large proportion of the holy exiles settled down on the peninsula of Acte, forming a society which is utterly without 'parallel in history.' (P. 72.) The statement is inherently probable, and appears to rest on the foundations of a widespread tradition. Yet in the absence of any positive testimony we hesitate in giving unqualified assent to a belief, the origin of which it would be easy to account for on the supposition of its falsehood. The early monks and anchorites of Egypt were objects of the highest veneration to the Greek Church; and it is natural to suppose that the caloyers would be anxious for the honour of a spiritual descent from Paul of Thebes, Antony, and Pachomius. Nor, indeed, do we find that any of the existing monasteries claim to be colonies from their Egyptian predecessors; a story which would probably have arisen if there had been the slightest foundation for it. It is, perhaps, a significant fact, that there is no evidence of literary labour in the cloisters of Athos anterior to Nicholas Blemmydas, who lived and wrote in the thirteenth century. Anchorites are not likely to be authors, and in Greece even monks are little given to intellectual toil. But at a period when monastic writers were flourishing in all parts of the Eastern Empire, if Athos had possessed monasteries of any eminence and antiquity, it must in all probability have made some contributions to ecclesiastical literature. And there is something like proof positive that the Holy Mountain had not attained to celebrity before the days of Nicephorus Phocas. For a Novel of that emperor, in a somewhat rhetorical enumeration of illustrious monasteries, omits all mention of it whatever, and concludes with a prohibition against the foundation of new conventual institutions, a prohibition not meant to extend to the establishment of Lauras' in desert places.' If, therefore, as is allowed on all hands, a monastery was founded in Athos, in the reign and under the special protection of the same Nicephorus, it would seem that the mountain was then regarded as a desert place.' St. Athanasius of Athos is said to have been the first to collect the recluses, who till that time lived in solitary cells, into a regular cœnobitic institution. He was the John Balliol or Walter Merton of the Holy Mountain, and set an example which was soon and extensively followed. Ten monasteries, as we have seen, were established within a hundred and fifty years, between the middle of the tenth and the close of the eleventh century. Ten more of those which are still extant were founded at various intervals during the succeeding ages, the last of them dating from the sixteenth century, when it was instituted by Jeremias, patriarch of Constantinople. Athanasius himself was a native of Trebisond, and became, as is recorded in the Menologies,' a monk at Cymina in Asia Minor, under the instruction of Michael Malinus.† Thence he retired to Acta, and after leading an eremitical life for some years, founded the great monastery of Laura, under the encouragement of the successive emperors Nicephorus Phocas and his murderer John Zimisces. The name of this monasterythe Laura, par excellence; its situation at the foot of Athos, properly so called, which is included in its territory; the number of its dependent asceteria; the identity of its dedication with that of the Protaton §; and, above all, the precedence which it appears to take among its sister institutions, coupled with traditions already referred to, support Mr. Bowen's statement that it ranks first among the monasteries in point of antiquity. (P. 94.) If we may rely on the statement of John Comnenus, who attributes the original establishment of Dochiarin to St. Euthymius, the friend and companion of Athanasius, that monastery was an emanation from Laura, and a testimony to its early importance. The assertion that it was founded in the reign of Nicephorus Botaniates is an obvious anachronism, and if we therefore assign it to the period of Nicephorus Phocas, it must have come into existence very shortly after the parent monastery of Laura. Its name is derived from that of the office (Soxeapns) which Euthymius held in the community of Laura. Batopedion, Philotheus, and the Iberians belong to the period immediately succeeding the foundation of Laura. Together with that monastery and the Protaton of Caryæ, they are under the invocation of the Panagia, a fact probably connected with their date, as none of the other monasteries have the same dedication. Philotheus and the Iberians were originally founded for Georgian monks, recalling to the mind of an Englishman the local foundations in so many of our colleges. Eight of the monasteries were established at different periods for Servians and Bulgarians, and one for Russians. At present one of the monasteries only is exclusively in the hands of Bulgarians, and one (that which bears their name) has been restored to the * Historia Patriarchica C. P. † Bolland. Acta SS. Julii, vol. ii. p. 246. Palæogr. Gr. p. 452. Ib. pp. 452. 484. | Paleogr. Gr. p. 489. "Αγιος Ευθύμιος, ὅς τις ἦτον εἰς τὸν καιρὸν τῆς βασιλείας Νικηφόρου τοῦ Βοτανιάτου, γνώριμος καὶ συνασκητὴς τοῦ ἁγίου Αθανασίου. Russians. In addition to these the asceteria of St. Elias and St. Demetrius are in the hands of the Russians and Bulgarians respectively. St. Paul's, originally Bulgarians, is at present wholly occupied by Ionians. Perhaps the most interesting fact in connexion with the local foundations is the occupation of one in the twelfth century by Italian monks, a colony from Amalfi, who use the Latin language. This, with the Russian and Iberian monasteries, bears witness to the wide-spread reputation of Athos at an early period. * It is not impossible that many of the monasteries were originally dependent asceteria. This was certainly the case with that of St. Paul; and it is probable that the restorations which are said to have taken place in most of the others, imply their elevation to the rank of independent societies. The appellation of the asceteria does not in the least denote their distinctive character, which is better expressed by another title borne by them (povídia). We may conceive that it was originally applied to all the conventual foundations, and was afterwards restricted, like that of the Halls at Oxford, to the unincorporated communities. Certainly it describes adequately the primary idea of the cœnobitic life. The caloyers are bidden to regard their habitations as places devoted to penitential exercise; and it is clear that nothing was further from the mind of any of the originators of monachism than to establish seminaries of religious or secular learning. That the monastic orders of the Western Church produced a large harvest of scholars and theologians, was no part of their intention, but an accident, although a most fortunate accident both for them and for us. It was the natural result of their position; but the circumstances which placed them in advance of their age had no influence on the similar institutions in the Greek Church. In Western Europe, amid universal political and social confusion, the crash of falling, and the birth-throes of rising kingdoms, learning and civilisation, unknown and despised by the barbarous rulers, and the scarcely more barbarous multitude, took refuge beneath the shadow of St. Benedict. The influence subsequently acquired by the Western monks was due, partly to their reputation for superior sanctity, but still more to their possession of superior knowledge. In the East, on the contrary, the Muses were not driven from See a well written article in the Christian Remembrancer,' No. lxxii. Art. II., on The Monasteries of Athos,' containing much original information on the subject. We are indebted to it for this fact, and for extending and deepening the general impression of the place which we had formed from various sources. the court, and had no need to fly to the cloister. Constantinople, from the eighth century, was the chosen resort of grammarians, rhetoricians, and pedants of all sorts. The porphyry chamber produced philosophers and historians; and the throne of St. Sophia was occupied by more than one illustrious scholar. The monks of Athos, therefore, had no occasion to add knowledge to their zeal, and would probably have considered it a profanation to do so. They survive accordingly, a standing specimen of the natural working of the system, and a practical refutation of it. Two points in the history of Athos illustrate, and partly account for, the intellectual condition of its inhabitants. While the Benedictine abbeys were fostering literature and the arts of peace in the midst of a warlike generation, while new orders were springing up, and were being ennobled by Bacon and Aquinas, the monks of Athos were sitting in solitude and silence, with their eyes fixed on their stomachs, and their thoughts concentrated on nothing. This extraordinary race of mystics, the legitimate successors, as it was thought, of an extinct race of heretics, and the worthy precursors of Jacob Behmen and Emmanuel Swedenborg, believed that by sitting pertinaciously in this strange posture, they were enabled to contemplate the divine light of the Transfiguration. Turn thine eyes,' says an authority cited by Fleury and Gibbon, to the middle of thy belly-abstain from breathing, even through thy nose; and seek in thy inward parts for the place of the heart.' The reader of Aristophanes will exclaim with Xanthias,— Ω χρυσέοι θεοὶ ἐνταῦθ ̓ ἔχεις τὴν καρδιάν; and will not be surprised to learn that the monasteries of Athos are mentioned by one of the principal defenders of the Quietists under the title of φροντιστήρια. Traditional hostility to the Latin Church is another feature in the history of Athos. During the brief and hollow submission of the first Palæologus to the Roman See, an attempt was made to force Latin priests and their ritual on the caloyers of the Monte Santo. The latter resisted and resented the tyranny and indifference of their rulers, and their repugnance to Rome was manifested by open riots. The traditionary history of their monasteries breathes a similar spirit. Two, it is said, were burnt by the Pope, and from two more the monks were * Cantacuzene, Hist. ii. 39. † See Rycaut (p. 229.), who is guilty of an anachronism. fairly frightened away by the same ghostly enemy. Our informant omits to specify the guilty Pontiff or Pontiffs, but is more precise as to the occasion. The Pope turned out the caloyers of Xenopotamu, because they refused to interpolate the Creed, and burnt out those of Zographu, because they would not worship him! The destruction of others is popularly ascribed to the Crusaders, a charge from which Mr. Bowen labours, perhaps successfully, to relieve them. He says, it is ' not unlikely that their riches may have attracted some of the bands who prosecuted their piratical adventures under the dis'guise of religion,'-a concession which might perhaps be interpreted as equivalent to an admission ; but it is equally true that the Greeks lose no occasion of reviling, justly or unjustly, the Latins.' (P. 72.) It might have been supposed that the subjugation of the Eastern Empire to barbarians and unbelievers would have either annihilated the community, or utterly changed its character. No such results were produced. The monks averted the one catastrophe by the dexterity of their diplomacy, and prevented the other by the inveteracy of their superstition. According to tradition, supported by a charter still extant at Caryæ, they anticipated by a century the fall of Byzantium, by sending an embassy to Brusa with 14,000 sequins, and obtaining from the emir Orchan a full guarantee of their privileges.† This event was probably consequent on the first establishment of the Turks in Europe under Suliman. Mr. Bowen assigns their charter to Mahomet II.; but the accounts are by no means incompatible. The foundation or restoration of a large number of the monasteries during the succeeding age, is a testimony to the good faith of the Moslem, and to their credit for it. The downfall of the imperial power scattered in all directions the scholars and philosophers who had been protected and patronised by it. They did not shelter themselves in the sanctuaries of the Greek Church, but found a more congenial home in Italian courts and cities. Had it been otherwise, had the monasteries received the learned and their treasures, the advance of Europe must have been seriously retarded, and would probably have received a different direction. If modern civilisation had been developed at all under such circumstances, it would have wanted the peculiar character which it has received from the influence of antiquity. It would probably have lacked a motive cause, and certainly a guiding power. The Eastern monks, *Palæogr. Gr. pp. 482, 483. 487. 490. |