325 The fullest view of this age is given in a very learned little work by Peter Erasmus Müller (1797), _De Genio Ævi Theodosiani_. Montfaucon has also devoted two essays to the moral condition of the Eastern world, one of which is given in Jortin’s _Remarks on Ecclesiastical History_. 326 See on these abuses Mosheim, _Eccl. Hist._ (Soame’s ed.), vol. i. p. 463; Cave’s _Primitive Christianity_, part i. ch. xi. 327 Cave’s _Primitive Christianity_, part i. ch. vii. _ 328 Ep._ lxi. 329 Evagrius describes with much admiration how certain monks of Palestine, by “a life wholly excellent and divine,” had so overcome their passions that they were accustomed to bathe with women; for “neither sight nor touch, nor a woman’s embrace, could make them relapse into their natural condition. Among men they desired to be men, and among women, women.” (_H. E._ i. 21.) 330 These “mulieres subintroductæ,” as they were called, are continually noticed by Cyprian, Jerome, and Chrysostom. See Müller, _De Genio Ævi Theodosiani_, and also the _Codex Theod._ xvi. tit. ii. lex 44, with the Comments. Dr. Todd, in his learned _Life of St. Patrick_ (p. 91), quotes (I shall not venture to do so) from the _Lives of the Irish Saints_ an extremely curious legend of a kind of contest of sanctity between St. Scuthinus and St. Brendan, in which it was clearly proved that the former had mastered his passions more completely than the latter. An enthusiast named Robert d’Arbrisselles is said in the twelfth century to have revived the custom. (Jortin’s _Remarks_, A.D. 1106.) 331 St. Jerome gives (_Ep._ lii.) an extremely curious picture of these clerical flatterers, and several examples of the terms of endearment they were accustomed to employ. The tone of flattery which St. Jerome himself, though doubtless with the purest motives, employs in his copious correspondence with his female admirers, is to a modern layman peculiarly repulsive, and sometimes verges upon blasphemy. In his letter to Eustochium, whose daughter as a nun had become the “bride of Christ,” he calls the mother “Socrus Dei,” the mother-in-law of God. See, too, the extravagant flatteries of Chrysostom in his correspondence with Olympias. 332 “Pudet dicere sacerdotes idolorum, mimi et aurigæ et scorta hæreditates capiunt; solis clericis et monachis hoc lege prohibetur, et prohibetur non a persecutoribus, sed a principibus Christianis. Nec de lege conqueror sed doleo cur meruerimus hanc legem.” _Ep._ lii. 333 See Milman’s _Hist. of Early Christianity_, vol. ii. p. 314. 334 This was one cause of the disputes between St. Gregory the Great and the Emperor Eustace. St. Chrysostom frequently notices the opposition of the military and the monastic spirits. 335 Hieron. _Ep._ cxxviii.