assumed definite organization as a product of a curious medley of
Heathen-Jewish-Christian influences.

A few words should be said here concerning the influence of the Bible
upon monasticism. Naturally the Christian hermits and early fathers
appealed to the Bible in support of their teachings and practices. It is
not necessary, at this point, to discuss the correctness of their
interpretations. The simple fact is that many passages of scripture were
considered as commands to attain perfection by extraordinary sacrifices,
and certain Biblical characters were reverenced as shining monastic
models. In the light of the difficulties of Biblical criticism it is
easy to forgive them if they were mistaken, a question to be discussed
farther on. They read of those Jewish prophets described in Hebrews:
"They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins; ... wandering in deserts
and mountains and caves, and the holes of the earth." They pointed to
Elijah and his school of prophets; to John the Baptist, with his raiment
of camel's hair and a leathern girdle about his loins, whose meat was
locusts and wild honey. They recalled the commandment of Jesus to the
rich young man to sell all his possessions and give to the poor. They
quoted the words, "Take no thought for the morrow what ye shall eat and
what ye shall drink or wherewithal ye shall be clothed." They construed
following Christ to mean in His own words, "forsaking father, mother,
brethren, wife, children, houses and lands." They pointed triumphantly
to the Master himself, unmarried and poor, who had not "where to lay his
head." They appealed to Paul's doctrine of marriage. They remembered
that the Church at Jerusalem was composed of those who sold their
possessions and had all things in common. Whatever these and numerous
other passages may truly mean, they interpreted them in favor of a
monastic mode of life; they understood them to teach isolation,
fastings, severities, and other forms of rigorous self-denial. Accepting