RELIGIOUS
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RELIGIOUS
and holiness. Submission to this authority, which
may interfere more or less :is times and circumstances
require, is therefore a necessary part of religious life.
In this is manifested obedience as a coimsel which
governs and even supplements the two others, or
rather as a conditional precept, to be observed by all
who desire to profess the perfect life. The religious
life which is pointed out to us by the Evangelical
counsels is a life of charity and of union with God, and
the great means it employs to this end is freedom and
detachment from everything that could in any man-
ner prevent or impair that union. From another
point of view it is a devotion, a special consecration
to Christ and God, to whom every Christian acknowl-
edges that he belongs. St. Paul tells us: "You are
not j-our own " (I Cor., vi, 19) ; and again "All [things]
are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's"
(I Cor., iii, 22," 23).
II. Historical Survey. — (1) Earliest Examples of Religious Life. — (a) Persons. — The Christian virgins were the first to profess a life distinguished from the ordinary life by its tendency to perfection; continence, and sometimes the renunciation of riches, attached them specially to Christ. (See Ndns.) The Fathers of the first century mention them, and those of the second century praise their mode of living. Shortly after the virgins, appeared those whom Clement of Alexandria (Pisedagog., I, 7, in P. G., VIII, 320) called idKriTal and whom the Latin Church called " conf essores " . They also made profession of chastity, and sometimes of poverty, as in the case of Origen and St. C3'prian. In the Liturgy, they took rank before the virgins, and after the ostiarii or door- keepers. Eusebius (Hist, eccl.. Ill, xxx\'ii, in P. G., XX, 291-4) mentions among the "ascetics" the great- est pontiffs of the fii'st ages, St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Polycarp, and others.
^\'e find in the third centm-y the first distinct traces of the kind of life in which the religious profession be- comes by degrees perfected and brought under rule, that of the monks. The note which characterizes them at first is their seclusion from the world, and their love of retirement. Till then virgins and ascetics had edified the world by keeping themselves pure in the midst of corruption, and recollected in the midst of dissipation; the monks endeavoured to edify it by avoiding and contemning all that the world esteems most highly and declares indispensable. Thus the life of the solitary and the monk is a life of austerity as well of retirement. The world which sent travel- lers (cf. the "Lausiac History" of Palladius) to con- template them was astonished at the heroism of their penance. The religious life took the form of a war against nature. The persecution of Decius (about 250) gave the desert its first great hermit, Paul of Thebes; other Christians too sought refuge there from their tormentors. Anthony, on the contrary, at the age of 20 years, was won by that appeal which saddened and discouraged the rich young man of the Gospel, "If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor" (Matt., xix, 21). He had disciples, and instituted the monastic villages, in which seekers after perfection, living retired from the world, found comfort and encouragement in the exam- ple of brethren following the same profession. St. Pachomius, a contemporary of St. Anthony, brought all his monks together under one roof, thus founding the cenobitic life.
Paul, Anthony, and Pachomius gave lustre to the deserts of EgjTSt. We need not dwell here upon the parallel development of Syrian monasticism, in which the names of Hilarion, Simeon Stylites, and .\lexander the fo>m<ler of the ncamcli, were famous, or on that of Asia Minor, or give an account of the dawn of mo- nastic life in Europe and Africa. Our task is only to depict the main features of religious life and its successive transformations. From this point of view.
special mention is due to the great lawgiver of the
Greek monks, St. Basil. Comparing the solitary and
the cenobitic life, he points out one great advantage
in the latter, namely the opportunity which it offers
for practising charity to one's neighbour; and while
deprecating excessive mortifications, into which van-
ity and even pride may enter, he exhorts the superior
to moderate the exterior life reasonably. St. Basil
also permitted his monks to undertake the education
of children; although he was glad to find some of these
children embracing the monastic life, he wished them
to do so of their own accord, and with full knowledge,
and he did not permit tlie liberty of a son or daughter
to be restrained by an offering made by the parents.
St. Augustine in the common life which he led with
the clergy of Hippo, gives us, like St. Eusebius at
Vercelli, a first outline of canonical life. He insti-
tuted monasteries of nuns, and wrote for them in 427
a letter which, enriched with extracts from the WTit-
ings of St. Fulgentius, became the rule known by the
name of St. Augustine. St. Columbanus, an Irish
monk (d. 615;, under whose name a very rigid rule
was propagated in Ireland, was the apostle and civ-
ihzer of several countries of Europe, notably of Ger-
man}-.
(b) Characteristics. — After this rapid glance at the origin of the religious life we may now consider its principal characteristics, (i) End. — The life of the monks, more systematized than that of the virgins and ascetics, was, as such, entirely directed to their personal sanctification: contemplation and victory over the flesh were bound above all to lead to this result. The monks did not aspire to Holy orders, or rather they desired not to receive them. St. John Chrysostom exhorted them to be animated by Chris- tian charity which willingly consents to bear heavj- burdens, and without which fasting and mortifica- tion are of no profit at all. (ii) Obedience. — As good Christians, they owed obedience to their bishop in religious matters, and their profession, if they rightly understood its spirit, made prompt and complete sub- mission easy. I3ut religious obedience, as we under- stand it now, began only with the cenobitical life, and at the time of which we speak there was nothing to oblige the ceuobite to remain in the monasteiy. The cenobitic life was also combined with the solitary life in such a way that, after a sufficient formation by the common discipline, the monk gave proof of his fer- vour by retiring into solitude in order to fight hand- to-hand against the enemy of his salvation, and to find in independence a compensation for the greater severity of his life, (iii) Poverty. — Poverty then consisted for the hermits in the renunciation of worldly goods, and in the most sparing use of food, clothing, and all necessaries. The cenobites were forbidden to enjoy any separate property, and had to receive from their superior or the procurator everything they needed for their use; they were not, however, in- capable of possessing property.
(iv) Chastity; ^'ows. — Having once entered the religious life, the virgin, the ascetic, and the monk felt a certain obligation to persevere. Marriage or return to the world would be such inconstancy as to merit the reproach of Christ, "No man putting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke, ix, 62). Still we have no evidence to prove that there was a strict obligation, and there were no vows properly so called: even for virgins, the passages from Tertullian and St. C)T3rian, on which some persons rely, are capable of another interpretation. Certainly a woman who was bound to Jesus Christ by a i)rofession of virginity, and fell into sin, was liable to very severe canonical penalties; but St. Cyprian who regarded such a person as an adulterous bride of Christ, permitted the marriage of such as were not able to observe continency (see Koch, "Virgines Christi" in "Texte und tjnter-
