bread, salt, and water; from his twenty-seventh to his thirtieth year, wild herbs and undressed roots; from his thirty-first to his thirty-fifth year, six ounces of barley bread and parboiled cabbage without oil. But finding that he was becoming near-sighted, and his skin scurfy he added a little oil. From sixty-four till eighty he abstained altogether from bread, and substituted five ounces of a compound of flour and chopped cabbage.* Palladius contented himself with four or five ounces of bread daily, and one small vessel of oil in a year. Simeon Stylites took only one meal in the week, which was on the Sabbath. In Lent, he fasted so long that I must give the account in the words of my authority, lest I be accused of exaggeration. "At the foot of Mount Thelanissa," says Alban Butler, "he came to the resolution of passing the whole forty days of Lent in total abstinence, after the example of Christ, without either eating or drinking. Bassus, a holy priest, and abbot of 200 monks, who was his director, and to whom he had communicated his design, had left with him ten loaves and water, that he might eat if he found it necessary. At the expiration of the forty days he came to visit him, and found the loaves and water untouched, but Simeon stretched out on the ground, almost without any signs of life. Taking a sponge, he moistened his lips with water, then gave him the blessed eucharist. Simeon, having recovered a little, rose up, and chewed and swallowed by degrees a few lettuce leaves and other herbs. This was his method of keeping Lent during the remainder of his life." Catherine, of Sienna, accustomed herself to so rigorous an abstinence, that the eucharist was nearly the whole nourishment she took; and once she fasted, with the exception of what she took in the eucharist, from Ash Wednesday to Ascension Day. The food that Basil took was so small in quantity, that he appeared to live without it, and to have put on beforehand the life angelic. Paul, of Mount Latrus, for some weeks had no other subsistence than green acorns, which caused him at first to vomit, even to blood. A countryman sometimes brought him a little coarse food, but he principally lived upon wild upon the mountain. When he wanted water, a constant spring was produced near his dwelling. In the midst of these privations, the ascetics preserved their equanimity, even upon the most trying occasions. Once, when Ephraim, of Edessa, had fasted several days, the brother who was bringing him a mess of pottage made what grew * Encyclopædia Metropolitana, art. Hermit; Hospinianus, De Monachis. with a few herbs, let the pot fall, and broke it. The saint seeing him in confusion, said cheerfully, "As our supper will not come to us, let us go to it; then sitting down he picked up his meal from the ground. When Arsenius, who had been a courtier, presented himself for admission before the monks of Scete, he was allowed to stand whilst the monks took their repast, and no notice was taken of him; but John the Dwarf, took a piece of bread and threw it down on the ground before him, upon which Arsenius fell down, and in that posture cheerfully ate the bread. Germanus began every meal by putting a few ashes in his mouth, and the bread he ate was from barley he had himself threshed and ground. Francis generally put ashes or water upon what he ate, even when it was only a little coarse bread.* Piers Ploughman says, v. 4086:— "Ac ancres and heremites That eten noght but at nones, Myn almesse shul thei have, And of catel to kepe hem with, That han cloistres and chirches." These legends are many of them incredible, and nearly all of them absurd. The only meats from which the Christian is to abstain are those offered to idols, and blood, and things strangled. -Acts xv. 29. We may eat "whatsoever is sold in the shambles ;" and it is regarded by St. Paul as the sign of "a departing from the faith," a giving heed to "seducing spirits and doctrines of devils," when men command us "to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth: for every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving."-1 Tim. iv. 3. The law of the Lord inculcates the relinquishment of certain kinds of food for an especial reason, and men make the law universal; they forget the reason, and make a merit of the act. The word of God enjoins temperance, and man demands total abstinence. These are perversions that may in some instances produce a temporary good, but they are in danger of inflicting a permanent evil upon the church by setting another law above the revealed will of God, or by carrying out one branch of that will to an undue extent, putting a part in place of the whole, and thus infringing God's prerogative as * Alban Butler, passim: Professor Emerson, Andover, in the Bibliotheca Sacra. the supreme legislator. The religion of Christ is one of cheerfulness and holy joy; the primitive believers "did eat their meat with gladness of heart;" and though there is a good moral in the words of Herbert, we must not allow the principle to rob us of our privilege "to rejoice evermore: "Take thy meat; think it dust: then eat a bit, X. SLEEP. Whilst yet in innocence, Adam slept; and calm indeed must have been the midnight hour of Paradise. The repose of all animate creation would be profound; the beast as still in its slumber as the herbage upon which it reclined, or the flower that grew in beauty by the side of its lair. But the ancient ascetics regarded sleep as a part of animality they were to throw off to as great an extent as possible. With some it would be difficult to accomplish this design, as those persons who have few cares to perplex their minds are possessed of powers of sleep to which we whose lot has been cast in this restless generation must ever be utter strangers. The better informed among them would perhaps sometimes remember that Adam was neither deprived of wedlock, nor food, nor speech, nor sleep; and as they in their solitude were debarred from the former of these privileges, they would be tempted the more to indulge in the fourth, and to say to themselves, a little more sleep and a little more slumber," when the rule of their order or their personal vow would call upon them with its stern voice to arouse themselves and pray; yet it is a hard task to resist sleep in some frames of the body, and the morning twilight would often see them nodding their heads like the bulrush when bowed down by the wind, at a time when they ought to have been erect as the trunk of the tree, blasted by the lightning and now decayed, into which they had crept at sunset. 66 In eastern climes the nights are so beautiful, and the bare ground so comfortable a place of rest, that in the Indian systems of asceticism we meet with little account of the modes of penance that are connected with sleep. It is an ordinance of the Dina Chariyawa that the novice is to arise before daylight. There are sixty hours in the day, according to the mode of reckoning in India, thirty of which belong to the night, which is divided into three watches of ten hours each. It is said that Gótama Budha slept during onethird of the third watch, or three hours and one-third. In the first watch he preached or engaged in religious conversation; in the second watch he answered questions put to him by the déwas; and in the first division of the third watch he slept, in the second exercised meditation, and in the third looked abroad in the world with his divine eyes to see what being or beings it would be proper to catch in the net of truth during the day.* The last of the Thirteen Ordinances is called Nésajjikanga, which is the same as nisajja, ni being a particle of emphasis, and sajjika the act of sitting. He who keeps this ordinance may not lie down to sleep, and during the whole of one watch of the night he must walk about. He may not recline at full length, but may walk, or stand, or sit. The priest who keeps the superior ordinance may not lean on any place, or make his robe into a seat, or take hold of a piece of cloth fastened to a tree. He who keeps the middle ordinance is allowed to make use of any of these assistances. He who keeps the inferior ordinance may make seats (in particular ways that are mentioned). None of the three are permitted to lie down. The last of the Twelve Sacred Ordinances of the Chinese is called naïchadika. It prohibits the mendicant from lying down. A seated position is that which comports best with his design. His digestion and respiration are easily carried on, and he can bend his mind to that which is wise. Indolence leaves itself open to be attacked by vice, that seizes its advantage. The mendicant ought therefore to take his repose sitting, and his body ought not to touch the earth.† This mode of penance has probably been carried to a greater extent by the Brahmans than by any other order of ascetics. And in their case it is not an incredible tale upon which we have to depend; they are presented before our eyes in vast numbers, with bodies and members so dry and withered, that they cannot have been brought to such a state without the practice of the most painful austerities. But it is the recluse alone who is called upon to endure these hardships. According to the sage Aurva, the householder, "after eating his evening meal, and, having washed his feet, is to go to rest. His bed is to be entire, and made of wood; it is not to be scanty, nor cracked, nor uneven, nor dirty, nor infested by insects, nor without a bedding; and he is to sleep with his head either to the east or to the south; any other position is unhealthy."* There was an order of monks called arounтoi, insomnes, the sleepless; and by other monks the same austerities were observed. One was called Rectus, from standing erect until his legs refused to hold him up any longer. Chrysostom persisted in remaining in a standing posture so long, that with this and other exercises he ruined his health. Anthony was accustomed to remain whole nights without sleep. Paul, the hermit, never lay down to sleep, but only leaned his head against a stone or tree. John, of Old Castile, only slept two or three hours in the night. Peter of Alcantara, knelt a great part of the night, sometimes leaning on his heels for a little rest; but he slept sitting, leaning his head against a wall. Pallodius neither stretched out his legs nor lay down to sleep; the night through he sat erect at his work of platting ropes, and sleeping only in a doze at his meals; an angel might be persuaded to sleep, but not he. Macarius continued abroad during twenty days and twenty nights, in order to conquer his propensity to sleep, until he was in danger of going mad; he remained erect during the forty days of Lent, neither bending the knee, nor sitting, nor lying down. The Ethiopian Moses persisted six years in standing erect the night through, never closing his eyes. Daniel, the Stylite, supported himself against the balustrade of his pillar, until, by continually standing, his legs and feet became swollen and full of ulcers. On one occasion, in the winter, he was found so stiff with cold, that his disciples had to soak some sponges in warm water, and rub him therewith, before he could be revived. Nor has our own country been without saints of the same order. Cuthbert was accustomed to spend whole nights in prayer; and to resist sleep he walked about the island in which he lived-Landisfarne. One night he was seen to go down to the sea-shore, where he went into the water until it reached his arm-pits, and continued there until the break of day, singing the praises of God. It is not said whether his position was affected by the tide. By the rule of Basil, sleep was not to be continued after midnight, the rest of the night being devoted to prayer. Alexander, in 402, instituted the order of Akoemites, which differed from that * Wilson's Vishnu Purána, 309. |