The fact to be remembered, however, is that in India, centuries before
the Christian Era, there existed both phases of Christian monasticism,
the hermit[A] and the crowded convent.

[Footnote A: Appendix, Note A.]

Dhaquit, a Chaldean ascetic, who is said to have lived about 2000 B.C.,
is reported to have earnestly rebuked those who tried to preserve the
body from decay by artificial resources. "Not by natural means," he
said, "can man preserve his body from corruption and dissolution after
death, but only through good deeds, religious exercises and offering of
sacrifices,--by invoking the gods by their great and beautiful names, by
prayers during the night, and fasts during the day."

When Father Bury, a Portuguese missionary, first saw the Chinese bonzes,
tonsured and using their rosaries, he cried out, "There is not a single
article of dress, or a sacerdotal function, or a single ceremony of the
Romish church, which the Devil has not imitated in this country." I have
not the courage to follow this streamlet back into the devil's heart.
The attempt would be too daring. Who invented shaved heads and monkish
gowns and habits, we cannot tell, but this we know: long before Father
Bury saw and described those things in China, there existed in India the
Grand Lama or head monk, with monasteries under him, filled with monks
who kept the three vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. They had
their routine of prayers, of fasts and of labors, like the Christian
monks of the middle ages.

Among the Greeks there were many philosophers who taught ascetic
principles. Pythagoras, born about 580 B.C., established a religious
brotherhood in which he sought to realize a high ideal of friendship.