310 St. Jerome declares that “Monachum in patria sua perfectum esse non posse, perfectum autem esse nolle delinquere est.”—_Ep._ xiv. Dean Milman well says of a later period: “According to the monastic view of Christianity, the total abandonment of the world, with all its ties and duties, as well as its treasures, its enjoyments, and objects of ambition, advanced rather than diminished the hopes of salvation. Why should they fight for a perishing world, from which it was better to be estranged?... It is singular, indeed, that while we have seen the Eastern monks turned into fierce undisciplined soldiers, perilling their own lives and shedding the blood of others without remorse, in assertion of some shadowy shade of orthodox expression, hardly anywhere do we find them asserting their liberties or their religion with intrepid resistance. Hatred of heresy was a more stirring motive than the dread or the danger of Islamism. After the first defeats the Christian mind was still further prostrated by the common notion that the invasion was a just and heaven-commissioned visitation; ... resistance a vain, almost an impious struggle to avert inevitable punishment.”—Milman’s _Latin Christianity_, vol. ii. p. 206. Compare Massillon’s famous _Discours au Régiment de Catinat_:—“Ce qu’il y a ici de plus déplorable, c’est que dans une vie rude et pénible, dans des emplois dont les devoirs passent quelquefois la rigueur des cloîtres les plus austères, vous souffrez toujours en vain pour l’autre vie.... Dix ans de services ont plus usé votre corps qu’une vie entière de pénitence ... un seul jour de ces souffrances, consacré au Seigneur, vous aurait peut-être valu un bonheur éternel.” 311 See a very striking passage in Salvian, _De Gubern. Div._ lib. vi. 312 Chateaubriand very truly says, “qu’Orose et saint Augustin étoient plus occupés du schisme de Pélage que de la désolation de l’Afrique et des Gaules.”—_Études histor._ vime discours, 2de partie. The remark might certainly be extended much further. 313 Zosimus, _Hist._ v. 41. This was on the first occasion when Rome was menaced by Alaric. 314 See Merivale’s _Conversion of the Northern Nations_, pp. 207-210. 315 See Sismondi, _Hist. de la Chute de l’Empire romain_, tome i. p. 230. 316 Eunapius. There is no other authority for the story of the treachery, which is not believed by Gibbon.