sophers. They
allowed themselves the use of linen in Egypt, where it was a cheap and
domestic manufacture; but in the West they rejected such an expensive
article of foreign luxury. It was the practice of the monks either to
cut or shave their hair; they wrapped their heads in a cowl to escape
the sight of profane objects; their legs and feet were naked, except
in the extreme cold of winter; and their slow and feeble steps were
supported by a long staff. The aspect of a genuine anachoret was horrid
and disgusting: every sensation that is offensive to man was thought
acceptable to God; and the angelic rule of Tabenne condemned the
salutary custom of bathing the limbs in water, and of anointing them
with oil. The austere monks slept on the ground, on a hard mat, or a
rough blanket; and the same bundle of palm-leaves served them as a seat
in the lay, and a pillow in the night. Their original cells were low,
narrow huts, built of the slightest materials; which formed, by the
regular distribution of the streets, a large and populous village,
enclosing, within the common wall, a church, a hospital, perhaps a
library, some necessary offices, a garden, and a fountain or reservoir
of fresh water. Thirty or forty brethren composed a family of separate
discipline and diet; and the great monasteries of Egypt consisted of
thirty or forty families.

Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To Christianity.--Part II.

Pleasure and guilt are synonymous terms in the language of the monks,
and they discovered, by experience, that rigid fasts, and abstemious
diet, are the most effectual preservatives against the impure desires
of the flesh. The rules of abstinence which they imposed, or practised,
were not uniform or perpetual: the cheerful festival of the Pentecost
was balanced by the extraordinary mortification of Lent; the fervor of
new monasteries was insensibly relaxed; and the voracious appetite of
the Gauls could not imitate the patient and temperate virtue of the
Egyptians. The disciples of Antony and Pachomius were satisfied with
their daily pittance, of twelve ounces of bread, or rather biscuit,
which they divided into two frugal repasts, of the afternoon and of the
evening. It was esteemed a merit, and almost a duty, to abstain from
the boiled vegetables which were provided for the refectory; but the
extraordinary bounty of the abbot sometimes indulged them with the
luxury of cheese, fruit, salad, and the small dried