Monasticism, the story of which is one of the strangest problems in Church history and is enshrouded in legend, originated outside the Church, but soon became the dominant factor in the Church. It was not the product of Christianity so much as an inheritance--an adopted child. It supported the orthodox faith,[198:1] upheld the papal theory, monopolised ecclesiastical offices, helped to mould the Church constitution, and supplied the great standing army of the Popes. It was a determining factor in European civilisation. The monk was the ideal man of the Middle Ages. He stood for the highest morality and best culture of that period. As a missionary he planted the Church over Western Europe. He stood between the laity and the hierarchy, as the friend of the former and the champion of the latter. He created the system of public charity and had a marked influence on industry and agriculture. Before long a monk sat in the chair of St. Peter and sought to rule the Church. The first series of great ecclesiastical reforms was produced by the hermits in the fourth century, the Benedictines in the sixth, the Clugniacs in the eleventh, and the Begging Orders in the thirteenth. Monasticism, therefore, was a very important institution in the rise of the Church. Monasticism originated in antiquity and was based on a general principle broader than any creed. It grew out of that mystical longing for an uninterrupted inner enjoyment of the soul--out of a passion for self-brooding, and out of an abnormal view of the seclusion necessary for the cultivation of the true religious life, which would save the soul from sin. It was simply an effort to explain the riddle of existence and to comprehend the true relations of God, man, and the world. Every great religion has expressed itself in some form of monasticism. Centuries before Jesus there were monks and crowded convents among the Hindoos. The sacred writings of the ancient Hindoos (2400 B.C.) reveal many legends about holy hermits, and give ascetic rules.[199:1] Buddha, who founded his faith possibly six centuries B.C., enjoined celibacy on his priests.[199:2] Alexander the Great found monasticism flourishing in the East. In Greece the "Pagan Jesuits," the Pythagoreans, were a kind of ascetic order.[199:3] Plato, with his powerful appeal for the ideal life, had a marked influence upon the ascetic views of the early Christians, and Neo-Platonism became a positive force in Christendom during the third and fourth centuries. The priestesses of Delphic Apollo, Achaian Juno, and Scythian Diana were virgins.[200:1] In Judea the ancient Nazarites[200:2] afford an example. The Essenes seem to be the direct forerunners of Christian monasticism.[200:3] In addition there were conspicuous individual examples in Jewish history like that of Elisha, Elijah, Samuel, and John the Baptist.[200:4] In Rome the name of vestal virgin was a proverb. In Egypt, the priests of Serapis were ascetics,[200:5] the priestesses of