CHRISTIAN MONASTICISM.* Tam book, though not large, represents a very
great amount of patient labour. Indeed, in many parts it may be said to consist entirely of extracts, or rather, of paraphrases of extracts, so carefully is each statement supplied with refer- ences to authorities. The authorities are exactly what they ought to be,—there is not that blind holding by Mabillon which makes so many books on monasticism merely abstracts of abstracts ; the rules which were observed have been the basis, where possible. The list at the end, taken with the citations on each page, must, when the author surveys the small volume which is the result, make him indeed wonder at his own moderation. With far less groundwork of contempo- rary authority, we have had ten times the elevation. In fact, so far as we can judge, this is the best English text-book on the general subject of early monasticism ; and as that, to be sure, is not very high praise, we can also say with confidence that it will be long before another more exhaustive is required, and still longer before the demand creates the supply.
Historical students are not very much interested in the monastic life of the period when it really represented the purposes of its founders. One may almost say that the monk only becomes historically noteworthy when to some extent he forgets that he is a monk, and plays a part in the great battle of life around him. The true monastic life lacks variety; in some of its aspects it is almost squalid ; but in its points of contact with the world it becomes one of the most picturesque institutions which history can show. In this way it has had a typical fate. Institutions considered merely as such have had surprisingly slight treatment at the hands of historians. Their books are fall of Kings and battles, and a hundred events which presuppose a knowledge of the daily life of the world at the time ; and yet too often no proper account is vouchsafed of even its more important features. Nothing is more common than to read of convents, monasteries, abbeys, priories, tenants-in-chief, seudi, gulden, minsters, granges, and a hundred other like matters ; but how many, we wonder,
* Christian Monasticism, from the Fourth to the Ninth Centuries of the Christian Era. By I. Gregory Smith, 314. London : A. D. Lines and Co. 1862. of the readers try to reduce all these things into their own language. The reason for the want of explanation is simply that the study of institutions is so much more difficult than the study of actions, that its proper treatment is usually forced, so to speak, on the world of letters. The want becomes overpowering, and we get a work such as the present. Whether this is the proper course of things, may be doubted; but we ought to be thankful when the want is supplied. Most of the substance of this volume has already appeared in the form of essays in the Dictionaries of Christian Biography and Anti- quities; the occasional repetition of a phrase is, however, all that reminds the reader of the fact. The work falls into three sections, dealing respectively with the growth of Christian monasticism, monastic offices and usages, and bio- graphical outlines of a few celebrated and typical "religious." An introduction sums up the whole.
The growth of Christian monasticism, and the various offices and services of the houses, are extremely well dealt with. The whole of the work appears to have been done from original authorities, and the author has rigorously suppressed any ambition to air his own views. It is much more accurate than a book like that of Fosbrooke, and though, as is inevitable, there is a certain want of picturesqueness, that really arises from the nature of the subject. The history that "falls upon the ear like the echo of a vanished world," is too often so faint and distorted as to bear little resemblance to the events ; and Mr. Gregory Smith has done well in not yielding to that general love of " quaintness " which is the creation of the historical leader-writer. The various rules are carefully com- pared, where possible ; but it is notable that the notion of centralised Orders of monks was not a primitive one. In the West, it is almost accurate to say that all the early differences were due to Eastern influences, and that all the later divisions mark the regeneration of the Benedictines. Local peculiarities of rule, and the rise of Canons regular, form no real exceptions to the statement. At the same time, one must be very careful not to neglect the real differences which existed between the Orders when firmly established. Mr. Leach has recently observed, that to compare a body like the Canons of South- well with a Franciscan Friary, would be to suggest the com- parison between an Oxford College and a Salvation Army barrack at the present day.
Mr. Gregory Smith makes occasional use of the Codes of Justinian, which afford ample evidence of the hold which ascetic principles, at all events, had taken on the lawyers. It might have been pointed out, however, how frequently the Eastern monasteries were employed as penitentiaries. For example, a Novella provided that those who divorced each other by mutual consent, should be confined in a religious house for life. Throughout the whole history of the institu- tion of monasticism, monasteries have been constantly em- ployed for secular purposes. Many were schools, though this is more certain of the early than the later period ; some were asylums, Record Offices, and Houses of Parliament. It is not, then, at all surprising to find that they were prisons.
If an example be required of the careful way in which the author has condensed the matter contained in many autho- rities, let the reader turn to the chapter on "The Dean." It is curious that the word is still used in so many ways. We have Deans of the Arches, Rural Deans, Deans of Peculiars, Deans of Faculties, Deans of Colleges, as well as Deans of Cathedrals. There is in all uses the idea of discipline, which
is perhaps best preserved in the office of Dean in a College. In early days the word seems to have been associated with the
decurio, and there was a Dean for every so many monks. In later times, we find the Dean looking after the secular interests of the monastery, which might possibly be an explanation of the existence of a certain Dean of Southwell whose presence is a puzzle to antiquarians.
The biographies which have been added are the least satis- factory portion of the book. They give what is known of a
certain number of representatives of the monastic life, but to
be properly illustrative they should have been longer and more legendary. The stories which those of later times have
grouped around their predecessors are exceedingly beautiful, and, moreover, show the ideals of a later age. It must be con- fessed that it seems ungrateful to ask for greater diffuseness.
This book represents a substantial contribution to the his- tory of monasticism at a time when attention is being closely directed to that subject. The utility of the monastic life in. times past has always been in direct ratio to its real holiness ; when the monk conducted his life in a sober and righteous fashion, he was the kindest of teachers and the best of examples; before he had learned to be sober and after he had forgotten to be righteous, he was either a factious and bigoted warrior, or a man of unclean, drunken, and violent life. In the present day, when the Brotherhoods seem likely to revive the monastic institution, it is well to consider in what really consisted the power of the monk, and whether we cannot secure the works of St. Boniface and St. Benedict without what were unnecessary or only temporarily necessary circum- stances. For one reason or another, the history of monasticism has certainly consisted of a triumphant rise, followed by a humiliating fall ; and though efforts have been unceasingly made to raise the cloister in public esteem, they have been only successful among the less progressive communities, and only partially successful in them. It may be said, of courses that we must not "mistake memories for hopes ;" and that to the common-sense of Englishmen, even heroes, when cloaked in the garments and speaking the language of a bygone age, are distasteful. But, after all, this may be urged against almost the whole of what we term the High Church movement. Put rather differently, the disappearance of monastic institu- tions seems likely to continue, because their existence would be a protest against that individualism which is the secret of the whole Liberal movement, in theology no less than in politics. The unfortunate thing is, that those most ready to assume the cowl in the nineteenth century, just as in the ninth, are too often the least competent to judge of its altered responsibilities, and certainly unfitted to decide that it cannot be dispensed with.
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