70 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xxxvii obedience The monastic profession of the ancients ^ was an act of monks voluntary devotion. The inconstant fanatic was threatened with the eternal vengeance of the God whom he deserted ; but the doors of the monastery were still open for repentance. Those monks, whose conscience was fortified by reason or passion, were at liberty to resume the character of men and citizens ; and even the spouses of Christ might accept the legal embraces of an earthly lover. 34 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 re- stored to his perpetual prison ; and the interposition of the magistrate oppressed the freedom and merit which had allevi- ated, in some degree, the abject slavery of the monastic dis- cipline. 35 The actions of a monk, his words and even his thoughts, were determined by an inflexible rule, 36 or a capricious superior ; the slightest offences were corrected by disgrace or confinement, extraordinary fasts or bloody flagellation ; and dis- obedience, murmur, or delay were ranked in the catalogue of but the feeble dykes were swept away by the torrent of superstition ; and Justinian surpassed the most sanguine wishes of the monks (Thomassin, torn. i. p. 1782-1799, and Bingham, 1. vii. c. 3, p. 253). 33 The monastic institutions, particularly those of Egypt, about the year 400, are described by four curious and devout travellers : Rufinus (Vit. Patrum, 1. ii. iii. p. 424-536), Posthumian (Sulp. Sever. Dialog, i.), Palladius (Hist. Lausiac. in Vit. Patrum, p. 709-863), and Cassian (see in torn. vii. Bibliothee. Max. Patrum, his four first books of Institutes, and the twenty-four Collations or Conferences). 34 The example of Malchus (Jerom, torn. 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, torn. vi. p. 279-300. [H. Koch, Virgines Christi : die Geliibde der gottgeweihten Jungfrauen in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (Texte und Untersuchungen, III. i. 2), 1907, shows that before the fourth century vows of chastity were private, not taken in the presence of the bishop and community.] 39 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, torn. vi. p. 427), and the actual jurisprudence of France, in Denissart (Decisions, &c. torn. iv. p. 855, <fec). 36 The ancient Codex Regularum, collected by Benedict Anianinus [leg. Anianensis], 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.
