During the Christian period of European history by far the most important of all epidemics, as it was indeed the earliest, was monasticism. This takes front rank because of its extent, the degree to which it prepared the ground for subsequent outbreaks, and because of its indirect, and, I think, too little noticed, social consequences. It may safely be said that no other movement has so powerfully affected European society as has the monasticism of the early Christian centuries. It cannot, of course, be urged that Christianity originated monasticism. India and Egypt had its ascetic practices and celibate priesthood long before the birth of Christianity, and indeed gave Christianity the pattern from which to work. But the main stream of social life remained unaffected to any considerable extent by this asceticism. The social and domestic virtues received full recognition from the upholders of the monastic life, and there is no evidence that asceticism ever assumed an epidemic form. It has often been the lot of the Christian Church to give a more intense expression to religious tendencies already existing, and this was so in the case before us. At any rate, it was left for the Christian Church to give to monasticism the character of an epidemic, to treat the purely social and domestic virtues as a positive hindrance to the religious life, seriously to disturb national well-being, and to come perilously near destroying civilisation. The origin of ascetic practices has already been indicated in a previous chapter. It has there been pointed out that the deliberate torture of mind and body arose from the belief that the induced states brought man into direct communion with supernatural powers, and that this element has continued in almost every religion in the world. Says Baring-Gould:--