Anthony, the subject of familiar legends. A little later, however, Pachomius,[1] also an Egyptian, instituted the coenobites, or gregarious fraternity of ascetics, whose assemblage of cells, called a laura, was generally disposed in a circle around their common chapel and refectory. The extensive waste lands of Egypt greatly favoured the development of monachism; and within half a century the isle of Tabenna in the Nile, the Nitrian mountain, and the wilderness of Sketis, became densely populated with these fanatic recluses.[2] From Egypt the mania for leading a monastic life spread in all directions, and religious houses, on the initiative of Basil, began to invade the towns and suburban districts.[3] One of the most remarkable of these foundations was the monastery of Studius, erected at Constantinople (in 460) for the Acoemeti, or sleepless monks, whose devotional vigils were ceaseless both night and day.[4] After the promotion of Christianity to be the state religion, one emperor only, the ordinarily ineffective
- ↑ Sozomen, iii, 14.
- ↑ Socrates, iv, 23; Sozomen, i, 12, et seq. Previous to Christianity there were at least two communities of Jewish ascetics in the near East, the Essenes, who dwelt west of the Dead Sea, and the Therapeutae, who lived by Lake Moeris, near Alexandria. The first have been described briefly by Pliny (Hist. Nat., v, 15) and the second by Philo Judaeus in a separate tract (De Vita Contemplativa) respecting the authorship and date of which, however, opinion continually fluctuates; I do not know whether at present it is on the crest of the wave or in the trough of the sea. These solitaries consisted of males and females, and were recruited regularly by persons who became sick of the world and determined to fly far from the madding crowd. About them generally see Neander, Church Hist., Introd.
- ↑ Socrates, iv, 21; Gregory Nazianz., Laud. Basil (in Migne, ii, 577).
- ↑ Nicephorus, Cal., xv, 23; see p. 78. Not psalmody, however, says Card. Hardouin, but restless application to work. Manufacture of fictitious documents he insinuates, doubtless.
