Note 166 — CHAPTER EIGHT RELIGIOUS EPIDEMICS

History of European Morals, ii. pp. 107-10. For a careful description of the monastic discipline in its more normal aspects, see Bingham's Works, vol. ii. bk. vi. Gibbon gives his usual brilliant summary of the movement in chapter xxxvii. of the Decline and Fall. A host of facts similar to those cited by Lecky will be found in The Book of Paradise, 2 vols., trans. by Wallis Budge. Lea's History of Sacerdotal Celibacy gives the classical and authoritative account of the moral consequences of the practice of celibacy. For a vivid picture of the psychology of the ascetic, see Flaubert's great romance, St. Antony.