In  his  Pcuicg-i/ric  on  S.  Basil,  S.  Gregory  relates
that  Basil  founded  a  monastery  "  worthy  of  mention."
As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  founded  a  number  of  monas-
teries in  Pontus,  in  the  N.-E.  of  Asia  Minor.  By
the  fourth  century  the  Churches  of  this  part  of  the
world  had  lost  their  pristine  virtues  and  order ;
S.  Basil  laboured  unceasingly  to  restore  their  candle-
stick to   its   place,  and    Newman   claims  that  "his

^  Institutes,  bk.  II.  chap.  iii.
ATTITUDE  TO  ROMAN  LEARNING     231

monasteries  became,  in  a  short  time,  schools  of  that
holy  teaching  which  had  been  almost  banished  from
the  sees  of  Asia.""

From  the  works  of  S.  Jerome  we  can  learn  that
the  monastic  principle  spread  quickly  in  the  fourth
century.  In  one  of  his  letters,  writing  of  Marcella,
a  Roman  matron,  he  observes,  "  In  those  days "
(i.e.  382  A.D.)  "no  highborn  lady  at  Rome  had
made  profession  of  the  monastic  life  .  .  .  or  had
ventured  .  .  .  publicly  to  call  herself  a  nun."^
This  seems  to  imply  the  existence  of  monasteries
at  Rome  ;  it  is  believed  that  the  first  monastery  was
founded  there  in  340  a.d.
