Hitherto the principles of thehad been rejected by the Churches; but now being refined by the Monks, and imposed not upon all men, but only upon those who would voluntarily undertake a monastic life, they began to be admired, and to overflow first the , and then the Latin also, like a torrent.tells us, thathad those men in the highest veneration, who dedicated themselves wholly to the divine philosophy; and that he almost venerated the most holy company of Virgins perpetually devoted to God; being certain that the God to whom he had consecrated himself did dwell in their minds. In his time and that of his sons, this profession of a single life was propagated in Egypt by , and in Syria by ; and spread so fast, that soon after the time ofa third part of the Egyptians were got into the deserts of Egypt. They lived first singly in cells, then associated into c

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