n spite of itself, a powerful
factor in the evolution of modern civilization. This systematizing was
due to the efforts of Ambrose, Athanasius, Gregory the Great, but more
especially to those of Benedict of Nursia.

The first known ceremonial recognition by the Church of a professed nun
is the case of Marcellina. On Christmas Day, perhaps of the year 354,
she received a veil from the hands of Pope Liberius, and made her vows
before a large congregation gathered in the church of Saint Peter, at
Rome. Saint Ambrose, her brother, has preserved for us a summary of the
sermon preached by the bishop on the occasion. It consists of an earnest
but not very convincing--so it would seem to modern ears--exhortation to
abstinence from worldly pleasure and to perseverance in virginity.
Marcellina continued to dwell in private in her own home, for it had not
yet become customary for professed virgins to take up their residence in
a common abode. The inauguration of this new departure had begun,
however, as is shown by passages in the work of Saint Ambrose on
virginity, which he dedicated to his sister. In the eleventh chapter of
the first book, he says: "Some one may say, you are always singing the
praise of virgins. What shall I do who am always singing them and have
no success (in persuading them to the consecrated life)? But this is not
my fault. Then, too, virgins come from Placentia to be consecrated, or
from Bononia and Mauritania, in order to receive the veil here. I treat
the matter here, and persuade those who are elsewhere. If this be so,
let me treat the subject elsewhere, that I may persuade you.

"Behold how sweet is the fruit of modesty, which has sprung up even in
the affections of barbarians. Virgins, coming from the greatest distance
on both sides of Mauritania, desire to be consecrated here; and though
all the family be in bonds, yet modesty cannot be bound. She who mourns
over the hardship of slavery professes to own an eternal kingdom.

"And what shall I say of the virgins of Bononia, a fertile band of
chastity, who, forsaking worldly delights, inhabit the sanctuary of
virginity? Though not of the sex which lives in common, attaining in
their common chastity to the number of twenty, leaving their parents'
dwellings, they press into the houses of Christ; at one time singing
spiritual songs, they provide their sustenance by labor, and seek with
their hands the supplies for their liberal charity."

So, then, it is