The first Christian monks followed the Essenes in this particular also, that they despised human science; and it was not until learning had been driven from among secular persons, that it took refuge in monasteries. If the monks had avoided the infection of the philosophy, "falsely so called," which the Platonists brought into the church, and instead, had given their leisure to the toils of biblical learning, they would not so soon and so completely have spoiled Christianity. Sulpitius affords abundant illustration of the topics adverted to in this section. Perhaps, within so small a compass, the principles and practices of the ancient monachism are nowhere else so fully brought into view, as in his Dialogues and Epistles. He may properly be quoted in the present instance. Postumianus, lately returned from the east, that is to say, from Egypt, Arabia, and Palestine, describes to his astonished brethren of a monastery in Gaul, the abstemiousness the oriental monks, as well as their piety and marvellous exploits. (On his outward voyage Postumianus had gone ashore at Carthage to visit the spots dedicated to the saints; especially—ad sepulchrum Cypriani Martyris adorare.) His first specimen of a monkish dinner, in the oriental style, was the being invited to partake, with four others, of half a barley cake; to which was added a handful of a certain sweet herb, altogether deemed to be—prandium locupletissimum. Sulpitius hence takes occasion to joke a brother, who was present, upon their own comparative appetites; but he replies that it was extremely unkind to urge upon _Gauls_ a manner of living proper only to angels. Hearty eating, says he, in a Greek, is gluttony; but in a Gaul—nature. SECTION IX.