chap xxxvii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 73 abstinence, which they imposed, or practised, were not uniform or perpetual : the cheerful festival of the Pentecost was balanced by the extraordinary mortification of Lent ; the fervour of new monasteries was insensibly relaxed ; and the voracious appetite of the Gauls could not imitate the patient and temperate virtue of the Egyptians. 46 The disciples of Antony and Pachomius were satisfied with their daily pittance 47 of twelve ounces of bread, or rather biscuit, 48 which they divided into two frugal repasts, of the afternoon and of the evening. It was esteemed a merit, and almost a duty, to abstain from the boiled vegetables which were provided for the refectory ; but the extraordinary bounty of the abbot sometimes indulged them with the luxury of cheese, fruit, salad, and the small dried fish of the Nile. 49 A more ample latitude of sea and river fish was gradually allowed or assumed ; but the use of flesh was long confined to the sick or travellers ; and, when it gradually prevailed in the less rigid monasteries of Europe, a singular distinction was introduced ; as if birds, whether wild or domestic, had been less profane than the grosser animals of the field. Water was the pure and inno- cent beverage of the primitive monks ; and the founder of the Benedictines regrets the daily portion of half a pint of wine, which had been extorted from him by the intemperance of the age. 50 Such an allowance might be easily supplied by the vine- sed quod aliter pudioitia tuta esse non possit " (Op. torn. i. p. 137, ad Eustochium [Ep. 22]). See the twelfth and twenty-second Collations of Cassian, de Castitate, and de Illusionibus Nocturnis. 46 Edacitas in Greeds gula est, in Gallis natura (Dialog, i. c. 4, p. 521). Cassian fairly owns that the perfect model of abstinence cannot be imitated in Gaul, on account of the aerum temperies, and the qualitas nostras fragilitatis (Institut. iv. 11). Among the Western rules, that of Columbanus is the most austere ; he had been educated amidst the poverty of Ireland, as rigid perhaps, and inflexible, as the abstemious virtue of Egypt. The rule of Isidore of Seville is the mildest : on holi- days he allows the use of flesh. 47 " Those who drink only water and have no nutritious liquor ought, at least, to have a pound and a half (twenty -four ounces) of bread every day." State of Prisons, p. 40, by Mr. Howard. 48 See Cassian, Collat. 1. ii. 19, 20, 21. The small loaves, or biscuit, of six ounces each, had obtained the name of Paximacia (Rosweyde, Onomasticon, p. 1045). Pachomius, however, allowed his monks some latitude in the quantity of their food ; but he made them work in proportion as they ate (Pallad. in Hist. Lausiac. c. 38, 39, in Vit. Patrum, 1. viii. p. 736, 737). [Biscuit in modern Greek is Tra^^Si.] 49 See the banquet to which Cassian (Collation viii. 1) was invited by Serenus, an Egyptian abbot. 80 See the Rule of St. Benedict, No. 39, 40 (in Cod. Reg. part ii. p. 41, 42). Licet legamus vinum omnino monachorum non esse, sed quia nostris temporibus id monachis persuaderi non potest, he allows them a Roman hemina, a measure which may be ascertained from Arbuthnot's Tables.
