eir own principles.

8. Luther's Failure as a Monk.

Monasticism is a pagan shoot grafted on a Christian tree. At its base
lies the heathenish notion that sin can be extirpated by severe
onslaughts upon the body and the physical life. It has existed in
Buddhism before some Christians adopted it. In the early days of
Christianity it was proclaimed as superior wisdom by the Platonic
philosophers. Like many a lie it has been decked out with Bible-texts to
give it respectability, and to soothe disquieted consciences. The
Scripture-sayings regarding fasting, sexual continence, chastity,
crucifying the flesh, etc., are made to stand sponsor for this bastard
offspring of the brain of Christian mystics.

With excellent discrimination Mosheim has traced the origin of
monasticism to the early Christian fathers. The earliest impulses to
monasticism are contained in such writings as the Epistle to Zenas,
found among the writings of Justinus, the tracts of Clement of
Alexandria on Calumny, Patience, Continence, and other virtues, the
tracts of Tertullian on practical duties, such as Chastity, Flight from
Persecution, Fasting, Theatrical Exhibitions, the Dress of Females,
Prayer, etc. These writings "would be perused with greater profit, were
it not for the gloomy and morose spirit which they everywhere breathe. .
. . In what estimation they ought to be held, the learned are not
agreed. Some hold them to be the very best guides to true piety and a
holy life; others, on the contrary, think their precepts were the worst
possible, and that the cause of practical religion could not be
committed to worse hands. . . . To us it appears that their writings
contain many things excellent, well considered, and well calculated to
kindle pious emotions; but also many things unduly rigorous, and derived
from the Stoic and Academic philosophy; many things vague and
indeterminate; and many things positively false, and inconsistent with
the precepts of Christ. If one deserves the title of a bad master in
morals who has no just ideas of the proper boundaries and limitations of
Christian duties, nor clear and distinct conceptions of the different
virtues and vices, nor a perception of those general principles to which
recurrence should be had in all discussions respecting Christian virtue,
and therefore very often talks at random, and blunders in expounding the
divine laws; though he may say many excellent things, and excite in us
considerable emo