Athanasius - Early Christian Lives

Martin Luther, looking back over the development of Christian monasticism during the Middle Ages,cloak; Jerome claims to have heard the story of Malchus life from Malchus himself while living in Syria in the 370s; Sulpicius Severus travelled from south-west France to visit Martin at Tours; while Pope Gregory the Great, although he was writing almost half a century after Benedicts death, acquired much of his information about Benedicts life and miracles from people who had known Benedict personally.

All these biographies share a monastic theme, providing information about the lives of men who were the founding fathers of monasticism in both the eastern and western areas of the Roman Empire. Nowadays, perhaps, the term monasticism primarily conjures up ideas of life in an enclosed community, lived according to a rigid pattern, often in magnificent buildings amidst beautiful countryside. However, such forms of monasticism developed only gradually, with Benedict in the sixth century playing an important role in the institutionalization of the monastic life in the west. It is true that the origins of Christian monasticism are obscure there they spent seven years, exposed to frost, wind and rain, avoiding all contact with the outside world and living off the spoils of hunting.

Why did people at this period opt for such a radical lifestyle? In the case of Basils family, it was clearly a question of escaping the threat of martyrdom and maintaining their dedication to Christianity. As for the period after Constantines conversion and his edict of toleration in 313 which promised religious freedom, the period when the ascetic life seems to have become increasingly popular, the principal theory for this sudden popularity is that many were driven by a desire to find a new means of proving their dedication to Christ at a time when the persecution had been replaced by tolerance and martyrdom by privilege. Certainly this may have been one motive, but it would be wrong to suppose that after 313 life as a Christian suddenly became a soft option. Christians could still be subjected to pagan attacks, particularly under the anti-Christian emperor Julian (3613), but also to persecution by heretics, particularly the Arians, Orosius, who wrote his History against the Pagans in the early fifth century at Augustines suggestion, mentions the monks as a particular target of the persecutors. He writes: