The distress of Italy was mitigated by the prudence and humanity of Odoacer, who had bound himself, at the price of his elevation, to satisfy the demands of a licentious and turbulent multitude. The kings of the barbarians were frequently resisted, deposed, or murdered, by their native subjects; and the various bands of Italian mercenaries, who associated under the standard of an elective general, claimed a larger privilege of freedom and rapine. A monarchy destitute of national union, and hereditary right, hastened to its dissolution. After a reign of fourteen years, Odoacer was oppressed by the superior genius of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, a hero alike excellent in the arts of war and of government, who restored an age of peace and prosperity, and whose name still excites and deserves the attention of mankind.

CHAP. XXXVII.

Origin, progress, and effects of the monastic life.-Conversion of the barbarians to Christianity and Arianism.-Persecution of the Vandals in Africa.-Extinction of Arianism among the barbarians. THE indissoluble connexion of civil and ecclesiastical affairs, has compelled and encouraged me to relate the progress, the persecutions, the establishment, the divisions, the final triumph, and the gradual corruption of Christianity. I have purposely delayed the consideration of two religious events, interesting in the study of human nature, and important in the decline and fall of the Roman empire. I. The institution of the monastic life;" and, II. The conversion of the northern barbarians.

a The origin of the monastic institution has been laboriously discussed by Thomasin, (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. 1. p. 1419-1426.) and Helyot. (Hist. des Ordres Monastiques, tom. 1. p. 1-66.) These authors are very learned and tolerably honest, and their difference of opinion shews the subject in its full extent. Yet the cautious Protestant, who distrusts any popish guides, may consult the seventh book of Bingham's Christian Antiquities.

I. The MO

NASTIC

LIFE.

I. Prosperity and peace introduced the distinction of the vulgar and the Ascetic Christians." Origin of The loose and imperfect practice of religion sathe monks. tisfied the conscience of the multitude. The prince or magistrate, the soldier or merchant, reconciled their fervent zeal, and implicit faith, with the exercise of their profession, the pursuit of their interest, and the indulgence of their passions; but the Ascetics, who obeyed and abused the rigid precepts of the gospel, were inspired by the savage enthusiasm, which represents man as a criminal, and God as a tyrant. They seriously renounced the business, and the pleasures, of the age; abjured the use of wine, of flesh, and of marriage; chastised their body, mortified their affections, and embraced a life of misery, as the price of eternal happiness. In the reign of Constantine, the Ascetics fled from a profane and degenerate world, to perpetual solitude, or religious society. Like the first Christians of Jerusalem, they resigned the use, or the property, of their temporal possessions; established regular communities of the same sex, and a similar disposition; and assumed the names of Hermits, Monks, and Anachorets, expressive of their lonely retreat in a natural or artificial desert. They soon acquired the respect of the world, which they despised; and the loudest applause was bestowed on this DIVINE PHILOSOPHY," which surpassed, without the aid of science or reason, the laborious virtues of the Grecian schools. The monks might indeed contend with the Stoics, in the contempt of fortune, of

b See Useb. Demonstrat. Evangel. (lib. 1. p. 20, 21. edit. Græc. Rob. Stephani, Paris, 1545.) In his Ecclesiastical History, published twelve years after the Demonstration, Eusebius (lib. 2. c. 17.) asserts the Christianity of the Therapeuta; but he appears ignorant, that a similar institution was actually revived in Egypt. c Cassian (Collat. 18. 5.) claims this origin for the institution of the Canobites, which gradually decayed till it was restored by Antony and his disciples.

· Ωφελιμωτατον γαρ τι χρημα εις ανθρώπους ελθουσα παρα Θεου ἡ τοιαύτη φιλοσοφία. These are the expressive words of Sozomen, who copiously and agreeably describes (lib. 1. c. 12-14.) the origin and progress of this monkish philosophy. (See Suicer. Thesau. Eccles. tom. 2. p. 1441.) Some modern writers, Lipsius, (tom. 4. p. 448. Manuduct. ad Philosoph. Stoic. 3. 13.) and La Mothe le Vayer, (tom. 9. de la Vertu des Payens, p. 228-262.) have compared the Carmelites to the Pythagoand the Cynics to the Capuchins.

reans,

pain, and of death: the Pythagorean silence and submission were revived in their servile discipline; and they disdained, as firmly as the Cynics themselves, all the forms and decencies of civil society. But the votaries of this divine philosophy aspired to imitate a purer and more perfect model. They trod in the footsteps of the prophets, who had retired to the desert; and they restored the devout and contemplative life, which had been instituted by the Essenians, in Palestine and Egypt. The philosophic eye of Pliny had surveyed with astonishment a solitary people, who dwelt among the palm-trees near the Dead Sea; who subsisted without money, who were propagated without women; and who derived from the disgust and repentance of mankind, a perpetual supply of voluntary associates.'

Antony and the

monks of

Egypt, the fruitful parent of superstition, afforded the first example of the monastic life. Egypt. Antony, an illiterate" youth of the lower parts of Thebais, distributed his patrimony, deserted

A.D. 305.

The Carmelites derive their pedigree, in regular succession, from the prophet Elijah. (see the Theses of Beziers, A. D. 1682. in Bayle's Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres, Œuvres, tom. 1. p. 82, &c. and the prolix irony of the Ordres Monastiques, an anonymous work, tom. 1. p. 1-433. Berlin, 1751.) Rome, and the inquisition of Spain, silenced the profane criticism of the Jesuits of Flanders. (Helyot, Hist. des Ordres Monastiques, tom. 1. p. 282--300.) and the statue of Elijah, the Carmelite, has been erected in the church of St. Peter. (Voyages du P. Labat, tom. 3. p. 87.)

Plin. Hist. Natur. 5. 15. Gens sola, et in toto orbe præter ceteras mira, sine ullâ feminâ, omni venere abdicatâ, sine pecuniâ, socia palmarum. Ita per seculorum millia (incredible dictu) gens æterna est in quâ nemo nascitur. Tam fœcunda illis aliorum vitæ pœnitentia est. He places them just beyond the noxious influence of the lake, and names Engaddi and Masada as the nearest towns. The Laura, and monastery of St. Sabas, could not be far distant from this place. See Reland, Palestin. tom. 1. p. 295. tom. 2. p. 763. 874. 880. 890.

See Athanas. Op. tom. 2. p. 450-505. and the Vit. Patrum, p. 26-74. with Rosweyde's Annotations. The former is the Greek original; the latter, a very ancient Latin version by Evagrius, the friend of St. Jerome.

h гpaμμara μev μady oux verXETO. Athanas. tom. 2. in Vit. St. Anton. p. 452. and the assertion of his total ignorance has been received by many of the ancients and moderns. But Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. 7. p. 666.) shews, by some probable arguments, that Antony could read and write in the Coptic, his native tongue; and that he was only a stranger to the Greek letters. The philosopher Synesius (p. 51.) acknowledges, that the natural genius of Antony did not require the aid of learning.

Arure autem erant ei trecente uberes, et valde optimæ. (Vit. Patr. lib. 1. p. 36.) If the Arura be a square measure of a hundred Egyptian cubits, (Rosweyde, Onomasticon ad Vit. Patrum, p. 1014, 1015.) and the Egyptian cubit of all ages be equal to twenty-two English inches, (Graves, vol. 1. p. 233.) the arura will consist of about three quarters of an English acre.

k

his family and native home, and executed his monastic penance with original and intrepid fanaticism. After a long and painful noviciate, among the tombs, and in a ruined tower, he boldly advanced into the desert three days' journey to the eastward of the Nile; discovered a lonely spot, which possessed the advantages of shade and water, and fixed his last residence on mount Colzim near the Red Sea; where an ancient monastery still preserves the name and memory of the saint. The curious devotion of the Christians pursued him to the desert; and when he was obliged to appear at Alexandria, in the face of mankind, he supported his fame with discretion and dignity. He enjoyed the friendship of Athanasius, whose doctrine he approved; and the Egyptian peasant respectfully declined a respectful invitation from the emperor Constantine. The -356. venerable patriarch (for Antony attained the age of one hundred and five years) beheld the numerous progeny which had been formed by his example and his lessons. The prolific colonies of monks multiplied with rapid increase on the sands of Libya, upon the rocks of Thebais, and in the cities of the Nile. To the south of Alexandria, the mountain and adjacent desert of Nitria, were peopled by five thousand anachorets; and the traveller may still investigate the ruins of fifty monasteries, which were planted in that barren soil by the disciples of Antony.' In the Upper Thebais, the vacant island of Tabenne" was occupied by Pachomius, and fourteen hundred of his brethren. That holy abbot successively

A. D. 251

The description of the monastery is given by Jerome, (tom. 1. p. 248, 249. in Vit. Hilarion.) and the P. Sicard. (Missions du Levant, tom. 5. p. 122—200.) Their accounts cannot always be reconciled: the father painted from his fancy, and the Jesuit from his experience.

Jerom. tom. 1. p. 146. ad Eustochium. Hist. Lausiac. c. 7. in Vit. Patrum, p. 712. The P. Sicard (Missions du Levant, tom. 2. p. 29-79.) visited, and has described, this desert, which now contains four monasteries, and twenty or thirty monks. See D'Anville, Description de l'Egypte, p. 74.

Tabenne is a small island in the Nile, in the diocess of Tentyra or Dendera, between the modern town of Girge and the ruins of ancient Thebes. (D'Anville, p. 194.) M. de Tillemont doubts whether it was an isle; but I may conclude, from his own facts, that the primitive name was afterward transferred to the great monastery of Bau or Pabau. (Mem. Eccles. tom. 7. p. 678. 688.)

founded nine monasteries of men, and one of women; and the festival of Easter sometimes collected fifty thousand religious persons, who followed his angelic rule of discipline." The stately and populous city of Oxyrinchus, the seat of Christian orthodoxy, had devoted the temples, the public edifices, and even the ramparts, to pious and charitable uses; and the bishop, who might preach in twelve churches, computed ten thousand females, and twenty thousand males, of the monastic profession. The Egyptians, who gloried in this marvellous revolution, were disposed to hope, and to believe, that the number of the monks was equal to the remainder of the people;" and posterity might repeat the saying, which had formerly been applied to the sacred animals of the same country, that, in Egypt, it was less difficult to find a god than a man.

Propaga

monastic

life at

A. D. 341.

Athanasius introduced into Rome the knowtion of the ledge and practice of the monastic life; and a school of this new philosophy was opened by Rome, the disciples of Antony, who accompanied their primate to the holy threshold of the Vatican. The strange and savage appearance of these Egyptians excited, at first, horror and contempt, and at length, applause and zealous imitation. The senators, and more especially the matrons, transformed their palaces and villas into religious houses; and the narrow institution of six vestals, was eclipsed by the frequent monasteries which were seated on the ruins of ancient temples, and in the midst of the Roman Forum. Inflamed by the example of Antony, a Syrian youth whose name was n See in the Codex Regularum, (published by Lucas Hulstenius, Rome, 1661. a preface of St. Jerome to his Latin version of the Rule of Pachomius, tom. 1. p. 61.

• Rufin. c. 5. in Vit. Patrum, p. 459. He calls it, civitas ampla valde et populosa, and reckons twelve churches. Strabo (lib. 17. p. 1166.) and Ammianus, (22. 16.) have made honourable mention of Oxyrinchus, whose inhabitants adored a small fish in a magnificent temple.

P Quanti populi habentur in urbibus, tantæ pene habentur in desertis multitu dines monachorum. Rufin. c. 7. in Vit. Patrum, p. 461. He congratulates the fortunate change.

The introduction of the monastic life into Rome and Italy, is occasionally mentioned by Jerome. (tom. 1. p. 119, 120. 199.)