BYZANTINE MONASTICISM 155
put too great a confidence in human nature. Only the strict
observance, and not the mere framing of rules, however
complete and detailed, can prevent abuses or sustain religious
fervour, and it would be rash to assert that such regulations
generally succeeded in maintaining at a normal level the
practice of monastic virtues. On so delicate a matter as this
one must not expect to find any precise information in our
historical sources; here the gradual decline to laxity and
decay is naturally not depicted. Those hagiographers who
have described in most intimate detail the inner life of the
monasteries, while avoiding its darker features, for the most
part only record examples of holy living and noble action.
Nevertheless a few contemporary documents have come down
to us in which free expression is given to complaints of the
faithlessness of monks to their duties, and the consequent
decline of coenobitism.
In his novel on religious houses the Emperor Nicephorus
Phocas denounced the abuses arising from the accumulation
of wealth by monasteries, and spared the monks no unpalat-
able truth. One of the sharpest criticisms of the monastic
life comes from the ranks of the clergy in a treatise by
Eustathius, Archbishop of Salonica (pb. 1198). The picture
he draws of the moral condition of monks was no doubt a
true one for his time and diocese. He is careful, however, to
note that there were many virtuous monks in the capital of
the Empire and its suburbs, but that does not imply that
outside Salonica none but regular and devoted houses
existed. The causes he alleges for the moral decline of
monasteries undoubtedly produced similar effects in other
places. The manner of enlisting new recruits to the order
left much to be desired, and men entered the monastic life
less with the object of serving God than of making sure of
their daily bread without working for it. In this way monas-
teries became filled with the coarse and ignorant, whose one
idea was to profit by the material advantages thus provided
and to live a life of ease. Their zeal went no further than an
attempt to add to the property of the community; but greater
wealth was accompanied by greater worldliness. Study was
neglected, the most precious books in the library were
judged useless and sold. The abbot, whose duty it was to