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embraces of an earthly lover.[1] The examples of scandal and the progress of superstition suggested the propriety of more forcible restraints. After a sufficient trial, the fidelity of the novice was secured by a solemn and perpetual vow; and his irrevocable engagement was ratified by the laws of the church and state. A guilty fugitive was pursued, arrested, and restored to his perpetual prison; and the interposition of the magistrate oppressed the freedom and merit which had alleviated, in some degree, the abject slavery of the monastic discipline.[2] The actions of a monk, his words and even his thoughts, were determined by an inflexible rule,[3] or a capricious superior; the slightest offences were corrected by disgrace or confinement, extraordinary fasts or bloody flagellation; and disobedience, murmur, or delay were ranked in the catalogue of the most heinous sins.[4] A blind submission to the commands of the abbot, however absurd, or even criminal, they might seem, was the ruling principle, the first virtue of the Egyptian monks; and their patience was frequently exercised by the most extravagant trials. They were directed to remove an enormous rock; assiduously to water a barren staff, that was planted in the ground, till, at the end of three years, it should vegetate and blossom like a tree; to walk into a fiery furnace; or to cast their infant into a deep pond: and several saints, or madmen, have been immortalized in monastic story by their
- ↑ The example of Malchus (Jeroni, tom. i. p. 256) and the design of Cassian and his friend (Collation xxiv. 1 [Migne, vol xlix. p. 1282]) are incontestable proofs of their freedom; which is elegantly described by Erasmus in his life of St. Jerom. See Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom. vi. p. 279-300.
- ↑ See the laws of Justinian (Novel. cxxiii. [155, ed. Zachariae; A.D. 546] No. 42) and of Lewis the Pious (in the historians of France tom. vi., p. 427), and the actual jurisprudence of France, in Denissart (Décisions, &c. tom. iv. p. 855, &c.).
- ↑ The ancient Codex Regularum, collected by Benedict Anianinus, the reformer of the monks in the beginning of the ninth century, and published in the seventeenth by Lucas Holstenius, contains thirty different rules for men and women. Of these, seven were composed in Egypt, one in the East, one in Cappadocia, one in Italy, one in Africa, four in Spain, eight in Gaul, or France, and one in England.
- ↑ The rule of Columbanus, so prevalent in the West, inflicts one hundred lashes for very slight offences (Cod. Reg. part ii. p. 174). Before the time of Charlemagne, the abbots indulged themselves in mutilating their monks, or putting out their eyes: a punishment much less cruel than the tremendous vade in pace (the subterraneous dungeon, or sepulchre) which was afterwards invented. See an admirable discourse of the learned Mabillon (Oeuvres Posthumes, tom. ii. p. 321-336), who, on this occasion, seems to be inspired by the genius of humanity. For such an effort, I can forgive his defence of the holy tear of Vendôme (p. 361-399).
