cism and Christianity were the same, " Though thy mother " — he writes, in 373, to his friend Heliodorus, who had left him in the midst of his journey to the Syrian desert — " with flowing hair and rent garments, should show thee the breasts which have nourished thee ; though thy father should lie upon the threshold ; yet depart thou, treading over thy father, and fly with dry eyes to the standard of the cross. This is the only religion of its kind, in this matter to be cruel, . . The love of God and the fear of hell easily rend the bonds of the household asunder. The holy Scripture indeed enjoins obedience to pa- rents ; but he who loves them more than Christ, loses his soul. . . . O desert, where the flowers of Christ are blooming I O solitude, where the stones for the new Jerusalem are pre- pared ! O retreat, which rejoices in the friendship of God I What doest thou in the world, my brother, with thy soul greater than the world ? How long wilt thou remain in the shadow of roofs, and in the smoky dungeon of cities ? Believe me, I see here more of the light," ^ The eloquent appeal, how- * De laude vita solitariae, Ep. xiv. (torn. i. 28-36) ad Heliodorum. The Roman lady Fabiola learned this letter by heart, and Du Pm calls it a masterpiece of elo- quence (Nouv. Bibl. des auteurs eccl. iii. 102), but it is almost too declamatory and turgid. He himself afterward acknowledged it overdrawn. ^ Gibbon says of them : " The stories of Paul, Hilarion, and Malchus are admira- bly told ; and the only defect of these pleasing compositions is the want of truth and common sense." ' Ep. xiv. (t. i. 29 sq.) Similar descriptions of the attractions of monastic life we meet with in the ascetic writings of Gregory, Basil, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Cas- sian, Nilus, and Isidor. " So great grace," says the venerable monk Nilus of Mount Sinai, in the beginning of the fifth century (Ep. lib. i ep. 1, as quoted by Xeander, Am. ed. ii, 250), "so great grace has God bestowed on the monks, even in anticipa- tion of the future world, that they wish for no honors from men, and feel no longing after the greatness of this world ; but, on the contrary, often seek rather to remain concealed from men : while, on the other hand, many of the great, who possess all the glory of the world, either of their own accord, or compelled by misfortune, take refuge with the lowly monks, and, delivered from fatal dangers, obtain at once a temporal and an eternal salvation." VOL. II. — 14 210 THIRD PERIOD. A.D, 311-590. ever, failed of the desired effect ; Heliodorus entered the teach- ing order and became a bishop. The active and restless spirit of Jerome soon brought him again