Monachism was so closely interwoven with the church system of the middle ages, that it may be thought a review of its history and tendencies should have been included in the former chapter: but it exerted so much influence peculiar to itself, and presents so many illustrations of the state of mediæval society, as to claim distinct consideration. SECTION I. RISE OF MONACHISM. Monachism did not spring from pure Christianity, but was engrafted upon the system, after it had been grievously corrupted. It is evidently one of the great offshoots of that ascetic principle which is indigenous in human nature, and of which the developments may be traced in the Jewish Essenes, the Greek Cynics, the Alexandrian Platonists, the British Druids, and the Eastern Brahmins. The practice of a monastic life, in its connexion with the church, commenced in Egypt, in the third century. The storms of persecution drove many into the deserts, where they sought to carry out the ascetic principles, which, even at that time, were so strongly advocated by Cyprian and others. The spirit of self-righteousness, which had led to the pharisaism of the Jews, and had produced no little of pharisaism among Christians, doubtless helped on the result; to which, perhaps, the contemplative habits of the east, the preference of quietude to activity, and the notion, that the height of religious excellence consists in the absorption of the mind by spiritual meditation, in some measure contributed. The founders of monachism were, in fact, hermits, who sought the cavern and the den, the ruins of sepulchres, and the dreariest spots of the desert, as scenes favourable to piety and communion with Heaven. That they were ignorant, deluded, and superstitious, is apparent enough; but it would be uncharitable, and contrary to historical evidence, to deny the sincerity and earnest devotion of many of these anchorets. They were men who felt the corruption of their nature, who realized the presence and agency of fallen spirits, and who sought to subdue the one, and to conquer the other, by their self-mortification. The desert was to them a place of awful silence, and sublime solitude, but no place of repose and peace, for there they were ever striving to crucify the flesh, and were hourly struggling with the powers of darkness. Gleams of noble feeling dart from amidst the darkness of their gross superstition; and, while we deplore the course they all pursued, we cannot but perceive the sublimity of the purpose by which many of them were animated. The first of the anchorets, whose name was Paul, has been immortalized by Jerome, who, in his inimitable biography of that singular person, affords a characteristic specimen of the absurd superstition and credulity, or something worse, which then overflowed the church, mingled with those elevated sentiments which, in many happy instances, were still cherished and expressed. The eloquent father relates the most absurd stories respecting his