they severally note; the recording angel writes down the judgment; the soul is interceded for by the lesser gods, who offer themselves as an atoning sacrifice (see Sharpe’s “Egyptian Mythology,” pp. 49-52).  A pit, or lake of fire, is the doom of the condemned.  The good pass to Paradise, where is the tree of life:  the fruit of this tree confers health and immortality.  In the Persian mythology the tree of life is planted by the stream that flows from the throne of Ormuzd (Rev. xxii. i and 2).  The Hindu creed has the same story, and it is also found among the Chinese.

The monastic life comes to us from India and from Egypt; in both countries solitaries and communities are found.  Bartholemy St. Hilaire, in his book on Buddha, gives an account of the Buddhist monasteries which is worthy perusal.  From Egypt the contagion of asceticism spread over Christendom.  “From Philo also we learn that a large body of Egyptian Jews had embraced the monastic rules and the life of self-denial, which we have already noted among the Egyptian priests.  They bore the name of Therapeuts.  They spent their time in solitary meditation and prayer, and only saw one another on the seventh day.  They did not marry; the women lived the same solitary and religious life as the men.  Fasting and mortification of the flesh were the foundation of their virtues” ("Egyptian Mythology,” S. Sharpe, p. 79).  In these Egyptian deserts grew up those wild and bigoted fanatics—­some Jews, some Pagans, and apparently no difference between them—­who, appearing later under the name of Christians, formed the original of the Western monasticism.  It was these monks who tore Hypatia to pieces in the great church of Alexandria, and who formed the strength of “that savage and illiterate party, who looked upon all sorts of erudition, particularly that of a philosophical kind, as pernicious, and even destructive to true piety and religion” (Mosheim’s “Eccles.  Hist,” p. 93).  There can be no doubt of the identity of the Christians and the Therapeuts, and this identity is the real key to the spread of “Christianity” in Egypt and the surrounding countries.  Eusebius tells us that Mark was said to be the first who preached the Gospel in Egypt, and “so great a multitude of believers, both of men and women, were collected there at the very outset, that in consequence of their extreme philosophical discipline and austerity, Philo has considered their pursuits, their assemblies, and entertainments, as deserving a place in his descriptions” ("Eccles.  Hist,” bk. ii., chap. xvi).  We will see what Philo found in Egypt, before remarking on the date at which he lived.  Eusebius states (we condense bk. ii., chap. xvii) that Philo “comprehends the regulations that are still observed in our churches even to the present time;” that he “describes, with the greatest accuracy, the lives of our ascetics;” these Therapeuts, stated by Eusebius to be Christians, were “everywhere scattered over the world,”