Stoics and Saints - College of Stoic Philosophers

120 THE MONASTIC SYSTEM.
at the very root the development of society, by leaving
for
development nothing
but machines.
Having glanced thus at some of the main features in the
Benedictine rule, we may now take a rapid survey
of the
whole field of mediaeval monachism, by considering :
I. The part which the monks played in relation to the
visible body, the Church.
II. Their relation to the inward and outward life of men
the human affections, interests, and duties.
III. The service which they rendered incidentally to the
culture of Christendom, and the unfolding of the life
of secular
society.
I. In regard to the relation of the monastic communities to
the Church at large, we must note that the monks at first
were simply laymen. The process by which, almost in spite
of themselves, they became not clerics only,
but the elect of
the clerical order, it may be interesting briefly to trace.
Primarily the monastic instinct tended to seclusion from the
world, and from all offices of natural, political, or ecclesiastical
duty. For many generations the monks, as a class, retained
their lay character ;
and the most earnest of them kept them
selves rigidly aloof from the offices and services of the Church.
They were, in fact, taught to put
on the same level the call to
ministerial duty and the temptations
of the flesh. The
warningis
conveyed in a curious passage
from Cassian :
It is the ancient advice of the fathers, advice which endures, ... that
a monk at any cost must fly bishops and women : for neither women nor
bishops allow a monk who has once become familiar with them, to rest in
peace in his cell, nor to fix his eyes on pure and celestial doctrine, con
templating holy things. 1
The ascetic would, indeed, be likely to hold himself superior
to ordinances of all sorts. He worshipped in an inner
1
De Ccenob. Instit., XL 17.