farfel_n01_160_064

BX 2470 B 76 1974 West Valley
The Monastic World - Christopher Brooke

Out of the early asccetic groups, scattered all over the Roman Empire
devloped the movement known as "monastic". The first monks
of the Egyption decent were hermits or anchorites. But from very
early dayse there came to be communitus of monks living in
monasteries (coenobia - common) The monastic ideal is commonly reckoned
to owe its formation to St. Antony (c. 251 - 35c), + he was the
first great anchorite; it is beyond a doubt that it was in the was in the descents
of Egypt that monasticism was born in the early 4th C.
1 Athanasius the bishop + Theologian
2 Antony the hermit 3 Pechomius the coenobite
created the tradition of orthodox monasticism
the basic ideals of the desert fathers were preserved in John
Cassian's Collations (c. 400) - settled in the south of Gaul
Cappadocia - eastern Asia minor - St. Basil (d. 379) - Greek Orthodox
monastic life
St Augustine of Hippo (345-430) Africa - Confessions
The 6th C saw the final separation of Greek east from Latin west
1 (with 500) - the Rule of the Master
2) (with 530) - Monte Cassino - 2nd + more famous Rules was written
by Benedict of Nursia.
Cassiordus - Pope Gregory the Great (590-604)
"The Rule" was taken to England in the course of the 7th C
to Fleny on the Loire

Irish monastic movement - Columbian who wenf from Bangor
to found Luxeird in Gaul + Bobbio in Italy; his disciples
spread Celtic monastic influence as far as St. Gallen.
Columcille founder of Durow + Iona - St Aidan.
Benedict of Aniare (d. 821) appointed by Louis the Pious, Charlemagne's
successor - central figure in Western monachism - development
of an ever increasing liturgy.
Reidenare, Cluny (909-10), Gorze in Lorraine (c. 933)
Glastonbury (940), Jumiegaz
Public reading an essential part of monastic life.