PROGRESS OP MONACHISM. 299 



taken them on his horfe, and brought them to 1 an inha- 

 bited place. Thefe anachoretes did not die, fays Eplirem, 

 but they continued a long time lick. 



Still greater was the ambition, and wonderfully great 

 the name, of the anchorites that came into the cities^ 

 to vifit the houfes cf harlots, as Nicephorus fays, and 

 to bathe in the public baths with naked women. Eva- 

 grius is more copious in his accounts of thefe exercifes 

 of virtue. Thefe faints, fays he, affirmed that they 

 were mad ; and ? repairing to the cities and towns, re- 

 forte d to the places where was always the greateft con- 

 courfe of people. : they ran into the public houfes, ate 

 and drank with all forts of perfons ; then regularly 

 went to the common baths, remained there and wafhed 

 in the midft of the women ; but fo fuperior were they 

 jo all paffion and carnal defire, fo affured of their 

 empire over nature, that neither by the looks, nor by 

 the touches, nor even by the embraces of thefe women^ 

 were they to be charmed to any thing which elfe in 

 fuch cafes is natural ; for, continues Evagrius, they 

 are men amongit men, but amongft women truely 

 women. 



There arofe a general rivalfhip among all the anacho- 

 retes, upon every idle conceit, and upon every newly- 

 devifed fpecies of holinefs, 



Baradatus, a Syrian, began by minting himfelf up 

 in a little cell ; he next climbed up to the top of a 

 mountain, where he built him a wooden hut, in which 

 he could not hold himfelf upright. He lived a long 

 while bent in this uneafy pofture, in this inconvenient 

 dwelling, which, beficles, was in no capacity for de- 

 fending him againft the wind, and the rain and the fun. 



Afterwards, 



