asting. How long must we refrain from driving these detestable monks
out of Rome? Why do we not stone them or hurl them into the Tiber? They
have misled this unhappy mother; that she is not a nun from choice is
clear. No heathen mother ever wept for her children as she does for
Blaesilla." And this is Paula, who, choked with grief, refused to weep
when she sailed from her children for the far East!

Unhappily, history is often too dignified to retail the conversations of
the dinner-table and the gossip of private life. But this narrative
indicates that in many a Roman family the monk was feared, despised and
hated. Sometimes everyday murmurs found their way into literature and so
passed to posterity. Rutilius, the Pagan poet, as he sails before a
hermit isle in the Mediterranean, exclaims: "Behold, Capraria rises
before us; that isle is full of wretches, enemies of light. I detest
these rocks scene of a recent shipwreck." He then goes on to declare
that a young and rich friend, impelled by the furies, had fled from men
and gods to a living tomb, and was now decaying in that foul retreat.
This was no uncommon opinion. But contrast it with what Ambrose said of
those same isles: "It is there in these isles, thrown down by God like a
collar of pearls upon the sea, that those who would escape from the
charms of dissipation find refuge. Nothing here disturbs their peace,
all access is closed to the wild passions of the world. The mysterious
sound of waves mingles with the chant of hymns; and, while the waters
break upon the shores of these happy isles with a gentle murmur, the
peaceful accents of the choir of the elect ascend toward Heaven from
their bosom." No wonder the Milanese ladies guarded their daughters
against this theological poet.

Even among the Christians there were hostile as well as friendly critics
of monasticism; Jovinian, whom Neander compares to Luther, is a type of
the former. Although a monk himself, he disputed the thesis that any
merit lay in celibacy, fasting or poverty. He opposed the worship of
saints and relics, and believed that one might retain possession of his
property and make good use of it. He assailed the dissolute monks and
claimed that many of Rome's noblest young men and women were withdrawn
from a life of usefulness into the desert. He held that there was really
but one class of Christians, namely, those who had faith in Christ, and
that a monk could be no more. But Jovinian was far in a