PENANCE. 581 
Others took up their abode in tombs, like the demoniacs; 
or dwelt in dens with wild beads; or made dens for 
themfelves, and burrowed in the ground. Men and wo¬ 
men lived promifcuoufly in the deferts, with no other 
covering than what mere decency required, bare to the 
fun, and the wind, and the fand-fliowers. Thefe perfons 
renounced all fuch food as was ufed by their fellow- 
creatures, and grazed and browfed Upon herbs and ftirubs; 
for which, reafon they were called Batmen. They even af¬ 
fected to appear like beads, by going upon their hands 
and kn,ees; and like beads they fled -from the fight of 
mar), and betook themfelves to the mod inacceilible 
places for concealment. If this fydem had continued a 
few generations, it might have been feen how far it is 
poflible for man to degrade his phyfical as well as his in¬ 
tellectual nature; he would have degenerated into an 
^nimal little fuperior to the ape or baboon, and more 
loathfome than either. 
St. Pior always walked while he was eating; becaufe 
(to ufe his own words) “he did not confider eating as 
a bufinefs for which time was to be fet apart, but as a 
thing to be done when it did not interrupt his avoca¬ 
tions.” St. Pachomius, in order that he might fleep as 
little as poflible, and with the lead poflible comfort and 
convenience, never allowed himfelf to lie down, nor 
even to recline againfl any thing that might fupport him, 
but fat upon a done in the middle of his cell. And 
among the rules which, according to the hidorians of the 
Romiftj church, were given to him by an angel, and are 
the fird code of monadic laws, is one whereby the monks 
are enjoined in like manner to fleep fitting, and not re¬ 
cumbent. Beradat ufed for his clothing a clofe fack of 
fleins, which had no other opening than one fmall one 
for his mouth, and another for his nofe. 
The female faint, Eufraxia, belonged to a convent 
containing a hundred and thirty nuns, not one of whom 
ever wafhed their feet, and the very mention of a bath 
was an abomination among them : "De balneo verb fu- 
perfluum eft loqui; audientes enim vehementer vituper- 
abant, confufionis et opprobrii plenam confentis, vel fo- 
lam illius nrentionern, et tanquam rei abominabilis, nec 
auditam quidem volebant tolerare.” St. Macarius, (for 
all thefe madmen are faints !) having one day killed a 
gnat which had bitten him, was ftruck with compunClion 
at the fight of the infeCt’s blood, and by way of atone¬ 
ment went into the marlhes, and there for fix months 
expofed himfelf to all winged and creeping infeCts, till 
every part of his flefli was fwoilen and ulcerated with their 
bites. Sozomen relates of him, that he had fo hardened 
his body by aufterities, that the very beard could not 
make Way through his (kin. This perfonage, when in 
the full odour of filth and rags, returned one day to his 
convent, humbled and mortified by the fenfe of his own 
inferiority, exclaiming, “ I am not yet a monk, but I 
have feen monks P’ for he had fallen in with two or three 
wretches ftark naked. 
The Englifli reader is familiar with the extraordinary 
hiftory of St. Simeon Stylites. “ This godly man, while 
yet in the flefli, imitated the life of the angels, withdrew 
himfelf from earthly things, forced nature, which ever 
inclineth downwards, afpired to things heavenly, and 
placed himfelf between earth and heaven, on the top of 
a pillar. He, together with the angels, praifed the Lord, 
lifted up the prayers of men, and offered them to God, 
and brought down the mercy of God to make men par¬ 
takers thereof.” Such is the language of Evagrius ! His 
celebrity long furvived him. A church was built round 
the pillar upon which “ this earthly and incarnate angel 
led his heavenly life ; and every year, on the faint’s day, 
a ftar was exhibited playing round the pillar.” Eva¬ 
grius fays he himfelf had feen it, and does not intimate 
the flighted fufpicion of the trick. His body was remov¬ 
ed to Antioch, from whence the emperor Leo would 
have tranflated it to Conftantinople; but the people of 
Antioch reprefented, “ that the fortifications of their city 
Vol. XIX. No. 1332. 
had been thrown down by an earthquake, and therefore 
they had brought thither the holy body of Simeon, that 
it might be to them inftead of a wall.” 
The fame freaks and follies of the human mind, the 
fame difeafes of the moral and intellectual nature, have 
fhown themfelves in all ages s the Romifh church has had 
the dexterity to turn them to account. In her fervice 
there was a place for every one, faint or fage, the painful 
ftudent and the expert fophift, the haughtieft temper 
and the humbled, knave, madman, and idiot, all had their / 
ufes, and were employed with excellent advantage to the 
papacy. When, by fome lucky combination of events, 
a monk had attained that fort of influence which enabled 
him to inftitute a reform, it fuited the policy of the 
church, and his order alfo, to accredit the fables forged 
by himfelfapd his accomplices, and propagated by vulgar 
credulity; to canonize the fanatic who during his life 
had been an objefl of contempt to all his brethren ; and 
to publifh for edification the ftrangeft pranks and the mod 
difgufting adtions of infane and grovelling fuperftition. 
The mod remarkable fanatic of the time we are lpeak- 
ing of was the perfonage known by the name of St. Do¬ 
minic the Cuiraflier, becaufe of an iron cuirafs which he 
wore next his Hein, and which was never taken off till it 
was neceflary to replace it by a new one. Dominic had 
been intended for an ecclefiaftical life 5 but, when he re¬ 
ceived prieft’s orders, his parents prefented a furred robe 
to the bifhop who ordained him; and Dominic, conceiv¬ 
ing that he had thus incurred the guilt of finning, not 
only refrained from performing mafs, but refolved to do 
penance for the crime as long as he lived. For this pur- 
pofe he entered into the Congregation Santa Croce de 
Fonte Avellana, the moft extravagant of all the orders 
which had been produced by reforming the fyftem of St. 
Beiredifh The monks of this congregation never 
touched either wine or oil, and during five days in the 
week only bread and water ; they were never allowed to 
fpeak, except for a fliort time on Sundays, and then only 
concerning fpiritual things ; they went barefoot, and 
each day after evening-fervice, they flogged one another. 
In thofe days it was believed that a tinner might be 
flogged into a faint, as it has been fuppofed, within our 
own memory, that a dunce might be whipped into a 
fcholar. Bur, befades the general utility of flagellation 
as a means of obtaining the favour of heaven, the aftual 
value of ftripes, the price at which they were taken by 
the fcore in the treafury of good works, had been fettled, 
according-to the moft minute and accurate calculation. 
This well deferves to be explained. 
It is a point of faith, fay the Catholics, that every 
mortal fin deprives the {inner of the grace of God, and 
makes him liable to eternal punilhment; but, if he re¬ 
pents and confeffes, the mercy of God is fo great, that he 
reftores the grace which had been forfeited, and com¬ 
mutes for temporal punifhment that which fhould ell'e 
have been eternal. How long a time a foul has to remain 
in purgatory for one mortal fin, or for many, whether 
for one year, ten, twenty, or more, is what the divine 
majefty has revealed to none s the popes, however, have 
granted indulgencies, by fome of which they remitted a 
certain number of years of purgatory, by others half the 
term, and by others the whole. The monks of Fonte 
Avellana had determined that thirty pfalms faid or fung, 
with an accompaniment of one hundred ftripes to each 
pfalm, making in all three thoufand, would be received 
as a fet-off for one year of purgatory ; the whole pfalter, 
with the full compliment of fifteen thoufand ftripes, 
would redeem five years from the fame vaft crucible; and 
twenty pfalters with three hundred thoufand ftripes, 
fairly entered in the recording angel’s book, would be 
equal to a receipt in full for an hundred years of fire and 
torments in the world to come. This fcale was fanftion- 
ed (if not formally approved) by the popes. 
Dominic the Cuiraffier was ambitious above all men in 
laying up treafure of this kind in heaven j and to a man 
6 U of 
