Fragmentary notes on Church history
{illeg} {illeg} going into all ye {illeg} {illeg}uration & made many {illeg} {esp}ecially them they knew {illeg}
The Clergy also by this means soon bec{ame} {illeg} For besides that divers of them became Monks af{illeg} Clergy–men \became Monks/ it grew quickly into custome to elect {illeg} Presbyters & Bishops out of this order of men {illeg} most holy, & ye a Pope AC {665} & b Emperors {illeg} {illeg} commanded that they should be elected thence: so {illeg} hence forward the fathers of the Church (Athanasius Paphnutius, Spiridion, Iames of Nisibis, Eusebius of Emissa, {illeg} {illeg} Cæsaria, Cyril of Ierusalem, S Basilius Gregory Nazianzenus \Ephram Syrus, Didymus et Basil, Naz/ Gregory of Nyssen, Epiphanus, Meletius & Flavian of Antioch, Theodorus of Tyre. Amphilochius of Iconium, Chrysostom, {illeg} Hilary Eusebius Vercellensis, Hilary, Ambrose, \Hilary/, Paulinus Nolanus, Ephrem Syrus Didymus Alexandrinus, Macarius, Ierom, Ruffin, Cassian & many others) were monks & many of them (as Basil, Nazianzen {Eus}ebius Vercellensis, Ambrose, Martin, D. Augustin, the founders of monkery in Asia, Thrace, Italy, Lombardy, France, Afr{ica} {ye} monasteries out of wch they filled their churches. And this {was} the original of the celibacy of the Clergy. For ye Clergy about this time matrimony began to be prohibited to all the Clergy. For a Epiphanius in ye year {illeg} 374 {illeg} wrote that {illeg} where ye Ecclesiastical canons were accurately observed those only who had no wives or absteined from them {illeg} were admitted into ye orders of Bishops Priests Deacons & Subdeacons: & th{at} where Clergymen did get children it was through licentious{ness} & not by ye authority of ye Canon. And in the end of his another b[1] place that ye Priesthood then consisted chiefly of {illeg} order of virgins | Bachelors or if not of virgins | Bachelors certainly of Monks: {illeg} if fit persons are not to be found amongst the Monks, then Priests are created use to be created out of those who abstein from their wives or after one marriage continue in widdowhood. Whence Ierome \against Vigilantius/ said: What shall ye Ch in his book against Vigilantius said of ye Churches in general: What shall ye Churches {of} the East do? What those of Egypt & of ye Apostolic S{ea} {illeg} wch either takes Virgins for Clergimen or Monks {illeg} those that leave their wives if they have any. And Chry{sostom:} The husband of one wife, not so that it should be now {obser}ved in the Churches: for it behoves ye Priest to be altogether {adorned} wth chastity.[2] So {illeg} in a letter to H{illeg}{illeg} 385 \{illeg}/ forbids {the ministers} to converse wth their {wives} {illeg} appointed the husbands {illeg} {illeg} having {illeg} Council of Arelatam in {illeg} that a married man should not be made a Presbyter {illeg} \that is abstinence from the {wife}/ {illeg} ye Monks was of a dark russet or black co{lour} {illeg} Clergy as many as were Monks ware black wch {illeg} ever since. For the b[3] Clergy before were {illeg} other colours like the people. This body {illeg} was at first twofold; c[4] Antony planting one body {illeg} headed by ye Partriarch & clergy of \the Diocess of/ Alexandria {illeg} planting another in Syria headed by ye Patriarch {& clergy} of \the dioces of/ Antioch. Both these bodies began to be numerous {in ye} reign of {illeg} Constantius & from these two fountains monkery overflowed the world but yet became not of a {illeg} so numerous in other regions as in these. For {Palladius}[5] who visited ye wilderness of Egypt in ye reign of {illeg} tells us that there were then as many monks in the wildnerness as people in ye cities \{illeg} ten thousand in the single city Oxyrinchus/. And its prop|b|able that {illeg}at this time there were almost as many in Syria & Mesopo within the Diocess of Antioch \as in Egypt/ tho not in proportion to ye people because long before when the life of Antony was not yet written Hilarion had so well filled ye deserts of Syria that when he visited the Monasteries there d[6] he had sometimes a train of 2000 Monks following him \and left the wilderness to avoyd so great a multitude. In recconning these/ In recconing these two great bodies I re of Monks \to bee/ headed by the Clergy \of ye two Diocesses/ of Egypt & ye East I follow Ierome who who saith: As if ye Clergy were any \another/ thing other then \the/ Monks & whatever is spoke against ye Monks doth not redound upon ye Clergy who are ye fathers of ye Monks. The dam̄age of ye flock is the re{pro}ach of ye Shepherd.[7]
{illeg} by propagating #
{illeg} the lives of Antony Hilarion
