conflicting elements of society. On the other hand stands an uncompromising, otherworldly ethic of superlatives that characterized the New Testament saint. The conflict was already foreshadowed in the differences between the love-inspired communism of the Jerusalem circle and the Pauline suggestions toward an accommodation to the existing social conditions. How did the Middle Ages solve the problem?

In the first place it should be observed that in spite of its constant criticism of secular Christianity the ascetic group never broke with the church. No saintly ideals ever flourished in the Middle Ages that did not receive the sanction and enjoy the sympathy and support of ecclesiastical authority. There seemed to be a profound realization of the fact on the part of both the would-be sectarian and the church that saintliness could never endure as an end in and of itself. It could only hope to survive by being made the servant of the social order. The otherworldly ideals of Peter Damiani, of Saint Bernard, of Saint Francis of Assisi, never soared beyond the authority of the pope and the magic supernaturalism of the holy sacraments. With tragic regularity the revolutionary heavenstorming idealism of the saintly ascetic returned with broken wing to the fold of the church convinced that nowhere else was its ideal possible of realization. We have thus the paradoxical situation that the moral enthusiasm born of otherworldliness is skilfully utilized to further the power of a secularized church. The Monk of Wittenberg finally broke away from the charmed circle of the Holy Catholic church.

The social significance of the saint depended upon this spiritual and moral solidarity the guarantee of which was found in the supreme authority of the church. On the other hand the secret of the spiritual power of the saint was dependent upon his keeping himself separate from a social order given over to sin. Here then we have an interesting paradox. The saintly ideal demands aloofness from the world and its utter renunciation and condemnation and yet any social justification for the saint implies his essential spiritual solidarity with the world. If the measure of moral perfection is separation from the world then a perfect saint, for all practical purposes, unless it be for immediate translation, is useless.

The reason for this lies in the fact that his goal, his entelechy as Aristotle would say, lies in another and a transcendental world. His social value, which of course must be measured in terms of his usefulness, decreases then as he nears maturity. This is equivalent to saying that the moral ideal stultifies itself in its attainment. But as we have seen the social solidarity secured to the mediaeval society through the all-encircling arm of the church never allowed the saint to break with the social order and thus cease to be socially valuable. The antagonism between the saint and his environment which was necessary to his rôle as spiritual leader was always subordinated to the good of society as a whole. There was always in the background of the social consciousness of both saint and laity the feeling of common spiritual interests and common ideals. In the saints, therefore, the characteristic products of the religious and moral life of the Middle Ages, we have as Froude has said, "the heroic patterns of a form of human life which each Christian within his own limits was endeavoring to realize."

The Middle Ages were most favorable to the life of the saint because of the exceeding simplicity of their social structure. The saint flourishes only in a simple society. The emotional intensity, the mystical absorption, the unshaken spiritual loyalty, the singleness of purpose so characteristic of the saint are difficult or even impossible of attainment where the complexities and the contrarities of life are constantly pressing in upon the soul. "The lives of the saints," as James has remarked, "are a history of successive renunciations of complication, one form of contact with the outer life being dropped after another to save the purity of the inner tone." ." The flight from the distractions of simple mediaeval society to the seclusion of the monastery was the result therefore of the psychological necessities of the saintly ideal. The entire life of the saint in his retreat was shaped so as still further to simplify the problem. No psychologist could have more successfully regulated the mental conditions necessary to the attainment of the saintly ideal of mystical contemplative love of God than Saint Benedict has done in his famous regula.3 Even then we constantly * Short Studies, I, 557. 2 Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 349.

3 See especially the detailed directions of chaps. iv and vii, The Rule of St. Benedict, ed. of Gasquet, London, 1909.

hear complaints of interruptions from the world. "Affairs," writes Hildebert a monk of the twelfth century, "the enemy of my spirit, come upon me, they claim me for their own, they thieve the private hour of prayer, they defraud the services of the sanctuary, they irritate me with their stings by day and infest my sleep; and what I can hardly speak of without tears, the creeping, furtive memory of disputes follows me miserable to the altar's sacraments."

It is probable, all things considered, that the Middle Ages came nearer socializing the saint than any other period of history. Certainly there has never been a time before or since when saintly enthusiasm was so thoroughly exploited in the service of the whole social order. This specialization in spiritual matters would hardly have been possible apart from the patriarchal régime of the Middle Ages. The community was composed of definite classes and social groups with clearly determined status. Each class was, however, indispensable to the welfare of the whole and found its justification in the service of the community. Upon the laity devolved the duty of providing the economic support for society and of propagating the race. The saint or "athlete of God" could not by virtue of his own vows of poverty and chastity share in these social duties. Men looked to him, however, to point them by word and act to a higher life; he was the center of spiritual inspiration, of social and moral reform, of intellectual leadership. Furthermore, he assumed, though on a smaller scale, the vicarious functions of the great head of the church. His sufferings and intercessions and also his superior merit were looked upon as most valuable social assets by the other members of the community to be utilized by them in case of need since they were forced by the logic of circumstances to live on a lower moral plane. The liberality of mediaeval society toward the spiritual orders, resulting in the rise of luxury and abuses which became their undoing, was in reality a pious and well-intentioned tribute to holiness and was prompted by a very deep and sincere realization of the social value of the saint. For the saint, to be sure, the living of one's life in actual society was a most perilous venture. Nothing but the strong hand of Hildebrand kept the fiery reformer, Peter Damiani, at his work. Even then, with his heart set on the seclusion of fair Monte Cassino, Damiani could * Quoted by Taylor, The Mediaeval Mind, II, 171.

write, "He errs, Father, errs indeed, who imagines he can be a monk and at the same time zealously serve the Curia. Ill he bargains, who presumes to desert the cloister, that he may take up the warfare of the world." Anselm, deeply immersed in the metaphysical problem of finding a final and comprehensive proof for the existence of God, was chosen abbot of the monastery of Bec. He flung himself in tears at the feet of his brother monks and besought them, though in vain, not to imperil his immortal soul with this burden of worldly cares. All the saints, whether it was the politician Hildebrand, the stern preacher of righteousness Bernard of Clairvaux, or the lovable mystic Francis of Assisi, viewed the vita contemplativa as the supreme ideal of life.

In spite of the large moral good sense of the church which insisted that the saint place his spiritual powers at the service of the community it was inevitable that the inherent self-contradictions in the saintly ideal should emerge in the course of time. The loss of healthful social contacts soon produced a distortion of the moral perspective. The imaginative absorption in the love of God, though charmingly beautiful, tended to destroy personality and produced the "theopathic" type such as Saint Francis. Constant introspective analysis of the processes of the soul-life induced grotesque exaggerations of the personal sense such as appear in the "voluble egotism" and the "stereotyped humility" of Saint Theresa. The unnatural separation of the individual from the social activities for which nature had fitted him caused strange perversions of powerful human instincts. Saint Louis was forced to shun all female society including that of his mother. Often religion degenerated in the case of neurotic females into an "endless amatory flirtation" with the deity. Finally this ideal placed its sanction upon a cowardly flight to the monastery where, embosomed in its innocuous calm, the saint might selfishly seek the peace of soul he was not strong enough to win surrounded by the full tide of life. Only the worldly wisdom of the church saved the saint from the gaunt and unlovely logic of his moral ideal. Having in her power the oracles of truth and the ultimate sanctions of conduct

I Taylor, The Mediaeval Mind, I, 264.

2 James, Varieties of Religious Experience, chaps. xv, xvi.

she forced the saint to abandon his impossible dualism and to recognize the spiritual ties that bound nature, man, and God together in one whole. She thus provided for the saint even against his will a vast and indispensable arena for the development of his powers. The moral energy often aroused by ecclesiastical excesses was thus appropriated by the church and skilfully utilized in strengthening her hold upon the world.

It was in this wise that the saint, even in spite of himself, became the symbol and the interpreter of the essential spiritual solidarity of mediaeval society. For the effective interpretation of this solidarity, which must be felt rather than grasped by reason, a peculiar temperamental equipment was necessary. Mere religiousness did not make the saint. "It is not unlikely," writes Joly, "that the saints. . . . are gifted, in matters concerning conscience and the spiritual life, with a delicate sensitiveness to which the ordinary run of men are strangers. There can be little doubt that the striking vitality and charm of the mediaeval as contrasted with the Protestant idea of the saint is due to the recognition in the former of the human side. The Protestant saint is elected by divine grace; in a certain sense he is not responsible for his saintliness; it is thrust upon him. The mediaeval saint was born. Benedict XIV in laying down regulations for canonization was careful to stipulate that in addition to the "heroic virtues" of faith, hope, and love there should be an equipment of "natural virtues" such as courage, justice, sympathy, and the like.

The delicate sensitiveness of the saint to the deeper spiritual values of his age, when joined with the ascetic mode of life, easily led to the belief that he enjoyed supernatural power. The miracle became practically the sign manual of sainthood. But it would be a great mistake to imagine that the mediaeval crop of marvelous tales of some 25,000 saints that have been gathered by the Bollandist editors is mainly significant as illustrating the credulity and superstitions of men. Gregory's Lives of the Saints, one of the earliest of the collections, illustrates their purpose. They sought to show that the saint is the special receptacle of divine grace. He is a symbol of universal values. He bodies forth in life and thought