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Sunday School

Lesson 5: Medieval Monasticism

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David Capoccia

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Summary

This lesson explores medieval monasticism—its origins, development, major orders, and lasting impact on Christianity and Western civilization. We are reminded that God, in His mysterious providence, used monasteries to preserve Scripture, educate leaders, and fuel missionary work across the known world, even though monasticism itself rests on a flimsy biblical foundation.

Key Lessons:

  1. Monasticism began as a sincere pursuit of holiness but gradually drifted into corruption because it was built on human wisdom rather than solid biblical foundations.
  2. God providentially used monasteries to preserve Scripture, ancient texts, and Western civilization—benefits we still enjoy today.
  3. Medieval monks were the primary missionaries of their era, carrying the gospel to Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, the Islamic world, and even China.
  4. Focusing on external righteousness and asceticism leads to neglect of the heart, two-tiered Christianity, and legalistic works-based religion.

Application: We are called to build every practice and institution on a sound biblical foundation, to guard against elevating external religious activity over heart transformation, and to learn from both the faithfulness and the failures of those who came before us.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How can we distinguish between helpful spiritual disciplines and unbiblical asceticism in our own lives?
  2. What modern practices or traditions in the church might be built on human wisdom rather than Scripture, and how can we discern the difference?
  3. What can we learn from the missionary zeal of medieval monks, and how might we apply that same dedication to spreading the gospel today?

Scripture Focus: Colossians 2:23 (asceticism has no value against fleshly indulgence), 1 Timothy 4:1-5 (God’s gifts received with gratitude), John 17:15 (not taken out of the world), 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 (cannot withdraw from the world), Romans 8:1-2 (no condemnation in Christ Jesus), and 1 Corinthians 10:31 (all things to God’s glory).

Outline

Introduction

Good morning. Happy Father’s Day and welcome back to our church history 102 Sunday school, the medieval church.

Today we are looking at medieval monasticism. After all, what is more patently medieval than Christian monks and nuns? It wouldn’t feel right getting through this series without doing a lesson, at least partly about them, but we’re going to do a whole lesson on them.

Here’s my agenda for today’s class. We’ll start by overviewing what Christian monasticism is. We’ll then contrast how Eastern and Western monasticism developed, and then we’ll finish by considering the benefits but also the problems in medieval monasticism.

Let’s pray before we go on.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this time of learning. God, I pray that you would empower me and equip me to present this information. Lord, we would not only be informed but even encouraged, God, in the midst of error and problems, that there were some wonderful things happening because of these monks and nuns. Lord, please bless this time. Amen.

Okay. When I mention to you the topic of medieval monasticism or medieval monks, what comes to your mind? Think about monks, nuns, the middle ages. What comes to your mind?

Robin Hood. Yeah, some characters maybe. Little John, Friar Lawrence. People from literature and movies.

Friar Tuck.

Yeah.

Seclusion. Very good. What else?

Poverty. Cheryl.

Okay. Steady.

Anything else?

It’s interesting that many of you have mentioned things that are more neutral or even positive. I think maybe some other associations we might have with medieval monasticism would be not biblical, external righteousness, beer, drunkenness, praying, certainly separation and isolation, corruption, immoral scandal, hypocrisy, copying manuscripts, robes, habits, tonsures—that’s a little circular haircut thing that they have—and Catholicism, maybe others.

Likely as 21st century American Protestants, medieval monasticism does carry a negative association in our minds. This is partly because of our post-Enlightenment culture, which generally takes a negative view of religion and faith for the sake of championing science and autonomous human reasoning. But also our Protestant tradition was birthed in reaction to medieval Christianity and partly in reaction to medieval monasticism.

So can there really be anything good in this? Especially if you read the reformers, and especially Martin Luther who was a former monk himself, they don’t have a lot of good things to say about medieval monks. If you just read what they write, you would probably come away believing that medieval monasticism was a disaster that only weakened and corrupted Christ’s true church and that all monks and nuns were at worst evil hypocrites or at best misguided fools.

To be sure, by the Reformation period of 1500, both doctrinal and moral corruption greatly afflicted both the Eastern and Western churches, including in the practices of monasticism.

But not all monks and nuns were lost. Many of them were genuine believers.

Monasticism, like the papacy or medieval Christianity generally, was something that was better in the beginning but gradually drifted into corruption with multiple efforts of reform along the way.

Ultimately, yes, monasticism is a man-made idea and therefore was always doomed to run into problems.

Nevertheless, I submit to you that without medieval monasticism, none of us would be here today in this church. Indeed, according to God’s mysterious providence, God used medieval monasticism to preserve not only our scriptures but also the whole Christian faith and even Western civilization.

I’ll show you more what I mean as we proceed in this lesson: an introduction to medieval monasticism.

What Is Monasticism?

Let’s first talk about what monasticism is. The term is more difficult to define than you might think since there are different types of monasticism both within and outside of Christianity. But here’s a slightly modified version of one definition I found.

Monasticism is an institutionalized religious movement or practice in which members attempt to live by a religious rule requiring separation from society and/or worldly concerns to do works that go beyond those of the lay or ordinary spiritual leaders. This means you’re separating from the world or from worldly concerns to live a higher spiritual life, and you’re doing so in an institutionalized, official way.

Now a male monastic is called a monk from the Greek word monos, meaning solitary or one who lives alone. A female monastic is called a nun from nona, the female form of the Latin translation of the Greek word monos.

“Monasticism is an institutionalized religious movement requiring separation from society to do works beyond those of ordinary spiritual leaders.”

Origins of Christian Monasticism

Now, from where did Christian monasticism emerge? Where did this come from? We actually talked about this in the 101 course if you remember. To get away from corruption in pagan Roman society, certain Christians in the latter 200s in rural Syria and Egypt decided to just drop out. Taking John the Baptist as their model, they withdrew into the desert or into the wilderness to live solitary lives of holiness while studying the Bible and praying.

Once Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire in the early 300s and nominal Christianity and paganization became realities in the church, many more Christians turned to monastic life to get away from church corruption and also to prove to themselves that they really did belong to Christ. You got all these nominal Christians around you. How do you prove that you’re real?

“Certain Christians in the latter 200s decided to just drop out, withdrawing into the desert to live solitary lives of holiness.”

You’re the real deal. Well, many felt like you got to become a monk. You got to become a nun. Now though the earliest monks lived mostly solitary lives, three types of monasticism eventually emerged.

Eremitic Monasticism: Anthony the Great

First, there is what’s called eremitic monasticism. This is from the Greek word eremia, meaning desert or wilderness, and it’s from which we get the word hermit.

This was the original form of monasticism of the desert fathers I talked about from the 200s—dwelling alone to follow God. You’re all by yourself so that you can get closer to God. The poster boy for this form of monasticism was Anthony, also called Anthony the Great, who was alive from 251 to 356.

He was born into a rich Christian family. He withdrew from society as a young man and gave away all his wealth to the poor. He then spent 20 years alone in the Egyptian desert in a ruined fort near the Red Sea. There he fasted, prayed, and studied the Bible and engaged in what he believed were intense struggles with demons. That’s what that picture is of on the slide.

After his 20 years as a hermit, he gathered a group of disciples and taught them the spiritual wisdom that he had learned while living alone. To those who met him, Anthony was a striking, holy man, an awesome and otherworldly figure who even had a reputation for performing miracles.

“After 20 years as a hermit, Anthony gathered disciples and taught them the spiritual wisdom he had learned while living alone.”

Anthony became great friends with Athanasius, whom we’ve heard and learned about before—that 4th century Trinity defender. Athanasius later published a biography of Anthony’s life.

Between Anthony’s personal interactions and reputation, and Athanasius’s published biography, no one in the early church popularized the monastic life more than this man, Anthony the Great.

Cenobitic Monasticism: Pachomius

But his was only one form of monastic devotion. A second one is what is called cenobitic. Cenobitic comes from the Greek phrase koinos bios, meaning “common life.”

In cenobitic monasticism, monks live together in a community called a monastery, which originally just meant a shared hermit’s cave, but later meant a building or compound specifically made for monastic life.

Now, the chief inspiration for this type of monasticism was a man named Pachomius, alive from 290 to 346. He was a native of southern Egypt and an ex-soldier. At first he too practiced a solitary monastic life, but he later founded a community of monks in the Egyptian village of Tabennisi.

Following Pachomius’s vision as to how this should work, the monks worked together, prayed together, and ate together while also sharing all property together, just like the early Christians did in Jerusalem in Acts 2:44-45.

“The monks worked together, prayed together, and ate together while sharing all property—just like the early Christians in Acts 2.”

His group was even economically self-supporting by their manual labor, specifically weaving and farming.

Pachomius wrote a rule to govern the community life of his monks. This rule set out a schedule for daily activities—when to work, when to pray, when to study. The rule also required strict obedience to the monastery’s leader.

This leader became known as an abbot, from the Aramaic abbis, meaning “father.” The female version of this title is abbess. And this is also where we get another name for a monastery: abbey. That’s right.

Skete Monasticism and Common Requirements

You have eremitic monasticism, you have cenobitic monasticism. But there was also a third type which is kind of like a hybrid of the previous two.

That’s skete monasticism.

In skete, there would be a group of 12 monks living together with a more experienced monk who acted as a spiritual director, but these members were usually alone.

They shared resources and they came together for communal services, but otherwise they dwelt by themselves. So it was kind of like together alone.

Now, each of these three types of monasticism were both for males and females. And if there were nuns involved in a cenobitic setting, they lived in nunneries usually.

But no matter which form of monasticism a person embraced, all forms required renunciation of all worldly property and pleasures. A vow of celibacy, meaning absolutely no marriage or sexual relations, and consecration to prayer, fasting, and Bible study. And if in the communal context, a vow of obedience to whoever your leader was.

Now, why the requirement of celibacy?

Well, that goes back to Jesus’s counsel in Matthew 19:12 and Paul’s counsel in 1 Corinthians 7 that for those who can, it is better not to marry than to get married so that one can experience fewer troubles in this life and have fewer distractions in serving Christ.

1 Corinthians 7: “For those who can, it is better not to marry so that one can have fewer distractions in serving Christ.”

That’s the original biblical instruction. But as ascetic monasticism became more admired and practiced in the early church, there was also a growing belief in the higher spiritual worth of celibacy. This isn’t just about removing distractions. This is actually about practicing and experiencing a greater spiritual life. So the belief came to be that celibacy was spiritually better than marriage. And thus monks were to practice it, monks and nuns.

So we see what monasticism is. We see how it began. But now let’s examine in an overview fashion how it began to diverge according to location, according to region.

Eastern Monasticism

In the east, Syrian and Egyptian monasticism was mostly eremitic, which makes sense because that’s where this form of monasticism began.

Meanwhile, Greek monasticism, which was practiced in the Byzantine Empire and the surrounding area, was a mixture of eremitic, cenobitic, and ski monasticism. Strongly influenced by the 4th century Cappadocian father Basil of Caesarea, he discouraged monks from living alone but instead together in communities. He himself founded many monasteries in Asia Minor, modern Turkey, and he drew up a set of rules for them to live by, which are still the basis of monastic rules in the Eastern Orthodox Church today.

Monasteries would turn out to have a central place in the Byzantine Empire and Eastern Christianity. Many of their leading theologians and spiritual writers were monks, and most of their higher ranks of clergy—that is, bishops upwards—were drawn from monasteries. You need a new bishop, need a new patriarch? Look for somebody in the monasteries.

“Many of their leading theologians were monks, and most of their higher clergy were drawn from monasteries.”

Two great monastic centers eventually emerged in the east. The Stoudios in Constantinople, a large monastery there founded in 463, had a thousand monastics following its own special rule. Then there is Mount Athos in northern Greece, also known as the holy mountain.

The first cenobitic monastery appeared there in 963, but more followed.

Many Eastern religious leaders came from Mount Athos, and it is the birthplace of something called Hesychasm, the Hesychastic movement. What is Hesychasm? It’s still a central practice in the Eastern Orthodox Church today. Hesychasm refers to a type of mystical prayer exercise in which one seeks to experience the uncreated light of Christ through physical and spiritual stillness, deep concentration on God, and repetitious invocation of what’s called the Jesus Prayer, which is just “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

There’s definitely some problems with that kind of mystical prayer pursuit, but that came from Mount Athos and it has become central to Eastern Orthodoxy.

Western Monasticism

As for the West, Western monasticism was mostly cenobitic. It did have eremitic as well, but mostly cenobitic. As it began, it enjoyed the support of leading churchmen like Ambrose of Milan, Jerome, and Augustine. Augustine was himself a monk for a time and he came up with the oldest monastic rule in the West.

Something unique to Western monasticism was its emphasis on culture and education.

This is partly due to a long-held ideal of Roman aristocrats. Among the wealthier, more noble Romans, the idea of mental cultivation through the study of literature was seen as a wonderful thing. Many converted ex-nobles therefore brought this ideal into aesthetic and monastic life.

If you’re going to separate to follow God, that should include intellectual and cultural stimulation.

One sixth-century ex-noble named Cassiodorus especially advocated for this influentially in his work, An Introduction to Theological and Secular Studies.

Therefore, this unique valuing of education and culture among Western monastics meant that after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Western monasteries inadvertently came to function as guardians of Western European civilization and as important education centers.

“Western monasteries inadvertently came to function as guardians of Western European civilization and important education centers.”

Benedict of Nursia and the Benedictine Rule

Now, the man who literally set the agenda for Western monks was one Benedict of Nursia. Maybe you’ve heard of him before. He lived from 480 to 547.

Growing up in the village of Nursia in north-central Italy, Benedict went to study in Rome. However, reacting against the city’s obvious worldliness and corruption, he soon became a hermit and lived in a cave in Subiaco, east of Rome.

There, Benedict reportedly endured all kinds of demonic temptation to sexual impurity. He’s alone, but he’s experiencing all this demonic temptation, which he conquered reportedly by rolling naked on a bed of thorns and nettles.

Now like the fabled Anthony of the desert, Benedict emerged from his battles as an inspiring holy man and founded what would become one of the most famous monasteries in the west at Monte Cassino, which is situated between Rome and Naples.

From this monastery, Benedict preached, fed the poor, and healed the sick, which many said was done miraculously. He attracted many disciples and soon wrote his own rule for monastic life, building on the famous rules that came before.

In Benedict’s rule, he divided a monk’s day into three main portions: worship, work, and study. Collective worship would be about four and a half hours broken up into different periods. Manual work would total about six or seven hours. Study of the Bible or church fathers would last about three to five hours. The monks would be expected to get about eight hours of sleep.

Monks were to elect their leading abbot who would then hold the position for life, and strict obedience would be required for this abbot. No one could challenge his decisions, though abbots were required to call a general meeting of the monks and request their opinions anytime there was an important matter that came up.

Each monastery according to Benedict was expected to be both economically and spiritually self-sufficient. There would be no overall leader of the Benedictines besides the pope.

Benedict’s rule, due to its balance, wisdom, and practicality, became the most popular and widely used monastic rule in Western Christianity.

“Benedict divided a monk’s day into three portions: worship, work, and study—a rule that became the most popular in Western Christianity.”

Even though different rules came up afterwards, they would be based on this Benedictine rule. Thus, people today often call Benedict the father of Western monasticism.

Major Western Monastic Orders

Yet Benedictine monasticism was only one type of monastic rule or order that emerged in the west. Unlike the east, which didn’t really have different orders or different rules—you just kind of had Eastern monasticism—in the west, you had a bunch of different flavors of monastic life that you could try, at least after the year 900 or so.

We unfortunately don’t have time to discuss all the different monastic orders in the west or even the histories of the major orders. But I do want to introduce you to at least four of the major religious orders that emerge in the west and mention some of their distinctives.

The Cluniacs

So we have the benedicting established near the 500s. But another major rule or order that comes up is the Clooney based on the famous monastery at Clooney in southeast France founded in 909.

The Clooneys were a reforming monastic order seeking to reinstill discipline, purity, and spiritual vigor back into Western monks.

Apparently had slid in the centuries after Benedict’s rule. The Clooneys were the first centralized monastic order with all daughter monasteries and their leaders subject to the orders and guidance of the abbott at Clooney, the original monastery, and of course the pope.

Though the Clooneys revived strict adherence to the Benedicting rule, they did make a change. Rather than dividing a monk’s day between worship, work, and steady, the Clooneys had their monks spend most of the day in worship and prayer.

Clooneys also purposefully constructed and beautified their monasteries to be magnificent and thereby elevate the worship experience of their monks. So you can see the Clooneys are all about focusing on worship.

The Clooney reform proved popular and effective and soon a vast network of daughter monasteries spread across France and Germany.

“The Cluniacs were a reforming monastic order seeking to reinstill discipline, purity, and spiritual vigor back into Western monks.”

Part of the reason that gluniacs were so successful was because they supplied needed spiritual leadership in Western Europe in the same period in which the papacy was in complete disarray. You remember as we went into the 800s to 1000 how the papacy becomes more and more just plagued by immorality, corruption, and infighting. The Clooneys kind of step up to help guide Western Christianity while the papacy is in turmoil.

So that’s one order to introduce you to.

The Cistercians

A second monastic order are the Cistercians. Their headquarter monastery was founded in Cîteaux (Cistercium in Latin) in 1098 near Fontenay in central eastern France.

The Cistercians were another reforming order trying to get back to the rule of Benedict. But whereas the Cluniacs sought to elevate worship by elaborate decoration and beautification, the Cistercians went the opposite direction.

As a monastic order, they were known for simplicity in their liturgy, in their vestments, and in their church interiors, convinced that God would have them do better with their money than merely adorn their buildings.

“The Cistercians were known for simplicity, convinced that God would have them do better with their money than merely adorn their buildings.”

The most famous is someone you might have heard of: Bernard of Clairvaux, 1090 to 1153.

The Cistercians also found great success. Within about only 50 years of their founding, they had 338 monasteries across Europe and the Middle East.

The Franciscans

A third monastic order to tell you about is one of an altogether different type, the Franciscans, established in 1210.

They get their name from their leader and founder, the most well-known and popular of Catholic medieval saints, Francis of Assisi. He lived from 1182 to 1226.

Francis led his monks in a radical new direction with his monastic rule. That direction was absolute poverty.

Under Francis, the Franciscans didn’t have any monasteries or property at all.

They were mendicant monks. That is, they were traveling beggars who only sought to minister to the poor and preach. They were traveling preachers.

“The Franciscans were mendicant monks—traveling beggars who only sought to minister to the poor and preach.”

Mendicant, by the way, means begging from Latin.

Francis also led his monks to eschew the complicated theological systems that had emerged in the schools at the time and to cultivate instead the simplicity of childlike faith.

Though hesitant to support this new and unusual order, the papacy did give official backing to the Franciscans, and they soon multiplied, spreading all across Europe.

Eventually, however, the papacy forced the Franciscans to become more like a regular order, lessening the requirement of absolute poverty and installing a hierarchy of leadership and discipline over the Franciscans. Under Francis, it was just Francis as a leader and then everybody else was kind of just free to do what they wanted. The popes said, “No. We need some overseers in there, and they’re required to be obedient to those overseers.” Dismayed at his order’s new direction, Francis actually resigned from the leadership role in 1219.

After his death in 1226, the Franciscans only drifted further from his original vision, finally allowing for the acquiring of wealth in monasteries and churches. They said, “Oh, we don’t own it. Our spiritual friend owns it here in the church or in the monastery.”

They also dropped opposition to scholastic theology. Actually, some of the most renowned theologians of the late Middle Ages were Franciscans.

The Dominicans

Fourth and finally is the Dominican order, established in 1217. They also get their name from their founder Dominic Guzman, alive from 1171 to 1221, who comes from Claroga in northern Spain. The Dominicans were also a mendicant order.

They were traveling friars. If you’re ever wondering where the term friar comes from, that’s a term for these mendicant monks. Friar just comes from the Latin word meaning brother: fratre.

They were traveling friars without monasteries who begged for their sustenance.

But whereas the Franciscans were preachers focused on ministering to the poor, the Dominicans were fully a preaching order. Their focus was evangelizing and teaching theology across the whole of Catholic Europe, which is what they did.

The Dominicans were firm adherents of scholastic theology, and because of their desire to cultivate study above all else, their monastic rule abolished the requirement for manual labor, which all other rules had included at least some portion of. The Dominicans unsurprisingly produced many great theologians, including Thomas Aquinas, and their preaching and teaching did much to keep the people of Western Europe loyal to the Catholic faith.

“The Dominicans were fully a preaching order—their focus was evangelizing and teaching theology across all of Catholic Europe.”

However, the Dominicans as an order were not as popular as the Franciscans.

Actually, the two orders had an intense rivalry.

Part of the reason for the lesser reputation of the Dominicans is because they were the ones usually selected to staff the Holy Office of the Inquisition.

The Inquisition was that arm of the Pope established in 1227 to uncover and punish heretics in Catholic Europe.

Once the Inquisition had accused someone of heresy, it was almost impossible for that person to prove his innocence.

It didn’t help that the Dominicans customarily wore black.

Well, that will have to do to introduce us to the major orders in the West. Like I said, there are definitely more.

Benefits of Medieval Monasticism

But now let’s take a step back and consider how Christian monasticism was both beneficial and problematic in our period.

Let’s first consider some of the benefits. I’ve listed seven, though there are probably more.

What’s good about medieval monasticism?

Excellent Christian Education

Well, number one, excellent Christian education.

Especially in the early Middle Ages, monasteries were the centers of learning. Pretty much they don’t exist in other places. There are a few exceptions, but monasteries were the centers of learning, which meant that not only did the monks who were at the monasteries receive a good education, but so did anyone who got loaned to the monks—nobles and royals sometimes had their children brought up in monasteries before returning to rule.

“Monasteries were the centers of learning—not only monks received a good education, but so did anyone entrusted to them.”

Which meant that these blue bloods were educated both in the liberal arts and in Christian spirituality and theology.

By the way, the classical education paradigm of the trivium and quadrivium is also the education standard in the Middle Ages, at least in the West. A trivium refers to grammar, rhetoric, and logic.

The quadrivium is arithmetic, geometry, music theory, and astronomy.

This would actually be part of a monastic education. You’re not merely learning the Bible and the church fathers. You learned the liberal arts.

Many monasteries and cathedrals in this period would eventually open formal schools for both monks and non-monks, and these would serve as the precursors to medieval universities.

Disciplined Living and Constant Prayer

That’s number one. Number two, another benefit of medieval monasticism is disciplined living.

Though the monastic emphasis on asceticism is biblically problematic, there is no arguing against the benefit of consistently instilled discipline. The monasteries, by their strict rules and enforcement—much like an army barracks—automatically provided discipline for the monks and nuns.

Number three is constant and dedicated prayer.

The one activity that monks of every stripe were expected to do was pray.

Pray for themselves, pray for their brethren, pray for the land, pray for their leaders, and pray for the dead.

“The one activity monks of every stripe were expected to do was pray—for themselves, their brethren, the land, and their leaders.”

But that’s not as helpful.

This prayer was no insignificant task.

Even more so than today, medieval Christians were convinced that their salvation and their daily preservation depended on prayer. Thus, the monks and nuns were critical for the society’s welfare.

A common medieval description for the basic division of society was threefold and usually went like this: those who pray, the clergy and the monks; those who fight, the lords and the knights; and those who work, the peasants.

It’s their basic division of society.

But notice the way that the monks and clergy are described. Those who pray—that’s their main job.

Now, unless you want to say that prayer is useless or that none of these people were saved, one benefit of monasticism was multiplied prayers to God.

Excellent Civil Servants

Number four, excellent and honest civil servants.

If you’re a medieval monarch looking for wise counselors and skilled administrators that you can trust, what better place to find them than in your land’s best monasteries?

Routinely European nobles tapped abbots, monks, and other clergy to fill government posts, which is an arrangement that worked out well for both sides. The nobles got good civil servants and even underrulers who wouldn’t provide a succession problem because monks are celibate, meaning that they wouldn’t have any children or at least no legitimate children, which means rulers would never have to worry about these monks trying to pass on land or wealth to their children.

“If you’re a medieval monarch looking for wise counselors you can trust, what better place to find them than your land’s best monasteries?”

The secular rulers got a good deal out of this. Meanwhile, the monks got an opportunity to influence secular rulers and their land in some way to provide spiritual benefit. Monasticism actually benefited civil government.

Bishops and Missionaries

Number five, and this is I think one of the most significant ones: monasticism provided a steady crop of bishops and missionaries.

Just as secular rulers knew where to go to find good servants and leaders, so too did religious leaders. Because monasteries typically provided excellent education, discipline, and theological training, monasteries became the place to go to find your next bishop or missionary team.

Many times in medieval history, the next pope, the next patriarch, the next bishop is drawn from someone in a monastery. Especially if that someone has already proved himself in some lesser religious role, maybe like serving the pope in a translation or doing some other work for him.

Now as to missions work, we might be under the impression that the medieval world was spiritually stagnant with Christians only looking inward, but this is far from the case. Medieval clergy were constantly thinking about evangelizing the pagans both outside and within their borders.

And who’s doing all the medieval missions work? It’s the monks. It’s the monks.

They are often recruited to fill a missionary team of 13. Why do you think that number? Anything special about sending a team of 13, Jonathan?

12 disciples.

Exactly. It’s following Jesus and his 12 disciples. So a lot of times when a new area needs to be evangelized, they send 13 guys. That’s usually what they do or often what they do.

Now, these monks are like the perfect missionaries. They’re not only well-trained and disciplined, but having already taken vows of poverty and celibacy, they have nothing to tie themselves down, nothing to pull them back home.

They’re motivated. They’re able to sacrifice themselves for the Lord and for the lost. So by their preaching and upstanding lives, the monks were often effective in their mission work.

“Having taken vows of poverty and celibacy, monks had nothing to tie themselves down—they were the perfect missionaries.”

I would love to take a whole lesson to walk you through how God used the different monks along with monarchs to turn various kingdoms to Christ, but that would be too long. All I can do is just give you a taste and mention a few monks who did some kind of amazing things.

Monks were even in the beginning of the medieval period important for converting the Germanic rulers who took over the Roman Empire after the Western Roman Empire fell in the 400s and 500s. It’s the monks and the local clergy who are reaching out to these Germanic rulers who are either Arian or pagan and bringing them in line with the true faith.

St. Patrick, who spearheaded the mission to Ireland in the late 400s, was a monk. Columba, also a monk, brought a team of monks with him from Ireland to Scotland in 563 to successfully evangelize the Scots.

Monks from Italy made up a team that went with Augustine of Canterbury to England in the late 500s in the Gregorian mission, which we previously mentioned. Columbanus, another Irish monk, took a team of monks to evangelize parts of France, Switzerland, and Italy in 590.

His disciples continued the work after he died. The English monk Wilfred took a team of monks in 690 to the Netherlands. He spent 50 years helping convert the Frisians to Christ.

Boniface, another English monk, worked abroad until 715, then began a new missionary work in 718 in central Germany. He was eventually martyred by Frisian pagans in 754.

And the list just goes on and on. Wherever the message of Jesus is going in the Middle Ages, monks are the ones bringing it to Scandinavia, to the Balkans, to the Baltic, to Eastern Europe and Russia, to the Islamic world.

There’s actually something kind of amazing. Both the Franciscans and Dominicans set up a special organization to just keep pumping out missionaries to the Muslims. These monks also went to the central Asian Mongols and even as far as China.

I have to tell you about the China one. Believe it or not, John of Monte Corvino, an Italian Franciscan missionary, responded to an invitation given by Kublai Khan to the Pope to present the gospel in Beijing.

Kublai Khan said, “Send a hundred of your best religious scholars and let them present to us why your religion is the best.” The Pope wasn’t able to act on that invitation for a while, but eventually he sent John with a team of guys to travel all the way to where Kublai Khan was in Beijing.

Kublai Khan was actually dead by the time John got there in 1294, but his successor gave John a warm welcome and John went about his work. By 1305, about 11 years later, he had baptized 6,000 people as Christians in China.

John translated the New Testament into the Mongolian language and was appointed the first Catholic Archbishop of Beijing in 1307. After his death, the Christian mission declined in Mongolian-controlled China until ethnic Chinese captured Beijing from the Mongols in 1369 and kicked out all Westerners.

Anyways, the missionary tenacity of medieval monks is incredible. It was only after the arrival of the Black Death, the bubonic plague, into Europe from 1347 to 1400 that Christian missionary work finally slowed down.

Preservation of Texts

It’s hard to recover for about 200 years. This is a definite benefit of medieval monasticism. These monasteries served like seminaries or missionary training grounds, constantly producing motivated, disciplined missionaries to bring the gospel and the word of Christ around the world.

Number six: preservation of ancient and medieval texts. The western monastics were generally devoted to worship, labor, and study, as we saw from Benedict. One activity that combined all three of these pursuits was the copying and beautifying of various manuscripts.

Both monks and nuns participated in this work, usually in a room of the monastery specially set aside for this copying purpose called a scriptorium.

Thousands of monastics copied thousands of texts and preserved for us not only our copies of the Bible but also many ancient and medieval works of theology and culture.

This was tedious work. Sometimes in the surviving copies of some manuscripts we can see odd comments and doodles of the copying monastics.

Yet God providentially provided this great benefit that we all have today through these medieval monastics.

“God providentially provided this great benefit through medieval monastics—preserving for us not only the Bible but many ancient works.”

A Spiritual Anchor in Medieval Storms

And then number seven, a spiritual anchor in medieval storms.

The medieval period was full of upheaval, with wars, famines, plagues, Viking raids, empires falling, church corruption, and more. Many times it seemed like Western civilization was about to come apart at the seams or that the Christian religion was going to drift so far as to be unrecoverable.

But the tucked away monasteries were like little beacons of light in the darkness, both preserving the culture of the past and providing another source of stability and spiritual guidance in the present.

“Tucked-away monasteries were like little beacons of light in the darkness, preserving the culture of the past and providing stability.”

In many ways, medieval monasticism was beneficial to God’s people, to God’s church.

Problems in Medieval Monasticism

But there were also problems.

Let’s take a look at some problems in medieval monasticism. I’ll give you seven, though probably more.

Flimsy Biblical Foundation

The first and biggest problem with medieval mass monasticism is its flimsy biblical foundation.

A plain reading of the New Testament does not lead one to believe that secluded aesthetic life is the life that God wants for his believers.

On the contrary, Christians are told that they cannot withdraw from the world or from unbelievers. Generally speaking, in John 17:15, Jesus prays to the Father, “I do not say to take them out of the world.” In 1 Corinthians 5:9-13, Paul says, “When I told you not to have fellowship with an immoral brother, I didn’t mean the people of the world, or else you’d have to leave the world.” There’s a distinction there. You cannot leave the world.

Also, the scriptures are clear. Severe treatment of the body by asceticism appears wise and profitable, but it actually is of no value against fleshly indulgence. That’s Paul explicitly in Colossians 2:23. And compare his teaching to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:1-5 where he says, “Look at these false teachers. What are they doing? They’re saying you can’t eat certain things and you can’t get married.” But what does God say? These are gifts that should be received with gratitude.

Colossians 2:23: “Severe treatment of the body appears wise but is of no value against fleshly indulgence.”

God gives us all things richly to enjoy.

Now it is true that celibacy and the relinquishing of earthly possessions do provide certain practical benefits in serving Christ. We don’t want to ignore the teaching of Jesus or Paul in those different places.

But these are not spiritually better than enjoying and stewarding marriage or possessions as gifts from God.

Furthermore, while many medieval Christians might point to Elijah, John the Baptist, Paul in the wilderness, and the rich young ruler—negatively speaking, remember he was told to sell everything and follow Jesus—they might point to such persons as providing exemplary lifestyles for Christians to follow.

Such constitutes the classic error of taking what is descriptive in the Bible as what is prescriptive for all believers today.

Maybe God was doing something unique with those different persons and you’re not necessarily to emulate them in every way.

At best, one could use scripture to support the idea of separated Christian education or training for a time, but not support an entire lifestyle of being fundamentally withdrawn from the world.

In the end, monasticism is merely human wisdom propped up by tradition and experience, not the Bible.

That’s a big problem with medieval monasticism.

Emphasis on External Righteousness

Others flow from it. Number two, emphasis on external righteousness.

So much of medieval monasticism and more broadly aestheticism focus on external realities. What you eat, what you own, what you wear, where you live, what you recite, what happens in the mass, what you do and don’t do.

Truly, biblical Christianity does affect the outer man and behavior, but focusing on the outer man very easily causes one to neglect the heart and to slip into legalistic works-based righteousness.

“Focusing on the outer man very easily causes one to neglect the heart and slip into legalistic works-based righteousness.”

Monasticism with its obvious separation and aestheticism unhelpfully orients a person to trust in external works and rituals.

Promotion of Two-Tiered Christianity

Number three, promotion of two-tiered Christianity.

Monasticism was part of an accepted medieval worldview that the spiritual vocation, the work of monks and clergy put them on a higher plane of Christian existence than mere laymen. You could be a regular Christian, a lay person who pleases God and is blessed by God. Or you could become a superchristian through monasticism and abundantly please God and be blessed by God.

The monks and nuns are praying and praising God all the time. Their prayers must be super effective. But the mere layman hardly does any spiritual work, so their prayers don’t matter at all.

This kind of thinking may fit with human wisdom and an emphasis on external righteousness, but it is foreign to the Bible. We are exhorted in the New Testament to let all that we do glorify God, including things like eating, drinking, working, being married, having children, whatever.

1 Corinthians 10:31: “All Christians, whether clergy or layman, are spiritually equal before God and can please God equally.”

All of these can be glorifying to God. They can be spiritual if done in the right heart and in accordance with God’s word. This is one of the great truths recaptured in the Reformation. All Christians, whether clergy or layman, are spiritually equal before God and can please God equally.

This liberating truth is deeply obscured in monasticism.

Victimized by Own Success

Number four, victimization by own success.

One of the striking aspects of medieval monasticism is how regularly different monasteries or whole orders become corrupt and need reform. Monastics start living in an undisciplined way or even get involved in sinful scandals.

Why does this happen?

For multiple reasons, but one main one is the monastery simply becomes too wealthy and powerful. Like the papacy in the Roman Catholic Church, generally monks as we keep going in the medieval period gradually end up owning lots of land and lots of wealth.

Why? Because pious Christians are giving these to the monks. Also, there’s a little bit of monks usually went to a secluded place to build a new monastery—a place that was not productive—but committed to manual labor. They start working the land and it becomes productive, and all of a sudden they get other workers in there, and now the monastery is acquiring a lot of wealth.

This is a big problem. Accumulating wealth was a problem enough for bishops, but for the monks, their monastic orders require vows of poverty. How does owning great wealth, having a huge regular income from your land and tenants, etc., work out well with trying to stay poor and humble?

Now presumably the different abbots and abbesses were to steward the wealth that they were accumulating for evangelism, for the benefit of the poor, etc. But great wealth easily tempts toward lax living, fleshly indulgence, and corruption.

“Great wealth easily tempts toward lax living, fleshly indulgence, and corruption.”

Furthermore, when a monastery becomes wealthy, they also become powerful typically and even able to field little armies or exert influence on the surrounding towns and region.

Secular rulers therefore are going to take notice and want to bring those emerging little monastic powers on side. And what’s the easiest way to do that? Appoint an ally who is loyal but not necessarily spiritually minded as the head of the monastery.

Secular rulers felt that such was only their right. When you build the monastery for the monks or you donate a large amount of money or land to the monks, well, you should have a say in how it’s run. It’s a bit like some philanthropists today who donate millions of dollars to a university or organization and then they expect to be able to influence policy or leadership.

It was the same for the monarchs and nobles back then. They might install an unspiritual leader as the head of a monastery. And when you have an unspiritual leader at the head of a monastery or even a whole order, what’s going to happen? The monastery, the order is going to become corrupted.

So then what happens after that? Well, eventually there’s a reforming breakaway. Let’s go establish a new monastery. Let’s go establish a new monastic order to get away from this corruption, to reform, to get back to the fundamentals of what monks and nuns are supposed to be all about.

Great. But then people start donating to that new, more spiritual organization. So what happens? The cycle repeats.

Abuse as a Social Safety Net

Number five, abuse as a social safety net.

Something we must remember about medieval monasteries is that while ideally everybody is there voluntarily and thus has true devotion to God, this isn’t always the case. Especially in the early Middle Ages, sometimes families would give away one of their young children to a monastery, either out of devotion to God, compare Hannah and Samuel in the Bible, or out of financial considerations and to protect inheritance.

Noble families might do this too for the sake of prestige. If there’s a great monastery, they say, “Okay, we’ve got one son to take over the land and another son is like backup.” But the third son will send him to the monastery so he can get us some prestige.

This practice, as you can imagine, led to problems.

Sometimes children and young adults were not zealous for the monastic life, but they didn’t know anything else. And so they just stayed there, maybe even took vows.

These unsuited or uninterested monastics therefore could drag down the spirituality of the whole monastery.

“Sometimes children were not zealous for monastic life but didn’t know anything else—unsuited monastics could drag down the whole monastery.”

Eventually different monasteries were formed and put efforts in place so that only tested, willing and informed adults could join a monastery.

But putting in people who didn’t really want to be there was a problem in medieval monasticism.

Monastic Rivalry

Number six, monastic rivalry. As mentioned with the Franciscans and the Dominicans, many different monastic orders sometimes competed against each other or even regarded one another as rivals. This rivalry could even affect belief in theology.

For instance, the Franciscans and Dominicans often sparred with one another over the idea of immaculate conception. Does anybody know what that refers to? Immaculate conception.

Someone is born sinless. Who? Mary. It’s the idea that Mary was born without original sin and she was born sinless.

Why would that be? Well, she has to bear Jesus Christ. He was born sinless, so she has to be born sinless.

It’s a miracle though because her parents weren’t born sinless, but that’s okay. It’s a miracle for Mary.

This was not an official doctrine in the Middle Ages. It was an emerging theological opinion. It did become dogma in the Roman Catholic Church in 1854.

These two monastic orders, the Dominicans and Franciscans, sparred over this truth, but the truth of the doctrine became almost a secondary matter because really you just couldn’t let the other side win.

Franciscans were always for immaculate conception and Dominicans were always against it.

By the time we get to the Reformation, you’ll have different Christian and secular writers mocking the different monastic orders for how they seemingly argue and fight over the silliest things, even what is the right color robe to wear because they all had their own distinctive clothes. This rivalry, this infighting, it just became an obvious problem even to those outside of the monastic orders.

“The truth of the doctrine became almost a secondary matter because really you just couldn’t let the other side win.”

Unbelieving Members and Leaders

Then finally, number seven, this is I think a result of all that I’ve said previously.

You have unbelieving members and leaders in monasticism.

When you combine these above factors and the wider church is drifting away from the true gospel, you’re going to wind up in a situation where some or even many in the monasteries, even those in leadership in the monasteries, they actually are not saved. They don’t know God. They don’t know Jesus Christ.

These monastics may be very outwardly religious. They may speak eloquently about experiences with God, but inwardly they are still dead slaves to sin like the ancient Pharisees were. They do not yet know the reality of Romans 8:1-2.

Romans 8:1-2: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The law of the spirit of life has set you free.”

Therefore, there would be, especially as we get closer to the Reformation, a great deal of evil, hypocrisy, and scandal going on right in the monasteries. There are unsaved people acting out their unsaved nature, their slavery to sin.

Sometimes monastics were self-righteously able to keep the lid on sin, at least what was considered outward scandalous sin. Yet their monasticism still only ended up leading them further away from God rather than to God.

This unfortunately is still the case for many Christian monks and nuns today.

A Mixed Bag: Summary and Discussion

So like much else in the Middle Ages, medieval monasticism is a mixed bag.

Many monks and nuns were genuine believers who did great good for God and his people. But many other monks and nuns never knew God and only got lost in a religious looking system.

God ultimately used medieval monasticism for many gracious purposes that go that went beyond the middle ages. We are receiving the benefit of medieval monasticism today.

“Medieval monasticism is a mixed bag—God used it for many gracious purposes that went beyond the Middle Ages.”

Yet, monasticism was another aspect of medieval Christianity in need of great reform and change by the 1500s.

Okay. Questions about what you’ve heard today. Yeah, Glenda.

What I build on any foundation when we build on any foundation outside of Jesus Christ flimsy biblical foundation built upon anything work salvation everything will crumble. Yeah. And that’s what I I see today unbelieving members and leaders because they were not saved.

Yeah. It’s a it’s a very important point that you’re making, Glenda. When we start with a bad foundation, when it’s not biblical or just a really flimsical bim flimsy foundation, it’s just going to lead to problems and even to a crumbling spiritual edifice.

I think about this actually when it comes to modern psychology. There are or or other ideas that are popular in our culture. There are Christians who want to take pieces of that and integrate it into Christianity, Christian spiritual and pastoral care.

But you have to pay attention to the foundation on what is this practice or this way of thinking built on? Is it built on the scriptures or is it built on man’s ideas that ignore or contradict the scriptures? If it’s built on a bad foundation, you can’t salvage it.

It’s just going to lead you astray. It’s just going to lead to corruption, which is what has happened again and again historically. We have to be aware of the bad foundation. When it’s not built on a sound biblical foundation and you think it’s going to help the church, it usually doesn’t.

What else? Is the practice of celibate priests, did that come out of monasticism or was that already a thing?

Good question, Jonathan. Did the practice of celibacy in the priesthood and did that come out of monasticism?

The answer is definitely yes. So in the beginning in the early middle ages it was not required for priests and bishops to be celibate though it was expected coming from the early medieval church seeing celibacy as a way to be undistracted in serving the Lord and even be being better spiritually. You might not be required as a priest to be celibate, but it’s like if you’re going to choose between a guy who’s celibate and a guy who’s married to be your next priest or bishop, you take the celibate guy because he’s obviously more spiritual.

And because the monks seemed even more spiritual than the regular clergy, eventually the popes begin to say, “All right, we want the regular clergy to be celibate as well.” It wasn’t a rule. I I forget when it happens.

I think it’s in the high middle ages, but eventually it’s made into a rule for the Roman Catholic Church. Now remember in the Eastern Orthodox Church they still do allow married priests but only if you’re married before you’re ordained. You can’t get rem remarried and you can’t become a bishop.

You have to be a celibate to be a bishop in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Yeah. Arthur, what I always found mindboggling is when you mention one of the benefits was that the pres preservation of biblical texts and I always ask God, well, if they’re preserving biblical texts, are they mindless?

Aren’t they reading what it is that they’re preserving? And that in itself would lead them to recognize that there’s just things that are being done that is not supported by scripture.

And when you think about the Old Testament, which king was it when they found the book of the law and they repented? Yeah. . So, it it it just causes me to think that it’s possible to actually how can you say it? You can copy the Bible but at the same time the importance or the need for the person to have the Holy Spirit to actually understand it.

Yeah. It’s a good observation and a good comment. To be fair, some of the copying of the scripture did result in greater devotion to God. And sometimes even to the exposure of evil practices in the Roman Catholic Church or or elsewhere that these reform movements, they don’t come out of nowhere. They come out of people who are becoming more familiar with the scriptures and comparing it to the practice and beliefs of the church.

But remember, one of the things that I would say the devil actually uses as a way to inoculate people against the scriptures is to put a governing interpretation or paradigm on your interpretation of the Bible. So they are reading the scriptures, but because of their training, because of their culture, they’re always viewing it through the lens of papal teaching or the magisterium or what the the bishops say. So you can come to those sections of the scripture, you’re like, “Isn’t this so obvious?”

But they’re like, “Well, you have to interpret it according to what the pope says.” Same thing happened in Judaism. Let’s not forget that the scriptures as Jesus had them, they were copied yeah by Jesus day and afterwards they were copied by Jews who had a high reverence for the scriptures. Very meticulously copied.

All the different things that they did to make sure that they copied it word for word, letter for letter is it’s kind of mind-boggling itself. And yet, how can they do that and ignore what it actually says? For the same reason. I mean, ultimately, it comes back to they have not been got begotten from above.

They don’t have the spirit. But also, it’s because you have a tradition that controls your interpretation so that you actually don’t listen to or believe what it says.

Maybe one more question or comment.

Yeah, Jody.

Just seems to me that along with what Arthur’s saying that they’re elevating celibacy as if as if they’re not sinners themselves.

Don’t see them like if it’s a hierarchy of sin. And I know there are degrees, but what about all the internal sins?

The the envy, the covetousness, the greed, the I mean those are even more dangerous. And so if they’re men of the word even the man in the pulpit is a sinner. And if he’s not presenting the gospel that way, then it’s just all knowledge coming at you.

And it’s not it’s not given in humility.

It’s just making much about themselves.

. So that that’s how I see like there’s certain like in each culture the swings of what’s being emphasized even in ours like from years ago we swing from one end to the other back and forth. Yeah. Good comments Jod and this again is reason why church history is valuable because you recognize that how easy it is to become blind due to culture or just inherited theological tradition when the scriptures are obvious in the other direction.

Certainly. You see, again, this is one of the problems with focus on external righteousness. You end up doing the same thing that Jesus accused the Pharisees of doing. You strain out a nap and strain out a nap but swallow a camel.

Like, oh, we’re celibate. Oh, we’re not married. But it’s like you never dealt with the heart, the envy, the greed, the corruption. Many people have said about monasticism, one of the fundamental errors of it, another way to describe it is they’re trying to get away from sinful temptation.

But the problem is you can’t get away from it. Because where does it ultimately reside? From your flesh within. Which is why, how ironic, Anthony, Benedict, they have these dramatic spiritual battles by themselves in the wilderness. Even against sexual temptation. There’s not even anybody around.

“You can’t get away from sinful temptation—where does it ultimately reside? From your flesh within.”

It was in their hearts. It was in their flesh. So, you’re absolutely right. This is the this is one of the problems with Christianity as it develops in the medieval period is certainly in monasticism that emphasis on external righteousness, neglect and devaluing of things that should have equal or even greater emphasis the holiness of heart.

Good comments, good questions. If you have more, please come speak with me afterwards. That does it for today. Next week we are going to begin surveying some important theologians of the Middle Ages and analyze the theological contributions that have even come down to us today. Let me close in prayer.

Closing Prayer

Lord, we thank you for your kind providence even in medieval monasticism for us. And yet, God, we are grieved to see how our true brothers and sisters, and also, Lord, those who were thinking they were our brothers but they weren’t really, Lord, how they went astray in different ways.

But Lord, we are prone to the same. We can focus on external righteousness. We can overemphasize one aspect of scripture against the other and Lord miss your truth.

But help us to protect one another. Help us, Lord, to learn from the past. But Lord, help us also to be encouraged by the faithfulness of the past.

Even the ready heart of these monastics, Lord, to preach your word, even to go into new lands and new places and to risk themselves for your sake because you really did work through them. Lord, I pray that we might find encouragement and a good example there.

Please bless the rest of our service today in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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