Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/146

no THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE at least nominal converts and the Church began to grow wealthy, many persons began to feel that they must do something more than belong to the Church or even to the clergy, if they wished to be sure of saving their souls. Their method was to flee to the desert, to seclude themselves in tombs and caves, to see nothing of the opposite sex, to eat and sleep very little, to wash even less, in general to avoid doing anything pleasant, to have no property or passions or will of their own, to forget all family and social ties, to spend their time partly in some dull, mechanical operation like weaving baskets or copying manuscripts in order to eke out their scanty existence, and to pass the rest of each day in prayer, repeating Scripture, and other acts which would keep their minds off any other subject than religion. All this may seem to us gloomy and unprofitable, but to them it seemed the path to perfect peace, happiness, and contentment. The age delighted in stories of the recluse who burned unread a package of letters from his family containing the first news that he had had of them for fifteen years, of the hermit who ate but one meal a week for thirty years, or of the grazing monks who lived on the grass of the fields & la Nebuchadnezzar. The movement started in Egypt, where Antony was the first noted hermit and where Pachomius established some Egyptian of the earliest Christian monasteries. Antony monachism at twenty g^ fa e pr0 perty which his parents had left him, distributed the proceeds to the poor, and spent the remaining eighty-five years of his life as a hermit — the last fifty in a mountain three days' journey beyond the Nile in order to escape from his throngs of admirers. Pachomius founded ten monasteries, each of about three hundred inmates. The monks labored at different trades, such as carpenter, tanner, smith, cobbler, tailor, as well as in the kitchen and fields of the monastery. They learned the Bible by heart and held four daily religious services. They lived in individual cells and had their meals at different hours. The Rule of Pachomius strictly prohibited all ablutions except in case of sickness.