________________
FRAGMENTS OF A PRISONER'S DIARY
the voluntary labour of the monks which replaced the disrupted old means of production, namely slavery.
The prolific colonics of monks multiplied in the deserts of Lybia, on the rocks of the Thebes, and in the cities throughout the valley of the Nile. The mountains and deserts in the very neighbourhood of the Egyptian capital were crowded with monks. No less than fifty monasteries were established by Anthony and his disciples. The ruins of those monuments of monasticism are still present for the observation of curious travellers. The monastic order of Anthony was composed of isolated individuals given to a life of penance, prayer and meditation, in the solitude of the desert and mountains.
Pachonius established "organised communities" of recluses. "Brothers" thus living together were subjected to a severe and rigid system of rules of conduct. Thus rose the monasteries which played such an important economic role to rescue society from the ruins of the Roman Empire. The first monastery of the Pachonian Order, founded on a small desolate island in the upper Nile, was peopled by fourteen hundred brethren. In quick succession the holy abbot established nine such communities for men and one also for women. Very soon the number embraced no less than fifty thousand members, pledged to strict celibacy, rigorous asceticism, severe mortification of body and mind, and complete indifference to the enjoyments
244
