Monasteries Are Dying: Time to Bring Them Back in Some New Form?
By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.
The monastic life, or monastic alternative, has become so unfashionable that most people no longer consider the possibility; but there is, at least to me, something profoundly appealing about living a life of learning and contemplation, sharing a palace in a remote beauty spot with a group of quiet, thoughtful people, and maybe even making my own honey, cheese, and wine.
More broadly, the monastery offers something that modern society is crying out for: a third way of living that is neither the disintegrating family nor social isolation.
Of course, the monastic life presupposes belief in God, or a particular idea of God, which is a large part of why it has become so unpopular. But many non-Christian religions also have a monastic tradition (Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism…), making it possible to abstract the idea of monasticism from the idea of Christianity. Indeed, Christian monasticism is itself rooted in pre-Christian models of communal living for a higher purpose, such as Plato’s Academy and Epicurus’ Garden.
Pythagoras
It all began with Pythagoras.
Upon the advice of Thales of Miletus, Pythagoras travelled to Memphis to take instruction from Egyptian priests. At the age of forty, in around 530 BCE, he established a religious community in Croton, Southern Italy, which admitted both women and men. Those in the community’s inner circle adhered to a strict set of rules, forsaking personal belongings, adopting a vegetarian diet, and—since words are so often careless and misleading—observing the strictest silence. The Pythagoreans believed that ‘all is number’, and devoted themselves to philosophy, mathematics, and music.
Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus
Some 150 years later, in 387 BCE, Plato established a school (officially a thiasos, or religious confraternity) of mathematics and philosophy in a sacred garden called ‘Academia’ after the legendary Attic hero Akademos. Those with the means took up residence in neighbouring houses, and those without resided with others. The school became known as the Academy, and Plato remained its head or scholarch until his death in 348.
Aristotle spent twenty years at Plato’s Academy. When he returned to Athens, he founded the Lyceum, where he gathered Europe’s first great library and set up its first zoo and botanical garden.
Some thirty years later, Epicurus founded the Garden outside the city’s Dipylon gates. Life in the Garden was not as you might imagine. Epicurus was content with bread and water and famously asked a friend to send him a little cheese so that, when he wished, he might feast. Far more important than luxury was friendship. ‘Of all the things which wisdom provides for the happiness of the whole life,’ he wrote, ‘by far the most important is friendship.’
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that the life of contemplation is not only the highest but the happiest of all possible lives. In the Summa Theologiae (1485), St Thomas Aquinas reprises Aristotle, supplying nine reasons for the absolute superiority of the contemplative life:
- It is according to that which is proper in man, namely the intellect.
- It is according to the proper objects of the intellect.
- It is according to higher, eternal things, transcending the contingent here and now.
- It consists in leisure and rest.
- It is more continuous.
- It is more self-sufficient.
- It is more delightful (‘Martha was troubled, but Mary feasted’).
- It is loved more for its own sake, rather than for the sake of something else.
- It, or its fruits, can never be taken from us.
For the ninth reason, Aquinas leans on Luke’s story of Jesus at the home of Martha and Mary. Martha busied herself playing the perfect hostess while Mary simply sat at Jesus’ feet, drinking in his wisdom. Vexed by her sister’s inactivity, Martha asked Jesus to tell Mary to help her.
But Jesus replied:
Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
Plato’s Academy survived in one form or other for some nine hundred years (about as long as the University of Oxford has been around) before being closed down by the Christian emperor Justinian in 529 CE, a date that is often cited for the end of classical antiquity.
The Rise of Christian Monasticism
St Paul of Thebes (d. 342) is commonly regarded as the first Christian hermit. He fled into the desert of Egypt during the persecution of Decius and Valerianus, and lived for almost a century in a cave.
In the early period, many Christians fled into the wilderness to escape persecution or draw closer to God. In this, they followed the example of Old Testament prophets such as Elijah and John the Baptist, and of Jesus himself, who fasted for forty days in the Judaean Desert while being tempted by the devil.
As a young man, Anthony spent fifteen years in a tomb, resisting the temptations and torments of the devil. After that, he spent twenty years in an abandoned fort in the desert before other hermits coaxed him out to instruct and organise them, whence his epithet, ‘Father of All Monks’. The hermits still lived separately, but now came together on Sundays to worship and break bread.
But the decisive development came in around 323, when St Pachomius the Great brought some hermits together at Tabennisi in Upper Egypt, thereby creating the first coenobitic (Greek, koinos bios, ‘common life’) monastery. The hermits, or monks, each had their own hut or room, but shared a common space for eating, working, and praying, under the authority of an abbot or abbess (Aramaic, abba, ‘father’).
Pachomius founded several communities of this sort, including some for women, opening up the spiritual life to those who lacked the physical or mental constitution to thrive or survive in the desert.
Ora et Labora
After Constantine decriminalised Christianity in 313, it rose into the dominant religion, with violent persecution, now in short supply, ceding to ascetic deprivation as a mode of martyrdom.
In the West, Christian monasticism began by imitating the Egyptian model. Its defining form emerged with St Benedict of Nursia (d. 543/7), who is regarded as the father of Western monasticism.
Benedict lived for many years as a hermit in a cave at Subiaco, outside of Rome. He became abbot of a nearby monastery but proved unpopular with the monks, who may have tried to poison him! Later, he founded several monasteries in the region, including the great monastery of Monte Cassino.
The moderate Rule of St Benedict, with its almost equal emphasis on prayer and work (ora et labora), set the pattern for monastic rules across Europe, and, after 1,500 years, remains the most commonly adopted monastic rule.
Reform and Renewal
Early monasteries only had around a dozen members each. When a monastery grew, members were sent out to found a new monastery. But in later times, some monasteries became very large, landed, and lax.
In 1098, a group of Benedictine monks founded Cîteaux Abbey near Dijon, with the aim of returning to the literal observance of the Rule of St Benedict.
But, as is the way, many Cistercian monasteries progressively relaxed their rules. In the seventeenth century, another reform movement took hold at the Abbey of la Trappe in Normandy, giving rise to the Cistercians of the Strict Observance, or Trappists.
More austere still is the Carthusian Order, founded in 1084 by St Bruno of Cologne. Unlike the Cistercians and Trappists, the Carthusians are not a branch of the Benedictines but follow their own Rule, called the Statutes. Each charterhouse encloses a ‘community of hermits’, with each monk working, sleeping, eating, and praying in his or her own cell—much like the first monks in Egypt.
From Contemplation to Action
At the other end of the spectrum are the active orders, which seek to reach out rather than remain remote and cloistered. Because they do not aim at self-sufficiency, they usually live off the generosity of others, making them so-called mendicant (‘begging’) orders. Adherents of mendicant orders, such as the Franciscans (Greyfriars) and Dominicans (Blackfriars, Jacobins), and, later, the Jesuits, are called friars (Latin, frater, ‘brother’) rather than monks. Their involvement in education and charitable causes demonstrates that withdrawal from ordinary life need not amount to withdrawal from the world.
The Monastic Legacy
Aside from the more religious and spiritual dimensions, monasticism has served a number of important social functions.
After the fall of Rome, the monasteries helped to preserve invaluable texts, and education and culture more generally. They also became important patrons of art, music, and architecture. To this day, university life is modelled on the monastic ideal, with quadrangles and cloisters, chapels and gardens, dormitory residences, a common table, and elaborate robes and rituals.
In feudal societies, the monasteries provided a refuge from war, famine, and disease, and served as outlets for the younger sons of noble families, celibates, and other spares and misfits. In their drive for self-subsistence, they contributed in no small measure to the development of agriculture and manufacturing, for example, turning viticulture and winemaking into high arts. Only in modern times did the welfare state supersede them in the provision of services such as health and education.
Movements such as the Protestant Reformation, the English Reformation, the French Revolution, and the Spanish Civil War led to the dissolution and destruction of many monasteries.
But the decline of the monastery involved more than the disappearance of a religious institution. It also meant the disappearance of one of the few socially sanctioned alternatives to marriage, family life, and the pursuit of wealth and status.
Modern society offers enormous freedom in how we live, but surprisingly few models for how we might live together. For most adults, the default remains the couple or nuclear family in a private home. Those who do not marry or partner up are increasingly likely to live alone. We have gained independence, but often at the price of community.
The monastery offered another possibility: solitude without isolation, community without marriage, meaningful work without careerism, and contemplation without compromise. The cloister, garden, library, common table, daily rhythm, and surrounding silence answer to needs that did not disappear with the decline of religious belief.
Monasticism Today
Western monasticism is in long-term decline, with growth in Asia and Africa unable to offset reductions elsewhere. I visited a monastery in Spain where the few remaining monks were worried that they would not have enough young men to carry their enormous Bible. Eastern monasticism on the other hand has been undergoing a revival, especially in the territories of the former Soviet Union.
Monasticism as a whole continues to attract interest, even in Europe and America. The diverse New Monasticism movement seeks to translate monastic insights and practices into more modern, liveable forms. Communities are typically ecumenical, with a focus on charity, friendship, and contemplation, and without the traditional vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience.
Strip away the theology, celibacy, poverty, and obedience, and a surprisingly attractive structure remains: a community of quiet, thoughtful people sharing meals and resources while retaining a measure of privacy; working with their hands as well as their minds; caring for one another; and cultivating friendship, learning, silence, and contemplation.
Nor need such a community be cut off from society. As the active orders discovered, withdrawal can create the conditions for engagement. A modern monastery might teach, write, grow food, make wine, offer retreats, or simply provide its members with the conditions for what the Greeks called eudaimonia, or the good life.
This, it seems to me, offers a viable third way between family life and social isolation—if, that is, you are willing to wake up early.
Continue Exploring
If this essay spoke to you, you might also look into For Better For Worse, an unconventional exploration of romantic love, marriage, and lasting relationships. For a broader exploration of love, desire, jealousy, and the emotions that shape our lives, see Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions.
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