to use the words "Mother of God" as the title of Jesus'
mother, and for falling short in other points of what was then thought
orthodoxy, he was banished to Hibe in the Great Oasis. While he was
living there, the Great Oasis was overrun by the Blemmyes, the Roman
garrison was defeated, and those that resisted were put to the sword.
The Blemmyes pillaged the place and then withdrew; and, being themselves
at war with the Mazices, another tribe of Arabs, they kindly sent their
prisoners to the Thebaid, lest they should fall into the hands of
the latter. Nestorius then went to Panopolis to show himself to the
governor, lest he should be accused of running away from his place of
banishment, and soon afterwards he died of the sufferings brought on by
these forced and painful journeys through the desert.

About the same time Egypt was visited by Cassianus, a monk of Gaul, in
order to study the monastic institutions of the Thebaid. In his work on
that subject he has described at length the way of life and the severe
rules of the Egyptian monks, and has recommended them to the imitation
of his countrymen. But the natives of Italy and the West do not seem
to have been contented with copying the Theban monks at a distance. Such
was the fame of the Egyptian monasteries that many zealots from Italy
flocked there, to place themselves under the severe discipline of those
holy men. As these Latin monks did not understand either Koptic or
Greek, they found some difficulty in regulating their lives with the
wished-for exactness; and the rules of Pachomius, of Theodorus, and of
Oresiesis, the most celebrated of the founders, were actually sent to
Jerome at Rome, to be by him translated into Latin for the use of these
settlers in the Thebaid. These Latin monks made St. Peter a popular
saint in some parts of Egypt; and in the temple of Asseboua, in Nubia,
when the Christians plastered over the figure of one of the old gods,
they painted in its place the Apostle Peter holding the key in his hand.

[Illustration: 264.jpg RAMSES II. AND ST. PETER]

They did not alter the rest of the sculpture; so that Ramses II. is
there now seen presenting his offering to the Christian saint. The mixed
group gives us proof of the nation's decline in art rather than of its
improvement in religion.

Among the monks of Egypt there were also some men of learning and
industry, who in their cells in the desert had made at least three
translations of the New Test