"Quite recently," says Jerome, "we
have seen to our sorrow a fortune worthy of Croesus brought to light by
a monk's death, and a city's alms collected for the poor, left by will
to his sons and successors."
Many monks traveled from place to place selling sham relics. Augustine
wrote against "those hypocrites who, in the dress of monks, wander about
the provinces carrying pretended relics, amulets, preservatives, and
expecting alms to feed their lucrative poverty and recompense their
pretended virtue." It is to the credit of the Fathers of the church
that they boldly and earnestly rebuked the vices of the monks and tried
to purge the monastic system of its impurities.
But the church sanctioned the monastic movement. She could not have done
anything else. "It is one of the most striking occurrences in history,"
says Harnack, "that the church, exactly at the time when she was
developing more and more into a legal institution and a sacramental
establishment, outlined a Christian life-ideal which was incapable of
realization within her bounds, but only alongside of her. The more she
affiliated herself with the world, the higher and more superhuman did
she make her ideal."
It is also noteworthy that this "life-ideal" seems to have led,
inevitably, to fanaticism and other excesses, so that even at this early
date there was much occasion for alarm. Gross immorality was disclosed
as well as luminous purity; indolence and laziness as well as the love
of sacrifice and toil.
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