without reluctance, the menial offices of slaves and domestics; and the several trades that were necessary to provide their habits, their utensils, and their lodging, were exercised within the precincts of the great monasteries. The monastic studies have tended, for the most part, to darken, rather than to dispel, the cloud of superstition. Yet the curiosity or zeal of some learned solitaries has cultivated the ecclesiastical, and even the profane, sciences; and posterity must gratefully acknowledge that the monuments of Greek and Roman literature have been preserved and multiplied by their indefatigable pens.[1] But the more humble industry of the monks, especially in Egypt, was contented with the silent, sedentary, occupation of making wooden sandals or of twisting the leaves of the palm-trees into mats and baskets. The superfluous stock, which was not consumed in domestic use, supplied, by trade, the wants of the community; the boats of Tabenne, and the other monasteries of Thebais, descended the Nile as far as Alexandria; and, in a Christian market, the sanctity of the workmen might enhance the intrinsic value of the work.
Their riches But the necessity of manual labour was insensibly superseded. The novice was tempted to bestow his fortune on the saints, in whose society he was resolved to spend the remainder of his life; and the pernicious indulgence of the laws permitted him to receive, for their use, any future accessions of legacy or inheritance.[2] Melania contributed her plate, three hundred pounds weight of silver, and Paula contracted an immense debt, for the relief of their favourite monks; who kindly imparted the merits of their prayers and penance to a rich and liberal sinner.[3] Time continually increased, and accidents could seldom diminish, the estates of the popular monasteries, which spread over the ad-- ↑ Mabillon (Etudes Monastiques, tom. i. p. 47-55) has collected many curious facts to justify the literary labours of his predecessors, both in the East and West. Books were copied in the ancient monasteries of Egypt (Cassian. Institut. l. iv. c. 12) and by the disciples of St. Martin (Sulp. Sever. in Vit. Martin c. 7, p. 473). Cassiodorius has allowed an ample scope for the studies of the monks; and we shall not be scandalized, if their pen sometimes wandered from Chrysostom and Augustin to Homer and Virgil.
- ↑ Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. iii. p. 18, 145, 146, 171-179) has examined the revolution of the civil, canon, and common, law. Modern France confirms the death which monks have inflicted on themselves, and justly deprives them of all right of inheritance.
- ↑ 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 mountains 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.)
