Mona
a small island of the West Indies, 42 miles W. of Porto Rico, in the MONACHISM 10,000 acres. It is a coral formation.
The general level being about 60 feet above the sea-level, with a range of hills on the E. side of the island. All kinds of tropical fruits grow in profusion. It is the nesting place of thousands of green turtles. Mona came into possession of the United States under the peace treaty with Spain in 1898. The only resident on the island is a lighthouse keeper.
MONACHISM (mon'a-kizm), the system of monastic life; monkery, monkishness. The ultimate fact on which monachism rests is that many people are born with a tendency to contemplation and, if pious, consider that they will be more free from temptation to sin by retiring from the ordinary world. Hot climates strengthen these feelings, and monachism has flourished most luxuriantly in Asia, Africa, and southern Europe.
Ethnic Monachism. The most gigantic and earliest development of monachism was that of BUDDHISM (q. v.). The Jain system is also monastic. Brahmanism possessed it to a considerable extent. Of the Hindu Triad the worship of Brahma scarcely exists; connected with that of Vishnu and Siva there are many monastic orders or sects. Most of them arose about the same dates as the leading religious orders of Christendom were instituted.
Nazarites Jewish Monachism. - The were an ascetic sect temporarily under vows, but not bound to celibacy, which is nowhere enjoined even on priests under the Mosaic law. But genuine Jewish monasticism, with its celibacy as well as its asceticism and seclusion from society, seems to have begun with the ESSENES (q. v.), and to have been continued by the THERAPEUTE (q. v.).
Christian Monachism. - In the 2d century certain persons who aimed at stricter piety than their neighbors often held converse together without quite separating from society. They were of the Therapeutæ, who prepared the way for the rise of monachism. In the 3d century Paul ranged through the desert of Thebais in Upper Egypt during the ascetics, and were the successors Decian persecutions. He and others who acted similarly were called anchorets or anchorites, or persons who retire from society, also eremites or hermits, that is, persons who live in the desert (see HER- MIT). They frequently resided in caves.
In 305 Anthony, an Egyptian monk, collected many of the eremites into communities. These were called cœnobites from their living in common. The same discipline spread through western Asia and MONACO Europe. From among the Eremites who lived apart from each other sprung the Sarabaites and Gyrovagi (Vagabond monks), disreputable races, the Stylites, or Pillar Saints, associated forever with the name of Simeon, who died in 451. In the 6th century St. Benedict introduced new regulations, and all the monastic orders for some centuries were Benedictine. The wealth acquired by monastic communities led to corruption and early in the arose mendicant 13th century there orders vowed to poverty (see MENDICANT 13th century there arose mendicant ORDERS). At first all the monks were laymen; now they consist of three classes: (1) Priests; (2) choir monks, in minor orders; and (3) lay-brothers, who act as servants and laborers. The influence of the mendicant orders was on the wane at the Reformation, and the Jesuits took their place. At that date many monasteries in England and elsewhere were deprived of their endowments and suppressed. Those of France were swept away in the first Revolution.
See MONASTERY: MONK: NUN.
MONACO (mon'ä-kō), a principality lying between the French department of Alpes Maritimes (Nice) and the Mediterranean. In 1861 the Prince of Monaco sold the departments of Mentone and Roccabruna to France for $800,000; and the principality has since been confined to an area of 8 square miles. A constitution was granted in 1911. Pop. about 25,000. The prince (a scion of the house of Grimaldi) exercises both legislative and executive functions, while the people are exempt from taxation, as the revenue is almost entirely derived from the rents of the gaming establishment. The capital, Monaco, pop. about 2,300, is a renowned watering-place. About a mile to the E. is MONTE CARLO (q. v.), a collection of hotels and villas which have sprung up near the luxurious gardens of the handsome gambling casino, established here in 1860.