Nor were the personal characters of the Popes who filled the see of Rome during the remainder of the century, such as to encourage any expectation that their influence would be employed to revive religion, or to encourage holy living. Worldliness and ambition, revenge and immorality, cast a deep shadow over the records of the papacy at this time, until the century closes with the reign of Alexander VI., or {111} Roderigo Borgia (A.D. 1492-A.D. 1503), who was elected by bribery, and whose shameless vice and cruelty brought greater scandals upon the Church than any of his predecessors had done. Section 3. _The Monastic Orders._ Monastic orders, though not by any means an invention of the Middle Ages, may yet fairly be said to have attained their height, both of prosperity and of usefulness, during this period of Church History. [Sidenote: Early rise of monasticism.] We may trace the origin of Christian monastic life to very early times, when persecution drove many Christians to a life of loneliness and privation in desert places. The mode of life thus begun from necessity was afterwards continued from choice, and in the hope of more complete self-devotion to God's service; and the solitary hermits and anchorites of primitive ages became the forerunners of an elaborate system of religious communities of men and women. [Sidenote: Later influences brought to bear on it.] St. Basil, in the fourth century, brought monasticism into a more definite form, and St. Athanasius during the same century introduced it into Europe from the East. In the West the religious life spread and flourished under the fostering care of such men as St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great, whilst by St. Benedict in the sixth century it was developed into the famous Benedictine rule, to which, with few exceptions, all the European monasteries conformed, and which was the parent of various minor orders or subdivisions[1]. {112} [Sidenote: Beneficial results of monasticism.]