.” It may have been in
harmony with divine plans, that religion was to have been kept alive
and vigorous by excessive austerities, even as in later days it needed
the stern and unyielding Puritan spirit, now regarded as too grim and
severe, to cope successfully with the forces of tyranny and sin.
If it be true, as some are inclined to believe, that this age is
losing a definite consciousness of sin, that in the reaction from the
asceticism of the monks and the gloom of the Puritans we are in danger
of minimizing the doctrine of personal accountability to God, then we
cannot afford to ignore the underlying ideal of monasticism. In so far
as monasticism contributed to a normal consciousness of human freedom
and personal guilt, and maintained a grip upon the conscience of the
sinner, it has rendered the cause of true religion a genuine and
permanent service.
But the mistake of the monks was twofold. They exaggerated sin, and
they employed unhealthy methods to get rid of it. Excessive
introspection, instead of exercising a purifying influence, tends to
distort one's religious conceptions, and creates an unwholesome type of
piety. Man is a sinner, but he also has potential and actual goodness.
The monks failed to define sin in accordance with facts. Many innocent
pleasures and legitimate satisfactions were erroneously thought to be
sinful. Honorable and useful aspirations that, under wise control,
minister to man's highest development were selected for eradication.
“Every instinct of human nature,” says W.E. Channing, “has its destined
purpose in life, and the perfect man is to be found in the
proportionate cultivation of each element of his character, not in the
exaggerated development of those faculties which are deemed primarily
good, nor in the repression of those which are evil only when their
prominence destroys the balance of the whole.”
But the methods employed by the monks to get rid of sin afford
another illustration of the fact that noble sentiments and holy
aspirations need to be wisely directed. It is not enough for a mother
to love her child; she must know how to give that love proper
expression. In her attempt to guide and train her loved one she may
fatally mislead him. The modern emphasis upon method deserves wider
recognition than it has received.
The applause of the church that sounded so sweet in the ears of the
monk, as he laid the stripes upon his body, proclaims the high esteem
in which penance was held. But the monk cruelly deceived himself. His
self-inflicted tortures developed within his soul an unnatural piety,
“a piety,” says White, “that became visionary and introspective, a
theology of black clouds and lightning and thunder, a superstitious
religion based on dreams and saint's bones.” True penitence consists in
high and holy purposes, in pure and unselfish living, and not in
disfigurements and in misery. Dreariness and fear are not the proper
manifestations of that perfect love which casteth out fear.
The influence of monasticism upon the doctrine of atonement for sin
was, in many respects, prejudicial to the best interests of religion.
The monks are largely responsible for the theory that sin can be atoned
for by pecuniary gifts. It may be said that they did not ignore true
feelings of repentance, of which the gold was merely a tangible
expression, but the notion widely prevailed that the prayers of the
monks, purchased by temporal gifts, secured the forgiveness of the
transgressor. The worship of saints, pilgrimages to shrines, and
reverence for bones and other relics, were assiduously encouraged.
Thus the monkish conception of salvation and of the means by which
it is to be obtained were at variance with any reasonable
interpretation of the Scriptures and the dictates of human reason. “It
measured virtue,” says Schaff, “by the quantity of outward exercises,
instead of the quality of the inward disposition, and disseminated
self-righteousness and an anxious, legal, and mechanical religion[K].”
[Footnote K: Appendix, Note K.]
The doctrine of future punishment reached its most repulsive and
abnormal developments in the hands of the monks. A vast literature was
produced by them, portraying, with vivid minuteness, the pangs of hell.
Volcanoes were said to be the portals of the lower world, that heaved
and sighed as human souls were plunged into the awful depths. God was
held up as a fearful judge, and the saving mercy of Christ himself
paled before the rescuing power of his mother. These fearful
caricatures of God, these detailed, revolting descriptions of pain and
anguish, could not but have a hardening effect upon the minds of men.
“To those,” says Lecky, “who do not regard these teachings as true, it
must appear without exception, the most odious in the religious history
of the world, subversive of the very foundations of Christianity.”
Finally, the greatest error of monastic teaching was in its false
and baneful distinction between the secular and the religious.
Unquestionably the Christian ideal is founded on some form of
world-renunciation. The teachings and example of Jesus, the lives of
the Apostles, and the characters of the early Christians, exhibit in
varying phases the ideal of self-crucifixion. The doctrine of the
cross, with all that it signifies, is the most powerful force in the
spread of Christianity. The spiritual nature of man needs to be trained
and disciplined. But does this truth lead the Christian to the monastic
method? Was the self-renunciation of Jesus like that of the ascetics,
with their ecstasies and self-punishments? Is God more pleased with the
recluse who turns from a needy world to shut himself up to prayer and
meditation, than He is with him who cultivates holy emotions and
heavenly aspirations, while pursuing some honorable and useful calling?
The answer to these questions discloses the chief fallacy in the
monastic ideal, the effect of which was the creation of an artificial
piety. There is no special virtue in silence, celibacy, and abstinence
from the enjoyment of God's gifts to mankind.
The crying need of Christianity to-day is a willingness on the part
of Christ's followers to live for others instead of self. Men and women
are needed who, like many of the monks and nuns, will identify
themselves with the toiling multitudes, and who will forego the
pleasures of the world and the prospects of material gain or social
preferment, for the sake of ministering to a needy humanity. The
essence of Christianity is a love to God and man that expresses itself
in terms of social service and self-sacrifice. Monasticism helped to
preserve that noble essence of all true religion. But a revival of the
apostolic spirit in these times would not mean a triumph for
monasticism. Stripped of its rigid vows of celibacy, poverty and
obedience, monasticism is dead.
The spirit of social service, the insistence upon soul-purity, and
the craving for participation in the divine nature, are the fruits of
Christianity, not of monasticism, which merely sought to carry out the
Christian ideal. But it is not necessary, in order to realize this
ideal, to wage war on human nature. True Christianity is perfectly
compatible with wealth, health and social joys. The realms of industry,
politics and home-life are a part of God's world. A religious ideal
based on a distorted view of social life, that involves a renunciation
of human joy and the extinction of natural desires, and that prohibits
the free exercise of beneficent faculties, as conditions of its
realization, can never establish its right to permanent and universal
dominion. The faithful discharge of unromantic, secular duties, the
keeping of one's heart pure in the midst of temptation, and the
unheralded altruism of private life, must ever be as welcome in the
sight of God as the prayers of the recluse, who scorns the world of
secular affairs.
True religion, the highest religion, is possible beyond the walls of
churches and convents. The so-called secular employments of business
and politics, of home and school, may be conducted in a spirit of lofty
consecration to the Eternal, and so carried on, may, in their way,
minister to the highest welfare of humanity. The old distinction,
therefore, between the secular and the sacred is pernicious and false.
There are some other sacred things besides monasteries and prayers.
Human life itself is holy; so are the commonplace duties of the
untitled household and factory saints.
“God is in all that liberates and lifts,
In all that humbles, sweetens, and consoles.”
Modern monasticism has forsaken the column of St. Simeon Stylites
and the rags of St. Francis. It has given up the ancient and fantastic
feats of asceticism, and the spiritual extravagances of the early
monks. The old monasticism never could have arisen under a religious
system controlled by natural and healthful spiritual ideas. It has no
attractions for minds unclouded by superstition. It has lost its hold
upon the modern man because the ancient ideas of God and his world,
upon which it thrived, have passed away.
Such are some of the effects of the monastic institution. Its
history is at once a warning and an inspiration. Its dreamy asceticism,
its gloomy cells, are gone. Its unworldly motives, its stern allegiance
to duty, its protest against self-indulgence, its courage and
sincerity, will ever constitute the potent energy of true religion. Its
ministrations to the broken-hearted, and its loving care of the poor,
must ever remain as a shining example of practical Christianity. In the
simplicity of the monk's life, in the idea of “brotherhood,” in the
common life for common ends, a Christian democracy will always find
food for reflection. As the social experiments of modern times reveal
the hidden laws of social and religious progress, it will be found that
in spite of its glaring deficiencies, monasticism was a magnificent
attempt to realize the ideal of Christ in individual and social life.
As such it merits neither ridicule nor obloquy. It was a heroic
struggle with inveterate ignorance and sin, the history of which
flashes many a welcome light upon the problems of modern democracy and
religion.
Monastic forms and vows may pass away with other systems that will
have their day, but its fervor of faith, and its warfare against human
passion and human greed, its child-like love of the heavenly kingdom
will never die. The revolt against its superstitions and excesses is
justifiable only in a society that seeks to actualize its underlying
religious ideal of personal purity and social service.
NOTE A
The derivation and meaning of a few monastic terms may be of interest to the reader.
Abbot, from [Greek: abba], literally, father. A title originally given to any monk, but afterwards restricted to the head or superior of a monastery.
Anchoret, anchorite, from the Greek, [Greek: anachoretes], a recluse, literally, one retired. In the classification of religious ascetics, the anchorets were those who were most excessive in their austerities, not only choosing solitude but subjecting themselves to the greatest privations.
Ascetic, [Greek: asketes], one who exercises, an athlete. The term was first applied to those practicing self-denial for athletic purposes. In its ecclesiastical sense, it denotes those who seek holiness through self-mortification.
Canon Regular. About A.D. 755, Chrodegangus, Bishop of Metz, gave a cloister-life law to his clergy, who came to be called canons, from [Greek: kanon], rule. The canons were originally priests living in a community like monks, and acting as assistants to the bishops. They gradually formed separate and independent bodies. Benedict XII. (1399) tried to secure a general adoption of the rule of Augustine for these canons, which gave rise to the distinction between canons regular (i.e., those who follow that rule), and canons secular (those who do not).
Cenobite, from the Greek, [Greek: koinos], common, and [Greek: bios], life; applied to those living in monasteries.
Clerks Regular. This is a title given to certain religious orders founded in the sixteenth century. The principal societies are: the Theatines, founded by Cajetan of Thiene, subsequently Pope Paul IV.; and Priests of the Oratory, instituted by Philip Neri, of Florence. These two orders have been held in high repute, numbering among their members many men of rank and intellect.
Cloister, from the Latin, Claustra, that which closes or shuts, an inclosure; hence, a place of religious retirement, a monastery.
Hermit, or eremite, from the Greek, [Greek: heremos], desolate, solitary. One who dwells alone apart from society, or with but few companions. Not used of those who dwell in cloisters.
Monastery, comes from the same source as monk. Commonly applied to a house used exclusively by monks. The term, however, strictly includes the abbey, the priory, the nunnery, the friary, and in this broad sense is synonymous with convent, which is from the Latin, convenire, to meet together.
Monk, from the Greek, [Greek: mhonos], alone, single. Originally, a man who retired from the world for religious meditation. In later use, a member of a community. It is used indiscriminately to denote all persons in monastic orders, in or out of the monasteries.
Nun, from nouna, i.e., chaste, holy. “The word is probably of Coptic origin, and occurs as early as in Jerome.” (Schaff).
Regulars. Until the tenth century it was not customary to regard the monks as a part of the clerical order. Before that time they were known as religiosi or regulares. Afterwards a distinction was made between parish priests, or secular clergy, and the monks, or regular clergy.
For more detailed information on these and other monastic words, see The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, and McClintock and Strong's Encyclopedia.
NOTE B
The Pythagoreans are likened to the Jesuits probably on account of their submission to Pythagoras as Master, their love of learning and their austerities. Like the Jesuits, the Pythagorean league entangled itself with politics and became the object of hatred and violence. Its meeting-houses were everywhere sacked and burned. As a philosophical school Pythagoreanism became extinct about the middle of the fourth century.
NOTE C
The Encyclopaedia Brittanica divides the monastic institutions into five classes:
1. Monks. 2. Canons Regular. 3. Military Orders. 4. Friars. 5. Clerks Regular. All of these have communities of women, either actually affiliated to them, or formed on similar lines.
Saint Benedict distinguishes four sorts of monks: 1. Coenobites, living under an abbot in a monastery. 2. Anchorites, who retire into the desert. 3. Sarabaites, dwelling two or three in the same cell. 4. Gyrovagi, who wander from monastery to monastery. The last two kinds he condemns. The Gyrovagi or wandering monks were the pest of convents and the disgrace of monasticism. They evaded all responsibilities and spent their time tramping from place to place, living like parasites, and spreading vice and disorder wherever they went.
There were really four distinct stages in the development of the monastic institution:
1. Asceticism. Clergy and laymen practiced various forms of self-denial without becoming actual monks.
2. The hermit life, which was asceticism pushed to an external separation from the world. Here are to be found anchorites, and stylites or pillar-saints.
3. Coenobitism, or monastic life proper, consisting of associations of monks under one roof, and ruled by an abbot.
4. Monastic orders, or unions of cloisters, the various abbots being under the authority of one supreme head, who was, at first, generally the founder of the brotherhood.
Under this last division are to be classed the Mendicant Friars, the Military Monks, the Jesuits and other modern organizations. The members of these orders commenced their monastic life in monasteries, and were therefore coenobites, but many of them passed out of the cloister to become teachers, preachers or missionary workers in various fields.
NOTE D
Matins. One of the canonical hours appointed in the early church, and still observed in the Roman Catholic Church, especially in monastic orders. It properly begins at midnight. The name is also applied to the service itself, which includes the Lord's Prayer, the Angelic Salutation, the Creed and several psalms.
Lauds, a religious service in connection with matins; so called from the reiterated ascriptions of praise to God in the psalms.
Prime. The first hour or period of the day; follows after matins and lauds; originally intended to be said at the first hour after sunrise.
Tierce, terce. The third hour; half-way between sunrise and noon.
Sext. The sixth hour, originally and properly said at midday.
None, noon. The ninth hour from sunrise, or the middle hour between midday and sunset—that is, about 3 o'clock.
Vespers, the next to the last of the canonical hours—the even-song.
Compline. The last of the seven canonical hours, originally said after the evening meal and before retiring to sleep, but in later medieval and modern usage following immediately on vespers.
B.V.M.—Blessed Virgin Mary.
NOTE E
The literary and educational services of the monks are described in many histories, but the reader will find the best treatment of this subject in the scholarly yet popular work of George Haven Putnam, “Books and Their Makers During the Middle Ages,” to which we are largely indebted for the facts given in this volume.
NOTE F
In many interesting particulars St. Francis may be compared with General Booth of the Salvation Army. In their intense religious fervor, in their insistence upon obedience, humility, and self-denial, in their services for the welfare of the poor, in their love of the “submerged tenth,” they are alike. True, there are no monkish vows in the Salvation Army and its doctrines bear a general resemblance to those of other Protestant communions, but like the old Franciscan order, it is dominated by a powerful missionary spirit, and its members are actuated by an unsurpassed devotion to the common people. In the autocratic, military features of the Army, it more nearly approaches the ideal of Loyola. It is quite possible that the differences between Francis and Booth are due more to the altered historical environment than to any radical diversities in the characters of the two men.
NOTE G
The quotations from Father Sherman are taken from an address delivered by him in Central Music Hall, Chicago, Illinois, on Monday, February 5, 1894, in which he extolled the virtues of Loyola and defended the aims and character of the Society of Jesus.
NOTE H
Those who may wish to study the casuistry of the Jesuits, as it appears in their own works, are referred to two of the most important and comparatively late authorities: Liguori's “Theologia Moralis,” and Gury's “Compendium Theologioe Moralis” and “Casus Conscientiae.” Gury was Professor of Moral Theology in the College Romain, the Jesuits' College in Rome. His works have passed through several editions. They were translated from the Latin into French by Paul Bert, member of the Chamber of Deputies. An English translation of the French rendering was published by B.F. Bradbury, of Boston, Massachusetts. The reader is also referred to Pascal's “Provincial Letters” and to Migne's “Dictionnaire de cas de Conscience.”
NOTE I
The student may profitably study the life and teachings of Wyclif in their bearing upon the destruction of the monasteries. Wyclif was designated as the “Gospel Doctor” because he maintained that “the law of Jesus Christ infinitely exceeds all other laws.” He held to the right of private judgment in the interpretation of Scripture, and denied the infallibility claimed by the pontiffs. He opposed pilgrimages, held loosely to image-worship and rejected the system of tithing as it was then carried on. Wyclif was also a persistent and public foe of the mendicant friars. The views of this eminent reformer were courageously advocated by his followers, and for nearly two generations they continued to agitate the English people. It is easy to understand, therefore, how Wyclif's opinions assisted in preparing the nation for the Reformation of the sixteenth century, although it seemed that Lollardy had been everywhere crushed by persecution. The Lollards condemned, among other things, pilgrimages to the tombs of the saints, papal authority and the mass. Their revolt against Rome led in some instances to grave excesses.
NOTE J
In France, the religious houses suppressed by the laws of February 13, 1790, and August 18, 1792, amounted (without reckoning various minor establishments) to 820 abbeys of men and 255 of women, with aggregate revenues of 95,000,000 livres.
The Thirty Years' War in Germany wrought much mischief to the monasteries. On the death of Maria Theresa, in 1780, Joseph II., her son, dissolved the Mendicant Orders and suppressed the greater number of monasteries and convents in his dominions.
Although Pope Alexander VII. secured the suppression of many small cloisters in Italy, he was in favor of a still wider abolition on account of the superfluity of religious institutes, and the general degeneration of the monks. Various minor suppressions had taken place in Italy, but it was not until the unification of the kingdom that the religious houses were declared national property. The total number of monasteries suppressed in Italy, down to 1882, was 2,255, involving an enormous displacement of property and dispersion of inmates.
The fall of the religious houses in Spain dates from the law of June 21, 1835, which suppressed nine hundred monasteries at a blow. The remainder were dissolved on October 11th, in the same year.
No European country had so many religious houses in proportion to its population and area as Portugal. In 1834 the number suppressed exceeded 500.
NOTE K
The criticism of Schaff is just in its estimate of the general influence of the monastic ideal, but there were individual monks whose views of sin and salvation were singularly pure and elevating. Saint Hugh, of Lincoln, said to several men of the world who were praising the lives of the Carthusian monks: “Do not imagine that the kingdom of Heaven is only for monks and hermits. When God will judge each one of us, he will not reproach the lost for not having been monks or solitaries, but for not having been true Christians. Now, to be a true Christian, three things are necessary; and if one of these three things is wanting to us, we are Christians only in name, and our sentence will be all the more severe, the more we have made profession of perfection. The three things are: Charity in the heart, truth on the lips, and purity of life; if we are wanting in these, we are unworthy of the name of Christian.”