Chapter XIII: Appendix: Note a

The derivation and meaning of a few monastic terms may be of interest to the reader.

Abbot, from [Greek: abba], literally, father. A title originally given to any monk, but afterwards restricted to the head or superior of a monastery.

Anchoret, anchorite, from the Greek, [Greek: anachorêtês], a recluse, literally, one retired. In the classification of religious ascetics, the anchorets were those who were most excessive in their austerities, not only choosing solitude but subjecting themselves to the greatest privations.

Ascetic, [Greek: askêtês], one who exercises, an athlete. The term was first applied to those practicing self-denial for athletic purposes. In its ecclesiastical sense, it denotes those who seek holiness through self-mortification.

Canon Regular. About A.D. 755, Chrodegangus, Bishop of Metz, gave a cloister-life law to his clergy, who came to be called canons, from [Greek: kanôn], rule. The canons were originally priests living in a community like monks, and acting as assistants to the bishops. They gradually formed separate and independent bodies. Benedict XII. (1399) tried to secure a general adoption of the rule of Augustine for these canons, which gave rise to the distinction between canons regular (i.e., those who follow that rule), and canons secular (those who do not).

Cenobite, from the Greek, [Greek: koinos], common, and [Greek: bios], life; applied to those living in monasteries.

Clerks Regular. This is a title given to certain religious orders founded in the sixteenth century. The principal societies are: the Theatines, founded by Cajetan of Thiene, subsequently Pope Paul IV.; and Priests of the Oratory, instituted by Philip Neri, of Florence. These two orders have been held in high repute, numbering among their members many men of rank and intellect.

Cloister, from the Latin, _Claustra_, that which closes or shuts, an inclosure; hence, a place of religious retirement, a monastery.

Hermit, or eremite, from the Greek, [Greek: herêmos], desolate, solitary. One who dwells alone apart from society, or with but few companions. Not used of those who dwell in cloisters.

Monastery, comes from the same source as monk. Commonly applied to a house used exclusively by monks. The term, however, strictly includes the abbey, the priory, the nunnery, the friary, and in this broad sense is synonymous with convent, which is from the Latin, _convenire_, to meet together.

Monk, from the Greek, [Greek: mhonos], alone, single. Originally, a man who retired from the world for religious meditation. In later use, a member of a community. It is used indiscriminately to denote all persons in monastic orders, in or out of the monasteries.

Nun, from _nouna_, i.e., chaste, holy. "The word is probably of Coptic origin, and occurs as early as in Jerome." (Schaff).

Regulars. Until the tenth century it was not customary to regard the monks as a part of the clerical order. Before that time they were known as _religiosi_ or _regulares_. Afterwards a distinction was made between parish priests, or secular clergy, and the monks, or regular clergy.

For more detailed information on these and other monastic words, see The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, and McClintock and Strong's Encyclopedia.

NOTE B

The Pythagoreans are likened to the Jesuits probably on account of their submission to Pythagoras as Master, their love of learning and their austerities. Like the Jesuits, the Pythagorean league entangled itself with politics and became the object of hatred and violence. Its meeting-houses were everywhere sacked and burned. As a philosophical school Pythagoreanism became extinct about the middle of the fourth century.

NOTE C

The Encyclopædia Brittanica divides the monastic institutions into five classes:

1. Monks. 2. Canons Regular. 3. Military Orders. 4. Friars. 5. Clerks Regular. All of these have communities of women, either actually affiliated to them, or formed on similar lines.

Saint Benedict distinguishes four sorts of monks: 1. Coenobites, living under an abbot in a monastery. 2. Anchorites, who retire into the desert. 3. Sarabaites, dwelling two or three in the same cell. 4. Gyrovagi, who wander from monastery to monastery. The last two kinds he condemns. The Gyrovagi or wandering monks were the pest of convents and the disgrace of monasticism. They evaded all responsibilities and spent their time tramping from place to place, living like parasites, and spreading vice and disorder wherever they went.

There were really four distinct stages in the development of the monastic institution:

1. Asceticism. Clergy and laymen practiced various forms of self-denial without becoming actual monks.

2. The hermit life, which was asceticism pushed to an external separation from the world. Here are to be found anchorites, and stylites or pillar-saints.

3. Coenobitism, or monastic life proper, consisting of associations of monks under one roof, and ruled by an abbot.

4. Monastic orders, or unions of cloisters, the various abbots being under the authority of one supreme head, who was, at first, generally the founder of the brotherhood.

Under this last division are to be classed the Mendicant Friars, the Military Monks, the Jesuits and other modern organizations. The members of these orders commenced their monastic life in monasteries, and were therefore coenobites, but many of them passed out of the cloister to become teachers, preachers or missionary workers in various fields.

NOTE D

Matins. One of the canonical hours appointed in the early church, and still observed in the Roman Catholic Church, especially in monastic orders. It properly begins at midnight. The name is also applied to the service itself, which includes the Lord's Prayer, the Angelic Salutation, the Creed and several psalms.

Lauds, a religious service in connection with matins; so called from the reiterated ascriptions of praise to God in the psalms.

Prime. The first hour or period of the day; follows after matins and lauds; originally intended to be said at the first hour after sunrise.

Tierce, terce. The third hour; half-way between sunrise and noon.

Sext. The sixth hour, originally and properly said at midday.

None, noon. The ninth hour from sunrise, or the middle hour between midday and sunset--that is, about 3 o'clock.

Vespers, the next to the last of the canonical hours--the even-song.

Compline. The last of the seven canonical hours, originally said after the evening meal and before retiring to sleep, but in later medieval and modern usage following immediately on vespers.

B.V.M.--Blessed Virgin Mary.

NOTE E

The literary and educational services of the monks are described in many histories, but the reader will find the best treatment of this subject in the scholarly yet popular work of George Haven Putnam, "Books and Their Makers During the Middle Ages," to which we are largely indebted for the facts given in this volume.

NOTE F

In many interesting particulars St. Francis may be compared with General Booth of the Salvation Army. In their intense religious fervor, in their insistence upon obedience, humility, and self-denial, in their services for the welfare of the poor, in their love of the "submerged tenth," they are alike. True, there are no monkish vows in the Salvation Army and its doctrines bear a general resemblance to those of other Protestant communions, but like the old Franciscan order, it is dominated by a powerful missionary spirit, and its members are actuated by an unsurpassed devotion to the common people. In the autocratic, military features of the Army, it more nearly approaches the ideal of Loyola. It is quite possible that the differences between Francis and Booth are due more to the altered historical environment than to any radical diversities in the characters of the two men.

NOTE G

The quotations from Father Sherman are taken from an address delivered by him in Central Music Hall, Chicago, Illinois, on Monday, February 5, 1894, in which he extolled the virtues of Loyola and defended the aims and character of the Society of Jesus.

NOTE H

Those who may wish to study the casuistry of the Jesuits, as it appears in their own works, are referred to two of the most important and comparatively late authorities: Liguori's "_Theologia Moralis_," and Gury's "_Compendium Theologioe Moralis_" and "_Casus Conscientiæ_." Gury was Professor of Moral Theology in the College Romain, the Jesuits' College in Rome. His works have passed through several editions. They were translated from the Latin into French by Paul Bert, member of the Chamber of Deputies. An English translation of the French rendering was published by B.F. Bradbury, of Boston, Massachusetts. The reader is also referred to Pascal's "Provincial Letters" and to Migne's "_Dictionnaire de cas de Conscience_."

NOTE I

The student may profitably study the life and teachings of Wyclif in their bearing upon the destruction of the monasteries. Wyclif was designated as the "Gospel Doctor" because he maintained that "the law of Jesus Christ infinitely exceeds all other laws." He held to the right of private judgment in the interpretation of Scripture, and denied the infallibility claimed by the pontiffs. He opposed pilgrimages, held loosely to image-worship and rejected the system of tithing as it was then carried on. Wyclif was also a persistent and public foe of the mendicant friars. The views of this eminent reformer were courageously advocated by his followers, and for nearly two generations they continued to agitate the English people. It is easy to understand, therefore, how Wyclif's opinions assisted in preparing the nation for the Reformation of the sixteenth century, although it seemed that Lollardy had been everywhere crushed by persecution. The Lollards condemned, among other things, pilgrimages to the tombs of the saints, papal authority and the mass. Their revolt against Rome led in some instances to grave excesses.

NOTE J

In France, the religious houses suppressed by the laws of February 13, 1790, and August 18, 1792, amounted (without reckoning various minor establishments) to 820 abbeys of men and 255 of women, with aggregate revenues of 95,000,000 livres.

The Thirty Years' War in Germany wrought much mischief to the monasteries. On the death of Maria Theresa, in 1780, Joseph II., her son, dissolved the Mendicant Orders and suppressed the greater number of monasteries and convents in his dominions.

Although Pope Alexander VII. secured the suppression of many small cloisters in Italy, he was in favor of a still wider abolition on account of the superfluity of religious institutes, and the general degeneration of the monks. Various minor suppressions had taken place in Italy, but it was not until the unification of the kingdom that the religious houses were declared national property. The total number of monasteries suppressed in Italy, down to 1882, was 2,255, involving an enormous displacement of property and dispersion of inmates.

The fall of the religious houses in Spain dates from the law of June 21, 1835, which suppressed nine hundred monasteries at a blow. The remainder were dissolved on October 11th, in the same year.

No European country had so many religious houses in proportion to its population and area as Portugal. In 1834 the number suppressed exceeded 500.

NOTE K

The criticism of Schaff is just in its estimate of the general influence of the monastic ideal, but there were individual monks whose views of sin and salvation were singularly pure and elevating. Saint Hugh, of Lincoln, said to several men of the world who were praising the lives of the Carthusian monks: "Do not imagine that the kingdom of Heaven is only for monks and hermits. When God will judge each one of us, he will not reproach the lost for not having been monks or solitaries, but for not having been true Christians. Now, to be a true Christian, three things are necessary; and if one of these three things is wanting to us, we are Christians only in name, and our sentence will be all the more severe, the more we have made profession of perfection. The three things are: _Charity in the heart, truth on the lips, and purity of life_; if we are wanting in these, we are unworthy of the name of Christian."

THE END

INDEX

A

Abbey, _see_ Monastery.
Abbot, meaning of word, 425;
as father of family of monks, 143;
election of, 144;
description of installation of, 145;
wealth and political influence of, 147;
disorders among lay, 179;
as a feudal lord, 373;
in legislative assemblies, 400.
Abelard opposed by Bernard, 196.
Abraham, St., the hermit, 50;
quoted, 60.
Abstinence, no virtue in false, 419.
Accountability, personal, sense of maintained by monks, 414.
Act of Succession, 298.
Agriculture, monasteries centers of, 155;
and the Cistercian monks, 192;
fostered by monks, 403.
_See_ Benedict, Order of St.
Alaric the Goth sacks Rome, 103.
Albans, St., Abbey of, Morton on its vices, 338.
Albertus Magnus, a Dominican, 242.
Albigensians, Hallam on doctrines of, 232;
Hardwick on same, 233;
Dominic preaches against, 234;
Dominic's part in crusade against, 235.
Alcuin, on corruptions of monks, 173;
education and, 167.
Alexander IV., Pope, on the stigmata of St. Francis, 221;
and the University of Paris quarrel, 250.
Alfred, King, the Great, complains of monks, 173;
his reformatory measures, 181.
Alien Priories, confiscated, 338;
origin of, 340.
Allen, on the fate of the Templars, 202;
on Dominic and the Albigensian crusade, 238;
on spiritual pride of the Mendicants, 257;
on the genius of feudalism, 373;
on the deficiencies of monastic characters, 394.
Alms-giving, _see_ Charity.
Alverno, Mount, and the stigmata of St. Francis, 219.
Ambrose, embraces ascetic Christianity, 84;
Theodosius on, 115;
saying of Gibbon applied to, 116;
describes Capraria, 126;
his influence on Milanese women, 126.
Ammonius, the hermit, visits Rome, 72.
Anglicans, claims of, respecting the early British Church, 162.
Anglo-Saxons and British Christianity, 164.
Anglo-Saxon Church, effect of Danish invasion on, 181;
effect of Dunstan's work on, 187.
_See_ Britain.
Anslem, of Canterbury, on flight from the world, 369.
Anthony, St.,
visits Paul of Thebes, 37;
his strange experiences, 38;
buries Paul, 41;
birth and early life of, 43;
his austerities, 44, 45;
miracles of, 46;
his fame and influence, 47;
his death, 48;
Taylor on biography of, 48.
Ap Rice, a Royal Commissioner, 311.
Aquinas, Thomas, a Dominican, 242.
Ascetic, The, his morbid introspection, 392;
meaning of word, 425.
_See_ Monks and Hermits.
Asceticism, in India, 18-20, 357;
among Chaldeans, 20;
in China, 20;
among the Greeks, 21, 22;
the Essenes, 23;
in apostolic times, 27;
the Gnostics, 27;
and the Bible, 30, 366;
in post-apostolic times, 31;
modifications of, under Basil, 64;
protests against, in early Rome, 124;
various forms of, 385;
effects of, 391, 401.
_See_ Monasticism.
Aske, Robert, heads revolt against Henry VIII., 326.
Athanasius, St., visits hermits, 35;
his life of Anthony, 42;
influence of same on Rome, 80, 83;
spreads Pachomian rule, 63;
visits Rome, 71,
and effect of, 80;
visits Gaul, 119;
his saying on fasting, 121.
Atonement, for sin, the monk's influence on doctrine of, 417.
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, his life, and services to monasticism,
117, 119;
influenced by biography of Anthony, 43;
on marriage and celibacy, 112;
charges monks with fraud, 128.
Augustine, Rule of, adopted by Dominic, 232, 241.
Augustine, the monk, his mission to England, 161.
Augustinians, 246.
Aurelius, Emperor, Christianity during reign of, 124.
Austerities, Robertson on, 94.
_See_ Asceticism and Self-denial
Austin Canons, 118.

B

Bacon, Roger, a Franciscan, 228;
imprisonment of, 407.
Bagot, Richard, on the English reformation, 345.
Bale, John, on the fall of the monasteries, 333.
Baluzii, on the prosperity of the Franciscans, 255.
Bangor, Monastery of, founded, 123;
slaughter of its monks, 165.
Barbarians, the struggle of the monks with, 148, 149, 170;
conversion of, 398.
Basil the Great, 63;
revolts against excessive austerities, 64;
founder of Greek monasticism, 64, 65;
his rules, 65;
adopts irrevocable vows, 65;
on marriage, 66;
enforces strict obedience, 66.
Bede, The Venerable, on the British
Church, 123; on monks and
animals, 156.
Begging Friars, _see_ Mendicants,
Franciscans and Dominicans.
Benedict, Pope, XI., 221; XII.,
consecrates Monte Cassino,
135; on the stigmata of St.
Francis, 221.
Benedict of Aniane, his attempted
reform, 176.
Benedict, of Nursia, birth and
early life, 131; his trials, 132;
his fame attracts followers, 133;
his strictness provokes opposition,
133; retires to Monte Cassino,
134; conquers Paganism,
135; his miracles and power
over barbarians, 137; his last
days, 13 8; his rules, 138; Schaff
on same, 148; Cardinal Newman
on mission of, 149; saying
of, on manual labor, 403.
Benedict, Order of St., 131; rules
of, 138; the novitiate, 140;
daily life of monks, 140; meaning
of term "order," 143;
abbots of, 144; manual labor,
147, 403; Schaff on rules of,
148; its dealings with barbarians,
148, 398; its literary and
educational services, 151; its
agricultural work, 155, 404;
spread of, 158; its followers
among the royalty, 159.
Bernard, of Clairvaux, his birth
and monastic services, 193;
character of his monastery,
192; on drugs and doctors,
194; his reforms, 195; Vaughan
on, 195; Storrs on, 197; the
Crusades, 197; on the abuses
of charity, 411.
Bernardone, Peter, father of Francis,
208. _See_ Francis.
Bethlehem, Jerome's monasteries
at, 85, 88; Paula establishes
monasteries at, 100.
Bible, The, and monasticism, 30,
376.
Bigotry, of monks, 394.
Biography, monastic history centers
in, 84.
Björnstrom, on the stigmata, 223.
Blæsilla, murmurs against monks
at her funeral, 125.
Blunt, on the: fall of the monasteries,
333.
Boccaccio, comments on his visit
to Monte Cassino, 136.
Boleyn, Anne, and Henry VIII.,
294.
Bollandists, Catholic, on Dominic
and the Inquisition, 238.
Bonaventura, on the stigmata of
Francis, 220; a Franciscan, 228;
on vices of the monks, 337.
Boniface, the apostle to the Germans,
167.
Bonner, Bishop, persuades Prior
Houghton to sign oath of
supremacy, 303.
Brahminism, asceticism under, 19.
Britain, Tertullian, Origen, and
Bede, on Christianity in, 123;.
relation of early church in, to
Rome, 162; monasticism in,
162, 168.
Brotherhood of Penitence, 229.
Bruno, the abbot of Cluny, 177.
Bruno, founder of Carthusian order,
188; Ruskin on the order, 189;
the monastery of the Chartreuse, 189;
his eulogy of solitude, 396.
Bryant, poem of, on fall of monasteries, 353.
Buddha, on the ascetic life, 357.
Buddhism, asceticism under, 19.
Burke, Edmund, quoted by Gasquet on fall of monasteries, 312.
Burnet, on report of Royal Commissioners, 316.
Bury, Father, on Chinese monks, 20.