paint for itself the pictures of
past raptures, compelling the soul to dwell fondly upon remembered
iniquities, and so to practice in imagination those things which
reality denies to it.

"Heeding such counsel, therefore, many among the philosophers
forsook the thronging ways of the cities and the pleasant gardens
of the countryside, with their well-watered fields, their shady
trees, the song of birds, the mirror of the fountain, the murmur of
the stream, the many charms for eye and ear, fearing lest their
souls should grow soft amid luxury and abundance of riches, and
lest their virtue should thereby be defiled. For it is perilous to
turn your eyes often to those things whereby you may some day be
made captive, or to attempt the possession of that which it would
go hard with you to do without. Thus the Pythagoreans shunned all
companionship of this kind, and were wont to dwell in solitary and
desert places. Nay, Plato himself, although he was a rich man, let
Diogenes trample on his couch with muddy feet, and in order that he
might devote himself to philosophy established his academy in a
place remote from the city, and not only uninhabited but unhealthy
as well. This he did in order that the onslaughts of lust might be
broken by the fear and constant presence of disease, and that his
followers might find no pleasure save in the things they learned."

Such a life, likewise, the sons of the prophets who were the
followers of Eliseus are reported to have led. Of these Jerome also
tells us, writing thus to the monk Rusticus as if describing the
monks of those ancient days: "The sons of the prophets, the monks
of whom we read in the Old Testament, built for themselves huts by
the waters of the Jordan, and forsaking the throngs and the cities,
lived on pottage and the herbs of the field" (Epist. iv).

Even so did my followers build their huts above the waters of the
Arduzon, so that they seemed hermits rather than scholars. And as
their number grew ever greater, the hardships which they gladly
endured for the sake of my teaching seemed to my rivals to reflect
new glory on me, and to cast new shame on themselves. Nor was it
strange that they, who had done their utmost to hurt me, should
grieve to see how all things worked together for my good, even
though I was now, in the words of Jerome, afar from cities and the
market place, from controversies and the crowded ways of men. And
so, as Quintilian says, did envy seek me ou