ed
about as beggars, and were afterwards called mendicants, or wandering
friars; but the anchorets, or _pillar saints_, attained the ultimatum of
glory, in their elevation of sanctity on the top of their pillars. In
progress of time these hermits began to associate themselves into
fraternities; and as far back as the middle of the second century, we
hear of a body of seventy, establishing themselves in the deserts of
Nitria, by the Nitron lakes. It is told of St. Macarius, the head of
this body, that having received a bunch of grapes, he sent it to another,
who tasting one, passed it to another; he being like abstemious, sent it
again forward to another, until, having gone the circuit, it reached
Macarius again unfinished.

Basil the Great first founded a permanent monastic establishment to
convert people from the error of Arianism; and Benedict, a native of
Mursia in Umbria, A.D. 529, first established a regular order among the
scattered convents, by uniting them under a fixed circle of laws,
seclusion for life being the primary one. These societies also were made
useful by him, in having allotted to them various occupations, such as
the education of the young, copying and preserving manuscripts, recording
the history of their own times in their chronicles, and also in the
manual labour of cultivating waste lands. At first the monks had been
reckoned among the laity, the convents forming separate churches, of
which the abbot was usually presbyter, standing in the same relation to
the bishop as in other churches; but monastic life gradually came to be
considered the preparation for the clerical office, especially that of
bishop. This led to the adoption of monastic discipline among the
clergy; and the law of celibacy which had been rejected at the council of
Nice, was then prescribed by Siricius, bishop of Rome.

The convents were the representatives of the Christian aristocracy or
monarchy, the mendicant orders, were the clergy of the poor. And each in
their sphere exercised a great civilizing influence on the people; the
latter especially, because the former, by their studies and literary
labours, were more occupied in preparing the revival of letters, and the
diffusion of knowledge in their own circle. Under the auspices of the
church, systems of Christian charity were established, schools for
children, hospitals and homes of refuge, were multiplied; all this was
beneficial, it was the warmth of Christian lig