The Orthodox Church offers a characteristic mix of monkish asceticism, mystical exaltation, and a special cult of beauty.
But the bigotry of the Flemish clergy, and the monkish atmosphere of the university of Louvain, overrun with Dominicans and Franciscans, united for once in their enmity to the new classical learning, inclined Erasmus to seek a more congenial home in Basel.
This collection, which has been widely read, is a pendant to the Historia Lausiaca of Palladius and the monkish tales of Sozomen.
Nestor, an old monkish chronicler Origin of Kiev, relates that in the middle of the 9th century of the the Slav and Finnish tribes inhabiting the forest region around Lake Ilmen, between Lake Ladoga and the upper waters of the Dnieper, paid tribute to military adventurers from the land of Ras, which is commonly supposed to have been a part of Sweden.
The monkish garb was revealed by Satan to Peter at the baptism, when it was the devil, the ruler of this world, who, so costumed, leaned forward and said, This is my beloved son.