SOURCE: Workman, Herbert B. “The Message of Monasticism.” In The Evolution of the Monastic Ideal: From the Earliest Times down to the Coming of the Friars: A Second Chapter in the History of Christian Renunciation, pp. 319-52. Boston: Beacon Press, 1913.

In the following essay, Workman discusses lessons that may be learned by studying the history of monasticism.

I

From this survey of the development and history of Monasticism we shall do well to turn to the lessons we may learn from its story. In the intercourse of the saints, upon what special aspects of spiritual life, as consciously apprehended in his own soul, would the monk have dwelt? to what factors would he have pointed as of importance? to what special temptations would he have acknowledged that he was liable? Such an inquiry, it is evident, cannot be treated save on the broadest lines. We can only touch...