THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 269

Christian Monasticism

18.1. Christian Monasticism

CHRISTIAN Monasticism was a natural outgrowth of the earlier Christian asceticism, which had its roots in the gospel. For it is now recognised that such sayings as: "If thou wouldest be perfect, go sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, . . . and come, follow me"; and: "There are eunuchs, which made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake: he that is able to receive it, let him receive it"; and the teaching of St Paul on celibacy, did as a matter of fact give an impetus to the tendency so common in seriously religious minds towards the practice of asceticism. These tendencies are clearly discernible among Christians from the beginning; and not only among the sects, but also in the great Church. Celibacy was the first and always the chief asceticism; but fasting and prayer, and the voluntary surrender of possessions, and also works of philanthropy, were recognised exercises of those who gave themselves up to an ascetical life.

This was done at first without withdrawal from the world or abandonment of home or the ordinary avocations of life. At an early date female ascetics received ecclesiastical recognition among the virgins and widows, and there are grounds for believing that at the middle of the third century there already were organised communities of women — for in the Life of Anthony we are told that before withdrawing from the world he placed his sister in a house of virgins, the name later used for a nunnery. At this date there was nothing of the kind for men; but, at any rate in Egypt, the male ascetics used to leave their homes and dwell in huts in the gardens near the towns. For when, c. 270, St Anthony left the world, it was this manner of life he embraced at first.

St Anthony was born in middle Egypt about the year 250. When he was twenty, on hearing in church the gospel text "If thou wouldest be perfect," as cited above, he took the words as a personal call to himself and acted on them, going to practise the ascetical life among the ascetics who dwelt at his native place. After 15 years so spent, he went into complete solitude, taking up his abode in a deserted fort at a place called Pispir, on the east bank of the Nile opposite the Fayum, now called Der-el-Memun (c. 285). In this retreat Anthony spent twenty years in the strictest seclusion, wholly given up to prayer and religious exercises. A number of those who wished to lead an ascetic life congregated around him, desiring that he should be their teacher and guide. At last he complied with their wishes and came forth from his seclusion, to become the inaugurator and first organiser of Christian monachism.

This event took place about the beginning of the fourth century — 305 is the traditional date; only a few years later did Pachomius found, in the far south, the first Christian monastery properly so called. It will be convenient to trace separately the two streams of monastic tradition that flowed respectively from the two great founders, Anthony and Pachomius.

The form of monachism that drew its inspiration from St Anthony prevailed throughout Lower or Northern Egypt. All along the Nile to the north of Lycopolis (Asyut), and in the adjacent deserts, and on the sea-board near Alexandria, there were at the end of the fourth century vast numbers of monks, sometimes living alone, sometimes two or three together, sometimes in large congregations — but even then the life was semi-eremitical. Antonian monachism reached its greatest and most characteristic development in the deserts of Nitria and Scete, and it is here that we have the most abundant materials for forming a picture of the life of these monks. Palladius and Cassian both lived in this district for many years during the last decade of the fourth century; St Jerome, Rufinus, and the writer of the Historia Monachorum visited it; and they have left on record their impressions.

Nitria, the present Wady Natron, is a valley round some nitre lakes, lying out in the desert to the west of the Nile, some 60 miles due south of Alexandria. Those who began the monastic life here were Amoun and Macarius of Egypt, himself a disciple of Anthony. A few miles from Nitria was the desert called Cellia from the number of hermits' cells that studded it, and further away still, out in the "utter solitude," was the monastic settlement of Scete. Rufinus and the writer of the Historia Monachorum describe Cellia: The cells stood out of sight and out of earshot of one another; only on the Saturday and Sunday did the monks assemble for the services; all the other time was spent in complete solitude, no one ever visiting another except in case of sickness or for some spiritual need. Palladius says that 600 lived in Cellia.

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