It is singular that the usual style and title of the Lady Abbess in Ireland is the "Reverend Mother." The term Nun itself is a Chaldean word. Ninus, the son in Chaldee is either Nin or Non. Now, the feminine of Non, a "son," is Nonna, a "daughter," which is just the Popish canonical name for a "Nun," and Nonnus, in like manner, was in early times the designation for a monk in the East. (GIESELER)
This was precisely the fate of the Roman Vestal who was proved to have violated her vow. Neither in Peru, however, nor in Pagan Rome was the obligation to virginity so stringent as in the Papacy. It was not perpetual, and therefore not so exceedingly demoralising. After a time, the nuns might be delivered from their confinement, and marry; from all hopes of which they are absolutely cut off in the Church of Rome. In all these cases, however, it is plain that the principle on which these institutions were founded was originally the same. "One is astonished," adds Prescott, "to find so close a resemblance between the institutions of the American Indian, the ancient Roman, and the modern Catholic."
Prescott finds it difficult to account for this resemblance; but the one little sentence from the prophet Jeremiah, which was quoted at the commencement of this inquiry, accounts for it completely: "Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord's hand, that hath made ALL THE EARTH drunken" (Jer 51:7). This is the Rosetta stone that has helped already to bring to light so much of the secret iniquity of the Papacy, and that is destined still further to decipher the dark mysteries of every system of heathen mythology that either has been or that is. The statement of this text can be proved to be a literal fact. It can be proved that the idolatry of the whole earth is one, that the sacred language of all nations is radically Chaldean--that the GREAT GODS of every country and clime are called by Babylonian names--and that all the Paganisms of the human race are only a wicked and deliberate, but yet most instructive corruption of the primeval gospel first preached in Eden, and through Noah, afterwards conveyed to all mankind. The system, first concocted in Babylon, and thence conveyed to the ends of the earth, has been modified and diluted in different ages and countries. In Papal Rome only is it now found nearly pure and entire. But yet, amid all the seeming variety of heathenism, there is an astonishing oneness and identity, bearing testimony to the truth of God's Word. The overthrow of all idolatry cannot now be distant.