Marcella may indeed be termed the prioress of the community of ascetics
which gathered in her house and in that of Paula on the Aventine hill.
She studied Hebrew with Jerome, and became so proficient in Scriptural
exposition that, after the latter's departure for the Holy Land, even
the clergy would bring to her for solution such questions as were too
difficult for them. When Alaric and his Goths sacked the city of Rome,
the prayers and the evident holiness of Marcella induced the barbarians
to spare her life and the honor of the virgin Principia, who dwelt with
her, and they even left her house unmolested.
Another shining light in that Aventine circle was Asella, who had been
dedicated to the Church from her tenth year. Her fastings may be said to
have been almost unintermittent, so that Jerome thought it was only by
the grace of God that she survived until her fiftieth year without
weakening her digestion. "Lying on the dry ground did not affect her
limbs, and the rough sackcloth that she wore failed to make her skin
either foul or rough. With a sound body and a still sounder soul she
sought all her delight in solitude, and found for herself a monkish
hermitage in the centre of busy Rome."
Among the good women of that day were also Albina and Marcellina, who
were the sisters of Saint Ambrose. Marcellina made a public profession
of virginity before a great congregation which gathered on Christmas day
in the Church of Saint Peter. She received the veil from the hands of
the bishop Liberius. In a work addressed to her Ambrose repeats the
instructions which his sister received from the bishop at that time. The
work is of no little interest, as it clearly sets forth the idea which
governed the lives of professed nuns of that early date.
Paula also numbered among her companions Fabiola, a woman noble both in
character and race, who, after a stormy youth, found peace in the haven
of ascetic devotion. Jerome describes her life in his seventy-seventh
letter. Fabiola was censured for putting away one husband and marrying
again while the man whom she divorced was yet alive.
Jerome's defence of
her divorce shows such liberality of thought on the rights of women in
this regard that part of it is worth quoting. He says:
"I will urge only
this one plea, which is sufficient to exonerate a chaste matron and a
Christian woman. The Lord gave commandment that a wife must not be put
away 'except it be for fornication, and that, if put away, she must
remain unmarried.' Now a commandment which is given to men logically
applies to women also. For it cannot be that, while an adulterous wife
is to be put away, an incontinent husband is to be retained.... The laws
of Cæsar are different, it is true, from the laws of Christ.... Earthly
laws give a free rein to the unchastity of men, merely condemning
seduction and adultery; lust is allowed to range unrestrained among
brothels and slave-girls, as if the guilt were constituted by the rank
of the person assailed and not by the purpose of the assailant. But with
us Christians what is unlawful for women is equally unlawful for men."
It is only in very modern times that the secular law has conformed to
this just opinion, and even now the social treatment received by the
sinner is guided by a view the opposite of that expressed by Jerome.
So Fabiola took another husband, and therein she was held to have sinned
deeply. Repentance, however, soon followed--a life-long penitence, an
expiation offered by a continual sacrifice of good works. The whole of
her property she gave to the poor; among other good deeds she founded a
hospice for the shelter of the destitute. She resided for a while with
Jerome, Paula, and Eustochium at Bethlehem, but returned to Rome to die.
Her funeral was a reminder of the old-time triumphs. All the streets,
porches, and roofs from which a view could be obtained of the procession
were insufficient to accommodate the spectators.
Into this circle of holy women came Jerome, the most learned and the
most brilliant man of his time. He was their equal in birth, and he,
like them, had disposed of his property in charity to the poor. He
became their friend, their teacher, their oracle. So assured was he of
his ascendency over his friends that he often gave his advice in a
manner which savored of arrogance.
In the year 385 Jerome bade farewell to these devoted friends and sailed
away to the land which was consecrated by the life and sufferings of
Christ. He desired retirement, in order that he might be free to
meditate and to prosecute his great work of translating the Scriptures.
From the ship in which the journey was made he addressed a letter to
Asella. It seems that slanderous tongues had foolishly assailed him in
regard to his friendship with those women whose attractions could not
have been other than spiritual. He admits that, of all the ladies of
Rome, one only had the power to subdue him, and that one was Paula. He
had been able to withstand countenances beautified both by nature and
also by art; with Paula alone, "who was squalid with dirt," and whose
eyes were dimmed with continual weeping, was his name associated.
Calumny on this subject was too absurd to be treated with seriousness.
The reference to Paula's personal untidiness gives us the occasion to
remark that, contrary to the generally accepted axiom regarding the
religious worth of cleanliness, those ancient nuns were taught to
believe that the bath was rather conducive to ungodliness. It was a
dangerous subserviency to the flesh: its eschewment was doubtless a
powerful safeguard to chastity.
Two years after the departure of their friend, Paula and Eustochium
gratified a wish which they had long cherished, to visit the Holy Land.
A most graphic picture of Paula leaving her children and friends is
given us in one of Jerome's letters. They realized, what was not,
perhaps, openly acknowledged, that it was a final good-bye. We are shown
the young girls clinging to their mother in the endeavor to dissuade her
from her purpose. But the sails are unfurled and the stout-armed rowers
are in their places; Rufina, a maiden just entering womanhood, with
quiet sobs, beseeches her mother to wait until she should be married. As
the vessel moves away, little Toxotius, the youngest-born and her only
son, stretches out his tiny hand and pleads with his mother to come
back. But no entreaty could turn Paula from her pious though hardly
commendable purpose. "She overcame her love for her children by her love
for God." That was the favorable judgment of the time. A less
enthusiastic, but saner, age can hardly bestow such unmitigated praise.
After a journey through all the places made famous by Scripture, in
every one of which they were received with great honor, Paula and her
daughter made their home at Bethlehem, where Jerome already had his
cell. There she built a convent; and for eighteen years she devoted her
life to the training of the many virgins who resorted to her company,
attracted by the fame of her holiness. At her death, the manner of which
was truly edifying, it was found that Paula had disposed of the whole of
her property in charity. Though it is probable that these ascetic women
were to a large extent under the influence of motives less exalted than
that mentioned above, much good intention must be laid to their credit;
and doubtless their extreme self-denial was not without a salutary
effect in a sensual world. At the end of his description of her death,
which he wrote for her daughter, Jerome says: "And now, Paula, farewell,
and aid with your prayers the old age of your votary."
VI
THE NUNS OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH
WE have already given some attention to certain famous Christian women
who, in the earliest ages of the Church, dedicated themselves to the
ascetic life. But monasticism, occupying as it did so extensive and
important a field in the early Church, deserves the devotion of nothing
less than a chapter to the consideration of its effect upon the life of
women, and to the part they played in its establishment.
In describing
the friends of Jerome--Paula, Eustochium, Asella, and the others--we
dwelt more on the moral aspect of primitive asceticism, its
exaggerations, its wrong-headedness, its influence upon family life; it
is now our purpose to take a brief glance at the organization of female
monasticism, and to notice its effect upon the social life of women. For
it cannot be otherwise than that so popular and general an institution
as this must at the time have profoundly affected human existence. A
great multitude of men and women taken out of common society and living
apart under conditions entirely contradictory to the instinct and usages
of the race must have shaken the body politic in every direction,
causing a movement of influences far-reaching in its effect.
Monasticism was not the creation of Christianity; the religions of the
East had their devotees, like the Jewish Essenes, who abandoned the
common pursuits of men for a life of solitude, idle introspection, and
rapt contemplation. The wildernesses and solitary places of the East had
been made yet more weird by the presence of unhumanlike hermits, even
before the days of John the Baptist. Christian monasticism, also, had
its birth in the dreamy East. Antony, by his example, and Pachomius, by
enthusiastic propaganda of monastic ideas, laid the foundations of that
system which was to honeycomb the whole world with bands of men and
women who repudiated the natural pleasures and the essential duties of
the world.
Of the motive that inspired the monastic life, St.
Augustine says: "No
corporeal fecundity produces this race of virgins; they are no offspring
of flesh and blood. Ask you the mother of these? It is the Church. None
other bears these sacred virgins but that one espoused to a single
husband, Christ. Each of these so loved that beautiful One among the
sons of men, that, unable to conceive Him in the flesh as Mary did, they
conceived Him in their heart, and kept for him even the body in
integrity."
We may admit this intense love of God as a moving force, and still claim
that the hermits and anchoresses of the early Church were actuated
largely by the desire to redeem themselves from the wrath to come and to
gain a personal entrance to the paradise of God.
Salvation was an
individual responsibility, and it admitted of no compromise with the
world. The road to perfection could be cheered with company only,
providing others were willing to set out upon it by first renouncing all
natural joys, and by despising all human ties. The claims of close
kindred were not allowed to hinder in the personal quest for heavenly
rewards. The tearfully pleaded needs of an aged parent were not
permitted to detain at home the daughter who had consecrated herself as
the bride of Christ; Paula turned her back upon the outstretched hands
of her infant son, in order that in the Holy Land she might spend her
days in ecstatic contemplation of the Jerusalem above.
It is recorded to
the high praise of Saint Fulgentius that he sorely wounded his mother's
heart by despising her sorrow at his departure.
True it is that many of the earliest consecrated handmaidens of the
Church continued to reside in their city homes, and, in addition to
their prayers, devoted themselves to works of charity and mercy. But
they were scarcely less separated from the world and their kindred.
Their manner of life interdicted all common intercourse.
The virgin who
could boast that for twenty-five years she never bathed, except the tips
of her fingers, and these only when she was about to receive the
Communion, must have been as foreign to the Rome in which she lived as
if she inhabited a cave in the Thebaid. Her kinsfolk may have reverenced
her sanctity, but it is doubtful if they unqualifiedly appreciated her
presence. The explanation of this transcendent personal neglect is to be
found in the dualism which was so considerable an element in the motif
of monasticism. The religious sphere was exclusively spiritual and of
the mind; the material world was considered to be wholly under the
dominion of the devil if it were not, indeed, his work.
The body, with
all its appetites, instincts, pleasures, and pains, was regarded as a
spiritual misfortune. Holiness was not deemed to be in any degree
attainable except by constant and determined thwarting of all natural
desire. The compulsion to give way to any extent to the most essential
of these desires was, so far as it obtained, a moral imperfection. The
three great human faults are lust, pride, and avarice.
To subjugate
these, celibacy, absolute submission, and complete poverty, were deemed
necessary by the advocates of monasticism. Because purity is enjoined,
the saint of one sex must treat a person of the other with the same
avoidance as would be displayed toward a poisonous reptile; readiness to
embrace a leper is none too severe a test of humility; and personal
property in a hair blanket is a pitfall laid by wealth.
A body so wasted
by fasting as to be incapable of sustaining the continuous round of
tears and prayers is the surest warrant of saintliness.
A virgin who has
so abused her stomach by improper and insufficient food that it refuses
a meal necessary to a healthy body is the object of high veneration;
indigestion is a most desirable corollary to holiness.
In short, without
outraging reason and contradicting every dictum of common sense, it is
difficult to describe much that belonged to ancient monasticism in any
other spirit than that of impatience.
Like most institutions, monasticism began in a formless, undirected
enthusiasm. Men and women rushed into the wilderness with an abundantly
zealous determination to get away from the wickedness of the world, but
with a still greater scarcity of understanding regarding a reasonable
discipline of life. Soon, however, organization was proposed by monks of
experience, and rules formulated which were generally adopted. Saint
Pachomius was the first to form monkish foundations in the East. These
were visited by Athanasius while he was in exile, and he came back with
a glowing account of the sanctity of life and the marvellous exploits of
their members. His narrative fired the hearts of the more devout
Christians of the West, especially of the women, and that of the monk or
the nun became at once the most illustrious vocation which a Christian
could follow. The result was, as the Count de Montalembert shows, that
"the town and environs of Rome were soon full of monasteries, rapidly
occupied by men distinguished alike by birth, fortune and knowledge, who
lived there in charity, sanctity and freedom. From Rome, the new
institution--already distinguished by the name of religion, or religious
life, par excellence--extended itself over all Italy. It was planted at
the foot of the Alps by the influence of a great bishop, Eusebius of
Vercelli. From the continent, the new institution rapidly gained the
isles of the Mediterranean, and even the rugged rocks of the Gargon and
of Capraja, where the monks, voluntarily exiled from the world, went to
take the place of the criminals and political victims whom the emperors
had been accustomed to banish thither."
Western monasticism was inspired by a different genius from that of the
Eastern. Instead of being speculative and characterized by dreamy
indolence and meditative silence, it was far more practical. It was
active, stirring; duty, rather than esoteric wisdom, was its watchword.
Fasting, stated hours for prayer, reading, and vigorous manual work were
strictly enjoined by every rule. Consequently, the nuns and monks of the
West never went to the fantastic extremes which exhibited in the East a
stylite, or a female recluse, dwelling, like an animal, in a hollow
tree, or a drove of half wild and wholly maniacal humans who subsisted
by browsing on such edible roots as they found in the earth on which
they grovelled. Method, regularity, and purpose early gave character and
efficiency to Western monasteries, and prepared them for the literary
and industrial usefulness which followed in the wane of the first
frenzy, and which made monasticism, in spite of itself, a powerful
factor in the evolution of modern civilization. This systematizing was
due to the efforts of Ambrose, Athanasius, Gregory the Great, but more
especially to those of Benedict of Nursia.
The first known ceremonial recognition by the Church of a professed nun
is the case of Marcellina. On Christmas Day, perhaps of the year 354,
she received a veil from the hands of Pope Liberius, and made her vows
before a large congregation gathered in the church of Saint Peter, at
Rome. Saint Ambrose, her brother, has preserved for us a summary of the
sermon preached by the bishop on the occasion. It consists of an earnest
but not very convincing--so it would seem to modern ears--exhortation to
abstinence from worldly pleasure and to perseverance in virginity.
Marcellina continued to dwell in private in her own home, for it had not
yet become customary for professed virgins to take up their residence in
a common abode. The inauguration of this new departure had begun,
however, as is shown by passages in the work of Saint Ambrose on
virginity, which he dedicated to his sister. In the eleventh chapter of
the first book, he says: "Some one may say, you are always singing the
praise of virgins. What shall I do who am always singing them and have
no success (in persuading them to the consecrated life)?
But this is not
my fault. Then, too, virgins come from Placentia to be consecrated, or
from Bononia and Mauritania, in order to receive the veil here. I treat
the matter here, and persuade those who are elsewhere.
If this be so,
let me treat the subject elsewhere, that I may persuade you.
"Behold how sweet is the fruit of modesty, which has sprung up even in
the affections of barbarians. Virgins, coming from the greatest distance
on both sides of Mauritania, desire to be consecrated here; and though
all the family be in bonds, yet modesty cannot be bound.
She who mourns
over the hardship of slavery professes to own an eternal kingdom.
"And what shall I say of the virgins of Bononia, a fertile band of
chastity, who, forsaking worldly delights, inhabit the sanctuary of
virginity? Though not of the sex which lives in common, attaining in
their common chastity to the number of twenty, leaving their parents'
dwellings, they press into the houses of Christ; at one time singing
spiritual songs, they provide their sustenance by labor, and seek with
their hands the supplies for their liberal charity."
So, then, it is evident that as early as the latter part of the fourth
century communities of nuns began to live in their own religious houses.
As yet, however, the inmates of these asylums of chastity were
answerable, only to themselves for the faithfulness with which they
fulfilled their vows. There was no organized order, no recognized rule;
each virgin observed her profession according as she interpreted the
terms thereof. The Church exercised no well-defined disciplinary
authority over these convents; of course, if a professed nun
scandalously repudiated her vows, she could be excommunicated, but the
efficacy of this punishment was conditioned entirely by the degree of
horror with which the woman viewed the forfeiture of ecclesiastical
privileges. It was not before the time of Gregory that the Church became
able to enforce its judgments. When all the world became Christian, then
the individual again lost his freedom of thought in relation to
religious matters; then, through its alliance with the secular arm, the
Church gained the power to sternly constrain its recalcitrant children.
This was brought about by the political advantages gained by Gregory,
and by Saint Benedict's gifts of organization.
Saint Benedict was the father of Western organized monasticism; he not
only founded an order to which many religious houses already existing
united themselves, but he established a rule for their government, which
was adopted as the rule for monastic life by all such orders which
existed in the Church down to the time of Saint Francis and Saint
Dominic. What Benedict did for the monks, his sister Scholastica--who,
being a woman, has received far less mention--
accomplished for the nuns.
Through her efforts, under the direction and advice of her brother,
greater dignity and weight were given to the female side of monasticism.
We know that Benedict was born at Nursia, in the province of Spoleto, in
the year 480; whether Scholastica was older or younger than her more
famous brother is not said. Their parents were respectable people,
possessed of sufficient means to enable them to give their children a
good education, and to take up temporarily their residence in Rome for
that purpose.
While at Rome, Benedict became enamored of the idea of devoting himself
to religion; and in order to get away from the moral dangers of the
city, he fled from his school and his parents to a small village called
Effide, about two miles from Subiaco. His nurse--
Cyrilla--was his
accomplice and companion in this adventure, and for this she has
received her due meed of honor in the legends which have attached to the
life of the great founder. As an example of these legends, and as an
illustration of their historic value, we will notice one story. One day,
Cyrilla accidentally broke a stone sieve which she had borrowed for the
purpose of making the youthful saint some bread.
Compassionating her
distress, Benedict placed the two pieces in position and then prayed
over them. To the great joy of Cyrilla and the no small wonderment of
the rustics, they became firmly cemented together and the sieve was
again made whole. This marvellous utensil was hung over the church door,
where it remained for many years an irrefutable proof of the power of
monastic holiness.
Later on, Saint Benedict established twelve monasteries in the
neighborhood, at last settling at Monte Casino, not far from the place
where his sister, Saint Scholastica, also presided over a colony of
religious women. Here were formulated and adopted the regulations which
for so many years governed these religious recluses, both male and
female. Three virtues comprised the whole of the Benedictine discipline:
celibate seclusion, extended to the cultivation of silence as far as the
exigences of the convent would permit; humility to the very last degree;
and obedience to superiors even--so said the law--when impossibilities
were commanded. The effect designed was to concentrate the entire
thought of the recluse upon himself. Yet, idleness on the part of its
subjects was far from the purpose of this discipline.
All the waking
hours--which were by far the greater part of the time--
of these nuns
were devoted to the worship of God, reading, and manual labor. Besides