Anyone who has explored a great Romanesque church has been impressed, even awed, by the mighty stone foundations supporting the great central tower. As four pillars give a firm base to these soaring structures, so four ancient Rules stand beneath the foundations of Western monasticism, giving a structure on which later spiritual architects, Benedict among them, would build. In this book Terrence Kardong explores the lives and Rules of four of the earliest monastic writers--Basil, Pachomius, Augustine, and the anonymous author of the rules of Lerins. In engaging fashion he shows how the lives and social milieu of these earliest founders shaped their monasticism.