I.

(The Lord's Discipline, book iv. [^80]cap. vi. p. 413.)

he kuriake askesis. Casaubon explains this as Dominica exercitatio (the religion which the Lord taught), and quotes the apostolic canons (li. and lii.), which, using this word (askesis), ordain certain fasts on account of pious exercise. Baronius, more suo, grasps at this word askesis, as a peg to hang the system of monkery upon. Casaubon answers: "If so, then all the early Christians were monks and nuns; as this word is always used by the Fathers for the Christian discipline, or Christianity itself." Such are the original ascetics, nothing more. The Christian Fathers transferred the word from heathen use to that of the Church, to signify the training to which all the faithful should subject themselves, in obedience to St. Paul (1 Cor. ix. 24-27). See Isaaci Casauboni, De Annalibus Baronianis Exercitationes, p. 171.