MONASTICISM.

I. Monasticism in the East.

Ante-Nicene Practise (§ 1).

Official Status (§ 2).

The Motive (§ 3).

Egyptian Origins; Anthony and Ammonius (§ 4).

Other Egyptian Settlements (§ 5).

In Palestine and Syria (§ 6).

In Asia Minor (§ 7).

Later History of Oriental Monasticism (§ 8).

Relation to Church and State (§ 9).

II. Monasticism in the West.

Beginnings in Italy, Gaul, and Germany (§ I).

The Rules (§ 2).

Relation to Civilisation (§ 3).

The Mendicant Orders (§ 4).

Later Orders (§ 5).

Monastic Attempts under Protestantism (§ 6).

I. Monasticism in the East

1. Ante-Nicene Practise

A trace of the attitude which later characterized this system may be found in the preference given by Paul to the unmarried over the married state (I Cor. vii. 38, 40) and in his counsel not to marry on account of the expected return of the Lord (verse 26). In the Roman church of the apostolic period there appeared an Encratite tendency which taught abstinence from meat and wine (Rom. xiv. 2, 21). The Acts, too, characterize the four daugh ters of Philip the deacon as virgins; and the book of Revelation designates as the " first-fruits unto

God and to the Lamb " the hundred and forty-four thousand "which were not defiled with women" (xiv. 4). Hegesippus states that James, the Lord's brother, lived as a Nazarite in complete abstinence from meat and wine (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., II., xxiii.).

The works of the apostolic fathers and apologists are full of references to both men and women who lived an ascetic life. Ignatius names as their motive for renunciation of marriage "respect for the body which is the Lord's," Athenagoras the hope of a higher reward in heaven, The claim of the ascetics to the first rank in the church on earth, as the most perfect Christians, is early heard. Clement of Rome warns them not to boast, and Igna tius rebukes some who thought themselves more than the bishops. There was perfect freedom in the ascetic life in this early period. Some merely abstained from marriage, others from meat and wine as well. The renunciation of property did not always go with that of marriage; Gyprian (De habitu tirginum., vii.) knew some consecrated vir gins who still retained their own property. Some of them continued to live in their own houses, others lived in common in special dwellings called par thenottes. The same is true of the male ascetics. Origen lived unmarried, without property, in con stant prayer and meditation, abstaining from meat and wine and imposing the severest penancea on himself; in fact, his life differed from that of later monks only in being passed in the midst of the world. A strict cloistral separation is not found in early asceticism, though a certain degree of retirement was required from women who adopted this life. The male ascetics passed from place to place after the manner of the apostles, "" confirming the churches." Their self-denying activity and care for the sick and friendless during the persecution

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of Diocletian is lauded by Eusebius (De marlyribua Palaesatine, x., xi.).