In studying the internal history of the Church during the fourth century, innumerable things crowd for a brief notice; but we can only refer to those which characterize the period. The altered position of the clergy is an important one, and will account for many changes that were introduced by them. From the time of Constantine, the members of the christian ministry attained a new social position, with certain secular advantages. This led great numbers to join the sacred order from the most unworthy motives. Hence the sorrowful influence of this unhallowed mixture on the whole professing church. We constantly meet with it in the pride, arrogance, luxury, and assumed dignity of the whole clerical order. Thus, it is said, that Martin of Tours, when at the court of Maximus, allowed the Empress to wait on him at table; and that when the Emperor had desired him to drink before him, and expected to receive the cup back after the bishop had drunk, Martin passed it to his own chaplain, as being higher in honor than any earthly potentate. This circumstance shows us where the clergy now were, what they thought of themselves and of spiritual dignity in opposition to secular rank. The Church had now become like “a great house, wherein are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor.” And such it has been ever since, and such it will be to the end; but the path of the faithful is plain. “If a man therefore purge himself from these, [the vessels to dishonor,] he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.” 2 Tim. 2:20-2120But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor. 21If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work. (2 Timothy 2:20‑21).
THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF MONASTICISM.
Before we approach the period of “the Church of Thyatira,” it may be well to notice the rise and growth of the early ascetic tendencies. The influence of monasticism was indeed great during the dark ages, and throughout the Western Churches. Let us trace it to its source. It is well to know the beginning of things, especially of important and influential things.
During the violence of the Decian persecution, about the year 251, many Christians fled into voluntary exile. Among these was a young man named PAUL, of Alexandria; who took up his abode in the desert of Thebais, or Upper Egypt. By degrees he became attached to the mode of life he had adopted from necessity; and is celebrated as the first christian hermit, though without fame or influence at the time. Not so, with Ids immediate and great successor.
ANTONY, who is regarded as the father of monasticism, was born at Coma, in Upper Egypt, about the year 251. In boyhood and youth, it is said, he was thoughtful, serious, and of a retiring disposition. He cared little for worldly learning, but desired earnestly the knowledge of divine things. Before reaching the age of nineteen, he lost his parents, and came into possession of considerable property. One day while in church, it so happened that the gospel concerning the rich young man was read before the assembly. Antony considered the words of the Savior as addressed from heaven to himself: “Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.” (Luke 18:2222Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. (Luke 18:22).) He forthwith made over his lands to the inhabitants of his village, turned the rest of his estates into money, and gave all to the poor, except a small portion which he reserved for the maintenance of his only sister. On another occasion, he was deeply impressed with the words of the Lord, SHORT PAPERS ON CHURCH HISTORY. 255
“Take no thought for the morrow” (Matt. 6:25-3425Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 27Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (Matthew 6:25‑34)), and taking these words in a literal sense, he parted with the remainder of his property, placed his sister with a society of pious virgins, that he might be free from all cares about earthly things, and embraced a life of rigid asceticism.
Antony is said to have visited Paul the hermit, and all the most famous ascetics he could hear of, endeavoring to learn from each his distinguishing virtue, and to combine all their graces in his own practice. He shut himself up in a tomb, where he lived ten years. By excessive fastings, exhaustion, and an over-excited imagination, he fancied himself beset by evil spirits, with whom he had many and severe conflicts. Antony became famous. Many visited the unnatural place of his abode in the hope of seeing him, or of hearing the noise of his conflicts with the powers of darkness. But he left his tomb, and dwelt in a ruined castle near the Red Sea, for other twenty years. He increased his mortifications with the view of overcoming the evil spirits, but the same temptations and conflicts followed him.
Strange as it may seem, this remarkable and deluded man had a true heart for Christ, and a tender heart for His people. The persecution under Maximus (311) drew him from his cell to the public scenes in Alexandria. His appearance produced a great effect. He attended on the sufferers, exhorting them to unwavering confidence in their confession of Christ, and manifested great love to the confessors in the prisons and in the mines. He exposed himself in every way to danger, yet no one ventured to touch him. When the fury of the persecution was past, he escaped to a new place of solitude in the side of a lofty mountain. Here he cultivated a small piece of ground; multitudes flocked to him; great numbers imitated him. Mourners came to him to be comforted, the perplexed to be advised, and enemies to be reconciled. Miracles were ascribed to him, his influence was boundless.
In the year 352, when he was a hundred years old, he appeared a second time in Alexandria. This was to counteract the spread of Arianism, and defend with all his influence the true orthodox faith. His appearance produced a great sensation; multitudes thronged to see the monk—the man of God, as he was called—and hear him preach; and many pagans were converted to Christianity by his means. Antony and his monks were steady and powerful supporters of the Nicene creed. He lived to the age of a hundred and five, and died only a few days before Athanasius sought a refuge among the monks of the desert in 356.
THE VIRTUES AND FAILURES OF ANTONY.
Antony was evidently sincere and honest, though utterly mistaken and misled by the craft and power of Satan. In place of acting upon the Savior’s commission to His disciples, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,” or following His example who went about doing good, he thought to attain to a more elevated spirituality by withdrawing from mankind, and devoting himself to austerity of life, and to uninterrupted communion with heaven. He was a Christian, but utterly ignorant of the nature and object of Christianity. Holiness in the flesh was his one grand object; though the apostle had said, “In me—that is, in my flesh—dwelleth no good thing.” Therefore all was failure, utter failure; as it ever must be, if we think there is any good tiling in human nature, or try to become better in ourselves. In place of sanctifying his nature by fastings and idleness, he found that every evil passion was excited to greater activity.
“Hence, in his solitude,” says Neander, “he had to endure many conflicts with sense, which in some active vocation, demanding the exertion of all his powers, might perhaps have been avoided. The temptations he had to battle with were so much the more numerous and powerful, as he was given to idle self-occupation, as he busied himself in fighting down the impure images that were constantly coming up from the abyss of corruption within his heart, instead of forgetting himself in worthier employments, or in looking away to the everlasting source of purity and holiness. At a later period, Antony, with a conviction grounded on long years of experience, acknowledged this, and said to his monks. Let us not busy our imaginations in painting specters of evil spirits; let us not trouble our minds as if we were lost. Let us rather be comforted and cheerful at all times, as those who have been redeemed; and let us be mindful that the Lord is with us who has conquered them and made them nothing. Let us ever remember that, if the Lord is with us, the enemy can do us no harm. The spirits of evil appear different to us, according to the different moods of mind in which they find us...... But if they find us joyful in the Lord, occupied in the contemplation of future blessedness and of the things of the Lord, reflecting that everything is in the Lord’s hand, and that no evil spirit can do any harm to the Christian, they turn away in confusion from the soul which they see preserved by such good thoughts.”
It is perfectly plain from these counsels to his monks, that Antony was not only a sincere Christian, but that he had a good knowledge of the Lord and of redemption, though so completely turned aside by a deceived heart. We are never safe unless moving on the direct lines of the truth of God. The system which this man introduced in his false dreams of perfection in the flesh, became, in process of time, the very hot-bed of profligacy and vice. And thus it continued for more than a thousand years. It was not until the sixteenth century, when the divine light of the blessed Reformation, bursting upon a scene of dense moral darkness, revealed the deep-seated corruptions and the flagrant enormities of the different monastic orders. The monks at that time, like swarms of locusts, covered all
Europe; they proclaimed everywhere, as history informs us, the obedience due to holy mother church, the reverence due to the saints, and more especially to the Virgin Mary, the efficacy of relics, the torments of purgatory, and the blessed advantages arising from indulgences. But as the monks lost their popularity and influence at the Reformation, a new order was necessary to fill their place and do their evil work; and such was found in the Society of Jesus founded by Ignatius Loyola—the Jesuits. But we must take another glance at the early history of monasticism.
THE FIRST SOCIETY OF ASCETICS.
The earliest form in which the ascetic spirit developed itself in the christian Church, was not in the formation of societies or communities, as we find in later times, but in the seclusion of single individuals. They believed, however mistaken, that they had a special call to strive after a higher christian life; and in order to attain this eminent holiness, they imposed upon themselves the most severe restraints. They retired to desert places, that they might give themselves up to close meditation on divine things, and that their minds might be entirely abstracted from all natural objects, and from whatever delights the senses. Both men and women supposed that they must emaciate their bodies with watchings, fasting, toil, and self-torture. As the poor body was considered an oppressive load and hindrance to their spiritual aspirations, they vied with each other in the extent to which they could carry their self-mortifications. They existed on the coarsest and most unwholesome diet; they sometimes abstained from food and sleep till nature was almost wholly exhausted. The contagion of this new device of Satan spread far and wide. The mysterious recluse was regarded as necessarily invested with peculiar sanctity. The hermit’s cell was visited by the noble, the learned, the devout—all desirous to pay horn-age to the holy man of God; and thus spiritual pride was engendered by the flattery of the world. From this time the monastic life was held in such esteem, that many adopted it as a highly honorable employment; and afterward formed themselves into communities, or monastic institutions.
PACHOMIUS, who was, like Antony, a native of Thebais, was converted to Christianity in the early part of the fourth century. After practicing austerities for some time, he was told by an angel in his dreams, that he had made sufficient progress in the monastic life, and must now become a teacher of others. Pachomius then founded a society on an island of the Nile. Thus began ascetics to live in an association. The institution soon extended, so that before the founder’s death it embraced eight monasteries, with three thousand monks; and in the beginning of the following century the number of monks was no less than fifty thousand. They lived in cells, each of which contained three. They were under engagements of absolute obedience to the commands of the Abbot or father. They wore a peculiar dress, the chief article of which was a goatskin, in imitation of Elijah, who, with John the Baptist, was regarded as exemplifying the monastic condition. They were never to undress; they slept with their clothes on, and in chairs so constructed as to keep them almost in a standing posture. They prayed many times a-day, fasted on the fourth and sixth days of the week, and communicated on the Sabbath and on the Lord’s day. Their meals were eaten in silence, and with their hoods drawn over their faces, so that no one could see his neighbor. They employed themselves in agriculture and various forms of industry, and had all things in common, in imitation of the first Christians after the day of Pentecost. Pachomius founded similar societies for women.