unuchs, while Athanasius reigned in Egypt almost
like a rival for the Empire. And if Julian's reign had sobered party
spirit, it had also shown that an emperor could sit again in Satan's
seat. Valens had an obedient Homoean clergy, but no trappings of
official splendour could enable Eudoxius or Demophilus to rival the
imposing personality of Athanasius or Basil. Thus the Empire lost the
moral support it looked for, and the church became embittered with its
wrongs.

[Sidenote: Rise of monasticism.]

The breach involved a deeper evil. The ancient world of heathenism was
near its dissolution. Vice and war, and latterly taxation, had dried up
the springs of prosperity, and even of population, till Rome was
perishing for lack of men. Cities had dwindled into villages, and of
villages the very names had often disappeared. The stout Italian yeomen
had been replaced by gangs of slaves, and these again by thinly
scattered barbarian serfs. And if Rome grew weaker every day, her power
for oppression seemed only to increase. Her fiscal system filled the
provinces with ruined men. The Alps, the Taurus, and the Balkan swarmed
with outlaws. But in the East men looked for refuge to the desert, where
many a legend told of a people of brethren dwelling together in unity
and serving God in peace beyond the reach of the officials. This was the
time when the ascetic spirit, which had long been hovering round the
outskirts of Christianity, began to assume the form of monasticism.
There were monks in Egypt--monks of Serapis--before Christianity
existed, and there may have been Christian monks by the end of the third
century. In any case, they make little show in history before the reign
of Valens. Paul of Thebes, Hilarion of Gaza, and even the great Antony
are only characters in the novels of the day. Now, however, there was in
the East a real movement towards monasticism. All parties favoured it.
The Semiarians were busy inside Mount Taurus; and though Acacians and
Anomoeans held more aloof, they could not escape an influence which
even Julian felt. But the Nicene party was the home of the ascetics. In
an age of indecision and frivolity like the Nicene, the most earnest
striving after Christian purity will often degenerate into its ascetic
caricature. Through the selfish cowardice of the monastic life we often
see the loving sympathy of Christian self-denial. Thus there was an
element of true Christian zeal in the enthusiasm of the Eastern