2. Official Status

The first witness for a public vow of virginity for women is Tertullian (De trirgine velanda, xiv.). This vow, however, had no legal force; a marriage contracted by one who had made it was valid (Cyprian, Epist., aid.). But penalties were early decreed for a breach of such a vow; thus the Span ish Council of Elvira (306) imposed lifelong ex communication, while that of Ancyra (314) only required the same penance as for bigamy, or excom munication for a year. About the middle of the fourth century the custom seems to have been in troduced of the priest before whom the vow was pronounced giving the virgin a veil and a special robe (Ambrose, DS trirgi:ntbus, I., xi.). Men, on the other hand, as late as the time of Basil made no public vow and were distinguished by no special costume. In spite of the high regard felt for the ascetics, the church of the first centuries was forced by its opposition to Gnostics, Encratites, and Mon tanists into a certain reserve on the subject. While some of these sects required from their adherents complete abstinence from meat and wine, and even from marriage, in the Church only tentative efforts were made to enforce the ascetic ideal on all its members in regard to food (see Fasting, II.). Origen, indeed, exhorted Christian priests to per petual continence, and the Council of Elvira threatened with deposition bishops, priests, and deacons who did not abstain from intercourse with their wives; but the first Council of Nicma (325) declared against the enforcement of clerical celibacy (see Celibacy). At the end of the third century for the first time is mentioned the foundation of an association of ascetics (Epiphanies, Hwr., lxvii.). It originated with Heraclas, a disciple of Origen, who came from Leontopolis in Egypt. It embraced both men and women, who lived in perpetual abstinence from marriage, from meat, and from wine (see Heraclas).

It was in this second half of the third century that monasticism properly so called originated and the ideal of an entire separation from the world was realized. The cause of the new movement, which made large numbers desert the world in order to live an ascetic and contem- 3. The plative life in the desert, has been Motive. sought, on Jerome's authority (Vita Pauli, j.), in the Decian persecution; but historical proof is lacking (for origins see below, $ 4). The same lack of evidence weakens the theory of imitation of non-Christian practise, as of Buddhism (Hilgenfeld) or the Egyptian cult of Serapis (Weingarten). Keim's theory of the influence of Neo-Platonism is equally untenable; though this system undoubtedly affected the Church, it can not possibly have been a deter mining factor in the growth of monasticism, and it could not have had a specially strong influence upon the rural population of the Thebaid. The real source of the monastic movement is to be sought in the development of the Christian ideal. In the picture which Clement of Alexandria draws of "the true Gnostic," and still more clearly in Origen, may be traced the conception of the perfect Christian as one who lives remote from the world and its passions. It is true, of course, that the distressing social and political circumstances of Egypt later in the third century contributed to the increase of Christian heroism and of the tendency to fly from the world, just as similar conditions farther west called forth the movement of the Circumcelliones (q.v.) in connection with the Donatist controversy (see Donatism). But the principal motive of Christian monasticism was the desire to attain everlasting happiness and moral, perfection by escape from the world.*