SOURCE: Desprez, Vincent. “The Origins of Western Monasticism.” The American Benedictine Review 41, no. 1 (March 1990): 99-112.

In the following essay, Desprez discusses some of the personalities who shaped western monasticism, including St. Athanasius, St. Jerome, St. Martin, Honoratus, and John Cassian.

I. Italy, Palestine, Gaul

Western monasticism stems, on the one hand, from the old asceticism practiced in the Church in the first three centuries, and to a greater extent, from Oriental ideals. Thus it is important to be aware of the continuity with the older asceticism where this exists, and also of the external influences. But in the West, as in the East, it was personalities rather than ideas or even example that were decisive. Their religious longings created the new monasticism, which received an original shape from the Latin temperament.¹

In the diverse regions making up the western Roman Empire, monasticism developed spontaneously, but also in relation...