origin of the monastic institution has been laboriously
discussed by Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 1119-1426)
and Helyot, (Hist. des Ordres Monastiques, tom. i. p. 1-66.) These
authors are very learned, and tolerably honest, and their difference
of opinion shows the subject in its full extent. Yet the cautious
Protestant, who distrusts any popish guides, may consult the seventh
book of Bingham's Christian Antiquities.]

I. Prosperity and peace introduced the distinction of the vulgar and
the Ascetic Christians. [2] The loose and imperfect practice of religion
satisfied the conscience of the multitude. The prince or magistrate, the
soldier or merchant, reconciled their fervent zeal, and implicit faith,
with the exercise of their profession, the pursuit of their interest,
and the indulgence of their passions: but the Ascetics, who obeyed and
abused the rigid precepts of the gospel, were inspired by the savage
enthusiasm which represents man as a criminal, and God as a tyrant. They
seriously renounced the business, and the pleasures, of the age; abjured
the use of wine, of flesh, and of marriage; chastised their body,
mortified their affections, and embraced a life of misery, as the price
of eternal happiness. In the reign of Constantine, the Ascetics fled
from a profane and degenerate world, to perpetual solitude, or religious
society. Like the first Christians of Jerusalem, [3] [311] they resigned
the use, or the property of their temporal possessions; established
regular communities of the same sex, and a similar disposition; and
assumed the names of Hermits, Monks, and Anachorets, expressive of their
lonely retreat in a natural or artificial desert. They soon acquired the
respect of the world, which they despised; and the loudest applause was
bestowed on this Divine Philosophy, [4] which surpassed, without the aid
of science or reason, the laborious virtues of the Grecian schools. The
monks might indeed contend with the Stoics, in the contempt of fortune,
of pain, and of death: the Pythagorean silence and submission were
revived in their servile discipline; and they disdained, as firmly as
the Cynics themselves, all the forms and decencies of civil society. But
the votaries of this Divine Philosophy aspired to imitate a purer and
more perfect model. They trod in the footsteps of the prophets, who
had retired to the desert; [5] and they restored the devout and
contemplative life, which had been instituted