deas gathered
round it, growing at last to a distinct entity, which excited and urged
me on till I ventured to give it artistic expression in the form of a
narrative. I was prompted to elaborate this subject--which had long been
shaping itself to perfect conception in my mind as ripe material for a
romance--by my readings in Coptic monkish annals, to which I was led by
Abel's Coptic studies; and I afterwards received a further stimulus from
the small but weighty essay by H. Weingarten on the origin of
monasticism, in which I still study the early centuries of Christianity,
especially in Egypt.

This is not the place in which to indicate the points on which I feel
myself obliged to differ from Weingarten. My acute fellow-laborer at
Breslau clears away much which does not deserve to remain, but in many
parts of his book he seems to me to sweep with too hard a broom.

Easy as it would have been to lay the date of my story in the beginning
of the fortieth year of the fourth century instead of the thirtieth, I
have forborne from doing so because I feel able to prove with certainty
that at the time which I have chosen there were not only heathen recluses
in the temples of Serapis but also Christian anchorites; I fully agree
with him that the beginnings of organized Christian monasticism can in no
case be dated earlier than the year 350.

The Paulus of my story must not be confounded with the "first hermit,"
Paulus of Thebes, whom Weingarten has with good reason struck out of the
category of historical personages. He, with all the figures in this
narrative is a purely fictitious person, the vehicle for an idea, neither
more nor less. I selected no particular model for my hero, and I claim
for him no attribute but that of his having been possible at the period;
least of all did I think of Saint Anthony, who is now deprived even of
his distinguished biographer Athanasius, and who is represented as a man
of very sound judgment but of so scant an education that he was master
only of Egyptian.

The dogmatic controversies which were already kindled at the time of my
story I have, on careful consideration, avoided mentioning. The dwellers
on Sinai and in the oasis took an eager part in them at a later date.

That Mount Sinai to which I desire to transport the reader must not be
confounded with the mountain which lies at a long day's journey to the
south of it. It is this that has borne the name, at any rate since the
time of Jus