ttain the highest
sanctity and receive the highest reward, and such has generally been the
teaching in those forms of Christianity in which monachism exists.
Monasteries and convents, further, have in many cases become rich in
this world's goods--a favorite form of devotion has been to build and
endow or aid such communities (often with the belief that this atoned
for sin); with wealth has come worldlymindedness and corruption of
morals. Numerous examples of such decadence occur in Buddhistic and
Christian history. There are, however, many examples of holy monastic
living. It is true in general of these institutions, as of all others,
that when moral supervision of them is exercised by society the
possibilities of moral decline are greatly diminished; in an enlightened
age they may be assumed to be generally exemplary. Their specifically
useful role in the development of religion, as refuges in times of
turbulence and centers of charity and thought, belongs to an imperfectly
organized form of society; with the growth of enlightenment they tend to
disappear.

SACRED BOOKS

+1128+. All churches and all bodies approaching nearly the church-form
have writings that embody their beliefs and are regarded as sacred. Such
sacred Scriptures necessarily grow up with the organizations to which
they belong, since these latter originate in literary periods and claim
divine authorship. Great religious communities naturally produce a large
number of such books, and at some time it becomes necessary (from the
growth of heresies or rivals) to sift the whole mass and decide which
works are to be considered to have permanent divine authority; the
process of sifting is performed in each case by its community under the
guidance of leading men, and the result is a canon of sacred Scriptures.
Such canons are found in Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism,
Christianity, and Islam, and in minor bodies like the Essenes, Mormons,
and others, but not among the Chinese, Greeks, and Romans; Brahmanism
occupies a middle ground--it regards the Veda and the accessory books as
entitled to great reverence, but has never drawn the line between sacred
and nonsacred writings so sharply as has been done in the group named
above.

+1129+. While the general method of fixing the canons has been the same
everywhere, the details of the process have differed in different lands.
In India the canon of Southern Buddhism (acknowledged formerly in India
and now in Cey