nd revival. The
second half of the 8th century seems to have been a time of very general
decadence; but about the year 800 Theodore, destined to be the only other
creative name in Greek monachism, became abbot of the monastery of the
Studium in Constantinople. He set himself to reform his monastery and
restore St Basil's spirit in its primitive vigour. But to effect this, and
to give permanence to the reformation, he saw that there was need of a more
practical code of laws to regulate the details of the daily life, as a
supplement to St Basil's Rules. He therefore drew up constitutions,
afterwards codified (see Migne, _Patrol. Graec._ xcix., 1704-1757), which
became the norm of the life at the Studium monastery, and gradually spread
thence to the monasteries of the rest of the Greek empire. Thus to this day
the Rules of Basil and the Constitutions of Theodore the Studite, along
with the canons of the Councils, constitute the chief part of Greek and
Russian monastic law.

The spirit of Greek monachism, as regenerated by Theodore, may best be
gathered from his _Letters, Discourses and Testament_.[1] Under the abbot
were several officials to superintend the various departments; the
liturgical services in the church took up a considerable portion of the
day, but Theodore seems to have made no attempt to revive the early
practice of the Studium in this matter (see ACOEMETI); the rest of the time
was divided between reading and work; the latter included the chief
handicrafts, for the monks, only ten in number, when Theodore became abbot,
increased under his rule to over a thousand. One kind of work practised
with great zeal and success by the Studite monks, was the copying of
manuscripts, so that to them and to the schools that went forth from them
we owe a great number of existing Greek MSS. and the preservation of many
works of classical and ecclesiastical antiquity. In addition to this,
literary and theological studies were pursued, and the mysticism of
pseudo-Dionysius was cultivated. The life, though simple and self-denying
and hard, was not of extreme austerity. There was a division of the monks
into two classes, similar to the division in vogue in later time in the
West into choir-monks and lay-brothers. The life of the choir-monks was
predominantly contemplative, [v.03 p.0470] being taken up with the church
services and private prayer and study; the lay-brothers carried on the
various trades and external works. There i