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 vu] ORIGINS OF MONASTICISM 141 devils, and the curious elaboration of his expectancy as to the life to come. It is moreover certain that Pachomius had been one of a band of Serapis recluses, before becoming a Christian ; and in his daily life and ascetic practices as a Christian hermit, and then as the head of a Christian monastery, he must have been influenced by the habits of his former ascetic life. But it would be an error to seek the source and power of monasticism among the circumstances of its early years in Egypt. It drew suggestions from its Egyp- tian environment ; and the hermits of Egypt tended to carry asceticism to the verge of insanity — but so did hermits of Syria who appeared nearly at the same time. Still greater caution is to be exercised in look- ing to the farther East for influences upon monasticism. The ascetic life in both the monastic and the recluse form had been common in India for centuries before as well as after the time of Christ. Hindoo influences extended north and west of India, and, in conjunction with Persian dualism, touched Mesopotamia and the eastern Mediterranean lands. But any Brahman or Buddhist influence upon Christian monasticism cannot be shown. It is possible that far-Eastern or Hellenic influence affected the Jewish communities of the Essenes, who lived lives of continence in modes approaching the monastic type. As to whether Christian monasticism in its turn was influenced by the Essenes, or by the more problematic Therapeutae described in the writ- ing upon The Contemplative Life, attributed to Philo, it may be said: the writings in which these ascetic communities were described were known in Christian