en hermits, beggars,
diplomatists, statesmen, professors, missionaries and pontiffs. It is
hoped the critical or literary student will appreciate the immense
difficulties of an attempt to paint so vast a scene on so small a
canvas. No other claim is made upon his benevolence.

There is a process of writing history which Trench describes as "a moral
whitewashing of such things as in men's sight were as blackamoors
before." Religious or temperamental prejudice often obscures the vision
and warps the judgment of even the most scholarly minds. Conscious of
this infirmity in the ablest writers of history it would be absurd to
claim complete exemption from the power of personal bias. It is
sincerely hoped, however, that the strongest passion in the preparation
of this work has been that commendable predilection for truth and
justice which should characterize every historical narrative, and that,
whatever other shortcomings may be found herein, there is an absence of
that unreasonable suspicion, not to say hatred, of everything monastic,
which mars many otherwise valuable contributions to monastic history.

The author's grateful acknowledgment is made, for kindly services and
critical suggestions, to Eri Baker Hulbert, D.D., LL.D., Dean of the
Divinity School, and Professor and Head of the Department of Church
History; Franklin Johnson, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Church History and
Homiletics; Benjamin S. Terry, Ph.D., Professor of Medieval and English
History; and Ralph C.H. Catterall, Instructor in Modern History; all of
The University of Chicago. Also to James M. Whiton, Ph.D., of the
Editorial Staff of "The Outlook"; Ephraim Emerton, Ph.D., Winn Professor
of Ecclesiastical History in Harvard University; S. Giffard Nelson,
L.H.D., of Brooklyn, New York; A.H. Newman, D.D., LL.D., Professor of
Church History in McMaster University of Toronto, Ontario; and Paul Van
Dyke, D.D., Professor of History in Princeton University.

A.W.W.
Trenton, March, 1900.

CONTENTS

Page
PREFACE, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
BIBLIOGRAPHY, . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

I

MONASTICISM IN THE EAST, . . . . . . . . . . 17
The Hermits of Egypt, . . . . . . . . . . 33
The Pillar Saint, . . . . . . . . . . . 51
The Cenobites of the East, . . . . . . . . 57