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trifling, frantic, absurd, and ridiculous, mixed with everlasting apparitions of devils, and with miracles of the most useless, fantastic and improbable kind. So the whole is a strange medley of piety and folly, sense and nonsense.

Concerning the miracles wrought in the fourth and fifth centuries, this general observation may be made, that they were usually performed, either to serve the cause of the Consubstantialists and to run down Arianism, (as afterwards Nestorianism and Pelagianism), or to establish the adoration of saints and of reliques, or to represent a monastic life as the summit of human piety, the quintessence of perfection, and a service the most acceptable to heaven. One would wonder how the physicians did to live in those days, when this effusion of miracles seemed to have rendered their art altogether unnecessary. They could have had no business, except amongst Pagans, Jews, heretics, and schismatics.

The Egyptian monks, says Sozomen, preserved with great care the memory of the wonders wrought by their founders and fore-fathers; but they thought it proper to deliver them down from one to another by word of mouth, not by written records. Perhaps they were driven to this method by necessity, and because they could neither write nor read.

As a story never loses.in telling, the wonders were daily augmented by this excellent contrivance, and the traditionary snow-ball, rolled about by the monks, licked up new materials, and made a considerable figure. Πολλὰ δὲ καὶ θεσπέσια ἐπ' αὐτῷ συμβέβηκεν, ἃ μάλιςα τοῖς à κατ' Αἴγυπτον Μοναχοῖς ἀκρίβωται, περὶ πολλὰ ποιμένοις, διαδοχῇ παραδόσεως ΑΓΡΑΦΟΥ ἐπιμελῶς ἀπομνημονεύειν τὰς τῶν παλαιοτέ Ασκητῶν ἀρελάς. Aoxnlar ágelás. Multa porro per eum (Ammonem)

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mirabilia

mirabilia contigerunt, quæ ab Egypti Monachis studiose notata sunt: quippe qui magni æstimant, veterum Monachorum virtutes continua successione sibi a majoribus traditas accurate commemorare, i. 14.

Valesius hath not expressed the sense altogether so clearly as he ought to have done.

The Egyptians were by nature disposed to bear ansterities and mortifications, and fit to become monks. Homines autem Egyptü plerique subfusculi sunt, et atrati-gracilenti, et aridi, ad singulos motus excandescentes, controversi et reposcones acerrimi. Erubescit apud eos, si quis non inficiando tributa, plurimas in corpore vibices ostendat. Et nulla tormentorum vis inveniri adhuc potuit, que obdurato illius tractus latroni invito elicere potuit, ut nomen proprium dicat. Amm. Marcell. xxii. 16. Aiγυπτίας φασὶ δεινῶς ἐγκαρἹερεῖν ταῖς βασάνοις, καὶ ὅτι θᾶτζον τεθνήξε ται ἀνὴρ Αἰγύπτιος ςρεβλόμενος ἢ τ' ἀληθὲς ὁμολογήσε. Ælian

Var. Hist. vii. 18.

The Emperor Valens made a law to compel the monks to serve civil offices, and, as some say, to serve in the army, which was no bad scheme. See Cod. Theod. 1. xii. Tit. i. p. 409. and Gothofred's notes, and Tillemont H. E. viii, 608. SOS.

Quidam ignavice sectatores, desertis civitatum muneribus, captant solitudines ac secreta, et specie religionis cum cœtibus Monazontón congregantur. Hos igitur atque hujusmodi, intra Ægyptum deprehensos, per Comitem Orientis, erui e latebris consulta præceptione mandavimus, atque ad munia patriarum subeunda revocari.-Cod. Th. The same law is to be found in Justinian's Code. Many of these monks, as it appears from ecclesiastical history, had such a martial spirit, and were so addicted to fighting,' that they were fitter for the camp than for the cloister.

But

But it is not probable that Valens would have done the Egyptian monks so much honour as to list them for soldiers, or that they had the legal qualifications requisite for it. He compelled them militare, as Orosius and others say; but in those days the words militia and militare were used for all kind of public offices, civil as well as military.

In the fourth century the number of the monks and nuns of Egypt alone amounted to more than ninety-six thousand. Fleury H. E. v. p. 30.

One reason of this multiplication of monks was, that they were a collection of all sorts of people, of beggars, fugitives, vagabonds, slaves, day-labourers, peasants, mechanics of the lowest sort, thieves and highway-men, inured to stripes, poverty, hunger, and hardships, so that a monastic life, such as it was, was preferable to that which they had led, and by becoming monks, they became gentlemen, and a sort of saints. We find from Augustin, that several of them refused to labour with their hands, and expected to be maintained in laziness, pretending that the good instruction which they imparted, and the good example which they set, deserved such a recompence; for which this father reprimands them. ii. Retract. c. 21,

The monks in all times had their friends and their foes, the first were generally of the clergy, and the second of the laity,

In the fourth century the people of Rome for the most part (as we learn from Jerom) abhorred the monks who repaired thither from the east, as beggarly impostors, and hungry Greeks, who seduced ladies of fortunes and quality, and often ruined their health by persuading them to practise rigid mortifications and

austerities,

When

When Jerom departed from Rome, A. D. 385, Paula with her daughter Eustochium followed him, She was an illustrious lady, of the family of the Gracchi and the Cornelii. Before she set out, she divided her effects amongst her children; and then went to the haven, accompanied by her young, afflicted, weeping family, her brother, her children, and her kindred. Parvus Toxotius, says Jerom, supplices manus tendebat in litore. Rufina jam nubilis, ut suas expectaret nuptias, tacitis fletibus obsecrabat. But Paula, like another Regulus *, brake through all these dear obstacles. She went to Cyprus, to kiss the feet of Epiphanius; thence to Antioch to visit Paulinus, and thence I know not whither.

What a folly for a grave matron to leave her family out of devotion, and, transformed into a religious gypsie, to roam about by sea and land from place to place, to visit monks and ecclesiastics! and what a still greater indiscretion in Jerom to countenance such things! The laics in those days had just cause to dislike the monks, who put such superstitious fancies into the heads of their mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters, and taught them to throw away their time and their money too; for these travelling ladies used to carry alms and oblations with them, to be distributed as the directors of conscience should advise.

Homer was a much better preacher upon this subject, than the fathers of the fourth and following centuries:

* Fertur pudica conjugis osculum,
Parvosque natos, ut capitis minor,
Ab se removisse, et virilem
Torvus bumi posuise vultum,

Αλλ'

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II. Z.

Αλλ' εἰς οἶκον ἔᾶσα τὰ (αυλῆς ἔργα κόμιζε.
Ισόν τ' ἠλακάτην τε, καὶ ἀμφιπόλοισι κέλευε
Εργον ἐποίχεσθαι

Melania, the younger, had the same kind of zeal, and was much admired for it. Piniano juncta erat, juveni nobilissimo, quem duorum filiorum patrem fecerat. Tantum eam coepit odium matrimonii, ut dixerit marito suo Piniano filio Severi, qui erat ex Præfectis, Si volueris quidem habitare mecum ut ratio dictat, te dominum agnosco. Sin autem hoc tibi grave videtur utpote juveni, res omnes meas tibi habe, et solum sine me esse corpore liberam, Deus postea misertus adolescentis, ei zelum pietatis immisit. Cum ergo

nupsisset viro, tredecim annos nata, septem vero cum eo vixisset, vigesimo ætatis suæ anno mundo renunciat. Pallad. Laus. Omnia sua serica integumenta dedit altaribus, parteque prædiorum longe maximá distractâ, collectam pecuniam in Palestinam, Egyptum, aliasque regiones pauperibus Monachisque distribuendam misit. S. Basnage Ann, iii. 228. This was A. D. 408.

Ambrose was one of the violent declaimers in favour of virginity, and in a treatise on that subject he exhorts girls to enter into Nunneries, though against the will of their parents, which was highly indiscreet, to say no more, and which gave great offence to many Christians, even in those days. De Virgin. See Barbeyrac. Du Pin. T. ii. p. 246.

Constantine had a great desire to accomplish two very laudable designs: the first was to propagate Christianity and to convert unbelievers; the other

*No more-but hasten to thy tasks at home,
There guide the spindle, and direct the loom,

was

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