Monasticism
When someone mentions monks or monasticism to you, what sort of mental concept do you form? Based on whatever reading you have done for this week, do you think that concept is accurate where ancient monasticism is concerned?
Definitions
Note: All definitions below are drawn from http://www.dictionary.com
Monk – from the Greek monachos, meaning solitary. A man who retires from the ordinary temporal concerns of the world, and devotes himself to religion.
Anchorite – One who renounces the world and secludes himself, usually for religious reasons; a hermit; a recluse.
Cenobite – A member of a convent or other religious community.
Ascetic – A person who renounces material comforts and leads a life of austere self-discipline, especially as an act of religious devotion.
Origin of Monasticism
Monasticism, in both its solitary and communal forms, is not a biblically prescribed form of spirituality. Monasticism does not necessarily flow from Christian spirituality, nor is it unique to the Christian tradition.
Most Eastern religions have a monastic tradition that dates back to the time of Christian monasticism or earlier. The Essenes, a Jewish sect contemporaneous with the Lord’s earthly ministry, were communal ascetics who would fit most definitions of monasticism.
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Of the factors that gave birth to Christian monasticism, three seem most prominent:The End of Persecution
Prior to the end of persecution, particularly zealous Christians were able to express this zeal via martyrdom. It may be observed here that the institutional Church, in steadily increasing measure, was failing to exhort the laity to complete faithfulness and was failing to provide appropriate outlets for expression of that faithfulness. Do you see any parallels to that today?Perceived Compromise
You will recall that last week we mentioned that Constantine's plans for the Church created both opportunities and problems. One of the problems was that many ordinary believers perceived the church hierarchy to have sold out for worldly prestige. Do you see any parallels to that today?The Influence of Eastern and Hellenistic Ideas
We have already mentioned Manicheanism and Neo-platonism. Although the Church's opposed such philosophies, the core ideas contained in them were beginning to have an influence upon Christian theology, both popular and official. This may be one reason why monasticism first arose in the East, particularly in Egypt. It may also account for Western monasticism being less prone to the excesses of Eastern monasticism.
Solitary Monasticism
We do not know who the first Christian monk was. The two men who are usually put forth are candidates are a man named Paul, whose life is briefly described by Jerome, and St. Anthony, whose life is described in greater detail by Athanasius. We can be reasonably certain that the first monks lived in the Egyptian desert. The life of St. Anthony is representative of early monasticism.
Anthony was born into an Egyptian family of moderate wealth. His was a Christian family, and he was exposed from an early age to the preaching of the Word. Following the death of his parents, he was meditating upon how the apostles had left all they had to follow Jesus. Hearing Jesus’s words to the rich young ruler one morning during the Gospel reading, he decided to sell all his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, leaving aside only a small amount for the maintenance of his sister. Some weeks later, considering Jesus’s instructions not to worry about the morrow, he disbursed this small reserve as well and entrusted his sister to the care of the church’s virgins.
He decided to devote his own life to prayer and went from place to place seeking to learn from men of devotion and virtue. During this time, he memorised considerable portions of scripture. Athanasius says that he did this so diligently that “none of the things that were written fell from him to the ground, but he remembered all, and afterwards his memory served him for books”.
Anthony faced daily temptations of various kinds and recognised them as the machinations of the devil to draw him away from his intention of holy living. In response, he chose to deprive himself of rightful freedoms in order that he might limit the devil’s opportunity to tempt him. At the age of 35, he decided that it was necessary to withdraw from regular contact with society to pursue his contemplation among the tombs in the desert. His wrestling with Satan continued there. He had visions in which demons took physical form to mock and torture him.
Over the next 20 years, many would come to him in the desert, seeking comfort or counsel. Anthony was quick to give it, reminding them that, “The Scriptures are enough for instruction, but it is a good thing to encourage one another in the faith, and to stir up with words. Wherefore you, as children, carry that which you know to your father; and I as the elder share my knowledge and what experience has taught me with you.” Among these young men was Athanasius, who shall feature prominently in the story of the next two weeks.
When the persecution of Maximinus arose, Anthony went to Alexandria, expecting that the Lord might call him to be a witness by his death. He was able to give considerable comfort to the confessors in the prisons and the mines. The governor, perceiving his boldness, was unwilling to arrest him, presumably for fear of creating a spectacle that would further embolden the Christians. When the persecution ended, Anthony retired once again to the desert; this time, he searched for a more remote location.
In later years, Anthony was drawn into the Arian controversy. It came to his attention that these heretics, whose words he described as being worse than the poison of serpents, were claiming that he had endorsed them. Summoned by the bishops, Anthony journeyed to Alexandria, where he denounced the Arians and defended the orthodox faith.
At the age of 105, Anthony fell ill. Perceiving his death to be near at hand, he instructed two nearby monks to attend to his burial. Already customs were beginning to arise that portended the future veneration of relics, and commerce therein. Fearing that his body would be thusly used, and the majesty of Christ obscured by the veneration of the servant, he asked them to bury him in a secret location in the desert, and to give his clothing, a cloak and a sheepskin undergarment, back to those who had given them to him.
Communal Monasticism
It should be clear from the Life of Anthony and other accounts of early anchorite monasticism that it was not so solitary as one might imagine. Monks sometimes spent time with visitors, sought out other monks for counsel and discipleship, participated in the life of the Church by journeying into nearby towns to regularly partake of communion, and involved themselves in the controversies of their times when necessitated to do so.
There were those who believed the path to a better service for Christ lay through organised communities.
Pachomius
One of the earliest of these was Pachomius (b. 286 AD).
He organised a community of monks with a very strict code of discipline. It included, among other dictates, obedience, poverty, chastity, and manual labour. The first three of these would in later centuries come to be called the counsels of perfection. The last would also become a defining characteristic of monasticism.
It is very likely that there were other monastic communities established during Pachomius's lifetime, his order seems to be the first to have established multiple locations. His rule would become the basic pattern for later monastic rules.Benedict
Jumping forward a couple of centuries, we find Benedict of Nursia, the founder of Western Monasticism. Benedict gave the monastic movement in the West a basic shape which endures to this day. He was born in 480 AD, the son of a Roman nobleman.
As he reached his majority, he came to fear the influence that Rome would have upon his soul, so he retired into the countryside near Subiaco, where for three years he lived the life of an anchorite.
Having attracted some attention, he later moved to Monte Cassino where he established a monastic community. It is probably while there that he wrote the Benedictine Rule.
The Benedictine Rule is the foundation of Western monastic life. It breaks with the earlier ideas of the contemplative life in that it is a gentler form of life. Rather than the pseudo-heroic asceticism of earlier monasticism, it set forth a well regulated order of work and worship in an almost familial setting. It might be thought of as "monasticism for the Everyman".
The vow of poverty was interpreted in terms of individual ownership. The Benedictine monk possessed nothing of his own, not even his clothing. The monastery as a whole, however, could accumulate significant property. The vow of obedience was tempered by the facts that the abbot was elected from among the brothers and that his decisions could be reviewed by the elders within the community. The discipline in the community was intended to be restorative. Even a brother who had transgressed to a degree that he had to be expelled could be restored.
Monastic Excesses and Errors
They discovered that they took their sin with them.
Too much of the monastic impulse was driven by a low view of creation.
Monasticism created a two-tier spirituality
This certainly was not the intent of the faithful monks. The words of St. Anthony carried just as much wisdom for the believer who worked among the world as it did for anchorite.
"It is good to hear the apostle and keep his words, for he says, ‘Try your own selves and prove your own selves.’ Daily, therefore, let each one take from himself the tale of his actions both by day and night; and if he have sinned, let him cease from it; while if he have not, let him not be boastful. But let him abide in that which is good, without being negligent, nor condemning his neighbours, nor justifying himself, ‘until the Lord come who searcheth out hidden things,’ as saith the blessed apostle Paul. For often unawares we do things that we know not of; but the Lord seeth all things. Wherefore committing the judgment to Him, let us have sympathy one with another. Let us bear each other's burdens: but let us examine our own selves and hasten to fill up that in which we are lacking. And as a safeguard against sin let the following be observed. Let us each one note and write down our actions and the impulses of our soul as though we were going to relate them to each other. And be assured that if we should be utterly ashamed to have them known, we shall abstain from sin and harbour no base thoughts in our mind. For who wishes to be seen while sinning? or who will not rather lie after the commission of a sin, through the wish to escape notice? As then while we are looking at one another, we would not commit carnal sin, so if we record our thoughts as though about to tell them to one another, we shall the more easily keep ourselves free from vile thoughts through shame lest they should be known. Wherefore let that which is written be to us in place of the eyes of our fellow hermits, that blushing as much to write as if we had been caught, we may never think of what is unseemly. Thus fashioning ourselves we shall be able to keep the body in subjection, to please the Lord, and to trample on the devices of the enemy."
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