The end of the third century and the beginning of the fourth saw the rise of the anchorites. These men forsook the cities and fled into the desert, living in solitary huts or caves or even out in the open air exposed to all weathers, roughly and thinly clad, feeding meagrely on a vegetarian diet, castigating themselves with vigorous self-discipline, vying with one another in an eager rivalry of self-mortification, spending their time in prayer, meditation, wrestling with evil impulses, performing a minimum of work, if any, lust sufficient for a bare livelihood, by cultivating a little plot of ground, basket-making, or other manual labour, but when otherwise provided for doing nothing of the kind, often developing amazing extravagances of self-torture, sometimes going mad in their wild, cruel life, sometimes flinging it up and rushing into the vortex of city dissipation with the fury of a fierce reaction.
The rapid rise and spread of this movement, which proved to be so immensely influential on all subsequent ages, demands an explanation; and seeing that it took place at a particular historical moment, we must look for that explanation in part at least among the circumstances of the times. The main root of monasticism, as of all asceticism, is to be found in the dichotomy of human nature, the discord between the animal part and the soul in the constitution of man, the war between the flesh and the spirit—a conflict realised in Indian religions as keenly as in Christianity. But if that is always present the question faces us, Why did it take this peculiar form of monasticism especially at the beginning of the fourth century a.d.? This was just the time when the tempest of persecution which had swept over the Christians from time to time passed away, and the sunshine of imperial favour bringing with it a luxurious summer of fashion broke out over the Church. Formerly the better life had been braced by the buffeting of adverse winds; now it was in danger of being relaxed by the soft zephyr of worldly prosperity. The adoption of Christianity as the court religion turned on to it the stream of fashion. The world crowded into the
