were disposed to hope, and to believe, that
the number of the monks was equal to the remainder of the people; [15]
and posterity might repeat the saying, which had formerly been applied
to the sacred animals of the same country, That in Egypt it was less
difficult to find a god than a man.

[Footnote 7: See Athanas. Op. tom. ii. p. 450-505, and the Vit. Patrum,
p. 26-74, with Rosweyde's Annotations. The former is the Greek original
the latter, a very ancient Latin version by Evagrius, the friend of St.
Jerom.]

[Footnote 8: Athanas. tom. ii. in Vit. St. Anton. p. 452; and the
assertion of his total ignorance has been received by many of the
ancients and moderns. But Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 666)
shows, by some probable arguments, that Antony could read and write in
the Coptic, his native tongue; and that he was only a stranger to the
Greek letters. The philosopher Synesius (p. 51) acknowledges that the
natural genius of Antony did not require the aid of learning.]

[Footnote 9: Aruroe autem erant ei trecentae uberes, et valde optimae,
(Vit. Patr. l. v. p. 36.) If the Arura be a square measure, of a hundred
Egyptian cubits, (Rosweyde, Onomasticon ad Vit. Patrum, p. 1014, 1015,)
and the Egyptian cubit of all ages be equal to twenty-two English
inches, (Greaves, vol. i. p. 233,) the arura will consist of about three
quarters of an English acre.]

[Footnote 10: The description of the monastery is given by Jerom (tom.
i. p. 248, 249, in Vit. Hilarion) and the P. Sicard, (Missions du Levant
tom. v. p. 122-200.) Their accounts cannot always be reconciled the
father painted from his fancy, and the Jesuit from his experience.]

[Footnote 11: Jerom, tom. i. p. 146, ad Eustochium. Hist. Lausiac. c. 7,
in Vit. Patrum, p. 712. The P. Sicard (Missions du Levant, tom. ii. p.
29-79) visited and has described this desert, which now contains four
monasteries, and twenty or thirty monks. See D'Anville, Description de
l'Egypte, p. 74.]

[Footnote 12: Tabenne is a small island in the Nile, in the diocese of
Tentyra or Dendera, between the modern town of Girge and the ruins of
ancient Thebes, (D'Anville, p. 194.) M. de Tillemont doubts whether it
was an isle; but I may conclude, from his own facts, that the primitive
name was afterwards transferred to the great monastery of Bau or Pabau,
(Mem. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 678, 688.)]

[Footnote 13: See in the Codex Regularum (published by Lucas Holstenius,
Rome, 1661) a preface