Alexander Schmemann

2. The Triumph Of Christianity (27 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 22

Rise of Monasticism.

There is no better illustration of the unique quality of this reconciliation of the Church with the empire than the rise, in the same fourth century, of monasticism. Its importance in the history of the Church is not inferior to that |of the conversion of Constantine.

The origin of monasticism is usually associated with the name of St. Anthony. His life had been described by Athanasius, and this document has always remained the standard of the monastic ideal, and defined the whole later development of monasticism in the Church. Outwardly Anthony’s life followed a very simple pattern. He was born in Egypt around 250 in a Coptic Christian family. When he was still very young, he heard in church the words of the Gospel: “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, . . . and come and follow me,” and he was shaken by them. He gave away all his property and devoted himself entirely to ascetic feats, starting in his own village but very soon withdrawing into the desert, where he spent twenty years in complete solitude. Athanasius has described this period of his life, often very realistically, as a ceaseless struggle with the devil.
Later the second period began: followers thronged to him from all sides, and he emerged from his seclusion to become their teacher and leader. The principles of his ascetic doctrine were set forth by Athanasius in the form of speeches, which Anthony addressed to the monks. “Then monasteries arose on the mountains,” wrote Athanasius, “and the desert was inhabited by monks, men who had rejected all earthly goods and had inscribed their names in the heavenly city.”

Monasticism acquired its present form somewhat later, from St. Pachomius the Great. Also a native of Egypt, he was the first to create a life in common and the regulations for it; the rule of Pachomius has formed the basis for later monastic rules. Under his guidance, in the Thebaid on the upper Nile, was created a unique monastic state numbering thousands of persons. It was visited in 357-58 by St. Basil, who on his return from Asia Minor created a monastic community there, with his brother, Gregory of Nyssa, and his friend Gregory the Theologian. Even before this, Anthony’s disciple Hilarion had brought the monastic life to Syria and Palestine, and in the same period it began to flourish in the West as well.

Monasticism attracted more and more people into the desert, to the monasteries, and it soon acquired a particular significance even for those who did not become monks. Descriptions of the lives and feats of the hermits — The Life of Anthony, The Life of Paul of Thebes (written by St. Jerome), Historia Lausiaca, The History of the Monks, and so on — were to become for centuries the favorite reading matter of all Byzantine society. Characteristics of monastic worship penetrated to the city churches, where the services came to be decked in the same colors. Our liturgical regulations even today are those of the Monastery of St. Sabas in Jerusalem. Monasteries arose within the cities themselves; by the middle of the sixth century in Constantinople alone there were seventy-six. Monks assumed a more active role in Church life. They had begun as a movement of laymen; neither Anthony nor Pachomius had had any hierarchical rank; they apparently considered the monastic life incompatible with the priesthood, and even more with the episcopate. But gradually monasticism was transformed into an official and even a higher Church calling, so that in later Byzantium only monks could become bishops. Beginning as a physical withdrawal into the desert, the monastery was established in the very heart of the city. It became one of the most integral signs of that Christian world whose history had begun with the conversion of Constantine.

 

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