Benedictines regrets the
daily portion of half a pint of wine, which had been extorted from him
by the intemperance of the age. [49] Such an allowance might be easily
supplied by the vineyards of Italy; and his victorious disciples, who
passed the Alps, the Rhine, and the Baltic, required, in the place of
wine, an adequate compensation of strong beer or cider.

[Footnote 44: St. Jerom, in strong, but indiscreet, language, expresses
the most important use of fasting and abstinence: "Non quod Deus
universitatis Creator et Dominus, intestinorum nostrorum rugitu, et
inanitate ventris, pulmonisque ardore delectetur, sed quod aliter
pudicitia tuta esse non possit." (Op. tom. i. p. 32, ad Eustochium.) See
the twelfth and twenty-second Collations of Cassian, de Castitate and de
Illusionibus Nocturnis.]

[Footnote 45: Edacitas in Graecis gula est, in Gallis natura, (Dialog.
i. c. 4 p. 521.) Cassian fairly owns, that the perfect model of
abstinence cannot be imitated in Gaul, on account of the aerum
temperies, and the qualitas nostrae fragilitatis, (Institut. iv. 11.)
Among the Western rules, that of Columbanus is the most austere; he
had been educated amidst the poverty of Ireland, as rigid, perhaps, and
inflexible as the abstemious virtue of Egypt. The rule of Isidore of
Seville is the mildest; on holidays he allows the use of flesh.]

[Footnote 46: "Those who drink only water, and have no nutritious
liquor, ought, at least, to have a pound and a half (twenty-four ounces)
of bread every day." State of Prisons, p. 40, by Mr. Howard.]

[Footnote 47: See Cassian. Collat. l. ii. 19-21. The small loaves,
or biscuit, of six ounces each, had obtained the name of Paximacia,
(Rosweyde, Onomasticon, p. 1045.) Pachomius, however, allowed his monks
some latitude in the quantity of their food; but he made them work in
proportion as they ate, (Pallad. in Hist. Lausiac. c. 38, 39, in Vit.
Patrum, l. viii. p. 736, 737.)]

[Footnote 48: See the banquet to which Cassian (Collation viii. 1) was
invited by Serenus, an Egyptian abbot.]

[Footnote 49: See the Rule of St. Benedict, No. 39, 40, (in Cod. Reg.
part ii. p. 41, 42.) Licet legamus vinum omnino monachorum non esse,
sed quia nostris temporibus id monachis persuaderi non potest; he allows
them a Roman hemina, a measure which may be ascertained from Arbuthnot's
Tables.] The candidate who aspired to the virtue of evangelical poverty,
abjured, at his first entrance into a regular communit