extent of their possessions,--who adorn their homes with marble and who
string house to house,--to say what this old man in his nakedness ever
lacked. "Your drinking vessels are of precious stones; he satisfied his
thirst with the hollow of his hand. Your tunics are wrought of gold; he
had not the raiment of your meanest slave. But on the other hand, poor
as he was, Paradise is open to him; you, with all your gold, will be
received into Gehenna. He, though naked, yet kept the robe of Christ;
you, clad in your silks, have lost the vesture of Christ. Paul lies
covered with worthless dust, but will rise again to glory; over you are
raised costly tombs, but both you and your wealth are doomed to burning.
I beseech you, reader, whoever you may be, to remember Jerome the
sinner. He, if God would give him his choice, would sooner take Paul's
tunics with his merits, than the purple of kings with their punishment."

Such was the story circulated among rich and poor, appealing with
wondrous force to the hearts of men in those wretched years.

What was the effect upon the mind of the thoughtful? If he believed such
teaching, weary of the wickedness of the age, and moved by his noblest
sentiments, he sold his tunics wrought of gold and fled from his palaces
of marble to the desert solitudes.

But the monastic story that most strongly impressed the age now under
consideration, was the biography of Anthony, "the patriarch of monks"
and virtual founder of Christian monasticism. It was said to have been
written by Athanasius, the famous defender of orthodoxy and Archbishop
of Alexandria; yet some authorities reject his authorship. It exerted a
power over the minds of men beyond all human estimate. It scattered the
seeds of asceticism wherever it was read. Traces of its influence are
found all over the Roman empire, in Egypt, Asia Minor, Palestine, Italy