retreat. “It was here” says their historian Muston, “in the almost inaccessible solitude of the profound gorge of Pra del Tor, where retired nature filled their souls with stern inspirations, that the barbes held their schools. They made their pupils learn by heart the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John, the General Epistles, and some of those of St. Paul. They exercised them in Latin, the Romaunt tongue, and the Italian. After this the young men passed some years in retirement, and were consecrated to the ministry by the laying on of hands.” To the above studies other authors add that of medicine a knowledge essentially useful in their missionary wanderings. But the principles most insisted on by these early teachers as the foundation of all their instructions, the great lesson which echoed through the rocky labyrinths of their wild academy, and which forms the essence of the protestations of this primitive Church, is thus summed up:
“God is the only object of worship;
The Bible is the only rule of faith;
Christ is the only foundation of salvation.”
The character of the barbes is unanimously represented as being of an exalted order. They are termed the “lovers of all virtues, and enemies of all vices.” That they exercised a patriarchal if not a sacerdotal influence over their flocks, this familiar appellation (barba, “uncle”) seems to indicate; their whole history also shows them to have been men thoroughly devoted to their duty, and quite free from worldly or ambitious views. “We receive,” as they humbly express it, “our food and clothing in the way of alms, as much as is needed, from the good people whom we teach.” But, like St. Paul, they worked with their own
