One of the proofs of the Divine origin of the Church is her adaptability to the needs of successive generations. The Faith once for all delivered to the Saints is always the same, and so also are the Counsels of Our Lord for a life of perfection. But as we have a Christ-given Authority living on earth, the application of these Divine Counsels to the needs of human life have had to be adjusted from time to time to meet the various requirements of a changing world.

The first Religious of the Christian Faith were hermits, who lived austere lives in the caves of the desert. Later these men gathered together in monasteries, where they earned their living by farming, and lived holy lives singing the praises of God. The ideal of these early monastic foundations was always separation from this wicked world, and the construction of a brotherhood according to Christ. But by degrees a far off cry reached the ears of these sequestered Christians, the cry of the pain of the world, the agony of Christian slaves, and a sense of pity and responsibility for suffering humanity crept into their hearts. So heroic men sacrificed the security of the cloister and banded themselves together into Orders for the ransoming of slaves. The next inroad on the peace of the cloistered monk came from the ignorance and the religious needs of the laity, for whom the secular clergy were insufficient.