Tennyson was right in much of his poem, but surely he was mistaken in making his typical ascetic speak in so uniformly penitential a vein. The great monks must have been very happy on the whole. Cold in winter, scorched in summer, always hungry, tortured by visions, yet they had the deep inward peace of knowing that they had obeyed the call and were doing God's Will. Dom Morin of Maredsous in Belgium, writing shortly before the Great War, pointed out that this is the special and inalienable happiness of the monk. "On pourra m'expulser, comme tant d'autres, des murs paisibles du cloître, on pourra me priver de toutes les consolations de la vie religieuse, on pourra disposer de moi de diverses façons imprévues; il est cependant une chose que jamais on ne pourra me ravir, c'est le bonheur d'obéir: celui-là, il m'accompagnera jusqu'à la mort."
The monk in an Order obeyed the Rule and its living exponent, the Superior; the solitaries in the desert obeyed an inward monitor. But for both obedience |29 was the master-word, and in consequence beneath all their surface struggles they had a deep peace of the soul. Cardinal Newman's words about the Benedictines express better than anything else the true spirit of monasticism. "To the monk heaven was next door; he formed no plans, he had no cares; the ravens of his father Benedict were ever at his side. He 'went forth' in his youth 'to his work and to his labour' until the evening of life; if he lived a day longer, he did a day's work more; whether he lived many days or few, he laboured on to the end of them. He had no wish to see further in advance of his journey than where he was to make his next stage. He ploughed and sowed, he prayed, he meditated, he studied, he wrote, he taught, and then he died and went to heaven."
Some, while recognising the justice of what has been said above, will maintain that they are bound to pass an unfavourable judgment on a movement so anti-social and anti-national as monasticism. It is pitiful, they say, to see the elect spirits of their generation engaged in spiritual self-culture, a selfish endeavour to save their own souls. Why did they not marry and bring up children, throw themselves into the national life, and so strengthen the moral and economic fabric of the State that it might have had a fair chance of resisting the barbarian onslaught that was impending?
"I can never forgive monasticism this wrong to civilisation," said a distinguished Cambridge resident to me once. At the time I felt that the objection was unhistorical, a judging of the men of bygone days by standards which would have been meaningless to them, resembling the criticisms of monasticism which Charles Kingsley puts into the mouths of his characters in Hypatia. But the objection was, after all, raised at the |30 time, for Eusebius deals with this very difficulty in a passage of great interest.
Why, he asks, did the Old Testament Saints attach such importance to marriage and the begetting of children, while we neglect the duty? His answer is first that what was natural in the early days of the human race is unsuitable now when we are living in the last days----quoting St. Paul's words in 1 Corinthians vii. If the time was short in the apostle's day, how little is left now before the advent of the new order. Then in the Old Testament the bulk of mankind were living a life akin to that of the beasts, and so the few who served God were obliged to have families if the holy seed was to be preserved at all; whereas now there is such a multitude of Christians that some can be spared for the ascetic life. He goes on to speak of spiritual children begotten by these holy men, and points out that after all for the great majority of men the New Testament does enjoin marriage.
Surely we can accept Eusebius' conclusions. There will always be enough to obey the primitive human instincts which lead men and women to marriage; there will certainly be enough children born from these marriages to carry on the race, if the Christian teaching on marriage is honoured. So we can but rejoice, if out of the great number who remain unmarried some do so in order to live a life separated from the world and devoted to unseen things. Let us exercise a little common sense. At this distance of time who can pretend to care whether a few little Egyptians more or less were born in the fourth century, to live dim, undistinguished lives, cultivating the soil in order to fill the grain-ships with bread-stuffs for Rome, or later, Constantinople? But it makes a good deal of difference |31 to us that men and women were ready to forsake all for Christ and that the sweet savour of their example is still fragrant in our midst. Many of the monastic records are exquisitely beautiful. Take, for example, the deaths of two great nuns, Emmelia and Macrina, as described in the Life of the latter. Of Emmelia, the mother, it is said that "when she ceased to bless, she ceased to live." Of Macrina, her daughter: "As she approached her end, as if she discerned the beauty of the Bridegroom more clearly, she hastened towards the Beloved with the greater eagerness."
Or we may quote from Palladius the answer given him by Macarius, when he complained that he was making no progress: "Say, for Christ's sake I am guarding the walls." He means: Comfort yourselt with the thought that the people of Egypt are living their life in the world, exposed to so many temptations; as a protecting wall between them and the enemy the monasteries are interposed; you with your prayers are helping to guard that wall.
Is not this the real point at issue? If we believe in prayer as the noblest and most fruitful activity of man's nature, we shall probably be led to believe that God separates some to a life of prayer, and that the mass of mankind dwell in greater security, thanks to the protecting wall of the prayers of these separated ones. It is because the monks of Egypt put spiritual things first, albeit sometimes in an exaggerated and strained fashion, and believed in the life of prayer, that their example is of permanent value to Christendom.
Finally, it is a commonplace to say that we live in a materialistic age. Riches are the pathway to power |32 and influence over the lives of others. The Church itself is infected by materialism, in that finance absorbs so much of its energies. Great philanthropists, ecclesiastical statesmen, and missionaries all need money to carry out their schemes of benefiting mankind. Of course there is a good side to this; over against our Lord's praises of poverty must be set His teaching about stewardship. Yet one suspects that English Christians have not so far learned all that is implied in His treatment of riches and poverty. And so it is a salutary experience to read the Lausiac History and live for a while in an age of the Church when renunciation of all possessions was the surest road to fame and widespread influence for good.
VI. THE PRESENT EDITION
I have followed Butler's text throughout, including the readings from W given in the Appendix, which are in some cases to be substituted for those which appear in the body of the book. Where a different text is followed, for example a reading suggested by C. H. Turner, the deviation from Butler is indicated in the notes. The paragraph divisions are those of Butler, the sections into which the chapters are divided are Lucot's.
In places I was confronted with language which could hardly be translated literally; Lucot manages to do so, but the traditions of English are different. To omit the passages would in some cases have spoiled the sense of a whole passage; besides, the book is intended for scholars, who have a right to know what the author said. I met the difficulty by toning down and employing euphemisms; the scholar will have no difficulty in seeing what is meant. I cannot pretend that the compromise is satisfactory. |33
I have aimed at the combination of accuracy, not necessarily identical with literalness, and an easily-read English style. Only those who have tried know how hard it is to combine the two. Palladius, though not a stylist, is a clear and forcible writer, and the task of translating him into English presents no special difficulty. A feature of his style is the incessant use of the particle ou]n .
VII. BIBLIOGRAPHY
(See also list of abbreviations.)
Butler, E. C., Chapter on "Monasticism" in Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. I. Cambridge, 1911.
Cabrol, F., art. on "Monasticism" in Encylopaedia of Religion and Ethics" Vol. VIII, Edinburgh, 1915.
Clarke, W. K. L., St. Basil the Great: A Study in Monasticism. Cambridge, 1913.
Duchesne, L., Chapter on "Les Moines d'Orient" in Histoire Ancienne de l'Église, Vol. II. Paris, 1907.
Krottenthaler, S., Des Palladius von Helenopolis Leben der heiligen Väter (German translation of Butler's text). München, 1912.
Ladeuze, F., Le Cènobitisme Pakhomien. Louvain, 1897.
Leclercq, H., art. "Cènobitisme"in Dictionaire d'Archéologie Chrétienne. Paris, 1910.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, The: Athanasius, Cassian, Socrates, Sozomen. Oxford, various dates.
Zöckler, O., Askese and Monchtum. Frankfurt-a-M., 1897.
ABBREVIATIONS