rn France confirms the death which monks have inflicted
on themselves, and justly deprives them of all right of inheritance.]

[Footnote 54: See Jerom, (tom. i. p. 176, 183.) The monk Pambo made a
sublime answer to Melania, who wished to specify the value of her
gift: "Do you offer it to me, or to God? If to God, He who suspends
the mountain in a balance, need not be informed of the weight of your
plate." (Pallad. Hist. Lausiac. c. 10, in the Vit. Patrum, l. viii. p.
715.)]

[Footnote 55: Zosim. l. v. p. 325. Yet the wealth of the Eastern monks
was far surpassed by the princely greatness of the Benedictines.]

[Footnote 56: The sixth general council (the Quinisext in Trullo, Canon
xlvii in Beveridge, tom. i. p. 213) restrains women from passing the
night in a male, or men in a female, monastery. The seventh general
council (the second Nicene, Canon xx. in Beveridge, tom. i. p. 325)
prohibits the erection of double or promiscuous monasteries of both
sexes; but it appears from Balsamon, that the prohibition was not
effectual. On the irregular pleasures and expenses of the clergy and
monks, see Thomassin, tom. iii. p. 1334-1368.]

[Footnote 57: I have somewhere heard or read the frank confession of a
Benedictine abbot: "My vow of poverty has given me a hundred thousand
crowns a year; my vow of obedience has raised me to the rank of a
sovereign prince."--I forget the consequences of his vow of chastity.]

The lives of the primitive monks were consumed in penance and solitude;
undisturbed by the various occupations which fill the time, and exercise
the faculties, of reasonable, active, and social beings. Whenever
they were permitted to step beyond the precincts of the monastery, two
jealous companions were the mutual guards and spies of each other's
actions; and, after their return, they were condemned to forget, or,
at least, to suppress, whatever they had seen or heard in the world.
Strangers, who professed the orthodox faith, were hospitably entertained
in a separate apartment; but their dangerous conversation was restricted
to some chosen elders of approved discretion and fidelity. Except in
their presence, the monastic slave might not receive the visits of
his friends or kindred; and it was deemed highly meritorious, if he
afflicted a tender sister, or an aged parent, by the obstinate refusal
of a word or look. [58] The monks themselves passed their lives, without
personal attachments, among a crowd which had been f