Eastern Monasticism Before Chalcedon (A.D. 451)

Egypt was the Motherland of Christian monasticism. It sprang into existence there at the beginning of the fourth century and in a very few years spread over the whole Christian world. The rapidity of the movement was only equalled by the durability of its results. Within the lifetime of St. Anthony the religious state had become what it has been ever since, one of the characteristics of the Catholic Church, with its ideals, and what may be termed the groundwork of its organization, determined. But this was not all. The simple teaching of the first Egyptian monks and hermits fixed once and forever the broad outlines of the science of the spiritual life, or, in other words, of ascetic theology. The study, therefore, of early monasticism possess a great deal more than a merely antiquarian interest. It is concerned with a movement the force of which is in no way spent and which has had a very large share in creating the conditions which obtain at the present day.

The first chapter in the history of monasticism is the life of St. Anthony which has already been described (see SAINT ANTHONY). The inauguration of the monastic movement may be dated either about 285, when St. Anthony, no longer content with the life of the ordinary ascetic, went into the wilderness, or about 305, when he organized a kind of monastic life for his disciples. Ascetic is the term usually employed by writers on monasticism for those who in pre-monastic days forsook the world so far as they were able. Of the three Evangelical counsels, chastity alone can be practised independently of external circumstances. Naturally, therefore (beginning with the sub-Apostolic age), we hear first of men and women leading the virgin life (cf. Epistle of Clement 38; Ignat., "ad Polucarp.", c.v.; Hermas, "Sim.", IX, 30).

The Apologists pointed triumphantly to such (Justin, "Apol.", I, xv; Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians 33; Minucius Felix, "Octav.", xxxi). Voluntary poverty, in the complete renunciation of all worldly possessions, would be difficult till there were monasteries, for persons with wealth to renounce would not, generally speaking, have been brought up so as to be capable of earning their own livelihood. Still we have the examples of Origen, St. Cyprian, and Pamphilus to show that the thing was done. A full practice of the last Evangelical counsel (obedience) could only be realized after the monastic ideal had taken root and passed beyond the purely eremitical stage. The ante-Nicene ascetic would be a man who led a single life, practised long and frequent fasts, abstained from flesh and wine, and supported himself, if he were able, by some small handicraft, keeping of what he earned only so much as was absolutely necessary for his own sustenance, and giving the rest to the poor. If he were an educated man, he might be employed by the Church in some such capacity as that of catechist. Very often he would don the kind of dress which marked the wearer off as a philosopher of an austere school.

In Egypt, at the time when St. Anthony first embraced the ascetic life, there were numbers of ascetics living in huts in the neighbourhood of the towns and villages. When St. Anthony died (356 or 357), two types of monasticism flourished in Egypt. There were villages or colonies of hermits - the eremitical type; and monasteries in which a community life was led - the cenobitic type. A brief survey of the opening chapters of Palladius' "Lausiac History" will serve as a description of the former type.

Palladius was a monk from Palestine who, in 388, went to Egypt to drink in the spirit of monasticism at the fountainhead. On landing at Alexandria he put himself in the hands of a priest named Isidore, who in early life had been a hermit at Nitria and now apparently presided over a hospice at Alexandria without in any way abating the austerity of his life. By the advice of Isidore, Palladius placed himself under the direction of a hermit named Dorotheus who lived six miles outside Alexandria, with whom he was to pass three years learning to subdue his passions and then to return to Isidore to receive higher spiritual knowledge. This Dorotheus spent the whole day collecting stones to build cells for other hermits, and the whole night weaving ropes out of palm leaves. He never lay down to sleep, though slumber sometimes overtook him while working or eating. Palladius who seems to have lived in his cell, ascertained from other solitaries that this had been his custom from his youth upwards. Palladius' health broke down before he completed his time with Dorotheus, but he spent three years in Alexandria and its neighbourhood visiting the hermitages and becoming acquainted with about 2000 monks. From Alexandria he went to Nitria, where there was a monastic village containing about 5000 solitaries. There was no kind of monastic rule. Some of the solitaries lived alone, sometimes two or more lived together. They assembled at the church on Saturdays and Sundays. The church was served by eight priests of whom the oldest always celebrated, preached, and judged, the others only assisting. All worked at weaving flax. There were bakeries where bread was made, not only for the village itself, but for the solitaries who lived in the desert beyond. There were doctors. Wine also was sold.

Strangers were entertained in a guest-house. If able to read, they were lent a book. They might stay as long as they liked, but after a week they were set to some kind of work. If at the ninth hour a man stood and listened to the sound of psalmody issuing from the different cells, he would imagine, says Palladius, that he was caught up into paradise. But, though there was no monastic rule at Nitria, there was municipal law, the outward symbol of which was three whips suspended from three palm trees, one for monks who might be guilty of some fault, one for thieves who might be caught prowling about, and the third for strangers who misbehaved. Further into the desert was a place called Cells, or Cellia, whither the more perfect withdrew. This is described by the author of the "Historia monachorum in Aegypto". Here the solitaries lived in cells so far apart that that they were out of sight and out of hearing from one another. Like those of Nitria, they met only on Saturdays and Sundays at church, whither some of them had to travel a distance of three or four miles. Often their death was only discovered by their absence from church.

In strong contrast with the individualism of the eremitical life was the rigid discipline which prevailed in the cenobitical monasteries founded by St. Pachomius. When, in 313, Constantine was at war with Maxentius, Pachomius, still a heathen, was forcibly enlisted together with a number of other young men, and placed on board a ship to be carried down the Nile to Alexandria. At some town at which the ship touched, the recruits were overwhelmed with the kindness of the Christians. Pachomius at once resolved to be a Christian and carried out his resolution as soon as he was dismissed from military service. He began as an ascetic in a small village, taking up his abode in a deserted temple of Serapis and cultivating a garden on the produce of which he lived and gave alms. The fact that Pachomius made an old temple of Serapis his abode was enough for an ingenious theory that he was originally a pagan monk. This view is now quite exploded.

Pachomius next embraced the eremitical life and prevailed upon an old hermit named Palemon to take him as his disciple and share his cell with him. It may be noted that this kind of discipleship, which, as we have already seen, was attempted by Palladius, was a recognized thing among the Egyptian hermits. Afterwards he left Palemon and founded his first monastery at Tabennisi near Denderah. Before he died, in 346, he had under him eight or nine large monasteries of men, and two of women. From a secular point of view, a