In Europe the convents for virgins increased no less rapidly. Two religious houses for young women were opened at Rome in the days of St. Anthony, and, no doubt, at his instigation. Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli, founded an establishment of the same kind close to his church; but the most remarkable of all these convents was that founded at Milan by St. Ambrose, a religious asylum in which his sister, Marcellina, and her faithful companion, Candida, took refuge. Towards the end of the fourth century, a Roman lady, St. Paula, built three convents and a monastery in Africa, the management of them being undertaken by St. Jerome. St. Augustine also founded two religious houses in his diocese of Hippona, one for cenobites, the other for virgins, imposing on them the regulations of St. Anthony and St. Pachomius, as to life in common and poverty. “There were at this time,” says this illustrious father, “monks all over the world.” They were called _monks_, from the Greek μóνος (alone), because of their solitary life; and _cenobites_, from the Greek words κοινóς and βíος (life in common). They abstained from meat and wine, living upon bread and fruits, and being only allowed to eat cooked vegetables on the Sunday. They were obliged to prepare their own food, and to make their own clothing. Upon Sunday they took the communion with the general congregation, and went back after the service into their monastery. [Illustration: Fig. 238.--History of St. Benedict.--On the left are the monks of a neighbouring monastery, who have come to seduce him from his hermitage in order to place him at their head; but the austerity of his rule soon dissatisfies them, and they resolve to rid themselves of him. On the right the monks are offering him a cup of poison, but, on his making the sign of the cross on the vase, it is shattered to pieces.--From a Fresco by Spinello d’Arezzo (1390) in the Church of San Miniato, near Florence.]