Chap, xxxvii j OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 67 established the monasteries of Gaul; two thousand of his disciples followed him to the grave ; and his eloquent historian challenges the deserts of Thebais to produce, in a more favour- able climate, a champion of equal virtue. The progress of the monks was not less rapid or universal than that of Chris- tianity itself. Every province, and at last every city, of the empire was filled with their increasing multitudes ; and the bleak and barren isles, from Lerins to Lipari, that arise 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 institu- tions of Eome. 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 Ethiopia. 21 The monastery of Banchor, 22 in Flintshire, which contained above two thousand brethren, dispersed a numerous colony among the Barbarians of Ireland ; M 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 These unhappy exiles from social life were impelled by the causes of the rapid 20 When Hilarion sailed from Paraetonium to Cape Pachynus, he offered to pay of the his passage with a book of the Gospels. Posthumian, a Gallic monk, who had monastic visited Egypt, found a merchant-ship bound from Alexandria to Marseilles, and life performed the voyage in thirty days (Sulp. Sever. Dialog, i. 1). Athanasius, who addressed his Life of St. Antony to the foreign monks, was obliged to hasten the composition, that it might be ready for the sailing of the fleets (torn. ii. p. 451). 21 See Jerom (torn. i. p. 126), Assemanni, Bibliot. Orient, torn. iv. p. 92, p. 857-919, and Geddes, Church History of .Ethiopia, p. 29, 30, 31. The Abyssinian monks adhere very strictly to the primitive institution. 22 Camden's Britannia, vol. i. p. 666, 667. 23 All that learning can extract from the rubbish of the dark ages is copiously stated by Archbishop Usher, in his Britanniearum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates, cap. xvi. p. 425-503. 24 This small though not barren spot, Iona, Hy, or Columbkill, only two miles in length, and one mile in breadth, has been distinguished, 1. By the monastery of St. Columba, founded a.d. 566, whose abbot exercised an extraordinary jurisdiction over the bishops of Caledonia ; 2. By a classic library, which afforded some hopes of an entire Livy ; and, 3. By the tombs of sixty kings, Scots, Irish and Norwegians ; who reposed in holy ground. See Usher (p. 311, 360-370) and Buchanan (Ber. Scot. 1. ii. p. 15, edit. Buddiman).
