During Apostolic times various teachings and practices were current that may be characterized as ascetic.  The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Colossians, doubtless had in mind a sect or school which despised the body and abstained from meats and wine.  A false asceticism, gathering inspiration from pagan philosophy, was rapidly spreading among Christians even at that early day.  The teachings of the Gnostics, a speculative sect of many schools, became prominent in the closing days of the Apostolic age or very soon thereafter.  Many of these schools claimed a place in the church, and professed a higher life and knowledge than ordinary Christians possessed.  The Gnostics believed in the complete subjugation of the body by austere treatment.

The Montanists, so called after Montanus, their famous leader, arose in Asia Minor during the second century, when Marcus Aurelius was emperor.  Schaff describes the movement as “a morbid exaggeration of Christian ideas and demands.”  It was a powerful and frantic protest against the growing laxity of the church.  It despised ornamental dress and prescribed numerous fasts and severities.

These facts and many others that might be mentioned throw light on our inquiry in several ways.  They show that asceticism was in the air.  The literature, philosophy and religion of the day drifted toward an ascetic scheme of life and stimulated the tendency to acquire holiness, even at the cost of innocent joys and natural gratifications.  They show that worldliness was advancing in the church, which called for rebuke and a return to Apostolic Christianity; that the church was failing to satisfy the highest cravings of the soul.  True, it was well-nigh impossible for the church, in the midst of such a powerful and corrupt heathen environment, to keep itself up to its standards.

It is a common tradition that in the first three centuries the practices and spirit of the church were comparatively pure and elevated.  Harnack says, “This tradition is false.  The church was already secularized to a great extent in the middle of the third century.”  She was “no longer in a position to give peace to all sorts and conditions of men.”  It was then that the great exodus of Christians from the villages and cities to mountains and deserts began.  Although from the time of Christ on there were always some who understood Christianity to demand complete separation from all earthly pleasures, yet it was three hundred years and more before large numbers began to adopt a hermit’s life as the only method of attaining salvation.  “They fled not only from the world, but from the world within the church.  Nevertheless, they did not flee out of the church.”

We can now see why no definite cause for the monastic institution can be given and no date assigned for its origin.  It did not commence at any fixed time and definite place.  Various philosophies and religious customs traveled for centuries from country to country, resulting in singular resemblances and differences between different ascetic or monastic sects.  Christian monasticism was slowly evolved, and gradually assumed definite organization as a product of a curious medley of Heathen-Jewish-Christian influences.