The Wisdom of the Desert | Page 9

as it has been, is a
very curious instance of the confidence with which we are all inclined
to dogmatise about things of which we are almost ignorant. Probably
never, except in the age of the apostles, has the purely spiritual aim of
all religion been kept more steadily in view than it was by the hermits.
The best of them -- and it is only from its best men that the true spirit of
a movement can be learned -- never for one single instant let slip the
truth that no practice or discipline is of any use at all except in so far as
it helps towards the attainment of the perfection which is in Christ
Jesus. No one will be inclined to deny that it is possible to pick out of
the literature stories of excesses which seem to us monstrous. There
were many among the hermits who never rose above the idea that
asceticism was an end in itself. But the excesses were discouraged and
the mistaken idea condemned by the leaders of the movement. Fasting,
virginity, labour, the reading and recitation of Holy Scripture, vigils,
meditation, and even prayer itself, were looked upon simply as ways of
arriving at a perfect life. There is no need to discuss whether or not they
mistook the way. Even supposing that they did, at least the end they
had in view was one which we must recognise as very great. It is
possible, in spite of the evidence of accumulated Christian experience,
that a man is hindered, and not helped on the road which leads to union
with God, by fasting and watching and poverty, yet since this union is a
thing which we also seek, we should, at least, approach with sympathy
the study of the teaching of men who made for the goal by a way which
was neither broad nor easy.
One more prejudice remains to be noticed, and this is one which has
most to do with alienating our sympathy from the early monks. It has
been said -- there is no comment on monasticism which we hear more

frequently -- that the hermit life was a selfish one, and therefore
essentially remote from the spirit of Christ. There is a very obvious
retort to this accusation which, in spite of its obviousness, is not so
superficial as it seems. The charge is directed against men who gave up
everything that is usually counted as desirable. Renunciation like that
of the hermits is not usually a symptom of selfishness. It comes from
the lips of a generation who have found the service of Christ not
incompatible with the full enjoyment of all life's comforts and most of
life's pleasures. Perhaps, however, this retort, like most others of its
kind, misses the real true point of the charge. The hermits are called
selfish because they aimed at being good and not at being useful. The
charge derives its real force from the fact that philanthropy, that is,
usefulness to humanity, is our chief conception of what religion is. We
appeal to the fact that Christ went about doing good, and we hold that
the true imitation of Him consists in doing as He did rather than in
being as He was. The hermits thought differently. Philanthropy was, in
their view, an incidental result, as it were, a by-product of the religious
spirit. Here, no doubt, there is a great gulf fixed between us and them.
There is a difference of ideal. It is possible to aim at doing good, and
snatch now and then, as opportunity offers, a space for the culture and
of spirituality, for the "making" of the soul. It is possible also to shape
life for the attainment of perfection, welcoming, as it may happen to
offer itself, the chance of usefulness. The latter was the ideal of the
hermits. Is the former ours? Surely the purest altruism will decline to
accept it. We recognise, when we are at our best, that what we ought to
aim at is that good should get done, and not that we ourselves should
do it. The faithful soul, even when most pitiful of suffering, will still
desire less to be useful than to be used in the cause of humanity.
Impatience, that glorious impatience to be up and doing which we
cannot but admire, rebels against delay and indirect approach. The evil
around us is so clamorous for amendment that it seems like a betrayal
to spend our strength any way but in the combat with it. Yet it remains,
at least for the student of history, a question whether in the end, there is
not more good accomplished for humanity through the agency of those
who, in the first instance, only aim at being good.