From an early period of the history of the church we read of devout virgins, who professed religious chastity, and dedicated themselves to the service of Christ. Their duties and devotions were self-imposed, so that they might preserve their domestic relations, or enter without scandal into the state of marriage. But the origin of communities of female recluses is attributed to Pachomius, the great founder of the regular monastic systems. Before his death, which took place about the middle of the fourth century, no fewer than twenty-seven thousand females in Egypt alone had adopted the monastic life. The rules which he formed for the convents of nuns were similar to those which bound the monks. "They lived from common funds, used a common dormitory, a table, and wardrobe. The same religious services were prescribed; habitual temperance and occasional fasting were enjoined with the same severity. Manual labor was no less rigidly enforced; but instead of the agricultural toil imposed upon their 'brethren,' to them were committed the easier tasks of the needle or the distaff. By duties so numerous, by occupations admitting so great variety, they beguiled the tediousness of the day, and the dullness of monastic seclusion."
It is certain that many such establishments were founded during the fourth century, and that they were propagated throughout Egypt, Syria, Pontus, and Greece, and that gradually they penetrated into every province where the name of Christ was known; and even until now they abound in all Roman Catholic countries, and form a strange and incongruous appendage to the church.