led with their increasing
multitudes; and the bleak and barren isles, from Lerins to Lipari, that
arose out of the Tuscan Sea, were chosen by the anachorets for the place
of their voluntary exile. An easy and perpetual intercourse by sea
and land connected the provinces of the Roman world; and the life
of Hilarion displays the facility with which an indigent hermit of
Palestine might traverse Egypt, embark for Sicily, escape to Epirus,
and finally settle in the Island of Cyprus. [20] The Latin Christians
embraced the religious institutions of Rome. The pilgrims, who visited
Jerusalem, eagerly copied, in the most distant climates of the earth,
the faithful model of the monastic life. The disciples of Antony spread
themselves beyond the tropic, over the Christian empire of Aethiopia.
[21] The monastery of Banchor, [22] in Flintshire, which contained above
two thousand brethren, dispersed a numerous colony among the Barbarians
of Ireland; [23] and Iona, one of the Hebrides, which was planted by
the Irish monks, diffused over the northern regions a doubtful ray of
science and superstition. [24]

[Footnote 16: The introduction of the monastic life into Rome and Italy
is occasionally mentioned by Jerom, tom. i. p. 119, 120, 199.]

[Footnote 17: See the Life of Hilarion, by St. Jerom, (tom. i. p. 241,
252.) The stories of Paul, Hilarion, and Malchus, by the same author,
are admirably told: and the only defect of these pleasing compositions
is the want of truth and common sense.]

[Footnote 18: His original retreat was in a small village on the banks
of the Iris, not far from Neo-Caesarea. The ten or twelve years of
his monastic life were disturbed by long and frequent avocations. Some
critics have disputed the authenticity of his Ascetic rules; but the
external evidence is weighty, and they can only prove that it is the
work of a real or affected enthusiast. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles tom.
ix. p. 636-644. Helyot, Hist. des Ordres Monastiques tom. i. p. 175-181]

[Footnote 19: See his Life, and the three Dialogues by Sulpicius
Severus, who asserts (Dialog. i. 16) that the booksellers of Rome were
delighted with the quick and ready sale of his popular work.]

[Footnote 20: When Hilarion sailed from Paraetonium to Cape Pachynus,
he offered to pay his passage with a book of the Gospels. Posthumian,
a Gallic monk, who had visited Egypt, found a merchant ship bound from
Alexandria to Marseilles, and performed the voyage in thirt