MONASTICISM, or MONACHISM, is a state of life in retirement from the world adopted for motives of religion. It is not peculiar to Christianity, for in many religions, as that of Israel, and in those of India, China and Tibet, the same motive has led men to withdraw themselves wholly or in part from converse with worldly society and to seek in seclusion and retirement opportunity to lead a purer or higher life. The Nazarites, the Recha bites, the Essenes, the Therapeutm were separa tists from society in a greater or less degree, and in this respect were the precursors of the ascetm of the earliest Christian age and of the hermits or anachoretz and the coenobites of the 3d and 4th centuries.
In the middle of the 3d century, during the persecution of the Christians by Decius, Paul of Thebes in Egypt (Saint Paul the first hermit), withdrew to a wilderness, and during the remainder of his long life lived in absolute solitude in a cavern of a mountain, deriving his food and his vesture from a neighboring grove of palm trees. Many others fleeing from perse cution or from the contagion of a profoundly corrupt society, flocked to the wildernesses of the Nile country; among them was Antony (Saint Antony), who after many years of the strictly solitary life of an anchorite was in a manner compelled by circumstances to adopt the coeno bite rule. He was by choice an anchorite like Saint Paul the Hermit, but the fame of his vir tues and his miracles brought to his cell in a remote wilderness many who desired to devote themselves to the service of God under such a master ; and as he could not refuse their prayer he became, in fact if not in name, the Father or Abbot of a pretty numerous ccenobium; hence he is called the Father of Monachism, that is, of the life-in-common of those who retire from the world for reasons of religion; they retain the title of monk, monaclius (a solitary), though since Saint Antony's day they are no longer solitaries but coenobites.
Antony's coenobites occupied each a separate hut or a separate grotto; but Saint Pachomius, a contemporary of Antony, introduced a further development of the community life. The cells or huts were now to hold three brethren; meals were eaten in common; the labor of the monks was regulated; the brethren were graded ac cording to their spiritual proficiency; the com munity was presided over by an abbot, with inferior officers; in addition to the primitive industries of petty agriculture, basket-making and mat-weaving, the monks practised the trade of the smith, of the tanner, etc.; there were
daily assemblies of the community for prayer and conference. When Saint Pachomius died, about the middle of the 4th century, 7,000 monks were subject to his rule.
From Egypt monachism soon spread into Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor and Armenia.
The introduction of monachism in the West ern countries of the Roman Empire dates from a little after the middle of the 4th century when a few small communities of monks, tinder the Pachomian rule, were founded at Rome and in Northern Italy. Later, when the rule of Saint Basil had been translated into Latin, communi ties of Basilian monks sprank up in Southern Italy. Saints Jerome, Augustine and Ambrose were zealous promoters of monachism in Italy and Africa, Saint Martin of Tours in Gaul; when Saint Martin died (397) his body was, fol lowed to the tomb by 2,000 monks.
Whether under the Pachomian or the Basil ian rule or under modifications of these, monas tic establishments multiplied rapidly in the West. But the disorder which attended the decline of the Western Empire and the bar barian invasions, had its effects upon mona chism, and the monastery exhibited the same anarchy as did civil society.
Early in the 6th century Benedict of Nursia, who had already led for three years the life of a strict recluse in a cave at Subiaco, about 40 miles distant from Rome, was chosen by the monks of a monastery in the same place as their abbot; but very soon, his new subjects having deposed him, he returned to his solitude and commenced that reform of Latin monachism which made his name illustrious. He gave to his monks a rule which, variously amended and modified, has been the law of the monastic life of Western Europe ever since. In its preamble Benedict recognizes two and only two legitimate classes of monks— ccenobites and anchorites — those who lead the life in common and those who live in solitude — usually now called her mits.