There appears to be no question that the development of Eastern monasticism had a profound effect in the West. But monastic origins in the West were unquestionably more complex than appears at first sight. On the one hand, communication with Egypt was so commonplace that the news of monastic developments did not have to await the visit of Athanasius before reaching Rome. On the other hand, the conditions for the flowering of monastic life were as much present in the West as in the East. It is not unlikely that its first appearance was an indigenous development quite independent of Eastern influence.
There is no doubt that the ground had been prepared in the Western Church by the practice of asceticism. Western writers of the second century already attest to the presence of virgins, widows and others living an ascetic life (Herm. past.simil. 9,10-11; Iust. apol. 1,15; Eus. hist.eccles. 5,3; Tert. exhor.cast. 13,4). We even hear of an ascetic living in seclusion in a cell in the middle of the third century (Eus. hist.eccles. 6,43,16). The criterion for distinguishing monastic life in the strict sense from these pre-monastic forms of asceticism can only be that of living separately from the rest of the Christian community, as was observed above in regard to the East. We can discern this transition taking place gradually in the course of the fourth century. Quite apart from the Eastern influence, the developing monastic forms are in continuity with the earlier stages of asceticism. Hence, to a certain extent the origin of monastic life in the West was a native growth, independent of the East.
The scarcity of documentation does not permit us to trace this development in detail. We have evidence from different times and places that shows monastic forms of life springing up in all the principal regions of the Western empire: Italy, North Africa, Gaul, Spain, the British Isles. While Eastern influence is often discernible, there are also differences in the West that seem to point to an independent origin. More significant than the differences, however, is the fundamental unity among all the forms of expression of the monastic phenomenon. Conditions throughout the civilized world in the fourth century evoked a similar response from Christians of the most varied regions, cultures and social classes.
2. MONASTIC ORIGINS IN ITALY
St. Jerome’s reference to the adoption of monastic ways of life by noble Roman ladies due to the influence of Athanasius (Hier. epist. 127,5) has often been taken to mean that monasticism was unknown in Rome before the patriarch’s visit in 340. But in this same letter (Hier. epist. 127,8), Jerome says that before this time the name monachus was held in scorn and contempt. Therefore, monks must have been known in the vicinity. Elsewhere he speaks of both male and female ascetics in Italy who were comparable to the “hippie” type of charismatic monks in the East, and it is probably these to whom he applies the Coptic term remnuoth (Hier. epist. 22,27-28; 34). These were the most numerous type of monks in Italy, Jerome observed in the 380s; so it is likely that they had sprung up spontaneously and already existed in the first half of the century.
The ascetic life of the noble Roman ladies was a more disciplined phenomenon. It also developed, however, out of pre-existing ascetical practice within the home and only gradually took on more strictly monastic forms in the second half of the fourth century. Thus Marcella, when widowed at an early age, began to live an ascetic life in her home, probably in the 350s. Jerome says that she was influenced by Athanasius and his successor (and blood brother) Peter, who came to Rome in 373 (Hier. epist. 127,5). Marcella’s home became the meeting place for a group of noble women with similar interests, who studied the Bible together. When Jerome arrived in 381, he became the spiritual father of these virgins and widows.
The case of Asella is even clearer. According to Jerome, she was consecrated as a virgin at the age of ten. This could not have been later than about 344. Shortly afterward she began to adopt other ascetical practices; in the 380s she was still living in solitude, apparently in her own home (Hier. epist. 24).3 Palladius, who was in Rome in 405, reports that she was then living with a community (Pallad. hist. laus. 41). Her career, then, seems to mark by stages the transition from early Christian forms of asceticism to a fully developed cenobitic life.
Jerome was the great promoter of this type of asceticism. He himself had lived the ascetical life with a group of friends at Aquileia in the early 370s, and then, in 375, spent a year as a hermit in the desert of Chalcis near Antioch in Syria. During his stay in Rome from 381 to 384, he propagated Oriental ascetical ideals, especially among the noble ladies who looked to him for direction. There was considerable opposition in the Christian community of Rome to the growing interest in asceticism, but it was favored by Jerome’s friend and patron, Pope Damasus.4 Through his writings Jerome was extremely influential in Western monasticism, but the rest of his career belongs rather to the story of Latin monasticism in the Holy Land.
St. Ambrose was also a promoter of monastic life in Italy. His own sister, Marcellina, lived an ascetic life from 353 onward, first with a companion in the family home at Rome,5 and later outside of Milan (Ambr. virg. 3,7,37). We find here the same evolution toward withdrawal from ordinary society as can be discerned in the case of Asella, of Lea, whose community seems to have been located near Ostia, and of Paula and Melania, who withdrew to Palestine. Augustine discovered functioning monasteries of both sexes when he came to Rome in 387 (Aug. mor.eccl. 1,70-71).
Ambrose, upon becoming bishop of Milan in 374, renounced his not inconsiderable property in favor of the Church and the poor, and adopted an ascetical style in his personal life (Paulin. vit.Ambr. 38). His writings contain frequent encouragement of virginity and other ascetical practices. He consecrated virgins and maintained contacts with communities of ascetics, and he was himself the patron and apparently the spiritual father of a monastery of men just outside the walls of Milan.6 It was at Milan that Augustine first heard of the monastic life from Pontitianus, who told him of the Egyptians, of the monastery directed by Ambrose, and the fascinating story of two young men at Trier and their fiancées, who were converted to the monastic life by reading the Life of Antony (Aug. conf. 8,6). The experience clearly made a profound impression on Augustine.
Other places in northern Italy show knowledge of monastic practices, but our information is fragmentary. It is often affirmed that Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli from about 344 until his death in 371, was the first to introduce a monastic observance for his clergy, thereby anticipating the type of clerical monastery later popularized by Augustine. Eusebius, a native of Sardinia, had served as a lector in the Church of Rome. He became a prominent figure in the anti-Arian struggle that marked the reign of Pope Liberius. Upon his refusal to sign the condemnation of Athanasius voted by a synod at Milan in 355, he was exiled to the East and spent the following years in Palestine, Cappadocia and the Thebaid, until his return to Vercelli in 363.
Eusebius’ personal asceticism and the existence of an ascetical community of clerics at Vercelli some twenty-five years after his death are attested by a letter of Ambrose written to urge the choice of a worthy bishop for the church of Vercelli (Ambr. epist. 63, probably written in 396). Several anonymous homilies preached at Vercelli a generation or more after Eusebius’ death indicate that the bishop himself was responsible for establishing this clerical monastery,7 but we do not know when he did this. If the monastery was founded in the early days of his episcopate, in the 340s, it would perhaps be the earliest known example of an organized ascetical community in the West. But it is more likely that he took this step only in the 360s after his return from exile, and that he was influenced by the knowledge that he had acquired of the ascetical movement in Cappadocia and the cenobitic monasteries of the Thebaid.
The eremitical life flourished in Italy in the late fourth century, especially in the islands off the Italian Riviera. The first of these solitaries of whom we hear is Martin of Tours; after his release from military service in 356, he came to Milan and lived as a hermit until expelled by the Arian bishop. He then moved with a priest-companion to the island of Gallinaria, opposite Albenga, a
nd there lived an ascetical life (Sulpic.Sever. Mart. 6). Martin apparently remained here until 360, when, after a trip to Rome, he followed St. Hilary to Poitiers and established himself at Ligugé. A little later, around 375, Jerome testifies that his friend Bonosus is living the monastic life on an island, but it is more likely that this was in the Adriatic, as he had gone there upon the breakup of the ascetic community in Aquileia (Hier. epist. 3,4-5). Jerome and Ambrose refer vaguely to the existence of numerous monks on the islands surrounding Italy (Hier. epist. 77,6; Ambr. hex. 3,5,23).
Aquileia was the scene of Jerome’s own introduction to the ascetic life, and the little we know of the community there is due chiefly to scattered references in his letters. He and his friend Bonosus, after completion of their studies in Rome and a subsequent visit to Trier, where they probably first felt the attraction of asceticism, settled in Aquileia. Rufinus seems to have been there already, and it appears that by 370 there was a fervent group in existence. The bishop, Valerian, was favorable to the ascetic life, but its real animator was Chromatius, a priest, who lived an ascetical life in his home with his mother, his sisters, his brother Eusebius, who was a deacon, and the archdeacon Jovinus.
Little is known about their manner of life, but there is information about a number of Jerome’s friends who became associated with the group.8 There was also a community of virgins nearby at Haemona, with whom Jerome was in contact (Hier. epist. 11). Also associated with the Aquileian group was Evagrius of Antioch, an influential person who had come from the East with Eusebius of Vercelli and who seems to have been a mediator of Eastern monastic influences. It was he who had translated the Life of Antony into Latin a few years earlier; and it was with him that Jerome stayed in Antioch after his departure from Aquileia. Athanasius had stayed at Aquileia for two years or more around 345, and it may have been his visit that stirred up the local enthusiasm for the ascetic life. But it hardly seems necessary to seek such a cause, in view of the widespread popularity of asceticism throughout the West in the latter half of the fourth century.
At the end of the century there is another example in Paulinus of Nola and his circle. Like Ambrose, Paulinus was from a wealthy and prominent family. Born in Bordeaux, probably about 353, he received an excellent education under the famous rhetorician Ausonius, who became his friend. In 379 he was governor of Campania, after which he returned to Aquitaine. About 385 he married the noble Therasia, a Spanish lady and fervent Christian. After their only son died in infancy, they resolved to devote themselves to a life of asceticism, continence and prayer. After several years at Barcelona, during which Paulinus distributed his enormous fortune among the poor, they settled at Nola, near Naples, around 395. There they organized an ascetical community, which Paulinus calls monasterium and fraternitas monacha (Paulin.Nol. epist. 5,15; 23,8). It seems to have been quite informally structured, consisting of relatives and friends, all members of the aristocracy and all desirous of living the Christian life in an austere though not extreme fashion.
Paulinus had been ordained a priest, probably in Spain shortly before coming to Nola. After Therasia died in 408, he became bishop of Nola and lived on until 431. He was in correspondence and often personal contact with the principal churchmen of his time, and especially with the leaders of the ascetical movement: Ambrose in Milan; Jerome in Palestine; Rufinus and Melania and their circle in Italy and Jerusalem; Martin of Tours and his biographer Sulpicius Severus in Gaul; Eucherius of Lyons and Honoratus, the founder of Lerins; and Augustine and Alypius in Africa. Living not far from Rome, he was in a position to maintain contacts with monastic developments in the City and with the many visitors from all parts of the Christian world.9
3. LATIN MONASTICISM IN THE HOLY LAND
By the end of the fourth century, the monastic ideal, though it did not go unopposed, had spread throughout Italy. Of all its propagators, Jerome was doubtless the most influential, because of the authority his scholarship had earned for him. During his stay in Rome, however, his sharp attack upon his real or fancied enemies brought him such unpopularity that he was obliged to leave the City upon the death of Damasus, his protector, in 384. Together with his younger brother Paulinian, he sailed for Palestine and spent the rest of his life there, though always remaining in close contact with Western ascetical circles. He was followed to the East by Paula, his most faithful disciple among the noble ladies of the City, and her daughter Eustochium. In Bethlehem, Paula established two monasteries — one for women, which she governed herself, and one for men, ruled by Jerome. We are ill informed about the observance of these houses, but the life appears to have been fully cenobitic.
Before finally settling in Bethlehem, Jerome and Paula had made a tour of the holy places and had gone to Egypt to visit the famous monks. The Latin monasteries of Palestine were always marked with this high regard for Oriental asceticism and for the sacredness of the biblical lands. Jerome’s interest in the Scriptures (it was in Bethlehem that he wrote his biblical commentaries and translated the Old Testament from Hebrew) also left a strong imprint of biblical study upon the life of the Bethlehem communities.
These monasteries, however, were not the first examples of Latin monasticism in the Holy Land. The earliest was the work of another noblewoman, Melania the Elder. Widowed at the age of twenty-two, she resolved upon a life of asceticism and in 372 set out with a group of like-minded women for Egypt, where she spent a year visiting the monks. It was probably there that she met Rufinus, the boyhood friend of Jerome, who had shared the latter’s ascetical initiation in Aquileia and had gone to Egypt when Jerome directed his steps toward Antioch. Melania went on to Jerusalem in 374 and there established a monastery for women. When Rufinus followed in 380, a monastery for men was added. Again, there are few recorded details about the life practiced in these houses.10
The friendship of Rufinus and Jerome was unfortunately shattered by the Origenist controversy, and the monastic establishments of Jerusalem and Bethlehem found themselves divided by bitterness. The first decades of the fifth century were marred by polemic and tragedy: Pelagianism became a danger both in the West and in Palestine, and Italy was invaded by the Goths, who sacked Rome in 410. Paula died in 404, Eustochium around 418, and Jerome a year or two later. The Bethlehem monasteries do not seem to have survived much longer amid the civil and religious tumults of the times and the unfriendliness of the Oriental Christians, who regarded the Latins as intruders.
The Jerusalem monasteries suffered a similar fate. Rufinus returned to Italy in 397 and died in Sicily in 411, unreconciled with Jerome. After an extended visit to Italy, beginning probably in 400, Melania returned to Jerusalem and died sometime before 410. Her influence had, however, inspired her granddaughter, Melania the Younger, to imitate her ideals. Married at fourteen to her distant cousin Pinianus, Melania the Younger persuaded him six years later, after the death of their two infants, to embrace virginity and asceticism. Disposing of their vast fortune, they spent seven years in Tagaste, in close contact with Alypius, the intimate friend of Augustine, and there formed both male and female communities.
Eventually Melania, with Pinianus and her mother, Albina, settled in Jerusalem around 417 and lived the ascetical life there. After Melania and Pinianus had made a pilgrimage to the monastic sites of Egypt, she lived as a recluse on the Mount of Olives for fourteen years. The monasteries founded by her grandmother and Rufinus seem no longer to have existed. After the death of her mother in 431, Melania founded a monastery for women. A year later her husband also died. After another four years in reclusion, Melania established a monastery for men. After her death in 439, the monasteries were governed by her successor and biographer, Gerontius, but in 452, after Chalcedon, he passed over to monophysite allegiance. After this nothing more is known of Latin monasteries in the East until the Crusades.11
The enduring effect of these monastic ventures, however, was the literature they bequeathed to the Western Church. Jerome in particular exercised an important influence in the West
through his writings. Encouragement to asceticism, often enlivened by hyperbole and invective, appears in all his writings, even the biblical commentaries, and especially in his polemical works against Helvidius, Jovinian and Vigilantius, who were rather cool toward the fast-growing ascetical movement. The monastic teaching of Jerome is more positively expressed in his letters, particularly in two lengthy epistles that are really treatises: Letter 22, to Eustochium, written at Rome about 384 in the flush of his enthusiasm over the fervor of the noble ladies of the City; and Letter 130, to Demetrias, a more sober statement of his old age, written about 414.
One of the earliest works of Jerome’s youth was the Life of Paul the First Hermit, written during his attempt at the solitary life in the desert of Chalcis about 375. The fanciful story of a supposed predecessor of Antony in Egypt, it is probably simply a romance without any historical foundation. Later, in his early years at Bethlehem around 390, he also wrote a Life of St. Hilarion and a Life of Malchus the Captive Monk, extravagant tales reflecting Jerome’s preoccupations and his monastic ideals, but, at least in the case of Hilarion, based upon a historical core.
Of great importance, too, were Latin translations of Eastern monastic literature. The Latin monks of Palestine always looked to Egypt as their ideal. Jerome, in 404, translated a collection of Pachomian writings from Greek into Latin: the Rule, the Monita and eleven letters of Pachomius, a letter of Theodore, and the instruction of Horsiesius. The knowledge of Pachomian monasticism in the West was due entirely to these translations, and even today we still depend upon them, for the Coptic originals and Jerome’s Greek sources exist only in fragmentary form.
RB 1980- The Rule Of St Benedict Page 10