About the same time Egypt was visited by Cassianus, a monk of Gaul, in order to study the monastic institutions of the Thebaid.  In his work on that subject he has described at length the way of life and the severe rules of the Egyptian monks, and has recommended them to the imitation of his countrymen.  But the natives of Italy and the West do not seem to have been contented with copying the Theban monks at a distance.  Such was the fame of the Egyptian monasteries that many zealots from Italy flocked there, to place themselves under the severe discipline of those holy men.  As these Latin monks did not understand either Koptic or Greek, they found some difficulty in regulating their lives with the wished-for exactness; and the rules of Pachomius, of Theodorus, and of Oresiesis, the most celebrated of the founders, were actually sent to Jerome at Rome, to be by him translated into Latin for the use of these settlers in the Thebaid.  These Latin monks made St. Peter a popular saint in some parts of Egypt; and in the temple of Asseboua, in Nubia, when the Christians plastered over the figure of one of the old gods, they painted in its place the Apostle Peter holding the key in his hand.

[Illustration:  264.jpg RAMSES II.  AND ST. PETER]

They did not alter the rest of the sculpture; so that Ramses II. is there now seen presenting his offering to the Christian saint.  The mixed group gives us proof of the nation’s decline in art rather than of its improvement in religion.

Among the monks of Egypt there were also some men of learning and industry, who in their cells in the desert had made at least three translations of the New Testament into the three dialects of the Koptic language; namely, the Sahidic of Upper Egypt, the Bashmuric of the Bashmour province of the eastern half of the Delta, and the Koptic proper of Memphis and the western half of the Delta.  To these were afterwards added the Acts of the council of Nicaea, the lives of the saints and martyrs, the writings of many of the Christian fathers, the rituals of the Koptic church, and various treatises on religion.

Other monks were as busy in making copies of the Greek manuscripts of the Old and New Testament; and, as each copy must have needed the painful labour of months, and often years, their industry and zeal must have been great.  Most of these manuscripts were on papyrus, or on a manufactured papyrus which might be called paper, and have long since been lost; but the three most ancient copies on parchment which are the pride of the Vatican, the Paris library, and the British Museum, are the work of the Alexandrian penmen.