But Christianity was a religion of men, and therefore human. If its exaggerations were natural, its reservations and its reactions were also natural. There were men whose admiration continued to be roused and whose affections continued to be touched by Virgil and Horace. There were men whose reason as well as whose instinct impelled them to employ the classic authors and the classic arts in the service of the new religion. Christianity possessed no distinct and separate media of expression and no separate body of knowledge which could bear fruit as matter of instruction. Pagan art and literature were indispensable whether for the study of history or of mere humanity. Christianity was therefore compelled to employ the old forms of art, which involved the use of the old instrumentalities of literary education. When, finally, paganism had fallen under its repeated assaults, what had been forced use became a matter of choice, and the classics were taken under the Church's protection and marked with her approval. The data regarding Horace in the Middle Age are few, but they are clear. We need not examine them all in order to draw conclusions. The monastic idea, of eastern origin and given currency in the West by Jerome, was first reduced to systematic practice by Benedict, who created the first Rule at Monte Cassino about the time of the Mavortian recension of Horace, in 527. New moral strength issued from the cloisters now rapidly established. Cassiodorus, especially active in promoting the spiritual phase of monkish retreat, made the intellectual life also his concern. Monte Cassino, between Naples and Rome, and Bobbio, in the northern part of the peninsula, were the great Italian centers. The Benedictine influence spread to Ireland, which before the end of the sixth century became a stronghold of the movement and an inspiration to England, Germany, France, and even Italy, where Bobbio itself was founded by Columban and his companions. St. Gall in Switzerland, Fulda at Hersfeld in Hesse-Nassau, Corvey in Saxony, Iona in Scotland, Tours in France, Reichenau on Lake Constance, were all active centers of religion and learning within two hundred years from Benedict's death.