Of these disciples, the most eminent was Pachomius : if the Decian persecution and Anthony gave rise to monachisin, monasteries owe their origin to Pachomius and the peaceful times of Constantine. The ancient writer of the Acta Paehomii' makes Anthony acknowledge this himself in the following speech to one of the disciples of Pacao mins :—" When I first became a monk, there was as yet no monastery in any part of the world where one man was obliged to take care of another, but every one of the ancient monks, when the persecution was ended, exercised a monastic life by himself in private. But afterwards your father Pachomius, by the help of God, effected this." The other most celebrated early propagators of mouachism are Hilarion, another disciple of Anthony, who carried the system into Palestine, about A.D. 328 ; St. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, who brought it to Rome, A.D. 340 [ATHANASIIIS, in BIOG. Div.] ; Eustathius, bishop of Sebaste, or Sebastia, by whom it was soon after extended to Armenia and Paphlagonia ; St. Basil, who established it in the province of Pontus, A.D. 360 [Ham, in Bioo. Div.]; and St. Martin, bishop of Tours, by whom it was, about A.D. 870, introduced into Gaul whence it is generally supposed to have been imported into the British Isles by Pelagius, about the beginning of the fifth century.
At first all the communities of monks followed the rule of Pachomius, and therefore they were not distinguished into various orders, as in later times, but took their names from the places where they were established, as the monks of Mount Scethis, of Tabenne. of Nitria, of Canopus, &e. But besides the monks that lived in communities, and who were called from that circumstance Cennbitre, or sometimes Syne dike, there were for some ages divers other species, which the eccle siastical antiquarians have taken much pains to distinguish Some lived, although in the same d,striet of the wilderness, yet all in separate caves or cells, and without any association or common government, in which case the collection of hermitages was called a Laura, according to Epiphanies. Another sort are described by Caasian under the name of Sarabait's, and were called by the Egyptians RembJth, accord ing to St. Jerome, who says that they lived two or three together, without any rule, but each after his own fashion, taking up their abode for the most part in cities and fortified stations (castellis). Iu other respects he gives a very bad account of them : although they were wont to contend with each other, he says, in extraordinary feats of fasting, yet at other times they would indulge to as much excess in riotous festivity ; a11 things about them were affected ; loose gloves (maniere), puffed-out boots (caligm follicantes), coarse clothes, frequent sighing, much visitation of the young women, violent inveighing against the clergy. It, short, concludes Jerome, they are the pests and banes of the church. Another species of these early monks or solitaries were those called Stylitm, that is, pillar saints (Irmo aTi5Aor, a pillar), the founder of whom was one Simeon, a Syrian shepherd, who having, in A.D. 408, when he was only thirteen years old. left his flocks and joined a monastic community, afterwards withdrew himself to a mountain about thirty or forty miles east from Antioch, and there, confining himself by a chain within a mandra, or circle of stones, pro ceeded at last to take up his residence on the top of a pillar, which was gradually raised from the height of nine to that of sixty feet.
Simeon Stylites died A.D. 451, after having, it is said, existed for thirty years at the last-mentioned elevation in the air. " Habit and exercise," says Gibbon, " instructed him to maintain his dangerous si nation without fear or giddiness, and successively to assume the different postures of devotion. He sometimes prayed in an erect attitude, with his outstretched arms in the form of a cross ; but his most familiar practice was that of bending his meagre skeleton from the forehead to the feet ; and a curious spectator, after numbering twelve hundred and forty-four repetitions, at length desisted from the endless account." This strange sort of piety, however, does not seem to have proved very contagious ; among the few pillar saints, besides the contriver of the practice, whose names are recorded, the most famous are, another Simeon, styled the Younger, who is said to have occupied his airy wateh-tower for sixty-eight years, and one Alypiiis, who le.t the bishopric of Adrianup.e for this other sort of episcopacy, and, it is affirmed, kept singing psalms and hymns between heaven and earth, at all hours of the day and night, for the full 'pace of threescore years and ten, while a choir of monks and two choirs of virgins. seated on the ground below, lent the aid of their voices to swell the strain. About the beginning, or, as others think, about the middle, of the feh century a pious individual, named Alexander, set up a new fashion of monachism at Constantinople. the protestors of which received the name of Amen:Jets (in Greek, luemorred, that is, the watchers, or the sleepless, from flair practice of dividing themselves into three classes, which took the performance of divine service in unbroken succession, so as to keep up a constant sound of devotion throughout the entire round of the twenty-four hours. The Aoremette, sometimes called Stadler, from Striding, a Roman nobleman, who became one of their society, and built a Lamour monastery for them, which, after him, was named Stadium, were hold in great estimation, and became very numerous at Constantinople. Alongside of the Stylite may be placed another description of fantastic enthusiasts, the Btereof, or Grazing Monks, whose whim it was to live like the boasts of the field, inhabit ing no houses, and eating neither bread nor flesh, but roaming about upon the mountains, as they continued without ceasing to make the wilderness resound with their hymns and psalms, and when it was time to cat, every man, taking his knife in his hand, proceeded to cut or dig for himself a dinner of herbs from the ground. Still another sort of ohl monks is mentioned, under the name of Gyroragi, the Vagabond Monks, as the epithet may be translated. St. Benedict de scribes these as rambling about continually from province to province, getting themselves well entertained for three or four days at every cell they came to, mere slaves to their gluttonous appetites, and in all things worse even than the Sambaritte.