The fourth century is the great age of the rise and development of monasticism in the East; a century later we see it rapidly spreading through the West. This Western movement was mainly stimulated by Jerome, who had spent years in his cell at Bethlehem, and organised by Cassian, who brought to Marseilles ideas he had gathered from Basil's arrangements in Asia Minor. Thus both of these men who were the chief influences leading to the formation of early Western monasticism—the one for its inspiration, the other for its regulation—derived their impulses and directions from the East. It is to the history of the Eastern Church, therefore, that the origin and development of monasticism belong.
The roots of monasticism lie far back in the past. Its development may be traced through the following stages:—(1) General Asceticism; (2) Specific Asceticism, (3) Anchoritism; (4) Cœnobitism; (5) Regulated Monasticism.
1. A spirit of asceticism is always found hovering round the idea of religion even where it has not penetrated deeply into that idea. Prayer and fasting go often together. While our Lord never commanded the latter practice nor even commended it,[1] and while He justified His disciples in neglecting the custom,[2] He assumed that it would be practised in times of sorrow,[3] and He also gave directions for unostentatiousness in the performance of it by His disciples, implying that, as Jews, they would be carrying on their Jewish habits in this matter.[4] In point of fact it was practised in apostolic times, though especially if not exclusively on critical occasions of exceptionally earnest prayer.[5] The Palestinian Christians of the sub-apostolic age were warned not to fast on the Jews' fasting-days—an admonition implying that fasting on set days was part of their regular practice.[6] In later times it was always pursued
- ↑ The word "fasting," νηστεία, in Mark ix. 29, of A.V. and T.R., is not critically authorised; nor does it appear in the parallels of Matthew and Luke.
- ↑ Mark ii. 18, 19.
- ↑ Ibid., ver. 20.
- ↑ Matt. vi. 16–18.
- ↑ e.g. Acts xiii. 3.
- ↑ Didaché, 8.
