§ 36. Spread of Anchorctism. Hilarion.
The example of Anthony acted like magic upon his generation, and his biography by Athanasius, which was soon traua
' Conip. the proofs in Tillemont, !. c. p. 137 sq.
' Dion, fol. 51, ed. Petav., cited in Tillemont and Ncander.
§ 36. SPREAD OF ANCH0RETI8M. 189
^ated also into Latin, was a tract for the times, Clirjsostom recommended, it to all as instructive and edifying reading.^ Even Augustine, the most evaugelical of the fathers, was powerfully affected by the reading of it in his decisive religioua struggle, and was decided by it in his entire reimnciation of the world."
In a short time, still in the lifetime of Anthony, the deserts of Egypt, from Nitria, south of Alexandria, and the wilderness of Scetis, to Libya and the Thebaid, were peopled with anchorets and studded with cells. A mania for monasticism possessed Christendom, and seized the people of all classes like an epidemic. As martyrdom had formerly been, so now monasticism was, the quickest and surest way to renown upon earth and to eternal reward in heaven. This prospect, with which Athanasius concludes his life of Anthony, abundantly recompensed all self-denial and mightily stimulated pious ambition. The consistent recluse must continually increase his seclusion. No desert was too scorching, no rock too forbidding, no clilf too steep, no cave too dismal for the feet of these world-hating and man-shunning enthusiasts. ISTothing was more common *han to see from two to five hundred monks under the same abbot. It has been supposed, that in Egypt the number of anchorets and cenobites equalled the population of the cities." The natural contrast between the desert and the fertile valley of the ]^ile, was reflected in the moral contrast between the monastic life and the world.
' Horn. viii. iu Mattli. torn. vii. 128 (ed. Montfaucon).
^ Comp. Aug. : Confess. 1. viii. c. G and 28.
' " Quauti populi," says Rufimis (Vitte Patr. ii c. 7), " habentur in arbibua, t.iintsB piene habentur in dcsertis multitudines monachorum." Gibbon adds the sarcastic remarlc : "Posterity might repeat the saying, which had formerly been applied to 3acre(\ animals of the same country, That in Egypt it was less difficult to find a god than a man." Mental embert (Monks of the West, vol. i. p. 314) says of the increase of monks : " Nothing in the wonderful history of these hermits in Egypt is so incredible as their number. But the most weighty authorities agreed in establishing it (S. Augustine, De morib. Eccles. i. 31). It was a kind of emigration of towns to the desert, of civilization to simplicity, of noise to silence, of corruption to innocence. The current once begun, floods of men, of women, and of children thre^ themselves into it. and flowed thither during a century with irresistible force."
190 THIRD PEEIOD. A.D. 311-590.
The elder Macarius ' introduced the liennit life in the frightful desert of Scetis ; Amun or Annnon," on the Nitrian mountain. The latter was married, but persuaded his bride, immediately after the nuptials, to live with liim in the strictest abstinence. Before the end of the fourth century there wero in Nitria alone, according to Sozomen, five thousand monks, who lived mostly in separate cells or laur^L^, and never spoke with one another except on Saturday and Sunday, when they assembled for common worship.
From Egypt the solitary life spread to the neighboring countries.
HiLARioN, whose life Jerome lias written graphically and at large,^ established it in the wilderness of Gaza, in Palestine and Syria. This saint attained amojig the anchorets of the fourth century an eminence second only to Anthony. lie was the son of pagan parents, and grew up '' as a rose among thorns.'' He went to school in Alexandria, diligently attended church, and avoided the circus, the gladiatorial shows, and the theatre. He afterward lived two months with St. Anthony, and became his most celebrated disciple. After the death of his parents, he distributed his inheritance among his brothers and the poor, and reserved nothing, fearing the example of Ananias and Sapphira, and remembering the word of Christ : " Whosoever he be of you, that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." * He then retired into the wilderness of Gaza, which was inhabited oidy by robbers and assassins ; battled, like Anthony, with obscene dreams and other temptations of the devil ; and so reduced his body — the "ass," which ought to iiave not barley, but chaff — with fastings and niglit watchings, that, while yet a youth of twenty years, he looked almost like a
' There were several (five or seven) iiucliorots of this name, wlio are often con founded. Tlie most celebrated are Macarius the elder, or tiie Great (f*3D0), to whom the Homilies probably belong ; and Macarius the younger, of Alexandria (f 404), the teacher of Palladius, who spent a long time with him, and set him as higli as the other. Comp. Tlllcmont's extended account, torn. viii. p. 5T4-()50, and the notes, p. 811 sqq.
* On Aramon, or, in Egyptian, Amus and Amun, comp. Ti'lemont, viiL p. 168- 166. and ihe notes, p. 672-074.
' Opera, tom. ii. p. 13-40.
* Lu. xiv. 33.