leading a monastic life.  He retired among the mountains of Armenia, and made choice of a beautiful grove, watered with crystal streams, where he gave himself to study and meditation.  Here he was joined by his friend Gregory Nazianzen and by enthusiastic admirers, who formed a religious fraternity, to whom he was a spiritual father.  He afterwards was forced to accept the great See of Caesarea, and was no less renowned as bishop and orator than he had been as monk.  Yet it is as a monk that he left the most enduring influence, since he made the first great change in monastic life,—­making it more orderly, more industrious, and less fanatical.

He instituted or embodied, among others, the three great vows, which are vital to monastic institutions,—­Poverty, Obedience, and Chastity.  In these vows he gave the institution a more Christian and a less Oriental aspect.  Monachism became more practical and less visionary and wild.  It approximated nearer to the Christian standard.  Submission to poverty is certainly a Christian virtue, if voluntary poverty is not.  Chastity is a cardinal duty.  Obedience is a necessity to all civilized life.  It is the first condition of all government.

Moreover, these three vows seem to have been called for by the condition of society, and the prevalence of destructive views.  Here Basil,—­one of the commanding intellects of his day, and as learned and polished as he was pious,—­like Jerome after him, proved himself a great legislator and administrator, including in his comprehensive view both Christian principles and the necessities of the times, and adapting his institution to both.

One of the most obvious, flagrant, and universal evils of the day was devotion to money-making in order to purchase sensual pleasures.  It pervaded Roman life from the time of Augustus.  The vow of poverty, therefore, was a stern, lofty, disdainful protest against the most dangerous and demoralizing evil of the Empire.  It hurled scorn, hatred, and defiance on this overwhelming evil, and invoked the aid of Christianity.  It was simply the earnest affirmation and belief that money could not buy the higher joys of earth, and might jeopardize the hopes of heaven.  It called to mind the greatest examples; it showed that the great teachers of mankind, the sages and prophets of history, had disdained money as the highest good; that riches exposed men to great temptation, and lowered the standard of morality and virtue,—­“how hardly shall they who have riches enter into the kingdom of God!” It appealed to the highest form of self-sacrifice; it arrayed itself against a vice which was undermining society.  And among truly Christian people this new application of Christ’s warnings against the dangers of wealth excited enthusiasm.  It was like enlisting in the army of Christ against his greatest enemies.  Make any duty clear and imperious to Christian people, and they will generally conform to it.  So the world saw one of the most impressive spectacles of all history,—­the rich giving up their possessions to follow the example and injunctions of Christ.  It was the most signal test of Christian obedience.  It prompted Paula, the richest lady of Christian antiquity, to devote the revenues of an entire city, which she owned, to the cause of Christ; and the approbation of Jerome, her friend, was a sufficient recompense.