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Eastern Christian monasticism developed for around a century and a half as a spontaneous religious movement, up to the time of the Council of Chalcedon, which took place in 451. At that Council, monasticism had become an acknowledged part of the life of the Christian Church, and it was specially legislated for. ==Origins== Egypt was the Motherland of Christian monasticism;〔(Bacchus, Francis Joseph. "Eastern Monasticism Before Chalcedon (A.D. 451)." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 10. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 19 Jul. 2013 )〕 it sprang into existence there at the beginning of the fourth century. The first chapter in its history of monasticism is the life of St. Anthony; the start of the monastic movement may be dated either about 285, when St. Anthony, no longer content with the life of the ordinary ascetic, went into the wilderness, or about 305, when he organized a kind of monastic life for his disciples. We hear first of men and women leading the chaste or virgin life. The Apologists pointed triumphantly to such.〔Justin, "Apol.", I,xv; Athenagoras, "Legat.", xxxiii; Minucius Felix, "Octav.", xxxi.〕 Voluntary poverty, in the complete renunciation of all worldly possessions, would be difficult till there were monasteries; the examples of Origen, St. Cyprian, and Pamphilus were necessary to show that a monastic life was possible. A full practice of the third Evangelical counsel of obedience could only be realized after the monastic ideal had taken root and passed beyond the purely eremitical stage.〔 In ante-Nicene ascetics a man would lead a single life, practice long and frequent fasts, abstain from meat and wine, and support himself, if he were able, by some small handicraft, keeping of what he earned only so much as was absolutely necessary for his own sustenance, and giving the rest to the poor. If he were an educated man, he might be employed by the Church in the capacity of catechist. Very often he would don the kind of dress which marked the wearer as a philosopher of an austere school.〔 In Egypt, at the time when St. Anthony first embraced the ascetic life, there were a number of ascetics living in huts near towns and villages. When St. Anthony died (356 or 357), two types of monasticism flourished in Egypt. There were villages or colonies of hermits - the eremitical type; and monasteries in which a community life was led - the cenobitic type. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Christian monasticism before 451」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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