Theological discord was made a thousand times more bitter by their participation in the controversies of the time.  Furious monks became the armed champions of Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria.  They insulted the prefect, drove out the Jews and, to the everlasting disgrace of the monks, Cyril and the church, they dragged the lovely Hypatia from her lecture hall and slew her with all the cruelty satanic ingenuity could devise.  Against a background of black and angry sky she stands forth, as a soul through whose reason God made himself manifest.  Her unblemished character, her learning and her grace forever cry aloud against an orthodoxy bereft alike of reason and of the spirit of the Nazarene.

The fighting monks crowded councils and forced decisions.  They deposed hostile bishops or kept their favorites in power by murder and violence.  Two black-cowled armies met in Constantinople, and amid curses fought with sticks and stones a battle of creeds.  Cries of “Holy!  Holy!  Holy!” mingled with, “It’s the day of martyrdom!  Down with the tyrant!” The whole East was kept in a feverish state.  The Imperial soldiers confessed their justifiable fears when they said, “We would rather fight with barbarians than with these monks.”

No wonder our perplexity increases and it seems impossible to determine what these men really did for the cause of truth.  We have been unable to distinguish the hermit from the beasts of the fields.  We hear his groans, see his tears, and watch him struggle with demons.  We are disgusted with his filth, amused at his fancies, grieved at his superstition.  We pity his agony and admire his courage.  We watch the progress of order and rule out of chaos.  We see monasteries grow up around damp caves and dismal huts.  We behold Simeon praying among the birds of heaven, and look into the face of the young and handsome Basil, in whom the monastic institution of the East reaches the zenith of its power.

I am free to confess a profound reverence for many of these men determined at all hazards to keep their souls unspotted from the world.  I bow before a passion for righteousness ready to part with life itself if necessary.  Yet the gross extravagances, the almost incredible absurdities of their unnatural lives compel us to withhold our judgment.

One thing is certain, the strange life of those far-off years is an eloquent testimony to the indestructible craving of the human soul for self-mastery and soul-purity.

II

MONASTICISM IN THE WEST:  ANTE-BENEDICTINE MONKS 340-480 A.D.

We are now to follow the fortunes of the monastic system from its introduction in Rome to the time of Benedict of Nursia, the founder of the first great monastic order.

Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, who made Christianity the predominant religion in the Roman Empire, died in 337 A.D.  Three years later Rome heard, probably for the first time, an authentic account of the Egyptian hermits.  The story was carried to the Eternal City by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, one of the most remarkable characters in the early church, a man of surpassing courage and perseverance, an intrepid foe of heresy, “heroic and invincible,” as Milton styled him.  Twenty of the forty-six years of his official life were spent in banishment.